xxxiv KANT'S UNIVERSAL NATURAL HISTORY 



one eye and the light fast fading in the other 

 his special work at Berlin was accomplished. 

 Frederick similarly tried to draw D'Alembert from 

 Paris to Berlin, as Catherine II. tried to allure 

 him to Russia ; but although the great French 

 mathematician and academician met the philo- 

 sophical king (* Philosophe Roi') in Holland, he 

 preferred his simple independence in gay Paris to 

 the proffered honours at sombre Berlin. Frederick's 

 ambition was, however, gratified in 1766, when, at 

 the suggestion of D'Alembert, he asked Lagrange 

 to succeed Euler as the head of the mathematical 

 section of the Berlin Academy, giving as a reason 

 that the greatest king in Europe wished to have 

 the greatest mathematician In Europe at his Court ; 

 and there he retained him for 21 years. M. de 

 Maupertuis, a pronounced Newtonian (1698-1759), 

 won from the flattery of Paris by the more seduc- 

 tive offers of Frederick, after he had established 

 a reputation by his Lapland expedition and the 

 measurement of a northern arc of nearly one 

 degree, was installed as Perpetual President of 

 the Berlin Academy, ist February, 1746, and he 

 administered the office, ' in red wig with yellow 

 bottom/ as Carlyle describes him, to Frederick's 

 entire satisfaction till his death, on 27th July, 

 I759- 1 Through the king's lavish flattery, on the 

 one hand, and the administrative ability of Mau- 

 pertuis on the other, the Berlin Academy of 



1 See Carlyle's vivid sketch in his Frederick the Great, iv. 9. 



