426 D'ALEMBEKT. 



of prostrate submission before a superior being, than 

 of gratitude for human patronage. He had long before 

 accommodated his own practice to the course which 

 his principles, as expounded in this Essay, would sanc- 

 tion ; his first work (the ' Dynamique') having been 

 inscribed to M. de Maurepas, Minister of Marine, in a 

 respectful but dignified address, only stating that a 

 scientific work was naturally enough dedicated to a 

 statesman who protected the sciences.* 



The annoyance and frequent irritation which the 

 deviations from his proper pursuits occasioned him, 

 made him always most willing to resume his more 

 calm and congenial occupation. His researches on 

 various important questions of physical astronomy, and 

 his completion of the solution which he had a few 

 years before given, as we have seen, of the great pro- 

 blem of disturbing forces, were published during the 

 stormy years of his life. But it is truly painful to think 

 that the soreness which he experienced from unjust 

 attacks was suffered on more than one occasion to ex- 

 tend its influence into the serene regions of abstract 

 science, and that the geometrician and the controver- 

 sialist were sometimes perceived to be the same in- 

 dividual. The absurd attempt of ignorant men to de- 

 preciate his labours in the great problem, by represent- 

 ing him as borrowing from Clairaut, instead of only 

 exciting his indignation against the silly propagators 

 of such insinuations, which assuredly had no counten- 

 ance whatever from Clairaut, as we have already seen, 

 led him to show more heat than beseemed the geome- 

 trical character in scientific disputes on the subject 



* His dedication to M. D'Argenson of his ' Essai sur la Resistance des 

 Fluides,' did not by any means conform to his principles. After, praising 

 many other qualities, he ascribes, perhaps with some show of justice, to 

 that virtuous Minister, " Modestie, candeur, amour du bien public, et tou- 

 tes les vertus que notre siecle se contente d'estimer." Did he mean to 

 conceal under the latter branch of this sentence only the meaning that M. 

 D'Argenson gives an example of loving the virtues which others only 

 admired? 



