GRANTHAM ADDBESS, 293 



maticians from the beginning of the world to the time when 

 Newton lived, what he had done was much the better half." 

 " The ' Principia ' will ever remain a monument of the pro- 

 found genius which revealed to us the greatest law of the 

 universe," * are the words of Laplace. " That work stands 

 pre-eminent above all the other productions of the human 

 mind." f " The discovery of that siitple and general law, by 

 the greatness and the variety of the objects which it embraces, 

 confers honour upon the intellect of man." J Lagrange, we 

 are told by Delambre, was wont to describe Newton as the 

 greatest genius that ever existed ; but to add how fortunate he 

 was also, " because there can only once be found a System of 

 the Universe to establish." " Never," says the father of the 

 Institute of France, one filling a high place among the most 

 eminent of its members " Never," says M. Biot, " was the 

 supremacy of intellect so justly established and so fully con- 

 fessed."|| "In mathematical and in experimental science 

 without an equal and without an example ; combining the 

 genius for both in its highest degree." ^[ The ' Principia ' he 

 terms the greatest work ever produced by the mind of man, 

 adding in the words of Halley that a nearer approach to the 

 Divine nature has not been permitted to mortals.**" In first 

 giving to the world Newton's method of fluxions," says 

 Fontenelle, " Leibnitz did like Prometheus he stole fire 

 from Heaven to teach men the secret." ff " Does Newton," 

 L'H6pital asked, " sleep and wake like other men ? I figure 

 him to myself as of a celestial kind, wholly severed from 

 mortality." 



To so renowned a benefactor of the world, thus exalted to 

 the loftiest place by the common consent of all men, one whose 

 life without the intermission of an hour was passed in the 



* ' Syst. du Monde,' V. 5. t Ib. V. 5. 



J Ib. IV. 5. ' Mem. de L'Instit.' 1812, p. XLIV. 



|| ' Journ. de Sav.' 1852, p. 135. f ' Journ. de Sav.' 1852, p. 279. 



* Ib. 1855, p. 552. " Nee fas est propius mortal! attingere divos.' 

 ft ' Acad. des Sciences,' 1727. 



