SUSCEPTIBILITY OF MALUS. 169 



note. He did not content himself with giving publicity 

 to his first ideas without making any mention of the note 

 from the pen of so justly celebrated a writer ; but, in 

 spite of his accustomed reserve, he expressed himself on 

 this subject on every occasion with a vehemence of which 

 he would not have been supposed capable. 



I will cite a third example : An academician believed 

 he had a right to contest with Malus the priority in an 

 important discovery with respect to polarization. Malus 

 was then at Metz ; his letters bear witness, in terms 

 which I know not how to repeat, to his extreme irri- 

 tation. It appeared to him that the pretensions of his 

 opponent were not well founded in fact, and also that 

 justice enjoined that he should have been allowed reason- 

 able time to explore the first beds of a mine the discovery 

 of which belonged incontestably to him. I ask, never- 

 theless, whether the susceptibility of Malus can be alto- 

 gether blamed ? Those who defend with so much reason 

 the rights of property as the corner-stone of modern 

 civilization cannot be astonished to see our colleague 

 attach himself with so much ardour to the defence of 

 what is the first and most incontestable kind of property, 

 that which consists in the works of the intellect. Is it 

 moreover quite certain, when the illustrious physicist 

 showed himself so sensitive on the subject of the fruits of 

 his labours and his genius, that he was not looking for- 

 ward to one of these solemn meetings where the claims 

 of men of science to the remembrance of mankind are 

 enumerated and appreciated before an enlightened and 

 impartial public, a judge from whom there is no ap- 

 peal ? Would it then be strange that, seeing himself in 

 imagination before this formidable tribunal, he had 



O 



dreamed of coming there furnished with the greatest 



SEC. SER 8 



