MEMOIR ON LIGHT. 137 
The memoir of which I am speaking was destined for 
the Institute of Egypt. I find in fact, in a letter from 
Malus to Laneret, the following passage :— , 
“TI send you, my dear Lancret, the work of which I 
have already spoken: mark out for me those things in it 
which any one might call repetitions of what has been 
already said, or which are useless ; if, after this expurga- 
tion, it should be reduced to zero, we will put it aside, 
and there will be no more question about it.” 
It is just to remark, after the critique from which I 
could not abstain when I considered that my task was 
not that of a panegyrist but of a biographer aiming at the 
truth, that the third part of the memoir was written be- 
fore the publication of the fourth volume of the Mécan- 
tque Oéleste, in which the same subject is treated with 
the greatest care. I would add that no army in the 
world ever before counted in its ranks an officer who 
occupied himself in the spare hours of advanced posts 
with researches so complete and so profound. The truth 
of this remark is not affected by the recollection which it 
brings up of the expedition of Alexander. It is true, 
men of science, at the recommendation of Aristotle, then 
accompanied the great general: but their mission was 
solely to collect the scientific achievements of the con- 
quered nations, and not to make advances in the sciences 
by their own labours. This difference, altogether in 
favour of the French army, deserves, I think, to be here 
noticed.* 
I see by a letter of Lancret, of the 14th Vendémiaire,f 
* If this comparison were worth carrying out, the author might 
have added that the men of science in Alexander’s expedition were 
not officers of the army charged at the same time with onerous and 
hazardous duties, but leisurely investigators, having no other occupa- 
tion.— Translator. 
t October 5, 1800. 
ae ee —— le 
‘ec? 
