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 
dreamed of coming there furnished with the greatest 
SEC. SER, 8 
