170 MALUS. 
possible number of discoveries uncontested and incon- 
testable ? and that under the pressure of these preoccu- 
pations he had forgotten for an instant an abstract 
maxim of philosophy? However this may have been, 
the integrity and perfect honour of Malus will never be 
called in question. 
In the collection of thoughts from which I have just 
given extracts, I read :— 
“There are very few men, who, when they die, leave 
behind them any traces of their existence.” 
I hazard little in asserting that Malus will be reck- 
oned among these privileged few. His name will go 
down to the most distant posterity, coupled with one of 
those great discoveries which, independently of their 
individual merit, have opened a vast career to the inves- 
tigations of science. The immortal name of Malus will 
remain ever inseparable from that of polarization, under 
which all the most curious, the most fertile, the most bril- 
liant phenomena of modern optics are grouped. 
