INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 305 
tinue to exist as objects of private property. Upon the 
State devolves the duty of preserving them from indif- 
ference and oblivion: of continually holding them up to 
attention, of diffusing a knowledge of them through a 
thousand channels; in a word, of rendering them sub- 
servient to the public interests. 
“Doubtless the Minister of Public Instruction was 
influenced by these considerations, when upon the occa- 
sion of a new edition of the works of Laplace having 
become necessary, he demanded of you to substitute the 
great French family for the personal family of the illus- 
trious geometer. We give our full and unreserved ad- 
hesion to this proposition. It springs from a feeling of 
patriotism which’ will not be gainsayed by any one in 
this assembly.” 
In fact, the Chamber of Deputies had only to examine 
and solve this single question: “Are the works of La- 
place of such transcendent, such exceptional merit, that 
their republication ought to form the subject of delibera- 
tion of the great powers of the State?” An opinion 
prevailed, that it was not enough merely to appeal to 
public notoriety, but that it was necessary to give an 
exact analysis of the brilliant discoveries of Laplace in 
order to exhibit more fully the importance of the reso- 
lution about to be adopted. Who could hereafter pro- 
pose on any similar occasion that the Chamber should 
declare itself without discussion, when a desire was felt, 
previous to voting in favour of a resolution so honourable 
to the memory of a great man, to fathom, to measure, to 
examine minutely and from every point of view monu- 
ments such as the Mécanique Céleste and the Exposition 
du Syst?me du Monde? It has appeared to me that the 
report drawn up in the name of a committee of one of 
