THE CALCULUS OF PROBABILITIES. 365 



assurances ; the reserve funds for the disbursement of 

 pensions, annuities, discounts, &c. : it is under its influ- 

 ence that lotteries, and other shameful snares cunningly 

 laid for avarice and ignorance, have definitively dis- 

 appeared. Laplace has treated these questions, and 

 others of a much more complicated nature, with his 

 accustomed superiority. In short, the Theorie Analytique 

 des Probdbilites is worthy of the author of the Mecanique 

 Celeste. 



A philosopher, whose name is associated with immor- 

 tal discoveries, said to his audience who had allowed 

 themselves to be influenced by ancient and consecrated 

 authorities, " Bear in mind, Gentlemen, that in questions 

 of science the authority of a thousand is not worth the 

 humble reasoning of a single individual." Two centuries 

 have passed over these words of Galileo without depre- 

 ciating their value, or obliterating their truthful character. 

 Thus, instead of displaying a long list of illustrious ad- 

 mirers of the three beautiful works of Laplace, we have 

 preferred glancing briefly at some of the sublime truths 

 which geometry has there deposited. Let us not, how- 

 ever, apply this principle in its utmost rigour, and since 

 chance has put into our hands some unpublished letters 

 of one of those men of genius, whom nature has endowed 

 with the rare faculty of seizing at a glance the salient 

 points of an object, we may be permitted to extract from 

 them two or three brief and characteristic apprecia- 

 tions of the Mecanique Celeste and the Traite des Prob- 

 abilites. 



On the 27th Vendemiaire in the year X., General 

 Bonaparte, after having received a volume of the Mecan- 

 ique Celeste, wrote to Laplace in the following terms : 

 " The first six months which I shall have at my disposal 



