100 HISTORY OF MECHANICS. 



6. Constellation of Mathematicians. We pass 

 with admiration along the great series of mathe- 

 maticians, by whom the science of theoretical me- 

 chanics has been cultivated, from the time of 

 Newton to our own. There is no group of men of 

 science whose fame is higher or brighter. The 

 great discoveries of Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, 

 had fixed all eyes on those portions of human 

 knowledge on which their successors employed their 

 labours. The certainty belonging to this line of 

 speculation seemed to elevate mathematicians above 

 the students of other subjects ; and the beauty of 

 mathematical relations, and the subtlety of intel- 

 lect which may be shown in dealing with them, 

 were fitted to win unbounded applause. The suc- 

 cessors of Newton and the Bernoullis, as Euler, 

 Clairaut, D'Alembert, Lagrange, Laplace, not to 

 introduce living names, have been some of the most 

 remarkable men of talent which the world has 

 seen. That their talent is, for the most part, of 

 a different kind from that by which the laws of 

 nature were discovered, I shall have occasion to 

 explain elsewhere ; for the present, I must en- 

 deavour to arrange the principal achievements of 

 those whom I have mentioned. 



The series of persons is connected by social re- 

 lations. Euler was the pupil of the first generation 

 of Bernoullis, and the intimate friend of the second 

 generation; and all these extraordinary men, as 

 well as Hermann, were of the city of Basil, in that 



