VOLTAIRE. 67 



deserve the same praise. A possibility exists of these 

 having been written by another hand. It seems diffi- 

 cult to suppose the same very accurate writer could be 

 the author of such passages as we meet with in the de- 

 fences of the work against the Cartesians. Thus, in the 

 1 Courte Reponse aux longs Discours d'un Docteur Alle- 

 mand,' we find him saying he had expected repose, but 

 now discovered that " la racine carre du cube des revo- 

 lutions des planetes et les carres de leurs distances 

 fesaient encore des ennemis ;" in which allusion there 

 are three capital blunders ; the square root of the cube 

 is taken for the cube, the revolutions for the distances, 

 and the squares for the cubes. 



In 1 737 both Voltaire and Madame du Chatelet were 

 competitors for the prize of the Academy of Science. 

 The subject was, " The nature of fire and its propaga- 

 tion." Neither paper was successful, but both were 

 honourably mentioned by the committee of examina- 

 tion, and both were printed as a mark of approval. 

 When it is added that the illustrious Euler gained the 

 prize, surely we may well be permitted to say that no 

 discredit could result from being surpassed by such a 

 rival. But Voltaire's paper is of great merit. He 

 takes bold and original views, and describes experi- 

 ments which, had he pursued them with more pa- 

 tience, would probably have enrolled his name among 

 the greatest discoverers of his age. It is impossible 

 to have made a more happy conjecture than he 

 does upon the weight acquired by metals when cal- 

 cined. After describing an experiment made by him 

 with melted iron, " II est tres possible," says he, " que 

 cette augmentation de poid soit venue de la matiere 



F2 



