4 Historical Eulogy on the Marquis De Laplace. 



sophique; for he brought back all the laws of equilibrium and of 

 motion to a single principle : and that which is not less admirable, 

 he submitted them to a single method of calculation of which he, 

 himself, was the inventor. All his mathematical compositions are 

 remarkable for a striking elegance, for the symmetry of the forms, 

 and the generality of the methods, and if we can speak thus, for the 

 perfection of the analytical style. 



Lagrange was no less a philosopher than a great geometer. The 

 whole course of his life, proved the truth of the assertion, by the 

 moderation of his desires, by his immutable attachment to the gener- 

 al interests of humanity, by the noble simplicity of his customs, and 

 by the elevation of his character ; in fine, by the justness and the 

 depth of his scientific works. 



Laplace had received, from nature, all the force of genius, which 

 an immense undertaking can require. Not only has he reunited in 

 his Almageste, du 18e siecle^ that which the mathematical and physical 

 sciences had already discovered, which serve as the foundation to 

 astronomy ; but he has added to this science, some splendid discov- 

 eries which are peculiar to himself, and which had escaped all his 

 predecessors. He has resolved, either by his own methods, or by 

 those of which Euler and Lagrange had marked out the principles, 

 the most important and certainly the most difficult questions of all 

 those which had been considered before him. His perseverance 

 has triumphed over all obstacles. When his first attempts were un- 

 successful, he renewed them, often under the most ingenious and the 

 most difficult forms. 



Thus we observe in the motions of the moon an acceleration of 

 which we cannot discover the cause. We had thought that this effect 

 could proceed from the. resistance of the etherial medium in which 

 the celestial bodies move. If it were so, the same cause, affecting 

 the course of the planets, would tend to change more, and more, the 

 primitive order. These stars would be incessantly troubled in their 

 course, and would end by being precipitated on the mass of the sun. 

 it would be necessary that the creative power should interpose anew, 

 to prevent or to repair the immense disorder which the lapse of time 

 had caused. 



This cosmological question is assuredly one of the greatest which 

 the human understanding can propose to itself; — it is now resolved. 

 The first researches of Laplace upon the invariability of the dimen- 

 sions of the solar system, and his explanation of the secular equation 

 of the moon, have led to this solution. 



