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1839.] Bowditch's Translation of the Mécanique Céleste. 143

we desire at all proper times to hold up to the censure and watchfulness of the people of the United States, — has in later times been shamed into occasional acts of exploration along the Arctic Sea. It professes to have finished that, which Parry, Ross, and Franklin had all but finished. Messrs. Dease and Simpson, of the Hudson's Bay Company, have recently explored the little there was left of unknown betwixt the mouth of Mackenzie's River and BehThere is a Strait of Anian. That is to say, there is a water communication (though more or less obstructed by ice) from the Atlantic to the Pacific, along the arctic side of North America. That being the fact, it might be well, as a matter of historical curiosity, to reconsider the stories of Maldonado, De Fonte, Urdaneta, and Ladrillero, and to compare them with modern observation, so as to judge how far they may thus appear, any of them, to have been founded on actual discovery and knowledge, or to be pure fable. The result of this might be to restore merited honor to another Juan de Fuca.

ring's Strait. And we may now aver,

B. Peirce,

ART. IV. 1. Traité de Mécanique Céleste. Par P. S. LAPLACE, Membre de l'Institut National de France et du Bureau des Longitudes. Tome Premier, pp. 368, et Tome Second, pp. 382. An VII. 4to.

2. Traité de Mécanique Céleste. Par P. S. LAPLACE, Membre du Sénat Conservateur, de l'Institut National et du Bureau des Longitudes de France; des Sociétés Royales de Londres et de Gottingue, des Académies des Sciences de Russie, de Danemark, d'Italie, etc. Tome Troisième. Paris, An XI. 1802. pp. 303. 3. Traité de M canique Celeste. Par M. LAPLACE,

Chancelier du Sénat Conservateur, Grand-Officer de la Légion d'Honneur, Membre de l'Institut et du Bureau des Longitudes de France; des Sociétés Royales de Londres et de Gottingue; des Académies des Sciences de Russie, de Danemark, d'Italie, etc. Tome Quatrième. An XIII. 1805.

4. Traité de Mécanique Celeste.

pp. 347.

Par M. LE MARQUIS DE LAPLACE, Pair de France; Grand Croix de la Légion d'Honneur ; l'un des Quarante de l'Académie Fran

çaise; Membre du Bureau des Longitudes de France; des Sociétés Royales de Londres et de Gottingue; des Académies des Sciences de Russie, de Danemark, de Suède, de Prusse, des Pays-Bas, d'Italie, de Boston, etc. Tome Cinquième. 1825. pp. 419.

5. Mécanique Céleste. By the MARQUIS DE LA PLACE, Peer of France; Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor; Member of the French Academy; of the Academy of Sciences at Paris; of the Board of Longitude of France; of the Royal Societies of London and Göttingen; of the Academies of Sciences of Russia, Denmark, Sweden, Prussia, Holland, and Italy; Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, &c. Translated, with a Commentary, by NATHANIEL BOWDITCH, LL. D., Fellow of the Royal Societies of London, Edinburgh, and Dublin; of the Astronomical Society of London; of the Philosophical Society, held at Philadelphia; of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, etc. Volume I. 1829. pp. 746. Volume II. ume III. 1834. pp. 1017. 6. A Discourse on the Life and Nathaniel Bowditch, LL. D., the Church on Church Green, ALEXANDER YOUNG. Boston Little & Brown. 8vo. pp. 120.

1832. pp. 990. VolVolume IV. pp. 1018. Character of the Hon. F. R. S., delivered in March 25, 1838. By

7. An Eulogy on the Life and Character of Nathaniel Bowditch, LL. D., F. R. S., delivered at the Request of the Corporation of the City of Salem, May 24, 1838. By DANIEL APPLETON WHITE. Salem: 8vo. pp. 72. 8. Eulogy on Nathaniel Bowditch, LL. D., President of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; including an Analysis of his Scientific Publications. Delivered before the Academy, May 29, 1838. By JOHN PICKERING, Corresponding Secretary of the Academy. Boston: Little & Brown. 8vo. pp. 101.

COMPARED with the infinite variety and extent of physical phenomena, the domains of the science of quantity would, at first sight, seem confined to very narrow limits. But when we consider, that mathematics treat of all forms and motions; when we find the sweetest tones and the brightest colors, the lightning and the rainbow, heat and cold, and the very winds

1839.] Bowditch's Translation of the Mécanique Céleste. 145

and waves subject to the strictest laws of motion; when, in short, we learn, that the whole world is bound together upon mechanical principles; we must concede that the ocean, upon which the mathematician has launched his ship, is as unbounded as the material universe. But, of all sciences, the one the best fitted for the application and advancement of geometry is Astronomy; and the phenomena of the firmament, as developed by the geometer, are so glorious and so sublime, as to realize the fabled music of the spheres. Here, however, we must stop, and not trench upon the empire of fancy. It is for the man of science to calculate the harmony of the heavens with his slate and pencil, and he may not presume to sing it with the harp of the bard; it is not his to gaze, to admire and wonder, but to observe with care, to know and comprehend. As the sailor is not the poet of the sea, neither is the mathematician the poet of the sky; but, like a rapid and impetuous torrent, the depth of his channel deprives him of the view of the fertile fields and splendid scenery, through which he is hurrying to his sole object, the sea of truth.

Mournful is it to think, that national prejudices could ever intrude themselves into the council-chamber of philosophy. But so it is. Though France has, for many years, been the land of mathematicians, her eminence has not taught her magnanimity. Her neighbours, England, Germany, and Italy, have complained of her eagerness to appropriate their labors, and of her reluctance to acknowledge their merits; and more than once has she cast shafts of envy even at the immortal legislator of the physical universe. The historian of astronomy, Delambre, of whom she is rightly proud, did indeed allow, that Newton stood alone, above all other astronomers, and called him "cet homme unique"; but, nevertheless, he dwelt much upon the exaggerated homage the English paid him, upon the steps which previous mathematicians had taken in anticipation of his discoveries, and upon the imperfections of the Principia." He says of the lunar theory, that he had been sometimes tempted to suspect, that some of the results were not derived, as they professed to be, from theory, but from the examination of observations; confessing, that he would not have ventured upon such an insinuation, if it had not been before made by Clairaut. He is for giving Bouilland the honor of discovering the law of gravitation, and Newton that VOL. XLVIII. - No. 102. 19

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of demonstrating it; and even this share of the glory Newton must divide with his good fortune. Because he had received from Kepler the laws of the planetary motions, and from Huygens those of motion in general; because an accurate measure of the earth had been recently made; and, more than all, because he had the analysis which he himself created; Delambre would conclude, with Lagrange, that, even if Newton were the greatest of mathematicians and natural philosophers, he was also the most fortunate. "For," he says, "a world to be explained, and materials ready for its explanation, are to be met with but once; to meet with them was Newton's good fortune; he knew how to profit by it; there lies his glory."

These conclusions, not unsupported by facts, but characterized by a tone of jealousy unworthy of the amiable and illustrious Lagrange, were repeated in the "Système du Monde"; as if such good fortune were not always the lot of genius. Galileo found it in the almost accidental invention of the telescope; Kepler, in the friendship of Tycho Brahe, without whose observations he might never have left a wilderness of fanciful speculations, in which the present fashionable philosophy would have rioted, to reap his glorious harvest from the fruitful fields of inductive science; and Laplace himself found it in the ready assistance and coöperation of the first observers and calculators of Europe. Nature, indeed, seems, when casting the lot of her great men, to load her dice with peculiar care; and her favorite sons are ever born at the most fortunate epochs. But the author of the "Optics,” the "Fluxions," and the "Principia," was, in no respect, the genius of accident; his thrice-won immortality towered far above his good fortune; and the striking fact must not be forgotten, that precisely the same good fortune was that of his noble rival, Leibnitz, who had likewise created the very same analysis. But, far from knowing how to profit by it, as Newton had done, he even opposed the "Principia" and the law of gravitation with all his might, was joined in his opposition by the first geometers of the age, and, in the words of Biot, "it was half a century before the great truth, contained and demonstrated in the Principia,' was, I will not say, followed and developed, but before it was even comprehended by the majority of the learned."

The recent discovery of some old papers has led to singu

lar discussions regarding the reputation of Newton; and some have pretended, that, because the observations were essential to the calculations of the lunar theory, the observer Flamsteed is entitled to a large share of Newton's glory. With equal justice the organ-blower might lay claim to the merit of the music of Mozart. The mere observer is only a higher order of mechanic; his "Historia Cœlestis" displays only his untiring industry, and the acuteness of his senses; he is but the hand of astronomy, and may not wear the crown of glory fitted to the head, which combines his observations into an harmonious theory.

But the private character of Newton has suffered more severely from these developements; and the snails of literature have been most industrious in defacing the reputation once so bright and unsullied. However much their writings may please a world, but too eager to prune all men down to the same level, the generous mind will turn from them with disgust to Laplace's last labor, which, purporting to be a history of mathematical astronomy, is, in reality, the noblest and truest eulogy upon him who laid its foundations.

The first division of this volume, treating of the Mathematical Theory of the Earth's Figure, begins with the fact, that Newton founded this theory; and concludes an accurate account of Newton's labors upon it with the remark, that, notwithstanding several hypotheses, one of which is contrary to later observations, this step must be regarded as a prodigious one, considering the importance and novelty of the propositions established by its author, and the extreme difficulty of the subject. We must here give another remark of Laplace, made upon the lunar theory, that these hypotheses may be allowed to inventors in such profound researches ; and we may add, that Newton's instinct in such hypotheses was almost unerring, was altogether unrivalled, and seemed to border upon the divine. In the book upon the Attraction of Spheres, and the Motions of Elastic Fluids, Newton is said to have been the first to consider the attraction of spherical bodies, and his theory of sound is pronounced to be a monument of his genius. This theory had been objected to by Lagrange, in the "Turin Miscellany," on account of the alleged unsoundness and paradoxical nature of its reasoning; and his objections have been quoted and repeated by later mathematicians, among whom we blush to write the

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