CHAPTER XXXV.: INTITLED "THE CREATOR." REVEALED AT MECCA
In the name of the most merciful GOD. Praise be unto GOD, the creator of heaven and earth; who maketh the angels his messengers, furnished with two, and three, and four pair of wings: GOD maketh what addition he pleaseth unto his creatures; for GOD is almighty. The mercy which GOD shall freely bestow on mankind, there is none who can withhold; and what he shall withhold, there is none who can bestow, besides him: and he is the mighty, the wise. O men, remember the favor of GOD towards you: is there any creator, besides GOD, who provideth food for you from heaven and earth? There is no GOD but he: how therefore are ye turned aside from acknowledging his unity? If they accuse thee of imposture, apostles before thee have also been accused of imposture; and unto GOD shall all things return. O men, verily the promise of GOD is true: let not therefore the present life deceive you, neither let the deceiver deceive you concerning GOD: for Satan is an enemy unto you; wherefore hold him for an enemy: he only inviteth his confederates to be the inhabitants of hell. For those who believe not there is prepared a severe torment: but for those who shall believe and do that which is right, is prepared mercy and a great reward. Shall he therefore for whom his evil work hath been prepared, and who imagineth it to be good, be as he who is rightly disposed, and discerneth the truth? Verily GOD will cause to err whom he pleaseth, and will direct whom he pleaseth. Let not thy soul therefore be spent in sighs for their sakes, on account of their obstinacy; for GOD well knoweth that which they do. It is God who sendeth the winds, and raiseth a cloud: and we drive the same unto a dead country, and thereby quicken the earth after it hath been dead; so shall the resurrection be. Whoever desireth excellence; unto GOD doth all excellence belong: unto him ascendeth the good speech; and the righteous work will he exalt. But as for them who devise wicked plots, they shall suffer a severe punishment; and the device of those men shall be rendered vain. GOD created you first of the dust, and afterwards of seed: and he hath made you man and wife. No female conceiveth, or bringeth forth, but with his knowledge. Nor is any thing added unto the age of him whose life is prolonged, neither is any thing diminished from his age, but the same is written in the book of God's decrees. Verily this is easy with GOD. The two seas are not to be held in comparison: this is fresh and sweet, pleasant to drink; but that is salt and bitter: yet out of each of them ye eat fish, and take ornaments for you to wear. Thou seest the ships also ploughing the waves thereof, that ye may seek to enrich yourselves by commerce, of the abundance of God: peradventure ye will be thankful. He causeth the night to succeed the day, and he causeth the day to succeed the night; and he obligeth the sun and the moon to perform their services: each of them runneth an appointed course. This is GOD, your LORD: his is the kingdom. But the idols which ye invoke besides him have not the power even over the skin of a date-stone: if ye invoke them, they will not hear your calling; and although they should hear, yet they would not answer you. On the day of resurrection they shall disclaim your having associated them with God: and none shall declare unto thee the truth, like one who is well acquainted therewith. O men, ye have need of GOD; but GOD is self-sufficient, and to be praised. If he pleaseth, he can take you away, and produce a new creature in your stead: neither will this be difficult with GOD. A burdened soul shall not bear the burden of another: and if a heavy-burdened soul call on another to bear part of its burden, no part thereof shall be borne by the person who shall be called on, although he be ever so nearly related. Thou shalt admonish those who fear their LORD in secret, and are constant at prayer: and whoever cleanseth himself from the guilt of disobedience, cleanseth himself to the advantage of his own soul; for all shall be assembled before GOD at the last day. The blind and the seeing shall not be held equal; neither darkness and light; nor the cool shade and the scorching wind: neither shall the living and the dead be held equal. GOD shall cause him to hear whom he pleaseth: but thou shalt not make those to hear who are in their graves. Thou art no other than a preacher; verily we have sent thee with truth, a bearer of good tidings, and a denouncer of threats.
There hath been no nation, but a preacher hath in past times been conversant among them: if they charge thee with imposture, they who were before them likewise charged their apostles with imposture. Their apostles came unto them with evident miracles, and with divine writings, and with the Enlightening Book: afterwards I chastised those who were unbelievers; and how severe was my vengeance! Dost thou not see that GOD sendeth down rain from heaven, and that we thereby produce fruits of various colors? In the mountains also there are some tracts white and red, of various colors; and others are of a deep black: and of men, and beasts, and cattle there are whose colors are in like manner various. Such only of his servants fear GOD as are endued with understanding: verily GOD is mighty and ready to forgive. Verily they who read the book of GOD, and are constant at prayer, and give alms out of what we have bestowed on them, both in secret and openly, hope for a merchandise which shall not perish: that God may fully pay them their wages, and make them a superabundant addition of his liberality; for he is ready to forgive the faults of his servants, and to requite their endeavors. That which we have revealed unto thee of the book of the Korân is the truth, confirming the scriptures which were revealed before it: for GOD knoweth and regardeth his servants. And we have given the book of the Korân in heritage unto such of our servants as we have chosen: of them there is one who injureth his own soul; and there is another of them who keepeth the middle way; and there is another of them who outstrippeth others in good works, by the permission of GOD. This is the great excellence. They shall be introduced into gardens of perpetual abode; they shall be adorned therein with bracelets of gold, and pearls, and their clothing therein shall be of silk: and they shall say, Praise be unto GOD, who hath taken away sorrow from us! verily our LORD is ready to forgive the sinners, and to reward the obedient: who hath caused us to take up our rest in a dwelling of eternal stability, through his bounty, wherein no labor shall touch us, neither shall any weariness affect us. But for the unbelievers is prepared the fire of hell: it shall not be decreed them to die a second time; neither shall any part of the punishment thereof be made lighter unto them. Thus shall every infidel be rewarded. And they shall cry out aloud in hell, saying, LORD, take us hence, and we will work righteousness, and not what we have formerly wrought. But it shall be answered them, Did we not grant you lives of length sufficient, that whoever would be warned might be warned therein; and did not the preacher come unto you? Taste therefore the pains of hell. And the unjust shall have no protector. Verily GOD knoweth the secrets both of heaven and earth, for he knoweth the innermost parts of the breasts of men. It is he who hath made you to succeed in the earth. Whoever shall disbelieve, on him be his unbelief; and their unbelief shall only gain the unbelievers greater indignation in the sight of their LORD; and their unbelief shall only increase the perdition of the unbelievers. Say, what think ye of your deities which ye invoke besides GOD? Show me what part of the earth they have created. Or had they any share in the creation of the heavens? Have we given unto the idolaters any book of revelations, so that they may rely on any proof therefrom to authorize their practice? Nay; but the ungodly make unto one another only deceitful promises. Verily GOD sustaineth the heavens and the earth, lest they fail: and if they should fail, none could support the same besides him; he is gracious and merciful. The Koreish swore by GOD, with a most solemn oath, that if a preacher had come unto them, they would surely have been more willingly directed than any nation: but now a preacher is come unto them, it hath only increased in them their aversion from the truth, their arrogance in the earth, and their contriving of evil; but the contrivance of evil shall only encompass the authors thereof. Do they expect any other than the punishment awarded against the unbelievers of former times? For thou shalt not find any change in the ordinance of GOD; neither shalt thou find any variation in the ordinance of GOD. Have they not gone through the earth, and seen what hath been the end of those who were before them; although they were more mighty in strength than they? GOD is not to be frustrated by anything either in heaven or on earth; for he is wise and powerful. If GOD should punish men according to what they deserve, he would not leave on the back of the earth so much as a beast; but he respiteth them to a determined time; and when their time shall come, verily GOD will regard his servants.
CHAPTER LV.: INTITLED "THE MERCIFUL." REVEALED AT MECCA
In the name of the most merciful GOD. The Merciful hath taught his servant the Korân. He created man: he hath taught him distinct speech. The sun and the moon run their courses according to a certain rule: and the vegetables which creep on the ground, and the trees submit to his disposition. He also raised the heaven; and he appointed the balance, that ye should not transgress in respect to the balance: wherefore observe a just weight; and diminish not the balance. And the earth hath he prepared for living creatures: therein are various fruits, and palm-trees bearing sheaths of flowers; and grain having chaff, and leaves. Which, therefore, of your LORD'S benefits will ye ungratefully deny? He created man of dried clay like an earthen vessel: but he created the genii of fire clear from smoke. Which, therefore, of your LORD'S benefits will ye ungratefully deny? He is the LORD of the east, and the LORD of the west. Which, therefore, of your LORD'S benefits will ye ungratefully deny? He hath let loose the two seas, that they meet each another: between them is placed a bar which they cannot pass. Which, therefore, of your LORD'S benefits will ye ungratefully deny? From them are taken forth unions and lesser pearls. Which, therefore, of your LORD'S benefits will ye ungratefully deny? His also are the ships, carrying their sails aloft in the sea like mountains. Which, therefore, of your LORD'S benefits will ye ungratefully deny? Every creature which liveth on the earth is subject to decay: but the glorious and honorable countenance of thy LORD shall remain for ever. Which, therefore, of your LORD'S benefits will ye ungratefully deny? Unto him do all creatures which are in heaven and earth make petition; every day is he employed in some new work. Which, therefore, of your LORD'S benefits will ye ungratefully deny? We will surely attend to judge you, O men and genii, at the last day. Which, therefore, of your LORD'S benefits will ye ungratefully deny? O ye collective body of genii and men, if ye be able to pass out of the confines of heaven and earth, pass forth: ye shall not pass forth but by absolute power. Which, therefore, of your LORD'S benefits will ye ungratefully deny? A flame of fire without smoke, and a smoke without flame shall be sent down upon you; and ye shall not be able to defend yourselves therefrom. Which, therefore, of your LORD'S benefits will ye ungratefully deny? And when the heaven shall be rent in sunder, and shall become red as a rose, and shall melt like ointment: (Which, therefore, of your LORD'S benefits will ye ungratefully deny?) On that day neither man nor genius shall be asked concerning his sin. Which, therefore, of your LORD'S benefits will ye ungratefully deny? The wicked shall be known by their marks; and they shall be taken by the forelocks, and the feet, and shall be cast into hell. Which, therefore, of your LORD'S benefits will ye ungratefully deny? This is hell which the wicked deny as a falsehood: they shall pass to and fro between the same and hot boiling water. Which, therefore, of your LORD'S benefits will ye ungratefully deny? But for him who dreadeth the tribunal of his LORD are prepared two gardens: (Which, therefore, of your LORD'S benefits will ye ungratefully deny?) In each of them shall be two fountains flowing. Which, therefore, of your LORD'S benefits will ye ungratefully deny? In each of them shall there be of every fruit two kinds. Which, therefore, of your LORD'S benefits will ye ungratefully deny? They shall repose on couches, the linings whereof shall be of thick silk interwoven with gold; and the fruit of the two gardens shall be near at hand to gather. Which, therefore, of your LORD'S benefits will ye ungratefully deny? Therein shall receive them beauteous damsels, refraining their eyes from beholding any besides their spouses: whom no man shall have deflowered before them, neither any Jinn: (Which, therefore, of your LORD'S benefits will ye ungratefully deny?) Having complexions like rubies and pearls. Which, therefore, of your LORD'S benefits will ye ungratefully deny? Shall the reward of good works be any other good? Which, therefore, of your LORD'S benefits will ye ungratefully deny? And besides these there shall be two other gardens: (Which, therefore, of your LORD'S benefits will ye ungratefully deny?) Of a dark green. Which, therefore, of your LORD'S benefits will ye ungratefully deny? In each of them shall be two fountains pouring forth plenty of water. Which, therefore, of your LORD'S benefits will ye ungratefully deny? In each of them shall be fruits, and palm-trees, and pomegranates. Which, therefore, of your LORD'S benefits will ye ungratefully deny? Therein shall be agreeable and beauteous damsels: Which, therefore, of your LORD'S benefits will ye ungratefully deny? Whom no man shall have deflowered before their destined spouses, nor any Jinn. Which, therefore, of your LORD'S benefits will ye ungratefully deny? Therein shall they delight themselves, lying on green cushions and beautiful carpets. Which, therefore, of your LORD'S benefits will ye ungratefully deny? Blessed be the name of thy LORD, possessed of glory and honor!
CHAPTER LXXXIV.: INTITLED "THE RENDING IN SUNDER." REVEALED AT MECCA
In the name of the most merciful GOD. When the heaven shall be rent in sunder, and shall obey its LORD, and shall be capable thereof; and when the earth shall be stretched out, and shall cast forth that which is therein, and shall remain empty, and shall obey its LORD, and shall be capable thereof: O man, verily laboring thou laborest to meet thy LORD, and thou shalt meet him. And he who shall have his book given into his right hand shall be called to an easy account, and shall turn unto his family with joy: but he who shall have his book given him behind his back shall invoke destruction to fall upon him, and he shall be sent into hell to be burned; because he rejoiced insolently amidst his family on earth. Verily he thought he should never return unto God: yea verily, but his LORD beheld him. Wherefore I swear by the redness of the sky after sunset, and by the night, and the animals which it driveth together, and by the moon when she is in the full; ye shall surely be transferred successively from state to state. What aileth them, therefore, that they believe not the resurrection; and that, when the Korân is read unto them, they worship not? Yea: the unbelievers accuse the same of imposture: but GOD well knoweth the malice which they keep hidden in their breasts. Wherefore denounce unto them a grievous punishment, except those who believe and do good works: for them is prepared a never-failing reward.
From the 'Makamat' of al-Hariri of Basra: Translation of Theodore Preston
We praise thee, O God,
For whatever perspicuity of language thou hast taught us,
And whatever eloquence thou hast inspired us with,
As we praise thee
For the bounty which thou hast diffused,
And the mercy which thou hast spread abroad:
And we pray thee to guard us
From extravagant expressions and frivolous superfluities
As we pray Thee to guard us
From the shame of incapacity and the disgrace of hesitation:
And we entreat thee to exempt us from temptation
By the flattery of the admirer or connivance of the indulgent,
As we entreat thee to exempt us from exposure
To the slight of the detractor or aspersion of the defamer:
And we ask thy forgiveness
Should our frailties betray us into ambiguities,
As we ask thy forgiveness
Should our steps advance to the verge of improprieties:
And we beg thee freely to bestow
Propitious succor to lead us aright,
And a heart turning in unison with truth,
And a language adorned with veracity,
And style supported by conclusiveness,
And accuracy that may exclude incorrectness,
And firmness of purpose that may overcome caprice,
And sagacity whereby we may attain discrimination;
That thou wilt aid us by thy guidance unto right conceptions,
And enable us with thy help to express them with clearness,
And thou wilt guard us from error in narration,
And keep us from folly even in pleasantry,
So that we may be safe from the censure of sarcastic tongues,
And secure from the fatal effects of false ornament,
And may not resort to any improper source,
And occupy no position that would entail regret,
Nor be assailed by any ill consequences or blame,
Nor be constrained to apology for inconsideration.
O God, fulfill for us this our desire,
And put us in possession of this our earnest wish,
And exclude us not from thy ample shade,
Nor leave us to become the prey of the devourer:
For we stretch to thee the hand of entreaty,
And profess entire submission to thee, and contrition of spirit,
And seek with humble supplication and appliances of hope
The descent of thy vast grace and comprehensive bounty.
THE WORDS OF HARETH IBN-HAMMAM
From the 'Makamat' of al-Hariri of Barra: Translation of Theodore Preston
On a night whose aspect displayed both light and shade,
And whose moon was like a magic circlet of silver,
I was engaged in evening conversation at Koufa
With companions who had been nourished on the milk of eloquence,
So the charms of conversation fascinated us,
While wakefulness still prevailed among us,
Until the moon had at length disappeared in the West.
But when the gloom of night had thus drawn its curtain,
And nothing but slumber remained abroad,
We heard from the door the low call of a benighted traveler,
And then followed the knock of one seeking admission;
And we answered, "Who comes here this darksome night?"
And the stranger replied:--
"Listen ye who here are dwelling!
May you so be kept from ill!
So may mischief ne'er befall you,
Long as life your breast shall fill!
Gloom of dismal night and dreary
Drives a wretch to seek your door,
Whose disheveled hoary tresses
All with dust are sprinkled o'er;
Who, though destitute and lonely,
Far has roamed on hill and dale,
Till his form became thus crooked,
And his cheek thus deadly pale;
Who, though faint as slender crescent,
Ventures here for aid to sue,
Hospitable meal and shelter
Claiming first of all from you.
Welcome then to food and dwelling
One so worthy both to share,
Sure to prove content and thankful,
Sure to laud your friendly care."
Fascinated then by the sweetness of his language and delivery,
And readily inferring what this prelude betokened,
We hasted to open the door, and received him with welcome,
Saying to the servant, "Hie! Hie! Bring whatever is ready!"
But the stranger said, "By Him who brought me to your abode,
I will not taste of your hospitality, unless you pledge to me
That you will not permit me to be an incumbrance to you,
Nor impose on yourselves necessity of eating on my account."
Now it was just as if he had been informed of our wishes,
Or had shot from the same bow as our sentiments;
So we gratified him by acceding to the condition,
And highly commended him for his accommodating disposition.
But when the servant had produced what was ready,
And the candle was lighted up in the midst of us,
I regarded him attentively, and lo! it was Abu-Zeid;
Whereupon I addressed my companions in these words:--
"May you have joy of the guest who has repaired to you:
For though the moon of the heavens has set,
The full moon of poetry has arisen;
And though the moon of the eclipse has disappeared,
The full moon of eloquence has shone forth."
So the wine of joy infused itself into them,
And sleep flew away from the corners of their eyes,
And they rejected the slumber which they had contemplated,
And began to resume the pleasantry which they had laid aside,
While Abu-Zeid remained intent on the business in hand.
But as soon as he desired the removal of what was before him,
I said to him, "Entertain us with one of thy strange anecdotes,
Or with an account of one of thy wonderful journeys."
And he said:--"The result of long journeys brought me to this land,
Myself being in a state of hunger and distress,
And my wallet light as the heart of the mother of Moses;
So I arose, when dark night had settled on the world,
Though with weary feet, to seek a lodging, or obtain a loaf;
Till, being driven on by the instigation of hunger,
And by fate, so justly called 'the parent of adventures,'
I stood at the door of a house and improvised these words:--
"'Inmates of this abode, all hail! all hail!
Long may you live in plenty's verdant vale.
Oh, grant your aid to one by toil opprest,
Way-worn, benighted, destitute, distrest;
Whose tortured entrails only hunger hold
(For since he tasted food two days are told);
A wretch who finds not where to lay his head,
Though brooding night her weary wing hath spread,
But roams in anxious hope a friend to meet,
Whose bounty, like a spring of water sweet,
May heal his woes; a friend who straight will say,
"Come in! 'Tis time thy staff aside to lay."'
"But there came out to me a boy in a short tunic, who said:--
"'By Him who hospitable rites ordained,
And first of all, and best, those rites maintained,
I swear that friendly converse and a home
Is all we have for those who nightly roam."
"And I replied, 'What can I do with an empty house,
And a host who is himself thus utterly destitute?
But what is thy name, boy? for thy intelligence charms me.'
He replied, 'My name is Zeid, and I was reared at Faid;
And my mother Barrah (who is such as her name implies),
Told me she married one of the nobles of Serong and Ghassân,
Who deserted her stealthily, and there was an end of him.'
Now I knew by these distinct signs that he was my child,
But my poverty deterred me from discovering myself to him."
Then we asked if he wished to take his son to live with him;
And he replied, "If only my purse were heavy enough,
It would be easy for me to undertake the charge of him."
So we severally undertook to contribute a portion of it,
Whereupon he returned thanks for this our bounty,
And was so profusely lavish in his acknowledgments,
That we thought his expression of gratitude excessive.
And as soon as he had collected the coin into his scrip,
He looked at me as the deceiver looks at the deceived,
And laughed heartily, and then indited these lines:--
"O thou who, deceived
By a tale, hast believed
A mirage to be truly a lake,
Though I ne'er had expected
My fraud undetected,
Or doubtful my meaning to make!
I confess that I lied
When I said that my bride
And my first-born were Barrah and Zeid;
But guile is my part,
And deception my art,
And by these are my gains ever made.
Such schemes I devise
That the cunning and wise
Never practiced the like or conceived;
Nor Asmai nor Komait
Any wonders relate
Like those that my wiles have achieved.
But if these I disdain,
I abandon my gain,
And by fortune at once am refused:
Then pardon their use,
And accept my excuse,
Nor of guilt let my guile be accused."
Then he took leave of me, and went away from me,
Leaving in my heart the embers of lasting regret.
THE CALIPH OMAR BIN ABD AL-AZIZ AND THE POETS
A Semi-Poetical Tale: Translation of Sir Richard Burton, in 'Supplemental Nights to the Book of The Thousand Nights and A Night'
It is said that when the Caliphate devolved on Omar bin Abd al-Aziz, (of whom Allah accept!) the poets resorted to him, as they had been used to resort to the Caliphs before him, and abode at his door days and days; but he suffered them not to enter till there came to him 'Adi bin Artah, who stood high in esteem with him. Jarir [another poet] accosted him, and begged him to crave admission for them to the presence; so 'Adi answered, "'Tis well," and going in to Omar, said to him, "The poets are at thy door, and have been there days and days; yet hast thou not given them leave to enter, albeit their sayings abide, and their arrows from the mark never fly wide." Quoth Omar, "What have I to do with the poets?" And quoth 'Adi, "O Commander of the Faithful, the Prophet (Abhak!) was praised by a poet, and gave him largesse--and in him is an exemplar to every Moslem." Quoth Omar, "And who praised him?" And quoth 'Adi, "Abbás bin Mirdás praised him, and he clad him with a suit and said, 'O Generosity! Cut off from me his tongue!'" Asked the Caliph, "Dost thou remember what he said?" And 'Adi answered, "Yes." Rejoined Omar, "Then repeat it;" so 'Adi repeated:--
"I saw thee, O thou best of the human race,
Bring out a book which brought to graceless, grace.
Thou showedst righteous road to men astray
From right, when darkest wrong had ta'en its place:--
Thou with Islâm didst light the gloomiest way,
Quenching with proof live coals of frowardness:
I own for Prophet, my Mohammed's self,
and men's award upon his word we base.
Thou madest straight the path that crooked ran
Where in old days foul growth o'ergrew its face.
Exalt be thou in Joy's empyrean!
And Allah's glory ever grow apace!"
"And indeed," continued 'Adi, "this Elegy on the Prophet (Abhak!) is well known, and to comment on it would be tedious."
Quoth Omar, "Who [of the poets] is at the door?" And quoth 'Adi, "Among them is Omar ibn Rabí'ah, the Korashi;" whereupon the Caliph cried, "May Allah show him no favor, neither quicken him! Was it not he who spoke impiously [in praising his love]?--
'Could I in my clay-bed [the grave] with Ialma repose,
There to me were better than Heaven or Hell!'
Had he not [continued the Caliph] been the enemy of Allah, he had wished for her in this world; so that he might, after, repent and return to righteous dealing. By Allah! he shall not come in to me! Who is at the door other than he?"
Quoth 'Adi, "Jamil bin Ma'mar al-Uzri is at the door." And quoth Omar, "'Tis he who saith in one of his love-Elegies:--
'Would Heaven, conjoint we lived! and if I die,
Death only grant me a grave within her grave!
For I'd no longer deign to live my life
If told, "Upon her head is laid the pave."'
Quoth Omar, "Away with him from me! Who is at the door?" And quoth 'Adi, "Kutthayir 'Azzah": whereupon Omar cried, "'Tis he who saith in one of his [impious] Odes:--
'Some talk of faith and creed and nothing else,
And wait for pains of Hell in prayer-seat;
But did they hear what I from Azzah heard,
They'd make prostration, fearful, at her feet.'
Leave the mention of him. Who is at the door?" Quoth 'Adi, "Al-Ahwas al-Ansari." Cried Omar, "Allah Almighty put him away, and estrange him from His mercy! Is it not he who said, berhyming on a Medinite's slave girl, so that she might outlive her master:--
Allah be judge betwixt me and her lord
Whoever flies with her--and I pursue.'
He shall not come in to me! Who is at the door other than he?" 'Adi replied, "Hammam bin Ghalib al-Farazdak." And Omar said, "Tis he who glories in wickedness.... He shall not come in to me! Who is at the door other than he?" 'Adi replied, "Al-Akhtal al-Taghlibi." And Omar said, "He is the [godless] miscreant who saith in his singing:--
'Ramazan I ne'er fasted in lifetime; nay
I ate flesh in public at undurn day!
Nor chid I the fair, save in word of love.
Nor seek Meccah's plain in salvation-way:
Nor stand I praying, like rest, who cry,
"Hie salvation-wards!" at the dawn's first ray....'
By Allah! he treadeth no carpet of mine. Who is at the door other than he?" Said 'Adi, "Jarir Ibn al-Khatafah." And Omar cried, "Tis he who saith:--
'But for ill-spying glances, had our eyes espied
Eyes of the antelope, and ringlets of the Reems!
A Huntress of the eyes, by night-time came; and I
cried, "Turn in peace! No time for visit this, meseems."'
But if it must be, and no help, admit Jarir." So 'Adi went forth and admitted Jarir, who entered saying:--
'Yea, He who sent Mohammed unto men.
A just successor of Islam assigned.
His ruth and his justice all mankind embrace.
To daunt the bad and stablish well-designed.
Verily now, I look to present good,
for man hath ever transient weal in mind.'
Quoth Omar, "O Jarir! keep the fear of Allah before thine eyes, and say naught save the sooth." And Jarir recited these couplets:--
'How many widows loose the hair, in far Yamamah land,
How many an orphan there abides, feeble of voice and eye,
Since faredst thou, who wast to them instead of father lost
when they like nestled fledglings were, sans power to creep or fly.
And now we hope--since broke the clouds their word and troth with us--
Hope from the Caliph's grace to gain a rain that ne'er shall dry.'
When the Caliph heard this, he said, "By Allah, O Jarir! Omar possesseth but an hundred dirhams. Ho boy! do thou give them to him!" Moreover, he gifted Jarir with the ornaments of his sword; and Jarir went forth to the other poets, who asked him, "What is behind thee?" ["What is thy news?">[ and he answered, "A man who giveth to the poor, and who denieth the poets; and with him I am well pleased."
DOMINIQUE FRANÇOIS ARAGO
(1786-1853)
BY EDWARD S. HOLDEN
ominique François Arago was born February 26th, 1786, near Perpignan, in the Eastern Pyrenees, where his father held the position of Treasurer of the Mint. He entered the École Polytechnique in Paris after a brilliant examination, and held the first places throughout the course. In 1806 he was sent to Valencia in Spain, and to the neighboring island of Iviza, to make the astronomical observations for prolonging the arc of the meridian from Dunkirk southward, in order to supply the basis for the metric system.
Here begin his extraordinary adventures, which are told with inimitable spirit and vigor in his 'Autobiography.' Arago's work required him to occupy stations on the summits of the highest peaks in the mountains of southeastern Spain. The peasants were densely ignorant and hostile to all foreigners, so that an escort of troops was required in many of his journeys. At some stations he made friends of the bandits of the neighborhood, and carried on his observations under their protection, as it were. In 1807 the tribunal of the Inquisition existed in Valencia; and Arago was witness to the trial and punishment of a pretended sorceress,--and this, as he says, in one of the principal towns of Spain, the seat of a celebrated university. Yet the worst criminals lived unmolested in the cathedrals, for the "right of asylum" was still in force. His geodetic observations were mysteries to the inhabitants, and his signals on the mountain top were believed to be part of the work of a French spy. Just at this time hostilities broke out between France and Spain, and the astronomer was obliged to flee disguised as a Majorcan peasant, carrying his precious papers with him. His knowledge of the Majorcan language saved him, and he reached a Spanish prison with only a slight wound from a dagger. It is the first recorded instance, he says, of a fugitive flying to a dungeon for safety. In this prison, under the care of Spanish officers, Arago found sufficient occupation in calculating observations which he had made; in reading the accounts in the Spanish journals of his own execution at Valencia; and in listening to rumors that it was proposed (by a Spanish monk) to do away with the French prisoner by poisoning his food.
The Spanish officer in charge of the prisoners was induced to connive at the escape of Arago and M. Berthémie (an aide-de-camp of Napoleon); and on the 28th of July, 1808, they stole away from the coast of Spain in a small boat with three sailors, and arrived at Algiers on the 3d of August. Here the French consul procured them two false passports, which transformed the Frenchmen into strolling merchants from Schwekat and Leoben. They boarded an Algerian vessel and set off. Let Arago describe the crew and cargo:--
"The vessel belonged to the Emir of Seca. The commander was a Greek captain named Spiro Calligero. Among the passengers were five members of the family superseded by the Bakri as kings of the Jews; two Maroccan ostrich-feather merchants; Captain Krog from Bergen in Norway; two lions sent by the Dey of Algiers as presents to the Emperor Napoleon; and a great number of monkeys."
As they entered the Golfe du Lion their ship was captured by a Spanish corsair and taken to Rosas. Worst of all, a former Spanish servant of Arago's--Pablo--was a sailor in the corsair's crew! At Rosas the prisoners were brought before an officer for interrogation. It was now Arago's turn. The officer begins:--
"'Who are you?'
"'A poor traveling merchant.'
"'From whence do you come?'
"'From a country where you certainly have never been.'
"'Well--from what country?'
"I feared to answer; for the passports (steeped in vinegar to prevent infection) were in the officer's hands, and I had entirely forgotten whether I was from Schwekat or from Leoben. Finally I answered at a chance, 'I am from Schwekat;' fortunately this answer agreed with the passport.
"'You're from Schwekat about as much as I am,' said the officer: 'you're a Spaniard, and a Spaniard from Valencia to boot, as I can tell by your accent.'
"'Sir, you are inclined to punish me simply because I have by nature the gift of languages. I readily learn the dialects of the various countries where I carry on my trade. For example, I know the dialect of Iviza.'
"'Well, I will take you at your word. Here is a soldier who comes from Iviza. Talk to him.'
"'Very well; I will even sing the goat-song.'
"The verses of this song (if one may call them verses) are separated by the imitated bleatings of the goat. I began at once, with an audacity which even now astonishes me, to intone the song which all the shepherds in Iviza sing:--
Ah graciada Señora,
Una canzo bouil canta,
Bè bè bè bè.
No sera gaiva pulida,
Nosé si vos agradara,
Bè bè bè bè.
"Upon which my Ivizan avouches, in tears, that I am certainly from Iviza. The song had affected him as a Switzer is affected by the 'Ranz des Vaches.' I then said to the officer that if he would bring to me a person who could speak French, he would find the same embarrassment in this case also. An emigré of the Bourbon regiment comes forward for the new experiment, and after a few phrases affirms without hesitation that I am surely a Frenchman. The officer begins to be impatient.
"'Have done with these trials: they prove nothing. I require you to tell me who you are.'
"'My foremost desire is to find an answer which will satisfy you. I am the son of the innkeeper at Mataro.'
"'I know that man: you are not his son.'
"'You are right: I told you that I should change my answers till I found one to suit you. I am a marionette player from Lerida.'
"A huge laugh from the crowd which had listened to the interrogatory put an end to the questioning."
Finally it was necessary for Arago to declare outright that he was French, and to prove it by his old servant Pablo. To supply his immediate wants he sold his watch; and by a series of misadventures this watch subsequently fell into the hands of his family, and he was mourned in France as dead.
After months of captivity the vessel was released, and the prisoner set out for Marseilles. A fearful tempest drove them to the harbor of Bougie, an African port a hundred miles east of Algiers. Thence they made the perilous journey by land to their place of starting, and finally reached Marseilles eleven months after their voyage began. Eleven months to make a journey of four days!
The intelligence of the safe arrival, after so many perils, of the young astronomer, with his packet of precious observations, soon reached Paris. He was welcomed with effusion. Soon afterward (at the age of twenty-three years) he was elected a member of the section of Astronomy of the Academy of Sciences, and from this time forth he led the peaceful life of a savant. He was the Director of the Paris Observatory for many years; the friend of all European scientists; the ardent patron of young men of talent; a leading physicist; a strong Republican, though the friend of Napoleon; and finally the Perpetual Secretary of the Academy.
In the latter capacity it was part of his duty to prepare éloges of deceased Academicians. Of his collected works in fourteen volumes, 'Oeuvres de François Arago,' published in Paris, 1865, three volumes are given to these 'Notices Biographiques.' Here may be found the biographies of Bailly, Sir William Herschel, Laplace, Joseph Fourier, Carnot, Malus, Fresnel, Thomas Young, and James Watt; which, translated rather carelessly into English, have been published under the title 'Biographies of Distinguished Men,' and can be found in the larger libraries. The collected works contain biographies also of Ampère, Condoreet, Volta, Monge, Porson, Gay-Lussac, besides shorter sketches. They are masterpieces of style and of clear scientific exposition, and full of generous appreciation of others' work. They present in a lucid and popular form the achievements of scientific men whose works have changed the accepted opinion of the world, and they give general views not found in the original writings themselves. Scientific men are usually too much engrossed in advancing science to spare time for expounding it to popular audiences. The talent for such exposition is itself a special one. Arago possessed it to the full, and his own original contributions to astronomy and physics enabled him to speak as an expert, not merely as an expositor.
The extracts are from his admirable estimate of Laplace, which he prepared in connection with the proposal, before him and other members of a State Committee, to publish a new and authoritative edition of the great astronomer's works. The translation is mainly that of the 'Biographies of Distinguished Men' cited above, and much of the felicity of style is necessarily lost in translation; but the substance of solid and lucid exposition from a master's hand remains.
Arago was a Deputy in 1830, and Minister of War in the Provisional Government of 1848. He died full of honors, October 2d, 1853. Two of his brothers, Jacques and Étienne, were dramatic authors of note. Another, Jean, was a distinguished general in the service of Mexico. One of his sons, Alfred, is favorably known as a painter; another, Emmanuel, as a lawyer, deputy, and diplomat.
LAPLACE
The Marquis de Laplace, peer of France, one of the forty of the French Academy, member of the Academy of Sciences and of the Bureau of Longitude, Associate of all the great Academies or Scientific Societies of Europe, was born at Beaumont-en-Auge, of parents belonging to the class of small farmers, on the 28th of March, 1749; he died on the 5th of March, 1827. The first and second volumes of the 'Mécanique Céleste' [Mechanism of the Heavens] were published in 1799; the third volume appeared in 1802, the fourth in 1805; part of the fifth volume was published in 1823, further books in 1824, and the remainder in 1825. The 'Théorie des Probabilités' was published in 1812. We shall now present the history of the principal astronomical discoveries contained in these immortal works.
Astronomy is the science of which the human mind may justly feel proudest. It owes this pre-eminence to the elevated nature of its object; to the enormous scale of its operations; to the certainty, the utility, and the stupendousness of its results. From the very beginnings of civilization the study of the heavenly bodies and their movements has attracted the attention of governments and peoples. The greatest captains, statesmen, philosophers, and orators of Greece and Rome found it a subject of delight. Yet astronomy worthy of the name is a modern science: it dates from the sixteenth century only. Three great, three brilliant phases have marked its progress. In 1543 the bold and firm hand of Copernicus overthrew the greater part of the venerable scaffolding which had propped the illusions and the pride of many generations. The earth ceased to be the centre, the pivot, of celestial movements. Henceforward it ranged itself modestly among the other planets, its relative importance as one member of the solar system reduced almost to that of a grain of sand.
Twenty-eight years had elapsed from the day when the Canon of Thorn expired while holding in his trembling hands the first copy of the work which was to glorify the name of Poland, when Würtemberg witnessed the birth of a man who was destined to achieve a revolution in science not less fertile in consequences, and still more difficult to accomplish. This man was Kepler. Endowed with two qualities which seem incompatible,--a volcanic imagination, and a dogged pertinacity which the most tedious calculations could not tire,--Kepler conjectured that celestial movements must be connected with each other by simple laws; or, to use his own expression, by harmonic laws. These laws he undertook to discover. A thousand fruitless attempts--the errors of calculation inseparable from a colossal undertaking--did not hinder his resolute advance toward the goal his imagination descried. Twenty-two years he devoted to it, and still he was not weary. What are twenty-two years of labor to him who is about to become the lawgiver of worlds; whose name is to be ineffaceably inscribed on the frontispiece of an immortal code; who can exclaim in dithyrambic language, "The die is cast: I have written my book; it will be read either in the present age or by posterity, it matters not which; it may well await a reader since God has waited six thousand years for an interpreter of his works"?
These celebrated laws, known in astronomy as Kepler's laws, are three in number. The first law is, that the planets describe ellipses around the sun, which is placed in their common focus; the second, that a line joining a planet and the sun sweeps over equal areas in equal times; the third, that the squares of the times of revolution of the planets about the sun are proportional to the cubes of their mean distances from that body. The first two laws were discovered by Kepler in the course of a laborious examination of the theory of the planet Mars. A full account of this inquiry is contained in his famous work, 'De Stella Martis' [Of the Planet Mars], published in 1609. The discovery of the third law was announced to the world in his treatise on Harmonics (1628).
To seek a physical cause adequate to retain the planets in their closed orbits; to make the stability of the universe depend on mechanical forces, and not on solid supports like the crystalline spheres imagined by our ancestors; to extend to the heavenly bodies in their courses the laws of earthly mechanics,--such were the problems which remained for solution after Kepler's discoveries had been announced. Traces of these great problems may be clearly perceived here and there among ancient and modern writers, from Lucretius and Plutarch down to Kepler, Bouillaud, and Borelli. It is to Newton, however, that we must award the merit of their solution. This great man, like several of his predecessors, imagined the celestial bodies to have a tendency to approach each other in virtue of some attractive force, and from the laws of Kepler he deduced the mathematical characteristics of this force. He extended it to all the material molecules of the solar system; and developed his brilliant discovery in a work which, even at the present day, is regarded as the supremest product of the human intellect.
The contributions of France to these revolutions in astronomical science consisted, in 1740, in the determination by experiment of the spheroidal figure of the earth, and in the discovery of the local variations of gravity upon the surface of our planet. These were two great results; but whenever France is not first in science she has lost her place. This rank, lost for a moment, was brilliantly regained by the labors of four geometers. When Newton, giving to his discoveries a generality which the laws of Kepler did not suggest, imagined that the different planets were not only attracted by the sun, but that they also attracted each other, he introduced into the heavens a cause of universal perturbation. Astronomers then saw at a glance that in no part of the universe would the Keplerian laws suffice for the exact representation of the phenomena of motion; that the simple regular movements with which the imaginations of the ancients were pleased to endow the heavenly bodies must experience numerous, considerable, perpetually changing perturbations. To discover a few of these perturbations, and to assign their nature and in a few rare cases their numerical value, was the object which Newton proposed to himself in writing his famous book, the 'Principia Mathematica Philosophiæ Naturalis' [Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy], Notwithstanding the incomparable sagacity of its author, the 'Principia' contained merely a rough outline of planetary perturbations, though not through any lack of ardor or perseverance. The efforts of the great philosopher were always superhuman, and the questions which he did not solve were simply incapable of solution in his time.
Five geometers--Clairaut, Euler, D'Alembert, Lagrange, and Laplace--shared between them the world whose existence Newton had disclosed. They explored it in all directions, penetrated into regions hitherto inaccessible, and pointed out phenomena hitherto undetected. Finally--and it is this which constitutes their imperishable glory--they brought under the domain of a single principle, a single law, everything that seemed most occult and mysterious in the celestial movements. Geometry had thus the hardihood to dispose of the future, while the centuries as they unroll scrupulously ratify the decisions of science.
If Newton gave a complete solution of celestial movements where but two bodies attract each other, he did not even attempt the infinitely more difficult problem of three. The "problem of three bodies" (this is the name by which it has become celebrated)--the problem of determining the movement of a body subjected to the attractive influence of two others--was solved for the first time by our countryman, Clairaut. Though he enumerated the various forces which must result from the mutual action of the planets and satellites of our system, even the great Newton did not venture to investigate the general nature of their effects. In the midst of the labyrinth formed by increments and diminutions of velocity, variations in the forms of orbits, changes in distances and inclinations, which these forces must evidently produce, the most learned geometer would fail to discover a trustworthy guide. Forces so numerous, so variable in direction, so different in intensity, seemed to be incapable of maintaining a condition of equilibrium except by a sort of miracle. Newton even suggested that the planetary system did not contain within itself the elements of indefinite stability. He was of opinion that a powerful hand must intervene from time to time to repair the derangements occasioned by the mutual action of the various bodies. Euler, better instructed than Newton in a knowledge of these perturbations, also refused to admit that the solar system was constituted so as to endure forever.
Never did a greater philosophical question offer itself to the inquiries of mankind. Laplace attacked it with boldness, perseverance, and success. The profound and long-continued researches of the illustrious geometer completely established the perpetual variability of the planetary ellipses. He demonstrated that the extremities of their major axes make the circuit of the heavens; that independent of oscillation, the planes of their orbits undergo displacements by which their intersections with the plane of the terrestrial orbit are each year directed toward different stars. But in the midst of this apparant chaos, there is one element which remains constant, or is merely subject to small and periodic changes; namely, the major axis of each orbit, and consequently the time of revolution of each planet. This is the element which ought to have varied most, on the principles held by Newton and Euler. Gravitation, then, suffices to preserve the stability of the solar system. It maintains the forms and inclinations of the orbits in an average position, subject to slight oscillations only; variety does not entail disorder; the universe offers an example of harmonious relations, of a state of perfection which Newton himself doubted.
This condition of harmony depends on circumstances disclosed to Laplace by analysis; circumstances which on the surface do not seem capable of exercising so great an influence. If instead of planets all revolving in the same direction, in orbits but slightly eccentric and in planes inclined at but small angles toward each other, we should substitute different conditions, the stability of the universe would be jeopardized, and a frightful chaos would pretty certainly result. The discovery of the actual conditions excluded the idea, at least so far as the solar system was concerned, that the Newtonian attraction might be a cause of disorder. But might not other forces, combined with the attraction of gravitation, produce gradually increasing perturbations such as Newton and Euler feared? Known facts seemed to justify the apprehension. A comparison of ancient with modern observations revealed a continual acceleration in the mean motions of the moon and of Jupiter, and an equally striking diminution of the mean motion of Saturn. These variations led to a very important conclusion. In accordance with their presumed cause, to say that the velocity of a body increased from century to century was equivalent to asserting that the body continually approached the centre of motion; on the other hand, when the velocity diminished, the body must be receding from the centre. Thus, by a strange ordering of nature, our planetary system seemed destined to lose Saturn, its most mysterious ornament; to see the planet with its ring and seven satellites plunge gradually into those unknown regions where the eye armed with the most powerful telescope has never penetrated. Jupiter, on the other hand, the planet compared with which the earth is so insignificant, appeared to be moving in the opposite direction, so that it would ultimately be absorbed into the incandescent matter of the sun. Finally, it seemed that the moon would one day precipitate itself upon the earth.
There was nothing doubtful or speculative in these sinister forebodings. The precise dates of the approaching catastrophes were alone uncertain. It was known, however, that they were very distant. Accordingly, neither the learned dissertations of men of science nor the animated descriptions of certain poets produced any impression upon the public mind. The members of our scientific societies, however, believed with regret the approaching destruction of the planetary system. The Academy of Sciences called the attention of geometers of all countries to these menacing perturbations. Euler and Lagrange descended into the arena. Never did their mathematical genius shine with a brighter lustre. Still the question remained undecided, when from two obscure corners of the theories of analysis, Laplace, the author of the 'Mécanique Céleste,' brought the laws of these great phenomena clearly to light. The variations in velocity of Jupiter, Saturn, and the moon, were proved to flow from evident physical causes, and to belong in the category of ordinary periodic perturbations depending solely on gravitation. These dreaded variations in orbital dimensions resolved themselves into simple oscillations included within narrow limits. In a word, by the powerful instrumentality of mathematical analysis, the physical universe was again established on a demonstrably firm foundation.
Having demonstrated the smallness of these periodic oscillations, Laplace next succeeded in determining the absolute dimensions of the orbits. What is the distance of the sun from the earth? No scientific question has occupied the attention of mankind in a greater degree. Mathematically speaking, nothing is more simple: it suffices, as in ordinary surveying, to draw visual lines from the two extremities of a known base line to an inaccessible object; the remainder of the process is an elementary calculation. Unfortunately, in the case of the sun, the distance is very great and the base lines which can be measured upon the earth are comparatively very small. In such a case, the slightest errors in the direction of visual lines exercise an enormous influence upon the results. In the beginning of the last century, Halley had remarked that certain interpositions of Venus between the earth and the sun--or to use the common term, the transits of the planet across the sun's disk--would furnish at each observing station an indirect means of fixing the position of the visual ray much superior in accuracy to the most perfect direct measures. Such was the object of the many scientific expeditions undertaken in 1761 and 1769, years in which the transits of Venus occurred. A comparison of observations made in the Southern Hemisphere with those of Europe gave for the distance of the sun the result which has since figured in all treatises on astronomy and navigation. No government hesitated to furnish scientific academies with the means, however expensive, of establishing their observers in the most distant regions. We have already remarked that this determination seemed imperiously to demand an extensive base, for small bases would have been totally inadequate. Well, Laplace has solved the problem without a base of any kind whatever; he has deduced the distance of the sun from observations of the moon made in one and the same place.
The sun is, with respect to our satellite the moon, the cause of perturbations which evidently depend on the distance of the immense luminous globe from the earth. Who does not see that these perturbations must diminish if the distance increases, and increase if the distance diminishes, so that the distance determines the amount of the perturbations? Observation assigns the numerical value of these perturbations; theory, on the other hand, unfolds the general mathematical relation which connects them with the solar distance and with other known elements. The determination of the mean radius of the terrestrial orbit--of the distance of the sun--then becomes one of the most simple operations of algebra. Such is the happy combination by the aid of which Laplace has solved the great, the celebrated problem of parallax. It is thus that the illustrious geometer found for the mean distance of the sun from the earth, expressed in radii of the terrestrial orbit, a value differing but slightly from that which was the fruit of so many troublesome and expensive voyages.
The movements of the moon proved a fertile mine of research to our great geometer. His penetrating intellect discovered in them unknown treasures. With an ability and a perseverance equally worthy of admiration, he separated these treasures from the coverings which had hitherto concealed them from vulgar eyes. For example, the earth governs the movements of the moon. The earth is flattened; in other words, its figure is spheroidal. A spheroidal body does not attract as does a sphere. There should then exist in the movement--I had almost said in the countenance--of the moon a sort of impress of the spheroidal figure of the earth. Such was the idea as it originally occurred to Laplace. By means of a minutely careful investigation, he discovered in its motion two well-defined perturbations, each depending on the spheroidal figure of the earth. When these were submitted to calculation, each led to the same value of the ellipticity. It must be recollected that the ellipticity thus derived from the motions of the moon is not the one corresponding to such or such a country, to the ellipticity observed in France, in England, in Italy, in Lapland, in North America, in India, or in the region of the Cape of Good Hope; for, the earth's crust having undergone considerable upheavals at different times and places, the primitive regularity of its curvature has been sensibly disturbed thereby. The moon (and it is this which renders the result of such inestimable value) ought to assign, and has in reality assigned, the general ellipticity of the earth; in other words, it has indicated a sort of average value of the various determinations obtained at enormous expense, and with infinite labor, as the result of long voyages undertaken by astronomers of all the countries of Europe.
Certain remarks of Laplace himself bring into strong relief the profound, the unexpected, the almost paradoxical character of the methods I have attempted to sketch. What are the elements it has been found necessary to confront with each other in order to arrive at results expressed with such extreme precision? On the one hand, mathematical formulae deduced from the principle of universal gravitation; on the other, certain irregularities observed in the returns of the moon to the meridian. An observing geometer, who from his infancy had never quitted his study, and who had never viewed the heavens except through a narrow aperture directed north and south,--to whom nothing had ever been revealed respecting the bodies revolving above his head, except that they attract each other according to the Newtonian law of gravitation,--would still perceive that his narrow abode was situated upon the surface of a spheroidal body, whose equatorial axis was greater than its polar by a three hundred and sixth part. In his isolated, fixed position he could still deduce his true distance from the sun!
Laplace's improvement of the lunar tables not only promoted maritime intercourse between distant countries, but preserved the lives of mariners. Thanks to an unparalleled sagacity, to a limitless perseverance, to an ever youthful and communicable ardor, Laplace solved the celebrated problem of the longitude with a precision even greater than the utmost needs of the art of navigation demanded. The ship, the sport of the winds and tempests, no longer fears to lose its way in the immensity of the ocean. In every place and at every time the pilot reads in the starry heavens his distance from the meridian of Paris. The extreme perfection of these tables of the moon places Laplace in the ranks of the world's benefactors.
In the beginning of the year 1611, Galileo supposed that he found in the eclipses of Jupiter's satellites a simple and rigorous solution of the famous problem of the longitude, and attempts to introduce the new method on board the numerous vessels of Spain and Holland at once began. They failed because the necessary observations required powerful telescopes, which could not be employed on a tossing ship. Even the expectations of the serviceability of Galileo's methods for land calculations proved premature. The movements of the satellites of Jupiter are far less simple than the immortal Italian supposed them to be. The labors of three more generations of astronomers and mathematicians were needed to determine them, and the mathematical genius of Laplace was needed to complete their labors. At the present day the nautical ephemerides contain, several years in advance, the indications of the times of the eclipses and reappearances of Jupiter's satellites. Calculation is as precise as direct observation.
Influenced by an exaggerated deference, modesty, timidity, France in the eighteenth century surrendered to England the exclusive privilege of constructing her astronomical instruments. Thus, when Herschel was prosecuting his beautiful observations on the other side of the Channel, we had not even the means of verifying them. Fortunately for the scientific honor of our country, mathematical analysis also is a powerful instrument. The great Laplace, from the retirement of his study, foresaw, and accurately predicted in advance, what the excellent astronomer of Windsor would soon behold with the largest telescopes existing. When, in 1610, Galileo directed toward Saturn a lens of very low power which he had just constructed with his own hands, although he perceived that the planet was not a globe, he could not ascertain its real form. The expression "tri-corporate," by which the illustrious Florentine designated the appearance of the planet, even implied a totally erroneous idea of its structure. At the present day every one knows that Saturn consists of a globe about nine hundred times greater than the earth, and of a ring. This ring does not touch the ball of the planet, being everywhere removed from it to a distance of twenty thousand (English) miles. Observation indicates the breadth of the ring to be fifty-four thousand miles. The thickness certainly does not exceed two hundred and fifty miles. With the exception of a black streak which divides the ring throughout its whole contour into two parts of unequal breadth and of different brightness, this strange colossal bridge without foundations had never offered to the most experienced or skillful observers either spot or protuberance adapted for deciding whether it was immovable or endowed with a motion of rotation. Laplace considered it to be very improbable, if the ring was stationary, that its constituent parts should be capable of resisting by mere cohesion the continual attraction of the planet. A movement of rotation occurred to his mind as constituting the principle of stability, and he deduced the necessary velocity from this consideration. The velocity thus found was exactly equal to that which Herschel subsequently derived from a series of extremely delicate observations. The two parts of the ring, being at different distances from the planet, could not fail to be given different movements of precession by the action of the sun. Hence it would seem that the planes of both rings ought in general to be inclined toward each other, whereas they appear from observation always to coincide. It was necessary then that some physical cause capable of neutralizing the action of the sun should exist. In a memoir published in February, 1789, Laplace found that this cause depended on the ellipticity of Saturn produced by a rapid movement of rotation of the planet, a movement whose discovery Herschel announced in November of the same year.
If we descend from the heavens to the earth, the discoveries of Laplace will appear not less worthy of his genius. He reduced the phenomena of the tides, which an ancient philosopher termed in despair "the tomb of human curiosity," to an analytical theory in which the physical conditions of the question figure for the first time. Consequently, to the immense advantage of coast navigation, calculators now venture to predict in detail the time and height of the tides several years in advance. Between the phenomena of the ebb and flow, and the attractive forces of the sun and moon upon the fluid sheet which covers three fourths of the globe, an intimate and necessary connection exists; a connection from which Laplace deduced the value of the mass of our satellite the moon. Yet so late as the year 1631 the illustrious Galileo, as appears from his 'Dialogues,' was so far from perceiving the mathematical relations from which Laplace deduced results so beautiful, so unequivocal, and so useful, that he taxed with frivolousness the vague idea which Kepler entertained of attributing to the moon's attraction a certain share in the production of the diurnal and periodical movements of the waters of the ocean.
Laplace did not confine his genius to the extension and improvement of the mathematical theory of the tide. He considered the phenomenon from an entirely new point of view, and it was he who first treated of the stability of the ocean. He has established its equilibrium, but upon the express condition (which, however, has been amply proved to exist) that the mean density of the fluid mass is less than the mean density of the earth. Everything else remaining the same, if we substituted an ocean of quicksilver for the actual ocean, this stability would disappear. The fluid would frequently overflow its boundaries, to ravage continents even to the height of the snowy peaks which lose themselves in the clouds.
No one was more sagacious than Laplace in discovering intimate relations between phenomena apparently unrelated, or more skillful in deducing important conclusions from such unexpected affinities. For example, toward the close of his days, with the aid of certain lunar observations, with a stroke of his pen he overthrew the cosmogonic theories of Buffon and Bailly, which were so long in favor. According to these theories, the earth was hastening to a state of congelation which was close at hand. Laplace, never contented with vague statements, sought to determine in numbers the rate of the rapid cooling of our globe which Buffon had so eloquently but so gratuitously announced. Nothing could be more simple, better connected, or more conclusive than the chain of deductions of the celebrated geometer. A body diminishes in volume when it cools. According to the most elementary principles of mechanics, a rotating body which contracts in dimensions must inevitably turn upon its axis with greater and greater rapidity. The length of the day has been determined in all ages by the time of the earth's rotation; if the earth is cooling, the length of the day must be continually shortening. Now, there exists a means of ascertaining whether the length of the day has undergone any variation; this consists in examining, for each century, the arc of the celestial sphere described by the moon during the interval of time which the astronomers of the existing epoch call a day; in other words, the time required by the earth to effect a complete rotation on its axis, the velocity of the moon being in fact independent of the time of the earth's rotation. Let us now, following Laplace, take from the standard tables the smallest values, if you choose, of the expansions or contractions which solid bodies experience from changes of temperature; let us search the annals of Grecian, Arabian, and modern astronomy for the purpose of finding in them the angular velocity of the moon: and the great geometer will prove, by incontrovertible evidence founded upon these data, that during a period of two thousand years the mean temperature of the earth has not varied to the extent of the hundredth part of a degree of the centigrade thermometer. Eloquence cannot resist such a process of reasoning, or withstand the force of such figures. Mathematics has ever been the implacable foe of scientific romances. The constant object of Laplace was the explanation of the great phenomena of nature according to inflexible principles of mathematical analysis. No philosopher, no mathematician, could have guarded himself more cautiously against a propensity to hasty speculation. No person dreaded more the scientific errors which cajole the imagination when it passes the boundary of fact, calculation, and analogy.
Once, and once only, did Laplace launch forward, like Kepler, like Descartes, like Leibnitz, like Buffon, into the region of conjectures. But then his conception was nothing less than a complete cosmogony. All the planets revolve around the sun, from west to east, and in planes only slightly inclined to each other. The satellites revolve around their respective primaries in the same direction. Both planets and satellites, having a rotary motion, turn also upon their axes from west to east. Finally, the rotation of the sun also is directed from west to east. Here, then, is an assemblage of forty-three movements, all operating alike. By the calculus of probabilities, the odds are four thousand millions to one that this coincidence in direction is not the effect of accident.
It was Buffon, I think, who first attempted to explain this singular feature of our solar system. "Wishing, in the explanation of phenomena, to avoid recourse to causes which are not to be found in nature," the celebrated academician sought for a physical cause for what is common to the movements of so many bodies differing as they do in magnitude, in form, and in their distances from the centre of attraction. He imagined that he had discovered such a physical cause by making this triple supposition: a comet fell obliquely upon the sun; it pushed before it a torrent of fluid matter; this substance, transported to a greater or less distance from the sun according to its density, formed by condensation all the known planets. The bold hypothesis is subject to insurmountable difficulties. I proceed to indicate, in a few words, the cosmogonic system which Laplace substituted for it.
According to Laplace, the sun was, at a remote epoch, the central nucleus of an immense nebula, which possessed a very high temperature, and extended far beyond the region in which Uranus now revolves. No planet was then in existence. The solar nebula was endowed with a general movement of rotation in the direction west to east. As it cooled it could not fail to experience a gradual condensation, and in consequence to rotate with greater and greater rapidity. If the nebulous matter extended originally in the plane of its equator, as far as the limit where the centrifugal force exactly counterbalanced the attraction of the nucleus, the molecules situate at this limit ought, during the process of condensation, to separate from the rest of the atmospheric matter and to form an equatorial zone, a ring, revolving separately and with its primitive velocity. We may conceive that analogous separations were effected in the remoter strata of the nebula at different epochs and at different distances from the nucleus, and that they gave rise to a succession of distinct rings, all lying in nearly the same plane, and all endowed with different velocities.
This being once admitted, it is easy to see that the permanent stability of the rings would have required a regularity of structure throughout their whole contour, which is very improbable. Each of them, accordingly, broke in its turn into several masses, which were obviously endowed with a movement of rotation coinciding in direction with the common movement of revolution, and which, in consequence of their fluidity, assumed spheroidal forms. In order, next, that one of those spheroids may absorb all the others belonging to the same ring, it is sufficient to suppose it to have a mass greater than that of any other spheroid of its group.
Each of the planets, while in this vaporous condition to which we have just alluded, would manifestly have a central nucleus, gradually increasing in magnitude and mass, and an atmosphere offering, at its successive limits, phenomena entirely similar to those which the solar atmosphere, properly so called, had exhibited. We are here contemplating the birth of satellites and the birth of the ring of Saturn.
The Nebular Hypothesis, of which I have just given an imperfect sketch, has for its object to show how a nebula endowed with a general movement of rotation must eventually transform itself into a very luminous central nucleus (a sun), and into a series of distinct spheroidal planets, situate at considerable distances from one another, all revolving around the central sun, in the direction of the original movement of the nebula; how these planets ought also to have movements of rotation in similar directions; how, finally, the satellites, when any such are formed, must revolve upon their axes and around their respective primaries, in the direction of rotation of the planets and of their movement of revolution around the sun.
In all that precedes, attention has been concentrated upon the 'Mécanique Céleste.' The 'Système du Monde' and the 'Théorie Analytique des Probabilités' also deserve description.
The Exposition of the System of the World is the 'Mécanique Céleste' divested of that great apparatus of analytical formulae which must be attentively perused by every astronomer who, to use an expression of Plato, wishes to know the numbers which govern the physical universe. It is from this work that persons ignorant of mathematics may obtain competent knowledge of the methods to which physical astronomy owes its astonishing progress. Written with a noble simplicity of style, an exquisite exactness of expression, and a scrupulous accuracy, it is universally conceded to stand among the noblest monuments of French literature.... The labors of all ages to persuade truth from the heavens are there justly, clearly, and profoundly analyzed. Genius presides as the impartial judge of genius. Throughout his work Laplace remained at the height of his great mission. It will be read with respect so long as the torch of science illuminates the world.
The calculus of probabilities, when confined within just limits, concerns the mathematician, the experimenter, and the statesman. From the time when Pascal and Fermat established its first principles, it has rendered most important daily services. This it is which, after suggesting the best form for statistical tables of population and mortality, teaches us to deduce from those numbers, so often misinterpreted, the most precise and useful conclusions. This it is which alone regulates with equity insurance premiums, pension funds, annuities, discounts, etc. This it is that has gradually suppressed lotteries, and other shameful snares cunningly laid for avarice and ignorance. Laplace has treated these questions with his accustomed superiority: the 'Analytical Theory of Probabilities' is worthy of the author of the 'Mécanique Céleste.'
A philosopher whose name is associated with immortal discoveries said to his too conservative audience, "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 lessening their value or impugning their truth. For this reason, it has been thought better rather to glance briefly at the work of Laplace than to repeat the eulogies of his admirers.