MÉCANIQUE CÉLESTE.
GENIUS OF LA PLACE.
His chief work, the “Celestial Mechanics,”—“Mécanique Céleste,”—he began to publish in 1799, and finished the fourth volume in 1805.[11] This placed him much above all his contemporaries. In it he had not only combined many things which he himself had discovered, but likewise gave a history, as it were, of all that had been done by geometricians from the time of Sir Isaac Newton until his own day. La Place found many things detached, but his genius proved that many apparently discordant facts could be explained by Newton’s theory of universal gravitation. His labor must have been immense. All Europe rang with the fame of this production, which was said to be beyond anything ever performed before by man. The echo of its fame reached America, and Dr. Bowditch obtained the volumes, as they were successively published. The first two he received in part payment for his labors on the “Navigator.”
Soon after his arrival home from his fourth voyage, Dr. Bowditch was taking his accustomed walk towards the lower part of the town of Salem, and met his old friend, Captain Prince. They entered into conversation, and Dr. Bowditch remarked that he had, a short time before, received a book from France, which he had long wished for, having heard that it was superior to anything ever before written by man, and which very few were able to comprehend. This work was that to which I have been alluding, and it now renders Dr. Bowditch’s own name familiarly known among mathematicians.
SYSTEM OF THE WORLD.
Later in life, La Place published a work called the “System of the World.” In this, which, comparatively speaking, is not difficult to be read by almost any one, he attempts to give a plain and simple statement of all that is known in regard to those wise and magnificent laws, whereby this solar system is kept together in perfect harmony, while at the same time it is sailing onward through fields of space.
LA PLACE A SENATOR.
DR. BOWDITCH’S LABORS.
La Place, however, was not a truly noble man, because he was not strictly just. It is said that he was willing to attribute to himself the discoveries of others. On Napoleon Bonaparte’s becoming first consul in France, La Place was made one of the ministers of the state; but he was soon found to be better fitted for study than for the practical duties of a public office. Accordingly he retired after a few weeks’ service, but was made a member of the Senate, of which he became president. After finishing his political career, he published other works of great moment; but of those I shall not speak. About the year 1827 he was seized with an acute disorder, which soon terminated his life. His last words are remarkable, as conveying the same truth that every wise man has upon his lips at the hour of death. As he reviewed the amount of his learning, which was in one respect greater than that of any man living, he exclaimed, “What we know here is very little, but what we are ignorant of is immense.” Every man is compelled to become silent and modest as he sees death approach. La Place was like other common men. He died as a man, and was buried, and the men of science felt sad that one so learned and of so strong an intellect should have departed. Endowed by the Almighty with the loftiest powers of intellect, he stood alone, and commanded the respect, if he did not always gain the love, of his associates. Dr. Bowditch, though he regarded La Place as the greatest mathematician that had ever lived, had little real sympathy with his character.
LAWS OF GRAVITY.