the rights due to beating hearts? There, restless he goes, the arrow of that question in his side-now through the broad waste lands-now through the dim woods, pausing oft with short quick sigh, with hand swept across his brow as if to clear away a cloud;-now snatched from our sight by the evergreens round

the tomb in that still churchyardnow emerging slow, with melancholy eyes fixed on the old roof-tree! What will he do with it? The Question of Questions in which all Futurity is opened, has him on its rack. WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT? Let

us see.

SCIENCE is deeply indebted to France and Germany. In laborious integrity and patient persistence the German is pre-eminent, but there is one quality in which the French savant is remarkably distinguished from his rival, and that is the valuable quality of excellent literature. He knows how to compose a book, and how to write it. The German who can write with clearness and elegance is a rare phenomenon. In general he seems to make it a matter of conscience to punish his reader. He is as terrified at clearness as at a ghost, dreading lest clearness should be mistaken for shallowness-which in England and in Germany is generally the case. We dread the imputation of shallowness; but the idea of not being gründlich would whiten the German's hair with instantaneous horror; and thus, as Tieck wittily complains, "he never rises to the surface for very profunditylauter Gründlichkeit."

aus

The Frenchman is, in merit and demerit, the very reverse of this. He always seems to be addressing an audience of savants, brilliant women, and witty men of letters. He too desires to be profound, exact; but he almost equally aims at elegance and finesse. He knows that if his style be not clear, his impatient countrymen will pass on, for tout ce qui n'est pas clair n'est pas Français. Unless his syntax be correct, he will be unmercifully quizzed; unless his style be agreeable, he will be voted a pedant.

The reason of this contrast, apart from the organic differences which

Mélanges

make the German mind so unlike the French, is perhaps mainly to be sought in the fact that Frenchmen, for more than a century, have been in the habit of appealing to women and the general public-writing for the salon in some measure-knowing that, even at the sittings of the Academy, men and women from the outer world will be present. One of the most serious men, and one of the most eminent thinkers, of modern France, assured us once, with some triumph, that plusieurs beaux mouchoirs brodés waved applause at his lecture. A German would probably have felt the presence of those embroidered handkerchiefs a slight on his gravity. He certainly would have thrown no graces into his discourse to set that embroidery in a flutter. He speaks to students; he writes for professors; he despises the laity. Elegance! What has he to do with such foppery Style! he is not an artist. If his periods are a page long, at least they contain every qualification and restriction which his propositions demand mehr kann man nicht verlangen.

M. Biot is every inch a Frenchman. Among the most eminent of European physicists, a brilliant cultivator of exact science, he expresses himself with the clearness, finesse, and epigrammatic felicity of an admirable writer. To profound research he adds a charming talent. His touch is as light as if it were not also firm. The movement of his mind is aided, not impeded, by knowledge. And in these three volumes of republished essays, reviews, and

biographies, our readers will find philosophy without headache, solid instruction in the lightest, pleasantest manner. They are the gatherings of half a century, 1807-1858. He was a young man when some of them were written, and the readers to whom they were addressed, are readers no more; another and a different generation now listens to the "old man eloquent;" but no one will detect the least want of freshness in these pages.

The first of these various Mélanges is an interesting reminiscence of Laplace. M. Biot, when a young and totally unknown professor of mathematics, ventured to write to Laplace, who was then printing the immortal Mécanique Celeste (made accessible to English readers by Mrs Somerville in her Mechanism of the Heavens); the object of his letter was to gain sight of the proof-sheets as soon as they were printed, in order that he might go over the calculations for his own benefit, and rectify any errors of the press that might easily pass unnoticed by the author. Laplace consented with great kindness; and from time to time young Biot brought his corrections, and with them a list of doubts and difficulties, which in general were explained by the great astronomer, but sometimes not a little perplexed him. The piquant part of the anecdote is, that these obscure passages were generally those in which Laplace passed over the details with the convenient formula, "It is easy to see." ... But so far from being easy to see, it often required considerable research to see it. At the time he wrote the formula, the idea was doubtless clear enough to his mind; but now, when called upon to explain -when placed in the position of the reader who did not see-Laplace was himself at fault. "Then he patiently sought to recover it by various ways, both for my benefit and his own; and this was the most instructive of commentaries. Once I saw him pass nearly an hour in the endeavour to recall the chain of reasoning which he had concealed under the mysterious phrase, il est aisé de voir." What a benefit to authors if they could always have their proof-sheets thus

read! How many of us would find ourselves totally unable to explain the grounds upon which propositions rest. But readers who think out what they read are rare, and thus we escape detection.

On another occasion, M. Biot having made an important discovery in one of the abstrusest branches of mathematics, which had baffled every one, mentioned it to Laplace, who listened with great attention, questioned him respecting his method, and the details of his solutions, and finally desired him to bring his memoir on the following day. Joyfully, yet tremulously, the young mathematician presented his memoir to the illustrious master. Having carefully read it, Laplace said, "This is an excellent bit of work; you have taken the right path. But the notions you present at the close are somewhat too remote. Don't go beyond the actual results you have reached. The present state of analysis does not permit of your going further." After a struggle, which every author will understand, Biot yielded, and struck out the conclusion. "Now," said Laplace, "all is very good. Present your memoir to-morrow to the Academy, and dine with me afterwards." Tomorrow came, and at the Academy the young man found the great Monge, who had been informed by Laplace of the discovery, and spoke about it; Lagrange and Lacroix were also there; and no less a person than General Buonaparte, recently arrived from Syria; but the General was a less terrible personage to the young mathematician than was Lagrange; and when Buonaparte, glancing at the diagram, exclaimed, “I know that by the figures," Biot silently thought to himself, "you must be very clever to recognise those figures, inasmuch as nobody except Laplace has ever seen them before;" and his respect for the General's opinion on such questions must have oscillated about zero. And now comes the beauty of the anecdote. The memoir was read, an immense success obtained,-Biot was a "made man." He accompanied Laplace home, receiving his congratulations on the way. Arrived there, Laplace said, “Come into my study for a minute, I have something

to show you." Biot followed, sat down, and prepared to listen. Laplace unlocked a little drawer, took out a bundle of papers, yellow with age, and "there he showed me all my problems solved by that very method which I had discovered. He had made the discovery years before, but had been arrested by the very difficulty which he pointed out to me; and had paused, where he had advised me to pause-hoping at some future time to surmount the obstacle. He had never mentioned this to any one-not even to me when I brought my memoir to him." A more noble anecdote is not to be found in the annals of science. Instead of the irritable jealousy so usual among men, instead of the clamorous assertion of priority, and the ignoble insinuations of plagiarism, we here see a man not only capable of abnegation in favour of a younger rival, but capable of a delicacy as rare as the abnegation, never alluding to his own discovery until his rival had obtained complete success, and obtained it partly by the judicious advice to remove what was hazardous in the memoir. "Had he shown me his paper before the meeting, I could not have presented mine, knowing his priority; and even had he required me to keep it secret, with what embarrassment should I have been seized, knowing myself to be an echo only." Laplace carried his delicacy to the point of insisting on the secret being kept, even after this success; and he forbade Biot from even making an allusion to it. Not until 1850 was the secret revealed, and then, said his grateful friend and pupil, "en rendant cet hommage à sa mémoire, je lui désobéis."

Of a very different character is the second paper in these volumes. It is the report of M. Biot to the Academy, of an inquiry he was commissioned to make into the truth of a fall of meteoric stones in the Department de l'Orme. The scientific world nowadays is perfectly convinced of the fact that meteoric stones do fall; scepticism is no longer permissible; but even if it were, M. Biot's report would carry conviction, and may now be read as a model of scientific investigation. "Of what value," he

pertinently asks, "is the opinion of those who have none of the means of rightly forming an opinion? In doubtful questions the ignorant believe, the half-learned decide, the man of science examines." And he rightly says that the impatient desire to explain everything caused the truth of meteoric phenomena to be so long rejected; because men could not explain the phenomenon, they refused to believe it. He first discusses the nature of the testimony respecting meteoric stones, and in the very uniformity of this testimony he sees an evidence of truth. The ignorance of the witnesses gives greater force to their unanimity, for if the fact stated were false, the testimony would indicate various substances, and various circumstances; and in such a question, where personal interest is in no degree involved, the chance of concurrence in testimony is excessively slight, whereas that of divergence in testimony is almost infinitely multiplied. M. Biot's recital of his course of investigation is very interesting. He first ascertains the mineralogical structure of the spot where the stones have been found, and finds that in no respect is there any faint approach to substances such as physical and chemical investigation proves these stones to be. He then examines the testimony of those who saw the meteor, and those who heard its explosion. Instead of going at once to the spot where the meteor is said to have fallen, he begins by drawing a circle of some miles round it, and compares the testimony of those living at a distance with those living on the spot; by this means he finds a remarkable uniformity as to time and circumstance-points on which the testimony of men who were inventing, or were deluded, would necessarily differ. But, inasmuch as peasants, women, children, priests, and soldiers, in a circle of ten miles, all concur as to the main facts of time and circumstance, and as this testimony is supported by the presence of the stones said to have fallen, and by the nature of these stones, which are totally unlike anything to be found

district, and are like other Jones said to have fallen

elsewhere, the conclusion is inevitable.

The peculiar interest of this paper can, of course, only be appreciated after a careful examination of all the details, and this would occupy too much space for us to attempt the reproduction here. We must, therefore, refer the curious reader to the original, as also for the astronomical papers which succeed. Newton occupies the rest of the volume, from page 123 to page 459, and all Englishmen and men of science will read these studies of the great philosopher with deep interest, except, perhaps, Sir David Brewster, whose two biographical attempts on the Life of Newton are criticised with searching sagacity, abundant knowledge, and caustic wit. It is in these pages, and not in those of Sir David Brewster, that we must look for a faithful portrait of the man, and a philosophical estimate of his works. The memoir M. Biot originally contributed to the Biographie Universelle (here reprinted) remains by far the best memoir of Newton; and completed, as it is in this volume, by the materials since disclosed in Flamsteed's "Life," the correspondence with Cotes, and Sir David Brewster's second "Life," little is left for the student to desire.

M. Biot thus sums up his review of Sir David's recent biography: "I must confess with regret that it seems to me at once superficial and diffuse. The materials are distributed without order; so that we are often obliged to seek far and wide for those details which belong to the same class, to form a whole. The inflated tone (le ton d'emphase) which reigns from beginning to end, becomes at last fatiguing from all which it might unhappily be found a wearisome work. I hope, rather than believe, that Dr Brewster will not tax me with infidelity for this opinion."

:

The theological differences between Sir David and his rival cannot, of course, be reconciled. The Frenchman, as a Catholic, must necessarily be indisposed to accept Newton's interpretation of the "eleventh horn' in Daniel indicating the Church of Rome, even although Sir David has

for twenty years assured him that it can be perfectly "demonstrated." But their differences on other pointssuch, for instance, as the quarrel with Leibnitz, or Newton's temporary insanity-admit of settlement. At any rate, the studious reader will find ample material in these pages on which to form a judgment for himself. We cannot touch upon them here, but will rather select a more insignificant point, which is not without its interest.

The story of the fall of an apple having suggested the theory of gravitation, is one of those popular stories which modern criticism ruthlessly avers to be mythical. In his first "Life of Newton," Sir David Brewster rejected it as a myth, perhaps because M. Biot had repeated it. Except as a biographical anecdote, it is utterly indifferent whether the story be true or mythical; for it is quite clear that the fall of ten thousand apples could have led to no discovery of gravitation, unless observed by a mind already so prepared to make the discovery, that any falling body would have served as a starting-point. But is it true? Dr Brewster declared that the circumstance was not mentioned by Dr Stukeley nor by Conduit, and that "no authority could be found for it." In his review of this work, M. Biot replied that Pemberton positively said it was in this very garden, where the apple-tree stood, that the idea occurred to Newton, and that Conduit expressly says the idea of gravitation

66

was hit upon by observing an apple falling from a tree." One would imagine this was authenticity enough, especially as Dr Brewster claimed Conduit's silence among his chief reasons for denying the story; yet, after Conduit had been cited by M. Biot expressly in favour of this story, Sir David, in his recent biography, sticks to his incredulity, and furnishes this very equivocal evidence : "Neither Pemberton nor Whiston, who received from Newton himself the history of his first ideas of gravity, records the story of the falling apple."* Perhaps not; he might have thought it beneath his gravity

to mention such a detail. But his niece told the story, and Conduit told it. We think, on such testimony, it may be accepted, and rhetoricians may still refer without misgiving, if also without much eloquent effect, to "Newton and the falling apple."

as

The second volume of these Mélanges opens with an essay on the influence of exact ideas on literature, in which the author defends, but not very powerfully, the proposition, that the progress of science, so far from destroying, or in any way impeding, the free march of poetical and literary genius, does in truth furnish it with more lasting material to work on. It is an old quarrel this of the poets and men of science. The feeble poets have ever been prone to insinuate that the cause of their feebleness lies in the loss of the early faiths and early superstitions. If Imagination no longer exercises her empire over mankind, the cause is to be sought in the usurpation of that empire by Reason, who is vituperated cold." Our poets doubtless think it was easier to write successful poems when the early credulities of men furnished abundant subjects, and when numerous poets had not already treated those subjects-as, to the investigator of to-day, it seems easier for a man to make a figure in philosophy before the public became critical in regard to proofs, and before other philosophers had exhausted the primary facts and mooted the primary questions. Yet, in truth, it was as difficult to get a Homer as, centuries later, to get a Shakespeare or a Goethe. Aristotle and Archimedes were products as rare as Newton and Lavoisier. The progress of science can in no way cripple genius, nor aid it, except by rendering its works more worthy of immortal honour, by giving it more of immortal truth to work upon. The exact sciences cannot themselves be poems, yet the progress of scientific knowledge will free poetry from absurd mistakes.

The subject is not well handled by our author; but he pertinently remarks, that if the common accusation against science is true, it will prove that literary beauties cannot withstand the test of examination:

"Ainsi elles n'ont aucun fonds réel, et elles ne peuvent être goûtées que par des gens qui ont renoncé à l'usage de leur raison et de leur jugement." Happily, he says, the accusation is not true; and he then endeavours to prove that great writers are more highly appreciated the more closely examined, because their works are not mere jingle and glitter, but "the faithful and enlightened imitation of nature. Observe what truth in the descriptions and the sentiments of Homer! Can you there find an inexact image, an untruthful epithet?" Alas! yes, M. Biot, hundreds of inexact images and untruthful epithets are to be found in Homer; and it is to be feared that "exact science" would no more justify some of his descriptions, than criticism can justify much of his imagery and diction. The very errors of Homer are interesting to us. We note, as characteristic of his age, the frequent repetitions, the incessant tautology, the indiscriminating use of epithets, and the accumulation of mere expletives, and we receive from them a sort of archaic charm; but we never, when we are wise, look on these things as excellences. It is not on the ground of scientific exactness that Homer claims the worship of the world. When M. Biot passes from his preface, and begins the real purpose of his essay, which is to show how Bernardin St Pierre and Chateaubriand have written grandiloquent nonsense in what they say of natural phenomena, he is on safer ground. His ridicule and exposure of these writers are deserved; but he omits to mark the distinction between these writers and the classics with whom he compares themnamely, that St Pierre and Chateaubriand commit gross scientific errors in passages expressly devoted to scientific topics: they go out of their way to display their ignorance; whereas Racine, Bossuet, and Lafontaine, although even more ignorant of science than St Pierre or Chateaubriand, are not amenable to its criticism, because they do not directly venture on its domain. When Homer

says

Ει περ γὰρ τε χόλον γε καὶ αὐτῆμαρ κατα πέψῃ.

which Shakespeare reproduces in