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"I have swept the heavens with my telescope," said Lalande, "and I have not found your God." "The heavens are telling no more the glory of God," said Auguste Comte, "but that of Herschel and Laplace." Is it indeed so?

Laplace says that the only observation which the history of astronomy offers us, made by the Greeks before the school of Alexandria, is that of the summer solstice of the year B.C. 432. by Meton and Euctemon. We have, for the first time, in that school, a combined system of observations made with instruments for the measurement of angles, and calculated by trigonometrical methods.

M. Picavet's laborious researches into the activities of this school of thinkers has helped us to understand the transition from the age of Condorcet to the age of Comte. M. Picavet has grouped around them, along with many obscurer names, the great scientific men of the time, like Laplace, Bichat, Lamarck, as all in the direct line of eighteenth century thought.

A special interest attached at that time to the question whether the ring is divided or not, for Laplace had then recently published the results of his mathematical inquiry into the movements of such a ring as Saturn's, and, having proved that a single solid ring of such enormous width could not continue to move around the planet, had expressed the opinion that Saturn's ring consists in reality of many concentric rings, each turning, with its own proper rotation rate, around the central planet.

Granting then the high probability of the two theories of Evolution, that which begins with Laplace and explains the way in which the earth was fitted to be the habitation of living creatures, and that which owes its name to Darwin and gives an account of the formation of the living creatures now existing, we have to see what limitations and modifications are necessarily attached to our complete acceptance of both.

Yielding at once to filial affection, to a noble feeling of patriotism, and to the enthusiasm for brilliant discoveries which a course of severe study inspired, General Laplace had long since qualified himself for becoming the editor of the seven volumes which are destined to immortalize his father.

However, they became reassured as to the fate of future generations on being apprised that, according to the calculations of Laplace, this acceleration of motion is confined within very restricted limits, and that a proportional diminution of speed will be certain to succeed it. So, then, the stability of the solar system would not be deranged in ages to come.

While he accepted the honours which Napoleon showered on him in the time of his prosperity, he seems to have forgotten all this when Napoleon could no longer render him service. Laplace was made a Marquis by Louis XVIII., a rank which he transmitted to his son, who was born in 1789. During the latter part of his life the philosopher lived in a retired country place at Arcueile.

But listen first to the simple precautions which I mean to take. You command the Guards, don't you? Well, have fifteen or twenty men, under your Sergeant Laplace, lying in some quiet place between here and headquarters." "Great heavens!" cried Matta. "An ambush? You mean to rob the unhappy man? I cannot go so far as that!" "Poor simpleton that you are!" was the reply. "Look fairly at the facts.

What if Omnipotence should actually have said, "Yes, poor mortals, such of you as have gone so far shall be permitted to go farther"? To Emerson in 1867 he writes: After all explanations of Newton or Laplace, the Universe is, to him, a mystery, and we ourselves the miracle of miracles; sight and knowledge leave us no "less forlorn," and beneath all the soundings of science there is a deeper deep.