remembered that the discoveries of such a man as D'Alembert were
utterly incapable of being appreciated except by those who possessed
a high degree of mathematical culture. We nevertheless find the
potentates of Russia and Prussia entreating and, as it happens,
vainly entreating, the most distinguished mathematician in France to
accept the positions that they were proud to offer him.

It was to D'Alembert, the profound mathematician, that young Laplace,
the son of the country farmer, presented his letters of
introduction. But those letters seem to have elicited no reply,
whereupon Laplace wrote to D'Alembert submitting a discussion on some
point in Dynamics. This letter instantly produced the desired
effect. D'Alembert thought that such mathematical talent as the
young man displayed was in itself the best of introductions to his
favour. It could not be overlooked, and accordingly he invited
Laplace to come and see him. Laplace, of course, presented himself,
and ere long D'Alembert obtained for the rising philosopher a
professorship of mathematics in the Military School in Paris. This
gave the brilliant young mathematician the opening for which he
sought, and he quickly availed himself of it.

Laplace was twenty-three years old when his first memoir on a
profound mathematical subject appeared in the Memoirs of the Academy
at Turin. From this time onwards we find him publishing one memoir
after another in which he attacks, and in many cases successfully
vanquishes, profound difficulties in the application of the Newtonian
theory of gravitation to the explanation of the solar system. Like
his great contemporary Lagrange, he loftily attempted problems which
demanded consummate analytical skill for their solution. The
attention of the scientific world thus became riveted on the splendid