" Certain it is that Laplace and Lagrange continued the best
of friends, and on the death of the latter it was Laplace who was
summoned to deliver the funeral oration at the grave of his great
rival.
The investigations of Laplace are, generally speaking, of too
technical a character to make it possible to set forth any account of
them in such a work as the present. He did publish, however, one
treatise, called the "Systeme du Monde," in which, without
introducing mathematical symbols, he was able to give a general
account of the theories of the celestial movements, and of the
discoveries to which he and others had been led. In this work the
great French astronomer sketched for the first time that remarkable
doctrine by which his name is probably most generally known to those
readers of astronomical books who are not specially mathematicians.
It is in the "Systeme du Monde" that Laplace laid down the principles
of the Nebular Theory which, in modern days, has been generally
accepted by those philosophers who are competent to judge, as
substantially a correct expression of a great historical fact.
[PLATE: LAPLACE.]
The Nebular Theory gives a physical account of the origin of the
solar system, consisting of the sun in the centre, with the planets
and their attendant satellites.
Pages:
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252