Maupertuis, not many months ago, had, in Two successive Papers, Ithink Two, communicated to the Academy a Discovery of Metaphysico-Mathematical or altogether Metaphysical nature, on the Laws of Motion;--Discovery which he has, since that, brought to complete perfection, and sent forth to the Universe at large, in his sublime little Book of COSMOLOGY; [In La Beaumelle, Vie de Maupertuis (Paris, 1856), pp. 105-130, confused account of this "Discovery," and of the gradual Publication of it to mankind,--very gradual; first of all in the old Paris times;in the Berlin ACADEMY latterly; and in fine, to all the world, in this ESSAI DE COSMOLOGIE (Berlin, Summer of 1750).]--grateful Academy striving to admire, and believe, with its Perpetual President, that the Discovery was sublime to a degree; second only to the flattening of the Earth; and would probably stand thenceforth as a milestone in the Progress of Human Thought.
"Which Discovery, then?" Be not too curious, reader; take only of it what shall concern you!
It is well known there have been, to the metaphysical head, difficulties almost insuperable as to How, in the System of Nature, Motion is? How, in the name of wonder, it can be; and even, Whether it is at all? Difficulties to the metaphysical head, sticking its nose into the gutter there;--not difficult to my readers and me, who can at all times walk across the room, and triumphantly get over them. But stick your nose into any gutter, entity, or object, this of Motion or another, with obstinacy,--you will easily drown, if that be your determination!--Suffice it for us to know in this matter, that Maupertuis, intensely watching Nature, has discovered, That the key of her enigma (or at least the ultimate central DOOR, which hides all her Motional enigmas, the key to WHICH cannot even be imagined as discoverable!) is, that "Nature is superlatively THRIFTY in this affair of motion;" that she employs, for every Motion done or do-able, "a MINIMUM OF ACTION;" and that, if you well understand this, you will, at least, announce all her procedures in one proposition, and have found the DOOR which leads to everything. Which will be a comfort to you; still looking vainly for the key, if there is still no key conceivable.
Perpetual President Maupertuis, having surprised Nature in this manner, read Papers upon it to an Academy listening with upturned eyes; new Papers, perfected out of old,--for he has long been hatching these Phoenix-eggs; and has sent them out complete, quite lately, in a little Book called COSMOLOGIE, where alone I have had the questionable benefit of reading them. Grandly brief, as if coming from Delphi, the utterance is; loftily solemn, elaborately modest, abstruse to the now human mind; but intelligible, had it only been worth understanding:--a painful little Book, that COSMOLOGIE, as the Perpetual President's generally are. "Minimum of Action, LOI D'EPARGNE, Law of Thrift," he calls this sublime Discovery;--thinks it will be Sovereign in Natural Theology as well: "For how could Nature be a Save-all, without Designer present?"--and speaks, of course, among other technical points, about "VIS VIVA, or Velocity multiplied by the Square of the Time:"which two points, "LOI D'EPARGNE," and that "the VIS VIVA is always a Minimum," the reader can take along with him; I will permit him to shake the others into Limbo again, as forgettable by human nature at this epoch and henceforth.
In La Beaumelle's Vie de Maupertuis (printed at last, Paris, 1856, after lying nearly a century in manuscript, an obtuse worthless leaden little Book), there is much loud droning and detailing, about this COSMOLOGIE, this sublime "Discovery," and the other sublime Discoveries, Insights and Apocalyptic Utterances of Maupertuis; though in so confused a fashion, it is seldom you can have the poor pleasure of learning exactly when, or except by your own severe scrutiny, exactly what. For reasons that will appear, certain of those Apocalyptic Utterances by Perpetual President Maupertuis have since got a new interest, and one has actually a kind of wish to read the IPSISSIMA VERBA of them, at this date! But in La Beaumelle (his modern Editor lying fast asleep throughout) there is no vestige of help. Nay Maupertuis's own Book, [ OEuvres de Maupertuis, Lyon, 1756, 4 vols.
4to.] luxurious cream-paper Quartos, or Octaves made four-square by margin,--which you buy for these and the cognate objects,--proves altogether worthless to you. The Maupertuis Quartos are not readable for their own sake (solemnly emphatic statement of what you already know; concentrated struggle to get on wing, and failure by so narrow a miss; struggle which gets only on tiptoe, and won't cease wriggling and flapping); and then (to your horror) they prove to be carefully cleaned of all the Maupertuis-VOLTAIRE matter;--edition being SUBSEQUENT to that world-famous explosion.
CAVEAT EMPTOR.--Our Excerpt proceeds:--
"Industrious Konig, like other mathematical people, has been listening to these Oracles on the 'Law of Minimum,' by the Perpetual President; and grieves to find, after study, That said Law does not quite hold; that in fact it is, like Descartes's old key or general door, worth little or nothing; as Leibnitz long ago seems to have transiently recognized. Konig has put his strictures on paper: but will not dream of publishing, till the Perpetual President have examined them and satisfied himself; and that is Konig's business at present, as he knocks on Maupertuis, while Sol is crossing the Line. Maupertuis has a House of the due style: