The '1416canique Cdieste' was partly translated into English by a learned American writer, Dr. Bowditch, whose death, though it pre vented his superintending the close of his work, did not take place till the whole was ready for press. The well-known work of Mrs. Somer ville is a selection from the '316canique Cdleste,' involving all the fundamental parts of the theory of grsvitatiou. The 'Systdme du Monde' was translated by the late astronomer-royal, Mr. Pond. The fundamental parte of the ' Th6urie des Probabilit6e' will be found in the ' Encyclopaedia Metropolitans,' article ' Theory of Probabilities,' by Mr. Do Morgan; and the method of using Laplacie'e results, with no other knowledge than that of common arithmetic, iu the ' Essay on Probabilities,' by the same author, in Dr. Lerdueris ' Cabinet Cycloptedia.' In the article on Probabilities' in the Eucyclopmdia Britannica • the same results of analysis are treated.
It is sometimes stated by English writers that Laplace was an atheist. We have etteutively examined every passage which has been brought in proof of this aseertiou, and we eau find nothing which makes either for or against euch a supposition. It is easy, with an
hypothesis, to interpret passages of an author ; but We are quite ceu vioced that a person reading Laplace for philosophical information would meet with nothing which could either raise or solve a question as to the writer's opinions on the fundamental point of natural religion, unless it had beau put into his head to look. An attempt to explain how the solar system might possibly have arisen from the cooling of a mass of fluid or vapour is called atheistical, because it attempts to asccud one step in the chain of causes : the' Principia' of Newton was designated by the same term, aud for a similar reason. What Laplace's opiuions were, we do not know ; and it is not fair that a writer who, at a time of perfect licence on such matters, has studiously avoided entering un the subject, should be stated of one opinion or the other, upon the authority of a few passages of which it can only be said (as it could equally be said of most mathematical works) that they might have been written by a person of any religious or political sentiments whatever.