_ BOOK XVI. THE TEN YEARS OF PEACE.--1746-1756
Chapter XI. THIRD ACT AND CATASTROPHE OF THE VOLTAIRE VISIT
Meantime there has a fine Controversy risen, of mathematical, philosophical and at length of very miscellaneous nature, concerning that Konig-Maupertuis dissentience on the LAW OF THRIFT. Wonderful Controversy, much occupying the so-called Philosophic or Scientific world; especially the idler population that inhabit there. Upon this item of the Infinitely Little,--which has in our time sunk into Nothing-at-all, and but for Voltaire, and the accident of his living near it, would be forgotten altogether,--we must not enter into details; but a few words to render Voltaire's share in it intelligible will be, in the highest degree, necessary. Here, in brief form, rough and ready, are the successive stages of the Business; the origin and first stage of which have been known to us for some time past:--
"SEPTEMBER, 1750, Konig, his well-meant visit to Berlin proving so futile, had left Maupertuis in the humor we saw;--pirouetting round his Apartment, in tempests of rage at such contradiction of sinners on his sublime Law of Thrift; and fulminating permission to Konig: 'No time to read your Paper of Contradictions; publish it in Leipzig, in Jericho; anywhere in the Earth, in Heaven, in the Other Place, where you have the opportunity!' Konig, returning on these terms, had nothing for it but to publish his Paper; and did publish it, in the Leipzig--Acta Eruditorum--for March, 1751. There it stands, legible to this day: and if any of the human species should again think of reading it, I believe it will be found a reasonable, solid and decisive Paper; of steadfast, openly articulate, by no means insolent, tone; considerably modifying Maupertuis's Law of Thrift, or Minimum of Action;--fatal to the claim of its being a 'Sublime Discovery,' or indeed, so far as TRUE, any discovery at all. [In--Acta Eruditorum--(Lipsiae, 1751):--"De universali Principio AEquilibrii et Motus."--By no means uncivil to Maupertuis; though obliged to controvert him. For example:--"Quoe itaque de Minima Actionis in modificationibus modum obtinente in genere proferuntur vehementer laudo;" "continent nempe facundum longeque pulcherrimum Dynamices sublimioris principium, cujus vim in difficillimis quoestionibus soepe expertus fui."--] By way of finis to the Paper, there is given, what proves extremely important to us, an Excerpt from an old LETTER OF LEIBNITZ'S; which perhaps it will be better to present here IN CORPORE, as so much turned on it afterwards. Konig thus winds up:--
"I add only a word, in finishing; and that is, that it appears Mr. Leibnitz had a theory of Action, perhaps much more extensive than one would suspect at present. There is a Letter written by him to Mr. Hermann [an ancient mathematical sage at Basel], where he uses these expressions: 'Action, is not what you think; the consideration of Time enters into it; Action is as the product of the mass by the space and the velocity, or as the time by the VIS VIVA. I have remarked that in the modifications of motion, the action becomes usually a maximum or a minimum:--and from this there might several propositions of great consequence be deduced. It might serve to determine the curves described by bodies under attraction to one or more centres. I had meant to treat of these things in the Second Part of my DYNAMIQUE; which I suppressed, the reception of the First, by prejudice in many quarters, having disgusted me.'" [MAUPERTUISIANA, No. ii. 22 (from--Acta Eruditorum,--ubi supra). In MAUPERTUISIANA, No. iv. 166, is the whole Letter, "Hanover, 16th October, 1707;" no ADDRESS left, judged to be to Hermann. MAUPERTUISIANA (Hamburg, 1753) is a mere Bookseller's or even Bookbinder's Farrago, with printed TITLE-PAGE and LIST, of the chief Pamphlets which had appeared on this Business (sixteen by count, various type, all 8vo size, in my copy). Of which only No. ii. (Konig's APPEL AU PUBLIC) and No. iv. (2d edition of said APPEL, with APPENDIX OF CORRESPONDENCE) are illuminative to read.] Your Minimum of Action, it would appear, then, is in some cases a Maximum; nothing can be said but that, in every case it is EITHER a Maximum or Minimum. What a stroke for our LAW OF THRIFT, the "at last conclusive Proof" of an Intelligent Creator, as the Perpetual President had fancied it!"So-ho, what is this! My Discovery an Error? And Leibnitz discovered it, so far as true?"--
"May 28th-8th OCTOBER, 1751. Maupertuis, compressing himself what he can, writes to Konig: 'Very good, Monsieur. But please inform me where is that Letter of Leibnitz's; I have never seen or heard of it before,--and I want to make use of it myself.' To which Konig answers: 'Henzi gave it me, in Copy [unfortunate Conspirator Henzi, who lost his head three years ago, by sentence of the Oligarch Government at Berne]: [Government by "The Two Hundred;" of Select-Vestry nature, very stiff, arbitrary and become rife in abuses; against whom had risen angry mutterings more than once, and in 1749 a Select Plot (not select ENOUGH, for they discovered it in time). Poor Ex-Captain Henzi, "Clerk *of the Salt-Office," most frugal, studious and quiet of men; a very miracle, It would appear, of genius, solid learning, philosophy and piety,--not the chief or first of the conspirators, but by far the most distinguished,--was laid hold of, July 2d, 1749, and beheaded, with another of them, a day or two after. Much bewailed in a private way, even by the better kinds of people. (Copious account of him in--Adelung,--vii. 86-91.)]--he, poor fellow, had no end of Papers and Excerpts; had, as we know, above a hundred volumes of the latter kind; this, and some other Letters of Leibnitz's, among them,--I send you the whole Letter, copied faithfully from his Copy.' ["The Hague, 26th June," in--Maupertuisiana,--No. iv. 130.] To that effect, still in perfect good-humor, was Konig's reply to his Maupertuis.
"'Hm, Copy? By Henzi?' grumbles Maupertuis to himself:--'Search in Berne, then; it must be there, if anywhere!' To Konig Maupertuis answers nothing: but sulkily resolves on having Search made;--and, to give solemnity to the matter, requests his Excellency Marquis de Paulmy, the French Ambassador at Berne, to ask the Government there,--Government having seized all Henzi's Papers, on beheading him. Excellency Paulmy does, accordingly, make inquiry in the highest quarter; some inquiries up and down. Not the least account of this, or of any Leibnitz Letter, to be had from among Henzi's Papers,--the 'hundred volumes,' seemingly, exist no longer;--Original of this Leibnitz Piece is nowhere. For eight months the highest Authorities have been looking about (with one knows not what vivacity or skill in searching), and have found nothing whatever." Stage second of the Business finishes in this manner.
How lucky for the Perpetual President, had he stopped here! To Konig and the common contradiction of sinners he could have opposed, as it was apparently his purpose to do, an Olympian silence, "Pshaw!" Whereby the small matter, interesting to few, would have dropped gently into dubiety, into oblivion, and been got well rid of. But this of the great Leibnitz, touching on one's LAW OF THRIFT; and not only "discovering" it, half a century beforehand, but discovering that it was not true: to Leibnitz one must speak;--and the abstruse question is, What is one to say? "Find me the original; let us be certain, first:" that you can say; that is one dear point; and pretty much the only one. The rest, at this time, as I conjecture, may have been not a little abstruse to the Perpetual President!
And now, had the Perpetual President but stopped here, there might still have rested a saving shadow of suspicion on Konig's Excerpt, That it was not exact, that it might be wrong in some vital point:--"You never showed me the Original, Monsieur!" Unluckily, the Perpetual President did not stop. One cannot well fancy him believing, now or ever, that Konig had forged the Excerpt. Most likely he had the fatal persuasion that these were Leibnitz's words; and the question, What was to be said or done, if the Original SHOULD turn up? might justly be alarming to a Son of the Pure Sciences. But at this point a new door of escape disclosed itself: "Where is the Original, I say!"--and he rushed, full speed, into that; galloping triumphantly, feeling all safe.
"OCTOBER 7th (1751), Maupertuis summons his Academy: 'Messieurs, permit me to submit a case perhaps requiring your attention. One of our number dissents from your President's Discovery of the Law of Thrift; which surely he is free to do: but furthermore he gives an Excerpt purporting to be from Leibnitz; whereby it would appear that your President's Discovery, sanctioned in your Acts as new, is not new, but Leibnitz's (so far as it is good for anything),--possibly stolen, therefore; and, at any rate, fifty-four years old. In self-defence, I have demanded to see the Original of said Excerpt; and the Honorable Member in question does not produce it. What say you?' 'Shame to him!' say they all [there seem to be but few Scientific Members, and most of them, it is insinuated, have Pensions from the King through their Perpetual President];--and determine to make a Star-chamber matter of it!
"Accordingly, next day, OCTOBER 8th) Secretary Formey writes officially to Konig, 'Produce that Letter within one month,'--and has got his Majesty to order, That our Prussian Minister at the Hague shall take charge of delivering such message, and shall mark on what day. Thing serious, you see!--Prussian Minister at the Hague delivers, and dockets accordingly. To Konig's astonishment; who is in a scene of deep trouble at this time; Royal Highness the Stadtholder suddenly dead, or dying: 'died October 22d; leaving a very young Heir, and a very sorrowful Widow and Country.' Much to think of, that lies apart from the Maupertuis matter! Which latter, however, is so very serious too, his Prussian Majesty's Minister at Berne is now charged to make new perquisition for the Leibnitz Original there: In short, within one month that Document is peremptorily wanted at Berlin."
High proceedings these;--and calculated to have one result, if no other. Namely, that, at this point, as readers can fancy, the idler Public, seeing a street-quarrel in progress, began to take interest in the Question of MINIMUM; and quasi-scientific gentlemen to gather round, and express, with cheery capable look, their opinions,--still legible in the vanished JUGEMENS LIBRES (of Hamburg), GAZETTE DE SAVANS (Leipzig), and other poor Shadows of JOURNALS, if you daringly evoke them from the other side of Styx. Which, the whole matter being now so indisputably extinct, shadowy, Stygian, we will not here be guilty of doing; but hasten to the catastrophes, that have still a memorability.
"Konig, having in fact nothing more to say about the Leibnitz Excerpt, was in no breathless haste to obey his summons; he sat almost two months before answering anything. Did then write however, in a friendly strain to Maupertuis (December 10th, 1751). [--Maupertuisiana,--No. iv. 132.] Almost on which same day, as it chanced, the ACADEMIE, after two months' dignified waiting, had in brief terms repeated its order on Konig. [December 11th, 1751 (Ib. 137). To which Konig makes no special answer (having as good as answered the day before);--but does silently send off to Switzerland to make inquiries; and does write once or twice more, when there is occasion for explaining;--always in a clear, sonorous, manfully firm and respectful tone: 'That he himself had, or has, no kind of reason to doubt the authenticity of the Leibnitz Letter; that to himself (and, so far as he can judge, to Maupertuis) the question of its authenticity is without special interest;--he, Konig, having thrown it in as a mere marginal illustration, which decides nothing, either for or against the Law of Thrift. That he has, in obedience to the Academy, caused search to be made in Switzerland, especially at Basel, where he judged the chance might lie; but that of this particular Letter nothing has come to light; that he has two other Leibnitz Letters, of indifferent tenor, in the late Henzi's hand, if these will serve in aught, [--Maupertuisiana,--No. iv. 155; and ib. 172-192, the two Letters themselves.]--but what farther can he do?' In short, Konig speaks always in a clear business-like manful tone; the one person that makes a really respectful and respectable figure in this Controversy of the Infinitely Little. A man whom, viewed from this quiet distance, it seems almost inconceivably absurd to have suspected of forging for so small an object. Oh, my President, that DIRA REGNANDI CUPIDO!--
"Question is, however, What the Academy will do? One Member, 'the best Geometer among them' [whose name is not given, but which the Berlin Academy should write in big letters across this sad Page of their Annals, by way of erasure to the same], dissented from the high line of procedure; asserting Konig's innocence in this matter; nay, hinting agreement with Konig's opinion. But was met by such a storm, that he withdrew from the deliberations; which henceforth went their own bad course, unanimous though slow. And so the matter pendulates all through Winter, 1751-52, and was much the theme of idle men."
Voltaire heard of it vaguely all along; but not with distinctness till the end of July following. As Spring advanced, Maupertuis had fallen ill of lungs,--threatened with spitting of blood ("owing to excess of brandy," hints the malicious Voltaire, "which is fashionable at St. Malo," birthplace of Maupertuis),--and could not farther direct the Academy in this affair. The Academy needs no direction farther. Here, very soon, for a sick President's consolation, is what the Academy decides on, by way of catastrophe:--
THURSDAY EVENING, 13th APRIL, 1752, The Academy met; Curator Monsieur de Keith, presiding; about a score of acting Members present. To whom Curator de Keith, as the first thing, reads a magnanimous brief Letter from our Perpetual President: "That, for two reasons, he cannot attend on this important occasion: First, because he is too ill, which would itself be conclusive; but secondly, and A FORTIORI, because he is in some sense a party to the cause, and ought not if he could." Whereupon, Secretary Formey having done his Documentary flourishings, Curator Euler--(great in Algebra, apparently not very great in common sense and the rules of good temper)--reads considerable "Report;" [Is No. 1 of--Maupertuisiana.--] reciting, not in a dishonest, but in a dim wearisome way, the various steps of the Affair, as readers already know them; and concludes with this extraordinary practical result: "Things being so (LES CHOSES ETANT TELLES): the Fragment being of itself suspect [what could Leibnitz know of Maxima and Minima? They were not developed till one Euler did it, quite in late years!], [--Maupertuisians,--No. i. 22.] of itself suspect; and Monsieur Konig having failed to" &c. &c.,--"it is assuredly manifest that his cause is one of the worst (DES PLUS MAUVAISES), and that this Fragment has been forged." Singular to think!"And the Academy, all things duly considered, will not hesitate to declare it false (SUPPOSE), and thereby deprive it publicly of all authority which may have been ascribed to it" (HEAR, HEAR! from all parts).
Curator de Keith then collects the votes,--twenty-three in all; some sixteen are of working Members; two are from accidental Strangers ("travelling students," say the enemy); the rest from Curators of Quality:--Vote is unanimous, "Adopt the Report. Fragment evidently forged, and cannot have the least shadow of authority (AUCUNE OMBRE D'AUTHORITE). Forged by whom, we do not now ask; nor what the Academy could, on plain grounds, now do to Monsieur Konig [NOT nail his ears to the pump, oh no!]; enough, it IS forged, and so remains." Signed, "Curator de Keith," and Six other Office-bearers; "Formey, Perpetual Secretary"' closing the list.
At the name Keith, a slight shadow (very slight, for how could Keith help himself?) crosses the mind: "Is this, by ill luck, the Feldmarschall Keith?" No, reader; this is Lieutenant-Colonel Keith; he of Wesel, with "Effigy nailed to the Gallows" long since; whom none of us cares for. Sulzer, I notice too, is of this long-eared Sanhedrim. ACH, MEIN LIEBER SULZER, you don't know (do you, then?) DIESE VERDAMMTE RACE, to what heights and depths of stupid malice, and malignant length of ear, they are capable of going. "Thursday, 13th April," this is Forger Konig's doom:--and, what is observable, next morning, with a crash audible through Nature, the Powder-Magazine flew aloft, killing several persons! [Supra, p. 203.] Had no hand, he, I hope, in that latter atrocity?
On authentic sight of this Sentence (for which Konig had at once, on hearing of it, applied to Formey, and which comes to him, without help of Formey, through the Public Newspapers) Konig, in a brief, proud enough, but perfectly quiet, mild and manful manner, resigns his Membership. "Ceases, from this day (June 18th, 1752), to have the honor of belonging to your Academy; 'an honor I had been the prouder of, as it came to me unasked;'--and will wish, you, from the outside henceforth, successful campaigns in the field of Science." [--Maupertuisiana,--No. iv. 129.] And sets about preparing his Pamphlet to instruct mankind on the subject. Maupertuis, it appears, did write, and made others write to Konig's Sovereign Lady, the Dowager Princess of Orange, "How extremely handsome it would be, could her Most Serene Highness, a friend to Pure Science, be pleased to induce Monsieur Konig not to continue this painful Controversy, but to sit quiet with what he had got." [Voltaire (infra).] Which her Most Serene Highness by no mean thought the suitable course. Still less did Konig himself; whose APPEAL TO THE PUBLIC, with DEFENCE OF APPEAL,--reasonably well done, as usual, and followed and accompanied by the multitude of Commentators,--appeared in due course. ["September, 1752, Konig's APPEL" (Preuss, in--OEuvres de Frederic,--xv. 60 n.).] Till, before long, the Public was thoroughly instructed; and nobody, hardly the signing Curators, or thin Euler himself, not to speak of Perpetual Formey, who had never been strong in the matter, could well believe in "forgery" or care to speak farther on such a subject. Subject gone wholly to the Stygian Fens, long since; "forgery" not now imaginable by anybody!
The rumor of these things rose high and wide; and the quantity of publishing upon them, quasi-scientifically and otherwise, in the serious vein and the jocose, was greater than we should fancy. ["Letter from a Marquis;" "Letter from Mr. T---to M. S---" (Mr. T. lives in London;--"JE TRAVERSE LE Queen's Square, ET JE RENCONTRE NOTRE AMI D---: 'AVEZ-VOUS LA l'Appel au Public?' DIT-IL"--); "Letter by Euler in the Berlin Gazette," &c. &c. (in--Maupertuisiana--).] Voltaire, for above a month past, had been fully aware of the case (24th July, 1752, writing to Niece, "heard yesterday"); not without commentary to oneself and others. Voltaire, with a kind of love to Konig, and a very real hatred to Maupertuis and to oppression generally, took pen himself, among the others (Konig's APPEAL just out),--could not help doing it, though he had better not! The following small Piece is perhaps the one, if there be one, still worth resuscitating from the Inane Kingdoms. Appeared in the BIBLIOTHEQUE RAISONNEE (mild-shining Quarterly Review of those days), JULY-SEPTEMBER Number. _