MacTutor
It will not be expected that any sketch should be attempted here by the labourers of M. de Laplace. No history of his scientific life, of the origin and development of his views, adequate to the occasion, could be included in such limits as those of this Report; and the general nature of the more important results of his researches is already so well known, and so incorporated with the intellectual history of the last half century, that it constitutes a portion of the knowledge of every well-informed man. During the long period of fifty-five years, from the date of his first considerable mathematical production on the integration of equations of differences, in the Turin Memoirs, in 1772, to almost the moment of his death, his march was in the van of intellect; and the highest point of scientific attainment to which the age had reached, was uniformly marked by his progress.
His whole career was a succession of brilliant and profound discoveries, where every great step in the theoretical departments of analytical science was sure to be attended with a corresponding advance in its practical application; and every difficulty which occurred in applying his principles to the sublime problems of physical astronomy, served only to give rise to new methods, and create more powerful engines of mathematical inquiry; a rare combination, of which Archimedes and Newton had afforded the only previous examples, – of a philosophical spirit of the first rank wielding all those unbounded resources of abstract science, which a few extraordinary men of a different turn may have perhaps possessed in an equal or superior degree, but which only attain their highest value when exerted from the vantage-ground of a mind at home in every department of experimental philosophy, impressed with the fullest sense of the importance of practical application, and familiar with all the means of disentangling principles from natural phenomena. Laplace also afforded a conspicuous instance of that union of gentle and amiable social qualities, which is one of the best characteristics of the highest order of genius – as indicating a mind secure of its rank. No pretension – no assumption – nothing dictatorial in science, or offensive in taste, marked his mild and modest deportment. They who have heard his sublimest views propounded with the diffidence of a youth seeking information; they whose early scientific attempts have been encouraged, and whose maturer efforts were assisted and directed by his talents, will long retain a penetrating sense of this estimable feature of his character.
His whole career was a succession of brilliant and profound discoveries, where every great step in the theoretical departments of analytical science was sure to be attended with a corresponding advance in its practical application; and every difficulty which occurred in applying his principles to the sublime problems of physical astronomy, served only to give rise to new methods, and create more powerful engines of mathematical inquiry; a rare combination, of which Archimedes and Newton had afforded the only previous examples, – of a philosophical spirit of the first rank wielding all those unbounded resources of abstract science, which a few extraordinary men of a different turn may have perhaps possessed in an equal or superior degree, but which only attain their highest value when exerted from the vantage-ground of a mind at home in every department of experimental philosophy, impressed with the fullest sense of the importance of practical application, and familiar with all the means of disentangling principles from natural phenomena. Laplace also afforded a conspicuous instance of that union of gentle and amiable social qualities, which is one of the best characteristics of the highest order of genius – as indicating a mind secure of its rank. No pretension – no assumption – nothing dictatorial in science, or offensive in taste, marked his mild and modest deportment. They who have heard his sublimest views propounded with the diffidence of a youth seeking information; they whose early scientific attempts have been encouraged, and whose maturer efforts were assisted and directed by his talents, will long retain a penetrating sense of this estimable feature of his character.
Pierre Simon de Laplace's obituary appeared in Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society 1:9 (1828), 53-54.