Woman in Science Part 12

There is still a third work of this ill-fated woman that deserves notice--namely, her _Astronomical Canon_, which dealt with the movements of the heavenly bodies. It is the general opinion that this was but a commentary on the tables of Ptolemy, in which event it is still possible that it may be found incorporated in the work of her father, Theon, on the same subject.

In addition to her works on astronomy and mathematics, Hypatia is credited with several inventions of importance, some of which are still in daily use. Among these are an apparatus for distilling water, another for measuring the level of water, and a third an instrument for determining the specific gravity of liquids--what we should now call an areometer. Besides these apparatus, she was likewise the inventor of an astrolabe and a planisphere.

One of her most distinguished pupils was the eminent Neo-platonist philosopher, Synesius, who became the Bishop of Ptolemais in the Pentapolis of Libya. His letters const.i.tute our chief source of information respecting this remarkable woman. Seven of them are addressed to her, and in four others he makes mention of her. In one of them he writes: "We have seen and we have heard her who presides at the sacred mysteries of philosophy." In another he apostrophizes her as "My benefactress, my teacher,--_magistra_--my sister, my mother."

In science Hypatia was among the women of antiquity what Sappho was in poetry and what Aspasia was in philosophy and eloquence--the chiefest glory of her s.e.x. In profundity of knowledge and variety of attainments she had few peers among her contemporaries, and she is ent.i.tled to a conspicuous place among such luminaries of science as Ptolemy, Euclid, Apollonius, Diophantus and Hipparchus.[112]

It is a matter of regret to the admirers of this favored daughter of the Muses that she is absent from Raphael's _School of Athens_; but, had her achievements been as well known and appreciated in his day as they are now, we can readily believe that the incomparable artist would have found a place for her in this masterpiece with the matchless form and features of his beloved Fornarina.

After the death of Hypatia the science of mathematics remained stationary for many long centuries. Outside of certain Moors in Spain, the only mathematicians of note in Europe, until the Renaissance, were Gerbert, afterward Pope Silvester II, and Leonardo da Pisa. The first woman to attract special attention for her knowledge of mathematics was Heloise, the noted pupil of Abelard. According to Franciscus Ambrosius, who edited the works of Abelard and Heloise in 1616, the famous prioress of The Paraclete was a prodigy of learning, for besides having a knowledge of Latin, Greek and Hebrew, which was something extremely rare in her time, she was also well versed in philosophy, theology and mathematics, and inferior in these branches only to Abelard himself, who was probably the most eminent scholar of his age.[113]

Many Italian women, as we have seen in a preceding chapter, were noted for their proficiency in the various branches of mathematics. Some of the most distinguished of them flourished during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Among these were Elena Cornaro Piscopia, celebrated as a linguist as well as a mathematician; Maria Angela Ardingh.e.l.li, translator of the _Vegetable Statics_ of Stephen Hales; Cristina Roccati, who taught physics for twenty-seven years in the Scientific Inst.i.tute of Rovigo, and Clelia Borromeo, fondly called by her countrymen _gloria Genuensium_--the glory of the Genoese. In addition to a special talent for languages, she possessed so great a capacity for mathematics and mechanics that no problem in these sciences seemed to be beyond her comprehension.[114] Then there was also Diamante Medaglia, a mathematician of note, who wrote a special dissertation on the importance of mathematics in the curriculum of studies for women, _Alle matematiche, alle matematiche prestino l'opera loro le donne, onde non cadano in cra.s.si paralogismi_--"To mathematics, to mathematics,"

she cries, "let women devote attention for mental discipline."[115]

The most ill.u.s.trious, by far, of the women mathematicians of Italy was Maria Gaetana Agnesi, who was born in Milan in 1718 and died there at the age of eighty-one. At an early age she exhibited rare intelligence and soon distinguished herself by her extraordinary talent for languages. At the age of five she spoke French with ease and correctness, while only six years later she was able to translate Greek into Latin at sight and to speak the former as fluently as her own Italian. At the early age of nine she startled the learned men and women of her native city by discoursing for an hour in Latin on the rights of women to the study of science. This discourse--_Oratio_--was not, as usually stated, her own composition, but a translation from the Italian of a discourse written by her teacher of Latin. That a child of nine years should speak in the language of Cicero for a full hour before a learned a.s.sembly and without once losing the thread of her discourse was, indeed, a wonderful performance, and we are not surprised to learn that she was regarded by her countrymen as an infant prodigy.[116]

In addition to Italian, French, Latin and Greek, she was acquainted with German, Spanish and Hebrew. For this reason she was, like Elena Cornaro Piscopia, the famous "Venetian Minerva," called Oracolo Settilingue--Oracle of Seven Languages.[117]

But it was in the higher mathematics that Maria Gaetana was to win her chief t.i.tle to fame in the world of learning. So successful had she been in her prosecution of this branch of science that she was, at the early age of twenty, able to enter upon her monumental work--_Le Inst.i.tuzioni a.n.a.litiche_--a treatise in two large quarto volumes on the differential and integral calculus. To this difficult task she devoted ten years of arduous and uninterrupted labor. And if we may credit her biographer, she consecrated the nights as well as the days to her herculean undertaking. For frequently, after working in vain on a difficult problem during the day, she was known to bound from her bed during the night while sound asleep and, like a somnambulist, make her way through a long suite of rooms to her study, where she wrote out the solution of the problem and then returned to her bed. The following morning, on returning to her desk, she found, to her great surprise, that while asleep she had fully solved the problem which had been the subject of her meditations during the day and of her dreams during the night. Could the psychiatrist who so loves to deal with obscure mental phenomena find a more interesting case to engage his attention or one more worthy of the most careful investigation?

Finally Maria Gaetana's _opus majus_ was completed and given to the public. It would be impossible to describe the sensation it produced in the learned world. Everybody talked about it; everybody admired the profound learning of the author, and acclaimed her: "Il portento del sesso, unico al Mondo"--the portent of her s.e.x, unique in the world. By a single effort of her genius she had completely demolished that fabric of false reasoning which had so long been appealed to as proof positive of woman's intellectual inferiority, especially in the domain of abstract science. Maria Gaetana's victory was complete, and her victory was likewise a victory for her s.e.x. She had demonstrated once for all, and beyond a quirk or quibble, that women could attain to the highest eminence in mathematics as well as in literature, that supreme excellence in any department of knowledge was not a question of s.e.x but a question of education and opportunity, and that in things of the mind there was essentially no difference between the male and the female intellect.

The world saw in Agnesi a worthy accession to that n.o.ble band of gifted women who count among their number a Sappho, a Corinna, an Aspasia, a Hypatia, a Paula, a Hroswitha, a Dacier, an Isabella Rosales who, in the sixteenth century, successfully defended the most difficult theological theses in the presence of Paul III and the entire college of cardinals.

And so delighted were the women--especially those in Italy--with the signal triumph of their eminent sister that they defied the traducers of their s.e.x--_muliebris sapientiae infensissimis hostibus_--to continue any longer their unreasonable campaign against the rights of women which were based on the intellectual equality of the two s.e.xes.

So highly did the French Academy of Science value Agnesi's achievement that she would at once have been made a member of this learned body had it not been against the const.i.tutions to admit a woman to members.h.i.+p. M.

Motigny, one of the committee appointed by the Academy to report on the work, in his letter to the author, among other things, writes: "Permit me, Mademoiselle, to unite my personal homage to the plaudits of the entire Academy. I have the pleasure of making known to my country an extremely useful work which has long been desired, and which has. .h.i.therto"--both in France and in England--"existed only in outline. I do not know any work of this kind which is clearer, more methodic or more comprehensive than your _a.n.a.lytical Inst.i.tutions_. There is none in any language which can guide more surely, lead more quickly, and conduct further those who wish to advance in the mathematical sciences. I admire particularly the art with which you bring under uniform methods the divers conclusions scattered among the works of geometers and reached by methods entirely different."

As an indication of the exceptional merit of Agnesi's work, even long after its publication in 1748, it suffices to state that the second volume of the_ Inst.i.tuzioni a.n.a.litiche_ was translated into French in 1775 by Antelmy and annotated by the Abbe Bossuet, a member of the French Academy and a collaborator of D'Alembert on the mathematical part of the famous _Encyclopedie_.

A still greater proof of the estimation in which Agnesi's work was held by men of science is the fact that it was translated in its entirety into English by the Rev. John Colton, Lucasian Professor of Mathematics in the University of Cambridge, and published in 1801, fifty-two years after it had appeared in Italian. His impression of the methods followed by the Milanese _savante_ was so favorable that, in the words of a contemporary writer, it "gave rise to his very spirited resolution of learning a new language at an advanced period of life, that he might make himself perfect master of them."[118]

Gratifying, however, as were the tributes of admiration and appreciation which came to Agnesi from all quarters, from learned societies, from eminent mathematicians, from sovereigns--the Empress Maria Theresa sent her a splendid diamond ring and a precious crystal casket bejeweled with diamonds--that which touched her most deeply was, undoubtedly, the recognition which she received from the great Maecenas of his age, Pope Benedict XIV. As Cardinal Lambertini and Archbishop of Bologna, he had taken a conspicuous part in the honors showered on Laura Ba.s.si when she received her doctorate, and was specially delighted when she was made professor of physics in his favored university. Being himself familiar with the higher mathematics, he recognized at once the exceptional merit of Maria Gaetana's work and showed his appreciation of it not only by letters and presents, but also by having her, _motu proprio_, appointed by the Bolognese senate as professor of higher mathematics in the University of Bologna.

In advising her of this appointment, he writes her that he had in view the honor of the University in which he had always taken a special interest, and that the appointment carried with it no obligation of thanks on her part but rather on his--_che porta seco ch'ella non deve ringraziar Noi, ma che Noi dobbiamo ringraziar lei_. The interest that this wise and broad-minded pontiff exhibited in the advancement of learned women and the rewards he was ever ready to accord to their achievements in science and literature--especially in the cases of Laura Ba.s.si and Maria Gaetana Agnesi--is in keeping with the policy pursued by his predecessors, and accounts in great measure for that large number of learned women in Italy who, since the opening of the first universities, have been the glory of their s.e.x and country.

But ardent as was the desire of the Supreme Pontiff to have Agnesi occupy the chair of mathematics, and numerous as were the appeals of her friends and the members of the university faculty to have her accept the appointment that carried with it such signal honor, she could never be induced to leave her beloved Milan. For, after completing her masterpiece, she resolved to retire from the world and devote the rest of her life to the care of the poor, the sick and the helpless in her native city. She did not, however, as is so frequently a.s.serted, enter the convent and become a nun.[119] During many years after her retirement from the world, she lived in her own home, a part of which she had converted into a hospital. During the last fifteen years of her life she had charge of the Pio Albergo Trivulzio--a large inst.i.tution founded by Prince Trivulzio for the aged poor who were without home or a.s.sistance.

She had devoted ten years of the flower of her life to the writing of her _Inst.i.tuzioni a.n.a.litiche_--prepared primarily for the benefit of one of her brothers who had a taste for mathematics--and, after it was finished, she entered upon that long career of heroic charity which was terminated only at her death at the advanced age of eighty-one.

One loves to speculate regarding Maria Gaetana's possible achievements if she had continued during the rest of her life that science in which, during a few short years, she had won such distinction. She had made her own the discoveries of Newton, Leibnitz, Roberval, Fermat, Descartes, Riccati, Euler, the brothers Bernouilli, and had mastered the entire science of mathematics then known. Her pinions were trimmed for essaying loftier flights than any hitherto attempted, and her intellect was prepared, as one of her scientific friends expressed it, "for fixing the limits of the infinite." But while the world of science was still sounding her praises and predicting for her still greater triumphs in the field of a.n.a.lysis, it learned with surprise and sorrow that she had bid adieu to those studies in which she had achieved such extraordinary success, and had consecrated her life to the service of the poor and the afflicted. She disappeared completely from those literary and scientific reunions where she had so long been the most conspicuous figure, and was thenceforth known only as the ministering angel of the suffering and the abandoned. For half a century hers was a life of the most heroic charity and self-abnegation. Very readily, therefore, we can understand why a recent representative of the scientific world should desire to see her name placed on the calendar of saints.[120]

Had Agnesi devoted her entire life to science instead of abandoning it just when she was prepared to do her best work, she might to-day be ranked among such supreme mathematicians as Lagrange, Monge, Laplace and the Bernouillis, all of whom were her contemporaries. Even as it was, she has been placed beside Cardan, Leibnitz and Euler for her remarkable powers of a.n.a.lysis of infinitesimals, while the best proof of the literary value of her _Inst.i.tuzioni a.n.a.litiche_ is the fact that it has been selected by the famous society Della Crusca as a _testo di lingua_--a work considered as a cla.s.sic of its kind and used in the preparation of the great authoritative dictionary of the Italian language.

But by consecrating herself to charity she probably accomplished far more for humanity and for the well-being of her s.e.x than if she had elected to continue her work in the higher mathematics. There had been many learned women in Italy before her time and many since; many who were distinguished as h.e.l.lenists, as Latinists, as polyglots, as mathematicians--women like the Roccati, the Borghini, the Bra.s.si, the Ardingh.e.l.li, the Barbapiccola, the Caminer Turra, the Tambroni; but Maria Gaetana Agnesi surpa.s.ses them all, not only in knowledge, but as a potent influence for the diffusion of culture and the spirit of brotherhood, for the expansion of benevolence and charity, and, above all, for the elevation of woman. She was also, as her latest and best biographer beautifully expresses it, "an inspired _condottiera_ who, in the field of civility, antic.i.p.ated the conquests of these latter days."

She was, indeed, as her epitaph informs us, _pietate_, _doctrina_, _beneficentia insignis_, and as such she will live in the memory of our race as long as men shall admire genius and love virtue.

In the year following the publication of Agnesi's _Inst.i.tuzioni a.n.a.litiche_ was recorded the premature and tragic death of the distinguished French mathematician, the Marquise emilie du Chatelet. She has been described as a "thinker and scientist, precieuse and pedant, but not the less a coquette--in short, a woman of contradictions."[121]

To most readers she is better known by reason of her liaison with Voltaire, of whom she is regarded as a mere satellite, than for her work in science. But she was far more than a satellite that shone by the light received from the sage of Ferney. For there can be no doubt that she was a highly gifted woman who, besides having a thorough knowledge of several languages, including Latin, possessed a special talent for mathematics. It was said of her that "she read Virgil, Pope and algebra as others read novels," and that she was able "to multiply nine figures by nine others in her head." No less an authority than the ill.u.s.trious Ampere declared her to be "a genius in geometry."

Among her teachers in mathematics were Clairaut, Koenig, Maupertuis, Pere Jaquier and Jean Bernouilli, the immediate predecessors of such distinguished mathematicians as Monge, Lagrange, d'Alembert and Laplace.

At her Chateau of Cirey, where she and Voltaire spent many years together, she was visited by learned men from various parts of Europe.

Among these was the Italian scholar, Francisco Algarotti, who was the author of a work ent.i.tled _Newtonism for Women_. And as Mme. du Chatelet was an ardent admirer of Newton, the author of the _Principia_ soon became a strong bond of union between her and the brilliant Italian. She called the savants who frequented her chateau at Cirey the _emiliens_ and purposed writing memoirs to be ent.i.tled _Emiliana_--a design, however, which she was never able to execute.

The first work of importance from the pen of the Marquise was ent.i.tled _Inst.i.tutions de Physique_. In it she gave an exposition of the philosophy of Leibnitz and dissertations on s.p.a.ce, time and force. In the discussion of the last topic she seems to have antic.i.p.ated some of the later conclusions of science respecting the nature of energy.

Her most noted achievement, however, was her translation of Newton's _Principia_, the first translation into French of this epoch-making work. To translate this masterpiece from its original Latin, it was necessary that the Marquise, in order to make it intelligible to others, should have a thorough understanding of it herself. To the translation she added a commentary, which shows that Mme. du Chatelet had a mathematical mind of undoubted power. She labored a.s.siduously on this great undertaking for many years and completed it only shortly before her death; but it was not published until ten years after her demise.

In his _elogie Historique_ on the Marquise's translation of the _Principia_, Voltaire, in his usual flamboyant style, declares "Two wonders have been performed: one that Newton was able to write this work, the other that a woman could translate and explain it." In an effort to express in a single sentence all his admiration for his talented friend he does not hesitate to state: "Never was woman so learned as she, and never did anyone less deserve that people should say of her, 'She is a learned woman.'" Again he refers to her with characteristic Frenchiness as "a woman who has translated and explained Newton, in one word a very great man--_en un mot un tres grand homme_."[122]

But, although the extent of her attainments and her ability as a mathematician were unquestionable, she fell far short of her great contemporary, Gaetana Agnesi, both in the depth and breadth of her scholars.h.i.+p and in her power of infinitesimal a.n.a.lysis. As to her moral character, she was infinitely inferior to the saintly savante of Milan. She was by inclination and profession an Epicurean and an avowed sensualist. In her little treatise, _Reflexions sur le Bonheur_--Reflections on Happiness--she unblus.h.i.+ngly a.s.serts "that we have nothing to do in this world except procure for ourselves agreeable sensations." Considering her profligate life, bordering at times on utter _abandon_, we are not surprised that one of her countrymen has characterized her as "_Femme sans foi, sans moeurs, sans pudeur_,"--a woman without faith, without morals, without shame.[123]

Anna Barbara Reinhardt of Winterthur in Switzerland was another woman of exceptional mathematical talent. She is remarkable for having extended and improved the solution of a difficult problem that specially engaged the attention of Maupertuis. According to so competent an authority as Jean Bernouilli, she was the superior, as a mathematician, of the Marquise de Chatelet.

Of a more original and profound mathematical mind was Sophie Germain, a countrywoman of the Marquise du Chatelet. Hers was the glory of being one of the founders of mathematical physics. A pupil of Lagrange and a co-worker with Biot, Legendre, Poisson and Lagrange, she has justly been called by De p.r.o.ny "the Hypatia of the nineteenth century."

Her success, however, was not achieved without overcoming many and great difficulties. In the first place, she had to overcome the opposition of her family, who were decidedly averse to her studying mathematics. "Of what use," they asked, "was geometry to a girl?" But in trying to extinguish her ardor for mathematics they but augmented it. Alone and unaided she read every work on mathematics she could find. The study of this science had such a fascination for her that it became a pa.s.sion. It occupied her mind day and night. Finally her parents, becoming alarmed about her health and resolved to force her to take the necessary repose, left her bedroom without fire or light, and even removed from it her clothing after she had gone to bed. She feigned to be resigned; but when all were asleep, she arose and, wrapping herself in quilts and blankets, she devoted herself to her favorite studies, even when the cold was so intense that the ink was frozen in her ink-horn. Not infrequently she was found in the morning chilled through, having been so engrossed in her studies that she was not aware of her condition. Before such a determined will, so extraordinary for one of her age, the family of the young Sophie had the wisdom to permit her to dispose of her time and genius according to her own pleasure. And they did well. Like the great geometer of Syracuse, Archimedes, who had ever been her inspiration in the study of mathematics, she would have died rather than abandon a problem which, for the time being, engaged her attention.

She first attracted the attention of savants by her mathematical theory of Chladni's figures. By the order of Napoleon, the Academy of Science had offered a prize for the one who would "Give the mathematical theory of the vibration of elastic surfaces and compare it with the results of experiment." Lagrange declared the problem insoluble without a new system of a.n.a.lysis, which was yet to be invented. The consequence was that no one attempted its solution except one who, until then, was almost unknown in the mathematical world; and this one was Sophie Germain.

Great was the surprise of the savants of Europe when they learned that the winner of the _grand prix_ of the Academy was a woman. She became at once the recipient of congratulations from the most noted mathematicians of the world. This eventually brought her into scientific relations with such eminent men as Delambre, Fourier, Cauchy, Ampere, Navier, Gauss[124] and others already mentioned.

It was in 1816, after eight years of work on the problem, that her last memoir on vibrating surfaces was crowned in a public seance of the _Inst.i.tut de France_. After this event Mlle. Germain was treated as an equal by the great mathematicians of France. She shared their labors and was invited to attend the sessions of the _Inst.i.tut_, which was the highest honor that this famous body had ever conferred on a woman.

The noted mathematician, M. Navier, was so impressed with the extraordinary powers of a.n.a.lysis evinced by one of Mlle. Germain's memoirs on vibrating surfaces that he did not hesitate to declare that "it is a work which few men are able to read and which only one woman was able to write."

Biot, in the _Journal de Savants_, March, 1817, writes that Mlle.

Germain is probably the one of her s.e.x who has most deeply penetrated the science of mathematics, not excepting Mme. du Chatelet, _for here there was no Clairaut_.[125]

Like Maria Gaetana Agnesi, Mlle. Germain was endowed with a profoundly philosophical mind as well as with a remarkable talent for mathematics.

This is attested by her interesting work ent.i.tled _Considerations Generales sur l'etat des Sciences et des Lettres aux Differentes epoques de Leur Culture_. All things considered, she was probably the most profoundly intellectual woman that France has yet produced. And yet, strange as it may seem, when the state official came to make out the death certificate of this eminent a.s.sociate and co-worker of the most ill.u.s.trious members of the French Academy of Sciences he designated her as a _rentiere_--_annuitant_--not as a _mathematicienne_. Nor is this all. When the Eiffel tower was erected, in which the engineers were obliged to give special attention to the elasticity of the materials used, there were inscribed on this lofty structure the names of seventy-two savants. But one will not find in this list the name of that daughter of genius, whose researches contributed so much toward establis.h.i.+ng the theory of the elasticity of metals,--Sophie Germain.

Was she excluded from this list for the same reason that Agnesi was ineligible to members.h.i.+p in the French Academy--because she was a woman? It would seem so. If such, indeed, was the case, more is the shame for those who were responsible for such ingrat.i.tude toward one who had deserved so well of science, and who by her achievements had won an enviable place in the hall of fame.[126]

Four years after the birth of Sophie Germain was born in Jedburgh, Scotland, one whom an English writer has declared was "the most remarkable scientific woman our country has produced." She was the daughter of a naval officer, Sir William Fairfax; but is best known as Mary Somerville. Her life has been well described as an "un.o.btrusive record of what can be done by the steady culture of good natural powers and the pursuit of a high standard of excellence in order to win for a woman a distinguished place in the sphere naturally reserved for men, without parting with any of those characteristics of mind, or character, or demeanor which have ever been taken to form the grace and the glory of womanhood."[127]

The surroundings of her youth were not conducive to scientific pursuits.

On the contrary, they were entirely unfavorable to her manifest inclinations in that direction. Having scarcely any of the advantages of a school education, she was obliged to depend almost entirely on her own unaided efforts for the knowledge she actually acquired. She, like Sophie Germain, was essentially a self-made woman; and her success was achieved only after long labor and suffering and in spite of the persistent opposition of family and friends.

When she was about fifteen years old, the future Mrs. Somerville received her first introduction to mathematics; and then, strange to say, it was through a fas.h.i.+on magazine. At the end of a page of this magazine, "I read," writes Mrs. Somerville, "what appeared to me to be simply an arithmetical question; but in turning the page I was surprised to see strange-looking lines mixed with letters, chiefly X's and Y's, and asked 'What is that?'" She was told it was a kind of arithmetic, called algebra.

Her interest was at once aroused; and she resolved forthwith to seek information regarding the curious lines and letters which had so excited her curiosity. "Unfortunately," she tells us, "none of our acquaintances or relatives knew anything of science or natural history; nor, had they done so, should I have had courage to ask of them a question, for I should have been laughed at."

Finally she was able to secure a copy of a work on algebra and a Euclid.

Although without a teacher she immediately applied herself to master the contents of these two works, but she had to do so by stealth in bed after she had retired for the night. When her father learned of what was going on, he said to the girl's mother, "Peg, we must put a stop to this, or we shall have Mary in a straightjacket one of these days." The mother, who had no more sympathy with her daughter's scientific pursuits than had the father, and, fully convinced, like the great majority of her s.e.x, that woman's duties should be confined to the affairs of the household, strove to divert her daughter's mind from her "unladylike"

pursuits. But her efforts were ineffectual. The young woman, in spite of all obstacles and opposition, contrived to continue her cherished studies; and, through her uncle, the Rev. Dr. Somerville, afterward her father-in-law, she was able to become proficient in both Latin and Greek. When she was thirty-three years of age she became the happy possessor of a small library of mathematical works. "I had now," she writes, "the means, and pursued my studies with increased a.s.siduity; concealment was no longer necessary, nor was it attempted. I was considered eccentric and foolish, and my conduct was highly disapproved of by many, especially by some members of my own family."[128]

In March, 1827, Mrs. Somerville received a letter from Lord Brougham, who had heard of her remarkable acquirements, begging her to prepare for English readers a popular exposition of Laplace's great work--_Mecanique Celeste_. She was overwhelmed with astonishment at this request, for her modesty made her diffident of her powers; and she felt that her self-acquired knowledge of science was so far inferior to that of university men that it would be sheer presumption for her to undertake the task proposed to her. She was, however, finally persuaded to make the attempt, with the proviso that her ma.n.u.script should be consigned to the flames unless it fulfilled the expectations of those who urged its production.

In less than a year her work, to which she gave the name of _The Mechanism of the Heavens_, was ready for the press. But it was far more than a translation and epitome, as originally intended by its projector, Lord Brougham; for, in addition to the views of Laplace, it contained the independent opinions of the translator respecting the propositions of the ill.u.s.trious French savant. No sooner was the work published than Mrs. Somerville found herself famous. She had, as Sir John Herschel expressed it, "written for posterity," and her book placed her at once among the leading scientific writers and thinkers of the day. She was elected an honorary member of the Royal Astronomical Society at the same time as Caroline Herschel, they being the first two women thus honored.