'I have done little since I wrote last but revised Leslie's conics, and read a part of Laplace's 'exposition du systeme du monde' not the mecanique celeste for I alas, am not one of the gifted half-dozen that can understand it - but the original of that book which Smeal once brought from Selkirk and lent to you.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Carlyle Print: Book
'I had read some little of Laplace when I saw you; & I continue to advance with a diminishing velocity. I turned aside into Leslie's conics - '
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Carlyle Print: Book
'I am amusing myself with Miss Austin's [sic] novels. She has great power and discrimination in delineating common-place people; and her writings are a capital picture of real life, with all the little wheels and machinery laid bare like a patent clock. But she explains and fills out too much. Those who have not power to fill up gaps and bridge over chasms as they read, must therefore take particular delight in such minuteness of detail. It is a kind of Bowditch's Laplace in the romantic astronomy. But readers of lively imagination naturally prefer the original with its unexplained steps, which they so readily supply.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Print: Book
'It is a considerable time since I saw Leslie's review of La Place'[s] essay on chances - and remarked with considerable surprise - the bold avowall of his sentiments on Hume's doctrine - "The Christian Instructor" attacks him with considerable asperity - and, I think, success. Hume's essays, I have not read - and therefore cannot condemn - The evidence of testimony, too, no doubt has its limits - But as far as I can judge, all that is urged either by La Place or His reviewer - does not at all affect Christianity.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Carlyle Print: Book
