594. ASTRONOMY, Bowditch's papers.—
I am indebted to you for Mr. Bowditch's
very learned mathematical papers, the calculations
of which are not for every reader, although
their results are readily enough understood.
One of these impairs the confidence I
had reposed in Laplace's demonstration, that
the eccentricities of the planets of our system
could oscillate only within narrow limits, and
therefore could authorize no inference that the
system must, by its own laws, come one day to
an end. This would have left the question one
of infinitude, at both ends of the line of time,
clear of physical authority.—
To John Adams. Washington ed. vii, 112.
(M.
1819)
