L E V L E V 487
He was once more, by the summons of Arago, recalled to planetary studies, and this time it was to Uranus that his attention was directed. Step by step, with sagacious and patient accuracy, he advanced to the great discovery which has immortalized his name. Carefully sifting all the known causes of disturbance, he showed that one hitherto unknown must be added to their number, and on the 23d of September 1840 the planet Neptune was discerned by Galle at Berlin, within one degree of the spot indicated by Leverrier. See ASTRONOMY, p. 813.
This memorable achievement was greeted with an outburst of public enthusiasm, and requited with a shower of public distinctions. Academies vied with each other in enrolling Leverrier among their members; the Royal Society awarded him the Copley medal: the king of Denmark sent him the order of the Dannebrog; he was named officer in the Legion of Honour, and preceptor to the Comte de Paris; a chair of astronomy was created for his benefit at the Faculty of Sciences; he was appointed adjunct astronomer to the Bureau of Longitudes. Returned to the Legislative Assembly in 1849 by his native department of Manche, he voted with the anti-republican party, but devoted his principal attention to subjects connected with science and education. After the coup d'état he became a senator and inspector-general of superior instruction, sat upon the commission for the reform of the École Polytechnique (1854), and, on January 30, 1854, succeeded Arago as director of the Paris observatory. His official work in the latter capacity would alone have strained the energies of an ordinary man. The institution had fallen into a state of lamentable inefficiency. Leverrier placed it on a totally new footing, freed it from the control of the Bureau of Longitudes, and raised it to its due rank among the observatories of Europe. He did not, however, escape the common lot of reformers. His uncompromising measures and unconciliatory manner of enforcing them raised a storm only appeased by his removal, February 5, 1870. Three years later, on the death of his successor Delaunay, he was reinstated by M. Thiers, but with authority restricted by the supervision of a council. In the midst of these disquietudes, he executed with unflinching resolution a task the gigantic proportions of which cannot be contemplated without amazement. This was nothing less than the complete revision of the planetary theories, together with a laborious comparison of results with the most authentic observations, and the construction of tables representing the movements thus corrected. It required all his indomitable perseverance to carry through to the end a purpose which failing health continually menaced with frustration. He had, however, the happiness of living long enough to perfect his work. Three weeks after he had affixed his signature to the printed sheets of the theory of Neptune he died at Paris, in his sixty-seventh year, September 23, 1877. By his marriage with Mademoiselle Choquet, who survived him little more than a month, he left a son and daughter.
The discovery with which the memory of this great man is popularly identified was only an incident in his career. The elaboration of the scheme of the heavens traced out by Laplace in the Mécaniqne Céleste was its larger aim, for the accomplishment of which forty years of unremitting industry barely sufficed. The work once done, however, may almost be said to have been done for all time, from the extraordinary care with which errors were guarded against, and imperfections in the data allowed for. The organization of the meteorological service in France is entirely due to Leverrier, and the present system of international weather-warnings is the realization of a design which he warmly promoted. He founded the Association Scientifique, and was active in introducing a practical scientific element into public education. His inference of the existence, between Mercury and the sun, of an appreciable (quantity of circulating matter (Comptes Rendus, 1859, ii. p. 379), though unquestionably sound, has not yet been satisfactorily verified by observation. He was twice, in 1868 and 1876, the recipient of the gold medal of the Royal Astronomical Society, London, and the university of Cambridge conferred upon him, in 1875, the honorary degree of LL.D. All his planetary tables have been adopted by the Nautical Almanac, as well as by the Connaissance des Temps.
The Annales de l'Observatoire de Paris, the publication of which was set on foot by Leverrier, contain, in vols. i.-vi. (Mémoires), 1855-61, and x.-xiv., 1874-77, his theories and tables of the several planets. In vol. i. will be found, besides his masterly report on the observatory, a general theory of secular inequalities, in which the development of the disturbing function is carried to a point hitherto unattempted. The memoirs and papers communicated by him to the Academy have been summarized in Comptes Rendus, 1839-76, and the more important published in full either separately, or in the Conn. des Temps and the Journal des Mathématiques. That entitled Développemens sur différents points de la Théorie des perturbations, 1841, has been translated in part xviii. of Taylor's Scientific Memoirs. For his scientific work see Professor Adams's address, Monthly Notices, vol. xxxvi. p. 232, and M. Tisserand's review in Ann. de l'Obs., tom, xv., 1880; for a notice of his life, M. Bertrand's "Éloge Historique," Mém. de l'Ac. des Sciences, tom. xli., 2me série. (A. M. C.)
LEVIS, formerly Pointe Levi or Point Levis, the chief town of a county of the same name in Canada, on the other side of the St Lawrence from Quebec, with which it communicates by a ferry. In the beginning of the present century Pointe Levi was a cluster of white houses, with a church and a number of large mills; it has now become an important station on the Grand Trunk Railway, and in the extent of its river trade is surpassed by only a few places in the Dominion. In 1881 the population was 7597.
LEVITES ((
Hebrew characters)), or sons of Levi ((Hebrew characters)), are defined
according to the usual methods of Hebrew genealogical
history as the descendants of Levi, the third son of Jacob
by Leah (Gen. xxix. 34).[1] But in Hebrew genealogies
we are not necessarily entitled to look upon the eponymus
of a tribe as more than an ideal personality, and, without
entering into the large question how far the patriarchal
history may be held to furnish exceptions to this rule, it
may be observed that the only narrative in which, on a
literal interpretation, Levi appears as a person (Gen.
xxxiv.) bears internal evidence of the intention of the
author to delineate under the form of personification events
in the history of the tribes of Levi and Simeon which
must have taken place after the sojourn of Israel in Egypt.[2]
The same events are alluded to in Gen. xlix. 5-7, where
Simeon and Levi are plainly spoken of as communities
with a communal assembly ((Hebrew characters)). They were allied tribes
or brothers; their onslaught on the Shechemites was
condemned by the rest of Israel; it took place before the
Hebrews had passed from pastoral to settled life (ver. 5,
"instruments of violence are their shepherds' staves");
and its results were disastrous to the actors, when their
cause was disavowed by their brethren. The Bnê Hamor
regained possession of Shechem, as we know from Judges
ix., and both the assailing tribes were scattered through
Israel, and failed to secure an independent territorial
position. The details of this curious portion of the earliest
Hebrew history must remain obscure; the narrative in
Gen. xxxiv. does not really place them in so clear a light as
the briefer reference in Gen. xlix.; for the former chapter
has been recast and largely added to by a late writer, who
looks upon the action of the brethren in the light of the
priestly legislation, and judges it much more favourably
than is done in Gen. xlix. In post-canonical Judaism the
favourable view of the zeal of Levi and Simeon becomes still
more dominant (Judith ix. 2 sq.; B. Jubil., chap. xxx.;
1 In Gen. xxix. 34 the name of Levi is connected with (Hebrew characters), "attach oneself to." The form, however, is that of a gentile noun, and it is most probably a nisbeh from Leah, as suggested by Wellhausen. See also Stade in Z. f. ATliche Wissenschaft, i. 115.
2 Jacob in verse 30 is not a personal but a collective idea, for he says, "I am a few men,"; and the capture and total destruction of a considerable city is in the nature of things the work of two tribes rather than of two individuals.
