The _Mecanique Analytique_ is his greatest and most comprehensive work. In this he established the law of virtual work from which, by the aid of his calculus of variations, he deduced the whole of mechanics, including both solids and liquids. It was his object in the _Analytique_ to show that the whole subject of mechanics is implicitly embraced in a single principle, and to lay down certain formulae from which any particular result can be obtained. He frequently made the assertion that he had, in the _Mecanique Analytique_, transformed mechanics which he persistently defined as a "geometry of four dimensions"[4] into a branch of analytics and had shown the so-called mechanical principles to be the simple results of the calculus. Hence, there can be no doubt but that LA GRANGE not only completed the foundation, but provided most of the material in his analyses and other "abstract results of great generality" which he obtained in his numerous calculations, for the superstructure subsequently known as the geometry of hyperspace, and in which the fourth dimensional concept occupies a very fundamental place.
[4] In 1754 D'ALEMBERT (1717-1783) published an article in the famous old _Encyclopedia_ edited by DIDEROT and himself on _Dimension_. In this article the idea of the fourth dimension is dwelt upon at length. The view which he expressed in this article, of course, served greatly to popularize the conception among the learned men of the day, and owing to the close relationship existing between D'ALEMBERT and LA GRANGE, it is not surprising that the latter should have been very much enamored of the idea.
It is as if for nearly seventeen hundred years workmen, such as GEMINOS, of RHODES, PTOLEMY, SACCHERI, NASIR-EDDIN, LAMBERT, CLAVIUS, and hundred of others who struggled with the problem of parallels, had made more or less sporadic attempts at the excavation of the land whereon a marvelously intricate building was to be constructed. There is no historical evidence to show that any of them ever dreamed that the results of their labors would be utilized in the manner in which they have been used. Then came KANT with the wonderfully penetrating searchlight of his masterful intellect who from the elevation which he occupied saw that the site had great possibilities, but he had not the mathematical talent to undertake the work of actual, methodical construction. Indeed his task was of a different sort. However, he succeeded in opening the way for LA GRANGE and others who followed him. LA GRANGE immediately seized upon the idea which for more than a thousand years had been impinging upon the minds of mathematicians vainly seeking lodgment and began the elaboration of a plan in accordance with which minds better skilled in the pragmatic application of abstract principles than his could complete the work begun. Unfortunately, on account of his intense devotion and loyalty to the study of pure mathematics, and when he had reached the summit of his greatness where he stood "without a rival as the foremost living mathematician," his health became seriously affected, causing him to suffer constant attacks of profound melancholia from which he died on April 10, 1813.
