The rest, at this time, as I conjecture, may have been not a little abstruse to the Perpetual President! And now, had the Perpetual President but stopped here, there might still have rested a saving shadow of suspicion on Konig's Excerpt, That it was not exact, that it might be wrong in some vital point:--"You never showed me the Original, Monsieur!" Unluckily, the Perpetual President did not stop.

One cannot well fancy him believing, now or ever, that Konig had forged the Excerpt.

Most likely he had the fatal persuasion that these were Leibnitz's words; and the question, What was to be said or done, if the Original SHOULD turn up?
might justly be alarming to a Son of the Pure Sciences.

But at this point a new door of escape disclosed itself: "Where is the Original, I say!"-- and he rushed, full speed, into that; galloping triumphantly, feeling all safe.
"OCTOBER 7th (1751), Maupertuis summons his Academy: 'Messieurs, permit me to submit a case perhaps requiring your attention.

One of our number dissents from your President's Discovery of the Law of Thrift; which surely he is free to do: but furthermore he gives an Excerpt purporting to be from Leibnitz; whereby it would appear that your President's Discovery, sanctioned in your Acts as new, is not new, but Leibnitz's (so far as it is good for anything),--possibly stolen, therefore; and, at any rate, fifty-four years old.