According to his own account, he was the twenty-fourth of twenty-nine children, and was early remarkable for precocious talent.
Laplace had not yet completed his twenty-fourth year when he entered upon the course of discovery which earned him the title of "the Newton of France."
The first satisfactory edition was that which appeared in the twenty-fourth volume of the collection of Michaud and Poujoulat (Paris, 1836).
And he did not become "a Graduate of Oxford" until 1842, in his twenty-fourth year, five years after his first entrance at the university.
In his twenty-fourth year he entered the congregation of the Lazarists at Paris, and shortly after receiving holy orders in 1839 went out to China.
