D'Alembert's Principle (Dedalus Books, 1996) is a novel by Andrew Crumey, and the second in a sequence of three set wholly or partly in the eighteenth century (the others being Pfitz and Mr Mee).

"D'Alembert's Principle, Mendel's Dwarf and Three Times Table... illustrate how some of our most basic ideas about 'science', 'nature' and 'literature' are historically constituted, and explore how these underlying cultural assumptions can inform and/or influence even the most apparently 'objective' and 'factual' scientific inquiries.

Xorandor, ThreeTimesTable, and D'Alembert's Principle are set in societies where powerful elements and/or influential figures attempt to reinforce and police the boundaries between science and the humanities, between reason and the imagination.

"[4] Merle Rubin wrote in The Wall Street Journal, "Writing in the inventive, playful tradition of Calvino and Borges, Mr. Crumey blends history, fantasy, fable and metaphysical speculation in a confection that is at once elegant, provocative and thoroughly entertaining.

This clever, deceptive novel sets out to prove that rationalism is an emperor without any clothes and succeeds by doing what all fine writing should: reawakening in the reader a sense of the deep mysteriousness of life.

"[8] Ray Olson wrote in Booklist, "Proceeding from poignancy to awe to hilarity, the three parts constitute an intellectual treat that admirers of Borges and philosophical sf master Stanislaw Lem, in particular, should appreciate.

More specifically, it's made up of a novella, a doodad in the form of an account of interplanetary travel, and a third narrative that, if it weren't already labeled as postmodern, could best be described as a shaggy dog story.

"[10] Sybil Steinberg wrote in Publishers Weekly, "The loopy dialogue between Pfitz and Goldman is reminiscent of the Tortoise and Achilles sections in Douglas Hofstadter's Gödel, Escher, Bach.

D'Alembert's fictional memoirs are an expertly structured, moving account... "The Cosmography of Magnus Ferguson", in contrast, is a kind of Swiftean satire of various branches of philosophical thought...

"[15] Susan Salter Reynolds wrote in the Los Angeles Times, "a principle, a vision and a story combine to create a portrait of the 18th-century European mind stretched thin between the heart and the stars.