Fix the index j of a column. Linearity means that if we consider only column j as variable (fixing the others arbitrarily), the resulting function Rn → R (assuming matrix entries are in R) can be given by a matrix, with one row and n columns, that acts on column j. In fact this is precisely what Laplace expansion does, writing det(A) = C1a1,j + ... + Cnan,j for certain coefficients C1, ..., Cn that depend on the columns of A other than column j (the precise expression for these cofactors is not important here).