Observations upon the Prophecies of Holy Writ

The introduction of the pure and lofty doctrines of the Principia was perseveringly resisted.

Descartes, with his system of vortices, had sown plausibly to the imagination, and error had struck down deeply, and shot up luxuriantly, not only in the popular, but in the scientific mind.

Besides the idea—in itself so simple and so grand—that the great masses of the planets were suspended in empty space, and retained in their orbits by an invisible influence residing in the sun—was to the ignorant a thing inconceivable, and to the learned a revival of the occult qualities of the ancient physics.

This remark applies particularly to the continent.

• Leibnitz misapprehended it
• Huygens partly rejected it
• John Bernouilli opposed it
• Fontenelle never received the doctrines of the Principia.

Voltaire says that though Newton lived 40 years after his work was published. Yet, at the time of his death, he had not more than 20 followers outside of England.

But in England, the reception of our author’s philosophy was rapid and triumphant.

The following sought the truths of the Principia:

• Lucasian Professor
• his successors in that Chair—Whiston and Saunderson
• Dr. Samuel Clarke, Dr. Laughton, Roger Cotes, and Dr. Bentley
• Dr. Keill and Desaguliers
• David Gregory at Edinburgh, and of his brother James Gregory at St. Andrew’s

Its mathematical doctrines constituted, from the first, a regular part of academical instruction. Its physical truths, given to the public in popular lectures, illustrated by experiments, had, before the lapse of 20 years, become familiar to, and adopted by the general mind.

Pemberton’s popular “View of Sir Isaac Newton’s Philosophy” was published, in 1728; and the year afterward, an English translation of the Principia, and System of the World, by Andrew Motte.

Since that period, the labours of Le Seur and Jacquier, of Thorpe, of Jebb, of Wright and others have greatly contributed to display the most hidden treasures of the Principia.

About the time of the publication of the Principia, James 2nd, bent on re-establishing the Romish Faith, had, among other illegal acts, ordered by mandamus, the University of Cambridge to confer the degree of Master of Arts upon an ignorant monk. Obedience to this mandate was resolutely refused.

Newton was one of the 9 delegates chosen to defend the independence of the University. They appeared before the High Court;—and successfully: the king abandoned his design.

The prominent part which our author took in these proceedings, and his eminence in the scientific world, induced his proposal as one of the parliamentary representatives of the University.

He was elected, in 1688, and sat in the Convention Parliament till its dissolution. After the first year, however, he seems to have given little or no attention to his parliamentary duties, being seldom absent from the University till his appointment in the Mint, in 1695.

Newton began his theological researches sometime previous to 1691; in the prime of his years, and in the matured vigour of his intellectual powers.

From his youth, as we have seen, he had devoted himself with an activity the most unceasing, and an energy almost superhuman to the discovery of physical truth;—giving to Philosophy a new foundation, and to Science a new temple.

To pass on, then, from the consideration of the material, more directly to that of the spiritual, was a natural, nay, with so large and devout a soul, a necessary advance. The Bible was to him of inestimable worth.

In the elastic freedom, which a pure and unswerving faith in Him of Nazareth gives, his mighty faculties enjoyed the only completest scope for development.

His original endowment, however great, combined with a studious application, however profound, would never, without this liberation from the dominion of passion and sense, have enabled him to attain to that wondrous concentration and grasp of intellect, for which Fame has as yet assigned him no equal.

Gratefully he owned, therefore, the same Author in the Book of Nature and the Book of Revelation. These were to him as drops of the same unfathomable ocean;—as outrayings of the same inner splendour;—as tones of the same ineffable voice;—as segments of the same infinite curve. With great joy he had found himself enabled to proclaim, as an interpreter, from the hieroglyphs of Creation, the existence of a God: and now, with greater joy, and in the fulness of his knowledge, and in the fulness of his strength, he laboured to make clear, from the utterances of the inspired Word, the far mightier confirmations of a Supreme Good, in all its glorious amplitude of Being and of Attribute; and to bring the infallible workings thereof plainly home to the understandings and the affections of his fellow-men; and finally to add the weight of his own testimony in favour of that Religion, whose truth is now, indeed, “girded with the iron and the rock of a ponderous and colossal demonstration.”

His work, entitled, Observations upon the Prophecies of Holy Writ, particularly the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John, first published in London, in 1733 4to. consists of two parts: the one devoted to the Prophecies of Daniel, and the other to the Apocalypse of St. John, In the first part, he treats concerning the compilers of the books of the Old Testament;—of the prophetic language;—of the vision of the four beasts;—of the kingdoms represented by the feet of the image composed of iron and clay;—of the ten kingdoms represented by the ten horns of the beast;—of the eleventh horn of Daniel’s fourth beast;—of the power which should change times and laws;—of the kingdoms represented in Daniel by the ram and he-goat;—of the prophecy of the seventy weeks;—of the times of the birth and passion of Christ;—of the prophecy of the Scripture of Truth;—of the king who doeth according to his will, and magnified himself above every god, and honoured Mahuzzims, and regarded not the desire of women;—of the Mahuzzim, honoured by the king who doeth according to his will. In the second part, he treats of the time when the Apocalypse was written, of the scene of the vision, and the relation which the Apocalypse has to the book of the law of Moses, and to the worship of God in the temple;—of the relation which the Apocalypse has to the prophecies of Daniel, and of the subject of the prophecy itself. Newton regards the prophecies as given, not for the gratification of man’s curiosity, by enabling him to foreknow; but for his conviction that the world is governed by Providence, by witnessing their fulfilment. Enough of prophecy, he thinks, has already been fulfilled to afford the diligent seeker abundant evidence of God’s providence. The whole work is marked by profound erudition, sagacity and argument.

And not less learning, penetration and masterly reasoning are conspicuous in his Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scriptures in a Letter to a Friend. This Treatise, first accurately published in Dr. Horsley’s edition of his works, relates to two texts: the one, 1 Epistle of St. John v. 7; the other, 1 Epistle of St. Paul to Timothy iii. 16. As this work had the effect to deprive the advocates of the doctrine of the Trinity of two leading texts, Newton has been looked upon as an Arian; but there is absolutely nothing in his writings to warrant such a conclusion.

His remaining theological works consist of the Lexicon Propheticum, which was left incomplete; a Latin Dissertation on the sacred cubit of the Jews, which was translated into English, and published, in 1737, among the Miscellaneous Works of John Greaves; and Four Letters addressed to Dr. Bentley, containing some arguments in proof of a Deity. These Letters were dated respectively: 10th December, 1692; 17th January, 1693; 25th February, 1693; and 11th February, 1693—the fourth bearing an earlier date than the third. The best faculties and the profoundest acquirements of our author are convincingly manifest in these lucid and powerful compositions. They were published in 1756, and reviewed by Dr. Samuel Johnson.

Newton’s religious writings are distinguished by their absolute freedom from prejudice. Everywhere, throughout them, there glows the genuine nobleness of soul. To his whole life, indeed, we may here fitly extend the same observation. He was most richly imbued with the very spirit of the Scriptures which he so delighted to study and to meditate upon. His was a piety, so fervent, so sincere and practical, that it rose up like a holy incense from every thought and act. His a benevolence that not only willed, but endeavoured the best for all. His a philanthropy that held in the embracings of its love every brother-man. His a toleration of the largest and the truest; condemning persecution in every, even its mildest form; and kindly encouraging each striving after excellence:—a toleration that came not of indifference for the immoral and the impious met with their quick rebuke—but a toleration that came of the wise humbleness and the Christian charity, which see, in the nothingness of self and the almightiness of Truth, no praise for the ablest, and no blame for the feeblest in their strugglings upward to light and life.

In the winter of 1691-2, on returning from chapel, one morning, Newton found that a favourite little dog, called Diamond, had overturned a lighted taper on his desk, and that several papers containing the results of certain optical experiments, were nearly consumed. His only exclamation, on perceiving his loss, was, “Oh Diamond, Diamond, little knowest thou the mischief thou hast done” Dr. Brewster, in his life of our author, gives the following extract from the manuscript Diary of Mr. Abraham De La Pryme, a student in the University at the time of this occurrence.

“1692. February, 3.—What I heard to-day I must relate. There is one Mr. Newton (whom I have very oft seen), Fellow of Trinity College, that is mighty famous for his learning, being a most excellent mathematician, philosopher, divine, &c. He has been Fellow of the Royal Society these many years; and among other very learned books and tracts, he’s written one upon the mathematical principles of philosophy, which has given him a mighty name, he having received, especially from Scotland, abundance of congratulatory letters for the same; but of all the books he ever wrote, there was one of colours and light, established upon thousands of experiments which he had been twenty years of making, and which had cost him many hundreds of pounds. This book which he valued so much, and which was so much talked of, had the ill luck to perish, and be utterly lost just when the learned author was almost at putting a conclusion at the same, after this manner: In a winter’s morning, leaving it among his other papers on his study table while he went to chapel, the candle, which he had unfortunately left burning there, too, catched hold by some means of other papers, and they fired the aforesaid book, and utterly consumed it and several other valuable writings; and which is most wonderful did no further mischief. But when Mr. Newton came from chapel, and had seen what was done, every one thought he would have run mad, he was so troubled thereat that he was not himself for a month after. A long account of this his system of colours you may find in the Transactions of the Royal Society, which he had sent up to them long before this sad mischance happened unto him.”

It will be borne in mind that all of Newton’s theological writings, with the exception of the Letters to Dr. Bentley, were composed before this event which, we must conclude, from Pryme’s words, produced a serious impression upon our author for about a month. But M. Biot, in his Life of Newton, relying on a memorandum contained in a small manuscript Journal of Huygens, declares this occurrence to have caused a derangement of Newton’s intellect. M. Biot’s opinions and deductions, however, as well as those of La Place, upon this subject, were based upon erroneous data, and have been overthrown by the clearest proof. There is not, in fact, the least evidence that Newton’s reason was, for a single moment, dethroned; on the contrary, the testimony is conclusive that he was, at all times, perfectly capable of carrying on his mathematical, metaphysical and astronomical inquiries. Loss of sleep, loss of appetite, and irritated nerves will disturb somewhat the equanimity of the most serene; and an act done, or language employed, under such temporary discomposure, is not a just criterion of the general tone and strength of a man’s mind. As to the accident itself, we may suppose, whatever might have been its precise nature, that it greatly distressed him, and, still further, that its shock may have originated the train of nervous derangements, which afflicted him, more or less, for two years afterward. Yet, during this very period of ill health, we find him putting forth his highest powers. In 1692, he prepared for, and transmitted to Dr. Wallis the first proposition of the Treatise on Quadratures, with examples of it in first, second and third fluxions. He investigated, in the same year, the subject of haloes; making and recording numerous and important observations relative thereto. Those profound and beautiful Letters to Dr. Bentley were written at the close of this and the beginning of the next year. In October, 1693, Locke, who was then about publishing a second edition of his work on the Human Understanding, requested Newton to reconsider his opinions on innate ideas. And in 1694, he was zealously occupied in perfecting his lunar theory: visiting Flamstead, at the Royal Observatory of Greenwich, in September, and obtaining a series of lunar observations; and commencing, in October, a correspondence with that distinguished practical Astronomer, which continued till 1698.

We now arrive at the period when Newton permanently withdrew from the seclusion of a collegiate, and entered upon a more active and public life. He was appointed Warden of the Mint, in 1695, through the influence of Charles Montague, Chancellor of the Exchequer, and afterward Earl of Halifax. The current coin of the nation had been adulterated and debased, and Montague undertook a re-coinage. Our author’s mathematical and chemical knowledge proved eminently useful in accomplishing this difficult and most salutary reform. In 1699, he was promoted to the Mastership of the Mint—an office worth twelve or fifteen hundred pounds per annum, and which he held during the remainder of his life. He wrote, in this capacity, an official Report on the Coinage, which has been published; he also prepared a Table of Assays of Foreign Coins, which was printed at the end of Dr. Arbuthnot’s Tables of Ancient Coins, Weights, and Measures, in 1727.

Newton retained his Professorship at Cambridge till 1703. But he had, on receiving the appointment of Master of the Mint, in 1699, made Mr. Whiston his deputy, with all the emoluments of the office; and, on finally resigning, procured his nomination to the vacant Chair.

In January 1697, John Bernouilli proposed to the most distinguished mathematicians of Europe two problems for solution. Leibnitz, admiring the beauty of one of them, requested the time for solving it to be extended to twelve months—twice the period originally named. The delay was readily granted. Newton, however, sent in, the day after he received the problems, a solution of them to the President of the Royal Society. Bernouilli obtained solutions from Newton, Leibinitz and the Marquis De L’Hopital; but Newton’s though anonymous, he immediately recognised “tanquam ungue leonem” as the lion is known by his claw. We may mention here the famous problem of the trajectories proposed by Leibnitz, in 1716, for the purpose of “feeling the pulse of the English Analysts.” Newton received the problem about five o’clock in the afternoon, as he was returning from the Mint; and though it was extremely difficult and he himself much fatigued, yet he completed its solution, the same evening before he went to bed.

The history of these problems affords, by direct comparison, a striking illustration of Newton’s vast superiority of mind. That amazing concentration and grasp of intellect, of which we have spoken, enabled him to master speedily, and, as it were, by a single effort, those things, for the achievement of which, the many would essay utterly in vain, and the very, very few attain only after long and renewed striving. And yet, with a modesty as unparalleled as his power, he attributed his successes, not to any extraordinary sagacity, but solely to industry and patient thought. He kept the subject of consideration constantly before him, and waited till the first dawning opened gradually into a full and clear light; never quitting, if possible, the mental process till the object of it were wholly gained. He never allowed this habit of meditation to appear in his intercourse with society; but in the privacy of his own chamber, or in the midst of his own family, he gave himself up to the deepest abstraction. Occupied with some interesting investigation, he would often sit down on his bedside, after he rose, and remain there, for hours, partially dressed. Meal-time would frequently come and pass unheeded; so that, unless urgently reminded, he would neglect to take the requisite quantity of nourishment. But notwithstanding his anxiety to be left undisturbed, he would, when occasion required, turn aside his thoughts, though bent upon the most intricate research, and then, when leisure served, again direct them to the very point where they ceased to act: and this he seemed to accomplish not so much by the force of his memory, as by the force of his inventive faculty, before the vigorous intensity of which, no subject, however abstruse, remained long unexplored.

He was elected a member of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Paris, in 1699, when that distinguished Body were empowered, by a new charter, to admit a small number of foreign associates. In 1700, he communicated to Dr. Halley a description of his reflecting instrument for observing the moon’s distance from the fixed stars. This description was published in the Philosophical Transactions, in 1742. The instrument was the same as that produced by Mr. Hadley, in 1731, and which, under the name of Hadley’s Quadrant, has been of so great use in navigation. On the assembling of the new Parliament, in 1701, Newton was re-elected one of the members for the University of Cambridge. In 1703, he was chosen President of the Royal Society of London, to which office he was annually re-elected till the period of his decease—about twenty-five years afterward.

Our author unquestionably devoted more labour to, and, in many respects, took a greater pride in his Optical, than his other discoveries. This science he had placed on a new and indestructible basis; and he wished not only to build, but to perfect the costly and glowing structure. He had communicated, before the publication of the Principia, his most important researches on light to the Royal Society, in detached papers which were inserted in successive numbers of the Transactions; but he did not publish a connected view of these labours till 1704, when they appeared under the title of Optics: or, a Treatise on the Reflexions, Refractions, Inflexions and Colours of Light. To this, but to no subsequent edition, were added two Mathematical Treatises, entitled, Tractatus duo de speciebus et magnitudine figurarum curvilinearum; the one bearing the title Tractatus de quadratura curvarum; and the other, that of Enumeratio linearum tertii ordinis. The publication of these Mathematical Treatises was made necessary in consequence of plagiarisms from the manuscripts of them loaned by the author to his friends. Dr. Samuel Clarke published a Latin translation of the Optics, in in 1706; whereupon he was presented by Newton, as a mark of his grateful approbation, with five hundred pounds, or one hundred pounds for each of his children. The work was afterward translated into French. It had a remarkably wide circulation, and appeared, in several successive editions, both in England and on the Continent. There is displayed, particularly on this Optical Treatise, the author’s talent for simplifying and communicating the profoundest speculations. It is a faculty rarely united to that of the highest invention. Newton possessed both; and thus that mental perfectness which enabled him to create, to combine, and to teach, and so render himself, not the “ornament” only, but inconceivably more, the pre-eminent benefactor of his species.

The honour of knighthood was conferred on our author in 1705. Soon afterward, he was a candidate again for the Representation of the University, but was defeated by a large majority. It is thought that a more pliant man was preferred by both ministers and electors. Newton was always remarkable for simplicity of dress, and his only known departure from it was on this occasion, when he is said to have appeared in a suit of laced clothes.

The Algebraical Lectures which he had, during nine years, delivered at Cambridge, were published by Whiston, in 1707, under the title of Arithmetica Universalis, sine de Compositione et Resolutions Arithmetica Liber. This publication is said to have been a breach of confidence on Whiston’s part. Mr. Ralphson, not long afterward, translated the work into English; and a second edition of it, with improvements by the author, was issued at London, 1712, by Dr. Machin. Subsequent editions, both in English and Latin, with commentaries, have been published.

In June, 1709, Newton intrusted the superintendence of a second edition of the Principia to Roger Cotes, Plumian Professor of Astronomy at Cambridge. The first edition had been sold off for some time. Copies of the work had become very rare, and could only be obtained at several times their original cost. A great number of letters passed between the author and Mr. Cotes during the preparation of the edition, which finally appeared in May, 1713. It had many alterations and improvements, and was accompanied by an admirable Preface from the pen of Cotes.

Our author’s early Treatise, entitled, Analysis per Equationes Numero Terminorum Infinitas, as well as a small Tract, bearing the title of Methodus Differentialis, was published, with his consent, in 1711. The former of these, and the Treatise De Quadratura Curvarum, translated into English, with a large commentary, appeared in 1745. His work, entitled, Artis Analyticæ Specimina, vel Geometria Analytica, was first given to the world in the edition of Dr. Horsley, 1779.

It is a notable fact, in Newton’s history, that he never voluntarily published any one of his purely mathematical writings. The cause of this unwillingness in some, and, in other instances, of his indifference, or, at least, want of solicitude to put forth his works may be confidently sought for in his repugnance to every thing like contest or dispute. But, going deeper than this aversion, we find, underlying his whole character and running parallel with all his discoveries, that extraordinary humility which always preserved him in a position so relatively just to the behests of time and eternity, that the infinite value of truth, and the utter worthlessness of fame, were alike constantly present to him. Judging of his course, however, in its more temporary aspect, as bearing upon his immediate quiet, it seemed the most unfortunate. For an early publication, especially in the case of his Method of Fluxions, would have anticipated all rivalry, and secured him from the contentious claims of Leibnitz. Still each one will solve the problem of his existence in his own way, and, with a man like Newton, his own, as we conceive, could be no other than the best way. The conduct of Leibnitz in this affair is quite irreconcilable with the stature and strength of the man; giant-like, and doing nobly, in many ways, a giant’s work, yet cringing himself into the dimensions and performances of a common calumniator. Opening in 1699, the discussion in question continued till the close of Leibnitz’s life, in 1716. We give the summary of the case as contained in the Report of the Committee of the Royal Society, the deliberately weighed opinion of which has been adopted as an authoritative decision in all countries.

“We have consulted the letters and letter books in the custody of the Royal Society, and those found among the papers of Mr. John Collins, dated between the years 1669 and 1677, inclusive: and showed them to such as knew and avouched the hands of Mr. Barrow, Mr. Collins, Mr. Oldenburg, and Mr. Leibnitz; and compared those of Mr. Gregory with one another, and with copies of some of them taken in the hand of Mr. Collins; and have extracted from them what relates to the matter referred to us: all which extracts, herewith delivered to you, we believe to be genuine and authentic. And by these letters and papers we find:—

“I. Mr. Leibnitz was in London in the beginning of the year 1673; and went thence in or about March, to Paris, where he kept a correspondence with Mr. Collins, by means of Mr. Oldenburg, till about September, 1676, and then returned, by London and Amsterdam, to Hanover: and that Mr. Collins was very free in communicating to able mathematicians what he had received from Mr. Newton and Mr. Gregory.

“II. That when Mr. Leibnitz was the first time in London, he contended for the invention of another differential method, properly so called; and, notwithstanding he was shown by Dr. Pell that it was Newton’s method, persisted in maintaining it to be his own invention, by reason that he had found it by himself without knowing what Newton had done before, and had much improved it. And we find no mention of his having any other differential method than Newton’s before his letter of the 21st of June, 1677, which was a year after a copy of Mr. Newton’s letter of the 10th of December, 1672, had been sent to Paris to be communicated to him; and above four years after Mr. Collins began to communicate that letter to his correspondents; in which letter the method of fluxions was sufficiently described to any intelligent person.

“III. That by Mr. Newton’s letter, of the 13th of June, 1676 it appears that he had the method of fluxions above five years before the writing of that letter. And by his Analysis per Æquationes numero Terminorum Infinitas, communicated by Dr. Barrow to Mr. Collins, in July, 1669, we find that he had invented the method before that time.

“IV. That the differential method is one and the same with the method of fluxions, excepting the name and mode of notation; Mr. Leibnitz calling those quantities differences which Mr. Newton calls moments, or fluxions; and marking them with a letter d—a mark not used by Mr. Newton.

“And, therefore, we take the proper question to be, not who invented this or that method, but, who was the first inventor of the method? And we believe that those who have reputed Mr. Leibnitz the first inventor knew little or nothing of his correspondence with Mr. Collins and Mr. Oldenburg long before, nor of Mr. Newton’s having that method above fifteen years before Mr Leibnitz began to publish it in the Acta Eruditorum of Leipsic.

“For which reason we reckon Mr. Newton the first inventor; and are of opinion that Mr. Keill, in asserting the same, has been no ways injurious to Mr. Leibnitz. And we submit to the judgment of the Society, whether the extract and papers, now presented to you, together with what is extant, to the same purpose, in Dr. Wallis’s third volume, may not deserve to be made public.”

This Report, with the collection of letters and manuscripts, under the title of Commercium Epistolicum D. Johannis Collins et aliorum de analysi promota Jussu Societatis Regiæ Editum, appeared accordingly in the early part of 1713. Its publication seemed to infuse additional bitterness into the feelings of Leibnitz, who descended to unfounded charges and empty threats. He had been privy counsellor to the Elector of Hanover, before that prince was elevated to the British throne; and in his correspondence, in 1715 and 1716, with the Abbé Conti, then at the court of George I., and with Caroline, Princess of Wales, he attacked the doctrines of the Principia, and indirectly its author, in a manner very discreditable to himself, both as a learned and as an honourable man. His assaults, however, were triumphantly met; and, to the complete overthrow of his rival pretensions, Newton was induced to give the finishing blow. The verdict is universal and irreversible that the English preceded the German philosopher, by at least ten years, in the invention of fluxions. Newton could not have borrowed from Leibnitz; but Leibnitz might have borrowed from Newton. A new edition of the Commercium Epistolicum was published in 1722-5 (?); but neither in this, nor in the former edition, did our author take any part. The disciples, enthusiastic, capable and ready, effectually shielded, with the buckler of Truth, the character of the Master, whose own conduct throughout was replete with delicacy, dignity and justice. He kept aloof from the controversy—in which Dr. Keill stood forth as the chief representative of the Newtonian side—till the very last, when, for the satisfaction of the King, George I., rather than for his own, he consented to put forth his hand and firmly secure his rights upon a certain and impregnable basis.

A petition to have inventions for promoting the discovery of the longitude at sea, suitably rewarded, was presented to the House of Commons, in 1714. A committee, having been appointed to investigate the subject, called upon Newton and others for their opinions. That of our author was given in writing. A report, favourable to the desired measure, was then taken up, and a bill for its adoption subsequently passed.

On the ascension of George I., in 1714, Newton became an object of profound interest at court. His position under government, his surpassing fame, his spotless character, and, above all, his deep and consistent piety, attracted the reverent regard of the Princess of Wales, afterward queen-consort to George II. She was a woman of a highly cultivated mind, and derived the greatest pleasure from conversing with Newton and corresponding with Leibnitz. One day, in conversation with her, our author mentioned and explained a new system of chronology, which he had composed at Cambridge, where he had been in the habit “of refreshing himself with history and chronology, when he was weary with other studies.” Subsequently, in the year 1718, she requested a copy of this interesting and ingenious work. Newton, accordingly, drew up an abstract of the system from the separate papers in which it existed, and gave it to her on condition that it should not be communicated to any other person. Sometime afterward she requested that the Abbé Conti might be allowed to have a copy of it. The author consented: and the abbé received a copy of the manuscript, under the like injunction and promise of secrecy. This manuscript bore the title of “A short Chronicle, from the First Memory of Things in Europe, to the Conquest of Persia, by Alexander the Great.”

After Newton took up his residence in London, he lived in a style suited to his elevated position and rank. He kept his carriage, with an establishment of three male and three female servants. But to everything like vain show and luxury he was utterly averse. His household affairs, for the last twenty years of his life, were under the charge of his niece, Mrs. Catherine Barton, wife and widow of Colonel Barton—a woman of great beauty and accomplishment—and subsequently married to John Conduit, Esq. At home Newton was distinguished by that dignified and gentle hospitality which springs alone from true nobleness. On all proper occasions, he gave splendid entertainments, though without ostentation. In society, whether of the palace or the cottage, his manner was self-possessed and urbane; his look benign and affable; his speech candid and modest; his whole air undisturbedly serene. He had none of what are usually called the singularities of genius; suiting himself easily to every company—except that of the vicious and wicked; and speaking of himself and others, naturally, so as never even to be suspected of vanity. There was in him, if we may be allowed the expression, a wholeness of nature, which did not admit of such imperfections and weakness—the circle was too perfect, the law too constant, and the disturbing forces too slight to suffer scarcely any of those eccentricities which so interrupt and mar the movements of many bright spirits, rendering their course through the world more like that of the blazing meteor than that of the light and life-imparting sun. In brief, the words greatness and goodness could not, humanly speaking, be more fitly employed than when applied as the pre-eminent characteristics of this pure, meek and venerable sage.

In the eightieth year of his age, Newton was seized with symptoms of stone in the bladder. His disease was pronounced incurable. He succeeded, however, by means of a strict regimen, and other precautions, in alleviating his complaint, and procuring long intervals of ease. His diet, always frugal, was now extremely temperate, consisting chiefly of broth, vegetables, and fruit, with, now and then, a little butcher meat. He gave up the use of his carriage, and employed, in its stead, when he went out, a chair. All invitations to dinner were declined; and only small parties were received, occasionally, at his own house.

In 1724 he wrote to the Lord Provost of Edinburgh, offering to contribute twenty pounds yearly toward the salary of Mr. Maclaurin, provided he accepted the assistant Professorship of Mathematics in the University of that place. Not only in the cause of ingenuity and learning, but in that of religion—in relieving the poor and assisting his relations, Newton annually expended large sums. He was generous and charitable almost to a fault. Those, he would often remark, who gave away nothing till they died, never gave at all. His wealth had become considerable by a prudent economy; but he regarded money in no other light than as one of the means wherewith he had been intrusted to do good, and he faithfully employed it accordingly.

He experienced, in spite of all his precautionary measures, a return of his complaint in the month of August, of the same year, 1724, when he passed a stone the size of pea; it came from him in two pieces, the one at the distance of two days from the other. Tolerable good health then followed for some months. In January, 1725, however, he was taken with a violent cough and inflammation of the lungs. In consequence of this attack, he was prevailed upon to remove to Kensington, where his health greatly improved. In February following, he was attacked in both feet with the gout, of the approach of which he had received, a few years before, a slight warning, and the presence of which now produced a very beneficial change in his general health. Mr. Conduit, his nephew, has recorded a curious conversation which took place, at or near this time, between himself and Sir Isaac.

“I was, on Sunday night, the 7th March, 1724-5, at Kensington, with Sir Isaac Newton, in his lodgings, just after he was out of a fit of the gout, which he had had in both of his feet, for the first time, in the eighty-third year of his age. He was better after it, and his head clearer and memory stronger than I had known them for some time. He then repeated to me, by way of discourse, very distinctly, though rather in answer to my queries, than in one continued narration, what he had often hinted to me before, viz.: that it was his conjecture (he would affirm nothing) that there was a sort of revolution in the heavenly bodies; that the vapours and light, emitted by the sun, which had their sediment, as water and other matter, had gathered themselves, by degrees, into a body, and attracted more matter from the planets, and at last made a secondary planet (viz.: one of those that go round another planet), and then, by gathering to them, and attracting more matter, became a primary planet; and then, by increasing still, became a comet, which, after certain revolutions, by coming nearer and nearer to the sun, had all its volatile parts condensed, and became a matter fit to recruit and replenish the sun (which must waste by the constant heat and light it emitted), as a faggot would this fire if put into it (we were sitting by a wood fire), and that that would probably be the effect of the comet of 1680, sooner or later; for, by the observations made upon it, it appeared, before it came near the sun, with a tail only two or three degrees long; but, by the heat it contracted, in going so near the sun, it seemed to have a tail of thirty or forty degrees when it went from it; that he could not say when this comet would drop into the sun; it might perhaps have five or six revolutions more first, but whenever it did it would so much increase the heat of the sun that this earth would be burned, and no animals in it could live. That he took the three phenomena, seen by Hipparchus, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler’s disciples, to have been of this kind, for he could not otherwise account for an extraordinary light, as those were, appearing, all at once, among the the fixed stars (all which he took to be suns, enlightening other planets, as our sun does ours), as big as Mercury or Venus seems to us, and gradually diminishing, for sixteen months, and then sinking into nothing. He seemed to doubt whether there were not intelligent beings, superior to us, who superintended these revolutions of the heavenly bodies, by the direction of the Supreme Being. He appeared also to be very clearly of opinion that the inhabitants of this world were of short date, and alledged, as one reason for that opinion, that all arts, as letters, ships, printing, needle, &c., were discovered within the memory of history, which could not have happened if the world had been eternal; and that there were visible marks of ruin upon it which could not be effected by flood only. When I asked him how this earth could have been repeopled if ever it had undergone the same fate it was threatened with hereafter, by the comet of 1680, he answered, that required the power of a Creator. He said he took all the planets to be composed of the same matter with this earth, viz.: earth, water, stones, &c., but variously concocted. I asked him why he would not publish his conjectures, as conjectures, and instanced that Kepler had communicated his; and though he had not gone near so far as Kepler, yet Kepler’s guesses were so just and happy that they had been proved and demonstrated by him. His answer was, “I do not deal in conjectures.” But, on my talking to him about the four observations that had been made of the comet of 1680, at 574 years distance, and asking him the particular times, he opened his Principia, which laid on the table, and showed me the particular periods, viz,: 1st. The Julium Sidus, in the time of Justinian, in 1106, in 1680.

“And I, observing that he said there of that comet, ‘incidet in corpus solis,’ and in the next paragraph adds, ‘stellæ fixæ refici possunt,’ told him I thought he owned there what we had been talking about, viz.: that the comet would drop into the sun, and that fixed stars were recruited and replenished by comets when they dropped into them; and, consequently, that the sun would be recruited too; and asked him why he would not own as fully what he thought of the sun as well as what he thought of the fixed stars. He said, that concerned us more; and, laughing, added, that he had said enough for people to know his meaning.”

In the summer of 1725, a French translation of the chronological MS., of which the Abbé Conti had been permitted, some time previous, to have a copy, was published at Paris, in violation of all good faith. The Punic Abbé had continued true to his promise of secrecy while he remained in England; but no sooner did he reach Paris than he placed the manuscript into the hands of M. Freret, a learned antiquarian, who translated the work, and accompanied it with an attempted refutation of the leading points of the system. In November, of the same year, Newton received a presentation copy of this publication, which bore the title of Abrege de Chronologie de M. le Chevalier Newton, fait par lui-meme, et traduit sur le manuscript Anglais. Soon afterward a paper entitled, Remarks on the Obervations made on a Chronological Index of Sir Isaac Newton, translated into French by the Observator, and published at Paris, was drawn up by our author, and printed in the Philosophical Transactions for 1725. It contained a history of the whole matter, and a triumphant reply to the objections of M. Freret. This answer called into the field a fresh antagonist, Father Soueiet, whose five dissertations on this subject were chiefly remarkable for the want of knowledge and want of decorum, which they displayed. In consequence of these discussions, Newton was induced to prepare his larger work for the press, and had nearly completed it at the time of his death. It was published in 1728, under the title of The Chronology of the Ancient Kingdoms Amended, to which is prefixed a short Chronicle from the first memory of things in Europe to the Conquest of Persia by Alexander the Great. It consists of six chapters: 1. On the Chronology of the Greeks; according to Whiston, our author wrote out eighteen copies of this chapter with his own hand, differing little from one another. 2. Of the Empire of Egypt; 3. Of the Assyrian Empire; 4. Of the two contemporary Empires of the Babylonians and Medes; 5. A Description of the Temple of Solomon; 6. Of the Empire of the Persians; this chapter was not found copied with the other five, but as it was discovered among his papers, and appeared to be a continuation of the same work, the Editor thought proper to add it thereto. Newton’s Letter to a person of distinction who had desired his opinion of the learned Bishop Lloyd’s Hypothesis concerning the form of the most ancient year, closes this enumeration of his Chronological Writings.

A third edition of the Principia appeared in 1726, with many changes and additions. About four years were consumed in its preparation and publication, which were under the superintendance of Dr. Henry Pemberton, an accomplished mathematician, and the author of “A view of Sir Isaac Newton’s Philosophy.” 1728. This gentleman enjoyed numerous opportunities of conversing with the aged and illustrious author. “I found,” says Pemberton, “he had read fewer of the modern mathematicians than one could have expected; but his own prodigious invention readily supplied him with what he might have an occasion for in the pursuit of any subject he undertook. I have often heard him censure the handling geometrical subjects by algebraic calculations; and his book of Algebra he called by the name of Universal Arithmetic, in opposition to the injudicious title of Geometry, which Descartes had given to the treatise, wherein he shows how the geometer may assist his invention by such kind of computations. He thought Huygens the most elegant of any mathematical writer of modern times, and the most just imitator of the ancients. Of their taste and form of demonstration, Sir Isaac always professed himself a great admirer. I have heard him even censure himself for not following them yet more closely than he did; and speak with regret of his mistake at the beginning of his mathematical studies, in applying himself to the works of Descartes and other algebraic writers, before he had considered the elements of Euclid with that attention which so excellent a writer deserves.”

“Though his memory was much decayed,” continues Dr. Pemberton, “he perfectly understood his own writings.” And even this failure of memory, we would suggest, might have been more apparent than real, or, in medical terms, more the result of functional weakness than organic decay. Newton seems never to have confided largely to his memory: and as this faculty manifests the most susceptibility to cultivation; so, in the neglect of due exercise, it more readily and plainly shows a diminution of its powers.

Equanimity and temperance had, indeed, preserved Newton singularly free from all mental and bodily ailment. His hair was, to the last, quite thick, though as white as silver. He never made use of spectacles, and lost but one tooth to the day of his death. He was of middle stature, well-knit, and, in the latter part of his life, somewhat inclined to be corpulent. Mr. Conduit says, “he had a very lively and piercing eye, a comely and gracious aspect, with a fine head of hair, white as silver, without any baldness, and when his peruke was off was a venerable sight.” According to Bishop Atterbury, “in the whole air of his face and make there was nothing of that penetrating sagacity which appears in his compositions. He had something rather languid in his look and manner which did not raise any great expectation in those who did not know him.” Hearne remarks, “Sir Isaac was a man of no very promising aspect. He was a short, well-set man. He was full of thought, and spoke very little in company, so that his conversation was not agreeable. When he rode in his coach, one arm would be out of his coach on one side and the other on the other.” These different accounts we deem easily reconcilable. In the rooms of the Royal Society, in the street, or in mixed assemblages, Newton’s demeanour—always courteous, unassuming and kindly—still had in it the overawings of a profound repose and reticency, out of which the communicative spirit, and the “lively and piercing eye” would only gleam in the quiet and unrestrained freedom of his own fire-side.

“But this I immediately discovered in him,” adds Pemberton, still further, “which at once both surprised and charmed me. Neither his extreme great age, nor his universal reputation had rendered him stiff in opinion, or in any degree elated. Of this I had occasion to have almost daily experience. The remarks I continually sent him by letters on his Principia, were received with the utmost goodness. These were so far from being any ways displeasing to him, that, on the contrary, it occasioned him to speak many kind things of me to my friends, and to honour me with a public testimony of his good opinion.” A modesty, openness, and generosity, peculiar to the noble and comprehensive spirit of Newton. “Full of wisdom and perfect in beauty,” yet not lifted up by pride nor corrupted by ambition. None, how ever, knew so well as himself the stupendousness of his discoveries in comparison with all that had been previously achieved; and none realized so thoroughly as himself the littleness thereof in comparison with the vast region still unexplored. A short time before his death he uttered this memorable sentiment:—“I do not know what I may appear to the world; but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, while the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.” How few ever reach the shore even, much less find “a smoother pebble or a prettier shell!”

Newton had now resided about two years at Kensington; and the air which he enjoyed there, and the state of absolute rest, proved of great benefit to him. Nevertheless he would occasionally go to town. And on Tuesday, the 28th of February, 1727, he proceeded to London, for the purpose of presiding at a meeting of the Royal Society. At this time his health was considered, by Mr. Conduit, better than it had been for many years. But the unusual fatigue he was obliged to suffer, in attending the meeting, and in paying and receiving visits, speedily produced a violent return of the affection in the bladder. He returned to Kensington on Saturday, the 4th of March, Dr. Mead and Dr. Cheselden attended him; they pronounced his disease to be the stone, and held out no hopes of recovery. On Wednesday, the 15th of March, he seemed a little better; and slight, though groundless, encouragement was felt that he might survive the attack. From the very first of it, his sufferings had been intense. Paroxysm followed paroxysm, in quick succession: large drops of sweat rolled down his face; but not a groan, not a complaint, not the least mark of peevishness or impatience escaped him: and during the short intervals of relief, he even smiled and conversed with his usual composure and cheerfulness. The flesh quivered, but the heart quaked not; the impenetrable gloom was settling down: the Destroyer near; the portals of the tomb opening, still, amid this utter wreck and dissolution of the mortal, the immortal remained serene, unconquerable: the radiant light broke through the gathering darkness; and Death yielded up its sting, and the grave its victory. On Saturday morning, 18th, he read the newspapers, and carried on a pretty long conversation with Dr. Mead. His senses and faculties were then strong and vigorous; but at six o clock, the same evening, he became insensible; and in this state he continued during the whole of Sunday, and till Monday, the 20th, when he expired, between one and two o’clock in the morning, in the eighty-fifth year of his age.

And these were the last days of Isaac Newton. Thus closed the career of one of earth’s greatest and best men. His mission was fulfilled. Unto the Giver, in many-fold addition, the talents were returned. While it was yet day he had worked; and for the night that quickly cometh he was not unprepared. Full of years, and full of honours, the heaven-sent was recalled; and, in the confidence of a “certain hope,” peacefully he passed away into the silent depths of Eternity.

His body was placed in Westminster Abbey, with the state and ceremonial that usually attended the interment of the most distinguished. In 1731, his relatives, the inheritors of his personal estate, erected a monument to his memory in the most conspicuous part of the Abbey, which had often been refused by the dean and chapter to the greatest of England’s nobility. During the same year a medal was struck at the Tower in his honour; and, in 1755, a full-length statue of him, in white marble, admirably executed, by Roubiliac, at the expense of Dr. Robert Smith, was erected in the ante-chamber of Trinity College, Cambridge. There is a painting executed in the glass of one of the windows of the same college, made pursuant to the will of Dr. Smith, who left five hundred pounds for that purpose,

Newton left a personal estate of about thirty-two thousand pounds. It was divided among his four nephews and four nieces of the half blood, the grand-children of his mother, by the Reverend Mr. Smith. The family estates of Woolsthorpe and Sustern fell to John Newton, the heir-at-law, whose great grand-father was Sir Isaac’s uncle. Before his death he made an equitable distribution of his two other estates: the one in Berkshire to the sons and daughter of a brother of Mrs. Conduit; and the other, at Kensington, to Catharine, the only daughter of Mr. Conduit, and who afterward became Viscountess Lymington. Mr. Conduit succeeded to the offices of the Mint, the duties of which he had discharged during the last two years of Sir Isaac’s life.

Our author’s works are found in the collection of Castilion, Berlin, 1744, 4to. 8 tom.; in Bishop Horsley’s Edition, London, 1779, 4to. 5 vol.; in the Biographia Brittannica, &c. Newton also published Bern. Varenii Geographia, &c., 1681, 8vo. There are, however, numerous manuscripts, letters, and other papers, which have never been given to the world: these are preserved, in various collections, namely, in the library of Trinity College, Cambridge; in the library of Corpus Christi College, Oxford; in the library of Lord Macclesfield: and, lastly and chiefly, in the possession of the family of the Earl of Portsmouth, through the Viscountess Lymington.

Everything appertaining to Newton has been kept and cherished with peculiar veneration. Different memorials of him are preserved in Trinity College, Cambridge; in the rooms of the Royal Society, of London: and in the Museum of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.

The manor-house, at Woolsthorpe, was visited by Dr. Stukeley, in October, 1721, who, in a letter to Dr. Mead, written in 1727, gave the following description of it:—"‘Tis built of stone, as is the way of the country hereabouts, and a reasonably good one. They led me up stairs and showed me Sir Isaac’s study, where I supposed he studied, when in the country, in his younger days, or perhaps when he visited his mother from the University. I observed the shelves were of his own making, being pieces of deal boxes, which probably he sent his books and clothes down in on those occasions. There were, some years ago, two or three hundred books in it of his father-in-law, Mr. Smith, which Sir Isaac gave to Dr. Newton, of our town.” The celebrated appletree, the fall of one of the apples of which is said to have turned the attention of Newton to the subject of gravity, was destroyed by the wind about twenty years ago; but it has been preserved in the form of a chair. The house itself has been protected with religious care. It was repaired in 1798, and a tablet of white marble put up in the room where our author was born, with the following inscription:—

“Sir Isaac Newton, son of John Newton, Lord of the Manor of Woolsthorpe, was born in this room, on the 25th of December, 1642.”

Nature and Nature’s Laws were hid in night, God said, “Let Newton be,” and all was light.