sphere would indicate almost as many different epochs as it contains stars. Some of them even had not, in the time of Eudoxus, arrived at the position which had been for a long time attributed to them, and will not even reach it for three hundred years to come, and on this account he considers it impossible to deduce any chronological conclusions from such rude mass of errors.

But however well-founded these observations may be, we agree in opinion with M. Daunou,* "that they are not sufficient to establish a new system, and we must regard the system of Newton as a great fact in the history of chronological science, and as confirming the observation of Varro, that the stage of history does not commence till the first Olympiad."

Among the chronological writings of Sir Isaac Newton we must enumerate his 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. This hypothesis was sent by the Bishop of Worcester to Dr. Prideaux. Sir Isaac remarks, that it is filled with many excellent observations on the ancient year; but he does not "find it proved that any ancient nations used a year of twelve months and 360 days without correcting it from time to time by the luminaries, to make the months keep to the course of the moon, and the year to the course of the sun, and returns of the seasons and fruits of the earth." After examining the years of all the nations of antiquity, he concludes, "that no other years are to be met with among the ancients but such as were either luni-solar, or solar or lunar, or the calendars of these years." A practical year, he adds, of 360 days is none of these. The beginning of such a year would have run round the four

*See an excellent view of this chronological controversy in an able note by M. Daunou, attached to Biot's Life of Newton in the Biog. Uni verselle, tom. xxxi. p. 180

seasons in seventy years, and such a notable revolu tion would have been mentioned in history, and is not to be asserted without proving it.*

CHAPTER XVI.

Theological Studies of Sir Isaac-Their Importance to ChristianityMotives to which they have been ascribed-Opinions of Biot and La place considered-His Theological Researches begun before his sup> posed Mental Illness-The Date of these Works fixed-Letters to Locke -Account of his Observations on Prophecy--His Historical Account of two notable Corruptions of Scripture-His Lexicon PropheticumHis Four Letters to Dr. Bentley-Origin of Newton's Theological Studies-Analogy between the Book of Nature and that of Revelation

THE history of the theological studies of Sir Isaac Newton will ever be regarded as one of the most interesting portions of his life. That he who among all the individuals of his species possessed the highest intellectual powers was not only a learned and profound divine, but a firm believer in the great doctrines of religion, is one of the proudest triumphs of the Christian faith. Had he distinguished himself only by an external respect for the offices and duties of religion; and had he left merely in his last words an acknowledgment of his faith, his piety would have been regarded as a prudent submission to popular feeling, and his last aspirations would have been ascribed to the decay or to the extinction of his transcendent powers. But he had been a Christian from his youth, and though never intended for the church, yet he interchanged the study of the Scriptures with that of the laws of the material universe; and from the examination of the works of the Supreme Creator he found it to be no abrupt

*This letter is published without any date in the Gentleman's Magazine for 1755, vol. xxv. p. 3. It bears internal evidence of being genuine

transition to investigate the revelation of his will, and to contemplate the immortal destinies of mankind.

But when the religious habits of Sir Isaac Newton could not be ascribed to an ambition of popularity, to the influence of weak health, or to the force of professional impulse, it became necessary for the apostles of infidelity to refer it to some extraordinary cause. His supposed insanity was therefore eagerly seized upon by some as affording a plausible origin for his religious principles; while others, without any view of supporting the cause of skepticism, ascribed his theological researches to the habits of the age in which he lived, and to a desire of promoting political liberty, by turning against the abetters of despotism those powerful weapons which the Scriptures supplied. The anxiety evinced by M. de Laplace to refer his religious writings to a late period of his life seems to have been felt also by M. Biot, who has gone so far as to fix the very date of one of his most important works, and thus to establish the suspicions of his colleague. "From the nature of the subject,"* says he," and from certain indications which Newton seems to give at the beginning of his dissertation, we may conjecture with probability that he composed it at the time when the errors of Whiston, and a work of Dr. Clarke on the same subject, drew upon them the attacks of all the theologians of England, which would place the date between the years 1712 and 1719. It would then be truly a prodigy to remark, that a man of from seventy-two to seventy-five years of age was able to compose, rapidly, as he leads us to believe, so extensive a piece of sacred criticism, of literary history, and even of bibliography, where an erudition the most vast, the most

*His Historical Account of two notable Corruptions of the Scrip tures 50 pp quarto.

varied, and the most ready always supports an argument well arranged and powerfully combined. * * * At this epoch of the life of Newton the reading of religious books had become one of his most habitual occupations, and after he had performed the duties of his office, they formed, along with the conversa. tion of his friends, his principal amusement. He had then almost ceased to care for the sciences, and,

we have already remarked, since the fatal epoch of 1693, he gave to the world only three really new scientific productions."

Notwithstanding the prodigy which it involves, M. Biot has adopted 1712-1719 as the date of this critical dissertation;-it is regarded as the composition of a man of seventy-two or seventy-five;-the reading of religious works is stated to have become one of his most habitual occupations, and such reading is said to have been one of his principal amusements; and all this is associated with "the fatal epoch of 1693," as if his illness at that time had been the cause of his abandoning science and betaking himself to theology. Carrying on the same views, M. Biot asks, in reference to Sir Isaac's work on Prophecy, "How a mind of the character and force of Newton's, so habituated to the severity of mathe matical considerations, so exercised in the observation of real phenomena, and so well aware of the conditions by which truth is to be discovered, could put together such a number of conjectures without noticing the extreme improbability of his interpretations from the infinite number of arbitrary postulates on which he has founded them?" We would apply the same question to the reasoning by which M. Biot fixes the date of the critical dissertation; and we would ask how so eminent a philosopher could hazard such frivolous conjectures upon a subject on which he had not a single fact to guide his inquiries. The obvious tendency, though not the design, of the conclusion at which he arrives is injurious to the

memory of Newton, as well as to the interests of religion; and these considerations might have checked the temerity of speculation, even if it had been founded on better data. The Newtonian interpretation of the Prophecies, and especially that part which M. Biot characterizes as unhappily stamped with the spirit of prejudice, has been adopted by men of the soundest and most unprejudiced minds; and in addition to the moral and historical evidence by which it is supported, it may yet be exhibited in all the fulness of demonstration. But the speculation of Biot respecting the date of Newton's theological works was never maintained by any other person than himself, and is capable of being disproved by the most incontrovertible evidence.

We have already seen, in the extract from Mr. Pryme's manuscript, that previous to 1692, when a shade is supposed to have passed over his gifted mind, Newton was well known by the appellation of an "excellent divine,"-a character which could not have been acquired with out the devotion of many years to theological researches; but, important as this argument would have been, we are fortunately not left to so general a defence. The correspondence of Newton with Locke, recently published by Lord King, places it beyond a doubt that he had begun his researches respecting the Prophecies before the year 1691,-before the forty-ninth year of his age, and before the "fatal epoch of 1693.' The following letter shows that he had previously discussed this subject with his friend :

❝ SIR, Cambridge, Feb. 7, 1690-1. "I am sorry your journey proved to so little purpose, though it delivered you from the trouble of the company the day after. You have obliged me by mentioning me to my friends at London, and I must thank both you and my Lady Masham for your civilities at Oates, and for not thinking that I made