[78] Optics, part iv. obs. 13.
[79] For these letters I have been indebted to the kindness of Lord Braybrooke.
[80] These three letters have been published by Lord Braybrooke in the Life and Correspondence of Mr. Pepys.
[81] This anxiety will be understood from the fact that, by an order of council dated January 28th, 1674–5, Mr. Newton was excused from making the usual payments of one shilling per week, “on account of his low circumstances, as he represented.”
[82] The system of Hobbes was at this time very prevalent. According to Dr. Bentley, “the taverns and coffee-houses, nay, Westminster Hall and the very churches, were full of it;” and he was convinced from personal observation, that “not one English infidel in a hundred was other than a Hobbist.”—Monk’s Life of Bentley, p. 31.
[83] The draft of this letter is endorsed “J. L. to I. Newton.”
[84] Dr. Gregory concludes his account of this manuscript, which he has kindly permitted me to read, in the following words:—“I do not know whether it is true, as stated by Huygens, ‘Newtonum incidisse in Phrenitim;’ but I think every gentleman who examines this manuscript will be of opinion that he must have thoroughly recovered from his phrenitis before he wrote either the Commentary on the Opinions of the Ancients, or the Sketch of his own Theological and Philosophical Opinions which it contains.”
[85] This paragraph is as follows:—“Deum esse ens summe perfectum concedunt omnes. Entis autem summe perfecti Idea est ut sit substantia, una, simplex, indivisibilis, viva et vivifica, ubique semper necessario existens, summe intelligens omnia, libere volens bona, voluntate efficiens possibilia, effectibus nobilioribus similitudinem propriam quantum fieri potest communicans, omnia in se continens tanquam eorum principium et locus, omnia per presentiam substantialem cernens et regens, et cum rebus omnibus, secundum leges accuratas ut naturæ totius fundamentum et causa constanter co-operans, nisi ubi aliter agere bonum est.”
[86] The following extract, characteristic of Flamstead’s manner, is from a letter to Newton dated January 6, 1698–9.
“Upon hearing occasionally that you had sent a letter to Dr. Wallis about the parallax of the fixed stars to be printed, and that you had mentioned me therein with respect to the theory of the moon, I was concerned to be publicly brought upon the state about what, perhaps, will never be fitted for the public, and thereby the world put into an expectation of what perhaps they are never likely to have. I do not love to be printed upon every occasion, much less to be dunned and teased by foreigners about mathematical things, or to be thought by your own people to be trifling away my time when I should be about the king’s business.” On the first of the above passages in italics Flamstead has the following memorandum:—“When Mr. Halley boasts ’tis done, and given to him as a secret, tells the Society so and foreigners.” In the second passage in italics, Mr. Flamstead refers, in a note, to Mr. Colson’s letter to him, in which he seems to have represented practical astronomy as trifling. Mr. Flamstead adds, “Was Mr. Newton a trifler when he read mathematics for a salary at Cambridge: surely, then, astronomy is of some good use, though his place be more beneficial.” For these extracts from the original manuscript in the collection of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, I have been indebted to the kindness of Professor Rigaud of Oxford.