to my friends; to whom when I have given possession of my heart, I am less punctual in making of legs and kissing my hand than to other people to whom that out-side civility is all that belongs.

I received the three books you sent me. That which the author sent me deserves my acknowledgment more ways than one; and I must beg you to return it. His demonstrations are so plain, that if this were an age that followed reason, I should not doubt but his would prevail. But to be rational is so glorious a thing that two-legged creatures generally content themselves with the title; but will not debase so excellent a faculty about the conduct of so trivial a thing as they make themselves.

There never was a man better suited to your wishes than I am. You take a pleasure in being troubled with my commissions; and I have no other way of commerce with you, but by such importunities. I can only say, that, were the tables changed, I should, being in your place, have the same satisfaction; and therefore confidently make use of your kind offer. I therefore beg the favour of you to get me Mr Le Clerc's Harmony of the Evangelists in English, bound very finely in calf, gilt, and lettered on the back, and gilt on the leaves. So also I would have Moliere's works (of the best edition you can get them) bound. These books are for ladies; and therefore I would have them fine, and the leaves gilt as well as the back. Moliere of the Paris edition I think is the best, if it can be got in London in quires. You see the liberty I take. I should be glad you could find out something for me to do for you here. I am perfectly, &c. JOHN LOCKE.

Not a few of the shrewd and wise sayings in Locke's philosophy of life might be quoted as aphorisms: thus, 'It is one thing to show a man that he is in error, and another to put him in possession of the truth;' and "Tis in vain to find fault with those arts of deceiving wherein men find pleasure to be deceived.' Locke on quotation deserves to be cited in a work like the present: 'He that has but ever so little examined the citations of writers cannot doubt how little credit the quotations deserve where the originals are wanting; and consequently how much less quotations of quotations can be relied on.'

There are Lives of Locke by Lord King (1829 and 1830) and Fox Bourne (2 vols. 1876), and small works on his philosophy by Dr Fowler (1880) and Dr Campbell Fraser (1890) The standard edition of the Essay is by Campbell Fraser (2 vols. 1894). The most notable contemporary criticism is contained in the Nouveaux Essais of Leibnitz; the most trenchant of modern critiques is to be found in T. H. Green's Introduction to his edition of Hume (1874). Dr John Brown's essay 'Locke and Sydenham' in his Hora Subseciva (1858) gives an account of his friendship with the great physician.

Sir Isaac Newton,

greatest of the world's physicists, was born 25th December 1642, at Woolsthorpe in Lincolnshire, where his father cultivated a small paternal estate ; and from childhood he manifested a strong inclination towards mechanical and mathematical pursuits. Having received his early education at the grammar-school of Grantham, at the age of fifteen he was summoned to take charge of the farm; but, found unsuited for this uncongenial

occupation, he was allowed to return to school and follow the bent of his genius. In 1661 he was admitted a sizar in Trinity College, Cambridge, became a Junior Fellow in 1667, and M.A. in 1668. In 1669 he succeeded Barrow as mathematical professor; in 1671 he became a Fellow of the Royal Society, and communicated to it his new theory of Light. He served repeatedly in Parliament as member for the university, was appointed Warden (1696) and Master (1699) of the Mint during Montague's reform of the currency, became President of the Royal Society in 1703, and two years afterwards received the honour of knighthood from Queen Anne. While at the Mint he devoted himself entirely to his official work, refusing testily to be 'dunned and teased by foreigners about mathematical things' so long as he was about the King's business.' To the unrivalled genius and sagacity of Newton the world is indebted for many splendid discoveries in mathematics and physics, above all of the laws which regulate the movements of the solar system. The first step towards the establishment of the Newtonian system-his philosophy, as it used to be called-was his discovery of the law of gravitation, which, as he proved, affected the vast orbs that revolve around the sun not less than the smallest objects on our own globe. It was Voltaire who gave the apple story currency in its present shape. His nephew's record was: 'In the same year [1665], at his mother's in Lincolnshire, when musing in a garden it came into his thoughts that the same power of gravity which made an apple fall from the tree to the ground was not limited to a certain distance.' He. saw that there was, a remarkable power or principle which caused all bodies to descend towards the centre of the earth, and that this unseen power operated at the top of the highest mountains and at the bottom of the deepest mines. When the true cause, the law of gravitation, dawned upon his mind, Newton was so much agitated as to be unable to work out the problem. When he did attempt to explain on this theory the lunar and planetary motions, the then erroneous estimate of the radius of the earth produced such discrepancies that he gave up his calculation for work in optics and about telescopes; and it was not till after he had utilised Picard's more correct measure of the earth (1670) that he was able to work out his theory, finally demonstrated by 1684, and for ever put beyond cavil (see page 159). "The whole material universe,' Sir David Brewster said, 'was spread out before him; the sun with all his attending planets, the planets with all their satellites, the comets wheeling in their eccentric orbits, and the system of the fixed stars stretching to the remotest limits of space.' When Columbus first descried the shores of the new world he had adventurously sailed to explore, he attained an unparalleled pitch of moral and intellectual grandeur. So did Milton when, old and blind and poor, he had realised the

dream of his youth, completed his great epic, and sent it forth on its voyage of immortality. But the achievement of Newton was still more transcendent - perhaps the most sublime ever permitted to mortal; he had done more than any mere man towards the scientific understanding and explanation of the world.

The work in which Newton unfolded his simple but sublime system was expounded in Latin in De Motu Corporum, and finally appeared in 1687 as the truly epochmaking Philosophia Naturalis Principia Mathematica. To Newton we owe likewise discoveries by which the science of optics was SO entirely changed that he may very justly be termed its founder. He was the first to conceive and demonstrate the divisibility of light into rays of seven different colours, and possessing dif ferent degrees of refrangibility. His thirty years' optical investigations were set forth in 1704 in Optics: or a Treatise of the Refractions, Inflections, and Colours of Light. Controversies about the priority of Newton's discovery of fluxions and Leib

of the Covenant. Only one was issued at oncethat on The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended, in which Newton suggested how astronomy might be used to check and verify Babylonian and Egyptian chronology. An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture (John, v. 7, and 1 Tim. iii. 16) first appeared in a perfect form in Dr Horsley's edition of his works in 1779. Newton, like all competent scholars then and since, regarded the 'Three Heavenly Witnesses'

nitz's (independent) discovery of the differential calculus embittered many years of Newton's life. He wrote not a little on chemistry, had studied the alchemists carefully, and in his earlier years actually sought for the philosopher's stone. Like his illustrious contemporaries Boyle, Barrow, and Locke, Newton devoted much attention to theology as well as to natural science. His Observations upon the Prophecies of Holy Writ, particularly the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St John, was published after his death. Among his manuscripts were found many other theological pieces, mostly on such subjects as the Prophetic Style, the Host of Heaven, the Revelation, the Temple of Solomon, the Sanctuary, the Working of the Mystery of Iniquity, and the Contest between the Host of Heaven and the Transgressors

as an interpolation, and held that 'God manifest in the flesh' should be (as Hort and recent orthodox scholars agree) 'who was manifest'-thereby incurring a charge of Unitarian views. That he was far from being an orthodox Trinitarian appears from a sort of creed or confession printed by Sir David Brewster, one of the articles of which is: To us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him. That is, we are to worship the Father alone as God Almighty, and Jesus alone as the Lord, the Messiah, the Great

King, the Lamb of God who was slain, and hath redeemed us with his blood, and made us kings and priests.' Another is: 'We need not pray to Christ to intercede for us. If we pray aright to the Father, he will intercede for us.' Newton's decided Arian convictions are visible also in the strong ill-will he cherished-like the Deists, with whom as a devout believer in revelation he had little in common-against the Nicene Council and its methods, his utter disrespect for Athanasius (as a liar, falsifier of evidence, and malignant enemy), his pronounced suspicion of every step that led to the acceptance of the 'homoousion,' and his query, 'Whether Christ sent his apostles to preach metaphysics to the unlearned common people and to their wives and children?' His unwillingness that his views on these points (though

communicated to friends like Locke) should be published under his name during his lifetime is explained by the fact that unsoundness on the Trinity disqualified for public service. Whiston

was deprived of his professorship and banished the University of Cambridge for Arianism in 1710. Galileo recanted to please the Roman Church; the English Galileo would have been driven from his posts a hundred years later had he not been content to keep his real views on theology in retentis. And the pious and orthodox Sir David Brewster, painfully disturbed by Newton's theological aberrations, was attacked in 1831 by the Bishop of Salisbury as having done great injury to Newton's memory by publishing his true opinions from Newton's own undisputed MSS. ! But on Scripture revelation Newton was hyper-orthodox. In his elucubration on Daniel he insisted that 'the authority of emperors, kings, and princes is human. The authority of councils, synods, bishops, and presbyters is human. The authority of the prophets is divine, and comprehends the sum of religion, reckoning Moses and the Apostles among the prophets.' How far he was from present-day views may be gathered from his statement: The predictions of things to come relate to the state of the Church in all ages and amongst the old prophets Daniel is the most distinct in order of time, and easiest to be understood; and therefore in those things which relate to the last times he must be made the key to the rest.' The following is part of his scheme for the non-natural interpretation of the prophets :

Of the Prophetic Language.

For understanding the prophecies, we are in the first place to acquaint ourselves with the figurative language of the prophets. This language is taken from the analogy between the world natural, and an empire or kingdom considered as a world politic. Accordingly the whole world natural, consisting of heaven and earth, signifies the whole world politic, consisting of thrones and people; or so much of it as is considered in the prophecy. And the things in that world signifies the analogous things in this. For the heavens, and the things therein, signify thrones and dignities, and those who enjoy them; and the earth, with the things thereon, the inferior people; and the lowest parts of the earth, called Hades, or Hell, the lowest or most miserable part of them. Whence ascending towards heaven, and descending to the earth, are put for rising and falling in power and honour; rising out of the earth or waters, and falling into them, for the rising up to any dignity, or dominion, out of the inferior state of the people, or falling down from the same into that inferior state; descending into the lower parts of the earth, for descending to a very low and unhappy state; speaking with a faint voice out of the dust, for being in a weak and low condition; moving from one place to another, for translation from one office, dignity, or dominion to another; great earthquakes, and the shaking of heaven and earth, for the shaking of dominions, so as to distract or overthrow them; the creating a new heaven and earth, and the passing away of an old one, or the beginning and end

of the world, for the rise and reign of the body politic signified thereby.

In the heavens, the sun and moon are, by the interpreters of dreams, put for the persons of kings and queens. But in sacred prophecy, which regards not single persons, the sun is put for the whole species and race of kings, in the kingdom or kingdoms of the world politic, shining with regal power and glory; the moon for the body of the common people, considered as the king's wife; the stars for subordinate princes and great men, or for bishops and rulers of the people of God, when the sun is Christ; light for the glory, truth, and knowledge, wherewith great and good men shine and illuminate others; darkness for obscurity of condition, and for error, blindness, and ignorance; darkening, smiting, or setting of the sun, moon, and stars, for the ceasing of a kingdom, or for the desolation thereof, proportional to the darkness; darkening the sun, turning the moon into blood, and falling of the stars, for the same; new moons, for the return of a dispersed people into a body politic or ecclesiastic. . .

If the world politic, considered in prophecy, consists of many kingdoms, they are represented by as many parts of the world natural, as the noblest by the celestial frame, and then the moon and clouds are put for the common people; the less noble, by the earth, sea, and rivers, and by the animals or vegetables, or buildings therein; and then the greater and more powerful animals and taller trees, are put for kings, princes, and nobles. And because the whole kingdom is the body politic of the king, therefore the sun, or a tree, or a beast, or bird, or a man, whereby the king is represented, is put in a large signification for the whole kingdom; and several animals, as a lion, a bear, a leopard, a goat, according to their qualities, are put for several kingdoms and bodies politic; and sacrificing of beasts, for slaughtering and conquering of kingdoms; and friendship between beasts, for peace between kingdoms. Yet sometimes vegetables and animals are, by certain epithets or circumstances, extended to other significations; as a tree, when called the tree of life' or 'of knowledge;' and a beast, when called 'the old serpent,' or worshipped.

During the last forty years of his life the inventive powers of this great thinker seemed to have lost their activity; he made no further discoveries, and in his later scientific publications published to the world only the views which he had formed in early life. An unamiable attempt was even made (by M. Biot) to prove that his mental powers were impaired by an attack of insanity in the years 1692 and 1693, and that accordingly he took to theology! Brewster, who proved that theology was an early study with him, and that some admirable physical work was done after the date in question, goes so far as to say (quite extravagantly, on the evidence), 'If he had not been distinguished as a mathematician and natural philosopher he would have enjoyed a high reputation as a theologian.' A Cambridge student has recorded, on 3rd February 1693, the loss of Newton's papers by fire while he was at chapel ; adding that when the philosopher came home, '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.' That his mind was then seriously disturbed is proved, and the disturbance was occasionally fol- | lowed by fits of melancholia. Newton himself, writing on the 13th of September 1693 to Pepys, Secretary to the Admiralty, says: 'I am extremely troubled at the embroilment I am in, and have neither ate nor slept well this twelvemonth, nor have my former consistency of mind.' He wrote an apology to his friend Locke for having charged him with embroiling' him with other people— this being one of his hallucinations; and Locke's answer, also extant, is admirable for its gentle and kindly spirit. In 1722 Newton's health began to fail. In February 1727 he came to London to preside at a meeting of the Royal Society, suffered from the journey, and died at Kensington on the 20th of March. He was buried in his rightful place in Westminster Abbey, the Lord Chancellor, two scientific dukes, and three learned earls being pall-bearers.

A letter from Newton to Dr John Mill, written in January 1694, shows how painstaking Newton was in matters of biblical criticism, and implies the value attached to his help by the foremost New Testament scholar of his time:

:

SIR,-I fear you think I have kept your book too long but to make some amends for detaining it so long, I have sent you not only my old collations so far as they vary from yours, but also some new ones of Dr Covil's two MSS.; for I have collated them anew, and sent you those readings which were either omitted in your printed ones, or there erroneously printed. In collating these MSS., I set the readings down in the margin of your book, and thence transcribed them into a sheet of paper, which you will find in your book at the end of the Apocalypse, together with my old collations, and a copy of a side of Beza's MS. The collations I send you of Dr Covil's two MSS. you may rely upon; for I put them into Mr Laughton's hand with the two MSS., and he compared them with the MSS. and found them right. In the other collations you will find that Stephens made several omissions and some other mistakes, in collating the Complutensian edition, though it is probable that he collated this edition with more diligence and accurateness than he did any of the MSS. Where I have noted any readings of the Alexandrin MS., I desire you would collate that MS. again with my readings, because I never had a sight of it. I could not observe any accurateness in the stops or commas in Beza's MS. You may rely upon the transcript of something more than a side of it, which you will find in your book at the end of the Apocalypse. In your little MS. book, which I return you, tied up together with your New Testament, you will find those transcripts you desired out of MSS., except two, which were in such running hands that I could not imitate them, nor did it seem worth the while, the MSS. being very new ones.-I am, in all sincerity, your most humble and most obedient servant,

IS. NEWTON.

In character Newton was gentle and courteous. He loathed hunting and the shooting of animals, and

held it a serious defect in a friend's character that 'he loved killing of birds.' As Burnet said of him, he had the whitest soul he ever knew.' He took little interest in art: he playfully reproached a friendly archæologist with fondness for 'stone dolls.' He was singularly straightforward, modest, and willing to accept criticism, though at times a little difficult and 'nice' on questions of priority -hence many rather futile controversies in which he was engaged. No proposition of his Principia, no theorem of his Optics, has sunk so deeply into men's minds as the saying reported to have been made by him shortly before his death :

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 seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.

See the Life of Newton by Sir David Brewster (1831; 2nd ed. 1855); A. de Morgan's Newton, his Friend, and his Niece (1885); G. J. Gray's bibliography of Newton's works and works about him (nearly 250 in all; 1888); and Professor P. G. Tait's Newton's Laws of Motion (1899).

John Ray (1627-1705), the son of a blacksmith at Black Notley in Essex, was an eminent naturalist. In botany his very numerous and important works rank him among the founders of the science; and he is commonly regarded as the father of natural history in England. He was educated at Braintree and Cambridge, becoming a Fellow of Trinity, and taking orders in 1660; but in 1662 he was ejected by the 'Black Bartholomew.' Thereupon, with his friend and former pupil, Francis Willughby, he travelled over Wales and southern England, collecting botanical and zoological specimens; and in 1663 they set out on a three years' Continental tour, Willughby taking the zoology, and Ray the botany. Willughby died in 1672, and Ray, after acting as tutor to his friend's sons, in 1679 settled down in his native village. Besides their joint Observations, Topographical, Moral, and Physiological, made in a Journey through the Low Countries, Germany, Italy, and France (1673), Ray edited Willughby's Ornithologia and Historia Piscium, and himself published A Collection of English Proverbs (1670), A Collection of English Words not generally used (1674), Historia Plantarum Generalis (3 vols. 1686-1704), Synopsis Methodica Animalium (1693), &c. 'Ray,' said Cuvier, was the first true systematist of the Animal Kingdom;' and White of Selborne speaks of him as 'the only describer that conveys some precise idea in every term or word, maintaining his superiority over his followers and imitators, in spite of the advantage of fresh discoveries and modern information.' Ray's famous treatise on The Wisdom of God Manifested in the Works of the Creation (1691; 12th ed. 1759) was translated into several Continental languages. He gives as one reason for writing it: By virtue of my function, I suspect myself to be obliged to write something

in divinity, having written so much on other subjects; for, not being permitted to serve the Church with my tongue in preaching, I know not but it may be my duty to serve it with my hand in writing; and I have made choice of this subject, as thinking myself best qualified to treat of it.' Natural theology had previously been developed in England by Boyle, Stillingfleet, Wilkins, Henry More, and Cudworth, and the Essex clergyman, William Derham (1657-1735); but Ray systematised and popularised the subject. Paley's Natural Theology (1802), which superseded Ray's work, is really a development of Ray's argument.

The following excerpts are from the Observations, a book of travels which, always lucid and often very entertaining, yet sometimes-as in the greater Italian towns-becomes almost like a guide-book. On the journey up the Rhine from 'Collen' to Mentz, hardly one of the castles escapes mention. In university towns, Ray prints the professors' names and the courses of lectures being delivered when he was there. He had an especially open eye for botany and zoology, and 'natural curiosities;' thus at Naples he ascended Vesuvius, stood in the Grotto del Cane till 'the sulphureous twinge in his nose' threatened to stifle him, and thrust a sword into the vents of the Solfatara of Pozzuoli.

The Dutch People.

The common people of Holland, especially inn-keepers, waggoners (foremen they call them), boat-men, and porters, are surly and uncivil. The waggoners bait themselves and their horses four or five times in a day's journey. Generally the Dutch men and women are almost always eating as they travel, whether it be by boat, coach, or waggon. The men are for the most part big-boned and gross-bodied. The first dish at ordinaries and entertainments is usually a salade, Sla they call it, of which they eat abundance in Holland. The meat they commonly stew, and make their Hotchpots of it. Puddings neither here nor in any place we have travelled beyond sea do they eat any; either not knowing the goodness of the dish, or not having the skill to make them: puddings and brawn are dishes proper to England. Boil'd spinage minc'd and butter'd (sometimes also with currans added) is a great dish all over these countries. The common people feed much upon cabiliau (that is cod-fish) and pickled herrings, which they know how to cure or prepare better than we do in England. You shall seldom fail of hung beef in any inn you come into, which they cut into thin slices and eat with bread and butter, laying the slices upon the butter. They have four or five sorts of cheese; three they usually bring forth and set before you. (1) Those great round cheeses, colour'd red on the outside, commonly in England called Holland-cheeses. (2) Cummin-seed cheese. (3) Green cheese, said to be so colour'd with the juice of sheep's-dung. This they scrape upon bread butter'd, and so eat. (4) Sometimes Angelots. (5) Cheese like to Our common country cheese. Milk is the cheapest of all belly-provisions. Their strong beer (thick beer they call it, and well they may) is sold for three stivers the quart, which is more than three pence English. All manner of victuals, both meat and drink, are very dear, not for the scarcity

of such commodities, but partly by reason of the great excise and impost wherewith they are charged, partly by reason of the abundance of money that is stirring here. By the way we may note, that the dearness of this sort of provisions is an argument of the riches of a town or country, these things being always cheapest in the poorest places. Land is also here sold at 30 or 40 years purchase, and yet both houses and land set at very high annual rents: so that, were not the poor workmen and labourers well paid for their pains, they could not possibly live. Their beds are for the most part like cabbins, inconveniently short and narrow; and yet such as they are, you pay in some places ten stivers a night the man for them, and in most six, There is no way for a stranger to deal with inn-keepers, waggoners, porters, and boatmen but by bargaining with them before-hand. Their houses in Holland are kept clean with extraordinary niceness, and the entrance before the door curiously paved with stone. All things both within and without, floor, posts, walls, glass, houshold stuff, marvellously clean, bright and handsomly kept: nay, some are so extraordinarily curious as to take down the very tiles of their pent-houses and cleanse them. Yet about the preparing and dressing of their victuals our English houswives are, I think, more cleanly and curious than they; so that no wonder Englishmen were formerly noted for excessive eating, they having greater temptation to eat, both from the goodness of their meat, and the curiosity of the dressing it, than other nations.

Ray's foreman' is the Dutch voerman, German fuhrmann. Angelots were well-known Normandy cheeses.

At Heidelberg.

About the middle of the ascent of the hill, called Koningsthall, stands the castle where the prince keeps his court, a stately pile and of great capacity, encom passed with a strong wall and a deep trench hewn out of the rock, which upon occasion may be filled with water. Over the gate leading into the palace is a Dutch inscription, signifying the building of it by Ludovicus V. in the year 1519. It is not all of one piece, but since the first foundation several buildings have been added by several princes. One part is called the English building. Under one of the towers stood the great tun, which almost fill'd a room. It held 132 fudders, a fudder (as we were informed) being equal to four English hogsheads. The old tun is taken in pieces, and there is a new one in building by the prince's order, which is to contain 150 fudders, or 600 hogsheads. Being invited by the prince's order, we dined in the palace, where we observed all things carried with little noise and great decency. After dinner his highness was pleased to call us into his closet and shew us many curiosities, among others (1) a purse made of Alumen plumosum, which we saw put into a pan of burning charcoal, till it was thoroughly ignite, and yet when taken out and cool, we could not perceive that it had received any harm at all from the fire. (2) Two unicorns horns, each eight or ten foot long, wreathed and hollow to the top. By the way we may note, that these are the horns of a fish of the cetaceous kind (two distinct species whereof you may find described and figured in the History and Description of the Antilles, or Caribee Islands, written in French by R. F. of Tertre, and the head of one in Wormius's Museum), not the horns of a quadruped, as is vulgarly but erroneously thought. Whatever the antients have