but am forced to ascribe it to the counsel and contrivance of a

voluntary Agent.

The same power, whether natural or supernatural, which placed the sun in the centre of the six primary planets, placed Saturn in the centre of the orbs of his five secondary planets, and Jupiter in the centre of his four secondary planets, and the earth in the centre of the moon's orb; and therefore had this cause been a blind one, without contrivance or design, the sun would have been. a body of the same kind with Saturn, Jupiter, and the earth, that is, without light and heat. Why there is one body in our system qualified to give light and heat to all the rest, I know no reason, but because the Author of the system thought it convenient; and why there is but one body of this kind I know no reason, but because one was sufficient to warm and enlighten all the rest. For the Cartesian hypothesis of suns losing their light, and then turning into comets, and comets into planets, can have no place in my system, and is plainly erroneous; because it is certain that as often as they appear to us, they descend into the system of our planets, lower than the orb of Jupiter, and sometimes lower than the orbs of Venus and Mercury, and yet never stay here, but always return from the sun with the same degrees of motion by which they approached him.

To your second query, I answer, that the motions which the planets now have could not spring from any natural cause alone, but were impressed by an intelligent Agent. For since comets descend into the region of our planets, and here move all manner of ways, going sometimes the same way with the planets, sometimes the contrary way, and sometimes in cross ways, in planes inclined to the plane of the ecliptic, and at all kinds of angles, it is plain that there is no natural cause which could determine all the planets, both primary and secondary, to move the same way and in the same plane, without any considerable variation: this must have been the effect of counsel. Nor is there any natural cause which could give the planets those just degrees of velocity, in proportion to their distances from the sun, and other central bodies, which were requisite to make them move in such concentric orbs about those bodies. Had the planets been swift as comets, in proportion to their distances from the sun (as they would have been, had their motion been caused by their gravity, whereby the matter, at

the first formation of the planets, might fall from the remotest regions towards the sun) they would not move in concentric orbs, but in such eccentric ones as the comets move in. Were all the planets as swift as Mercury, or as slow as Saturn or his satellites; or were their several velocities otherwise much greater or less than they are, as they might have been had they arose from any other cause than their gravities, or had the distances from the centres about which they move been greater or less than they are with the same velocities; or had the quantity of matter in the sun, or in Saturn, Jupiter, and the earth, and by consequence their gravitating power been greater or less than it is, the primary planets could not have revolved about the sun, nor the secondary ones about Saturn, Jupiter, and the earth, in concentric circles as they do, but would have moved in hyperbolas, or parabolas, or in eclipses very eccentric. To make this system therefore, with all its motions, required a Cause which understood and compared together the quantites of matter in the several bodies of the sun and planets, and the gravitating powers resulting from thence; the several distances of the primary planets from the sun, and of the secondary ones from Saturn, Jupiter, and the earth; and the velocities with which these planets could revolve about those quantities of matter in the central bodies; and to compare and adjust all these things together in so great a variety of bodies, argues that Cause to be not blind and fortuitous but very well skilled in mechanics and geometry.

To your third query, I answer, that it may be represented that the sun may, by heating those planets most which are nearest to him, cause them to be better concocted, and more condensed by that concoction. But when I consider that our earth is much more heated in its bowels below the upper crust by subterraneous fermentations of mineral bodies than by the sun, I see not why the interior parts of Jupiter and Saturn might not be as much heated, concocted, and coagulated by those fermentations as our earth is; and therefore this various density should have some other cause than the various distances of the planets from the sun. And I am confirmed in this opinion by considering, that the planets of Jupiter and Saturn, as they are rarer than the rest, so they are vastly greater, and contain a far greater quantity of matter, and have many satellites about them; which qualifications surely arose not

from their being placed at so great a distance from the sun, but were rather the cause why the Creator placed them at great distance. For by their gravitating powers they disturb one another's motions very sensibly, as I find by some late observations of Mr. Flamsteed, and had they been placed much nearer to the sun and to one another, they would by the same powers have caused a considerable disturbance in the whole system.

To your fourth query, I answer that in the hypothesis of vortices, the inclination of the axis of the earth might, in my opinion, be ascribed to the situation of the earth's vortex before it was absorbed by the neighbouring vortices, and the earth turned from a sun to a comet; but this inclination ought to decrease constantly in compliance with the motion of the earth's vortex, whose axis is much less inclined to the ecliptic, as appears by the motion of the moon carried about therein. If the sun by his rays could carry about the planets, yet I do not see how he could thereby effect their diurnal motions.

Lastly, I see nothing extraordinary in the inclination of the earth's axis for proving a Deity, unless you will urge it as a contrivance for winter and summer, and for making the earth habitable towards the poles; and that the diurnal rotations of the sun and planets, as they could hardly arise from any cause purely mechanical, so by being determined all the same way with the annual and menstrual motions, they seem to make up that harmony in the system, which, as I explained above, was the effect of choice rather than chance.

There is yet another argument for a Deity, which I take to be a very strong one, but, till the principles on which it is grounded are better received, I think it more advisable to let it sleep.—I am, your most humble servant to command,

ISAAC NEWTON.

CAMBRIDGE, 10th December 1692.

(From the Letters to Dr. Bentley.)

BISHOP BURNET

[Gilbert Burnet was born in Edinburgh on the 18th of September 1643. He was educated, first at home, and subsequently at the Marischal College, Aberdeen. In 1661 he became a clergyman of the Scotch Church. He was always interested in general literature, and still more in politics, which attracted him to London. He became intimate with King Charles II., who made him a royal chaplain, and with James, Duke of York. But Burnet was a zealous Protestant, and a personal friend of Lord William Russell and the Earl of Essex, so that he lost favour with Charles, and on the accession of James thought fit to go abroad. He became intimate with the Prince and Princess of Orange, accompanied the expedition of 1688, and after the Revolution was rewarded with the Bishopric of Salisbury. He proved an excellent bishop, without ceasing to be an active politician. In 1698 he became Preceptor to the Duke of Gloucester, son of the Princess Anne. He suggested to Anne, when Queen, the provision for augmenting poor livings, known as Queen Anne's bounty. He died in London on the 7th of March 1715. For more than fifty years he had been a most prolific writer. He composed histories, biographies, theological treatises, sermons, and political pamphlets. A complete list of his writings will be found (vol. vi. pp. 331-352) in the Clarendon Press edition of his principal work The History of my Own Times.]

BURNET took so keen a part in the political and religious controversies of a troubled time that the worth of his writings has been very differently judged by Whigs and by Tories, by Low Churchmen and by High Churchmen, But after the lapse of nearly two centuries it is no longer difficult to determine his real position in literature. He was a man of quick feelings, extraordinary energy, varied experience, and very wide reading. He was not an original thinker or a master of literary expression. his works were written for an immediate purpose. sermons and pamphlets which came from his pen are creditable productions of their kind, but possess none of those transcendant qualities which alone can raise a fugitive piece to the dignity of a classic. His works of divinity would hardly by themselves suffice to preserve his memory. That he still holds a place in English literature is due to his biographical and historical writings.

Most of The many

The first volume of

1679, the second in

Some Passages of the Life and Death of John, Earl of Rochester, should not perhaps be termed a biography, since it passes very rapidly over Rochester's career to dwell upon the close of his life and his conversion by the author. One of the cleverest and most dissolute among the many men of wit and pleasure who gathered round Charles II., Rochester had exhausted a vigorous constitution and fine talents whilst yet little more than thirty years of age. His conversations with Burnet give a lively idea of the religious and moral scepticism which was then fashionable, and of the arguments with which it was assailed. The Life of Sir Matthew Hale, Lord Chief Justice of England, portrays a very different character, a great judge, and a man of antique virtue. In this work, also, the sermon encroaches on the biography. Yet, it is agreeable reading. The deficiencies of Burnet's thought and style are less remarkable in brief occasional performances of this class, than in longer and more elaborate compositions. Burnet's reputation as a historian rests chiefly on the History of the Reformation and the History of My Own Time. the History of the Reformation appeared in 1681, and the third in 1714. Published at a time when the pretended discovery of the Popish plot had given a new edge to Protestant enthusiasm, the first volume received the formal thanks of the House of Commons. The whole work attracted considerable attention on the Continent as well as in England. Nor was this attention undeserved. For Burnet had shown considerable industry in research, and had as much regard for truth as is ever found in a zealous party man. But in writing the History of the Reformation he laboured under two grave disadvantages. He had no access to many sources of information which have been laid open since his time. He wrote at a time when the conflict between Protestant and Catholic was still raging, and could not be expected to discuss the first phase of that conflict in the philosophical spirit, possible to those who write after the conflict has been decided. For these reasons the History of the Reformation has already become more or less obsolete. A more enduring importance belongs to the History of My Own Time, which was not published in the life of the author. Beginning with a sketch of the period of the Civil Wars and the Commonwealth, it traces the course of events in England and Scotland from the Restoration of Charles II. down to the close of the reign of Anne. For writing such a history Burnet possessed unusual