62 Sir I S A A C N E W T O N’s Book I.

into from their prejudices, and the many artful subterfuges bywhich they strove to support them. The unexceptionable integrity,extensive charity, and singular piety os this excellent persondid great honour to philosophy, and formed an eminent partos his character. The world he considered as the temple ofGod, and * " man (to use his own words) as born the priest" of nature, ordained (by being qualified) to celebrate divine" service, not only in it but for it.” Not satisfied with hav-ing promoted the belief of a Deity and the evidence of truereligion, to the utmost of his power, in the great number ofvolumes composed by him, on every occasion during thecourse os a laborious life, he has taken care, by his will, toperpetuate a succession os advocates for it, who should makethe same improvement not of his discoveries only, or of thoseos former times, but of what should be produced by sutureages. In this design, worthy of him, the success has beenanswerable to his intentions ; and surely such a man, we mustallow, was not an ornament to his own age and country only,but a pubsick benefit to all times and nations.

We are now arrived at the happy æra of experimental phi-losophy ; when men, having got into the right path, pro-secuted useful knowledge ; when their views of nature didhonour to them, and the arts received daily improvements;when not private men only, but societies of men, with unitedzeal, ingenuity and industry, prosecuted their enquiries intothe secrets of nature, devoted to no sect or system. But weare obliged to abandon, at present, the agreeable task os fol-lowing them in their discoveries, in this flourishing period ofscience, to give account os a most illusive scheme os spe-culative philosophy that prevailed amongst many at this verytime, and, by mifleading ingenious men, corrupted their no-

* Boyle's Usefulness of Natural Philosophy, part I. essay 3.

tions