72 I)r J. C. GREGORY'S Notice concerning 



ten on the subject of LOCKE'S doctrine concerning innate ideas, 

 scarcely three weeks before, in the other *. 



But I believe it will be found, on closer examination, that 

 these letters, unsupported by more direct evidence, will scarcely 



* To enable the reader to form his own opinion, these two letters are here sub- 

 joined. They are both addressed to Mr LOCKE. 



" SIR, 



" Being of opinion that you endeavoured to embroil me with women and by 

 other means, I was so affected with it, as that when one told me you were sickly 

 and would not live, I answered, 'Twere better if you were dead. I desire you to 

 forgive me this uncharitableness. For I am now satisfied that what you have done 

 is just, and I beg your pardon for my having hard thoughts of you for it, and for 

 representing that you struck at the root of morality in a principle you laid down in 

 your book of Ideas, and designed to pursue in another book ; and that I took you 

 for a Hobbist. I beg your pardon also for saying or thinking that there was a de- 

 sign to sell me an office, or to embroil me. I am your most humble, and unfortu- 

 nate Servant, Is. NEWTON." 



" At the Bull, in Shorediteh, 

 London, Sept. 16. 1693." 



In answer to these painful acknowledgments, LOCKE, in a letter written, as 

 Mr STEWABT justly remarks, " with the magnanimity of a philosopher, and with 

 the good-humoured forbearance of a man of the world," requests NEWTON to point 

 out the places in his book that gave occasion to his censure, in order that, by ex- 

 plaining himself better in a second edition, he may avoid being mistaken by others, 

 or unawares doing the least prejudice to truth or virtue. NEWTON'S reply is as 

 follows : 



SIR, 



" The last winter, by sleeping too often by my fire, I got an ill habit of sleep- 

 ing ; and a distemper which this summer has been epidemical, put me farther out 

 of order, so that when I wrote to you, I had not slept an hour a night for a fort- 

 night together, and for five nights together not a wink. I remember I wrote to you, 

 but what I said of your book I remember not. If you please to send me a tran- 

 script of that passage, I will give you an account of it if I can. I am your most 

 humble Servant, Is. NEWTON." 



" CAMBRIDGE, Oct. 5. 1693." 



