APPENDIX. 305 



which Thou hast spread over all nature, raise our desires 

 to the divine light of Thy grace, in order that we may 

 be, one day, transported into the eternal light of Thy 

 glory ! I give Thee thanks, Lord and Creator, for all the 

 pleasure that I have enjoyed, and for the ecstacy which 

 I have experienced from the contemi^lation of the work 

 of Thy hands. Now that I have completed this volume, 

 which contains the fruit of my labours, and have devoted 

 all the intelligence that Thou hast given me in composing 

 it, I proclaim before men all the greatness of Thy works ; 

 I have explained to them these evidences as far as it has 

 been permitted to my spirit to comprehend their infinite 

 extent. I have devoted all my energies to raise myself 

 to the height of truth, through the paths of philosophy ; 

 and if it has happened to me, a miserable worm, con- 

 ceived and nourished in sin, to say anything unworthy of 

 Thee, make me to know it, in order that I may efface 

 it. Have I suffered myself to be carried away by the 

 seductions of presumption in presence of the admirable 

 beauty of Thy works ? Have I thought too much of 

 my own renown amongst men by raising this monument 

 which ought to be consecrated entirely to Thy glory ? 

 O, if it be thus, receive me in Thy clemency and Thy 

 mercy, and grant me this grace that the work which I 

 have just completed may ever be powerless to do evil, 

 and may contribute to Thy glory and to the salvation of 

 souls ! " 



Isaac Newton, who was born at Woolsthorpe in Lin- 

 colnshire, in 1642, and died in London in 1727, was one of 

 those geniuses of which all humanity may well be proud. 

 It is asserted that he had already made the greater 

 number of the discoveries which have immortalised his 

 name at the age of twenty-four. He has left several 

 treatises on Mathematics, Physics, and Astronnomy, 

 among the most remarkable of which we may instance 



VOL. I. X 



