on * Newton and Flamsteed” in the Quarterly Review. 215 
steed’s. Halley did publish, and with dispatch, his other ob- 
servations. I have never either defended or blamed his hold- 
ing back the lunar observations ; but I may observe that the 
crisis which gave the peculiar importance to the publication 
of Flamsteed’s was past; and I do not think Halley’s motive 
at all reprehensible. In all such cases it is difficult to decide 
what constraint may be applied so as to produce publication. 
There may be a fault of procrastination and fastidiousness, 
which was Flamsteed’s. The attempt to expedite publication 
in the manner which may be most advantageous to astronomy 
js meritorious; and this merit was Halley’s and Newton’s. 
Whether in pursuit of this object they went beyond the limits 
which it is so difficult to define, I do not pronounce; but I 
am sure that Flamsteed was no judge of those limits; and his 
evidence is so far damaged by his circumstances and charac- 
ter, that it hardly helps us in deciding the point. 
When you reviewers condescend to controversy, you have 
an overwhelming advantage in being advocate and judge at 
the same time. I presume it is in a momentary usurpation of 
the latter capacity that my opponent calls my pamphlet 
“rash,” “unworthy,” &c. And when, moreover, to the cir- 
culation and authority of the Quarterly, you add the rapid 
reply of a monthly periodical, as in the present case, a poor 
pamphleteer has no chance of being heard in opposition to 
you. I shall therefore take the vehicle nearest at hand for 
this letter, and send it to the Cambridge paper; by which 
means it may, I hope, come to the knowledge of several of 
those who care most about the question. 
Believe me, my dear Sir, yours very faithfully, 
W. WHEWELL. 
To the Editor of the Cambridge Chronicle. 
Sir, 
I shall be much obliged by your publishing this letter as a 
postscript to that addressed to the editor of the Quarterly 
Review, which you did me the favour of inserting in last week’s 
Chronicle. 
Some of my friends, feeling that strong interest in the fair 
fame of Newton, which those cannot fail to feel who love to 
contemplate the union of intellectual and, moral excellence, 
have expressed regret at my not having answered the charge 
that Newton neglected to acknowledge his obligation to Flam- 
steed for the observations by which the numerical elements of 
the lunar theory were determined; and that in the second edi- 
tion of the Principia he erased the acknowledgement he had 
