DISCOURSE OF DR. J. C. WELLING. 187 



He was in the habit of recalling that Newton had made no dis- 

 coveries after he was appointed Warden of the Mint in 1695,* and 

 the remark is historically accurate, unless we should incline with 

 Biot, against the better opinion of Sir David Brewster, to place 

 after that date the "discoveries" which Newton supposed himself 

 to have made in the Scriptural chronology and in the interpretation 

 of the Apocalypse discoveries which, whenever made, provoked 

 the theological scoff, as they perhaps deserved the theological criti- 

 cism, of the polemical Bishop Warburton. Yet, having convinced 

 himself that it was a duty he owed to the cause of science to sink 

 his own personality in the impersonal institution he was called to 

 conduct, Henry never paused for an instant to confer with flesh 

 and blood, but moved "right onward" in the path of duty, with 

 only the more of steadfastness because he felt that it was for him a 

 path of sacrifice. 



How sedulously he strove to maintain the Institution in the high 

 vocation to which he believed it was appointed no less by a sacred 

 regard for the will of its founder than by an intelligent zeal for the 

 promotion of human welfare, is known to you all. And the suc- 

 cess with which he resisted all schemes for the impoverishment of the 

 exalted function it was fitted to perform in the service of abstract 

 science, is a tribute at once to his rare executive skill and to the 

 native force of character which made him a tower of strength against 

 the clamors of popular ignorance and the assaults of charlatanism. 

 Whatever might be the consequences to himself personally, he was 

 determined to magnify its vocation and make it honorable. And 

 hence I do not permit myself to doubt that during the long period 

 of his administration as Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 

 covering a period of thirty years, he has impressed upon its conduct 

 a definite direction which his successors will be proud to maintain, 

 not simply in reverence for the memory of their illustrious prede- 

 cessor, but also in grateful recognition of the fruitful works which, 



*The effect of the Wardenship on Newton's scientific labors may be seen in the 

 warmth with which he rebuked Flamsteed for purposing to publish, in 1698, the 

 fact that Newton was then engaged on a revision of the Horroxian theory of the 

 moon. Newton wrote: "I do not love to be printed on every occasion, much less 

 to be dunned and teased by foreigners about mathematical things, or to be thought 

 by our own people to be trifling away my time when I should be about the King's busi- 

 ness." 



