THE REVIVAL OF SCIENCE 125 



Bishop of Exeter, he restored, at the cost of 

 25,000, the cathedral; repaired the palace; 

 considerably increased the value of the poorer 

 benefices of his diocese and of the prebends of 

 his cathedral; and gave a considerable sum of 

 money towards the cost of making the river 

 navigable from his cathedral city to the sea. 

 He founded the Seth Ward almshouses at 

 Salisbury, and he gave certain farms and fee- 

 farm rents for scholarships at Christ's College, 

 Cambridge. 



Like the distinguished mathematicians just 

 mentioned, Isaac Newton took a keen interest 

 in certain forms of theology current in his day ; 

 but in his intellectual powers he surpassed not 

 only them but all living mathematicians and 

 those who lived after him. His supreme 

 genius has ensured him a place in the very 

 small list of the world's thinkers of the first 

 order. He, too, exercised a certain influence 

 in affairs, and, during his later years, he took 

 a keen interest in theological speculations ; but 

 his activities in these fields are completely 

 overshadowed by the far-reaching importance 

 of his great discoveries as a natural philoso- 



