292 SIB ISAAC KEWTON. 



harmony ; but that theory has remained unimproved, and the 

 great principle of gravitation, with its most sublime results, 

 now stands in the attitude, and of the dimensions, and with 

 the symmetry, which both the law and its application received 

 at once from the mighty hand of its immortal author. 



But the contemplation of Newton's discoveries raises other 

 feelings than wonder at his matchless genius. The light with 

 which it shines is not more dazzling than useful. The diffi- 

 culties of his course, and his expedients, alike copious and 

 refined, for surmounting them, exercise the faculties of the 

 wise, while commanding their admiration ; but the results of 

 his investigations, often abstruse, are truths so grand and 

 comprehensive, yet so plain, that they both captivate and 

 instruct the simple. The gratitude, too, which they in- 

 spire, and the veneration with which they encircle his name, 

 far from tending to obstruct future improvement, only pro- 

 claim his disciples the zealous, because rational, followers of 

 one whose example both encouraged and enabled his successors 

 to make further progress. How unlike the blind devotion to 

 a master which for so many ages of the modern world para- 

 lysed the energies of the human mind ! 



" Had we still paid that homage to a name 

 Which only God and nature justly claim, 

 The western seas had been our utmost bound, 

 And poets still might dream the sun was drown' d. 

 And all the stars that shine in southern skies 

 Had been admired by none but savage eyes." (Dryden.) 



Nor let it be imagined that the feelings of wonder excited 

 b} r contemplating the achievements of this great man are in 

 any degree whatever the result of national partiality, nor 

 confined to the country which glories in having given him 

 birth. The language which expresses her veneration is 

 equalled, perhaps exceeded, by that in which other nations 

 give utterance to theirs ; not merely by the general voice, but 

 by the well-considered and well informed judgment of the 

 masters of science. Leibnitz, when asked at the royal table 

 in Berlin his opinion of Newton, said that " taking mathe- 



