SEQUEL TO THE EPOCH OF NEWTON. 427 



We might easily trace in our literature indications of the gradual 

 progress of the Newtonian doctrines. For instance, in the earlier edi- 

 tions of Pope's Dunciad, this couplet occurred, in the description of 

 the effects of the reign of Dulness : 



Philosophy, that reached the heavens before, 

 Shrinks to her hidden cause, and is no more. 



" And this," says his editor, Warburton, " was intended as a censure 

 on the Newtonian philosophy. For the poet had been misled by the 

 prejudices of foreigners, as if that philosophy had recurred to the oc- 

 cult qualities of Aristotle. This was the idea he received of it from a 

 man educated much abroad, who had read every thing, but every thing 

 superficially. 6 When I hinted to him how he had been imposed upon, 

 he changed the lines with great pleasure into a compliment (as they 

 now stand) on that divine genius, and a satire on that very folly by 

 which he himself had been misled." In 1*743 it was printed, 



Philosophy, that leaned on heaven before, 

 Shrinks to her second cause, and is no more. 



The Newtonians repelled the charge of dealing in occult causes; 7 and, 

 referring gravity to the will of the Deity, as the First Cause, assumed 

 a superiority over those whose philosophy rested in second causes. 



To the cordial reception of the Newtonian theory by the English 

 astronomers, there is only one conspicuous exception ; which is, how- 

 ever, one of some note, being no other than Flamsteed, the Astron- 

 omer Royal, a most laborious and exact observer. Flamsteed at first 

 listened with complacency to the promises of improvements in the 

 Lunar Tables, which the new doctrines held forth, and was willing to 

 assist Newton, and to receive assistance from him. But after a time, 

 he lost his respect for Newton's theory, and ceased to take any inter- 

 est in it. He then declared to one of his correspondents, 8 " I have 

 determined to lay these crotchets of Sir Isaac Newton's wholly aside." 

 We need not, however, find any difficulty in this, if we recollect that 

 Flamsteed, though a good observer, was no philosopher ; — never un- 

 derstood by a Theory any thing more than a Formula which should 

 predict results ; — and was incapable of comprehending the object of 

 Newton's theory, which was to assign causes as well as rules, and to 

 satisfy the conditions of Mechanics as well as of Geometry. 



6 I presume Bolingbroke is here meant. i See Cotes's Pref. to the Principia. 

 8 Baily's Account of Flamsteed, &c, p. 309. 



