204 HISTORY OF PHYSICAL ASTRONOMY. 



Pope's Dunciad, this couplet occurred, in the de- 

 scription 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 in- 

 tended 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 occult qualities of Aristotle. This was the 

 idea he received of it from a man educated much 

 abroad, who had read everything, but everything 

 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 1743 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 supe- 

 riority over those whose philosophy rested in second 

 causes (i). 



To the cordial reception of the Newtonian theory 

 by the English astronomers, there is only one con- 

 spicuous exception ; which is, however, one of some 

 note, being no other than Flamsteed, the Astro- 



6 I presume Bolingbrokc is here meant. 



7 See Cotes's Preface to the Principia. 



