THE REVIVAL OF SCIENCE 291 



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 natiiral philosopher and a mathematician. As 

 the discoverer of the decomposition of white light 

 in the spectrum, he may be regarded as the founder 

 of the modern science of optics. His discovery 



