258 MEMOIR OF AUGUSTUS DE MORGAN. 



1857. How could it be otherwise? What is scientific investiga- 

 tion except filing a bill of discovery against nature, with 

 liberty to any one to be made a party to the suit ? Newton 

 did not feel this, and, not content with the ready accept- 

 ance of his views by the Royal Society, a little opposition 

 made him declare his intention of retiring from the field. 

 He had the choice of leaving his opponents unanswered, 

 and pursuing his researches, committing it to time to 

 show the soundness of his views. That this plan did not 

 suit his temper shows that it was not the necessity of 

 answering, but the fact of being opposed, which destroyed 

 his peace. And he steadily adhered, after his first 

 attempt, to his resolution of never again willingly appear- 

 ing before the world. His several works were extorted 

 from him ; and, as far as we can judge, his great views on 

 universal gravitation would have remained his own secret 

 if Halley and the Eoyal Society had not used the utmost 

 force they could command. A discovery of Newton was 

 of a twofold character he made it, and then others had 

 to find out that he had made it. To say that he had a 

 right to do this is allowable ; that is, in the same sense in 

 which we and our readers have a right to refuse him any 

 portion of that praise which his biographers claim for 

 him. In the higher and better sense of the word he had 

 no right to claim the option of keeping from the world 

 what it was essential to its progress that the world should 

 know, any more than we should have a right to declare 

 ourselves under no obligation to his memory for the ser- 

 vices he rendered. To excuse him, and at the same time 

 to blame those who will not excuse him, is to try the first 

 question in one court and the second in another. A man 

 who could write the Principia, and who owed his bread 

 to a foundation instituted for the promotion of knowledge, 

 was as much bound to write it as we are to thank him for 

 it when written.' 



The principle here expressed governed the writer's 

 own life. What he knew belonged to the world, if by the 



