_Respect in which Newton was held at the Court of George I.—The
Princess of Wales delighted with his Conversation—Leibnitz
endeavours to prejudice the Princess against Sir Isaac and Locke—
Controversy occasioned by his Conduct—The Princess obtains a
Manuscript Abstract of his System of Chronology—The Abbé Conti
is, at her request, allowed to take a Copy of it on the promise of
Secresy—He prints it surreptitiously in French, accompanied with a
Refutation by M. Freret—Sir Isaac’s Defence of his System—Father
Souciet attacks it—and is answered by Dr. Halley—Sir Isaac’s larger
Work on Chronology published after his Death—Opinions respecting it—
Sir Isaac’s Paper on the Form of the most ancient Year._
On the accession of George I. to the British throne in 1714, Sir Isaac
Newton became an object of interest at court. His high situation under
government, his splendid reputation, his spotless character, and, above
all, his unaffected piety attracted the attention of the Princess of
Wales, afterward queen-consort to George II. This lady, who possessed a
highly cultivated mind, derived the greatest pleasure from conversing
with Newton and corresponding with Leibnitz. In all her difficulties,
she received from Sir Isaac that information and assistance which
she had elsewhere sought in vain, and she was often heard to declare
in public that she thought herself fortunate in living at a time
which enabled her to enjoy the conversation of so great a genius. But
while Newton was thus esteemed by the house of Hanover, Leibnitz, his
great rival, endeavoured to weaken and undermine his influence. In
his correspondence with the princess, he represented the Newtonian
philosophy, not only as physically false, but as injurious to the
interests of religion. He asserted that natural religion was rapidly
declining in England, and he supported this position by referring
to the works of Locke, and to the beautiful and pious sentiments
contained in the 28th query at the end of the Optics. He represented
the principles of these great men as precisely the same with those of
the materialists, and thus endeavoured to degrade the character of
English philosophers.
These attacks of Leibnitz became subjects of conversation at court,
and when they reached the ear of the king, his majesty expressed his
expectation that Sir Isaac Newton would draw up a reply. He accordingly
entered the lists on the mathematical part of the controversy, and left
the philosophical part of it to Dr. Clarke, who was a full match for
the German philosopher. The correspondence which thus took place was
carefully perused by the princess, and from the estimation in which Sir
Isaac continued to be held, we may infer that the views of the English
philosopher were not very remote from her own.
When Sir Isaac was one day conversing with her royal highness on
some points of ancient history, he was led to mention to her, and
to explain, a new system of chronology which he composed during his
residence at Cambridge, where he was in the habit, as he himself
expresses it, “of refreshing himself with history and chronology when
he was weary with other studies.” The princess was so much pleased with
his ingenious system, that she subsequently, in the year 1718, sent a
message by the Abbé Conti to Sir Isaac, requesting him to speak with
her, and she, on this occasion, requested a copy of the interesting
work which contained his system of chronology. Sir Isaac informed her
that it existed merely in separate papers, which were not only in a
state of confusion, but which contained a very imperfect view of the
subject, and he promised, in a few days, to draw up an abstract of
it for her own private use, and on the condition that it should not
be communicated to any other person. Some time after the princess
received the manuscript, she requested that the Abbé Conti might be
allowed to have a copy of it. Sir Isaac granted this request, and the
Abbé was informed that he received a copy of the manuscript with Sir
Isaac’s leave, and at the princess’s request, and that it was to be
kept secret.[93] The manuscript which was thus rashly put into the
hands of a foreigner was entitled “A Short Chronicle from the First
Memory of Things in Europe to the Conquest of Persia by Alexander the
Great.” It consists of about twenty-four quarto printed pages,[94] with
an introduction of four pages, in which Sir Isaac states that he “does
not pretend to be exact to a year, that there may be errors of five or
ten years, and sometimes twenty, but not much above.”
The Abbé Conti kept his promise of secrecy during his residence in
England, but he no sooner reached Paris than he communicated it to M.
Freret, a learned antiquarian, who not only translated it, but drew up
observations upon it for the purpose of refuting some of its principal
results. Sir Isaac was unacquainted with this transaction till he was
informed of it by the French bookseller, M. Cavalier, who requested
his leave to publish it, and charged one of his friends in London to
procure Sir Isaac’s answer, which was as follows:—
“I remember that I wrote a Chronological index for a particular
friend, on condition that it should not be communicated. As I have
not seen the manuscript which you have under my name, I know not
whether it be the same. That which I wrote was not at all done
with design to publish it. I intend not to meddle with that which
hath been given you under my name, nor to give any consent to the
publishing of it.—I am your very humble servant,
“ISAAC NEWTON.
“_London, May 27th, 1725_, O. S.”
Before this letter was written, viz. on the 21st May, the bookseller
had received the royal privilege for printing the work; and when it was
completed, he sent a copy in a present to Sir Isaac, who received it on
the 11th November, 1725. It was entitled, _Abregé de Chronologie de M.
Le Chevalier Newton, fait par lui-meme, et traduit sur le manuscript
Anglais_, and was accompanied with observations by M. Freret,[95] the
object of which was to refute the leading points of the system.[96]
An advertisement was prefixed to it, in which the bookseller defends
himself for printing it without the author’s leave, on the ground
that he had written three letters to obtain permission, and had
declared that he would take Sir Isaac’s silence for consent. When Sir
Isaac received this work, he drew up a paper entitled, _Remarks on
the Observations made on a Chronological Index of Sir Isaac Newton,
translated into French by the Observator, and published at Paris_,
which was printed in the _Philosophical Transactions for 1725_.[97]
In this paper Sir Isaac gives a history of the transaction,—charges
the Abbé Conti with a breach of promise, and blames the publisher for
having asked his leave to print the translation without sending him
a copy for his perusal, without acquainting him with the name of the
translator, and without announcing his intention of printing along
with it a refutation of the original. The observations made by the
translator against the conclusions deduced by the author were founded
on an imperfect knowledge of Sir Isaac’s system; and they are so
specious, that Halley himself confesses that he was at first prejudiced
in favour of the observations, taking the calculations for granted, and
not having seen Sir Isaac’s work.
To all the observations of M. Freret Sir Isaac returned a triumphant
answer. This presumptuous antiquary had ventured to state at the end
of his observations, “that he believed he had stated enough concerning
the epochs of the Argonauts, and the length of generations, to make
people cautious about the rest; for these are the two foundations of
all this new system of chronology.” He founds his arguments against the
epochs of the Argonauts, as fixed by our author, on the supposition
that Sir Isaac places the vernal equinox at the time of the Argonautic
expedition _in the middle of the sign of Aries_, whereas Sir Isaac
places it _in the middle of the constellation_,—a point corresponding
with the middle of the back of Aries, or 8° from the first star of
Aries. This position of the colure is assigned on the authority of
Eudoxus, as given by Hipparchus, who says that the colure passed over
the back of Aries. Setting out with this mistake, M. Freret concludes
that the Argonautic expedition took place 532 years earlier than Sir
Isaac made it. His second objection to the new system relates to the
length of generations, which he says is made only 18 or 20 years.
Sir Isaac, on the contrary, reckons a generation at 33 years, or 3
generations at 100; and it was the lengths of the reigns of kings that
he made 18 or 20 years. This deduction he founds on the reigns of 64
French kings. Now, the ancient Greeks and Egyptians reckoned the length
of a reign equal to that of a generation; and it was by correcting this
mistake, and adopting a measure founded on fact, that Sir Isaac placed
the Argonautic expedition forty-four years after the death of Solomon,
and fixed some of the other points of his system.
This answer of Sir Isaac’s to the objections of Freret called into
the field a fresh antagonist, Father Souciet, who published five
dissertations on the new chronology. These dissertations were written
in a tone highly reprehensible; and the friends of Sir Isaac, being
apprehensive that the manner in which his system was attacked would
affect him more than the arguments themselves, prevailed upon a friend
to draw up an abstract of Souciet’s objections, stripped of the
“extraordinary ornaments with which they were clothed.” The perusal of
these objections had no other effect upon him than to convince him of
the ignorance of their author; and he was induced to read the entire
work, which produced no change in his opinion.
In consequence of these discussions, Sir Isaac was prevailed upon to
prepare his larger work for the press. He had nearly completed it at
the time of his death, and it was published in 1728, under the title
of _The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms amended, to which is prefixed
a short Chronicle_, from the first memory of Things in Europe _to
the Conquest of Persia by Alexander the Great_. It was dedicated to
the queen by Mr. Conduit, and consists of six chapters: 1. On the
Chronology of the Greeks;[98] 2. Of the Empire of Egypt; 3. Of the
Assyrian Empire; 4. Of the two contemporary Empires of the Babylonians
and Medes; 5. A Description of the Temple of Solomon; 6. Of the Empire
of the Persians. The sixth chapter was not copied out with the other
five, which makes it doubtful whether or not it was intended for
publication; but as it was found among his papers, and appeared to be a
continuation of the same work, it was thought right to add it to the
other five chapters.[99]
After the death of Newton, Dr. Halley, who had not yet seen the larger
work, felt himself called upon, both as astronomer-royal and as the
friend of the author, to reply to the first and last dissertations of
Father Souciet, which were chiefly astronomical; and in two papers
printed in the Philosophical Transactions for 1727,[100] he has done
this in a most convincing and learned argument.
Among the supporters of the views of Newton, we may enumerate Dr. Reid,
Nauze, and some other writers; and among its opponents, M. Freret, who
left behind him a posthumous work on the subject, M. Fourmond, Mr.
A. Bedford, Dr. Shuckford, Dr. Middleton, Whiston, and the late M.
Delambre. The object of M. Fourmond is to show the uncertainty of the
astronomical argument, arising on the one hand from the vague account
of the ancient sphere as given by Hipparchus; and, on the other, from
the extreme rudeness of ancient astronomical observations. Delambre
has taken a similar view of the subject: he regards the observations
of ancient astronomers as too incorrect to form the basis of a system
of chronology; and he maintains, that if we admit the accuracy of the
details in the sphere of Eudoxus, and suppose them all to belong to the
same epoch, all the stars which it contains ought at that epoch to be
found in the place where they are marked, and we might thence verify
the accuracy, and ascertain the state of the observations. It follows,
however, from such an examination, that the sphere would indicate
almost as many different epochs as it contains stars. Some of them
even had not, in the time of Eudoxus, arrived at the position which
had been for a long time attributed to them, and will not even reach
it for three hundred years to come, and on this account he considers
it impossible to deduce any chronological conclusions from such a rude
mass of errors.
But however well-founded these observations may be, we agree in opinion
with M. Daunou,[101] “that they are not sufficient to establish a new
system, and we must regard the system of Newton as a great fact in the
history of chronological science, and as confirming the observation
of Varro, that the stage of history does not commence till the first
Olympiad.”
Among the chronological writings of Sir Isaac Newton we must enumerate
his _letter to a person of distinction who had desired his opinion of
the learned Bishop Lloyd’s hypothesis concerning the form of the most
ancient year_. This hypothesis was sent by the Bishop of Worcester to
Dr. Prideaux. Sir Isaac remarks, that it is filled with many excellent
observations on the ancient year; but he does not “find it proved that
any ancient nations used a year of twelve months and 360 days without
correcting it from time to time by the luminaries, to make the months
keep to the course of the moon, and the year to the course of the sun,
and returns of the seasons and fruits of the earth.” After examining
the years of all the nations of antiquity, he concludes, “that no other
years are to be met with among the ancients but such as were either
luni-solar, or solar or lunar, or the calendars of these years.” A
practical year, he adds, of 360 days is none of these. The beginning of
such a year would have run round the four seasons in seventy years,
and such a notable revolution would have been mentioned in history, and
is not to be asserted without proving it.[102]