Hipparchus, who says that the colnre passed over the back of A rips. Setting out with this mistake, M. Freret concludes that the Argonautic expedition took place 532 years curlier than Sir Isaac made it. His second objection to the new system relates to the length of generations, which he says is made only eighteen or twenty yean. Sir Isaac, on the contrary, reckons a generation at thirty-three years, or three generations at one hundred; and it was the lengths of the reigns of kings that he made eighteen or twenty years. This deduction he founds on the reigns of sixty-four 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 live Dissertations on the new chronology. These Dissertations were written in a tone highly reprehensible; aud 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 hud 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 it 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. Conduitt, and consists of six chapters: 1. On the Chronology of the Greeks; * 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.t

After the death of Newton, Dr. Halley, who had not yet seen the larger work, felt himself called upon, both as Astronomer-Royal,J 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, || 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

* According to Whiston, Sir Isaac wrote out eighteen copies of this chapter with his own hand, differing little from one another.— Whiston't life, p. 89.

\ This work forms tho first article in the fifth volume of Dr. Horskty's edition of Newton's works. The next article in the volume is entitled, "A Short Chronicle from a MS., the property of the Keverend Dr. Eking, Dean of Carlisle," which is nothing more than the abstract of the Chronology already printed iu the same volume. We cannot even conjecture the reasons for publishing it, especially as it is less perfect than the abstract, two or three dates being wanting.

\ He had succeeded to that office early in 1720, shortly after the death of Flamsteed in December, 1719, and held it until his own death in January, 1742.—Editor.

H See vol. xxxiv., p. 206, and vol. xxxv., p. 296.

among his 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 had not, in the time of Eudoxur, even arrived at the position which had been for a long time attributed to them, and will not indeed 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,* "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."

* See an excellent viow of this chronological controversy in an able note by M. Daunou, attached to Biot's Lite of Newton in the Biogr Univeriellc, tom. xxzi., p. 180.

HIS CHRONOLOGICAL WRITINGS. 241

Among the chronological writings of Sir Isaac Newton, we must enumerate hip 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 Tear. This hypothesis was Bent 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 nation used a year of twelve months and three hundred and sixty 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 three hundred and sixty 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." *

* This letter is published without any date in the Gentleman'» Magazine for 1755, voL zxv., p. 8. It bears internal evidence of being genuine.

CHAPTER XVI.

Theological Studies of Sir Itaac—Their Importance to Christianity—Motives to which they have been ascribed—Opinions of Biol and La Place considered—His theological Researches begun before his supposed mental Wneu—The Date of these Works fixed—Letters to Locke—Account of his Observations on Prophecy—His historical Account of two notable Corruptions of Scripture—His Lexicon Prophetieum—His four Letters to Dr. Bentley—Origin of Newton's theological Studies—Analogy between the Book of Nature and that of Revelation.

The history of the theological studies of Sir Isaac Newton will ever be regarded as one of the most interesting portions of his life. That the greatest philosopher of which any age can boast was a sincere and humble believer in the leading doctrines of our religion, and lived conformably to its precepts, has been justly regarded as a proud triumph of the Christian faith. Had he exhibited only an outward respect for the forms and duties of religion, or left merely in his last words an acknowledgment of his belief, his piety might have been regarded as a prudent submission to popular feeling, or as a proof of the decay or extinction of his transcendent powers. But he had been a searcher of the Scriptures from his youth, and he found it no abrupt transition to pass from the study of the material universe to an investigation of the profoundest truths, and the most obscure predictions, of Holy Writ.

As the religious habits of Sir Isaac Newton could not be ascribed to an ambition of popularity, to the influence of weak health, or to the force of professional impulse, it became necessary for the apostles of infidelity to refer it to