John Hutchinson's Critique of Newtonian Heterodoxy.

ENGLISH, JOHN C.

"Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in night: God said, Let Newton be!--and all was light," according to Alexander Pope. Other British subjects were not so sure. In recent years, historians have begun to take more seriously the persons who opposed Newton on either philosophical, scientific or theological grounds.(1) Rival systems of natural philosophy were already in the field, including the scholastic, the alchemical, and especially the Cartesian. Newton had learned a great deal from Descartes, but he also set out to correct the errors in his system. Many Cartesians, at least in the period shortly after 1687, were not convinced by Newton's arguments. His methodology was suspect as well. The mathematics that Newton had invented was hard to follow and the role that it played in his system was unfamiliar. Political antipathies sometimes led to the rejection of Newtonianism.(2) But the crux of the problem was theological. Newton's natural philosophy, as stated in his Principia Mathematica, seemed to undermine the traditional doctrines of the Christian religion.

The subject of this paper is the natural philosopher and biblical exegete John Hutchinson (not to be confused with Francis Hutcheson, professor of moral philosophy at Glasgow). John Hutchinson (1674-1737) was a High Church Anglican who saw in Newtonian science a dangerous threat to orthodox Trinitarianism. As a part of his campaign against Newton and his associates, Hutchinson devised his own system of the world, the first part of which he published in 1724, under the title Moses's Principia. Hutchinson's title expresses his conviction that a complete system of natural philosophy can be found in the first seventeen verses of Genesis, a book traditionally attributed to Moses. Such an approach seems bizarre to us. It was rapidly losing ground in the eighteenth century,(3) although Hutchinsonianism attracted some noteworthy adherents, as I will show in due course. "Mosaic physics" had appealed to the seventeenth century, however. To take some British examples only, both the Independent divine Theophilus Gale (1628-78), and Henry More (1614-87), the Cambridge Platonist, had developed natural philosophies based on Genesis.(4)

I. HUTCHINSON'S ANALYSIS OF NEWTONIANISM

Hutchinson met Sir Isaac Newton and other members of the Royal Society while he was living in London and helping Dr. John Woodward with his collection of fossils.(5) Whatever the differences between Newton and Hutchinson, they were alike in one respect. Both men believed that natural philosophy should serve an apologetic purpose. This may not be apparent, as far as Newton is concerned, since he had moved a long way in the direction of "science" as we know it today.(6) The scientist describes as accurately as possible the natural phenomena that he or she observes and formulates generalizations in terms of which the behavior of bodies can be predicted or retrodicted. But Newton, referring to the purpose that he had in mind when he wrote the Principia, had also declared, "When I wrote my Treatise about our System, I had an Eye upon such Principles as might work with considering Men, for the Belief of a Deity, and nothing can rejoice me more than to find it useful for that Purpose."(7)

In Hutchinson's judgment, however, the Boyle Lecturers and the Fellows of the Royal Society were sadly mistaken if they believed that Newtonian physics reinforced genuine Christianity. In his darker moments, Hutchinson suspected that Newton was part of a secret conspiracy to undermine the Christian faith from within.(8) More frequently, he contented himself simply with pointing out Newton's mistakes. Newton's basic problem was this: he had begun in the wrong place. According to Hutchinson, the revealed Word of God was the only secure foundation for either theological construction or natural philosophy.(9) Newton had begun with an appeal to reason and experience, which had their place, Hutchinson would say, but only in subordination to revealed truth. Consequently, the religion that Newton promoted was an ersatz religion, a mere human invention, while his physics was riddled with errors. More precisely, Newton was fostering both Arianism and pantheism, Hutchinson asserted. Let us consider each of these in turn.

(1) The Newtonian philosophy encouraged "Arianism." The odor of heresy hung about Newton and his associates. Newton himself rejected the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity, as defined by the Council of Nicaea (325). Various labels have been applied to his doctrine of God. Here I will follow Maurice Wiles and call it "Arian," after Arius of Alexandria, the priest whose teachings were condemned at Nicaea.(10) Newton was careful not to broadcast his heterodox views, although he discussed them with close friends. Several of his associates were not as circumspect. Newton recommended William Whiston to the Cambridge authorities as Lucasian Professor of Mathematics. He was duly elected to the chair. In 1708, however, Whiston published an Arian treatise on the Apostolic Constitutions, a compilation of liturgical and legal works, allegedly compiled by Clement of Rome but in fact dating from the second half of the fourth century. In 1710, Whiston lost his professorship. Another associate of Newton, Dr. Samuel Clarke, supported Newton in several ways. For example, he publicized Newton's ideas in the Boyle Lectures, On the Being and Attributes of God, and he defended Newton in an exchange of letters with Leibniz. In 1712, Clarke published his book on The Scripture Doctrine of the Trinity. He was accused of Arianism and lost his chance to become archbishop of Canterbury.

Hutchinson attacked Clarke on two grounds, his heterodox interpretation of the Trinity and his Newtonian natural philosophy. These errors were connected with one another, Hutchinson declared. If Clarke had been able to read Hebrew, he could have avoided both of them.(11) This latter statement requires some unpacking. For Hutchinson, the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity was to be found not only in the New Testament, but in the Hebrew Bible as well.(12) Those who read the first chapter of Genesis in the original tongue, and employed the proper exegetical tools, would find there the doctrine of Nicaea. Furthermore, they would discover the genuine natural philosophy, one that made explicit the relationship between the Divine Trinity and the world of nature. On the one hand, the Triune God was the Creator and the Preserver of the universe. On the other, the created world was a great "sacrament." The forms matter assumed and the motions it described were symbols of the Divine Trinity itself.(13)

(2) The Principia Mathematica encouraged "pantheism." Among the persons whom Hutchinson met in London was John Toland, author of the Letters to Serena and inventor of the term "pantheism." While Toland criticized certain aspects of Newton's natural philosophy, he also claimed that Newton could be interpreted in a way that supported his radical religious views.(14) Although Newton and Clarke were quick to put as much distance as possible between Toland and themselves? Hutchinson was all too ready to accept the claims that Toland had made. Here was another sign that Newtonianism was sapping the foundations of orthodox Christianity.

The Christian tradition tries to maintain a balance between the immanence and the transcendence of God. Hutchinson and others believed that Newton had emphasized the divine immanence at the expense of God's transcendence, thus opening the way to pantheism, the identification of the material world and the divine.(16) Part of the problem had to do with Newton's account of space. Newton had made statements such as this: "Does it not appear from Phaenomena that there is a Being incorporeal, living, intelligent, omnipresent, who in infinite Space, as it were in his Sensory, sees the things themselves intimately, and thoroughly perceives them, and comprehends them wholly by their immediate presence to himself?"(17) Hutchinson found this to be unacceptable. He was probably reading Newton in light of Descartes's teachings.(18) For Descartes, the essence or primary quality of matter was extension. Matter occupied infinite space and, in fact, there was no real distinction between the two.(19 If God's sensory was space, and space was matter, then God must be material as well, Hutchinson may have reasoned.

The cause of gravity posed another problem. In the general scholium to the Principia Mathematica, Newton had taken an agnostic position: "Hitherto I have not been able to discover the cause of those properties of gravity from the phenomena, and I frame no hypothesis."(20) This reticence did not prevent Newton from speculating about the cause, however From time to time he suggested that it might be an "aether," an "active principle," or an "elastic and electric spirit."(21) Some persons, including Hutchinson, took Newton to mean that gravity was a primary quality of matter As far as Hutchinson was concerned, this was tantamount to pantheism or atheism. "When a Man ascribes greater Power to Properties of Matter, than he does to God; does he not make that Matter or Power a God?" Hutchinson asked.(22) Lying behind Hutchinson's question was the belief that matter was inherently passive. Spirit alone was essentially active.(23) To attribute agency to matter was to ascribe divine attributes to it.

II. HUTCHINSON'S SYSTEM OF THE WORLD

Hutchinson took as a given that the universe was created in six days. In one part of Moses's Principia, he explained how God had accomplished that grand design. Space does not permit a discussion of this material. Instead, I will outline briefly the system of the world that Hutchinson discovered in Genesis,

that is, the way in which the universe functioned once God called it into being.

As stated above, Hutchinson wanted to maintain a proper balance between the transcendence of God, on the one hand, and the divine immanence, on the other. To attain this objective, he interposed between God and the world we experience a material fluid that he usually called the "aether."(24) This fluid, "subtle matter," as we might call it, was composed of solid, ultimately indivisible, and extremely minute atoms.(25) It filled the space surrounding objects composed of "gross matter," such as earth and water. Since the aether separated God and these gross bodies, it preserved the divine transcendence. However, it also served as the material agent whereby God maintained the universe in motion. Thus the aether was an expression of the divine immanence as well.

Hutchinson explained the motion of the universe in the following manner. As we have seen, the aether was a single substance that pervaded the entire cosmos. But it also appeared under three forms, the sun or "fire," a concentration of the aether at the center of the universe; "light," which one observed as rays streaming from the sun; and "air," a confusing term, since it could refer to the "aether" or to a particular form that it assumed. At any rate, Hutchinson said, the atoms in the sun were extremely agitated. Under pressure, portions of these atoms were propelled outward, in the form of light.(26) Some of the atoms of light struck the planets and their moons, impelling them to move in their orbits and rotate upon their axes.(27) Still other atoms of light passed between the planets and continued to move outward. These atoms eventually approached the cold extremities of the universe, opposite the hot center of the sun. As they grew cooler, the atoms of light gradually congealed and took the form of "air" (in the second sense of the term). Since the atoms of air would have been heavier than the atoms of light behind them, they would have begun to fall back toward the sun. As they grew warmer, they resumed the form of light. If they struck the planets and their moons, they helped to maintain these bodies in their orbits and to keep them rotating, a kind of backspin, as it were. Eventually the atoms of light would return to the sun, the central fire. Then the cycle of eruption and subsidence would repeat, over and over again.(28)

III. HUTCHINSON'S EPISTEMOLOGY AND EXEGESIS

How did Hutchinson reach the conclusions just described? In this section, I will describe his theory of knowledge in greater detail and illustrate the methods of biblical interpretation that he employed. Hutchinson believed that the Bible, the infallible word of God, was the fundamental source of human knowledge. He referred, however, to three other ways of knowing. Human beings could know the physical world, in part at least, by means of their five senses. They could extend their knowledge by making reasonable inferences from revelation and from sense experience. Additional insights came from the books of persons who were recognized as authorities in their fields. Respected Hebrew dictionaries and commentaries on Genesis were examples of such books.

The characteristics of matter and the ways in which it functioned and was organized were stated in the Scriptures, Hutchinson said. In developing these themes, he began with the literal meaning of the Hebrew text and then made certain inferences from it. Consider, for instance, Gen. 1: 1, "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." Here Scripture draws a distinction between two substances, the spiritual that creates and the material that is created. Since spirit was active, Hutchinson inferred that matter was inherently passive. Then he made an observation regarding grammar. The Hebrew word translated "heaven" in the King James Version (as above) should read "heavens," Hutchinson said. (In point of fact, the plural has replaced the singular in the Revised Standard Version.) "Heavens," as Hutchinson interpreted the text, stood for the aether or subtle matter described above, and "earth" referred to the gross matter. The aether, as we have seen, took three forms, fire, light, and air.

Now the question arises, what could human beings know about the aether? At this juncture, Hutchinson drew a hermeneutical circle. The Bible, argued Hutchinson, stated that the aether existed. Sense experience helped the readers of Scripture to apprehend the meaning of the biblical text. The Bible, in turn, clarified the ways in which they interpreted their experience. To illustrate these relationships, let us consider the aether in the form of light. According to Hutchinson, light consisted of material particles moving at extremely high rates of speed.(29) Illumination was the "spark" produced when they collided with one another. Men and women could perceive this visible light. They understood the biblical word "light" in terms of their experience. But one must be careful, Hutchinson warned, not to confuse the part for the whole. There was more to "light" than met the eye. The Bible provided further information that added to humanity's knowledge of light and, if necessary, corrected and refined human experience.(30)

God made himself known to the "eye of faith" in his revealed word. Hutchinson was not a simple fideist, however. Through a process of analogical reasoning, the believer's knowledge of the divine could be enriched. Hutchinson presupposed an analogy of resemblance between creature and Creator. The material world was the exemplum, and the divine Spirit, the exemplar.(31) For example, as stated above, the aether was one in three: fire, light and air. The divine being it resembled was the original one in three, One God in Three Persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Thanks to this relationship, humans could reason by analogy from exemplum to exemplar.(32) Study of the material aether enabled them to draw inferences regarding the nature of the divine. For instance, someone who studied the physics of light could appreciate Christ's statement, "I am the light of the world."

Hutchinson's exegesis of the Hebrew Bible was idiosyncratic. In reaching his conclusions, he followed a distinctive set of exegetical guidelines. Here are a few illustrations of the methods that he employed:

(1) In principle, Hutchinson attached a great deal of significance to the roots of Hebrew words. The meaning of the root determined, to a large degree, the meanings of the cognates that ascended from it. In practice, Hutchinson drew many connections between cognates and other words that were not directly related to the root. The freewheeling way in which he associated various words obscured his principle. For example, Gen. 1: 6, in the King James Version, reads as follows: "And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters." The root of the word translated as "firmament" (rka) means, according to the sources that Hutchinson consulted, "to expand, extend, distend, stretch" or "to make thin" or "to press." Hutchinson argued, therefore, that the Hebrew noun read as "firmament" (rakia) really should be translated as "expansion."(33) Then he developed the implications of this point. He took "expansion" to mean both a substance, a thin fluid that is widely distributed or extended, and the action of this substance, moving or pressing material objects toward the extremities of the universe.(34) Another name for this fluid was the "aether" to which I have already referred.

(2) Hutchinson enjoined his readers to pay close attention to Hebrew grammar. Otherwise the doctrinal implications of Moses' words might be overlooked. Take, for example, the Hebrew word "Elohim" (Hutchinson spells the word "Aleim"). This word is usually translated "God," as in Gen. 1: 1, "In the beginning, God created the heaven(s) and the earth." Hutchinson noted, however, that "Elohim" has a plural ending. It referred, therefore, not simply to the divine being, but also to the doctrine of the Trinity, One God in Three Persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

(3) The patterns into which consonants fell were important to Hutchinson. If two or more words contained the same arrangement of consonants, then the things that they signified must be related. Cantor provides the following examples, using three words that are similar in unpointed Hebrew: sam, "he placed, put, disposed"; shem, "a name"; and shamaim, "the heavens(s)." Hutchinson took sam to be a noun, meaning "the place" or "the space." Then he declared that "name" and "place" were identical.(35) Elsewhere he established a relationship between shem (place, name) and shamaim. When the book of Genesis referred to "the heavens," Hutchinson said, this noun stood for the subtle aether that pervaded the universe.(36)

IV. `ARCHAEOLOGY' AS AN APOLOGETIC DEVICE

Hutchinson was an "archaeologist" as well as a natural philosopher. The subject of "archaeology," in this context, was the origin and early history of human culture. Hutchinson used archaeology as part of his apologetic for orthodox Trinitarianism. He borrowed his technique from Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, and other ante-Nicene apologists. Newton studied archaeology as well, perhaps even more diligently than Hutchinson had done. However, the motives of the two men differed considerably. Biblical prophecy and its fulfillment occupied much of Newton's time. In order to pursue this subject, he needed an accurate chronology. This was the primary reason why he studied early cultures. Newton did claim that part of his natural philosophy was to be found in the writings of the ancients. These themes will be developed in the following paragraphs.

Hutchinson's archaeology was part of a long tradition. For Plato, archaeologia included "the genealogies of heroes and men and the accounts of the founding of cities in archaic times."(37) When Dionysius of Halicarnassus (first century B.C.) and others wrote histories of Rome, they took as their starting point the creation of the city. The historians of Near Eastern people imitated this practice. The Babylonians, Phoenicians, Egyptians, and Jews were provided with histories that began with the foundation of their respective nations. Once these accounts began to circulate, a kind of comparative history emerged. The question was asked, which of these many peoples is the oldest one? This was not an idle question. A "diffusionist" view of culture was widely assumed. Culture (including religion and law) originated in one region with one people. All the other nations of the world simply borrowed their culture from this source. A further assumption might also be made. The original culture, or at least the earliest stage in its history, was pure and uncorrupted. Younger cultures, or more recent stages, were likely to show signs of degeneration.

Beginning in the second century B.C., Jewish and, later, Christian apologists argued that the Jews were older than the Greeks. Josephus's Jewish Antiquities and Contra Apionem are examples of this literature. Christian apologists such as Justin, Tatian, Theophilus, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and the historian Eusebius of Caesarea urged the priority of the Hebrews in response to pagan critics of Christianity. These critics had charged that Christianity could not be credible, since it was so new. On the contrary, the apologists replied. Christianity was authentic, since Judaism was the most ancient religion and Judaism and Christianity were, in all essential respects, one and the same. Even the Greeks could be called as witnesses for the defense. The Pythagorean-Platonist philosopher Numenius of Apamea (second half of the second century A.D.) had asked rhetorically, "What is Plato but Moses speaking Attic Greek?"(38)

Hutchinson strongly asserted the priority of the Hebrews.(39) This reinforced the positions described in previous sections of this paper. The Hebrew language was the original tongue; other languages developed after the Tower of Babel episode (Genesis 11). The orthodox doctrine of the Trinity, which Hutchinson had found in the Hebrew text of Genesis, was the oldest and therefore the most genuine doctrine of God. Well-disposed persons would recognize these truths and accept the teachings of Scripture.

Newton's statements regarding the origins of culture differed significantly from those of Hutchinson. Newton claimed the authority of the ancients for his natural philosophy. He said, for example, that they had taught the principle of universal gravitation.(40) His primary interest, however, lay elsewhere. He wanted to establish an accurate time line as an aid to the interpretation of prophecy. Broadly speaking, Newton distinguished between the realm of religion (including ethics and public worship), where the priority rested with the Hebrews, and the world of natural philosophy, in which the Egyptians took pride of place.(41) Moses, a prophet and a historian, worked in each realm, as will be explained below.

Noah was a crucial figure in Newton's account of religion and political life. Following the Flood, God entered into a covenant with Noah and delivered the moral law to him. This was the original religion. The kingdom of Chaldea, comprising all humankind and ruled by Noah, was the original state.(42) The sons of Noah went out from Chaldea, establishing new monarchies in different parts of the world and introducing the authentic religion that they had brought with them. According to Newton, Ham inaugurated the Egyptian kingdom and religion in Egypt.

Several peoples contributed to the growth of culture. Poetry and music were the creation of the residents of Crete.(43) The Edomites, whom Newton placed on the eastern shore of the Red Sea, invented writing and perfected the arts of shipbuilding and navigation.(44) More to the point, the Egyptians were the first natural philosophers. Newton described them as the first geometers and "the oldest observers of the stars."(45) He went on to say that the Greeks and Romans learned their natural philosophy from the people of the Nile. Moses played several roles in Newton's account of the ancient world. Moses was, first of all, a "prophet." This term, as used by Newton, could mean an individual who foretold the future--Moses foretold the coming of Christ--and/or a religious reformer.(46) Newton emphasized the second of these activities. Noachian monotheism tended to degenerate into an idolatrous polytheism. Nevertheless, descendants of Noah and his son Shem, persons such as Abraham and Moses, remained faithful to the original religion. The Hebrews taken captive in Egypt adopted many of the erroneous practices of their captors.(47) Moses recalled the Hebrews to the authentic religion delivered to Noah. But Moses was also a "historian." Newton said that Moses wrote a political narrative, an account of the Exodus, and also a kind of natural history, a "history of the Creation." Samuel used these documents, along with the books written by others, when he compiled the Pentateuch.(48) Newton made some noteworthy comments regarding Moses' history of creation. He distinguished, for example, between two levels of inspiration, the "extraordinary" inspiration of prophets who foretold the future, and the "ordinary" inspiration of historians who narrated events that occurred in the past.(49) How ordinary inspiration differed from an act of imagination or invention is not clear. At least this language leaves open the possibility that Moses learned some or all of his natural philosophy from the Egyptians. Newton also considered the audience that Moses addressed. He wrote not for philosophers but for the masses. Newton insisted that the Genesis account was history, not "myth" (not "feigned," to use his word), but he also said that Moses adjusted or accommodated his phraseology to the people's level of understanding. As Newton put it, Moses described the process of creation "as one of ye vulgar would have been inclined to do had he lived & seen the whole series of wt Moses describes."(50) Natural philosophers living later could fill in the outline that Moses provided and identify the secondary causes of the events that he recorded.

V. EXAMPLES OF HUTCHINSON'S INFLUENCE

John Hutchinson died on August 28, 1737. His theology and natural philosophy, however, were not interred with him. A group of Hutchinsonians affiliated with Oxford University illustrates this point. William Jones and George Home were the leading members of the group. They became acquainted during the 1740s, as undergraduates attending University College. In later life Jones gained a considerable reputation as a theologian and was elected to membership in the Royal Society.(51) Home became the president of Magdalen College, vice chancellor of the university, and eventually bishop of Norwich. But all this lay in the future. In the 1740s Home and Jones were introduced to Hutchinson by the writings of Duncan Forbes and by their personal acquaintances, Alexander Catcott, George Watson, and Benjamin Holloway. Duncan Forbes of Culloden was lord president of the Court of Session, Edinburgh. A book in which Forbes expressed his Hutchinsonian views made a deep impression upon the young Horne.(52) Alexander Catcott, son of the Hutchinsonian Alexander Stopford Catcott, attended Wadham College between 1744 and 1748.(53) George Watson, fellow of University College, and Benjamin Holloway, F.R.S., rector of Middleton-Stoney, Oxfordshire, were Hebrew scholars.(54)

The Oxford Hutchinsonians alarmed some and raised a smile in others. Thus Horace Walpole reported to a friend, "Methodism is quite decayed in Oxford, its cradle. In its stead, there prevails a delightful fantastic system, called the sect of the Hutchinsonians.... As their doctrine is novel, and requires much study, or at least much invention, one should think that they could not have settled half the canon of what they are to believe--and yet they go on zealously, trying to make and succeeding in making converts."(55) These efforts were facilitated by the publication of Hutchinson's collected works (14 vols. in 12; London, 1748-49) and an anonymous Abstract from the Works of John Hutchinson, Esquire. Being a Summary of His Discoveries in Philosophy and Divinity (1st ed., 1753; 2d ed., 1755). The Abstract is attributed either to Robert Spearman, one of the editors of the collected works, or to George Home.

The Hutchinsonians, following their master, continued to defend the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity. For example, Jones replied to Robert Clayton, the Anglican bishop of Clogher, Ireland. In 1751, Clayton published an Arian account of the Trinity, his Essay on Spirit. Two years later, Jones issued A Full Answer to the Essay, wherein all the Author's Objections, Both Scriptural and Philosophical to the Doctrine of the Trinity ... Are Examined and Confuted.(56) Jones followed this up with The Catholic Doctrine of a Trinity (Oxford, 1756; frequently reprinted). The subtitle of Catholic Doctrine is telling: With a Few Reflections upon Some of the Arian Writers ... Particularly Dr. S. Clarke, language that harked back to the controversies earlier in the country.

Given Hutchinson's fierce opposition to Newton, one might expect that the Oxford men would have had nothing to do with his natural philosophy. However, Jones and Home were realists. They recognized that Newtonianism, in one form or another, was the leading natural philosophy of their day.(57) In order to gain a hearing for Hutchinson, they tried to show that he and Newton were not completely at odds and that Hutchinson's ideas had not been overtaken by recent developments. In particular, Home and Jones responded to the revival of Newton's aether theories in the 1740s. These theories were to be found in several places: the general scholium that Newton had added to the 1713 edition of the Principia Mathematica; queries 17-23, posed in the Latin translation (1706) of the first English edition of the Opticks (1704);(58) and two communications written by Newton in 1675 and 1679, which were published only in 1744 and 1747.(59)

Newton had distinguished between the "laws" of nature and the "causes" of natural phenomena.(60) He stated and proved the laws of gravitation in his Principia, but the cause of gravity eluded him. As noted in the first part of this paper, Newton had suggested from time to time that aether might be the cause. For example, in query 21 of the Opticks, he offered an aetherial medium for consideration: "If the elastick force of this Medium be exceedingly great, it may suffice to impel Bodies from the denser parts of the Medium toward the rarer, with all that power that we call Gravity."(61) This sort of language gave George Home an opening. He acknowledged, without abandoning Hutchinson's basic principles, that Newton had made important contributions to the study of natural philosophy. Home pronounced Newton's laws to be correct and referred to the great man in a respectful, even reverent, manner.(62) But then he went on to say that, in a sense, Hutchinson had completed Newton's work. Aether was not one possibility among several. Rather, Home insisted, aether was undoubtedly the cause of gravity. Hutchinson had proven this to be the case.(63)

Electricity was a subject of great interest to the English natural philosophers of the 1740s.(64) They employed in their experiments two inventions just introduced from the Continent, the "electrical machine" (electrostatic generator) and the "Leyden jar" (condenser).(65) These inventions served as props for the lecture-demonstrations that itinerant lecturers presented to enthusiastic audiences.(66) Certain authors incorporated into their theories of electricity conceptions of aether derived from Newton. These persons included Benjamin Martin, F.R.S., author of An Essay on Electricity and a Supplement thereto, both published in 1746, and Benjamin Wilson, F.R.S., whose Essay towards an Explanation of the Phaenomena of Electricity deduced from the Aether of Sir Isaac Newton appeared during the same year.(67) The last paragraph of the Principia (1713) served as a critical text for these men. Newton mentioned in this passage "a certain most subtle spirit which pervades and lies hid in all gross bodies; by the force and action of which spirit ... electric bodies operate to greater distances ... and light is emitted, reflected, refracted, inflected, and heats bodies."(68) Martin assumed, on Newton's authority, that" `aetherial matter is the common subject of all kinds of light and fire, as well as that of electricity.'"(69) Wilson intended to show how far "the phaenomena of electricity" agreed "with that most general of all material causes the aether."(70)

The currency of ideas such as these allowed Home and Jones to say that Hutchinson's concepts were germane to the debates regarding electricity. After all, aether was an essential element in Hutchinson's system. His aether appeared first as fire and then as light. Home contented himself with asserting that Hutchinson had identified the cause of electricity.(71) Jones in turn tried to elaborate Hutchinson's views on the subject, although he did not carry his researches very far.(72) Jones stated that the subtle aether was constantly in motion. Being composed of the smallest particles known, it could penetrate solid bodies, passing through the "pores" or "channels" that separated the gross particles forming these bodies.(73) The particles of subtle aether might accumulate within these channels. If they did, the gross particles came under intense pressure. Should the pressure become great enough, an "electrical explosion" occurred and the pressure was relieved.(74) During this explosion, a stream of aether or "electric fire" was discharged.(75) The stream was visible to the eye, since the aether was also light, and of course it could ignite objects that it struck.(76)

In summary, significant numbers of eighteenth-century Britons were critical of Sir Isaac Newton for philosophical, religious, or scientific reasons. John Hutchinson and his followers worried especially about the theological implications of Newton's thought. His natural philosophy seemed to undermine the traditional doctrines of Christianity and to encourage heterodoxy if not downright atheism. Hutchinson asserted that revelation was the only secure basis, not only for theological reflection, but also for natural philosophy. Acting upon this premise, he created a "Mosaic physics" based upon the first chapter of Genesis. It attracted a certain amount of interest and support.

(1.) For example, Geoffrey Cantor, "Anti-Newton," in John Fauvel et al., Let Newton Be! (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), 203-221; Robert E. Schofield, Mechanism and Materialism: British Natural Philosophy in An Age of Reason (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1970), 122-28; Arnold Thackray, Atoms and Powers: An Essay on Newtonian Matter--Theory and the Development of Chemistry (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1970), 244-52. Subsequent footnotes will provide additional examples.

(2.) Newton was a Whig; John Hutchinson, the subject of this paper, was a Tory. According to C. B. Wilde, "Hutchinsonianism, Natural Philosophy and Religious Controversy in Eighteenth Century Britain," History of Science 18 (1980): 2, 6-11, Tory High Churchmen were especially attracted to Hutchinsonianism; cf. Richard Olson, "Tory High-Church Opposition to Science and Scientism in the Eighteenth Century: The Works of John Arbuthnot, Jonathan Swift, and Samuel Johnson," in The Uses of Science in the Age of Newton, ed. John G. Burke (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983), 171-204. Note, however, Anita Guerrini, "The Tory Newtonians: Gregory, Pitcairne, and Their Circle," Journal of British Studies 25 (1986): 288-311.

(3.) See Sarah Hutton, "Edward Stillingfleet, Henry More, and the Decline of Moses Atticus: A Note on Seventeenth-Century Anglican Apologists," in Philosophy, Science, and Religion in England, 1640-1700, ed. Richard Kroll, Richard Ashcraft, and Peter Zagorin (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 68-84.

(4.) Theophilus Gale, The Court of the Gentiles: or, A discourse touching the original of human literature, both philologie and philosophie, from the Scriptures, and the Jewish Church, 4 vols. (Oxford: printed by H. Hall, 1669-77); Henry More, Conjectura Cabbalistica. Or, A Conjectural Essay of Interpreting the mind of Moses, in the Three first chapters of Genesis, according to a Threefold Cabbala (London: printed by James Flesher, 1662).

(5.) Joseph M Levine, Dr. Woodward's Shield: History, Science, and Satire in Augustan England (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980), 42-43; John Hutchinson, Philosophical and Theological Works, ed. Robert Spearman and Julius Bate, 12 vols. (London: Printed for J. Hodges, 1748-49), 5: 243. The abbreviation HW will be used for Hutchinson's Works in subsequent footnotes.

(6.) On the distinction between "natural philosophy" and "science," see Andrew Cunningham, "Getting the Game Right: Some Plain Words on the Identity and Invention of Science," Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 19 (1988): 365-89, especially 378--82. For a statement of Newton's natural philosophy, see his general scholium added to the second edition of the Principia (1713), Sir Isaac Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy and His System of the World, trans. Florian Cajori (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1934), 543-46.

(7.) Isaac Newton to Richard Bentley, 10 Dec. 1692, in I. Bernard Cohen, ed., Isaac Newton's Papers and Letters on Natural Philosophy and Related Documents, 2d ed. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1978), 280.

(8.) HW 5: 253-89, 293-94. For additional criticisms of Newton, see HW 5: 163, 181, 190-93; see also An Abstract from the Works of John Hutchinson, Esquire. Being a Summary of his Discourses in Philosophy and Divinity (Edinburgh: printed by R. Fleming, 1753), 2.

(9.) HW 1: 241-42; 1:1 (separate pagination toward the close of the volume).

(10.) Maurice Wiles, "The Secret Arianism of Isaac Newton," in Archetypal Heresy: Arianism through the Centuries (Oxford: Clarendon, 1996), 77-93, esp. 84. On the other hand, Thomas C. Pfizenmaier, Journal of the History of Ideas 58 (1997): 57-80, answers the question "Was Isaac Newton an Arian?" in the negative and argues that Newton was a Eusebian or Homoiousian (75).

(11.) HW 5: 256-57; note Hutchinson's criticism of Socinus (HW 5: 109).

(12.) HW 3: 109-111; 6: 359.

(13.) HW 2: xxviii-xxix, 24; 6: 31-34.

(14.) Letters to Serena (London: printed for John Lintot, 1704), 183, 234.

(15.) Margaret C. Jacob, The Newtonians and the English Revolution, 1689-1720 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1976), 238-45.

(16.) C. B. Wilde, "Matter and Spirit As Natural Symbols in Eighteenth-Century British Natural Philosophy," British Journal for the History of Science 15 (1982): 101-104.

(17.) Isaac Newton, Opticks Or a Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections and Colours of Light(New York: Dover, 1979), 370.

(18.) Schofield, Mechanism and Materialism, 15, 16.

(19.) Frederick Copleston, History of Philosophy, vol. 4, Descartes to Leibniz (Westminster, Md.: Newman, 1958), 129.

(20.) Newton, Mathematical Principles, 546.

(21.) P. M. Heimann, "'Nature Is a Perpetual Worker': Newton's Aether and Eighteenth-Century Natural Philosophy," Ambix 20 (1973): 5-8, summarizes the relationships between aethers, active principles, and spirits.

(22.) HW 1: 263; see also 262.

(23.) For the context of this belief, see Wilde, "Matter and Spirit," 101-102.

(24.) Other terms for this fluid are "spirit" (HW 1: 15; separate pagination toward the close of the volume), "air" (HW 2: 156), and the "Names" (HW 5: 93).

(25.) HW 2: 23, 37.

(26.) On the significance of "pressure" in Hutchinson's system, see HW 2: 311-15.

(27.) HW 2: 93, 311-14.

(28.) HW 11: 30.

(29.) Hutchinson described the characteristics of light in HW 2: 206-216.

(30.) On the manifold implications of "light," see HW 6: 3841.

(31.) The terms "exemplar" and "analogy of resemblance" are taken from X. William Carroll, "Hutchinsonisme: Une Vue de la nature comme theophanie au cours du dix-huitieme siecle" (doctoral diss., Universite de Strasbourg, 1968), 232, 239.

(32.) On Hutchinson's conception of analogy, see HW 2: xxii-xxix.

(33.) HW 1:30 (separate pagination toward the close of the volume); 2: 264.

(34.) HW 1: 30, 62; 2: 264-65.

(35.) G. N. Cantor, "Revelation and the Cyclical Cosmos of John Hutchinson," in Images of the Earth: Essays in the History of the Environmental Sciences, ed. L. J. Jordanova and Roy Porter (Chalfont St. Giles: British Society for the History of Science, 1979), 15, citing HW 2:79 and 4: 258.

(36.) HW 2: 102.

(37.) Arthur J. Droge, Homer or Moses? Early Christian Interpretations of the History of Culture (Tubingen: J. C. B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck] Verlag, 1989), 3.

(38.) Quoted by Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis, 1. 150.4.

(39.) HW 1: 253-54, 40 (separate pagination toward the close of the volume); 4: 103; 6:156.

(40.) Paolo Casini, "Newton: The Classical Scholia," History of Science 28 (1984): 2.

(41.) The answer to the question, to whom did Newton assign priority, the Egyptians or the Hebrews, is a matter of dispute among scholars. On the priority of the Egyptians, see John Gascoigne," `The Wisdom of the Egyptians' and the Secularisation of History in the Age of Newton," in The Uses of Antiquity: The Scientific Revolution and the Classical Tradition, ed. Stephen Gaukroger (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic, 1991), 171-212, esp. 190-93; Richard S. Westfall, "Isaac Newton's Theologiae Gentilis Origines Philosophiae," in The Secular Mind: Transformations of Faith in Modern Europe, ed. W. Warren Wagar (New York: Holmes and Meier, 1982), 19-21. The following scholars argue, with qualifications, for the priority of the Hebrews: Garry W. Trompf, "On Newtonian History," in Gaukroger, Uses of Antiquity, 213-49, esp. 220-23; Frank E. Manuel, Isaac Newton Historian (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1963), 89, 99-102; Scott Mandelbrote, "`A Duty of the Greatest Moment': Isaac Newton and the Writing of Biblical Criticism," British Journal of the History of Science 26 (1993): 290.

(42.) "Irenicum," in Isaac Newton, Theological Manuscripts, ed. H. McLachlan (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1950), 28.

(43.) Frank E. Manuel, The Religion of Isaac Newton (Oxford: Clarendon, 1974), 117-18.

(44.) Isaac Newton, The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended (London: printed for J. Tonson, 1728), 12, 212; cf. 15, 79.

(45.) Casini, "Classical Scholia," 1; Newton, Chronology, 22.

(46.) Newton, Theological Manuscripts, 33. For Newton's conception of prophecy, see Manuel, Religion, 86-88.

(47.) Newton, "The Original of Monarchies," in Manuel, Historian, 218.

(48.) Isaac Newton, Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John (London: printed by J. Darby and T. Browne, 1733), 5-6. See Richard H. Popkin, "Newton As a Bible Scholar," in Essays on the Context, Nature, and Influence of Isaac Newton's Theology, ed. James E Force and Richard H. Popkin (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic, 1990), 104.

(49.) Popkin, "Bible Scholar," 117 n. 66. "Newton questioned the plenary inspiration of the received canon of books and regarded the historical books of the Old Testament as the compilation of men" (Richard S. Westfall, Never at Rest: A Biography of Isaac Newton [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980], 827).

(50.) Correspondence of Isaac Newton, vol. 2, 1676-1687, ed. H. W. Turnbull (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1960), 333. On accommodationist techniques of exegesis, see Betty J. T. Dobbs, The Janus Faces of Genius: The Role of Alchemy in Newton's Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 59-63.

(51.) Jones may have owed his election to his friend, Samuel Horsley, one of the secretaries of the Society, who prepared an edition of Newton's works (5 vols., 1779-85) and became a bishop of the Church of England (1788).

(52.) Williams Jones, ed., Memoirs of the Life, Studies, and Writings of the Right Reverend George Horne, D.D. (London: printed for G. G. and J. Robinson, 1795), 22. Forbes's book was probably A Letter to a Bishop, concerning Some Important Discoveries in Philosophy and Theology (London: printed by H. Woodfall, 1732); further printings in 1735, 1736, and 1747.

(53.) Jones, Memoirs, 22. A. S. Catcott was headmaster of Bristol Grammar School; see Michael Neve and Roy Porter, "Alexander Catcott: Glory and Geology," British Journal for the History of Science 10 (1977): 4142.

(54.) Jones, Memoirs, 27, 40; on Holloway, see Carroll, "Hutchinsonisme," 11, 29-30.

(55.) Horace Walpole to Richard Bentley, Sept. 1753, in The Yale Edition of Horace Walpole's Correspondence, ed. W. S. Lewis (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1973), 35: 156.

(56.) London: printed for E. Withers and S. Parker, 1753. According to J. H. Overton, Home helped Jones to write his Full Answer; see Dictionary of National Biography, 1921-22 ed., s.v. "Jones, William, of Nayland."

(57.) Jones, Memoirs, 37.

(58.) These queries were repeated in the second English edition (1717).

(59.) Newton, "Hypothesis Explaining the Properties of Light," presented to the Royal Society in 1675, in Cohen, ed., Newton's Papers, 178-90; Isaac Newton to Robert Boyle, 28 Feb. 1679, in Newton's Papers, 250-53. According to Schofield, Mechanism and Materialism, 106-111, the revival of Newton's aether theories was stimulated by an anonymous Examination of the Newtonian Argument for the Emptiness of Space and of the Resistance of Subtile Fluids (1740), the publication of the Newtonian documents mentioned in the text, and two pamphlets written by Bryan Robinson.

(57.) Jones, Memoirs, 37.

(60.) Newton, Opticks, 376, 401.

(61.) Newton, Opticks, 351.

(62.) George Horne, A Fair, Candid, and Impartial State of the Case between Sir Isaac Newton and Mr Hutchinson (Oxford: printed at the Theatre for S. Parker, 1753), 26, 38-39; Jones, Memoirs, 39.

(63.) Home, State, 23, 57.

(64.) Both Home and Jones refer to this interest (Home, State, 3); Jones, An Essay on the First Principles of Natural Philosophy (Oxford: printed at the Clarendon Printing-House, 1762), 230.

(65.) I. Bernard Cohen, Franklin and Newton (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1956), 384-85.

(66.) John Wesley attended one of these lectures on October 16, 1747. Apparently he was asked to take part in a demonstration. Afterward he wrote in his journal: "Who can comprehend how fire lives in water and passes through it more freely than through air? How flame issues from my finger, real flame, such as sets fire to spirits of wine? How these and many more as strange phenomena arise from the turning round a glass globe?" Works of John Wesley, vol. 20, Journals and Diaries III, ed. W. R. Ward and R. P. Heitzenrater (Nashville: Abingdon, 1991), 195. The ignition of "spirits of wine" refers to an experiment first performed by William Watson and reported by him to the Royal Society on October 24, 1745 (Cohen, Franklin, 394-95).

(67.) Martin, An Essay on Electricity: Being an Enquiry into the Nature, Cause and Properties Thereof, On the Principles of Sir Isaac Newton's Theory of Vibrating Motion, Light and Fire; ... with Some Observations (Bath: printed for the author and Leake, Frederick, Raches, Collins, and Newbury, 1746); idem, A Supplement: Containing Remarks on a Rhapsody of Adventures of a Modern Knight-Errant in Philosophy (Bath: printed for the author, etc., 1746); Wilson, Essay (London: printed for C. Davis and M. Cooper, 1746).

(68.) Newton, Principia, 547. Home referred to this passage in his State of the Case, 64-65. In his final sentence, Newton described the spirit as "electric and elastic."

(69.) Martin, Supplement, 34, quoted by Cohen, Franklin, 415.

(70.) Wilson, Essay, vi. For descriptions of Martin's ideas see Schofield, Mechanism and Materialism, 160-61; Cohen, Franklin, 294-96; J. L. Heilbron, Electricity in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979), 294-96; for Wilson, see Schofield, Mechanism and Materialism, 161-62; Cohen, Franklin, 417-24; Heilbron, Electricity, 301-305.

(71.) Home, State, 65.

(72.) For accounts of the experiments that Jones performed, see his Essay, 129-34, 254-58.

(73.) Jones, Essay, 259.

(74.) Jones, Essay, 135.

(75.) For references to "electric fire," see Jones, Essay, 25, 130, 134, 136.

(76.) Jones, Essay, 182.

John C. English is emeritus professor of history at Baker University.