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material to Newton, who wrote back, "You have sent me much more earth than I expected. I desired only a specimen, having no inclination to prosecute the process. For, in good earnest, I have no opinion of it. But since you have a mind to prosecute it, I should be glad to assist you all I can; but I have lost the first and third parts out of my pocket. I thank you for what you communicated to me out of your own notes about it."1

"Mr. Boyle," Locke replied, "has left to Dr. Dickson, Dr. Cox, and me the inspection of his papers. I have, here enclosed, sent you the transcript of two of them that came to my hand, because I knew you desired it. Of one of them I have sent you all there was; of the other only the first period, because it was all you seemed to have a mind to. If you desire the other periods, I will send them too. If I meet with anything more of the process he communicated to you, you shall have it, and if there be anything more in relation to any of Mr. Boyle's papers, or anything else wherein I can serve you, be pleased to command me." 2

"I am glad you have all the three parts of the recipe entire," said Newton in his reply; "but before you go to work about it, I desire you would consider these things, for it may perhaps save you time and expense." "In dissuading you from too hasty trial of this recipe," he added, after much else on the subject, "I have forborne to say anything against multiplication in general, because you seemed persuaded of it; though there is one argument against it which I could never find an answer to,

1 Edleston, Correspondence of Sir Isaac Newton and Professor Cotes, etc.' (1850), p. 275; Newton to Locke, 7 July, 1692.

2 Brewster, Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton,' vol. ii., p. 461; Locke to Newton, 26 July, 1692.

and which, if you will let me have your opinion about it, I will send you in my next."1

If that promised letter was sent, it has not come down to us, and we hear no more about Boyle's experiments in gold-making or their continuation by either Locke or Newton. Notwithstanding Newton's suggestions, it seems probable that, though anxious that the matter should be sifted, Locke did not turn aside from his literary and other occupations to make any researches of his own, and that he chiefly concerned himself in this business from a desire to do justice to the friend who had left him his papers to arrange.

He had done something towards that before Boyle's death. Boyle had at intervals collected a great number of notes on meteorology and barometrical and thermometrical observations. These notes he asked Locke to edit, and Locke, having arranged them in chapters and made as many alterations as he felt that he had liberty to offer, returned the manuscript with a long letter suggesting further changes before its publication." Through some confusion, however, the work was published in its incomplete form, as 'A General History of the Air.' What share Locke had in the editing of Boyle's other works, after his death, is not recorded.

Having broken through the strict order of chronology in order to group together our more important illustrations of Locke's intercourse with Newton during this period of his life, we may here go farther ahead and take note of one very pathetic episode.

Newton, as even some of our few extracts from his correspondence help to show, was subject to a nervous

2

1 Lord King, p. 220; Newton to Locke, 2 August, 1692.

Boyle, 'Works,' vol. v., p. 571; Locke to Boyle, 21 Oct., 1691.

VOL. II.

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irritability that occasionally led him to think and say unkind and unjust things about his friends; and on at least one occasion this irritability was so aggravated by over-work and other causes, as to amount to a temporary aberration of intellect. While recovering from this state in the autumn of 1693, he addressed the following strange letter of confession to Locke, dated from "The Bull, in Shoreditch."

"SIR,-Being of opinion that you endeavoured to embroil me with women and by other means, I was so much affected with it, as that when one told me you were sickly and would not live, I answered 'twere better if you were dead. I desire you to forgive me this uncharitableness. For I am now satisfied that what you have done is just, and I beg your pardon for my having hard thoughts of you for it, and for representing that you struck at the root of morality, in a principle you laid down in your book of ideas, and designed to pursue in another book, and that I took you for a Hobbist. I beg your pardon also for saying or thinking that there was a design to sell me an office, or to embroil me.

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"I am your most humble and unfortunate servant,

"IS. NEWTON." 2

Locke's generous answer, which we have only in his own unfinished draft, needs no comment.

"SIR,-I have been, ever since I first knew you, so entirely and sincerely your friend, and thought you so much mine, that I could not have believed what you tell me of yourself, had I had it from anybody else. And though I cannot but be mightily troubled that you should have had so many wrong and unjust thoughts of me, yet, next to the return of good offices, such as from a sincere good-will I have ever done you, I receive your acknowledg ment of the contrary as the kindest thing you could have done me, since it gives me hopes that I have not lost a friend I so much valued. After what your letter expresses, I shall not need to say anything to justify myself to you. I shall always think your own reflection on my carriage, both to you and all mankind, will sufficiently do that. Instead of that,

1 That is, the Essay concerning Human Understanding.'
2 Lord King, p. 224; Newton to Locke, 16 Sept., 1693.

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give me leave to assure you that I am more ready to forgive you than you can be to desire it; and I do it so freely and fully that I wish for nothing more than the opportunity to convince you that I truly love and esteem you, and that I have still the same good-will for you as if nothing of this had happened. To confirm this to you more fully, I should be glad to meet you anywhere, and the rather because the conclusion of your letter makes me apprehend it would not be wholly useless to you. But whether you think it fit or not, I leave wholly to you. I shall always be ready to serve you to my utmost, in any way you shall like, and shall only need your commands or permission to do it.

"My book is going to the press for a second edition; and though I can answer for the design with which I writ it, yet since you have so opportunely given me notice of what you have said of it, I should take it as a favour if you would point out to me the places that gave occasion to that censure, that, by explaining myself better, I may avoid being mistaken by others, or unawares doing the least prejudice to truth or virtue. I am sure you are so much a friend to them both that, were you none to me, I could expect this from you. But I cannot doubt but you would do a great deal more than this for my sake, who after all have all the concern of a friend for you, wish you extremely well, and am without compliment, etc."1

Newton's reply, with which this correspondence, as far as it has come down to us, ends, contained a tolerably sufficient explanation, but might have been more cordial.

"SIR,-The last winter, by sleeping too often by my fire, I got an ill habit of sleeping; and a distemper, which this summer has been epidemical, put me further out of order, so that when I wrote to you, I had not slept an hour a night for a fortnight together, and for five nights together not a wink. I remember I wrote to you, but what I said of your book I remember not. If you please to send me a transcript of that passage, I will give you an account of it if I can.

"I am your most humble servant,

"IS. NEWTON." 2

1 Lord King, p. 224; Locke to Newton, 5 Oct., 1693. As this letter from Oates, and the next one, from Cambridge, bear the same date, there is evidently an error of a day or two in one of them. 2 Ibid., p. 225; Newton to Locke, 5 Oct., 1693.

"It gave me very great pleasure," Limborch had written in May, 1691, in answer to Locke's letter informing him of his intended residence at Oates, but not informing him that Damaris Cudworth's title was now Lady Masham, "to learn from yours that Lady Cudworth has such a kindly recollection of me. Among all my English friends, the one I always most esteemed was Dr. Cudworth. His letters were inspired by more than ordinary learning and wisdom; and it was always a trouble to me that his more important occupations caused him to send me so few of them. I now rejoice that this worthy lady inherits not so much her father's wealth "-it is not likely that Cudworth had much-"as her father's talents and learning, and that she represents him in those ways which we consider suitable to men. I am glad that she approves of the work on which I am now engaged "-the 'Historia Inquisitionis '—"and my plan of it; and I hope that, when it appears, she will be satisfied with the work itself, in which she will see set forth the whole mystery of iniquity, as far as a thing so utterly atrocious and detestable can be set forth in words. I beg you humbly to tender to her my services and tell her that I heartily pray God to compensate by other favours that weakness of her eyesight which has been caused by her too much reading."1

In this same letter Limborch made two announcements -that Le Clerc was married, and that Furly had lost his wife. The latter intelligence had reached Locke some weeks before he heard it from Limborch, and he had already sent a very characteristic letter of condolence to his friend in Rotterdam.

1 Lord King (ed. 1830), vol. ii., p. 311; Limborch to Locke, [19-] 29 May, 1691.

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