with a picture or image. As for oratory, which is the best skill about words, that hath by some wise men been esteemed but a voluptuary art, like to cookery, which spoils wholesome meats, and helps unwholsome, by the variety of sauces, serving more to the pleasure of taste than the health of the body."

This is one of the earliest incentives and encouragements to the study of Nature to be met with in our literature, and it proceeded from the pen of John Ray, whose whole life was devoted to this study, and to the application of it as an evidence of the truth of the Christian Revelation. Natural theology is outlined-or, rather, its principles are suggested-in the works of Cudworth, Henry More, and Boyle; but it first assumed a definite form as a branch of Christian Apologetics in Ray's treatise, published in 1671, on "The Wisdom of God Manifested in the Works of the Creation." A quarter of a century later the argument was taken up and expounded by Denham in his "Physico-theology" and "Astro-theology;" and in the second year of the present century it was popularised by Paley in his "Natural Theology." It has not, perhaps, the value which was at one time attached to it by divines; but it must always be interesting, and the name of John Ray should, therefore, be remembered with respect.

He

Ray stulied Nature for practical purposes also. was the most eminent botanist of his age, and unquestionably one of the founders of the science. His two folios "Historia Plantarum," form a monument of well-directed labour-of keen observation, quick perception, and untiring industry-fully justifying the eulogium on its writer pronounced by White of Sel

borne:-"Our countryman, the excellent Mr. Ray, is th only describer that conveys some precise idea in every term or word, maintaining his superiority over his followers and imitators, in spite of the advantage of fresh discoveries and modern information."

John Ray was the son of a blacksmith, and born at Black Notley, in Essex, in 1628. He was educated at Braintree Grammar School, and thence removed to Cambridge, where he obtained a fellowship at Trinity. In 1651 he was appointed Greek Lecturer of his college, and afterwards Mathematical Reader. His botanical researches throughout the length and breadth of the country were gathered up in his Latin "Catalogue of the Plants of England and the adjacent Isles," published in 1670. Another of his more notable works was his "Collection of Proverbs, with Short Annotations," given to the world in the same year. At the age of 45, he married a lady twenty-four years younger than himself; and settling in his native place lived there a life of unassuming piety till his death in 1705.

We must pass over with a reference the names of the first English writers on Political Economy, such as Sir Josiah Child (1630-1699), who published in 1668, a "New Discourse on Trade; " and Sir William Petty (1623-1687), the physician, and founder of the noble family of Lansdowne, who, about the same time, compiled his treatise "On Taxes and Contributions." The greatest physician of the period was Thomas Sydenham, who, breaking loose from the antiquated traditions of the old school of empirics, applied to the treatment of disease the results of careful observation and individual diagnosis. His great principle is now accepted as the very foundation of the

therapeutic art: that we must follow and encourage the processes by which Nature relieves herself of a disease, or else discover a specific. In the treatment of fevers he was the first English physician who made large use of Peruvian bark, or cinchona. He likewise introduced a much-needed reform into the treatment of smallpox. He was born in 1624, and died in 1689.

We have left to the last the greatest name in English Science, that of Sir Isaac Newton. It is impossible for us to do justice to the noble work which has placed him foremost among the philosophers of all time. That work, to be estimated aright, must be studied in his own marvellous writings, or in the comments of his followers and disciples, and especially in Sir David Brewster's "Life of Newton." A succinct summary of his great discoveries is provided in his epitaph :-"Here lies buried Isaac Newton, Knight, who, with an almost divine energy of mind, guided by the light of mathematics purely his own, first demonstrated the motions and figures of the planets, the paths of comets, and the causes of the tides; who discovered, what before his time no one had ever suspected, that rays of light are differently refrangible, and that is the cause of colours." The epitaph proceeds to define the philosopher's character. He was "a diligent, penetrating, and faithful interpreter of nature, antiquity, and the sacred writings. In his philosophy, he maintained the majesty of the Supreme Being; in his manners he expressed the simplicity of the Gospel. Let mortals congratulate themselves that the world has seen so great and excellent a man, the glory of human nature."

In a hackneyed line Young has told us that

"An undevout astronomer is mad."

No such aberration afflicted the reverent genius of Sir Isaac Newton, whose simple piety shed a pure and beautiful light over his whole life. He looked through Nature up to Nature's God, and every fresh advance that he made in a knowledge of the mysteries of creation did but intensify his faith in the wisdom and goodness of its Creator. His religious belief is thus stated by himself in an interesting document first published by Sir David Brewster, and we give it here because it contrasts so forcibly with the extravagance of modern sciolists and their cant about the Unknowable and the Unconditioned :

"1. There is one God the Father, ever-living, omnipresent; omniscient, almighty, the maker of heaven and earth, and one Mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus.

"2. The Father is the invisible God whom no eye hath seen, nor eye can see. All other beings are sometimes visible.

"3. The Father hath life in Himself, and hath given the Son to have life in Himself.

"4. The Father is omniscient, and hath all knowledge originally in His own breast, and communicates knowledge of future things to Jesus Christ; and none in heaven or earth, or under the earth, is worthy to receive knowledge of future things immediately from the Father, but the Lamb. And, therefore, the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy, and Jesus is the Word or Prophet of God.

"5. The Father is immovable, no place being capable of becoming emptier or fuller of Him than it is by the eternal necessity of nature. All other things are movable from place to place.

"6. All the worship-whether of prayer, praise, or thanksgiving-which was due to the Father before the coming of Christ, is still due to Him. Christ came not to diminish the worship of His Father.

"7. Prayers are most prevalent when directed to the Father in the name of the Son.

"8. We are to return thanks to the Father alone for creating us, and giving us food and raiment and other blessings of this life, and whatsoever we are to thank Him for, or desire that He would do for us, we ask of Him immediately in the name of Christ.

"9. We need not pray to Christ to intercede for us. If we pray the Father aright, He will intercede.

"10. It is not necessary to salvation to direct our prayers to any other than the Father in the name of the Son.

"11. To give the name of God to angels or kings, is not against the First Commandment. To give the worship of the God of the Jews to angels or kings, is against it. The meaning of the commandment is, Thou shalt worship no other God but me.

"12. To us there is but one God, the Father, of Whom are all things, and one Lord Jesus Christ, by Whom are all things and we by Him. That is, we are to worship the Father alone as God Almighty, and Jesus alone as the Lord, the Messiah, the Great King, the Lamb of God Who was slain, and hath redeemed us with His blood, and made us kings and priests."

Newton was born at Woolsthorpe, in Lincolnshire, on Christmas Day, 1642. In his childhood he showed a strong bias towards the mechanical and mathematical sciences. He received his early education at the Grantham Grammar School, but at the age of fifteen was removed to take charge