Of Milton, Newton, and Halley on Revelation; Or Plato's Ancient Quarrel Revisited

[Today's post is dedicated with gratitude to J.B. Shank.--ES]

And chiefly Thou O Spirit, that dost prefer
Before all Temples th' upright heart and pure,
Instruct me, for Thou know'st; Thou from the first
Wast present, and with mighty wings outspread
Dove-like satst brooding on the vast Abyss
And mad'st it pregnant: What in me is dark
Illumin, what is low raise and support;
That to the highth of this great Argument
I may assert Eternal Providence,
And justifie the wayes of God to men..--Milton, Paradise Lost, Book 1.

Arise, Mortals, throw off earthly cares; and discern herein the
powers of a heaven-born Mind, far and away remote from the
life of the beasts. He who commanded men, by written Tablets,
to curb Murder, Theft and Adultery, and crimes of perjured
Deceit; or who Counseled nomad peoples to establish walled
Cities; or who blessed the nations with the gift of Ceres; or
who pressed from the grape relief from cares; or who showed
how to combine pictured sounds upon a Nile reed, and to exhibit
Voices to the eyes—each of these improved the lot of
mankind less, in only looking to a few benefits for the unhappiness
of life. But now we are truly admitted as table-guests of the
Gods; we are allowed to examine the Laws of the high heavens;
and now are exposed the hidden strongholds of the secret Earth,
and the unchanging order of things.’’--Halley’s Ode to Newton in First (1687) edition of the Principia (quoted in Albury 1978, p. 27).

It is a little known fact, even among Newton scholars, that Halley's Ode to Newton, which appears at the start of the Principia, was substantially rewritten for the second edition of the Principia by Bentley. As Albury has shown, Halley's version of the Ode is modeled on Lucretius praise of Epicurus. [For more details see also my paper.]

Now, Bentley would have objected to the strong Epicurean themes of Halley's version of the Ode, including an utter lack of appreciation of God's providence and Halley’s commitment to the eternity of the world (that is, ‘‘the unchanging order of things’’). But while one might brush off Halley's suggestions about Newton’s divinity as a rhetorical flourish in the quoted passage above, Halley comes close to suggesting that Revelation has human origins. Either way, Halley clearly suggests that the Gospel is not mankind’s greatest gift and that one can gain access to God's or even nature's workings unmediated by it.

 

Over lunch, the distinguished historian, JB Shank, pointed out that this last feature of Halley's ode to Newton has a parallel in Milton's elevation of himself qua poet to the level of a prophet. In the passage quoted from the start of Paradise Lost, Milton presents himself as a human mediator of Revelation (with the aid of a muse), that makes him a direct source of divine insight into the workings of God's providence.*

Milton's revised version of the poem was published in 1674 not much before Halley's Ode. So, I think Shank's suggestion is worth taking seriously. For, if Halley were thinking of Milton's poem, then one might say that rather than renewing the ancient quarrel between poetry and philosophy (Republic, 607b5–6), he presents Newton's philosophy as its final conclusion: its through Newton's mathematical philosophy that Plato's dream that "we ought to try to escape from earth to the dwelling of the gods as quickly as we can" [Theaetetus 176ab] is realized: "now we are truly admitted as table-guests of the Gods."

 

*In a follow up email, Shank pointed out that this theme was taken up by the Romantics.