[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.]
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