The dispute between Newton and Leibnitz now com menced; but as we have already, in our Article FLux IONS, and in our History of NIATnEsiATies, entered very fully into the subject, we shall dismiss it entirely from this sketch of his life.
As this celebrated controversy excited very general attention, it was of course well known to the Elector of Hahover, at whose cow t Leibnitz filled the situation of Privy Councillor of Justice. Upon the accession of the Elector to the British throne as George I., Sir Isaac came under the particular notice of the court. Caroline, Princess of Wales, afterwards the queen consort of George II., who was fond of philosophical pursuits, and took much pleasure in the conversation of literary inen, showed Sir Isaac particular marks of her favour. She often conversed with him for hours together, and was often heard to say in public, that she was happy at hav ing lived in the same country, and at the same time with such an amiable and illustrious man. At her express desire, Sir Isaac drew up an abstract of his " Chrono logy," a MS. copy of which she requested him to give, under the promise of secrecy, (about 1718,) to Signior Conti, a Venetian nobleman, who was then in England. This nobleman, whose misconduct has given him im mortality, betrayed in the basest manner the confidence that had been so generously reposed in him. As soon as he arrived in Paris, lie got the NIS. translated by a French antiquarian, who appended to it a series of ob servations, the object of which was to refute the origi nal work. Sir Isaac was entirely ignorant of this basc transaction till the I 1th November, 1725, when he re• ceivcd, as a present, a small printed tract, from M. NV. Cavelier, junior, a Parisian bookseller, entitled, Abrege de Chronologie de le Chevalier Newton, fait par lui mime, et traduit sur le MSS. Anglois. An advertise ment was prefixed to the work, stating that three let ters had been written to Sir Isaac, to ask his consent to the publication, and that his silence was at last takcn fur consent. In the mean time, Sir Isaac, who had never seen such letters, did return a written answer, (to an ap plication from a friend,) in which he declined giving his consent ; but the work had been printed, and the dis honest bookseller, though he received the letter before publication, did not hesitate to give it to the world. Sir Isaac, in a very interesting paper on this subject, pub lished in the Philosophical 7'ransac lions, 1725, vol. xxxiii.
p. 315, exposes the natuie of the cleceiful transaction, and repels, in a masterly manner, the objections which had been made to his system. The following paragraph, which concludes this paper, is too much connected with the history of his life not to be interesting to every read er, and the more so when we consider that it was com posed in his 83d year.
" The Observator," says he, " represents that I have a great work to come out; but I never told him so. When I lived at Cambridge, I used sometimes to re fresh myself with history and chronology for a while, when I was WCary with other studies: but I never told him that I was preparing a work of that kind for the press.
" Abbe Conti camc into England in spring 1715, and while he staid in England, he pretended to be my friend, but assisted M. Leibnitz in engaging. me in new dis putes, and has since acted in the sante manlier in Franee. The part he acted here may be understood bv the cha racter given of hitn in the Acta Eruditorum, for the year 1721, p. 90, where the editor, excusing himself for repeating some disputes which had been published in these Acta, subjoins, Let it therefore suffice to say, that when the Abbe Conti, a noblc Venetian, (of whom NI. Leibnitz acknowledges NI. Herman gave a good character,) came over from France int° England, be, un dertook to be mediator in the disputes between Sir I. Newton and NI. Leibnitz ; and took the care of trans mitting their letters to each other,' and how M. Leib nitz, by this mediation, endeavoured to engage me, against my will, in theii• disputes about occult qualities, universal gravity, the sensorium of God, space, time, vacuum, atoms, the perfection of the world, supramtm dane intelligence, and mathematical problems, is men tioned in the preface to the second edition or the Com mercium Epistolicum. And what he has been doing in Italy, may he understood by the disputes raised there by one of his friends who denies many of my optical experiments, though they have been all tried in France with success." This answer of Sir Isaac's,'" induced P. Souciet, who, it appears, was the antiquary alluded to, to write five additional dissertations against the new system of chro nology, but as these were published about the time of Sir Isaac's death, it fell to the lot of Dr. Halley to re ply to him, which be did in the Philosophical Transac tions for 1727, vol. xxxiv. and XXXV. p. 205, 296.