Notes on Newton's suitability for canonisation if not deification
Diplomatic transcriptions offer a detailed representation of the document with minimal editorial intervention. All deletions and additions are rendered in the text and shorthand abbreviations have not been expanded. Switching to the diplomatic view of this text will:
- show 4 deletions
- reveal 3 additions
- not apply 3 editorial regularizations
Had this great & good man lived in an age when those superiour Genij inventors were Deified or in a country where mortals are canonized he would have had a better claim to those honours than those they have hitherto been ascribed to, his virtues proved him a Saint & his discoveries might well pass for miracles —
1 When wee consider his talents his virtues Even wee that knew him can hardly think of him without a sort of superstition which demands {all} our reason to check – nor forbear saying with the Marquis de l'Hospital was Newton a man? Thus far surely wee may say that had he lived in an age &c —
<2>It is a policy in the Roman Church to canonize none till they have been dead 100 years that there may be no living witnesses of their imperfections – it is a happy circumstance that whilst I am writing this many are alive who knew him & can bear witness for posterity will hardly believe so many virtues & no vices could exist in any man — mortal
