" He admired in Newton, not so
much his theory of the moon, as his letter to Collins, in which he
forbade him to insert his name with the solution of the problem in the
"Philosophical Transactions": "It would perhaps increase my
acquaintance, the thing which I chiefly study to decline."
These conversations led me somewhat later to the knowledge of similar
cases, existing elsewhere, and to the discovery that they are not of
very infrequent occurrence. Few substances are found pure in
nature. Those constitutions which can bear in open day the rough
dealing of the world must be of that mean and average structure,--such
as iron and salt, atmospheric air, and water. But there are metals,
like potassium and sodium, which, to be kept pure, must be kept under
naphtha. Such are the talents determined on some specialty, which a
culminating civilization fosters in the heart of great cities and in
royal chambers. Nature protects her own work. To the culture of the
world, an Archimedes, a Newton is indispensable; so she guards them by
a certain aridity.
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