Milner

William Whiston, New Theory of the Earth (London, 1737 (first published in 1696). Formerly owned by Isaac Milner.

William Whiston (1667–1752), was one of Milner’s predecessors as Lucasian Professor of Mathematics. Like Milner, he too attempted to explain Newton’s philosophy in relation to theology: unlike Milner, Whiston was expelled from the Lucasian chair when his enthusiasm for Newtonian apocalyptic prophesies led him to be accused of heresy.

Whiston’s much reprinted New Theory of the Earth was closely influenced by Newton’s own researches into biblical prophecy. Indeed, Whiston claimed that Newton himself ‘well approved of’ his application of Newtonian philosophy as a means to demonstrate that the scriptural accounts of the creation, the flood, and the final conflagration were ‘perfectly agreeable to Reason and Phylosophy’. According to Whiston, the flood had been occasioned by the near approach of a divinely guided comet whose tail had emitted condensed vapour. Whiston also identified stratified sedimentary rock and marine fossils found in continental areas as vestiges of the flood.