[780] ’Others have considered infinite space as the receptacle, or rather the habitation of the Almighty; but the noblest and most exalted way of considering this infinite space, is that of Sir Isaac Newton, who calls it the sensorium of the Godhead.  Brutes and men have their sensoriola, or little sensoriums, by which they apprehend the presence, and perceive the actions, of a few objects that lie contiguous to them.  Their knowledge and observation turn within a very narrow circle.  But as God Almighty cannot but perceive and know everything in which he resides, infinite space gives room to infinite knowledge, and is, as it were, an organ to Omniscience.’  Addison, The Spectator, No. 565.

[781] ’Le celebre philosophe Leibnitz ... attaqua ces expressions du philosophe anglais, dans une lettre qu’il ecrivit en 1715 a la feue reine d’Angleterre, epouse de George II.  Cette princesse, digne d’etre en commerce avec Leibnitz et Newton, engagea une dispute reglee par lettres entre les deux parties.  Mais Newton, ennemi de toute dispute et avare de son temps, laissa le docteur Clarke, son disciple en physique, et pour le moins son egal en metaphysique, entrer pour lui dans la lice.  La dispute roula sur presque toutes les idees metaphysiques de Newton, et c’est peut-etre le plus beau monument que nous ayons des combats litteraires.’  Voltaire’s Works, ed. 1819, xxviii. 44.

[782] See ante, iii. 248.

[783] See ante, iv. 295, where Boswell asked Johnson ’if he would not have done more good if he had been more gentle.’  JOHNSON.  ’No, Sir; I have done more good as I am.  Obscenity and impiety have always been repressed in my company.’

[784] ’Mr. Maclean has the reputation of great learning:  he is seventy-seven years old, but not infirm, with a look of venerable dignity, excelling what I remember in any other man.  His conversation was not unsuitable to his appearance.  I lost some of his good will by treating a heretical writer with more regard than in his opinion a heretick could deserve.  I honoured his orthodoxy, and did not much censure his asperity.  A man who has settled his opinions does not love to have the tranquillity of his conviction disturbed; and at seventy-seven it is time to be in earnest.’  Johnson’s Works, ix. 118.

[785] ’Mr. Maclean has no publick edifice for the exercise of his ministry, and can officiate to no greater number than a room can contain; and the room of a hut is not very large...  The want of churches is not the only impediment to piety; there is likewise a want of ministers.  A parish often contains more islands than one...  All the provision made by the present ecclesiastical constitution for the inhabitants of about a hundred square miles is a prayer and sermon in a little room once in three weeks.’  Johnson’s Works, ix. 118.

[786]