" Even Milton seems to have hesitated between the two
systems. At the beginning of the eighth book of _Paradise Lost_ he
makes Adam state the difficulties of the Ptolemaic system, and then
brings forward an angel to make the usual orthodox answers. Later,
Milton seems to lean toward the Copernican theory, for, referring
to the earth, he says:
"Or she from west her silent course advance
With inoffensive pace, that spinning sleeps
On her soft axle, while she faces even
And bears thee soft with the smooth air along."
English orthodoxy continued to assert itself. In 1724 John
Hutchinson, professor at Cambridge, published his _Moses' Principia_,
a system of philosophy in which he sought to build up a complete
physical system of the universe from the Bible. In this he
assaulted the Newtonian theory as "atheistic," and led the way for
similar attacks by such Church teachers as Horne, Duncan Forbes,
and Jones of Nayland. But one far greater than these involved
himself in this view.
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