By the middle of the 18th century in England, one could say with Horne "that the Newtonian System had been in possession of the chair for some years;"[1] but it had not yet convinced the common people, for as Pike wrote in 1753, "Many Common Christians to this day firmly believe that the earth really stands still and that the sun moves all round the earth once a day: neither can they be easily persuaded out of this opinion, because they look upon themselves bound to believe what the Scripture asserts."[2]
There was, however, just at this time a little group of thinkers who objected to Newton's scheme, "because of the endless uninterrupted flux of matter from the sun in light, an expense which should destroy that orb."[3] These Hutchinsonians conceived of light as pure ether in motion springing forth from the sun, growing more dense the further it goes till it becomes air, and, striking the circumference of the universe (which is perhaps an immovable solid), is thrown back toward the sun and melted into light again. Its force as its tides of motion strike the earth and the other planets produces their constant gyrations.[4] Men like Duncan Forbes, Lord President of the Court of Sessions, and George Home, President of Magdalen College, Oxford, as a weapon against rationalism, favored this notion that had been expounded by John Hutchinson (1674-1737) in his Moses's Principia (1724).[5] They were also strongly attracted by the scriptural symbolism with which the book abounds. Leslie Stephen summarizes their doctrines as (1) extreme dislike for rationalism, (2) a fanatical respect for the letter of the Bible, and (3) an attempt to enlist the rising powers of scientific enquiry upon the side of orthodoxy.[6] This "little eddy of thought"[7] was not of much influence even at that time, but it has a certain interest as indicating the positions men have taken when on the defensive against new ideas.
