William Whiston, seceder from the Church of England; born at Norton, Leicestershire, Dec. 9, 1667; died in London, Aug. 22, 1752. He graduated at Clare Hall, Cambridge, 1690; became fellow, 1693; chaplain to Bishop Moore, of Norwich, 1694–98; Lowestoft, 1698–1701; then deputy of Sir Isaac Newton, whom he succeeded, 1703, as Lucasian professor of mathematics at Cambridge; expelled, 1710, for Arianism, avowed in an essay on the “Apostolical Constitutions,” London, 1708, and persistently maintained by him as the faith of the early church. This essay he reprinted in his “Primitive Christianity Revived,” 1711–12, 5 vols. The rest of his life was spent in London, writing, lecturing, and preaching in his own house. He imbibed Baptist and Millenarian tenets, but did not leave the church till 1747, and then as a protest against the Athanasian Creed. He was a model of honesty and disinterestedness, but wayward, erratic, obstinate, intolerant, and violently prejudiced, especially against the memory of Athanasius, whom one of his books (1712) held “Convicted of Forgery.” “Paradoxical to the verge of craziness,” he spent his life in constant controversy and industrious efforts to propagate his peculiar opinions. His most valuable works are the translation of Josephus, 1737, and a “Life of Dr. Samuel Clarke,” 1730. His autobiography appeared in 3 vols., 1749–50.
Personal
Think of a man, who had brilliant preferment within his reach, dragging his poor wife and daughter for half a century through the very mire of despondency and destitution, because he disapproved of Athanasius, or because the “Shepherd of Hermas” was not sufficiently esteemed by the Church of England! Unhappy is that family over which a fool presides. The secret of all Whiston’s lunacies may be found in that sentence of his Autobiography, where he betrays the fact of his liability, from youth upwards, to flatulency. What he mistook for conscience was flatulence, which others (it is well known) have mistaken for inspiration. This was his original misfortune: his second was, that he lived before the age of powerful drastic journals. Had he been contemporary with Christopher North, the knout would have brought him to his sense, and extorted the gratitude of Mrs. Whiston and her children.
I may add to what precedes that it cannot be settled that, as Granger says, Desaguliers was the first who gave experimental lectures in London. William Whiston gave some, and Francis Hauksbee made the experiments. The prospectus, as we should now call it, is extant, a quarto tract of plates and descriptions, without date. Whiston, in his life, gives 1714 as the first date of publication, and therefore, no doubt, of the lectures. Desaguliers removed to London soon after 1712, and commenced his lectures soon after that. It will be rather a nice point to settle which lectured first; probabilities seem to go in favour of Whiston.
In Queen Anne’s reign his search for a primitive Christianity affected his theology, and brought on him loss of his means of life in the church and university. He taught science; lived, as a poor man, a long and blameless life, until his death, in 1752; and in his writings blended love of nature with the love of God.
Whiston was one of the first, if not the first person, to give lectures with experiments in London. He co-operated in some of them with the elder Francis Hauksbee. The first, upon astronomy, were given at Button’s coffee-house by the help of Addison and Steele, both of whom he knew well. He amused great men by his frank rebukes. He asked Steele one day how he could speak for the Southsea directors after writing against them. Steele replied, “Mr. Whiston, you can walk on foot and I cannot.” When he suggested to Craggs that honesty might be the best policy, Craggs replied that a statesman might be honest for a fortnight, but that it would not do for a month. Whiston asked him whether he had ever tried for a fortnight. Whiston’s absolute honesty was admitted by his contemporaries, whom he disarmed by his simplicity…. Whiston belonged to a familiar type as a man of very acute but ill-balanced intellect. His learning was great, however fanciful his theories, and he no doubt helped to call attention to important points in ecclesiastical history. The charm of his simple-minded honesty gives great interest to his autobiography; though a large part of it is occupied with rather tiresome accounts of his writings and careful directions for their treatment by the future republishers, who have not yet appeared. In many respects he strongly resembles the Vicar of Wakefield, who adopted his principles of monogamy. His condemnation of Hoadly upon that and other grounds is in the spirit of Dr. Primrose. It is not improbable that Whiston was more or less in Goldsmith’s mind when he wrote his masterpiece.
General
The honest, pious, visionary Whiston.
This book [“Short View of Chronology of Old Testament”] partakes largely of the wildness, as well as of the learning, of Whiston, and is now of little importance…. The Memoirs of this singular man, published by himself, contain some curious information respecting his times, and afford a view of great honesty and disinterestedness, combined with an extraordinary degree of superstition and love of the marvellous.
This admirable translation [“Josephus”] far exceeds all preceding ones, and had never been equalled by any subsequent attempt of this kind.
Whiston opposed Burnet’s theory, but with one [“New Theory of the Earth”] not less unfounded, nor with less ignorance of all that required to be known.
Much useful information in this Essay, [“Short View”] but fanciful.
Poor Whiston, who believed in every thing but the Trinity.
A host of speculators, headed by the eloquent Thomas Burnet and the eccentric William Whiston, both men of genius and learning, but of more fancy than either judgment or knowledge of the subjects which in this instance they undertook to discuss, produced in the last years of the seventeenth and the first of the eighteenth century many theories of the earth, which explained not only its structure, but its origin and its destiny,—in other words, its whole history, past, present, and future,—as well as such a task could be accomplished by the imagination working without materials, and without the aid of any other faculty.
Whiston’s theological works are now almost forgotten, and he is remembered almost exclusively by his translation of Josephus. This translation has gone through a number of editions, and is still much read, although superseded by the work of Dr. Robert Traill.
Had he confined himself to mathematical studies, he would have earned a high name in science; but his time and attention were dissipated by his theological pursuits, in which he evinced more zeal than judgment, &c.
Yet we feel for him something of the pitying kindness which he generally excited in his contemporaries. With a childlike simplicity worthy of the Vicar of Wakefield, he was ready to sacrifice all his prospects rather than disavow or disguise a tittle of his creed. Had that creed been one of greater significance, disciples would have revered him as a worthy martyr, and adversaries regarded him as dangerous in proportion to his virtue. Unluckily it was a creed untenable by any man of sound intellect. It was filled with queer crotchets picked up in various byways of learning, and valued by the collector in proportion to their oddity. Friends and opponents—for he had no enemies—regarded his absurdities with a pitying smile, and were glad to see him pick up a harmless living by giving astronomical lectures and publishing pamphlets on a vast variety of subjects.
Whiston, notwithstanding the vagaries which characterised his “Theory of the Earth” (an attempt to harmonise the Bible and the Newtonian discoveries), discharged his duties as Lucasian professor with credit, even though appearing as the successor of Newton.
