“But if I have done the public any service this way, 'tis due to”

— Isaac Newton

Newton to Bentley, 10 December 1692 (first letter), The Correspondence of Isaac Newton, ed. H. W. Turnbull (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1961), 3:233. Referenced on p. 383 of Snobelen SD: " The Theology of Isaac Newton’s Principia Mathematica: A Preliminary Survey https://isaacnewtonstheology.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/theology-of-the-principia.pdf," pp. 377–412, Neue Zeitschrift für Systematische Theologie und Religionsphilosophie, Volume 52, Issue 4 (Jan 2010)
Context: When I wrote my treatise about our System, I had an eye upon such principles as might work with considering men for the belief of a Deity and nothing can rejoice me more than to find it useful for that purpose. But if I have done the public any service this way, 'tis due to nothing but industry and a patient thought.

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Isaac Newton 171

British physicist and mathematician and founder of modern c… 1643–1727

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