Electronic edition published by Cultural Heritage Langauge Technologies (with permission from Charles Scribners and Sons) and funded by the National Science Foundation International Digital Libraries Program. This text has been proofread to a low degree of accuracy. It was converted to electronic form using data entry.
KEILL, JOHN
(b. Edinburgh, Scotland, 1 December
1671; d. Oxford, England, 31 August 1721), physics,
mathematics.
Keill's early education was at Edinburgh, where he
also attended the university, studying under David
Gregory, the first to teach pupils on the basis of the
newly published Newtonian philosophy. He graduated
M.A. before going to Oxford with Gregory, who had
been made Savilian professor of astronomy there.
Keill was incorporated M.A. at Balliol in 1694 and
in 1699 became deputy to Thomas Millington,
Sedleian professor of natural philosophy. After a short
absence from Oxford he became Savilian professor of
astronomy there in 1712, and a year later a public act
made him doctor of physic. He remained as Savilian
professor until his death.
Keill was one of the very important disciples
gathered around Newton who transmitted his principles
of philosophy to the scientific and intellectual
community, thereby influencing the directions and
emphases of Newtonianism. As one of the few around
Newton with High Church patronage, Keill apparently
tried to counter the Low Church influences of such
spokesmen as Richard Bentley and William Whiston.
While agreeing with them that the discoveries and
doctrine of universal attraction of Newtonianism
should play a crucial role in fighting “atheistic”
Cartesianism and mechanical thinking, he rejected the
notion that this should be accomplished exclusively
or primarily by means of natural theology. Rather,
natural theology should be subordinated to the
Scripture, while natural philosophy should acknowledge
the important role played not only by Providence
but also by outright miracles. These arguments are
made in Keill's first work, An Examination of
Dr Burnet's Theory of the Earth. Together With Some
Remarks on Mr. Whiston's New Theory ... (1698).
This was probably written before he had met Newton,
and was an attack on the cosmogonical treatises about
the world's creation then being widely debated by
many members of the Royal Society. Although
supposedly written specifically against the unscientific
methods of the theories of Thomas Burnet and
William Whiston, in substance it amounted to a very
hostile attack—in the name of orthodoxy—on the
delusions of “world-making” which were caused,
Keill claimed, by Cartesian natural philosophy. As an
antidote Keill prescribed the more modest and exact
Newtonian philosophy, based solidly on mathematical
reasoning, even though Newton himself was known
at the time to have sympathies with the cosmogonical
theories. Besides those of Burnet and Whiston, Keill
attacked the ideas of Richard Bentley, who had tried
to use Newtonian principles as the foundation for his
physicotheology in his famous Boyle lectures in 1692.
In effect, Keill's work offered itself to Newton as
an alternative Newtonian theology, different from
that of the Low Church disciples. Newton's public
acceptance of Keill's basic criticism against “world-making”
was incorporated in 1706 in what was to be
the famous 31st Query of the Opticks.
Keill's role as propagator of Newtonian philosophy