"There were found some famous men, such as Robert, Bishop of Lincoln, and Adam Marsh, and several others, who were aware that the power of mathematics is capable of unfolding the causes of all things, and of giving a sufficient explanation of human and divine phenomena; and the assurance of this fact is to be found in the writings of those great men, as, for instance, in their works on the impressions on the rainbow and the comets, on the generation of heat, on the investigation of geography, on the sphere, and on other questions appertaining both to theology and to natural philosophy."