"Newton's goal was incomparably more vast than the discovery of the "mathematical principles of natural philosophy." Newton wished to penetrate the divine principles beyond the veil of nature, and beyond the veils of human record and received revelation as well. His goal was the knowledge of God, and for achieving that goal he marshaled the evidence from every source available to him: mathematics, experiment, observation, reason, revelation, historical method, myth, the tattered remnants of ancient wisdom. ...one result of the restricted interests of modernity has been to look askance at Newton's biblical, chronological, and alchemical studies: to consider his pursuit of prisca sapientia [ancient wisdom] as irrelevant. None of those was irrelevant to Newton, for his goal was considerably more ambitious than a knowledge of nature. His goal was Truth, and for that he utilized every possible resource."