leaving the writings of the professional philosophers
we turn to the influence of the Newtonian system on the general thought of the eighteenth century
specially in france where it found its way into the famous Encyclopedie
as we have seen
newton and friends regarded his picture of the universe as a revelation of the glory of God
and biologists such as ray echoed a very different effect on Voltaire and those of a like way of thinking
their general wave of skeptical religious thought got a powerful reinforcement from Newton’s Success in explaining the mechanical principles to other branches of science