Note 391 — Chapter IX · SOUL-IMAGE AND LIFE-FEELING
Charles Francis Atkinson translation
The great part played by learned Jesuits in the development of theoretical physics must not be overlooked. Father Boscovich, with his system of atomic forces (1759), made the first serious advance beyond Newton. The idea of the equivalence of God and pure space is even more evident in Jesuit work than it is in that of the Jansenists of Port Royal with whom Descartes and Pascal were associated.
(Boscovich’s atomic theory is discussed by James Clerk Maxwell in Ency. Brit., XI ed., XVIII, 655—a reference that, for more general reasons, no student of the Faustian-as-scientist should fail to follow up.—Tr.)