In 1756 Jones published his tractate _On the Catholic Doctrine of the Trinity_, a statement of the doctrine from the Hutchinsonian point of view, with a succinct and able summary of biblical proofs. This was followed in 1762 by an _Essay on the First Principles of Natural Philosophy_, in which he maintained the theories of Hutchinson in opposition to those of Sir Isaac Newton, and in 1781 he dealt with the same subject in _Physiological Disquisitions_. Jones was also the originator of the _British Critic_ (May 1793). His collected works, with a life by William Stevens, appeared in 1801, in 12 vols., and were condensed into 6 vols. in 1810. A life of Jones, forming pt. 5 of the _Biography of English Divines_, was published in 1849.
JONES, SIR WILLIAM (1746-1794), British Orientalist and jurist, was born in London on the 28th of September 1746. He distinguished himself at Harrow, and during his last three years there applied himself to the study of Oriental languages, teaching himself the rudiments of Arabic, and reading Hebrew with tolerable ease. In his vacations he improved his acquaintance with French and Italian. In 1764 Jones entered University College, Oxford, where he continued to study Oriental literature, and perfected himself in Persian and Arabic by the aid of a Syrian Mirza, whom he had discovered and brought from London. He added to his knowledge of Hebrew and made considerable progress in Italian, Spanish and Portuguese. He began the study of Chinese, and made himself master of the radical characters of that language. During five years he partly supported himself by acting as tutor to Lord Althorpe, afterwards the second Earl Spencer, and in 1766 he obtained a fellowship. Though but twenty-two years of age, he was already becoming famous as an Orientalist, and when Christian VII. of Denmark visited England in 1768, bringing with him a life of Nadir Shah in Persian, Jones was requested to translate the MS. into French. The translation appeared in 1770, with an introduction containing a description of Asia and a short history of Persia. This was followed in the same year by a _Traité sur la poésie orientale_, and by a French metrical translation of the odes of Hafiz. In 1771 he published a _Dissertation sur la littérature orientale_, defending Oxford scholars against the criticisms made by Anquetil Du Perron in the introduction to his translation of the _Zend-Avesta_. In the same year appeared his _Grammar of the Persian Language_. In 1772 Jones published a volume of _Poems, Chiefly Translations from Asiatick Languages, together with Two Essays on the Poetry of Eastern Nations and on the Arts commonly called Imitative_, and in 1774 a treatise entitled _Poeseos Asiaticae commentatorium libri sex_, which definitely confirmed his authority as an Oriental scholar.