Isaac Newton (30 page)

14
. Casper Hakfoort, “Newton’s Optics: The Changing Spectrum of Science,” in Fauvel et al., p. 84.

15
. E.g.,
Corres
I: 41.

16
. Newton to Oldenburg, October 24, 1676,
Corres
II: 188.

17
. Hooke to Oldenburg, February 15, 1672,
Corres
I: 44. Newton retorted that Hooke might as well speak of the “light in a piece of wood before it be set on fire.” Newton to Oldenburg, June 11, 1672,
Corres
I: 67.

18
. Pardies to Oldenburg, March 30, 1672,
Corres
I: 52.

19
. Newton to Oldenburg, April 13, 1672,
Corres
I: 55. Pardies replied politely that Newton had answered some of his objections and that
hypothesis
had merely been the first word that came to mind.

20
. He continued: “I shall now take a view of Mr Hooks Considerations on my Theories. And those consist in ascribing an Hypothesis to me which is not mine … & in denying some thing the truth of which would have appeared by an experimentall examination.” Newton to Oldenburg, June 11, 1672,
Corres
I: 67.

21
.
Corres
I: 99 and 103.

22
. Newton to Oldenburg, March 8, 1673,
Corres
I: 101; Newton to Collins, May 20, 1673,
Corres
I: 110. Oldenburg to Newton, June 4, 1673,
Corres
I: 112.

23
. “… or rather that you will favour me in my determination by preventing so far as you can conveniently any objections or other philosophicall letters that may concern me.” Newton to Oldenburg, June 23, 1673,
Corres
I: 116.

24
. Newton’s silence lasted from June 1673 to November 1675—broken only by one more curt rejection: “I have long since determined to concern my self no further about the promotion of Philosophy. And for the same reason I must desire to be excused from ingaging to exhibit yearly philosophic discourses.… If it were my lot to be in London for sometime, I might possible take occasion to supply a vacant week or two with something by me, but that’s not worth mentioning.” Newton to Oldenburg, December 5, 1674,
Corres
I: 129.

25
.
“umbram captando eatinus perdideram quietam meam.…”
Newton to Oldenburg, October 24, 1676,
Corres
II: 188.

8: IN THE MIDST OF A WHIRLWIND

1
. Boyle,
The Sceptical Chymist
, p.57. Yet he did not quite believe that gold was an element, in the modern sense.

2
. Ibid., p. 3.

3
. The various alternative versions of the Hypothesis are best seen in the
Correspondence
: Newton to Oldenburg, December 7, 1675,
Corres
I: 146.

4
. “to avoid circumlocation,” ibid.

5
. It included, besides the “Hypothesis” (not published during his lifetime), the “Note on the Discourse of Observations” (adapted almost intact, decades later, as Book II of the
Opticks
).

6
. Overoptimistic by a factor of a thousand or so.
Corres
I: 391 n.; Birch,
History of the Royal Society
, III: 303; S. I. Vavilov, “Newton and the Atomic Theory,” in Royal Society,
Newton Tercentenary Celebrations
, p. 48.

7
.
Corres
I: 146.

8
.
Corres
I: 366.

9
. Newton’s physical intuition failed him here, in that he neglected another source of damping for a pendulum in vacuum—friction within the cord—but years later, soon before the
Principia
, he repeated this experiment more carefully and began to lose faith in the ether. Cf. Westfall, “Uneasily Fitful Reflections on Fits of Easy Transmission,” in Palter,
Annus Mirabilis
, pp. 93 and 100 n.; also “De Ære et Æthere,” Add MS 3970.

10
.
Corres
I: 368.

11
. “And they that will,” he added, “may also suppose, that this Spirit affords or carryes with it thither the solary fewell & materiall Principle of Light; And that the vast æthereall Spaces between us, & the stars are for a sufficient repository for this food of the Sunn & Planets.”
Corres
I: 366.

12
.
Physico-mathesis de lvmine, coloribvs et iride
(1665).

13
. Birch,
History of the Royal Society
, III: 269;
Corres
I: 407 n.

14
. Newton to Oldenburg, December 21, 1675,
Corres
I: 150.

15
. Hooke and Oldenburg were at war over another matter, Oldenburg’s promotion of Huygens’s invention of a spiral-spring-regulated watch—previously invented, according to Hooke, by Hooke. Hooke’s extant diary scarcely mentions Newton, ever, but Oldenburg is everpresent: e.g., “the Lying Dog Oldenburg”; “Oldenburg treacherous and a villain.” Hooke, Diary, November 8, 1675 and January 28, 1673; ’Espinasse,
Robert Hooke
, pp. 9 and 65.

16
. “These to my much esteemed friend, Mr Isaack Newton, at his chambers in Trinity College.…” Hooke to Newton, January 20, 1676,
Corres
I: 152.

17
. Newton to Hooke, February 5, 1676,
Corres
I: 154.

18
. Some commentators have been pleased to note that, in literal terms, Hooke was no giant; his physique was diminutive and twisted. His contemporary John Aubrey described him in
Brief Lives
as “but of midling stature, something crooked, pale faced, and his face but little belowe, but his head is lardge.” This hardly seems relevant to Newton’s choice of trope. It is clear that
the shoulders of giants
had already lived for some centuries as a conventional expression; Robert Merton has traced its course most magisterially.

9: ALL THINGS ARE CORRUPTIBLE

1
. An “oven mouthed chimney.” Yehuda MS 34, quoted in Westfall,
Never at Rest
, p.253 n.

2
. Stukeley,
Memoirs
, pp. 60–61; Humphrey Newton’s recollection, Keynes MS 135; John Wickins, Keynes MS 137.

3
. Analysis of four surviving locks of Newton’s hair in 1979 found toxic levels of mercury. Johnson and Wolbarsht, “Mercury Poisoning: A Probable Cause of Isaac Newton’s Physical and Mental Ills”; Spargo and Pounds, “Newton’s ‘Derangement of the Intellect.’ ” But the severity remains in doubt, as do suggestions that mercury poisoning contributed to Newton’s mental troubles. See also Ditchburn, “Newton’s Illness of 1692–3.”

4
. Gaule,
Pys-mantia
, p. 360.

5
. Keynes MS 33. Maybe Mr. F. was Ezekial Foxcroft (Dobbs,
Foundations of Newton’s Alchemy
, p. 112); at any rate the mystery, and the peopling of his papers with unidentified gentlemen, is a continual source of frustration for his biographers. “This is only speculation, of course,” Westfall remarks, typically. “It is not speculation that Newton had alchemical manuscripts which he must have received from someone since they did not, I believe, materialize out of thin air.” Westfall,
Never at Rest
, p. 290.

6
. In the 1680s he had an amanuensis, Humphrey Newton (no relation), who recalled: “Especially at the Spring and Fall of the Leaf, at which Times he used to imploy about 6 weeks in his Elaboratory, the Fire scarcely going out either Night or Day, he siting up one Night, as I did another, till he had finished his Chymical experiments.… What his Aim might be, I was not able to penetrate into, but his Pains … made me think, he aimed at something beyond the Reach of humane Art and Industry.” Cohen and Westfall,
Newton: Texts
, p. 300.

7
.
The Works of Geber Englished by Richard Russell
(reprinted London: Dent, 1928), p. 98.

8
. Cinnabar was red mercuric sulfide, also known to painters as vermilion. Alchemists knew that it was a “sublimation” of quicksilver (mercury) and brimstone (sulfur). Meanwhile, the identification of quicksilver with mercury was not perfect; alchemists also spoke of a “philosophic mercury,” a more general substance, which might be extracted from other metals as well.

9
. White,
Medieval Technology
, p. 131.

10
. The symbol was a pair of serpents—one male and one female—entwined about a staff.

11
. Add MS 3973, quoted in Westfall,
Never at Rest
, p. 537.

12
. Keynes MS 55, quoted in Dobbs,
Foundations
, p. 145.

13
.
Phil. Trans
. 10:515–33.

14
. “In my simple judgment the noble Author since he has thought fit to reveale himself so far does prudently in being reserved in the rest.” Newton to Oldenburg, April 26, 1676,
Corres
II: 157. Newton concludes with regret for his unusual loquacity: “I have been so free as to shoot my bolt: but pray keep this letter private to your self.”

15
. Peter Spargo, “Newton’s Chemical Experiments,” in Theerman and Seeff,
Action and Reaction
, p. 132: “To the best of my knowledge no contemporary chemist, including Boyle, approached this degree of quantification in chemistry—nor indeed was anyone to do so until some time later.”

16
. “On Natures Obvious Laws and Processes in Vegetation,” in Cohen and Westfall,
Newton: Texts
, pp. 301, 305, and 303.

17
. Keynes MS 56, quoted in Westfall,
Never at Rest
, p.299.

18
. Cohen,
Revolution in Science
, p. 59.

19
. “De Gravitatione et æquipondio fluidorum,” in Hall and Hall,
Unpublished Scientific Papers
, p. 151. “I suppose that the parts of hard bodies do not merely touch each other and remain at relative rest, but that they do so besides so strongly and firmly cohere, and are so bound together, as it were by glue.…”

20
. “And what certainty can there be in Philosophy which consists in as many Hypotheses as there are Phænomena to be explained.” Add MS 3970.3, quoted in Hutchison, “What Happened to Occult Qualities in the Scientific Revolution?”

21
. Newton to Oldenburg, December 7, 1675,
Corres
I: 146.

10: HERESY, BLASPHEMY, IDOLATRY

1
. Westfall,
Never at Rest
, pp. 311–12. The “theological notebook” is Keynes MS 2, one of those marked (by Thomas Pellett) after Newton’s death “Not fit to be printed” and then stored, unread, until Keynes acquired it in 1936.

2
. He told Oldenburg and reminded him in January 1675: “the time draws near that I am to part with my fellowship.…”
Corres
VII: X.132.

3
. From a memorandum by David Gregory, in Cohen and Westfall,
Newton: Texts
, p. 329.

4
. “The father is immoveable no place being capable of becoming emptier or fuller ofhim then it is by the eternal necessity of nature: all other being are moveable from place to place.” “A Short Schem of the True Religion,” Keynes MS 7, in Cohen and Westfall,
Newton: Texts
, p. 348.

5
.
Principia
941.

6
. “Religion is partly fundamental and immutable, partly circumstantial and mutable.” “A Short Schem of the True Religion,” Keynes MS 7, in Cohen and Westfall,
Newton: Texts
, p. 344.

7
. Quoted in Westfall,
Never at Rest
, p. 348.

8
. Scholars agree that no ancient Greek texts include the phrase
these three are one
. Modern English translations have instead (typically)
the three are in agreement
.

9
. “Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture”;
Corres
III: 83; etc.

10
. Quoted in Dobbs,
Foundations of Newton’s Alchemy
, p. 164. Also Jan Golinski, “The Secret Life of an Alchemist,” in Fauvel et al.,
Let Newton Be!

11
. By the end of his life, a few people knew, including William Whiston, his successor as Lucasian Professor at Cambridge. Whiston was stripped of the professorship and tried for heresy because he made his own Arianism public. He had received the post because of Newton’s patronage; then Newton refused him membership in the Royal Society because—Whiston believed—“they durst not choose a Heretick.” Whiston said of his patron, “He was of the most fearful, cautious, and suspicious temper, that I ever knew.”
Memoirs
, pp. 250 f.
   Westfall notes (
Never at Rest
, p. 318) that Isaac Barrow had gone so far as to write a “Defense of the Blessed Trinity,” and his successor as Master of Trinity College vowed to “batter the atheists and then the Arians.…”
   By the time of his death, rumors of Newton’s Arianism had circulated, but his friends and then his biographers heartily denied them. E.g., Stukeley (
Memoirs
, p. 71): “Several people of heretical and unsettled notions, particularly those of Arian principles, have taken great pains to inlist Sir Isaac into their party, but that with as little justice as the anti-christians.”