About the Work
This book is a biographical account of the life and work of Sir Isaac Newton, presented as a narrative history that traces his development from a premature and sickly infant to a towering figure in mathematics, physics, and astronomy. The work is structured as a chronological narrative, beginning with Newton’s birth and family origins, moving through his childhood education and early inventions, and then detailing his university career, his major scientific discoveries, and his later public life. The text is framed by an opening epigraph from Halley—”Nec fas est proprius mortali attingere Divos” (Nor is it lawful for mortals to approach the gods too closely)—which sets a reverential tone for the subject matter. The author describes Newton’s emergence during a period of intellectual awakening, positioning him as a figure who “grasping the master-key of the universe” revealed the material world’s realities and gave “a new song to the goodness, wisdom, and majesty of the all-creating, all-sustaining, all-perfect God.” The book covers the full arc of Newton’s life, from his birth on December 25, 1642 (Old Style) at Woolsthorpe in Lincolnshire, to his final years in London and Kensington, including his death and the posthumous publication of some of his works. The narrative incorporates extensive quotations from Newton’s own letters and writings, as well as accounts from contemporaries, to build a portrait of both the scientist and the man. The work also includes discussions of Newton’s theological writings, his work at the Royal Mint, his controversies with other scientists, and his personal habits and character, making it a comprehensive account of his entire life and legacy.
Context
The book situates Newton’s life within the broader intellectual and historical context of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The author describes humanity’s emergence from “medieval darkness,” suggesting that Newton’s work represented a culmination of this intellectual awakening. The narrative references the scientific landscape of the time, including the work of earlier and contemporary figures such as Kepler, Descartes, Wallis, Hooke, Huygens, and Leibnitz, showing how Newton built upon and sometimes contested their ideas. The book also places Newton within the institutional contexts of Cambridge University, where he was admitted in 1660 and later held the Lucasian Professorship of Mathematics, and the Royal Society of London, which he eventually served as President for about twenty-five years. The political context is also addressed, including the reign of James II and the attempt to force Cambridge to confer a degree upon an ignorant monk, which Newton helped resist, and his subsequent election to the Convention Parliament in 1688. The narrative also covers Newton’s move into public life as Warden and then Master of the Mint in the 1690s, a period of national re-coinage of debased currency. The book describes the intellectual climate of the time, noting how Descartes’s system of vortices had “sown error deeply” and how Newton’s ideas about gravity and empty space were initially met with resistance on the Continent, with figures like Leibnitz, Huygens, and Fontenelle opposing or misapprehending his doctrines. The author also discusses the rapid reception of Newton’s ideas in England, crediting his own lectures and those of his successors and followers for diffusing knowledge of the Principia within twenty years. The context also includes Newton’s theological interests, with the book noting that he began theological researches before 1691 and owned the same Author in the Book of Nature and Book of Revelation, reflecting the period’s integration of scientific and religious inquiry.
Structure of the Book
The book is organized as a chronological biographical narrative that follows Newton’s life from birth to death, interweaving accounts of his personal life, his scientific work, and his public career. The opening sections establish Newton’s origins, describing his birth at Woolsthorpe, his family background, and his early childhood, including his mother’s remarriage and his placement in the care of his grandmother. The narrative then follows his education, from day schools at Skillington and Stoke, to Grantham public school where he boarded with an apothecary, and finally to Cambridge University, where he was admitted in 1660. The early chapters detail Newton’s youthful inventions—paper kites, lanterns, a working windmill model powered by a mouse, a mechanical carriage, a water clock, and sundials—as well as his early attachment to Miss Storey, who later became Mrs. Vincent. The book then traces Newton’s mathematical studies and his early career at Cambridge, including his development of the Method of Fluxions, his construction of the reflecting telescope, and his appointment as Lucasian Professor. A significant portion of the narrative is devoted to Newton’s major scientific works and discoveries: his optical lectures and experiments on the refraction and diffraction of light, his correspondence and controversies with other scientists, and the composition and publication of the Principia Mathematica. The book also covers Newton’s theological researches, including his Observations upon the Prophecies of Holy Writ, and his work on chronology. The later sections of the book describe Newton’s public life, including his appointment as Warden and then Master of the Mint, his election as President of the Royal Society, and his knighthood in 1705. The narrative also addresses the famous 1692 fire that destroyed his manuscript on colours and light, and the subsequent period of ill health. The book concludes with an account of Newton’s final years, including his illness in old age, his move to Kensington, and a recorded conversation from March 1724-5 in which he shared his conjectures about comets and the future of the solar system. The final sections also cover the controversy over the unauthorized French publication of his chronology and his response to it.
Detailed Section-by-Section Summary
Woolsthorpe and the Dawn of Genius
The narrative opens with a poetic epigraph from Halley, “Nec fas est proprius mortali attingere Divos,” establishing the almost divine nature of the subject. The author frames Newton’s arrival as the culmination of humanity’s emergence from medieval darkness, a figure who, by grasping the “master-key of the universe,” revealed the material world’s realities and gave a new song to the goodness, wisdom, and majesty of God. Newton was born on December 25, 1642, at Woolsthorpe in Lincolnshire. His father, John Newton, had died at thirty-six, only months after marrying Harriet Ayscough. The infant was premature, posthumous, and so small he was expected to die, yet he survived to vigorous maturity. Beyond his grandfather Robert Newton, the family’s descent cannot be traced with certainty, with traditions pointing either to Scotch extraction or an origin from Newton in Lancashire, before they settled at Westby and later purchased Woolsthorpe.
A Quiet, Thinking Lad
The widow Newton’s income was modest, about eighty pounds yearly. After three years, she remarried, entrusting young Isaac to her mother’s care. He attended day schools at Skillington and Stoke without showing unusual traits. At twelve, he was placed at Grantham public school, boarding with Mr. Clark, an apothecary. Initially inattentive and low-ranked, he was kicked in the stomach by a boy above him. Deeply affected but without passion, he studied quietly and persistently, passed his tormentor, and eventually reached the head of the school. He became a sober, silent, thinking lad. His early inventions were remarkable: he introduced paper kites, determining their best form and string-attachment points; he invented paper lanterns, sometimes attached to kite tails at night, frightening country people who dreaded comets. He built a working model of a windmill, then modified it to use a mouse on a treadwheel, and invented a four-wheeled mechanical carriage worked by a handle. He constructed a water clock that, though long used, dissatisfied him, and he made sundials from solar observations, one of which, “Isaac’s dial,” was used by country people for years.
The Attachment at Grantham
Newton had an early taste for drawing and excelled in making verses, some of which were remembered and repeated seventy years later by Mrs. Vincent, formerly Miss Storey. Their acquaintance began at Grantham, where both lodged in the same house. She was two or three years younger, of great beauty and talent, and their friendship rose to a higher passion, but the inadequacy of fortune prevented their union. Miss Storey married twice, while Newton never married, maintaining esteem for her throughout his life. In 1656, Newton’s mother, again widowed, returned to Woolsthorpe and recalled her fifteen-year-old son from school for farm work. Business proved distasteful; sent to Grantham Market on Saturdays, he would study in the apothecary’s garret until the servant completed commissions, or sit under a hedge studying while the servant went alone to town. His mother eventually sent him back to school, and at an uncle’s recommendation, Newton was admitted to Cambridge on June 5, 1660, in his eighteenth year.
The Germ of the Calculus
Newton exposed the folly of Judicial Astrology by erecting a figure using Euclid’s problems, thus beginning his mathematical studies. He passed rapidly over Euclid, later regretting this, and mastered Descartes’s Analytical Geometry, Wallis’s Arithmetic of Infinites, Saunderson’s Logic, and Kepler’s Optics. His notes on Wallis contained the germ of his fluxionary calculus. He became more versed than his tutor in many branches. The author notes Newton lacked quickness of apprehension but possessed deep insight, dwelling cautiously on subjects. Dr. Barrow, Newton’s early and last friend, became Lucasian Professor of Mathematics in 1663. Newton received his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1665, and in 1666 he entered upon his great discoveries, possessing his Method of Fluxions by that year. He first invented his Binomial Theorem, then applied it to rectification of curves and centres of gravity. He discovered the principle of deducing areas of curves from the ordinate, considering area as a nascent quantity increasing by continual fluxion, with lines generated by motion of points, surfaces by lines, and solids by surfaces.
The Reflecting Telescope
The passage attributes Newton’s rapid discoveries to unbroken, persevering study working upon a native genius, rendered freest through the untrammelling power of religion. In 1667, he was made a Junior Fellow, and in 1668, he took his Master of Arts degree and was appointed to a Senior Fellowship. Returning to Cambridge, he resumed optical labours. Having devised a delicate method of polishing metal, he constructed his newly projected reflecting telescope—a small specimen six inches long, magnifying about forty times, greater power than a refracting instrument of six feet tube could exert with distinctness. Jupiter with his four satellites and the horns of Venus were plainly visible through it. This was the first reflecting telescope ever executed and directed to the heavens. He gave an account of it in a letter dated February 23rd, 1668-9, a letter also remarkable for containing the first allusion to his discoveries concerning the nature of light. He later executed a second, superior instrument. In 1671, the Royal Society requested it for examination; it excited great admiration, was shown to the king, and a drawing and description were sent to Paris.
Advice to Francis Aston
In spring 1669, Newton wrote to Francis Aston, Esq., about to set out on travels, a letter of advice dated May 18th. Key points included observing companions’ humours and suiting one’s carriage; making discourse more in queries than peremptory assertions; seldom discommending anything; if affronted abroad, passing it by in silence; keeping reason above passion. He added heads for inquiries: observing policies, wealth, state affairs; impositions on trades; laws and customs; trades and arts; fortifications; nobility and magistracy; cataloguing wise and learned men; mechanism of guiding ships; products of nature, especially mines and transmutations; prices of diet; and staple commodities. Specific inquiries included whether at Schemnitium in Hungary they change iron into copper by dissolving it in vitriolate water; whether rivers in Hungary are impregnated with gold; a newly contrived Holland mill to grind glasses plane; one Borry in Holland, imprisoned by the Pope, who escaped, usually clothed in green; whether the Dutch have tricks to prevent ship worm-eaten voyages; and whether pendulum clocks help find longitude.
The Lucasian Chair and the Royal Society
In June 1669, Newton made known his Method of Fluxions, communicating his work Analysis per Equationes numero terminorum Infinitas to Dr. Barrow. Barrow mentioned it to Mr. Collins, who approved, took a copy, and returned the original. During the following two years, Collins spread knowledge of the discovery among mathematicians across Europe. Dr. Barrow, resolving to devote himself to Theology, resigned the Lucasian Professorship in favour of Newton. During 1669, 1670, and 1671, Newton delivered Optical Lectures containing his principal discoveries on the different refrangibility of light, though not publicly known until he communicated them to the Royal Society a few weeks after being elected a member in spring 1671-2. The Society proposed publishing his discourse. Newton accepted, giving results of further experiments: the same degree of refrangibility always belonged to the same colour; the seven different colours of the spectrum were original or simple; and whiteness was a compound of all seven.
Persecuted for a Shadow
Publication called forth violent opposition. Hooke and Huygens were the most conspicuous assailants. Newton silenced all adversaries but felt the triumph of little gain compared to the loss of tranquillity. He remarked that he was so persecuted with discussions arising from the publication of his theory of light that he blamed his own imprudence for parting with so substantial a blessing as his quiet to run after a shadow. In 1672, in a communication to Mr. Oldenburg, Newton stated suggestions on Reflecting Microscopes, considering them more capable of improvement than telescopes. He contemplated an edition of Kinckhuysen’s Algebra with notes, arranging as an introduction a treatise called A Method of Fluxions, but abandoned the design. It was later translated into English and published in 1736 by John Colson.
Inflection and Diffraction
Newton made discoveries on inflection and diffraction before 1674. Grimaldi had first discovered inflection more than ten years before. Newton repeated one of the learned Jesuit’s experiments—admitting a beam of sunlight through a small pin hole into a dark chamber. Light diverged in a cone; shadows were larger than expected, surrounded with three coloured fringes, the nearest widest, the most remote narrowest. Newton took exact measures of the shadow of a human hair and fringe breadths at different distances, discovering these were not proportional to distances. He supposed rays passing by the hair’s edge were deflected as if by a repulsive force, nearest rays being most deflected.
Chemistry and the Power of Fancy
The Royal Society took great interest in experiments Newton communicated concerning electricity excited in glass. He compared refractive powers and densities of many substances, finding them nearly proportional, with unctuous and sulphureous bodies and the diamond as notable exceptions. From this he inferred the diamond had great combustibility—a conjecture modern chemistry confirmed. Newton likely pursued chemistry from witnessing operations at the Apothecary’s at Grantham. He regarded fire as a body heated hot enough to emit light copiously; flame as vapour heated hot enough to shine. To elective attraction he ascribed precipitation, combination, solution, crystallization, cohesion, and capillary attraction. He held that smallest particles cohere by strongest attractions, composing bigger particles of weaker virtue, until the biggest particles compose bodies of sensible magnitude. He was likely a diligent student of Jacob Behmen’s writings, and with a relative spent several months in quest of the philosopher’s tincture.
Locke wrote to Newton for his opinion on a fact in Boyle’s Book of Colours. Newton replied June 30th, 1691, narrating experiments on himself. He looked briefly at the sun in a looking-glass with his right eye, then turned to a dark corner and winked, observing the impression and circles of colours decaying. Repeating this, when the phantasm nearly vanished, intending his fancy upon it made it return vividly. Ceasing to intend his fancy made it vanish. He could make the phantasm return in darkness by intention alone, and the oftener he did so, the easier it became. Eventually he saw a round bright spot like the sun on clouds, books, or bright objects. Though he looked only with his right eye, his fancy made impressions on his left eye too. He shut himself in a dark chamber for three days, diverting his imagination. For months afterward, meditating on the phenomena brought back the spectrum, even in bed at midnight. He concluded that in Boyle’s observation, the man’s fancy probably concurred with the sun’s light impression. The cause involved the power of fancy—too hard a knot to untie. It seemed to consist in a disposition of the sensorium to move the imagination strongly and be easily moved by both imagination and light.
The Great Thought Demonstrated
Newton’s idea of universal gravitation, first glimpsed in the garden at Woolsthorpe, had expanded. In a letter to Dr. Hooke in November 1679, he proposed verifying the earth’s motion by observing a body falling from a height. He thought the path spiral; Hooke maintained it would be an eccentric ellipse in vacuo. Aided by this correction and the discovery that a projectile moves elliptically under a force varying inversely as the square of distance, Newton discovered the theorem by which he examined the ellipsis, demonstrating that a planet under such a force describes an elliptical orbit with the force in one focus. In June 1682, conversation turned on M. Picard’s measurement of a degree of the meridian. Newton took a memorandum, computed the earth’s diameter, resumed his 1666 calculation, and found his early expectations realized. Overpowered, he entrusted completion to a friend. The law of falling bodies at earth’s surface was identified with that guiding the moon in her orbit—his Great Thought of sixteen years now stood demonstrated.
The Principia and the Litigious Lady
Newton composed about twelve propositions on primary planets’ motion, sent to London and communicated to the Royal Society about the end of 1683. Sir Christopher Wren, Dr. Halley, and Dr. Hooke were also investigating without definite results. Halley visited Cambridge in August 1684; Newton assured him the demonstration was perfected. In November Halley received a copy, and in December announced it, with Newton’s promise to enter it on the Register. Newton transmitted the first book before the end of April. The work, Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, dedicated to the Royal Society, was presented April 28, 1685-6. The council resolved to print it at Society expense under Dr. Halley’s direction. Newton’s June 20 reply praised the proof, noted the second book finished last summer, the third wanting the theory of comets, and his design to suppress it—”Philosophy is such an impertinently litigious lady.” He considered retitling it De Motu Corporum Libri duo but retained the former title. The “warning” arose from Dr. Hooke’s pretensions, to which Newton gave minute refutation but added a Scholium acknowledging Wren and Hooke.
The Lord God of Dominion
The passage emphasizes that Newton did not confuse secondary causes with the First Cause. He rose à priori to God through reason and the Word, and proved à posteriori a Deity through the design and law of the universe. Newton is quoted directly: in writing the Principia, he had “an eye upon such principles as might work, with considering men, for the belief of a Deity.” At its conclusion, he teaches that the “most beautiful system of the sun, planets and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being.” Fixed stars, if centres of other systems, must all be subject to the dominion of One, since their light is of the same nature as the sun’s, and light passes between systems; God placed these systems at immense distances lest they fall on each other by gravity. God governs all things “not as the soul of the world, but as Lord over all”; on account of his dominion he is called Lord God παντοκρατωρ. God is a relative word having respect to servants; Deity is dominion over servants, not over his own body. The Supreme God is eternal, infinite, absolutely perfect; but a being without dominion cannot be called Lord God. We say “my God, your God, the God of Israel,” but not “my Eternal” or “my Infinite”—these titles have no respect to servants. God is living, intelligent, powerful; his duration reaches from eternity to eternity, his presence from infinity to infinity. He is not eternity or infinity but eternal and infinite; not duration and space, but endures and is present. By existing always and everywhere, he constitutes duration and space. Every soul with perception is the same indivisible person; God is one and the same God always and everywhere, omnipresent not virtually only but substantially, for virtue cannot subsist without substance. In him all things are contained and moved, yet neither affects the other. God is all similar, all eye, all ear, all brain, all arm, all power to perceive, understand, and act—but in a manner not human, not corporeal, utterly unknown to us. As a blind man has no idea of colours, so we have no idea of how God perceives. He is void of all body and bodily figure, cannot be seen, heard, or touched, nor worshipped under corporeal representation. We know not the real substance of anything; much less have we any idea of God’s substance. We know him only by his contrivances and final causes; we admire him for perfections, reverence and adore him for dominion. “A god without dominion, providence, and final causes, is nothing else but Fate and Nature.” Blind metaphysical necessity, always the same, could produce no variety; diversity of natural things arises only from “the ideas and will of a Being necessarily existing.”
Resistance and Reception
Descartes’s system of vortices had sown error deeply. The idea of planets suspended in empty space, retained by invisible influence from the sun, seemed inconceivable to the ignorant and a revival of occult qualities to the learned. Leibnitz misapprehended; Huygens in part rejected; John Bernouilli opposed; Fontenelle never received the doctrines. Voltaire’s saying is probably true: though Newton survived publication more than forty years, at his death he had not above twenty followers out of England. In England, however, Newton’s own labours as Lucasian Professor, his successors Whiston and Saunderson, Dr. Samuel Clarke, Dr. Laughton, Roger Cotes, Dr. Bentley, and the exertions of David Gregory at Edinburgh and James Gregory at St. Andrew’s diffused knowledge of the Principia. Mathematical doctrines were part of academical instruction; physical truths became familiar within twenty years. Pemberton’s popular “View of Sir Isaac Newton’s Philosophy” appeared in 1728; Andrew Motte’s English translation of the Principia and System of the World the year after.
The Cambridge Political Affair
About the time of the Principia’s publication, James II, bent on re-establishing the Romish Faith, ordered by mandamus that Cambridge confer a Master of Arts degree upon an ignorant monk. Newton was one of nine delegates chosen to defend the University’s independence; they appeared before the High Court successfully, and the king abandoned his design. Newton was proposed as parliamentary representative, elected in 1688, and sat in the Convention Parliament till its dissolution. After the first year he gave little attention to parliamentary duties, being seldom absent from the University till his appointment in the Mint in 1695.
The Book of Revelation
Newton began theological researches before 1691. The Bible was of inestimable worth to him; he owned the same Author in the Book of Nature and Book of Revelation. His work Observations upon the Prophecies of Holy Writ, particularly the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John, first published in London in 1733, has two parts. The first treats the compilers of Old Testament books, prophetic language, the vision of the four beasts, the kingdoms of the iron-and-clay feet, the ten kingdoms of the ten horns, the eleventh horn of Daniel’s fourth beast, and the power changing times and laws.
The Fire of 1692 and Its Aftermath
The narrative resumes with a somber entry dated February 3, 1692, recorded by one “Pryme.” It describes Newton, then a Fellow of Trinity College, at the height of his powers, renowned as a mathematician, philosopher, and divine, and a long-standing Fellow of the Royal Society. His work on the mathematical principles of philosophy had drawn congratulatory letters from across Europe, particularly from Scotland. However, his greatest labor at this time was a comprehensive book on colours and light, the fruit of over twenty years of relentless experimentation—thousands of experiments—and an expenditure of many hundreds of pounds. This magnum opus was nearly complete when catastrophe struck. One winter morning, Newton left the manuscript among his papers on his study table to attend chapel. A burning candle, left unattended, ignited some loose papers, and the fire quickly spread to the manuscript, consuming it entirely along with several other writings. Miraculously, the blaze did no further damage to the building. When Newton returned and saw the ashes of his life’s work, he was so profoundly shaken that “every one thought he would have run mad,” and he was “not himself for a month after.” The account notes that a long record of his colour system survives in the Royal Society Transactions, a partial salvage of his intellectual legacy.
The editor interjects to correct a false biographical claim. All of Newton’s theological writings, save the Bentley Letters, predate this fire. A subsequent biography by M. Biot, relying on a memorandum in Huygens’s journal, asserted that this event caused a permanent derangement of Newton’s intellect. The editor firmly rejects this, stating that Biot’s and Laplace’s opinions were founded on erroneous data and have been overthrown by clear proof. There is no evidence that Newton’s reason was ever dethroned. While the shock may have caused a temporary loss of sleep and appetite, and possibly initiated nervous derangements that afflicted him for two years, such discomposure is not a just measure of mental strength. Indeed, the period of his supposed ill health was one of immense productivity: in 1692 he prepared the first proposition of his Treatise on Quadratures for Dr. Wallis, investigated haloes, and wrote his Letters to Dr. Bentley. In October 1693, Locke sought his reconsideration of innate ideas. By 1694, he was deeply engaged in lunar theory, visiting Flamsteed at Greenwich Observatory in September and commencing a correspondence that would last until 1698.
Public Life and the Mint
Newton’s life then took a decisive turn from collegiate seclusion to public service. In 1695, through the influence of Charles Montague, the Chancellor of the Exchequer (later Earl of Halifax), he was appointed Warden of the Mint. Montague was undertaking a great re-coinage of the debased currency, and Newton’s unique combination of mathematical and chemical knowledge proved invaluable. His competence was rewarded in 1699 when he became Master of the Mint, a lucrative post worth twelve to fifteen hundred pounds annually, which he held for life. In this capacity, he wrote an official Report on the Coinage and a Table of Assays of Foreign Coins, which was later printed at the end of Dr. Arbuthnot’s Tables in 1727. Despite his new duties, he retained his Lucasian Professorship until 1703, appointing Mr. Whiston as his deputy in 1699 with all the emoluments, and upon his own resignation, he successfully secured Whiston’s nomination to the Chair.
The Mathematical Problems
Newton’s intellectual prowess remained undiminished, as demonstrated by his responses to public challenges. In January 1697, John Bernouilli proposed two difficult problems to the mathematicians of Europe. Leibnitz requested and was granted a twelve-month extension. Newton, however, received the problems and sent his solutions to the President of the Royal Society the very next day. When Bernouilli collected the solutions from Newton, Leibnitz, and the Marquis De L’Hopital, he recognized Newton’s anonymous submission instantly, famously remarking that he knew the lion by his claw, “tanquam ungue leonem.” This pattern repeated in 1716 when Leibnitz proposed the problem of trajectories, ostensibly to “feel the pulse of the English Analysts.” Newton received the problem at about five o’clock in the evening, returning home from the Mint fatigued, yet he completed the solution that very night before going to bed.
Newton’s Working Habits
Newton himself attributed his success not to any extraordinary sagacity but to sheer industry and patient thought. He described his method as keeping a subject constantly before him, waiting for the first dawning of an idea to open into full light, and never letting go of the mental process until the object was fully gained. In the privacy of his rooms, he would give himself over to the deepest abstraction, often sitting on his bedside for hours, partially dressed, and neglecting his meals unless reminded. He possessed a remarkable ability to set a line of thought aside and later resume it at the exact point he had left off, a feat he accomplished not through memory but through his inventive faculty.
Elections and Honors
The turn of the century brought a steady stream of public recognition. In 1699, under a new charter admitting foreign associates, he was elected to the Royal Academy of Sciences at Paris. The following year, 1700, he communicated to Dr. Halley a description of his reflecting instrument for observing the moon’s distance from fixed stars; this description was not published in the Philosophical Transactions until 1742, after the same instrument had been independently produced by Mr. Hadley in 1731, where it became known as Hadley’s Quadrant. In 1701, he was re-elected as a member of Parliament for Cambridge University. His greatest institutional honor came in 1703 when he was chosen President of the Royal Society, a position to which he was annually re-elected for about twenty-five years.
The Optics
In 1704, Newton finally published his long-awaited optical researches as Optics: or, a Treatise on the Reflexions, Refractions, Inflexions and Colours of Light. He appended two mathematical treatises to the work—the Tractatus de quadratura curvarum and the Enumeratio linearum tertii ordinis—a decision necessitated by plagiarisms from manuscripts he had loaned to friends. Dr. Samuel Clarke produced a Latin translation in 1706, for which he received five hundred pounds (one hundred per child). The work was subsequently translated into French and circulated widely in successive editions. In 1705, Newton was knighted, and shortly afterward he stood for Parliament again but was defeated. For this occasion, he appeared in laced clothes, a notable departure from his usual simple dress and his only known foray into such vanity.
Publications and the Leibnitz Controversy
The following years saw a flurry of publications, some more authorized than others. In 1707, Whiston published the Arithmetica Universalis, an act considered a breach of confidence; it was later translated by Ralphson, with a 1712 edition by Dr. Machin. In June 1709, Newton entrusted the preparation of a second edition of the Principia to Roger Cotes, the Plumian Professor, which appeared in May 1713 with a celebrated preface by Cotes. His Analysis per Equationes and Methodus Differentialis also saw the light during this period.
The Longitude Petition and Royal Favour
In 1714, a petition was presented to the House of Commons for rewarding inventions to discover longitude at sea. A committee was formed to investigate, and they called upon Newton and others for their opinions. Newton submitted his views in writing, and the committee’s favourable report led to a bill that subsequently passed, establishing the Board of Longitude. With the ascension of George I in 1714, Newton attracted the interest of the court. The Princess of Wales, later queen-consort to George II, admired his position, fame, spotless character, and deep piety. She enjoyed conversing with him and maintained a correspondence with Leibnitz. During these conversations, Newton explained to her a system of chronology he had composed at Cambridge, a subject he had taken up to refresh himself when weary of other studies. In 1718, she requested a copy. Newton drew up an abstract from his separate papers and gave it to her on the condition of secrecy. Later, she requested that the Abbé Conti also receive a copy, and Newton consented under the same injunction. The manuscript was titled “A short Chronicle, from the First Memory of Things in Europe, to the Conquest of Persia, by Alexander the Great.”
The London Household
In London, Newton kept a carriage and a household of three male and three female servants, but he avoided all vain show. His niece, Mrs. Catherine Barton, managed his household affairs for the last twenty years of his life. She was the wife and widow of Colonel Barton, and later married John Conduit, Esq. Newton gave splendid entertainments without ostentation, and his manner was self-possessed, urbane, benign, affable, candid, modest, and serene. He seemed to lack the “singularities of genius,” suiting himself to every company except the vicious and wicked, and he was never suspected of vanity. The passage describes a “wholeness of nature” in him, a character with too perfect a circle and constant law to admit of eccentricities.
Illness in Old Age
In his eightieth year, Newton developed a stone in the bladder, which was pronounced incurable. A strict regimen, however, alleviated the condition. His frugal diet became extremely temperate, consisting of broth, vegetables, and fruit, with only occasional butcher meat. He gave up his carriage for a chair, declined dinner invitations, and received only small parties of friends.
The 1724 Edinburgh Offer
In 1724, Newton wrote to the Lord Provost of Edinburgh, offering twenty pounds yearly toward Mr. Maclaurin’s salary if he would accept the assistant Professorship of Mathematics. This was characteristic of his generosity, as he annually spent large sums on ingenuity, learning, religion, the poor, and his relations. He often remarked that those who gave nothing until death never gave at all, viewing money as entrusted means to do good in the world.
The Return of Illness and a Final Conversation
In August 1724, Newton passed a stone the size of a pea, which came away in two pieces two days apart. In January 1725, he suffered a violent cough and inflammation of the lungs, which prompted his removal to Kensington, where his health improved. In February, he experienced his first attack of gout in both feet, which, despite the pain, produced a beneficial change in his overall condition.
On the 7th of March, 1724-5, Mr. Conduit recorded a remarkable conversation with Newton, who had just recovered from his first gout fit at the age of eighty-three. Newton’s head was clearer and his memory stronger than ever. He repeated a long-held conjecture, affirming nothing but offering it for consideration: that vapours and light from the sun, with a sediment like water, gathered into a body, attracted matter from the planets, and became a secondary planet, then a primary planet, and then a comet. As this body came nearer the sun, its volatile parts condensed, and it became matter to recruit the sun, which wastes by its heat and light, “as a faggot would this fire.” He believed the comet of 1680 would likely do this, noting that its tail grew from two or three degrees before approaching the sun to thirty or forty degrees after. He speculated it might have five or six more revolutions before dropping into the sun, an event that would burn the earth so that no animals could live. He took the three phenomena seen by Hipparchus, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler’s disciples to be of this kind: extraordinary lights among the fixed stars, which are all suns enlightening other planets, appearing as big as Mercury or Venus, diminishing over sixteen months, and sinking into nothing. He doubted whether superior intelligent beings superintended these revolutions by the direction of the Supreme Being. He thought the inhabitants of this world were of short date, since arts such as letters, ships, printing, and the needle were all discovered within the memory of history, which would be impossible if the world were eternal. He also noted visible ruin marks on the earth that could not be effected by a flood alone. When asked how the earth could be repeopled after such a fate, he answered that it would require the Creator’s power. He took all planets to be composed of the same matter as the earth—earth, water, and stones—but variously concocted. When asked why he would not publish his conjectures, as Kepler had done, he answered, “I do not deal in conjectures.” Newton then showed in his Principia the periods of the comets, including the Julium Sidus in Justinian’s time, and those of 1106 and 1680. Conduit noted the phrases “incidet in corpus solis” and “stellæ fixæ refici possunt,” and asked Newton why he would not own what he thought of the sun as fully as he did of the fixed stars. Newton laughed and replied that that concerned us more, and that he had said enough for people to understand his meaning.
The Chronology Publication Controversy
In the summer of 1725, a French translation of the chronological manuscript was published in Paris, a violation of the good faith under which it had been shared. The Abbé Conti had kept the secret in England, but at Paris he gave the manuscript to M. Freret, a learned antiquarian, who translated it and appended an attempted refutation. In November 1725, Newton received a presentation copy titled Abrege de Chronologie de M. le Chevalier Newton, fait par lui-meme, et traduit sur le manuscript Anglais. Newton responded by drawing up “Remarks on the Observations made on a Chronological Index of Sir Isaac Newton,” which was printed in the Philosophical Transactions for 1725. In it, he gave the history of the matter and a triumphant reply to Freret’s objections, defending his system of chronology with the same rigor he had applied to his physical theories.
Main Arguments
The book advances several central arguments about Newton’s life, work, and character. A primary argument is that Newton’s achievements were the result of sustained, patient industry rather than extraordinary innate sagacity. The text quotes Newton himself attributing his success not to any special genius but to “industry and patient thought,” describing how he kept subjects constantly before him, waiting for “first dawning to open into full light.” The author supports this view by detailing Newton’s working habits, including his deep abstraction, his neglect of meals, and his ability to set aside and later resume complex mental processes. Another argument concerns the relationship between Newton’s scientific work and his religious beliefs. The book contends that Newton did not confuse secondary causes with the First Cause, but rather rose à priori to God through reason and the Word, and proved à posteriori a Deity through the design and law of the universe. The author quotes Newton directly, stating that in writing the Principia, he had “an eye upon such principles as might work, with considering men, for the belief of a Deity.” The book argues that Newton saw the “most beautiful system of the sun, planets and comets” as proceeding from “the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being.” A further argument concerns the reception of Newton’s ideas, with the book claiming that despite initial resistance on the Continent—where his ideas were seen as inconceivable or a revival of occult qualities—his doctrines were rapidly adopted in England and eventually prevailed. The author cites Voltaire’s saying that Newton had not above twenty followers out of England at his death, while in England his mathematical doctrines became part of academical instruction within twenty years. The book also argues against claims that Newton’s intellect was deranged following the 1692 fire, asserting that there is no evidence his reason was ever dethroned and that the temporary discomposure he suffered was not a just criterion of mental strength. The narrative also presents Newton as a man of moral integrity and generosity, arguing that he gave liberally to “ingenuity, learning, religion, the poor, and relations” and regarded money as entrusted means to do good.
Key Concepts
Several specific concepts and named ideas recur throughout the book and are central to its account of Newton’s work. The Method of Fluxions is presented as one of Newton’s foundational mathematical discoveries, which he stated he possessed “in the year 1666, or before.” The book explains that Newton first invented his Binomial Theorem, then applied it to the rectification of curves, surfaces and contents of solids, and centres of gravity. The principle involved deducing areas of curves from the ordinate, considering area as a nascent quantity increasing by continual fluxion proportionally to the ordinate’s length, with the abscissa increasing uniformly with time. The book also describes Newton’s theory of light and colours, including the concept of the different refrangibility of light, the finding that the same degree of refrangibility always belonged to the same colour, that the seven different colours of the spectrum were original or simple, and that whiteness was a compound of all seven. The reflecting telescope is another key concept, with the book describing how Newton constructed the first reflecting telescope ever executed and directed to the heavens, a small instrument six inches long that magnified about forty times and could show Jupiter with his four satellites and the phases of Venus. The concept of universal gravitation is central to the narrative, with the book tracing Newton’s idea from its first glimpse in the garden at Woolsthorpe to its demonstration in the Principia. The book explains how Newton, aided by Hooke’s correction and the discovery that a projectile moves elliptically under a force varying inversely as the square of distance, demonstrated that a planet under such a force describes an elliptical orbit with the force in one focus. The Principia Mathematica itself is a key concept, with the book detailing its composition, its dedication to the Royal Society, and its presentation on April 28, 1685-6. The book also discusses Newton’s concept of elective attraction, to which he ascribed precipitation, combination, solution, crystallization, cohesion, and capillary attraction, and his hierarchical view of matter, holding that smallest particles cohere by strongest attractions, composing bigger particles of weaker virtue, and so on until the biggest particles compose bodies of sensible magnitude. The concept of the “philosopher’s tincture” appears in the context of Newton’s alchemical interests, with the book noting he spent several months in quest of it with a relative.
Themes
Several deeper themes emerge from the narrative and give the book its interpretive character. A prominent theme is the relationship between science and religion, with the book repeatedly emphasizing that Newton’s scientific discoveries were intertwined with his theological convictions. The author presents Newton as a figure who saw the same Author in the Book of Nature and the Book of Revelation, and who believed that the diversity of natural things arose from “the ideas and will of a Being necessarily existing.” This theme culminates in the extended discussion of Newton’s doctrine of God, where the book presents his view that God governs all things “not as the soul of the world, but as Lord over all,” and that “a god without dominion, providence, and final causes, is nothing else but Fate and Nature.” Another theme is the cost of genius, particularly the personal toll that scientific work and controversy took on Newton. The book describes how he was “so persecuted with discussions arising from the publication of my theory of light, that I blamed my own imprudence for parting with so substantial a blessing as my quiet to run after a shadow.” The theme of intellectual isolation and the solitary nature of discovery also runs through the narrative, with Newton described as a “sober, silent, thinking lad” who later worked in deep abstraction, often sitting on his bedside partially dressed for hours. The theme of controversy and priority disputes is also prominent, with the book detailing Newton’s conflicts with Hooke over the inverse-square law, his disputes with Leibnitz over the calculus, and the plagiarism concerns that led him to publish his optical researches in 1704. The narrative also develops a theme of Newton’s character as one of “wholeness of nature,” describing him as self-possessed, urbane, benign, affable, candid, modest, and serene, lacking “singularities of genius” and suiting himself to every company except the vicious and wicked. The book presents Newton’s life as a model of virtuous conduct, emphasizing his generosity, his lack of vanity, and his avoidance of vain show despite his wealth and position. A final theme concerns the fragility of intellectual work and the vulnerability of even the greatest minds to accident and loss, as exemplified by the 1692 fire that destroyed his nearly complete manuscript on colours and light, an event that so troubled Newton that “every one thought he would have run mad.”
The Author’s Conclusions
The book concludes with an account of Newton’s final years and his death, presenting a portrait of a man who remained intellectually active and curious until the end. The narrative describes how, in his eightieth year, Newton developed stone in the bladder, which was pronounced incurable, but a strict regimen alleviated it. His diet became extremely temperate, consisting of broth, vegetables, fruit, and occasionally butcher meat. He gave up his carriage for a chair, declined dinner invitations, and received only small parties. The book records that in August 1724 he passed a stone the size of a pea in two pieces, and in January 1725 he suffered a violent cough and lung inflammation, prompting removal to Kensington, where his health improved. In February he had gout in both feet, which produced a beneficial change. The narrative includes a detailed account of a conversation recorded by Mr. Conduit on March 7, 1724-5, in which Newton, just recovered from his first gout fit at eighty-three, shared his conjectures about the solar system. He speculated that vapours and light from the sun, with sediment like water, gathered into a body, attracted matter from planets, became a secondary planet, then a primary planet, then a comet, and that coming nearer the sun, its volatile parts condensed, becoming matter to recruit the sun, which wastes by heat and light. He suggested the comet of 1680 would likely do this, and that it might have five or six more revolutions before dropping in, which would burn the earth so no animals could live. He also conjectured that the three phenomena seen by Hipparchus, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler’s disciples were extraordinary lights among fixed stars, all suns enlightening other planets. When asked why he would not publish his conjectures, Newton answered, “I do not deal in conjectures.” The book also covers the controversy over the unauthorized French publication of his chronology in 1725, noting that Newton drew up “Remarks on the Observations made on a Chronological Index of Sir Isaac Newton,” printed in the Philosophical Transactions for 1725, containing a triumphant reply to his critics. The book’s final sections thus present Newton as a figure who, even in old age and illness, continued to think deeply about the nature of the universe, while also defending his intellectual legacy against those who sought to challenge it.
Significance
The book presents Newton’s significance as multifaceted, encompassing his contributions to mathematics, physics, astronomy, and optics, as well as his broader cultural and intellectual impact. The author frames Newton’s work as a turning point in human understanding, describing how he “grasping the master-key of the universe” revealed the material world’s realities. The book emphasizes the revolutionary nature of Newton’s discoveries, particularly the Principia Mathematica, which demonstrated that the law of falling bodies at the earth’s surface was identical with that guiding the moon in her orbit, thus unifying terrestrial and celestial mechanics. The narrative also highlights the significance of Newton’s optical work, including his theory of colours and his construction of the reflecting telescope, which was the first ever executed and directed to the heavens. The book notes that Newton’s reflecting instrument for observing the moon’s distance from fixed stars, communicated to Dr. Halley in 1700, was later produced by Mr. Hadley in 1731 and became known as Hadley’s Quadrant, showing the lasting influence of his inventions. The book also emphasizes Newton’s significance as an institution-builder and public figure, noting his long service as President of the Royal Society, his work at the Mint, and his knighthood. The author presents Newton’s life as exemplary, emphasizing his industry, his patience, his generosity, and his piety, and suggesting that his success was due to a conjunction of influences: “unbroken, persevering study working upon a native genius, rendered freest and clearest through the untrammelling and enlightening power of religion.” The book also addresses the significance of Newton’s theological writings, including his Observations upon the Prophecies of Holy Writ, and his chronology, which, despite the controversy over its unauthorized publication, demonstrated the breadth of his intellectual interests. The narrative concludes by presenting Newton as a figure whose legacy was secure, with his ideas having been diffused throughout England within twenty years of the Principia‘s publication, and his work continuing to be studied and built upon by later generations of mathematicians and scientists.
