CHAPTER XIX.

_Permanence of Newton’s Reputation—Character of his Genius—His Methods of Investigation similar to that used by Galileo—Error in ascribing his Discoveries to the Use of the Methods recommended by Lord Bacon—The Pretensions of the Baconian Philosophy examined—Sir Isaac Newton’s social Character—His great Modesty—The Simplicity of his Character—His religious and moral Character—His Hospitality and Mode of Life—His Generosity and Charity—His Absence—His personal Appearance—Statues and Pictures of him—Memorials and Recollections of him._

Such were the last days of Sir Isaac Newton, and such the last laurels which were shed over his grave. A century of discoveries has since his day been added to science; but brilliant as these discoveries are, they have not obliterated the minutest of his labours, and have served only to brighten the halo which encircles his name. The achievements of genius, like the source from which they spring, are indestructible. Acts of legislation and deeds of war may confer a high celebrity, but the reputation which they bring is only local and transient; and while they are hailed by the nation which they benefit, they are reprobated by the people whom they ruin or enslave. The labours of science, on the contrary, bear along with them no counterpart of evil. They are the liberal bequests of great minds to every individual of their race, and wherever they are welcomed and honoured they become the solace of private life, and the ornament and bulwark of the commonwealth.

The importance of Sir Isaac Newton’s discoveries has been sufficiently exhibited in the preceding chapters: the peculiar character of his genius, and the method which he pursued in his inquiries, can be gathered only from the study of his works, and from the history of his individual labours. Were we to judge of the qualities of his mind from the early age at which he made his principal discoveries, and from the rapidity of their succession, we should be led to ascribe to him that quickness of penetration, and that exuberance of invention, which is more characteristic of poetical than of philosophical genius. But we must recollect that Newton was placed in the most favourable circumstances for the development of his powers. The flower of his youth and the vigour of his manhood were entirely devoted to science. No injudicious guardian controlled his ruling passion, and no ungenial studies or professional toils interrupted the continuity of his pursuits. His discoveries were, therefore, the fruit of persevering and unbroken study; and he himself declared, that whatever service he had done to the public was not owing to any extraordinary sagacity, but solely to industry and patient thought.

Initiated early into the abstractions of geometry, he was deeply imbued with her cautious spirit; and if his acquisitions were not made with the rapidity of intuition, they were at least firmly secured; and the grasp which he took of his subject was proportional to the mental labour which it had exhausted. Overlooking what was trivial, and separating what was extraneous, he bore down with instinctive sagacity on the prominences of his subject, and having thus grappled with its difficulties, he never failed to intrench himself in its strongholds.

To the highest powers of invention Newton added, what so seldom accompanies them, the talent of simplifying and communicating his profoundest speculations.[125] In the economy of her distributions, nature is seldom thus lavish of her intellectual gifts. The inspired genius which creates is rarely conferred along with the matured judgment which combines, and yet without the exertion of both the fabric of human wisdom could never have been reared. Though a ray from heaven kindled the vestal fire, yet an humble priesthood was required to keep alive the flame.

The method of investigating truth by observation and experiment, so successfully pursued in the Principia, has been ascribed by some modern writers of great celebrity to Lord Bacon; and Sir Isaac Newton is represented as having owed all his discoveries to the application of the principles of that distinguished writer. One of the greatest admirers of Lord Bacon has gone so far as to characterize him as a man who has had no rival in the times which are past, and as likely to have none in those which are to come. In a eulogy so overstrained as this, we feel that the language of panegyric has passed into that of idolatry; and we are desirous of weighing the force of arguments which tend to depose Newton from the high-priesthood of nature, and to unsettle the proud destinies of Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler.

That Bacon was a man of powerful genius, and endowed with varied and profound talent,—the most skilful logician,—the most nervous and eloquent writer of the age which he adorned, are points which have been established by universal suffrage. The study of ancient systems had early impressed him with the conviction that experiment and observation were the only sure guides in physical inquiries; and, ignorant though he was of the methods, the principles, and the details of the mathematical sciences, his ambition prompted him to aim at the construction of an artificial system by which the laws of nature might be investigated, and which might direct the inquiries of philosophers in every future age. The necessity of experimental research, and of advancing gradually from the study of facts to the determination of their cause, though the groundwork of Bacon’s method, is a doctrine which was not only inculcated but successfully followed by preceding philosophers. In a letter from Tycho Brahe to Kepler, this industrious astronomer urges his pupil “to lay a solid foundation for his views by actual observation, and then by ascending from these to strive to reach the causes of things;” and it was no doubt under the influence of this advice that Kepler submitted his wildest fancies to the test of observation, and was conducted to his most splendid discoveries. The reasonings of Copernicus, who preceded Bacon by more than a century, were all founded upon the most legitimate induction. Dr. Gilbert had exhibited in his treatise on the magnet[126] the most perfect specimen of physical research. Leonardo da Vinci had described in the clearest manner the proper method of philosophical investigation;[127] and the whole scientific career of Galileo was one continued example of the most sagacious application of observation and experiment to the discovery of general laws. The names of Paracelsus, Van Helmont, and Cardan have been ranged in opposition to this constellation of great names, and while it is admitted that even they had thrown off the yoke of the schools, and had succeeded in experimental research, their credulity and their pretensions have been adduced as a proof that to the “bulk of philosophers” the method of induction was unknown. The fault of this argument consists in the conclusion being infinitely more general than the fact. The errors of these men were not founded on their ignorance, but on their presumption. They wanted the patience of philosophy and not her methods. An excess of vanity, a waywardness of fancy, and an insatiable appetite for that species of passing fame which is derived from eccentricity of opinion, moulded the reasonings and disfigured the writings of these ingenious men; and it can scarcely admit of a doubt, that, had they lived in the present age, their philosophical character would have received the same impress from the peculiarity of their tempers and dispositions. This is an experiment, however, which cannot now be made; but the history of modern science supplies the defect, and the experience of every man furnishes a proof that in the present age there are many philosophers of elevated talents and inventive genius who are as impatient of experimental research as Paracelsus, as fanciful as Cardan, and as presumptuous as Van Helmont.

Having thus shown that the distinguished philosophers who flourished before Bacon were perfect masters both of the principles and practice of inductive research, it becomes interesting to inquire whether or not the philosophers who succeeded him acknowledged any obligation to his system, or derived the slightest advantage from his precepts. If Bacon constructed a method to which modern science owes its existence, we shall find its cultivators grateful for the gift, and offering the richest incense at the shrine of a benefactor whose generous labours conducted them to immortality. No such testimonies, however, are to be found. Nearly two hundred years have gone by, teeming with the richest fruits of human genius, and no grateful disciple has appeared to vindicate the rights of the alleged legislator of science. Even Newton, who was born and educated after the publication of the Novum Organon, never mentions the name of Bacon or his system, and the amiable and indefatigable Boyle treated him with the same disrespectful silence. When we are told, therefore, that Newton owed all his discoveries to the method of Bacon, nothing more can be meant than that he proceeded in that path of observation and experiment which had been so warmly recommended in the Novum Organon; but it ought to have been added, that the same method was practised by his predecessors,—that Newton possessed no secret that was not used by Galileo and Copernicus,—and that he would have enriched science with the same splendid discoveries if the name and the writings of Bacon had never been heard of.

From this view of the subject we shall now proceed to examine the Baconian process itself, and consider if it possesses any merit as an artificial method of discovery, or if it is at all capable of being employed, for this purpose, even in the humblest walks of scientific inquiry.

The process of Lord Bacon was, we believe, never tried by any philosopher but himself. As the subject of its application, he selected that of heat. With his usual erudition, he collected all the facts which science could supply,—he arranged them in tables,—he cross-questioned them with all the subtlety of a pleader,—he combined them with all the sagacity of a judge,—and he conjured with them by all the magic of his exclusive processes. But, after all this display of physical logic, nature thus interrogated was still silent. The oracle which he had himself established refused to give its responses, and the ministering priest was driven with discomfiture from his own shrine. This example, in short, of the application of his system, will remain to future ages as a memorable instance of the absurdity of attempting to fetter discovery by any artificial rules.

Nothing even in mathematical science can be more certain than that a collection of scientific facts are of themselves incapable of leading to discovery, or to the determination of general laws, unless they contain the predominating fact or relation in which the discovery mainly resides. A vertical column of arch-stones possesses more strength than the same materials arranged in an arch without the key-stone. However nicely they are adjusted, and however nobly the arch may spring, it never can possess either equilibrium or stability. In this comparison all the facts are supposed to be necessary to the final result; but, in the inductive method, it is impossible to ascertain the relative importance of any facts, or even to determine if the facts have any value at all, till the master-fact which constitutes the discovery has crowned the zealous efforts of the aspiring philosopher. The mind then returns to the dark and barren waste over which it has been hovering; and by the guidance of this single torch it embraces, under the comprehensive grasp of general principles, the multifarious and insulated phenomena which had formerly neither value nor connexion. Hence it must be obvious to the most superficial thinker, that discovery consists either in the detection of some concealed relation—some deep-seated affinity which baffles ordinary research, or in the discovery of some simple fact which is connected by slender ramifications with the subject to be investigated; but which, when once detected, carries us back by its divergence to all the phenomena which it embraces and explains.

In order to give additional support to these views, it would be interesting to ascertain the general character of the process by which a mind of acknowledged power actually proceeds in the path of successful inquiry. The history of science does not furnish us with much information on this head, and if it is to be found at all, it must be gleaned from the biographies of eminent men. Whatever this process may be in its details, if it has any, there cannot be the slightest doubt that in its generalities at least it is the very reverse of the method of induction. The impatience of genius spurns the restraints of mechanical rules, and never will submit to the plodding drudgery of inductive discipline. The discovery of a new fact unfits even a patient mind for deliberate inquiry. Conscious of having added to science what had escaped the sagacity of former ages, the ambitious spirit invests its new acquisition with an importance which does not belong to it. He imagines a thousand consequences to flow from his discovery: he forms innumerable theories to explain it, and he exhausts his fancy in trying all its possible relations to recognised difficulties and unexplained facts. The reins, however, thus freely given to his imagination, are speedily drawn up. His wildest conceptions are all subjected to the rigid test of experiment, and he has thus been hurried by the excursions of his own fancy into new and fertile paths, far removed from ordinary observation. Here the peculiar character of his own genius displays itself by the invention of methods of trying his own speculations, and he is thus often led to new discoveries far more important and general than that by which he began his inquiry. For a confirmation of these views, we may refer to the History of Kepler’s Discoveries; and if we do not recognise them to the same extent in the labours of Newton, it is because he kept back his discoveries till they were nearly perfected, and therefore withheld the successive steps of his inquiries.

The social character of Sir Isaac Newton was such as might have been expected from his intellectual attainments. He was modest, candid, and affable, and without any of the eccentricities of genius, suiting himself to every company, and speaking of himself and others in such a manner that he was never even suspected of vanity. “But this,” says Dr. Pemberton, “I immediately discovered in him, which at once both surprised and charmed me. Neither his extreme great age nor his universal reputation had rendered him stiff in opinion, or in any degree elated. Of this I had occasion to have almost daily experience. The remarks I continually sent him by letters on the Principia were received with the utmost goodness. These were so far from being any ways displeasing to him, that on the contrary it occasioned him to speak many kind things of me to my friends, and to honour me with a public testimony of his good opinion.”

The modesty of Sir Isaac Newton in reference to his great discoveries was not founded on any indifference to the fame which they conferred, or upon any erroneous judgment of their importance to science. The whole of his life proves, that he knew his place as a philosopher, and was determined to assert and vindicate his rights. His modesty arose from the depth and extent of his knowledge, which showed him what a small portion of nature he had been able to examine, and how much remained to be explored in the same field in which he had himself laboured. In the magnitude of the comparison he recognised his own littleness; and a short time before his death he uttered this memorable sentiment:—“I do not know what I may appear to the world; but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, while the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.” What a lesson to the vanity and presumption of philosophers,—to those especially who have never even found the smoother pebble or the prettier shell! What a preparation for the latest inquiries, and the last views of the decaying spirit,—for those inspired doctrines which alone can throw a light over the dark ocean of undiscovered truth!

The native simplicity of Sir Isaac Newton’s mind is finely portrayed in the affecting letter in which he acknowledges to Locke that he had thought and spoken of him uncharitably; and the humility and candour in which he asks forgiveness could have emanated only from a mind as noble as it was pure.

In the religious and moral character of our author there is much to admire and to imitate. While he exhibited in his life and writings an ardent regard for the general interests of religion, he was at the same time a firm believer in revelation. He was too deeply versed in the Scriptures, and too much imbued with their spirit, to judge harshly of other men who took different views of them from himself. He cherished the great principles of religious toleration, and never scrupled to express his abhorrence of persecution, even in its mildest form. Immorality and impiety he never permitted to pass unreproved; and when Dr. Halley[128] ventured to say any thing disrespectful to religion, he invariably checked him, and said, “I have studied these things,—you have not.”[129]

After Sir Isaac Newton took up his residence in London, he lived in a very handsome style, and kept his carriage, with an establishment of three male and three female servants. In his own house he was hospitable and kind, and on proper occasions he gave splendid entertainments, though without ostentation or vanity. His own diet was frugal, and his dress was always simple; but on one occasion, when he opposed the Honourable Mr. Annesley in 1705, as a candidate for the university, he is said to have put on a suit of laced clothes.

His generosity and charity had no bounds, and he used to remark, that they who gave away nothing till they died never gave at all. Though his wealth had become considerable by a prudent economy, yet he had always a contempt for money, and he spent a considerable part of his income in relieving the poor, in assisting his relations, and in encouraging ingenuity and learning. The sums which he gave to his relations at different times were enormous;[130] and in 1724 he wrote a letter to the Lord Provost of Edinburgh, offering to contribute 20_l._ per annum to a provision for Mr. Maclaurin, provided he accepted the situation of assistant to Mr. James Gregory, who was professor of mathematics in the university.

The habits of deep meditation which Sir Isaac Newton had acquired, though they did not show themselves in his intercourse with society, exercised their full influence over his mind when in the midst of his own family. Absorbed in thought he would often sit down on his bedside after he rose, and remain there for hours without dressing himself, occupied with some interesting investigation which had fixed his attention. Owing to the same absence of mind, he neglected to take the requisite quantity of nourishment, and it was therefore often necessary to remind him of his meals.[131]

Sir Isaac Newton is supposed to have had little knowledge of the world, and to have been very ignorant of the habits of society. This opinion has, we think, been rashly deduced from a letter which he wrote in the twenty-seventh year of his age to his young friend, Francis Aston, Esq., who was about to set out on his travels. This letter is a highly interesting production; and while it shows much knowledge of the human heart, it throws a strong light upon the character and opinions of its author.

In his personal appearance, Sir Isaac Newton was not above the middle size, and in the latter part of his life was inclined to be corpulent. According to Mr. Conduit “he had a very lively and piercing eye, a comely and gracious aspect, with a fine head of hair as white as silver, without any baldness, and when his peruke was off was a venerable sight.” Bishop Atterbury asserts,[132] on the other hand, that the lively and piercing eye did not belong to Sir Isaac during the last twenty years of his life. “Indeed,” says he, “in the whole air of his face and make there was nothing of that penetrating sagacity which appears in his compositions. He had something rather languid in his look and manner which did not raise any great expectation in those who did not know him.” This opinion of Bishop Atterbury is confirmed by an observation of Mr. Thomas Hearne,[133] who says “that Sir Isaac was a man of no very promising aspect. He was a short, well-set man. He was full of thought, and spoke very little in company, so that his conversation was not agreeable. When he rode in his coach, one arm would be out of his coach on one side and the other on the other.” Sir Isaac never wore spectacles, and never “lost more than one tooth to the day of his death.”

Besides the statue of Sir Isaac Newton executed by Roubiliac, there is a bust of him by the same artist in the library of Trinity College, Cambridge. Several good paintings of him are extant. Two of these are in the hall of the Royal Society of London, and have, we believe, been often engraved. Another, by Vanderbank, is in the apartments of the Master’s lodge in Trinity College, and has been engraved by Vertue. Another, by Valentine Ritts, is in the landing-place near the entrance to Trinity College library; but the best, from which our engraving is copied, was painted by Sir Godfrey Kneller, and is in the possession of Lord Egremont at Petworth. In the university library there is preserved a cast taken from his face after death.

Every memorial of so great a man as Sir Isaac Newton has been preserved and cherished with peculiar veneration. His house at Woolsthorpe, of which we have given an engraving, has been religiously protected by Mr. Turnor of Stoke Rocheford, the proprietor. Dr. Stukeley, who visited it in Sir Isaac’s lifetime, on the 13th October, 1721, gives the following description of it in his letter to Dr. Mead, written in 1727: “’Tis built of stone as is the way of the country hereabouts, and a reasonable good one. They led me up stairs and showed me Sir Isaac’s study, where I suppose he studied when in the country in his younger days, or perhaps when he visited his mother from the university. I observed the shelves were of his own making, being pieces of deal boxes which probably he sent his books and clothes down in on those occasions. There were some years ago two or three hundred books in it of his father-in-law, Mr. Smith, which Sir Isaac gave to Dr. Newton of our town.”[134]

When the house was repaired in 1798, a tablet of white marble was put up by Mr. Turnor in the room where Sir Isaac was born, with the following inscription:

“Sir Isaac Newton, son of John Newton, Lord of the manor of Woolsthorpe, was born in this room on the 25th December, 1642.”

Nature and Nature’s laws lay hid in night, God said, “Let Newton be,” and all was light.

The following lines have been written upon the house:

Here Newton dawned, here lofty wisdom woke, And to a wondering world divinely spoke. If Tully glowed, when Phædrus’ steps he trode, Or fancy formed Philosophy a god; If sages still for Homer’s birth contend The Sons of Science at this dome must bend. All hail the shrine! All hail the natal day, Cam boasts his noon,—This _Cot_ his morning ray.

The house is now occupied by a person of the name of John Wollerton. It still contains the two dials made by Newton, but the styles of both are wanting. The celebrated apple-tree, the fall of one of the apples of which is said to have turned the attention of Newton to the subject of gravity, was destroyed by wind about four years ago; but Mr. Turnor has preserved it in the form of a chair.[135]

The chambers which Sir Isaac inhabited at Cambridge are known by tradition. They are the apartments next to the great gate of Trinity College, and it is believed that they then communicated by a staircase with the observatory in the Great Tower,—an observatory which was furnished by the contributions of Newton, Cotes, and others. His telescope, represented in _fig. 3_, page 41, is preserved in the library of the Royal Society of London, and his globe, his universal ring-dial, quadrant, compass, and a reflecting telescope said to have belonged to him, in the library of Trinity College. There is also in the same collection a long and curled lock of his silver white hair. The door of his bookcase is in the Museum of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.

The manuscripts, letters, and other papers of Newton have been preserved in different collections. His correspondence with Cotes relative to the second edition of the Principia, and amounting to between sixty and a hundred letters, a considerable portion of the manuscript of that work, and two or three letters to Dr. Keill on the Leibnitzian controversy, are preserved in the library of Trinity College, Cambridge. Newton’s letters to Flamstead, about thirty-four in number, are deposited in the library of Corpus Christi College, Oxford.[136] Several letters of Newton, and, we believe, the original specimen which he drew up of the Principia, exist among the papers of Mr. William Jones (the father of Sir William Jones), which are preserved at Shirburn Castle, in the library of Lord Macclesfield. But the great mass of Newton’s papers came into the possession of the Portsmouth family through his niece, Lady Lymington, and have been safely preserved by that noble family. There is reason to believe that they contain nothing which could be peculiarly interesting to science; but as the correspondence of Newton with contemporary philosophers must throw considerable light on his personal history, we trust that it will ere long be given to the public.

APPENDIX.

No. I.

OBSERVATIONS ON THE FAMILY OF SIR ISAAC NEWTON.

In the year 1705, Sir Isaac gave into the Herald’s Office an elaborate pedigree, stating upon oath _that he had reason to believe_ that John Newton of Westby, in the county of Lincoln, was his great-grandfather’s father, and that this was the same John Newton who was buried in Basingthorpe church, on the 22d December, 1563. This John Newton had four sons, John, Thomas, Richard, and William Newton of Gunnerly, the last of whom was great-grandfather to Sir John Newton, Bart., of Hather. Sir Isaac considered himself as descended from the eldest of these, _he having, by tradition from his kindred ever since he can remember, reckoned himself next of kin (among the Newtons) to Sir John Newton’s family_.

The pedigree, founded upon these and other considerations, was accompanied by a certificate from Sir John Newton, of Thorpe, Bart., who states that he had heard his father speak of Sir Isaac Newton _as of his relation and kinsman_, and that _he himself believed that Sir Isaac was descended from John Newton, son to John Newton of Westby, but knoweth not in what particular manner_.

The pedigree of Sir Isaac, as entered at the Herald’s Office, does not seem to have been satisfactory either to himself or to his successors, as it could not be traced with certainty beyond his grandfather; and it will be seen from the following interesting correspondence, that upon making further researches, he had found some reason to believe that he was of Scotch extraction.

_Extract of a Letter from the Reverend Dr. Reid of Glasgow to Dr. Gregory of Edinburgh, dated 14th March, 1784._

“I send you on the other page an anecdote respecting Sir Isaac Newton, which I do not remember whether I ever happened to mention to you in conversation. If his descent be not clearly ascertained (as I think it is not in the books I have seen), might it not be worth while to inquire if evidence can be found to confirm the account which he is said to have given of himself. Sheriff Cross was very zealous about it when death put a stop to his inquiries.

“When I lived in old Aberdeen above twenty years ago, I happened to be conversing over a pipe of tobacco with a gentleman of that country, who had been lately at Edinburgh. He told me that he had been often in company with Mr. Hepburn of Keith, with whom I had the honour of some acquaintance. He said that, speaking of Sir Isaac Newton, Mr. Hepburn mentioned an anecdote, which he had from Mr. James Gregory, professor of mathematics at Edinburgh, which was to this purpose:

“Mr. Gregory, being at London for some time after he resigned the mathematical chair, was often with Sir Isaac Newton. One day Sir Isaac said to him, ‘Gregory, I believe you don’t know that I am connected with Scotland.’—‘Pray how, Sir Isaac?’ said Gregory. Sir Isaac said he was told that his grandfather was a gentleman of East Lothian; that he came to London with King James at his accession to the crown of England, and there spent his fortune, as many more did at that time, by which his son (Sir Isaac’s father) was reduced to mean circumstances. To this Gregory bluntly replied, ‘Newton a gentleman of East Lothian, I never heard of a gentleman of East Lothian of that name.’ Upon this Sir Isaac said, ‘that being very young when his father died, he had it only by tradition, and it might be a mistake;’ and immediately turned the conversation to another subject.

“I confess I suspected that the gentleman who was my author had given some colouring to this story, and therefore I never mentioned it for a good many years.

“After I removed to Glasgow, I came to be very intimately acquainted with Mr. Cross, then sheriff of Lanark, and one day at his own house mentioned this story, without naming my author, of whom I expressed some diffidence.

“The sheriff immediately took it up as a matter worth being inquired into. He said he was well acquainted with Mr. Hepburn of Keith (who was then alive), and that he would write him to know whether he ever heard Mr. Gregory say that he had such a conversation with Sir Isaac Newton. He said he knew that Mr. Keith, the ambassador, was also intimate with Mr. Gregory, and that he would write him to the same purpose.

“Some time after, Mr. Cross told me that he had answers from both the gentlemen above mentioned, and that both remembered to have heard Mr. Gregory mention the conversation between him and Sir Isaac Newton, to the purpose above narrated, and at the same time acknowledged that they had made no further inquiry about the matter.

“Mr. Cross, however, continued the inquiry, and a short time before his death told me that all he had learned was, that there is, or was lately, a baronet’s family of the name of Newton in West Lothian or Mid Lothian (I have forgot which): that there is a tradition in that family that Sir Isaac Newton wrote a letter to the old knight that then was (I think Sir John Newton of Newton was his name), desiring to know what children, and particularly what sons he had, their age, and what professions they intended: that the old baronet never deigned to return an answer to this letter, which his family was sorry for, as they thought Sir Isaac might have intended to do something for them.”

Several years after this letter was written, a Mr. Barron, a relation of Sir Isaac Newton, seems to have been making inquiries respecting the family of his ancestor, and in consequence of this the late Professor Robison applied to Dr. Reid, to obtain from him a more particular account of the remarkable conversation between Sir Isaac and Mr. James Gregory referred to in the preceding letter. In answer to this request, Dr. Reid wrote the following letter, for which I was indebted to John Robison, Esq. Sec. R. S. E., who found it among his father’s manuscripts.

_Letter from Dr. Reid to Professor Robison respecting the Family of Sir Isaac Newton._

“DEAR SIR,

“I am very glad to learn by yours of April 4, that a Mr. Barron, a near relation of Sir Isaac Newton, is anxious to inquire into the descent of that great man, as the family cannot trace it farther, with any certainty, than his grandfather. I therefore, as you desire, send you a precise account of all I know; and am glad to have this opportunity, before I die, of putting this information in hands that will make the proper use of it, if it shall be found of any use.

“Several years before I left Aberdeen (which I did in 1764), Mr. Douglas of Feckel, the father of Sylvester Douglas, now a barrister at London, told me, that having been lately at Edinburgh, he was often in company with Mr. Hepburn of Keith, a gentleman of whom I had some acquaintance, by his lodging a night at my house at New Machar, when he was in the rebel army in 1745. That Mr. Hepburn told him that he had heard Mr. James Gregory, professor of mathematics, Edinburgh, say, that being one day in familiar conversation with Sir Isaac Newton at London, Sir Isaac said, ‘Gregory, I believe you don’t know that I am a Scotchman.’—‘Pray, how is that?’ said Gregory. Sir Isaac said he was informed that his grandfather (or great-grandfather) was a gentleman of East (or West) Lothian: that he went to London with King James the I. at his accession to the crown of England: and that he attended the court in expectation, as many others did, until he spent his fortune, by which means his family was reduced to low circumstances. At the time this was told me Mr. Gregory was dead, otherwise I should have had his own testimony, for he was my mother’s brother. I likewise thought at that time that it had been certainly known that Sir Isaac had been descended from an old English family, as I think is said in his _eloge_ before the Academy of Sciences at Paris, and therefore I never mentioned what I had heard for many years, believing that there must be some mistake in it.

“Some years after I came to Glasgow, I mentioned (I believe for the first time) what I had heard to have been said by Mr. Hepburn to Mr. Cross, late sheriff of this county, whom you will remember. Mr. Cross was moved by this account, and immediately said, ‘I know Mr. Hepburn very well, and I know he was intimate with Mr. Gregory: I shall write him this same night, to know whether he heard Mr. Gregory say so or not.’ After some reflection, he added, ‘I know that Mr. Keith, the ambassador, was also an intimate acquaintance of Mr. Gregory, and as he is at present in Edinburgh, I shall likewise write to him this night.’

“The next time I waited on Mr. Cross he told me that he had wrote both to Mr. Hepburn and Mr. Keith, and had an answer from both, and that both of them testified that they had several times heard Mr. James Gregory say, that Sir Isaac Newton told him what is above expressed, but that neither they nor Mr. Gregory, as far as they knew, ever made any further inquiry into the matter. This appeared very strange both to Mr. Cross and me, and he said he would reproach them for their indifference, and would make inquiry as soon as he was able.

“He lived but a short time after this, and in the last conversation I had with him upon the subject, he said, that all he had yet learned was, that there was a Sir John Newton of Newton in one of the counties of Lothian (but I have forgot which), some of whose children were yet alive: that they reported that their father, Sir John, had a letter from Sir Isaac Newton, desiring to know the state of his family, what children he had, particularly what sons, and in what way they were. The old knight never returned an answer to this letter, thinking probably that Sir Isaac was some upstart, who wanted to claim a relation to his worshipful house. This omission the children regretted, conceiving that Sir Isaac might have had a view of doing something for their benefit.

“After this I mentioned occasionally in conversation what I knew, hoping that these facts might lead to some more certain discovery, but I found more coldness about the matter than I thought it deserved. I wrote an account of it to Dr. Gregory, your colleague, that he might impart it to any member of the Antiquarian Society who he judged might have the curiosity to trace the matter further.

“In the year 1787, my colleague, Mr. Patrick Wilson, professor of astronomy, having been in London, told me on his return that he had met accidentally with a James Hutton, Esq. of Pimlico, Westminster, a near relation of Sir Isaac Newton,[137] to whom he mentioned what he had heard from me with respect to Sir Isaac’s descent, and that I wished much to know something more decisive on that subject. Mr. Hutton said, if I pleased to write to him he would give me all the information he could give. I wrote him accordingly, and had a very polite answer, dated at Bath, 25th December, 1787, which is now before me. He says, ‘I shall be glad when I return to London, if I can find in some old notes of my mother any thing that may fix the certainty of Sir Isaac’s descent. If he spoke so to Mr. James Gregory, it is most certain he spoke truth. But Sir Isaac’s grandfather, not his great-grandfather, must be the person who came from Scotland with King James I. If I find any thing to the purpose, I will take care it shall reach you.’

“In consequence of this letter I expected another from Mr. Hutton when he should return to London, but have never had any. Mr. Wilson told me he was a very old man, and whether he be dead or alive I know not.

“This is all I know of the matter, and for the facts above mentioned I pledge my veracity. I am much obliged to you, dear sir, for the kind expressions of your affection and esteem, which, I assure you, are mutual on my part, and I sincerely sympathize with you on your afflicting state of health, which makes you consider yourself as out of the world, and despair of seeing me any more.

“I have been long out of the world by deafness and extreme old age. I hope, however, if we should not meet again in this world, that we shall meet and renew our acquaintance in another. In the mean time, I am with great esteem, dear sir, yours affectionately,

“THO. REID.

“_Glasgow College_, ”_12th April, 1792_.”

This curious letter I published in the Ed. Phil. Journal for October 1, 1820. It excited the particular attention of the late George Chalmers, Esq., who sent me an elaborate letter upon the subject; but as I was at that time in the expectation of obtaining some important information through other channels, this letter was not published. This hope, however, has been disappointed. A careful search has been made through the charter-chest of the Newtons of Newton in East Lothian, by Mr. Richard Hay Newton, the representative of that family, but no document whatever has been found that can throw the least light upon the matter. It deserves to be remarked, however, that Sir Richard Newton, the alleged correspondent of Sir Isaac, appears to have destroyed his correspondence; for though the charter-chest contains the letters of his predecessors for some generations, yet there is not a single epistolary document either of his own or of his lady’s.

Hitherto the evidence of Sir Isaac’s Scottish descent has been derived chiefly from his conversation with Mr. James Gregory; but I am enabled, by the kindness of Mr. Robison, to corroborate this evidence by the following information, derived, as will be seen, from the family of the Newtons of Newton. Among various memoranda in the handwriting of Professor Robison, who at one time proposed to write the life of Sir Isaac, are the following:—

“1st, Lord Henderland informed me in a letter dated March, 1794, that he had heard from his infancy that Sir Isaac considered himself as descended from the family of Newton of Newton. This he heard from his uncle Richard Newton of Newton (who was third son of Lord William Hay of Newhall):” “He said that Sir Isaac wrote to Scotland to learn whether any descendants of that family remained, and this (it was thought) with the view to leave some of his fortune to the family possessing the estate with the title of baronet. Mr. Newton, not having this honour, and being a shy man, did not encourage the correspondence, because he did not consider _himself_ as of kin to Sir Isaac, &c.”

“2d, Information communicated to me by Hay Newton, Esq., of that ilk, 18th August, 1800.”

“The late Sir Richard Newton of Newton, Bart., chief of that name, having no male children, settled the estate and barony of Newton in East Lothian county upon his relation Richard Hay Newton, Esq., son of Lord William Hay.”[138]—“It cannot be discovered how long the family of Newton have been in possession of the barony, there being no tradition concerning that circumstance further than that they came originally from England at a very distant period, and settled on these lands.”—“The celebrated Sir Isaac Newton was a distant relation of the family, and corresponded with the last baronet, the above-mentioned Sir Richard Newton.”

The preceding documents furnish the most complete evidence that the conversation respecting Sir Isaac Newton’s family took place between him and Mr. Gregory; and the testimony of Lord Henderland proves that his own uncle, Richard Newton of Newton, the immediate successor of Sir Richard Newton, with whom Sir Isaac corresponded, was perfectly confident that such a correspondence took place.

All these circumstances prove that Sir Isaac Newton could not trace his pedigree with any certainty beyond his grandfather, and that there were two different traditions in his family,—one which referred his descent to John Newton of Westby, and the other to a gentleman of East Lothian who accompanied King James VI. to England. In the first of these traditions he seems to have placed most confidence in 1705, when he drew out his traditionary pedigree; but as the conversation with Professor James Gregory respecting his Scotch extraction took place _twenty years_ afterward, namely, between 1725 and 1727, it is probable that he had discovered the incorrectness of his first opinions, or at least was disposed to attach more importance to the other tradition respecting his descent from a Scotch family.

In the letter addressed to me by the learned George Chalmers, Esq. I find the following observations respecting the immediate relations of Sir Isaac. “The Newtons of Woolsthorpe,” says he, “who were merely yeomen farmers, were not by any means opulent. The son of Sir Isaac’s father’s brother was a carpenter called John. He was afterward appointed gamekeeper to Sir Isaac, as lord of the manor, and died at the age of sixty in 1725. This John had a son, Robert, (John?) who was Sir Isaac’s second cousin, and who became possessed of the whole land estates at and near Woolsthorpe, which belonged to the great Newton, as his heir-at-law.[139] Robert (John?) became a worthless and dissolute person, who very soon wasted this ancient patrimony, and falling down with a tobacco-pipe in his mouth when he was drunk, it broke in his throat, and put an end to his life at the age of thirty years, in 1737.”

No. II.

LETTER FROM SIR ISAAC NEWTON TO FRANCIS ASTON, ESQ., A YOUNG FRIEND WHO WAS ON THE EVE OF SETTING OUT UPON HIS TRAVELS.

Mr. Aston was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1678. He held the office of Secretary between 1681 and 1685; and he was the author of some observations on certain unknown ancient characters, which were published in the Philosophical Transactions for 1693.

This letter has been referred to in pages 270 and 303, and was written when Newton was only twenty-six years of age. It is in every respect an interesting document.

“_Trinity College, Cambridge, May 18, 1669._

“SIR,

“Since in your letter you give mee so much liberty of spending my judgement about what may be to your advantage in travelling, I shall do it more freely than perhaps otherwise would have been decent. First, then, I will lay down some general rules, most of which, I believe, you have considered already; but if any of them be new to you, they may excuse the rest; if none at all, yet is my punishment more in writing than yours in reading.

“When you come into any fresh company, 1. Observe their humours. 2. Suit your own carriage thereto, by which insinuation you will make their converse more free and open. 3. Let your discours be more in querys and doubtings than peremptory assertions or disputings, it being the designe of travellers to learne, not to teach. Besides, it will persuade your acquaintance that you have the greater esteem of them, and soe make them more ready to communicate what they know to you; whereas nothing sooner occasions disrespect and quarrels than peremtorinesse. You will find little or no advantage in seeming wiser or much more ignorant than your company. 4. Seldom discommend any thing though never so bad, or doe it but moderately, lest you bee unexpectedly forced to an unhansom retraction. It is safer to commend any thing more than it deserves, than to discommend a thing soe much as it deserves; for commendations meet not soe often with oppositions, or, at least, are not usually soe ill resented by men that think otherwise, as discommendations; and you will insinuate into men’s favour by nothing sooner than seeming to approve and commend what they like; but beware of doing it by a comparison. 5. If you bee affronted, it is better, in a forraine country, to pass it by in silence, and with a jest, though with some dishonour, than to endeavour revenge; for, in the first case, your credit’s ne’er the worse when you return into England, or come into other company that have not heard of the quarrell. But, in the second case, you may beare the marks of the quarrell while you live, if you outlive it at all. But, if you find yourself unavoidably engaged, ’tis best, I think, if you can command your passion and language, to keep them pretty evenly at some certain moderate pitch, not much hightning them to exasperate your adversary, or provoke his friends, nor letting them grow overmuch dejected to make him insult. In a word, if you can keep reason above passion, that and watchfullnesse will be your best defendants. To which purpose you may consider, that, though such excuses as this,—He provok’t mee so much I could not forbear,—may pass among friends, yet amongst strangers they are insignificant, and only argue a traveller’s weaknesse.

“To these I may add some general heads for inquirys or observations, such as at present I can think on. As, 1. To observe the policys, wealth, and state-affairs of nations, so far as a solitary traveller may conveniently doe. 2. Their impositions upon all sorts of people, trades, or commoditys, that are remarkable. 3. Their laws and customs, how far they differ from ours. 4. Their trades and arts wherein they excell or come short of us in England. 5. Such fortifications as you shall meet with, their fashion, strength, and advantages for defence, and other such military affairs as are considerable. 6. The power and respect belonging to their degrees of nobility or magistracy. 7. It will not be time mispent to make a catalogue of the names and excellencys of those men that are most wise, learned, or esteemed in any nation. 8. Observe the mechanisme and manner of guiding ships. 9. Observe the products of nature in several places, especially in mines, with the circumstances of mining and of extracting metals or minerals out of their oare, and of refining them; and if you meet with any transmutations out of their own species into another (as out of iron into copper, out of any metall into quicksilver, out of one salt into another, or into an insipid body, &c.), those, above all, will be worth your noting, being the most luciferous, and many times lucriferous experiments too, in philosophy. 10. The prices of diet and other things. 11. And the staple commoditys of places.

“These generals (such as at present I could think of), if they will serve for nothing else, yet they may assist you in drawing up a modell to regulate your travells by. As for particulars, these that follow are all that I can now think of, viz. Whether at Schemnitium, in Hungary (where there are mines of gold, copper, iron, vitrioll, antimony, &c.), they change iron into copper by dissolving it in a vitriolate water, which they find in cavitys of rocks in the mines, and then melting the slimy solution in a strong fire, which in the cooling proves copper. The like is said to be done in other places, which I cannot now remember; perhaps, too, it may be done in Italy. For about twenty or thirty years agone there was a certain vitrioll came from thence (called Roman vitrioll), but of a nobler virtue than that which is now called by that name; which vitrioll is not now to be gotten, because, perhaps, they make a greater gain by some such trick as turning iron into copper with it than by selling it. 2. Whether, in Hungary, Sclavonia, Bohemia, near the town Eila, or at the mountains of Bohemia near Silesia, there be rivers whose waters are impregnated with gold; perhaps, the gold being dissolved by some corrosive waters like _aqua regis_, and the solution carried along with the streame, that runs through the mines. And whether the practice of laying mercury in the rivers, till it be tinged with gold, and then straining the mercury through leather, that the gold may stay behind, be a secret yet, or openly practised. 3. There is newly contrived, in Holland, a mill to grind glasses plane withall, and I think polishing them too; perhaps it will be worth the while to see it. 4. There is in Holland one —— Borry, who some years since was imprisoned by the Pope, to have extorted from him secrets (as I am told) of great worth, both as to medicine and profit, but he escaped into Holland, where they have granted him a guard. I think he usually goes clothed in green. Pray inquire what you can of him, and whether his ingenuity be any profit to the Dutch. You may inform yourself whether the Dutch have any tricks to keep their ships from being all worm-eaten in their voyages to the Indies. Whether pendulum clocks do any service in finding out the longitude, &c.

“I am very weary, and shall not stay to part with a long compliment, only I wish you a good journey, and God be with you.

“IS. NEWTON.

“Pray let us hear from you in your travells. I have given your two books to Dr. Arrowsmith.”

No. III.

“A REMARKABLE AND CURIOUS CONVERSATION BETWEEN SIR ISAAC NEWTON AND MR. CONDUIT.”

“I was on Sunday night, the 7th of March, 1724–5, at Kensington with Sir Isaac Newton, in his lodgings, just after he was come out of a fit of the gout, which he had had in both his feet, for the first time, in the eighty-third year of his age. He was better after it, and his head clearer, and memory stronger than I had known them for some time. He then repeated to me, by way of discourse, very distinctly, though rather in answer to my queries than in one continued narration, what he had often hinted to me before, viz. that it was his conjecture (he would affirm nothing) that there was a sort of revolution in the heavenly bodies; that the vapours and light emitted by the sun, which had their sediment as water and other matter, had gathered themselves by degrees into a body, and attracted more matter from the planets, and at last made a secondary planet (viz. one of those that go round another planet) and then by gathering to them, and attracting more matter, became a primary planet; and then by increasing still became a comet, which after certain revolutions, by coming nearer and nearer to the sun, had all its volatile parts condensed, and became a matter fit to recruit and replenish the sun (which must waste by the constant heat and light it emitted) as a fagot would this fire if put into it (we were sitting by a wood fire), and that that would probably be the effect of the comet of 1680, sooner or later, for, by the observations made upon it, it appeared, before it came near the sun, with a tail only two or three degrees long; but by the heat it contracted in going so near the sun, it seemed to have a tail of thirty or forty degrees when it went from it; that he could not say when this comet would drop into the sun; it might perhaps have five or six revolutions more first, but whenever it did it would so much increase the heat of the sun that this earth would be burnt, and no animals in it could live. That he took the three phenomena seen by Hipparchus, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler’s disciples to have been of this kind, for he could not otherwise account for an extraordinary light as those were, appearing all at once among the fixed stars (all which he took to be suns enlightening other planets as our sun does ours) as big as Mercury or Venus seems to us, and gradually diminishing for sixteen months, and then sinking into nothing. He seemed to doubt whether there were not intelligent beings superior to us who superintended these revolutions of the heavenly bodies by the direction of the Supreme Being. He appeared also to be very clearly of opinion that the inhabitants of this world were of a short date, and alleged as one reason for that opinion, that all arts, as letters, ships, printing, needle, &c., were discovered within the memory of history, which could not have happened if the world had been eternal; and that there were visible marks of ruin upon it which could not be effected by a flood only. When I asked him how this earth could have been repeopled if ever it had undergone the same fate it was threatened with hereafter by the comet of 1680, he answered, that required the power of a Creator. He said he took all the planets to be composed of the same matter with this earth, viz. earth, water, stones, &c., but variously concocted. I asked him why he would not publish his conjectures as conjectures, and instanced that Kepler had communicated his; and though he had not gone near so far as Kepler, yet Kepler’s guesses were so just and happy that they had been proved and demonstrated by him. His answer was, ‘I do not deal in conjectures.’ But upon my talking to him about the four observations that had been made of the comet of 1680, at 574 years’ distance, and asking him the particular times, he opened his _Principia_, which laid on the table, and showed me there the particular periods, viz. 1st, the Julium Sidus, in the time of Justinian, in 1106, in 1680.

And I, observing that he said there of that comet, ‘incidet in corpus solis,’ and in the next paragraph adds, ‘stellæ fixæ refici possunt,’ told him I thought he owned there what we had been talking about, viz. that the comet would drop into the sun, and that fixed stars were recruited and replenished by comets when they dropped into them; and, consequently, that the sun would be recruited too; and asked him why he would not own as freely what he thought of the sun as well as what he thought of the fixed stars. He said, ‘that concerned us more;’ and, laughing, added, ‘that he had said enough for people to know his meaning.’”

The preceding paper, with the title prefixed to it, was first published by Mr. Turnor in his _Collections, &c._ p. 172. It was found among the Portsmouth manuscripts, in the handwriting of Mr. Conduit.

THE END.

FOOTNOTES

[1] The Marquis La Place.—See _Systême du Monde_, p. 336.

[2] Sir Isaac Newton told Mr. Conduit, that he had often heard his mother say that when he was born he was so little that they might have put him into a quart mug.

[3] In Leicestershire, and about three miles south-east of Woolsthorpe.

[4] “I remember once,” says Dr. Stukely, “when I was deputy to Dr. Hailey, secretary at the Royal Society, Sir Isaac talked of these kind of instruments. That he observed the chief inconvenience in them was, that the hole through which the water is transmitted being necessarily very small, was subject to be furred up by impurities in the water, as those made with sand will wear bigger, which at length causes an inequality in time.”—Stukely’s Letter to Dr. Mead.—Turnor’s _Collections_, p. 177.

[5] Mr. Clark informed Dr. Stukely that the walls of the room in which Sir Isaac lodged were covered with charcoal drawings of birds, beasts, men, ships, and mathematical figures, all of which were very well designed.

[6] “One of his uncles,” says M. Biot, “having one day found him under a hedge with a book in his hand and entirely absorbed in meditation, took it from him, and found that he was occupied in the solution of a mathematical problem. Struck with finding so serious and so active a disposition at so early an age, he urged his mother no longer to thwart him, and to send him back to Grantham to continue his studies.” I have omitted this anecdote in the text, as I cannot find it in Turner’s Collections, from which M. Biot derived his details of Newton’s infancy, nor in any other work.

[7] Pemberton’s _View of Sir Isaac Newton’s Philosophy_. Pref.

[8] Peregregiæ vir indolis ac insignis peritiæ.—_Epist ad. Lect._

[9] See Newton’s Letter to the Abbé Conti, dated February 26, 1715–16, in the _Additamenta Comm. Epistolici_.

[10] Newtoni _Opera_, tom. iv. p. 205, Letter to Oldenburg.

[11] M. Biot, in his Life of Newton, has stated that Newton was preceded in the invention of the reflecting telescope by Gregory, _but probably without knowing it_. It is quite certain, however, that Newton was acquainted with Gregory’s invention, as appears from the following avowal of it. “When I first applied myself to try the effects of reflection, Mr. Gregory’s _Optica Promota_ (printed in the year 1663) having fallen into my hands, where there is an instrument described with a hole in the midst of the object-glass, to transmit the light to an eye-glass placed behind it, I had thence an occasion of considering that sort of construction, and found their disadvantages so great, that I saw it necessary before I attempted any thing in the practice to alter the design of them, and place the eye-glass at the side of the tube rather than at the middle.”—_Letter to Oldenburg_, May 4th, 1672.

[12] Letter to Oldenburg, February 10, 1671.

[13] This gentleman was the author of a paper in the Philosophical Transactions, entitled “Optical Assertions concerning the Rainbow.” How such a paper could be published by so learned a body seems in the present day utterly incomprehensible. The dials which Linus erected at Liege, and which were the originals of those formerly in the Priory Gardens in London, are noticed in the Philosophical Transactions for 1703. In one of them the hours were distinguished by touch.

[14] Newton speaks with singular positiveness on this subject. “For _I know_,” says he, “that Mr. Lucas’s observations _cannot hold_ where the refracting angle of the prism is full 60°, and the day is clear, and the full length of the colours is measured, and the breadth of the image answers to the sun’s diameter; and seeing I am well assured of the truth and exactness of my own observations, I shall be unwilling to be diverted by any other experiments from having a fair end made of this in the first place.” On the supposition that his prism was one of very low dispersive power, Mr. Lucas might, with perfect truth, have used the very same language towards Newton.

[15] Letter to Oldenburg in 1672, containing his first reply to Huygens.

[16] In an experiment made by Newton, he had occasion to counteract the refraction of a prism of _glass_ by another prism of _water_; and had he completed the experiment, and studied the result of it, he could not have failed to observe a quantity of uncorrected colour, which would have led him to the discovery of the different dispersive powers of bodies. But in order to increase the refractive power of the water, he mixed with it a little sugar of lead, the high dispersive power of which seems to have rendered the dispersive power of the water equal to that of the glass, and thus to have corrected the uncompensated colour of the glass prism.

[17] See the article OPTICS in the _Edinburgh Encyclopædia_, vol xv. p. 479, _note_.

[18] “This result was obtained,” as Newton says, “by an assistant whose eyes were more critical than mine, and who, by right lines drawn across the spectrum, noted the confines of the colours. And this operation being divers times repeated both on the same and on several papers, I found that the observations agreed well enough with one another.”—OPTICS, Part II. Book III.

[19] Optics, Book ii. Prop. iv.

[20] In the same paragraph, when speaking of black bodies becoming hot, and burning sooner than others, he says that their “effect may proceed partly from the _multitude of refractions_ in a little room and partly from the easy commotion of so very small corpuscles.”—Optics, Part iii. Prop. vii. p. 235.

[21] See page 354.

[22] When Newton speaks of bodies losing their reflecting power from their thinness he means the reflecting power of their second surfaces, as is evident from the reason he assigns.—See Optics, Part iii. Prop. xiii. p. 257.

[23] _Edinburgh Journal of Science_, No. 1. p. 108.

[24] See the _Phil. Trans._ 1829, Part I. p. 189.

[25] _Idem._

[26] _Phil. Trans._ 1819, p. 11.

[27] If this view of the matter be just, we should expect that the specific gravity of the black would exceed that of the yellow phosphorus.

[28] Since the two preceding chapters were written, I have had occasion to confirm and extend the views which they contain by many new experiments.

[29] _Physico-Mathesis de Lumine coloribus et iride aliisque annexis._ Bonon. 1665.

[30] This doctrine is thus announced. 1. That the same rays of light falling upon the same point of an object will turn into all sorts of colours by the various inclination of the object. 2. That colours begin to appear when two pulses of light are blended so well and so near together that the sense takes them for one.

[31] This effect is so great, that at the distance of _four_ inches from the point of divergence, the angular inflexion of the _red_ rays of the first fringe is 12′ 6″, while at the distance of about twenty feet, it is only 3′ 55″.

[32] See the twenty-ninth query at the end of his Optics, where the sides of a ray are compared with the poles of a magnet.

[33] The English edition was reprinted at London in 1714, 1721, and 1730, and the Latin one at London in 1706, 1719, 1721, 1728, at Lausanne in 1740, and at Padua in 1773.

[34] When James I. went to Copenhagen in 1590, to conclude his marriage with the Princess Anne of Denmark, he spent eight days under the roof of Tycho at Uraniburg. As a token of his gratitude, he composed a set of Latin verses in honour of the astronomer, and left him a magnificent present at his departure. He gave him also his royal license for the publication of his works in England, and accompanied it with the following complimentary letter:—

“Nor am I acquainted with these things on the relation of others, or from a mere perusal of your works, but I have seen them with my own eyes, and heard them with my own ears, in your residence at Uraniburg, during the various learned and agreeable conversations which I there held with you, which even now affect my mind to such a degree, that it is difficult to decide whether I recollect them with greater pleasure or admiration.”

[35] The cube, the sphere, the tetrahedron, the octohedron, the dodecahedron, and the icosahedron.

[36] Simon Marius, mathematician to the Marquis of Brandenburg, assures us that he discovered the satellites of Jupiter in November, 1609.

[37] It is distinctly stated in the sentence of the Inquisition, that Galileo’s enemies had charged him with having abjured his opinions in 1616, and affirmed that he had been punished by the Inquisition. In order to refute these calumnies, Galileo applied to Cardinal Bellarmine for a certificate to prove that he neither abjured his opinions nor suffered any punishment for them; but that the doctrine of the motion of the earth and the stability of the sun was only denounced to him as contrary to Scripture, and as one which could not be defended or maintained. Cardinal Bellarmine drew up such a certificate in his own handwriting.

[38] _Theoricæ Medicearum planetarum ex causis physicis deductæ._ Flor. 1666, 4to.

[39] M. Delambre maintains that these views of Borelli are only those of Kepler slightly modified. Newton and Huygens have attached to them a greater value. The last of these philosophers remarks, “Refert Plutarchus, fuisse jam olim qui putaret ideo manere lunam in orbe suo, quod vis recedendi a terra, ob motum circularem, inhiberetur pari vi gravitatis, qua ad terram accedere conaretur. Idemque ævo nostro, non de luna tantum sed et planetis ceteris statuit Alphonsus Borellus, ut nempe primariis eorum gravitas esset solem versus; lunis vero ad terram, Jovem ac Saturnum quos comitantur.”—Huygen, _Cosmotheor_, lib. ii.; _Opera_, t. ii. p. 720.

[40] _Hist. de l’Astronomie aux Dix-huitieme Siècle_, p. 9.

[41] “But for the duplicate proportion, I gathered it from Kepler’s theorem about twenty years ago.”—Newton’s _Letter to Halley_, July 14, 1686.

[42] Whiston asserts that this cause was supposed by Newton to be something analogous to the vortices of Descartes.—See Whiston’s _Memoirs of himself_, p. 231.

[43] Waller’s _Life of Hooke_, p. 22.

[44] _Ibid._

[45] July 27, 1686, _Biog. Brit._ p. 2662.

[46] _Commercium Epistolicum_, No. 7.

[47] This Scholium is added to Prop. iv. lib. i. coroll. 6.

[48] In writing to Flamstead, Newton requests from him the long diameters of the orbits of Jupiter and Saturn, that he “_may see how the sesquialteral proportion fills the heavens_.”

[49] Whiston’s _Memoirs of his own Life_.

[50] “Dr. Reid states, that James Gregory, Professor of Philosophy at St. Andrew’s, printed a thesis at Edinburgh in 1690, containing twenty-five positions, of which twenty-two were a compend of Newton’s Principia.”

[51] Nichols’s Literary Anecdotes, vol. iii. p. 322. Cotes states in his preface to the second edition of the Principia, that copies of the first edition could only be obtained at an immense price.

[52] Preface to Desaguliers’s _Experimental Philosophy_. Dr. Desaguliers states that he was told this anecdote several times by Sir Isaac Newton himself.

[53] _The Life of John Locke_, p. 209–215, Lond. 1829.

[54] _Principia_, lib. i. prop. i.

[55] _Ib._ lib. i. prop. xi.

[56] “On peut regarder Fermat,” says Lagrange, “comme le premier inventeur des nouveaux calculs;” and Laplace observes, “Il paraitque Fermat le veritable inventeur du calcul differentiel, l’ait envisagé comme un cas particulier de celui des differences,” &c.

[57] Art. _Mathematics_, in the _Edinburgh Encyclopædia_, volume xiii. p. 365.

[58] These facts are mentioned in Newton’s letter to Oldenburgh, October 24, 1676.

[59] Dr. Pemberton informs us that he had prevailed upon Sir Isaac to publish this treatise during his lifetime, and that he had for this purpose examined all the calculations and prepared part of the figures. But as the latter part of the treatise had never been finished, Sir Isaac was about to let him have other papers to supply what was wanting, when his death put a stop to the plan.—Preface to Pemberton’s _View of Sir Isaac Newton’s Philosophy_.

[60] Isaci Newtoni Opera quæ extant omnia, vol. i. p. 388–519.

[61] “Acutissimis qui toto orbe florent Mathematicis.”

[62] Henry Oldenburg, whose name is so intimately associated with the history of Newton’s discoveries, was born at Bremen, and was consul from that town to London during the usurpation of Cromwell. Having lost his office, and being compelled to seek the means of subsistence, he became tutor to an English nobleman, whom he accompanied to Oxford in 1656. During his residence in that city he became acquainted with the philosophers who established the Royal Society, and upon the death of William Crown, the first secretary, he was appointed in 1663, joint secretary along with Mr. Wilkins. He kept up an extensive correspondence with the philosophers of all nations, and he was the author of several papers in the Philosophical Transactions, and of some works which have not acquired much celebrity. He died at Charlton, near Greenwich, in August, 1677.

[63] These words in brackets are in the second edition, but not in the first.

[64] As this passage is of essential importance in this controversy, we shall give it in the original. “_Pro differentiis igitur Leibnitianis D. Newtonus adhibet, semperque adhibuit, fluxiones_, quæ sunt quam proxime ut fluentium augmenta, æqualibus temporis particulis quam minimis genita; iisque tam in suis Principiis Naturæ Mathematicis, tum in aliis postea editis, eleganter est usus; _quem admodum et Honoratus Fabrius in sua Synopsi Geometrica, motuumque progressus Cavallerianæ methodo substituit_.”

[65] Homine docto, sed novo, et parum perito rerum ante actarum cognitare.

[66] Vanæ et injustæ vociferationes.

[67] Letter to Count Bothman in Des Maizeaux’s _Recueil de diverses pieces_, tom. ii. p. 44, 45.

[68] See Des Maizeaux, tom. ii. p. 116.

[69] Written in November or December, 1715.

[70] This is the _Recensio Commercii Epistolici_, or review of it, which was first published in the _Phil. Trans. 1715_.

[71] M. Biot remarks, that the animosity of Newton was not calmed by the death of Leibnitz, for he had no sooner heard of it than he caused to be printed two manuscript letters of Leibnitz, written in the preceding year, accompanying them with a very bitter refutation (en les accompagnant d’un refutation tres-amere). Who that reads this sentence does not believe that the bitter refutation was written after Leibnitz’s death? The animosity could not be shown by the simple publication of the letters. It could reside only in the _bitterness_ of the refutation. The implied charge is untrue; the bitter refutation was written before Leibnitz’s death, and consequently he showed no animosity over the grave of his rival; and in our opinion none even before his death.

[72] M. Biot states that Sir Isaac Newton _caused_ this edition of the Commercium Epistolicum to be printed; that _Sir Isaac placed_ at the head of it a partial abstract of the collection; and that this abstract _appeared to have been written by himself_. These groundless charges may be placed, without any refutation, beside the assertion of Montucla, that Newton wrote the notes (les notes) on the Commercium Epistolicum; and the equally incorrect statement of La Croix, that Newton added to it notes (des notes), with his own hand. We should not have noticed the charges of M. Biot, had he not adduced them as proofs of Newton’s animosity to Leibnitz after his death. See Mr. Herschel’s History of _Mathematics_ in the _Edinburgh Encyclopædia_, vol. xiii. p. 368, _note_.

[73] See Burnet’s _History of his own Times_, vol. i. p. 697. Lond. 1724.

[74] The other candidates were Sir Robert Sawyer and Mr. Finch, and the votes stood thus.

Sir Robert Sawyer, 125 Mr. Newton, 122 Mr. Finch, 117

[75] This M. Colin was probably a young bachelor of arts whom Newton seems afterward to have employed in some of his calculations. These bachelors were distinguished by the title of Dominus, and it was usual to translate this word and to call them _Sir_. In a letter from Newton to Flamstead, dated Cambridge, June 29th, 1695, is the following passage: “I want not your calculations, but your observations only, for besides myself and my servant, Sir Collins (whom I can employ for a little money, which I value not) tells me that he can calculate an eclipse and work truly.”

[76] They are thus dated in Horsley’s edition of Newton’s Works, the _fourth_ letter having an earlier date than the _third_.

[77] See _Newtoni Opera_, tom. iv. p. 480, and _Wallasii Opera_, 1693, tom. ii. p. 391–396.

[78] _Optics_, part iv. obs. 13.

[79] For these letters I have been indebted to the kindness of Lord Braybrooke.

[80] These three letters have been published by Lord Braybrooke in the Life and Correspondence of Mr. Pepys.

[81] This anxiety will be understood from the fact that, by an order of council dated January 28th, 1674–5, Mr. Newton was excused from making the usual payments of one shilling per week, “on account of his low circumstances, as he represented.”

[82] The system of Hobbes was at this time very prevalent. According to Dr. Bentley, “the taverns and coffee-houses, nay, Westminster Hall and the very churches, were full of it;” and he was convinced from personal observation, that “not one English infidel in a hundred was other than a Hobbist.”—Monk’s _Life of Bentley_, p. 31.

[83] The draft of this letter is endorsed “J. L. to I. Newton.”

[84] Dr. Gregory concludes his account of this manuscript, which he has kindly permitted me to read, in the following words:—“I do not know whether it is true, as stated by Huygens, ‘Newtonum incidisse in Phrenitim;’ but I think every gentleman who examines this manuscript will be of opinion that he must have thoroughly recovered from his phrenitis before he wrote either the Commentary on the Opinions of the Ancients, or the Sketch of his own Theological and Philosophical Opinions which it contains.”

[85] This paragraph is as follows:—“Deum esse ens summe perfectum concedunt omnes. Entis autem summe perfecti Idea est ut sit substantia, una, simplex, indivisibilis, viva et vivifica, ubique semper necessario existens, summe intelligens omnia, libere volens bona, voluntate efficiens possibilia, effectibus nobilioribus similitudinem propriam quantum fieri potest communicans, omnia in se continens tanquam eorum principium et locus, omnia per presentiam substantialem cernens et regens, et cum rebus omnibus, secundum leges accuratas ut naturæ totius fundamentum et causa constanter co-operans, nisi ubi aliter agere bonum est.”

[86] The following extract, characteristic of Flamstead’s manner, is from a letter to Newton dated January 6, 1698–9.

“Upon hearing occasionally that you had sent a letter to Dr. Wallis about the parallax of the fixed stars to be printed, and that you had mentioned me therein with respect to the theory of the moon, I was concerned to be publicly brought upon the state about what, perhaps, will never be fitted for the public, and thereby the world _put into an expectation of what perhaps they are never likely to have_. I do not love to be printed upon every occasion, much less to be dunned and teased by foreigners about mathematical things, or to be thought _by your own people to be trifling_ away my time when I should be about the king’s business.” On the first of the above passages in italics Flamstead has the following memorandum:—“When Mr. Halley boasts ’tis done, and given to him as a secret, tells the Society so and foreigners.” In the second passage in italics, Mr. Flamstead refers, in a note, to Mr. Colson’s letter to him, in which he seems to have represented practical astronomy as trifling. Mr. Flamstead adds, “Was Mr. Newton a trifler when he read mathematics for a salary at Cambridge: surely, then, astronomy is of some good use, though his place be more beneficial.” For these extracts from the original manuscript in the collection of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, I have been indebted to the kindness of Professor Rigaud of Oxford.

[87] See page 215, note.

[88] The candidates in 1701 were as follows:

Mr. Henry Boyle, afterward Lord Carleton, 180} Both of Trinity Mr. Newton 161} College. Mr. Hammond 64

[89] The banquet which was on this occasion given in the college hall to the royal visiter seems to have cost about 1000_l._, and the university was obliged to borrow 500_l._, to defray the expense of it.—Monk’s _Life of Bentley_, p. 143, 144.

[90] The candidates in 1705 were as follows:

The Hon. Arthur Annesley 182 Hon. Dixie Windsor 170 Mr. Godolphin 162 Sir Isaac Newton 117

[91] Journals of the House of Commons, vol. xvii. p. 677, 716.

[92] Whiston’s “Longitude Discovered.” Lond 1738.

[93] This anecdote concerning the Chronological manuscript is not correctly given in the Biographia Britannica, and in some of the other lives of Newton. I have followed implicitly Newton’s own account of it in the _Phil. Trans. 1725_, vol. xxxiii. No. 389, p. 315.

[94] M. Biot has supposed that this abstract was an imperfect edition of Newton’s work on Chronology.

[95] Father Souciet was supposed by Halley and others to have been the author of these observations, but there is no doubt that they were written by M. Freret.

[96] It is stated in the _Biogr. Britannica_, Art. _Newton_, that the copy of the French translation was not accompanied with the refutation. Though the reverse of this is not distinctly stated by Sir Isaac himself, yet it may be inferred from his observations.

[97] Vol. xxxiii. No. 389, p. 315.

[98] According to Whiston, Sir Isaac wrote out eighteen copies of this chapter with his own hand, differing little from one another.—_Whiston’s Life_, p. 39.

[99] This work is the first article in the fifth volume of Dr. Hersley’s edition of Newton’s works. The next article in the volume is entitled, “A Short Chronicle from a MS., the property of the Reverend Dr. Ekins, Dean of Carlisle;” which is nothing more than the abstract of the Chronology already printed in the same volume. We cannot even conjecture the reasons for publishing it, especially as it is less perfect than the abstract, two or three dates being wanting.

[100] See vol. xxxiv. p. 205, and vol. xxxv. p. 296.

[101] See an excellent view of this chronological controversy in an able note by M. Daunou, attached to Biot’s Life of Newton in the _Biog. Universelle_, tom. xxxi. p. 180.

[102] This letter is published without any date in the _Gentleman’s Magazine_ for 1755, vol. xxv. p. 3. It bears internal evidence of being genuine.

[103] His _Historical Account of two notable Corruptions of the Scriptures_. 50 pp quarto.

[104] The editor supplied the beginning down to the 13th page, where he mentions in a note that “_thus far is not Sir Isaac’s_.”

[105] M. Biot has well remarked that there is absolutely nothing in the writings of Newton to justify, or even to authorize, the idea that he was an Antitrinitarian. This passage is strangely omitted in the English translation of Biot’s Life of Newton. We do not know upon what authority Dr. Thomson states, in his History of the Royal Society, that Newton “did not believe in the Trinity,” and that Dr. Horsley considered Newton’s papers unfit for publication, because they contained proofs of his hostility to that doctrine.

[106] Whiston’s _Memoirs of his own Life_, p. 178, 249, 250. Edit. 1753.

[107] Dr. Monk’s _Life of Bentley_, p. 31.

[108] Dated December 10th, 1692. This letter is endorsed, in Bentley’s hand, “Mr. Newton’s answer to some queries sent by me after I had preached my two last sermons.”—Monk’s _Life of Bentley_, p. 34, note.

[109] Dated Jan. 17th, 1692–3.

[110] “These things,” says he, “follow from my _Princip. Math._ lib. i. prop. 33, 34, 35, 36.”

[111] Dated February 11th, 1693.

[112] The originals of these four letters to Bentley “were given by Dr. Richard Bentley to Cumberland, his nephew, and executor, while a student at Trinity College, and were printed by him in a separate pamphlet in 1756. This publication was reviewed by Dr. Samuel Johnson in the Literary Magazine, vol. i. p. 89. See Johnson’s Works, vol. ii. p. 328. The original letters are preserved in Trinity College, to which society they were given by Cumberland a short time before his death.”—Monk’s _Life of Bentley_, p. 33, note.

[113] Mr. Herschel, in his Treatise on Light, § 553, has maintained that Newton’s Doctrine of Reflection is accordant with the idea that the attractive force extends beyond the repulsive or reflecting force. In the query above referred to, Sir Isaac, in the most distinct manner, places the sphere of the reflecting force without that of the attractive one.

[114] In a tract annexed to his _Appeal to all that doubt or disbelieve the truths of the Gospel_. See _Gent. Mag._ 1782, vol. iii. p. 227, 239.

It is stated in a letter of Mr. Law’s, quoted in this magazine, that Charles I. was a diligent reader and admirer of Jacob Behmen; that he sent a well-qualified person from England to Goerlitz, in Upper Lusatia, to acquire the German language, and to collect every anecdote he could meet with there relative to this great alchymist.

[115] In a letter to Dr. Halley, dated June 20th, 1686, Sir Isaac refers to this paper, and observes, that it is only to be looked upon as one of his guesses that he did not rely upon.

[116] See page 273.

[117] See _Newtoni Opera_, by Horsley, vol. iv. p. 375–382.

[118] Sir Isaac does not seem to have afterward described this construction.

[119] See _Edinburgh Transactions_, vol. ix. p. 433, and the _Edinburgh Journal of Science_, July, 1829, No. I. New Series, p. 108.

[120] Art. _Accidental Colours_ in the _Edinburgh Encyclopædia_.

[121] See _Phil. Trans._ 1722, vol. xxxiii. p. 57.

[122] This conversation, originally copied from Mr. Conduit’s handwriting, is given in the Appendix, No. iii. p. 320.

[123] These were the three children of his half-brother Smith, the three children of his half-sister Pilkington, and the two daughters of his half-sister Barton, all of whom survived Sir Isaac. _New Anecdotes of Sir Isaac Newton, by J. H., a Gentleman of his Mother’s Family._ See _Annual Register_, 1776, vol. xix. p. 25 of Characters. The author of this paper was James Hutton, Esq. of Pimlico.

[124] Turnor’s _Collections_, &c. p. 158. See APPENDIX, p. 316.

[125] This valuable faculty characterizes all his writings, whether theological, chymical, or mathematical; but it is peculiarly displayed in his treatise on Universal Arithmetic, and in his Optical Lectures.

[126] _De Magnete_, p. 42, 52, 169, and Pref. p. 30.

[127] The following passages from Leonardo da Vinci are very striking:

“Theory is the general, and practice the soldiers.

“Experiment is the interpreter of the artifices of nature. It never deceives us; it is our judgment itself which sometimes deceives us, because we expect from it effects which are contrary to experiment. We must consult experiment by varying the circumstances till we have deduced from it general laws; for it is it which furnishes true laws.

“In the study of the sciences which depend on mathematics, those who do not consult nature, but authors, are not the children of nature; they are only her grandchildren. Nature alone is the master of true genius.

“In treating any particular subject, I would first of all make some experiments, because my design is first to refer to experiment, and then to demonstrate why bodies are constrained to act in such a manner. This is the method which we ought to follow in investigating the phenomena of nature. It is very true that nature begins by reasoning and ends with experiment; but it matters not, _we must take the opposite course_; _as I have said, we must begin by experiment_, and endeavour by its means to discover general principles.” Thus, says Venturi, spoke Leonard a century before Bacon, and thus, we add, did Leonard tell philosophers all that they required for the proper investigation of general laws. See _Essai sur les œuvrages physico-mathematiques de Leonard de Vinci_, par J. B. Venturi. Paris, 1799, p. 32, 33, &c. See also Carlo Amoretti’s _Memorie storiche su la vita gli studi e le Opere de Lionardo da Vinci_. Milano, 1804.

[128] Mr. Hearne, in a memorandum dated April 4th, 1726, states, that a great quarrel happened between Sir Isaac Newton and Mr. Halley. If this is true, the difference is likely to have originated in Halley’s impiety.

[129] Professor Rigaud of Oxford heard this anecdote from Dr. Maskelyne.

[130] “He was very kind to all the Ayscoughs. To one he gave 800_l._, to another 200_l._, and to a third 100_l._, and many other sums; and other engagements did he enter into also for them. He was the ready assistant of all who were any way related to him,—to their children and grandchildren.”—_Annual Register_, 1776, vol. xix. p. 25. Sir Isaac gave some donations to the chapel and parish of Colsterworth. Hearne says “that he promised to become a benefactor to the Royal Society, but failed.”

[131] The following anecdote of Sir Isaac’s absence has been published, but I cannot vouch for its authenticity. His intimate friend Dr. Stukely, who had been deputy to Dr. Halley as secretary to the Royal Society, was one day shown into Sir Isaac’s dining-room, where his dinner had been for some time served up. Dr. Stukely waited for a considerable time, and getting impatient, he removed the cover from a chicken, which he ate, replacing the bones under the cover. In a short time Sir Isaac entered the room, and after the usual compliments sat down to his dinner, but on taking off the cover, and seeing nothing but bones, he remarked, “How absent we philosophers are. I really thought that I had not dined.”

[132] _Epistolary Correspondence_, vol. i. p. 180, sec. 77.

[133] MS. Memoranda in the Bodleian Library.

[134] Turnor’s _Collections_, p. 176.

[135] The anecdote of the falling apple is mentioned neither by Dr. Stukely nor by Mr. Conduit, and as I have not been able to find any authority for it whatever, I did not feel myself at liberty to use it.

[136] In the Monthly Review for August, 1829, p. 593, it is stated, that the correspondence between Newton and Flamstead, from 1680 to 1698, exists in the Sloane collection of Manuscripts in the British Museum. Professor Rigaud, however, has had the kindness to inquire into the accuracy of this statement, and he has ascertained that these letters are merely copies, which Dr. Birch had made from the originals at Oxford.

[137] See page 288, note.

[138] This entail was executed in 1724, a year or two before Sir Richard’s death.—D. B.

[139] See p. 291.

* * * * * *

Transcriber’s note:

Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a predominant preference was found in this book; otherwise they were not changed.

Many abbreviations, and some sentences, did not end with periods. Transcriber added missing periods only at the ends of sentences, and did not attempt to resolve other inconsistencies.

Simple typographical errors were corrected; occasional unpaired quotation marks retained.

Ambiguous hyphens at the ends of lines were retained.

In some letters, the salutations and dates were printed on the same line, and the signatures sometimes were printed on the same lines as the end of the body. In this eBook, the dates always appear above the salutations and the signatures are on their own lines.

Superscripts were used only as abbreviations for names and words, not in mathematical expressions, and have been printed as normal lower-case letters in the Plain Text version of this eBook.

The Transcriber did not review the spelling of non-English words.

Second page (unnumbered), last line: “with whom they abide.” The word shown here as “abide” was poorly printed and unclear.

At the bottom of the Title page, the date is “1833”; at the bottom of the cover, the date is “1835”.

Page 66: “piece of plane glass” was printed that way.

Page 66: Transcriber added the comma in “and LR, LR the extreme red”.

Page 70: Transcriber added italics to “makes _orange_”.

Page 126: “on the 7th January, 1618” should be “1610”.

Page 306 referred to Newton’s telescope being shown in “fig. 1”, but it actually is in “fig. 3” and is referenced that way in this eBook.

Page 321: The opening parenthesis before “viz. one of those that go round another” has no matching closing parenthesis. Transcriber added a closing parenthesis after “round another planet”, but that may not be where it belongs.