Clerk Maxwell, Isaac Newton 35 



his teachers, but pursued his reading according to his own 

 choice, and it was Descartes' " Geometry " that inspired 

 his love for mathematics. In 1665, at the age of twenty-five, 

 he left Cambridge on account of the Plague, and it seems 

 that in this year the method of " fluxions," which contains 

 the germ of the differential calculus, first occurred to him. 

 Returning to Cambridge, he began his optical and chemical 

 experiments, and continued his mathematical researches at 

 the same time. In the year 1669, he was elected Lucasian 

 Professor of Mathematics, and chose Optics as the subject 

 of his first series of lectures. He continued his studies at 

 Cambridge, the " Principia " being published in 1687. As 

 a sign of national gratitude, Montague (afterwards Earl of 

 Halifax), then Chancellor of the Exchequer and at the same 

 time President of the Royal Society (1695-1698), offered 

 Newton the post of Warden of the Mint in 1695, and this 

 was followed five years later by his appointment to the 

 Mastership, which was then worth between 1,200 and 

 1,500 per annum. Newton continued, however, to dis- 

 charge his professorial duties at Cambridge until 1701. 

 From 1703 onwards until his death, twenty-five years later, 

 he held the Presidency of the Royal Society. 



One is tempted to look upon the quiet life of the old 

 Universities as being specially conducive to study and 

 research, but the times of active progress in the Universities 

 coincided rather with the periods when political disturbances 

 were sufficiently intense to penetrate these havens of rest. 

 Such a time was the end of the seventeenth century, when 

 the interference of James II. into University affairs was a 

 source of trouble both at Oxford and Cambridge. Newton 

 himself took an active part in defending the prerogatives 

 of the University. On a previous occasion he had taken the 

 side of the Senate against the Heads of Colleges in a dispute 

 about the Public Oratorship, and when in 1687 the King 

 issued a mandate that a certain Benedictine monk should 

 be admitted a Master of Arts without taking the oaths of 

 allegiance and supremacy, Newton was one of the deputies 

 appointed by the Senate to make representations to the 

 High Commissioners' Court at Westminster. 



In recognition of the services rendered to the University, 



C2 



