NEWTON, ISAAC. 



NEWTON, ISAAC. 



474 



been disappointed. His sole income is stated to have been derived 

 from his Lucasian professorship, and from the produce of the manor 

 of Woolsthorpe, the amount of which, though aided by habits remark- 

 ably temperate and abstemious, ill accorded with the natural gene- 

 rosity of his disposition and the frequent occasions which he probably 

 had of relieving the necessities of his poorer relations. His fellowship 

 however must have been an additional source of income, though we 

 find no mention of its amount, and the notion of his having been in 

 narrow circumstances most probably arose from the fact that in the 

 ' Journal of the Royal Society ' there is entered an order in council, 

 dated January 21, 1674-75, whereby he is excused from making the 

 custoacary payment of one shilling a week " on account of his low 

 circumstances, as he represented." (Birch, ' Hist, of Royal Society,' 

 iii. p. 179.) Four years after receiving the appointment of warden of 

 the mint, he was promoted to the mastership of that establishment, 

 with a salary of from 12001. to 15001., and at hia death his personal 

 estate was v;ilued at 32,00<M. 



About the year 167B, Leibnitz having heard of many new results 

 obtained by Newton by means of an infinite series (the Binomial 

 Theorem), he expressed to Oldenburg his wish to be made acquainted 

 with it This led to a correspondence between Newton and Leibnitz, 

 wherein the former also communicated many beautiful theorems on 

 the quadrature, rectification, &c., of curves, to which he had been led 

 by the aid of his method of fluxions, but at the same time withheld 

 all information concerning the principles of that method except in the 

 form of anagrams, which were very unlikely to be deciphered. The 

 letters of Leibnitz in reply showed that he wag already in possession 

 of a method analogous to that of fluxions, and equally extensive in its 

 applicability. An account of the dispute which afterwards arose 

 between the English and foreign mathematicians, relative to the 

 claims of Leibnitz as an independent inventor of the calculus, and 

 the part which Newton himself took in the controversy, will be 

 found in the articles FLUXIONS and COMMEKCIUM EPISTOLICOM, 

 in ARTS AND Sc. Div. Sir David Brewster, who has carefully 

 investigated this matter, states the following as the results of his 

 investigation : 



" 1. That Newton was the first inventor of the Method of Fluxions ; 

 that the method was incomplete in its notation ; and that the funda- 

 mental principle of it was not published to the world till 1687, twenty 

 years alter he had invented it. 2. That Leibnitz communicated to 

 Newton, in 1677, his Differential Calculus, with a complete system of 

 notation, and that he published it in 1684, three years before the 

 publication of Newton's method." ('Memoirs,' ii. 78.) 



The five years preceding Newton's appointment to the wardenship 

 of the mint were passed chiefly at Cambridge. During parts of the 

 years 1692 and 1693 he has, on the authority of Biot, been commonly 

 supposed to have suffered under temporary mental aberration, 

 although it was between December 1692 and February 1693 that he 

 wrote his four celebrated letters on the existence of the Deity, at the 

 express request of Dr. Beutley, and various scientific essays, which 

 Brewster has printed in an appendix to his ' Life.' 



Mr. Van Swinden, while examining the manuscripts and autograph 

 letters of Huyghcns, met with a small journal in the hand-writing of 

 the latter. It is deposited in the library of Leyden, and contains the 

 following note, communicated by Mr. Van Swinden to M. Biot, and 

 first published by the Utter in the ' Biographie Oniverselle : " " 29th 

 May 1694. Mr. Colin, a Scotchman, informs me that the illustrious 

 geometer Isaac Newton has been insane for the last eighteen months, 

 either from excess of study, or from the grief occasioned by the 

 destruction of his chemical laboratory, together with many important 

 MS.S., by fire. Mr. Colin adds, that when he came to the Archbishop 

 of Cambridge, his conversation indicating an alienation of mind, he 

 waa immediately taken care of by his friends, confined to his room, 

 and remedies applied, by means of which he has now so far recovered 

 as to again be able to comprehend the Principia." Huyghens having 

 mentioned this circumstance to Leibnitz, the latter, in his reply, dated 

 23rd of June 1094, expresses his gladness at receiving the account of 

 Newton's convalescence at the fame time that he received that of his 

 illness, and adds, " It is to men like you and him, Sir, that I wish a 

 long life." Sir David Brewster has been at considerable pains to 

 determine how far the foregoing statement is consistent with fact, 

 and has succeeded in bringing to light many interesting documents 

 which bear immediately upon this and other points. (' Memoirs,' ii. 

 131-56.) Among these is a MS. diary of Mr. Pry me, a student at Cam- 

 bridge at the time that Newton was fellow of Trinity. It commences in 

 the year 1685, and under Feb. 3, 1692, the writer mentions having that 

 day heard of the destruction of Newton's manuscripts on the theory 

 of colours, " established upon thousands of experiments which ho had 

 been twenty years of making, and which had cost him many hundreds 

 of pounds, ' and he goes on to fay that it took place on a winter's 

 morning while Newton was at chapel, adding that " when Newton had 

 come back and seen what was done, every one thought that he would 

 have run mad ; he was so troubled thereat that he was not himself fur 

 a month after." Another version of the story is, that Newton left in 

 his study a favourite dog, which overturned a lighted taper upon his 

 papers, and on his return, finding the extent of his loss, he exclaimed, 

 " Oh ! Diamond, Diamond ! little do you know the mischief you have 

 done me ! " The above extract from the di.iry of Mr. Pryme, while it 



in some degree corroborates the statement in the Journal of Huy- 

 ghens, seems to show that the indisposition of Newton was neither so 

 intense nor of so long continuance as has been supposed, and that 

 ' insanity ' was inapplicable iu the strict sense of that word, although 

 there certainly existed some doubt as to what state of mind he was 

 really in. This view is supported by letters in the hand-writing of 

 Newton, of Mr. Pepys (secretary of the Admiralty), and of Mr. 

 Millingtou (of Magdalen College, Cambridge), which have also been 

 published by Sir David Brewster from the originals in the possession of 

 Lord Braybrooke. Among these is the following from Newton to Pepys, 

 excusing himself from fulfilling a promise he had made to see the 

 latter when next in London. Pepys entertained a very high esteem 

 of Newton, and appears to have been very auxioua for his health and 

 longevity : "September 13, 1693. Sir, Some time after Mr. Milling- 

 ton had delivered your message, he pressed me to see you the next 

 time I went to London. I was averse ; but upon his pressing con- 

 sented, before I considered what I did, for I am extremely troubled 

 with the embroilment I am in, and have neither ate nor slept well 

 this twelvemonth, nor have my former consistency of mind. I never 

 designed to get anything by your interest, nor by King James's favour, 

 but am now sensible that I must withdraw from your acquaintance, 

 and see neither you nor the rest of my friends any more, if I may but 

 leave them quietly, &c., Isaac Newton." The wording of this letter 

 excited in Mr. Pepys the suspicion that Newton was suffering from 

 "discomposure of bead or mind, or both," and he in consequence 

 addressed himaelf for explanation to Millingtou, who in reply says, 



" he (Newton) told me of his owu accord that he hud writt to 



you a very odd letter, at which he was much concerned ; added that 

 it was a distemper that much seized his mind, which he desired I 

 would represent to you and beg your pardon, he being very much 

 ashamed he should be so rude to a person for whom he hath so great 

 an honour. He is now very well, and though I fear ho is under, some 

 degree of melancholy, yet I think there is no reason to suspect it has 

 at all touched his understanding, and I hope never will." While 

 labouring under the same melancholy and nervous affection, he had 

 characterised the writings of Locke as immoral, and designated their 

 author as a Hobbist. In a letter to Locke, dated " At the Bull iu 

 Shoreditch, September 16, 1693," he says, "Being of opinion tint you 

 endeavoured to embroil me with women, I was so much affected by it, 

 that when one told me you were sickly and would not live, I answered, 

 ' 'twere better if you were dead.' " He then asks forgiveness for this 

 uncharitableness, and for the ill opinion he had entertained of his 

 writings, and concludes, "I beg your pardon also for saving or thinking 

 that there was a design to sell me an office, and am your most humble 

 aud unfortunate servant, Is. Newton." To this letter Locke replied 

 very kindly, and Newton again wrote'from " Cambridge, October 15th, 

 1693,'' a letter which clearly indicates the nature of his disorder, and 

 that at that time its effects had passed away : " The last winter, by 

 sleeping too often by my fire, I got an ill habit of sleeping; and a 

 distemper, which this summer has been epidemical, put me farther 

 out of order, so that when I wrote to you I had not slept an hour n 

 night for a fortnight together, aud for five days together not a wink. 

 I remember I wrote to you, but what I said of your book I remember 

 not. If you please to send me a transcript of that passage I will give 

 you an account of it if I can." In Iti'.i ! he appears to have recovered 

 bis former tranquillity and strength of mind ; for in that year we 

 find him actively occupied in testing his lunar theory by the observa- 

 tions of Flamsteed, with whom he had hitherto been on the most 

 intimate terms. The quarrel which subsequently took place between 

 Newton and the astronomer-royal is noticed under FLAMSTEED. 



In 1699 Newton waa chosen foreign associate of the Royal Academy 

 of Sciences at Paris ; hi 1703 hp was elected president of the Royal 

 Society, to which office he was annually re-elected till his death ; and 

 in 1705 he was knighted by Queen Anne. In 1722 he became subject 

 to a disorder of the bladder, accompanied with cough aud gout. He 

 presided for the last time at the Royal Society on the 28th of February 

 1727, and died at Kensington on the 20th of March following, in the 

 eighty-fifth year of his age. His body was interred in Westminster 

 Abbey, the funeral being attended by several of the nobility and the 

 principal members of the- society. In 1731 a magnificent monument, 

 designed by Kent and sculptured by Rysbrack, was erected in the 

 abb y at the expense of his relatives. It is situated immediately 

 behind the organ, and bears an appropriate inscription ending with 

 " Sibi gratulentur mortales tale tantumque exstitisse humani generis 

 decus." It is not true that the binomial theorem is also engraven 

 upon it, though it is so stati d by several writer.". The same year a 

 medal was struck at tho Tower, bearing on ouu side the head of 

 Newton, with the motto, " Felix cognoscere causas ; " and on the 

 reverse a personification of the mathematical xciences. In 1755 a 

 full-length statue, by Roubilliac, was erected in Trinity College chapel, 

 bearing the word ' Newtonus ' with the inscription from Lucretius, 

 " Qui genus huuianum ingenio superavit." There is also a bust of 

 Newton in Trinity College library, by the same sculptor. Besides 

 these memorials of Newton there exist several portraits of him by 

 Vanderbauk, Ritts, Sir Godfrey Kueller, and Sir Piter Lely; the last 

 was taken when Newton was a B.A. The manor-house of Woolsthorpe, 

 visited a few years since by thu writer, is built of stone, aud soatotl iu a 

 valley on the west side of the river Withain. It was repaired iu 1798 by 



