NOTE 



WHEN in the spring of 1909 his literary executors paid 

 me the compliment of asking me to write a "Life" 

 of Professor Newton, I accepted the invitation with 

 enthusiasm tempered by diffidence, little guessing the 

 delays to which it would be subjected, and little know- 

 ing the difficulties of the task. It became very soon 

 apparent that the interests of so sedentary a life as that 

 of Newton must be looked for principally in his letters. 

 This led to the startling discovery that he had kept 

 almost every letter he received during a period of more 

 than fifty years, and to the further fact that a great 

 many of his correspondents had preserved almost every 

 letter that he had written to them. Searching through 

 these thousands of letters was a work of several months ; 

 and after that I was unavoidably occupied in New 

 Guinea for a term of years. During these absences from 

 England and later during the war I made attempts 

 to induce others to complete the " Life/* but without 

 success. 



So it was not until 1920 that I was able to return 

 to it. In the meantime the business of producing 

 books, like all other things, has suffered a change, and 

 the ample biographies of the spacious days before 1914 

 are no longer possible. Thus it happens that this 

 volume has been reduced by nearly a half of its bulk, 

 greatly to the advantage of the casual reader, if such 



