NEWTON, 181 



Infinitorum" His study of these works was very different from the 

 routine of the ordinary learner: he is said to have taken in Euclid as if 

 by intuition, and he was so far from being satisfied with simply under- 

 standing the modern authors, that he carried his own views of the sub- 

 jects beyond their range. Before he had completed his twenty-third 

 year Newton had made some of his most famous discoveries in mathe- 

 matics and in physical science. 



In 1665 he quitted Cambridge to avoid the plague, and returned 

 to Woolsthorpe, where he had leisure, without interruption, to give 

 himself to philosophical meditations. It was of this period of his 

 life that the oft-repeated story is told of the fall of the apple which 

 suggested the train of thought that led to the theory of gravitation. 

 The danger of plague having ceased, Newton returned to Cambridge 

 in 1666 ; but he did not make known any of his optical and mathe- 

 matical discoveries until 1668. In the year following Dr. Barrow re- 

 tired from the mathematical lectureship to make room for Newton, 

 then hardly twenty-seven years of age. In 1672 Newton was elected 

 a Fellow of the Royal Society, having qualified himself for election by 

 sending to the Society a paper describing that arrangement of the 

 reflecting telescope which has since been called by his name. The 

 "Transactions of the Royal Society" were soon afterwards enriched 

 by the first of Newton's famous papers on Light, and this was followed 

 from time to time by communications announcing his discoveries. 

 The year 1687 is memorable in science as that in which Newton's 

 great work, the "Prindpia," was published at London. This work is in 

 Latin, and its full title is "Philosophic? Naturalis Printipia Mathema- 

 tical In 1687 Newton was elected by his university as their repre- 

 sentative in the Convention Parliament which called William of Orange 

 to the throne of England. He continued a member of this Parliament 

 until its dissolution, but he took no prominent part in its deliberations. 

 In 1696 Newton was appointed to the honourable and lucrative posi- 

 tion of Warden of the Mint, and in this office rendered the country 

 signal service, for he was peculiarly qualified for the post by his ma- 

 thematical and chemical knowledge. It appears that from the time 

 when as a boy he lived at an apothecary's house at Grantham, he had 

 always taken great interest in chemistry, and in various parts of his 

 works many important chemical observations are to be met with. In 

 1703 Newton was elected President of the Royal Society of London, 

 and continued to the end of his life, a period of twenty- five years, to. 

 fill this office. He was made a knight by Queen Anne in 1705, soon 

 after the publication of his " Treatise of Optics." 



^ Newton continued to occupy himself with scientific subjects until 

 within about ten years of his death. To this period belongs that beau- 

 tiful saying which he is reputed to have uttered in reply to his friends 

 who spoke of the admiration his great discoveries had everywhere ex- 

 cited : " I know not what the world will think of my labours, but to 



