CH. XVIII. SIR ISAAC NEWTON. I47 



CHAPTER XVIII. 



SCIENCE OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY (CONTINUED). 



1642, Birth of Newton — His Education — 1666, His three great Dis- 

 coveries first occur to him — Method of Fluxions and Differential 

 Calculus — First thought of the Theory of Gravitation — Failure of 

 his Results in consequence of the Faulty Measurement of the size of 

 the Earth — 1682, Hears of Picart's new Measurement — Works out 

 the result correctly, and proves the Theory of Gravitation — Ex- 

 planation of this Theory — Establishes the Law that Attraction 

 varies inversely as the squares of the distance — 1687, Publishes the 

 * Principia * — Some of the Problems dealt with in this Work. 



Newton, 1642. — We must now leave the living creation to 

 return to physical science, for, during all those years with 

 which we have been occupied since the time of Galileo 

 and Kepler, a boy had been growing up into manhood, who 

 was to become one of the greatest men of science that Eng- 

 land has ever known. In 1642, the same year in which 

 Galileo died, a child was born at Woolsthorpe, near Gran- 

 tham in Lincolnshire, who was so tiny that his mother said 

 '■ she could put him into a quart mug.' This tiny delicate 

 baby was to become the great philosopher Newton. 



We hear of him that he was at first very idle and inattentive 

 at school, but, having been one day passed in the class by 

 one of his schoolfellows, he determined to regain his place, 

 and soon succeeded in rising to the head of them all. In 

 his play hours, when the other boys were romping, he 

 amused himself by making little mechanical toys, such as a 



