Newton's Study.
NEWTON"
32
NEWTON
phenomenon, wliich he pursued until he finally elabo- rated his grand theory of the laws of gravitation. Ke- turnuig to the university in 1007, he obtained a fellow- ship; in 16G9, the mathematical professorship; and in 1671 he became a member of the Koyal Society. It was during his abode at Cambridge that he made his other two great discoveries — of tluxioiis, the nature of light and colors ; and as the residt of his scientilic studies finally brought out, in 1G87, his Philosophke Naturalis Pnncipia Mathemalica, which unfolded to the world Newton's theory of the universe. In that year also Newton was chosen one of the delegates to defend the privileges of the university against James II ; and in 1688 and 1701 he was elected one of the members of the university. He was appointed warden of the mint in 169G; was made master of it in 1G99; was chosen presi- dent of the Royal Society in 1703; and was knighted in 1705. When George I ascended the throne in 1714, New- ton, although then a ver}' aged man, was a great favorite at court. His character, his reputation, and his piety had especially gained him the favor of the princess of Wales, afterwards queen-consort to George II. The princess was the admirer and friend of students generally, and at home and abroad enjoyed the society of the learned. Among others Leibnitz corresponded with her, and when the two philosophers got at loggerheads, because each claimed the priority of discovery of the differential cal- culus, or the method of fluxions, though in truth each invented independently of the other, Leibnitz ungra- ciously used his influence with the princess to injure the character of NeAvton, b}' representing the Newtonian philosoph}' as false and hostile to religion. Locke was involved in the same charge, and the king being made acquainted with the accusation requested an answer to be prepared by Sir Isaac and Dr. Clarke which proved satisfactory to the king, or at least overcame all royal scruples for tolerating heresy in the British realm. Newton continued to enjoj' also the favor of the prin- cess, and as a mark of respect for her Sir Isaac intrusted her with a MS. which he called a Chroiiolofjical Index. By some means a copy was secured by abbe Conti, and he publishetl it in Paris without the knowledge or leave of Sir Isaac, and the latter in consequence became much involved in controversy. He was finally induced to prepare for the press his posthumous work, entitled The Chronolofjtj of Ancient Kin/jdoms, which appeared in 1728. Dr. Hutton says with reference to it, "It is as- tonishing what care and industry Newton employed about the papers relating to chronology. Church historj-, etc. ; as, on examining them, it appears that many are copies over and over again, often with little or no varia- tion." Says Hagenbach of these labors of Newton: "His predilection for the Apocalypse, and the precarious cal- culations that he made in this department, have been lamented as a sort of wandering of his great mind. Pos- sibly he did err here, as every mortal does, but this pref- erence for the Revelation of John was intimately con- nected with his reverence for the divine revelation of Christianity in general. The proofs by which he sup- ported Christianity were possibly not always valid, be- cause mathematical demonstration is not always suffi- cient in this department, and leads us astraj"^ rather than advances us. But his most eloquent apology is furnished us in the simple phenomenon itself, that the man who measured and weighed the highest laws of nature with gigantic intellect humbly submitted in that department where the secular wisdom which derives all its knowl- edge of nature from lexicons and penny magazines lifts its head in extreme pride" {Ch. //is/, isf/i andlWi Cent, i, 326). Sir Isaac died March 20, 1727. According to Biot, he was out of his mind more or less in the years 1692 and 1693 while a resident at Cambridge; yet this state- ment seems unreasonalile, however much credit it may have received in this or in the last century, for it was during the time that Biot claims Newton to have been subject to mental aberration that he wrote his four cele- brated letters On the Existence if t/ie Deity, at the ex-
press request of Dr. Bentley, and various scientific essays which Brewster has i)rinted in an appendix to his Life. The great philosopher's remains received a resting-place in Westminster Abbey, where a magnificent moimment was erected in a conspicuous place to his memory in 1731, with a Latin inscription concluding thus : " Let mortals congratulate themselves that so great an ornament of human nature has existed." A magnificent fidl-lcngth statue of the philosopher, executed by Roubilliac, was erected in 1755 in the antechapel of Trinity College, Cambridge. This work was assisted by a cast of the face taken after death, which is preserved in the univer- sity library at Cambridge.
In person Newton was short but well-set, and in- clined to coriiulence. His hair was abundant, and white as silver, without baldness. His ej'e was bright and penetrating till within the last twenty years of Ids life ; but his countenance, though thoughtful, seldom excited much expectation in those to whom he was unknown. In his conversation there appears to have been little either verj^ remarkable or agreeable ; but we have the testimony of Dr. Pemberton that " neither his age nor his universal reputation liad rendered him stiff in opin- ion, or in any tlegree elated." Ascribing whatever he had accomplished to the effect of patient and continu- ous thought rather than to any peculiar genius with which nature had endowed him, he looked upon him- self and his labors in a very different light from that in which both he and they were regarded by mankind. "I know nut," he remarked, a short time before his death, "what I may appear to the world; but to my- self I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pelible or a prettier shell than ordinary, while the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me" (Turner, Collections relative to the Town of Grantham). 13ut while he thus contrasted the littleness of human knowledge with the extent of human ignorance, he was fully conscious of the importance of his own labors, when compared Avith those of his predecessors and contempo- raries, and evinced a natural readiness to assert and vindicate his rights whenever occasion might require. It were to be wished that, by an earlier publication of his discoveries, he had adopted the most eligible mode of establishing the undoubted priority of his claim. Such a course, by changing the current of events, woidd have left him less open to the charge of having disre- garded the claims of others, or of having suffered their reputation to be prejudiced by his silent acquiescence in the acts of his colleagues. To judge of Newton from the life of him recently published by Sir David Brew- ster, we shoidd almost infer that his moral character had suffered from no instance of human infirmity, and that every action had been dictated by feelings of be- nevolence and the love of truth. These were indeed the general motives by which he was actuated.