MORDECHAI FEINGOLD T H E M O M E N T ISAAC NEWTON AND THE MAKING OF MODERN CULTURE THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY/OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS NEW YORK OXFORD 2004 Oxford University Press Oxford New York Auckland Bangkok Buenos Aires CapeTown Chennai DaresSaiaam Delhi Hongkong Istanbui Karachi Kolkata Kuaia Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Mumbai Nairobi Published on the occasion of the exhibition Sâo Paulo Shanghai Taipei Tokyo Toronto To the memory of Frank E. Manuel (1910-2003) THE NEWTONIAN MOMENT: Copyright © 2004 by The New York Public Library, andl. Bernard Cohen (1914-2003), SCIENCE AND THE MAKING Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations CE MODERN CULTURE mentors and fellow travelers. Published in 2004 by Oxford University Press, presented at The New York Public Lihrary, New York, in association with The New York Humanities and Social Sciences Library Public Library D. Samuel and Jeane H. Gottesman The name “The New York Public Library” Exhibition Hall and the lion iogo are registered marks and October 8, 2004-February 5,2005 the property of The New York Pubiic Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations. This exhibition has been organized by Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford The New York Public Lihrary in coopération University Press. with Cambridge University Library. Générons support for this exhibition has AM rights reserved. No part of this publication been provided by The Horace W. Goldsmith may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval System, Foundation-Robert and Joyce Menschel; or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanicai, photocopying, recording, Robert and Mary Looker; Mr. and Mrs. Ira D. or otherwise, without the prior permission of Wallach; and The Dibner Fund. Oxford University Press. Support for The New York Public Library’s iSBN 0-19-517735-5 (cioth) Exhibitions Program has been provided by iSBN 0-19-517734-7 (paper) Pinewood Foundation and by Sue and Edgar Cataioging-in-Publication Data availabie from Wachenheim III. the Library of Congress Printed in China on acid-free paper Karen Van Westering Manager, NYPL Publications Anne Skillion Senior Editor Barbara Bergeron Editor <1 Kenneth Benson Editor Jennifer Woolf Photography Coordinator Interior designed by Marc Blaustein www.nypl.org www.oup.com/us FROM THE PRESIDENT PAUL LECLERC PAGE viii 1 INTRODUCTION THE APPRENTICESHIP OF GENIUS PAGE X PAGE 2 2 THE LION'S CLAWS PAGE 28 3 TRIAL BY FIRE PAGE 52 A THE VOLTAIRE EFFECT CONTENTS PAGE 94 5 NEWTONIAN WOMEN PAGE 118 6 ALL WAS LIGHT PAGE 142 NOTES PAGE 193 7 SUGGESTED READING APOTHEOSIS PAGE 207 PAGE 168 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS PAGE 209 1 * CREDITS PAGE 211 INDEX PAGE 213 l î L FROM THE PRESIDENT Exhibitions on almost any scale are really of European intellectual history, whose Fund. Support for The New York Public Institution Libraries, Washington, D.C.; and a vast exercises in coopération, engaging the association with our Library has been a long Library’s Exhibitions Program has been private collection. talents, enterprise, and good will of many and happy one. He suggested that I invite provided by Pinewood Foundation and by Our thanks to the following institutions individuals and organizations. The New York Mordechai Feingold, Professer of History Sue and Edgar Waehenheim III. for permission to reproduce in the exhibition Public Library’s exhibit on Sir Isaac Newton at the California Institute of Technology. The extraordinary variety of materials Works of art from their collections: Alte and this companion volume, TheNewtonian Tony’s suggestion was characteristically included in TheNewtonian Moment \s owing Pinakothek, Munich; Bibliothèque nationale Moment: Isaac Newton and the Making of brilliant: when H. George Fletcher, Brooke to the generosity of a substantial number de France, Paris; Civici Musei d’Arte e Storia Modem Culture, represent just such an effort. Russell Astor Director of Spécial Collections of libraries, muséums, and individuals. The di Brescia; Fitzwilliam Muséum, Cambridge; It is my pleasant task to thank many of those and the administrator of our exhibitions Cambridge University Library deserves Galleria Doria Pamphilij, Rome; Nieder- individuals who made ail of it happen, and program, and I met with Professer Feingold, spécial thanks not only for lending exceptional sàchsisches Landesmuseum, Hanover; Royal with such success. we knew instantly that he had not only the treasures but also for covering ail expenses Society of Arts, London; and Tate Britain, The inspiration to mount an exhibit at intellectual energy needed to coordinate an relative to their travel to The New York Public London. Professor Feingold has mentioned in our Library on Newton and the révolution exhibition as challenging as this one, but also Library. This exemplifies a remarkable level his own acknowledgments the contributions in worldview that his work inspired came the didactic skill necessary to bring Newton’s of interinstitutional, international coopéra­ of additional institutions to the création of vnth the news, in 2000, that the Cambridge astonishing advances in mathematics and tion and I am especially gratefiil to Peter this book. University Library had acquired the science to life for the contemporary lay Fox and the Cambridge University Trustées FinaJly, I wish to express my thanks to Macclesfield Collection of scientific papers person. His accompanying book is an original for this magnificent contribution to The the administrative, curatorial, exhibitions, and letters. Cambridge, Newton’s university, exploration of the ways in which Ne'wton’s Newtonian Moment. publications, and design stalfs of The New already possessed stunning manuscripts and thought has permeated Western culture since I am also gratefiil to the following York Public Library for ail their remarkable printed materials related to his genius and the Enlightenment. I am deeply indebted to organizations and individuals for the loan efforts on behalf of Newton. scholarship, and this latest important purchase Professer Feingold for having produced both of materials trom their collections: Adler inspired me to think about a large-scale exhibit this wonderful book and what is surely one Planétarium & Astronomy Muséum, Chicago; Paul LeClerc in New York that would showcase some of the most significant and exciting exhibits The Burndy Library, Dibner Institute for President, The New York Public Library of these irreplaceable documents, many of at The New York Public Library in a decade. the History of Science and Technology, which had been privately owned until then. I am also happy to thank ail of our gener- Cambridge, Massachusetts; Butler Library, Peter Fox, who directs the Cambridge ous donors who made this exhibit possible. Columbia University, New York; California University Libraiy with very great skill, The New York Public Library continues to be Institute of Technology Archives, Pasadena; responded most enthusiastically to my idea committed to the principle of free access to ail Cambridge University Library, England; and facilitated our initial visit to Cambridge the information it contains. That noble precept The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation; in the summer of2001 to see an extraordinary extends to our exhibitions program as well; Mr. and Mrs. Robert Gordon; Collection of sampling of Newdon’s manuscripts, as well as hence, in the absence of entrance fees, exhibits Historical Scientific Instruments, Harvard a marvelous exhibit on Newton at work that hâve to be underwritten by donors who place University, Cambridge, Massachusetts; the University Library had mounted. a high value on broad démocratie access to Houghton Library of the Harvard College Once Peter Fox had agreed to lend these knowledge. TheNewtonian Moment therefore Library, Cambridge, Massachusetts; Jewish materials to The New York Public Library, our owes its existence to the générons support of Theological Seminaryof America, New York; next task was to identify the idéal curator for The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation-Robert The Metropolitan Muséum of Art, New York; our exhibit. I tumed for advice to Anthony and Joyce Menschel; Robert and Mary Looker ; The Pierpont Morgan Library, New York; The Grafton, the distinguished Princeton historian Mr. and Mrs. Ira D. Wallach; and The Dibner New-York Historical Society; Smithsonian vm FROM THE PRESIDENT FROM THE PRESIDENT |X INTRODUCTION In 1787, on the centenary of the first édition of Isaac Newton’s Principia, the German philosopher Immanuel Kant published the second édition of his celebrated Critique ofPure Reason, with an extensive new introduction. His intent to tum metaphysics into a “science,” Kant announced, involved altering “the procedure which ha[d] hith- erto prevailed in metaphysics, by completely revolutionizing it in accordance with the example set by the geometers and physicists.” The révolution Kant had in mind was modeled on the révolution that Newton had introduced into the natural sci- enees. Like Newton, Kant considered the natural sciences to be strictly “founded on empirical principles.” So, too, his conception of the methodology and procedures proper to the practice of the natural seiences echoed Newton’s commitment to experimentalism guided by reason as the means to establish the laws of nature.’ Yet nowhere in the introduction did Kant mention Newton by name, exeept in one footnote. Quite simply, there was no need for him to do so. By 1787, the con­ ception of the natural sciences laid out by Kant would hâve been instantly identifi­ able to contemporaries as “Newtonian science.” Nor would these contemporaries hâve failed to detect in Kant’s détermination to make metaphysics a “science” yet another attempt to extrapolate the Newtonian success story to other domains. This subtext of Kant’s introduction, a hundred years after the Principia, is testimony to the enduring The foremost thinker legacy of Newton’s spectacular contributions to mathematics and natural philosophy. The discov- of the eighteenth ery of the calculus, the articulation of a radical new theory of light and eolors, and the unification century. Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) of terrestrial and celestial mechanics under a single law had set the natural sciences firmly on a new sought to transform course and, even more dramatically in terms of the human story, lifted a professor of mathematics philosophy by follow- to unprecedented heights of celebrity. Had he lived in antiquity, contemporaries had little doubt, ing the example set Joseph Wright of Derby’s “A Philosopher Giving Newton would surely hâve been deified. by mathematicians a Lecture on the Orrery” (1766) illustrâtes the Clearly, then, Newton’s influence transcended the domain of science. During a time when and physicists. Kant manner in which the scientific lecture-demon- the mathematical sciences and natural philosophy were intégral to a much broader encyclopedia of would model his stration had become a popular form of public révolution on the knowledge, the apparent success of these domains set an example of so-called superior knowledge entertainment by the middie of the eighteenth révolution that for other disciplines to emulate: the search for rational, universal principles became the modus century. Wright’s philosopher bears a marked Newton had Intro­ resemblance to Isaac Newton. - Derby Muséum vivendi for ail researchers, regardless of field. Naturally, some dissented from this summons to duced into the and Art Gallery, UK/BrIdgeman Art Library reorient knowledge, sparking heated debates over the applicability of mathematics (and physics) natural sciences. to other areas of science, as well as between the sciences and the humanities over the kind of knowl­ - NYPL-Print Collection edge most worth having. Notwithstanding these burgeoning controversies, or perhaps because of them, for friends and foes alike Newton became an icon to be emulated or rejected, revered or exco- riated - but always there to contend with. Hence, the era of Enlightenment and Révolution may be viewed as the Newtonian Moment, understood as denoting the epoch and the manner in which Newtonian thought came to permeate European culture in ail its forms.^ This volume attempts to narrate the conception and diffusion of Newton’s ideas, and the tensions and often public clashes they hâve engendered. Conceived as a companion volume to an INTRODUCTION INTRODUCTION XI Attempts to go beyond Newton and to provide more detailed accounts controversy. Subséquent éditions clarified and elaborated on certain Newtonian concepts, as In this 1720 broad- of the universe had become fashionable by the mid-eighteenth century. well as responded to criticisms. The éruption of the calculus priority dispute between Newton side, A Scheme of Among the first was Thomas Wright’s An Original Theory or New the Soiar System and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz complicated the response to the two works, prejudicing Leibniz’s Hypothesis ofthe Universe (London, 1750), in which the author announced with the Orbits of the disciples against the central tenets of Newton’s masterpieces, and causing a rift between English his intention of soiving the probiem of the Miiky Way, thereby offering Planets and Cornets, “a reguiar and rationai Theory of the known Universe.” Piate XXXi was and Continental mathematicians. Ironically, those very disciples proceeded to translate the the English natural intended to visualize “a partiai View of [the] immensity” of a universe Prindpixi into the Leibnizian form of the calculus (differential équations), thus creating the philosopher (and fuii of soiar Systems and pianetary worids. - NYPL-Spencer Coilection necessary mathematical tools for the future assimilation and advancement of Newton’s ideas. anti-Trinitarian Newton’s English disciples, for their part, began rendering the Opticks and, especially, the heretic) William Whiston grafted the Principia into the more accessible format of commentaries, aimed at those with only a modicum purported orbits of exhibition at The New York Public Library, the volume necessaxUy of mathematical background. several cornets onto ofFers but a sampling of some of the many facets that constituted the In his old âge. Newton was known to boast that he had made the Principia purposely diffi- a Newtonian scheme Newtonian “moment.” cult in order to stave off “smatterers” in mathematics. He need not hâve tried. The incomprehensi- of the soiar System. Contrary to the common perception. Newton was not the bility of the treatise, however, derived more from the theory and structure of the book than from - Courtesy of Adler Planétarium & “solitary and dejected” autodidact he is commonly perceived to hâve the need to master a newlanguage of mathematics or to assimilate the mystifying concept of action Astronomy Muséum, been. Nor was Cambridge Universiiy, where Newton lived for thirty- at a distance. Newton’s refusai to offer a mechanical cause to account for universal gravitation, or Chicago, Illinois five years (I66I-96), the bastion of scholasticism and intellectual to provide an underlying metaph5«ical framework, further stagnation it is often characterized as. In fact, Cambridge con- unsettled contemporaries. Accustomed to thinking about tributed significantly to the maturation of Newton’s genius. The natural philosophy in terms of causes and a priori reason­ universily’s well-rounded and humanistically informed curriculum ing, they bristled at Newton’s suggestion that certain proved indispensable to Newton’s grounding in the culture of érudi­ knowledge could be derived directly from the phenomena tion, and propitious to the formation of his scientific methodology of nature, and that there was no need to “feign hypothè­ and distinct style of reasoning. Cambridge also provided Newton ses.” A lengthy process of assimilation, therefore, was nec­ with access to books and like-minded colleagues - above ail, his essary before conversion to Newtonianism was possible, mentor, friend, and patron Isaac Barrow. In this sense Newton truly especially as chauvinistic overtones compounded these stood “on the shoulders of giants,” as he once wrote (albeit tongue- inhérent difliculties of compréhension: acceptance or in-cheek) to Robert Hooke. Much of Newton’s genius consisted rejection of Newtonian ideas was as likely to be made of his remarkable ability to simultaneously consume and transform any knowledge he acquired. along nationalistic Unes as on the merits of the case by Consequently, his celebrated anni mirabiles (wondrous years) back in Lincolnshire duringthe German proponents of Leibniz, or by Frenchmen who plague (1665-66) were not eut off from his Cambridge expérience, but were its natural extension. balked at the spectacle of the dethroning of Descartes by Samuel Johnson, therefore, was surely correct to conclude that Newton stood alone “merely an Englishman. because he had left the rest of mankind behind him, not because he deviated from the beaten track.” The daunting effect of the underlying mathemat­ The unveiling of Newton’s sensational miniature reflecting telescope before the Royal ics on the diffusion of Newtonian ideas was alleviated by Society of London in the closing days of 1671 catapulted Newton to European famé. Gratified by the the inventiveness of English and Dutch scientific practi­ enthusiastic réception of his “toy,” Newton agreed to publish his revolutionary theory of light and tioners in designing scientific instruments - and devising colors. The ensuing controversies over the verity of the theory, however, made Newton vow never ingénions experiments - capable of establishing to appear in print again. Only owing to the considérable scientific and diplomatie skills of Edmond Newtonian principles. “Forces” and the laws of motion Halley did Newton agréé to write, and then publish, the Principia (1687). Seventeen more years suddenly became every bit as visual (and demonstrable) as elapsed before the Opticks (1704) finally appeared. Both works generated as much excitement as the refrangibüity of white light through a prism. Thanks to XII INTRODUCTION INTRODUCTION xlÜ the efforts of these university professors, instrument makers, and itinérant lecturers, the scientific lecture-demonstration became the backbone of university instruction in the natural sciences as well as a fashionable form of public entertainment among aristocrats and members of the middle class. The popularity of science increased even more by the middle of the eighteenth century, with the hamessing of electricity and the coming into vogue of natural history. By the mid-eighteenth century, a powerful “image” of Newton had corne to inform the Enlightenment and inspire générations of philosophers and men of letters as well as mathemati- cians and natural philosophers. For the English empiricists; for the Scottish Common Sense philosophers; for the ~Fvench. philosophes, and for the various members of the so-called counter- Enlightenment, Newton was first and foremost an “emblem” of a new era. Whether they admired and sought to imitate the great Englishman or disagreed with and attacked him, the actual encounter was guided by their perception that he had provided a new point of departure for ail future probes into the three major domains of human inquiry: man, nature, and God. Emulation naturally led to apotheosis. Edmond Halley initiated the process in a poem he contributed to the first édition of the Principia, the final line of which decrees : “no doser to the gods can any mortal rise.” For the next 150 years, admiration of Newton bordered on idolization; he was immortalized in verse, carved in stone, his bust prominent in the “temples of worthies” that proliferated in aristocratie gardens of the eighteenth century. It was a common practice to hang the portrait of the great Englishman in the study of a scientist or a man of letters, thereby paying homage - and perhaps boping for inspiration. Another way to indicate an intellectual link was to include a bust of Newton in a commissioned portrait, or at the very least inscribe his name on the spine of a book depicted in the background. Not a few artists sanctified Newton’s genius or his contribution to science in their paintings, while shrewd entrepreneurs appropriated his name or portrait to adom their firm’s logo. With time, the historical Newton receded into the background, overshadowed by the very legacy he helped create. Newton thus metamorphosed into science personified. William Blake’s highiy ambiguous stance toward Newton - whom he recognized to be a towering genius even as he excoriated the influence of his pernicious “single vision” on both religion and literature - is vividiy captured in Blake’s “Newton,” from 1795. A very handsome (though contorted) Newton is depicted seated on a rock, underneath the “sea of time and space” representing materialism, busy drawing geometrical figures with his compassés. And yet, the loathsome abstract designs are written on a scroll, which signifies creativity. Here and eisewhere for Blake, Newton is the misguided genius whose mechanical universe left no room for the imagination or for God, but who would ultimately find his prominent place in heaven. - © Tate, London 2004 XIV INTRODUCTION INTRODUCTION XV THE A P P R E N / r i C E S H I P GENI US Isaac Newton took three days to traverse the roughly sixty miles separating his family’s manor house in Woolsthorpe, Lincolnshire, and Cambridge University. He arrived there on the evening of June 4, 1661, and presented himself the following day to the dean of Trinily College. After entering his name in the College’s admissions book, Newton was assigned a tutor - Benjamin Pnlleyn, a respected classicist who would become Regius Professer of Greek in 1674 - and directed to his chamber. Bom in the early hours of Christmas Day 1642, Newton was eighteen-and-a-half years old that summer, somewhat older than most incoming undergraduates - a reflection of his twice-widowed mother’s réluc­ tance to make her son a scholar instead of a helpmate in managing the family estate. Indeed, Hannah Newton pulled her son ont of grammar school early; she eventually relented, owing largely to the persistence of his schoolmaster, Henry Stokes, who recognized his charge’s budding genius and “never ceased remonstrat- ing to his mother what a loss it was to the world, as well as a vain attempt, to bury so extraordinary a talent in rustic business.” The youth retumed to Grantham School, THE APPRENTICESHIP OF GENIUS where he lodged with Stokes and prepared with the restoration of the Stuart monarchy. stme the few anecdotes that hâve survived had been assigned a “very disagreeable” room- himself for higher éducation. Trinity College, in particular, by virtue of from that period of Newton’s life. For example. mate; one day, walking in the college garden The intellectual and psychologicaJ dis­ its size, its high proportion of upper-class Newton was admitted to Trinity as a subsizar, in order to avoid him, he encountered Newton, tance between the world of Newton’s youth students, and the intellectual stature of its the lowliest of college ranks, usually reserved “solitary and dejected” for precisely the same and the world of Cambridge was immeasur- members, past and présent, helped set the for poor students expected to serve their social reason. The two then “agreed to shake off ably greater than any geographical distance. universily’s academie and social tone. betters in retum for tuition and board. That their présent disorderly Companions and The rusticily and provincialism of the Lincoln- 'IVaditionally, it has been taken for granted Newton entered college under such condi­ Chum together.” Such an account of an expéri­ shire countryside contrasted sharply with that Newton was ill-suited - intellectually as tions, however, was notbecause his mother ence familiar to counüess undergraduates the cosmopolitanism and inteUectual sophisti­ well as temperamentally - for such an urbane was impecunious; she was in fact fairly pros­ past and présent hardly warrants the portrayal cation that quickly overtook Cambridge after environment. To make such an assumption, pérons. She was simply loath to throw away of Newton as a student in a perpétuai State of 1660, when nearly two décades of Puritan however, is to misunderstand the nature of good money on status, especially since Newton “isolation and ahenation.” Equally unwarrant- austerily and religions zeal came to an end the early modem university and to miscon- was expected to be attached to the mostly ed is the extrapolation from the recollections absentee fellow (and family friend) Humphrey of an amanuensis - that Newton “always kept Babington and thus be released from the onus close to his studys,” rarely received visitors, Trinity College, of menial tasks associated with the subsizar never took “any Récréation or Pastime,” often where Newton status. Certainly, the surviving records make forgot his meals, and was careless in his attire enrolled in 1661, clear that Newton’s finances were healthy - that such patterns characterized Newton’s is shown at center right on this map enough to allow him not only modest indul­ thirty-five-year career at Cambridge. The of Cambridge gence in conspicuous consumption, but also amanuensis, Humphrey Newton (no relation), University, from the resources to become an enterprising served his namesake from 1685 to I690, when Cantabrigia iUustrata moneylender among Trinity undergraduates. Isaac was involved first in writing the Principia by David Loggan Newton’s motivation in such activily, it might and, immediately thereafter, in leading the (Cambridge, 1690). be added, was not necessarily monetary profit; university in opposing the Catholic policies - NYPL-Print Collection he seems never to hâve charged interest. of James IL The mental and emotional strain The enticement was the means it offered to of composing his masterpiece in less than position himself among - or above - the more two years, and then turning to a holy war affluent undergraduates. against his monarch, is hardly the proper Just as Newton never assumed the life yardstick against which to déterminé New­ of servitude often attributed to him, so, too, ton’s sociability.1 his common depiction as an outcast ignores A perception that Newton was not a a more nuanced reality. Newton may not reclus^ and that his relations with peers and hâve been a socialité, and he certainly could teachers were not necessarily different in kind immerse himself in hard work virtually to from those of other students is crucial if we the point of abandon; but neither was he a are to make an équitable assessment of Cam- recluse. An anecdote detailing how he and bridge’s contribution to his genius. For most John Wickins became chamber fellows in commentators, such a contribution has been mid-1663 is a case in point. As the latter’s viewed, if at ail, in négative terms: Newton the son recounted some sixty years later, Wickins undergraduate embraced alienation to flower THE APPRENTICESHIP OF GENIUS 4 THE NEWTONIAN MOMENT