Sir Isaac Newton, the greatest of natural philosophers, was born at
Woolsthorpe, in Lincolnshire, December 25, 1642, old style. At his birth
he was so small and weak that his life was despaired of. On the death of
his father, which took place while he was yet an infant, the manor of
Woolsthorpe became his heritage. His mother sent him, at an early age,
to the village school, and in his twelfth year, to the seminary of
Grantham.
While here he displayed a decided taste for mechanical and philosophical
inventions; and avoiding the society of other children, provided himself
with a collection of saws, hammers, and other instruments, with which he
constructed models of many kinds of machinery. He also made
hour-glasses, acting by the descent of water. A new windmill, of a
peculiar construction, having been erected in the town, he studied it
until he succeeded in imitating it, and placed a mouse inside, which he
called the miller.
Some knowledge of drawing being necessary in these operations, he
applied himself, without a master, to the study; and the walls of his
room were covered with all sorts of designs. After a short period,
however, his mother took him home, for the purpose of employing him on
the farm and about the affairs of the house. She sent him several times
to market, at Grantham, with the produce of the farm. A trusty servant
was sent with him, and the young philosopher left him to manage the
business, while he himself employed his time in reading. A sundial,
which he constructed on the wall of the house at Woolsthorpe, is still
shown. His irresistible passion for study and science finally induced
his mother to send him back to Grantham. Here he continued for a time,
and was entered at Trinity College, Cambridge, 1660.
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At the latter place he studied mathematics with the utmost assiduity. In
1667, he obtained a fellowship; in 1669, the mathematical professorship;
and in 1671, he became a member of the Royal Society. It was during his
abode at Cambridge that he made his three great discoveries, of
fluxions, the nature of light and colors, and the laws of gravitation.
To the latter of these his attention was first turned by his seeing an
apple fall from a tree. The Principia, which unfolded to the world the
theory of the universe, was not published till 1687. 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
1696; he was made master of it in 1699; was chosen president of the
Royal Society in 1703; and was knighted in 1705. He died March 20,
1727.
His "Observations on the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse"
appeared in 1733, in quarto. "It is astonishing," says Dr. Hutton, "what
care and industry Newton employed about the papers relating to
chronology, church history, &c.; as, on examining them, it appears that
many are copies over and over again, often with little or no variation."
All the works of this eminent philosopher were published by Dr. Samuel
Horsley, in 1779, in five volumes, quarto; and an English translation of
his "Philosophae Naturalis Principia Mathematicae," is extant.
The character of this great man has been thus drawn by Mr. Hume, in his
history of England. "In Newton, Britain may boast of having produced the
greatest and rarest genius that ever rose for the ornament and
instruction of the human species. Cautious in admitting no principles
but such as were founded on experiment, but resolute to adopt every such
principle, however new or unusual; from modesty, ignorant of his
superiority over the rest of mankind, and thence less careful to
accommodate such reasonings to common apprehensions; more anxious to
merit than acquire fame:--he was from these causes long unknown to the
world; but his reputation at last broke out with a lustre, which
scarcely any writer, during his own lifetime, had ever before attained.
While Newton seemed to draw off the veil from some of the mysteries of
nature, he showed at the same time some of the imperfections of the
mechanical philosophy; and thereby restored her ultimate secrets to that
obscurity in which they ever did and ever will remain."
The remains of Sir Isaac Newton were interred in Westminster Abbey,
where a magnificent monument is erected to his memory, with a Latin
inscription, concluding thus:--"Let mortals congratulate themselves that
so great an ornament of human nature has existed." His character is
shown, by Dr. Brewster, to have been that of the humble and sincere
Christian. Of nature, antiquity, and the Holy Scriptures, he was a
diligent, sagacious, and faithful interpreter. He maintained by his
philosophy the dignity of the Supreme Being, and in his manners he
exhibited the simplicity of the Gospel. "I seem to myself," he said, "to
be like a child, picking up a shell here and there on the shore of the
great ocean of truth." He would hardly admit that he had a genius above
other men, but attributed his discoveries to the intentness with which
he applied to the study of philosophy. We cannot better close our notice
of this great man, than in the words of Pope:
"Nature and nature's laws lay hid in night--
God said, 'let Newton be'--and all was light!"
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