The year in which Galileo died, was that in which Isaac Newton was
born. This eminent individual, who was destined to establish the truth
of the discoveries of his illustrious predecessors, Copernicus and
Galileo, was born on the 25th of December 1642, at Coltersworth, in
Lincolnshire, where his father cultivated his own moderate paternal
property. After receiving the rudiments of education, under the
superintendence of his mother, he was sent, at the age of twelve, to
the grammar school at Grantham, where the bias of his early genius was
shown by a skill in mechanical contrivances, which excited no small
admiration. Whilst other boys were at play, his leisure hours were
employed in forming working models of mills and machinery; he
constructed a water-clock from an old box, which had an index moved by
a piece of wood sinking as the drops fell from the bottom, and a
regular dial-plate to indicate the hours.
On his removal from school, it was intended that he should follow the
profession of a farmer, but his utter unfitness for the laborious
toils of such a life was soon manifested. He was frequently found
reading under a tree when he should have been inspecting cattle, or
superintending laborers; and when he was sent to dispose of farming
produce at Grantham market he was occupied in solving mathematical
problems in a garret or hay-loft, whilst the business was transacted
by an old servant who had accompanied him to town. These strong
indications of the bias of his disposition were not neglected by his
anxious mother; she sent him again for a few months to school, and on
the 5th of June 1660, he was admitted a student of Trinity College,
Cambridge.
The combination of industry and talents, with an amiable disposition
and unassuming manners, naturally attracted the notice of his tutors,
and the friendship of his admiring companions; amongst these was Isaac
Barrow, afterwards justly celebrated as a preacher and a
mathematician. Saunderson’s Logic, Kepler’s Optics, and the Arithmetic
of Infinites by Wallis, were the books first studied by Newton at
Cambridge. He read the geometry of Descartes diligently, and looked
into the subject of judicial astrology, which then engaged some
attention. He read little of Euclid, and is said to have regretted, in
a subsequent part of his life, that he had not studied the old
mathematician more deeply.
The attention of Newton, while he was pursuing his studies at
Cambridge, was attracted to a branch of natural philosophy hitherto
little understood――namely, light. It was the opinion of the celebrated
philosopher Descartes that light is caused by a certain motion or
undulation of a very thin elastic medium, which he supposed pervaded
space. Newton overturned this theory. Taking a piece of glass with
angular sides, called a prism, he caused the sun to shine upon it
through a small hole in the shutter of a darkened apartment. By this
experiment he found that the light, in passing through the glass, was
so refracted or broken, as to exhibit on the wall an image of seven
different tints or colors; and after varying his experiments in a most
ingenious way, he established the very interesting facts, that light
is composed of rays resoluble into particles, that every ray of white
light consists of three primary and differently colored rays (red,
yellow, and blue), each of which three is more or less refrangible
than the other. This remarkable discovery laid the foundation of the
science of optics.
In 1665, the students of the university of Cambridge were suddenly
dispersed by the breaking out of a pestilential disorder in the place.
Newton retired for safety to his paternal estate: and though he lost
for a time the advantages of public libraries and literary
conversation, he rendered the years of his retreat a memorable era in
his own existence, and in the history of science, by another of his
great discoveries――that of the theory of gravitation, or the tendency
of bodies towards the center of our globe. One day, while sitting in
his garden, he happened to see an apple fall from a tree, and
immediately began to consider the general laws which must regulate all
falling bodies. Resuming the subject afterwards, he found that the
same cause which made the apple fall to the ground, retained the moon
and planets in their orbits, and regulated, with a simplicity and
power truly wonderful, the motions of all the heavenly bodies. In this
manner was discovered the principle of gravitation, by a knowledge of
which the science of astronomy is rendered comparatively perfect.
On his return to Cambridge in 1667, he was elected Fellow of Trinity
College; and two years afterwards, he was appointed professor of
mathematics in the place of his friend Dr. Barrow, who resigned. His
great discoveries in the science of optics formed for some time the
principal subject of his lectures, and his new theory of light and
colors was explained, with a clearness arising from perfect knowledge,
to the satisfaction of a crowded and admiring audience. He was elected
a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1671, and is reputed to have been
compelled to apply for a dispensation from the usual payment of one
shilling weekly, which is contributed by each member towards the
expenses. He had at this period of life no income except what he
derived from his college and professorship, the produce of his estate
being absorbed in supporting his mother and her family. His personal
wishes were so moderate, that he never could regret the want of money,
except as much as it limited his purchases of books and scientific
instruments, and restricted his power of relieving the distresses of
others. About the year 1683, he composed his great work, _The
Principia_, or _Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy_. In
1688, the memorable year of the Revolution, he was chosen to represent
the university in parliament, and the honor thus conferred on him was
repeated in 1701. His great merit at last attracted the notice of
those who had it in their power to bestow substantial rewards, and he
was appointed warden of the Mint, an office for which his patient and
accurate investigations singularly fitted him, and which he held with
general approbation till his death. Honors and emoluments at last
flowed upon him. Leibnitz, having felt envious of the discoveries of
Newton, tried to revenge himself by transmitting a problem, which he
thought would show his superiority, by baffling the skill of the
English mathematician. It was received by Newton in the evening, after
his usual day’s labor at the Mint, and he solved it before he retired
to rest. After this there was no further attempt made to traduce his
fame. In 1705 he received the honor of knighthood from Queen Anne.
Newton’s benevolence of disposition led him to perform all the minor
duties of social life with great exactness; he paid and received
frequent visits; he assumed no superiority in his conversation; he was
candid, cheerful, and affable: his society was therefore much sought,
and he submitted to intrusions on his valuable time without a murmur;
but by early rising, and by a methodical distribution of his hours he
found leisure to study and compose, and every moment which he could
command, he passed with a pen in his hand and a book before him. He
was generous and charitable――one of his maxims being, _that those who
gave nothing before death, never, in fact, gave at all_. His wonderful
faculties were very little impaired, even in extreme old age; and his
cheerful disposition, combined with temperance and a constitution
naturally sound, preserved him from the usual infirmities of life. He
was of middle size, with a figure inclining to plumpness; his eyes
were animated, piercing, and intelligent; the general expression of
his countenance was full of life and kindness; his sight was preserved
to the last; and his hair in the decline of his days was white as
snow. The severe trial of bodily suffering was reserved for the last
stage of his existence, and he supported it with characteristic
resignation. On the 20th of March 1727, he expired at the advanced age
of eighty-four years.
The character of Newton cannot be delineated and discussed like that
of ordinary men; it is so beautiful, that the biographer dwells upon
it with delight, and the inquiry, by what means he attained an
undisputed superiority over his fellow-creatures, must be both
interesting and useful. Newton was endowed with talents of the highest
order; but those who are less eminently gifted, may study his life
with advantage, and derive instruction from every part of his career.
With a power of intellect almost divine, he demonstrated the motions
of the planets, the orbits of the comets, and the cause of the tides
of the ocean; he investigated with complete success, the properties of
light and colors, which no man before had even suspected; he was the
diligent, sagacious, and faithful interpreter of nature, while his
researches all tended to illustrate the power, wisdom, and goodness of
the Creator. Notwithstanding, also, his reach of understanding and
knowledge, his modesty was such, that he thought nothing of his own
acquirements; and he left behind him the celebrated saying, ‘that he
appeared to himself as only a child picking up pebbles from the shore,
while the great ocean of truth lay unexplored before him.’