Foreword

Summary

I have endeavoured here to write an account of the greatest mind in British history. If any names of Englishmen survive into the remote future, those of Shakespeare and Newton will surely be among them. The latter was above all things a mathematician and a natural philosopher, but he also gave deep scholarship and profound thought to ancient history, especially to the early history of Christianity, the unravelling of sacred prophecy and even to monetary theory and practice. On all these topics he left vast accumulations of manuscript material.

In this book attention is chiefly directed to Newton the mathematician and philosopher. As such he worked his great transformation in human thought. Even so, a volume of modest size permits no very technical treatment of his researches in mathematics and mechanics, and in experimental optics. For such treatment the reader may turn to D. T. Whiteside's epoch-making edition of Newton's Mathematical Papers, the parallel volumes of Optical Papers (in progress) edited by Alan E. Shapiro, and very many specialist studies by these and other scholars. As for Newton's daily life and personal pursuits, for all the huge amount of material by and concerning Newton now accessible to us, these are shadowy at all periods of his life. I have not tried to emulate here Frank E. Manuel's psychological analysis of Newton in terms of theories whose validity seems to be doubtful. In general, I believe it imprudent to try to interpret Newton's life and writings in terms of single factors, whether these be his infantile experiences, his reading of the strange books of the alchemists, his faith in God or even his confidence in number and measure.