Another mathematical treatise of Newton’s was published for the first time in 1779, in Dr. Horsley’s edition of his works.60It is entitled,Artis Analyticæ Specimina, vel Geometria Analytica. In editing this work, which occupies about 130 quarto pages, Dr. Horsley used three manuscripts, one of which was in the handwriting of the author; another, written in an unknown hand, was given by Mr. William Jones to the Honourable Charles Cavendish; and a third, copied from this by Mr. James Wilson, the editor of Robins’s works, was given to Dr. Horsley by Mr. John Nourse, bookseller to the king. Dr. Horsley has divided it into twelve chapters, which treat of infinite series; of the reduction of affected equations; of the specious resolution of equations; of the doctrine of fluxions; of maxima and minima; of drawing tangents to curves; of the radius of curvature; of the quadrature of curves; of the area of curves which are comparable with the conic sections; of the construction of mechanical problems, and on finding the lengths of curves.
In enumerating the mathematical works of our author, we must not overlook his solutions of the celebrated problems proposed by Bernouilli and Leibnitz. On the Kalends of January, 1697, John Bernouilli addressed a letter to the most distinguished mathematicians in Europe,61challenging them to solve the two following problems:
1. To determine the curve line connecting two given points which are at different distances from the horizon, and not in the same vertical line, along which a body passing by its own gravity, and beginning to move at the upper point, shall descend to the lower point in the shortest time possible.
2. To find a curve line of this property that the two segments of a right line drawn from a given point through the curve, being raised to any given power, and taken together, may make every where the same sum.
On the day after he received these problems, Newton addressed to Mr. Charles Montague, the President of the Royal Society, a solution of them both. He announced that the curve required in the first problem must be a cycloid, and he gave a method of determining it. He solved also the second problem, and he showed that by the same method other curves might be found which shall cut off three or more segments having the like properties. Leibnitz, who was struck with the beauty of the problem, requested Bernouilli, who had allowed six months for its solution, to extend the period to twelve months. This delay was readily granted, solutions were obtained from Newton, Leibnitz, and the Marquis de L’Hopital; and although that of Newton was anonymous, yet Bernouilli recognised in it his powerful mind, “tanquam,” says he, “ex ungue leonem,” as the lion is known by his claw.
The last mathematical effort of our author wasmade with his usual success, in solving a problem which Leibnitz proposed in 1716, in a letter to the Abbé Conti, “for the purpose, as he expressed it, of feeling the pulse of the English analysts.” The object of this problem was to determine the curve which should cut at right angles an infinity of curves of a given nature, but expressible by the same equation. Newton received this problem about five o’clock in the afternoon, as he was returning from the Mint; and though the problem was extremely difficult, and he himself much fatigued with business, yet he finished the solution of it before he went to bed.
Such is a brief account of the mathematical writings of Sir Isaac Newton, not one of which were voluntarily communicated to the world by himself. The publication of his Universal Arithmetic is said to have been a breach of confidence on the part of Whiston; and, however this may be, it was an unfinished work, never designed for the public. The publication of his Quadrature of Curves, and of his Enumeration of Curve Lines, was rendered necessary, in consequence of plagiarisms from the manuscripts of them which he had lent to his friends, and the rest of his analytical writings did not appear till after his death. It is not easy to penetrate into the motives by which this great man was on these occasions actuated. If his object was to keep possession of his discoveries till he had brought them to a higher degree of perfection, we may approve of the propriety, though we cannot admire the prudence of such a step. If he wished to retain to himself his own methods, in order that he alone might have the advantage of them in prosecuting his physical inquiries, we cannot reconcile so selfish a measure with that openness and generosity of character which marked the whole of his life. If he withheld his labours from the world in order to avoid the disputes and contentions to which they might give rise,he adopted the very worst method of securing his tranquillity. That this was the leading motive under which he acted, there is little reason to doubt. The early delay in the publication of his method of fluxions, after the breaking out of the plague at Cambridge, was probably owing to his not having completed the algorithm of that calculus; but no apology can be made for the imprudence of withholding it any longer from the public. Had he published this noble discovery even previous to 1673, when his great rival had not even entered upon those studies which led him to the same method, he would have secured to himself the undivided honour of the invention, and Leibnitz could have aspired to no other fame but that of an improver of the doctrine of fluxions. But he unfortunately acted otherwise. He announced to his friends that he possessed a method of great generality and power; he communicated to them a general account of its principles and applications; and the information which was thus conveyed directed the attention of mathematicians to subjects to which they might not have otherwise applied their powers. In this way the discoveries which he had previously made were made subsequently by others; and Leibnitz, in place of appearing in the theatre of science as the disciple and the follower of Newton, stood forth with all the dignity of a rival; and, by the early publication of his discoveries had nearly placed himself on the throne which Newton was destined to ascend.
It would be inconsistent with the popular nature of a work like this, to enter into a detailed history of the dispute between Newton and Leibnitz respecting the invention of fluxions. A brief and general account of it, however, is indispensable.
In the beginning of 1673, Leibnitz came to London in the suite of the Duke of Hanover, and he became acquainted with the great men who then adorned the capital of England. Among these was Oldenburg,a countryman of his own, who was then secretary to the Royal Society. About the beginning of March, in the same year, Leibnitz went to Paris, where, with the assistance of Huygens, he devoted himself to the study of the higher geometry. In the month of July he renewed his correspondence with Oldenburg, and he communicated to him some of the discoveries which he had made relative to series, particularly the series for a circular arc in terms of the tangent. Oldenburg informed him in return of the discoveries on series which had been made by Newton and Gregory; and in 1676 Newton communicated to him, through Oldenburg, a letter of fifteen closely printed quarto pages, containing many of his analytical discoveries, and stating that he possessed a general method of drawing tangents, which he thought it necessary to conceal in two sentences of transposed characters. In this letter neither the method of fluxions nor any of its principles are communicated; but the superiority of the method over all others is so fully described, that Leibnitz could scarcely fail to discover that Newton possessed that secret of which geometers had so long been in quest.
Had Leibnitz at the time of receiving this letter been entirely ignorant of his own differential method, the information thus conveyed to him by Newton could not fail to stimulate his curiosity, and excite his mightiest efforts to obtain possession of so great a secret. That this new method was intimately connected with the subject of series was clearly indicated by Newton; and as Leibnitz was deeply versed in this branch of analysis, it is far from improbable that a mind of such strength and acuteness might attain his object by direct investigation. That this was the case may be inferred from his letter to Oldenburg (to be communicated to Newton) of the 21st June, 1677, where he mentions that he had for some time been in possession of a method of drawingtangents more general than that of Slusius, namely, by the differences of ordinates. He then proceeds with the utmost frankness to explain this method, which was no other than the differential calculus. He describes the algorithm which he had adopted, the formation of differential equations, and the application of the calculus to various geometrical and analytical questions. No answer seems to have been returned to this letter either by Newton or Oldenburg, and, with the exception of a short letter from Leibnitz to Oldenburg, dated 12th July, 1677, no further correspondence seems to have taken place. This, no doubt, arose from the death of Oldenburg in the month of August, 1677,62when the two rival geometers pursued their researches with all the ardour which the greatness of the subject was so well calculated to inspire.
In the hands of Leibnitz the differential calculus made rapid progress. In theActa Eruditorum, which was published at Leipsic in November, 1684, he gave the first account of it, describing its algorithm in the same manner as he had done in his letter to Oldenburg, and pointing out its application to the drawing of tangents, and the determination of maxima and minima. He makes a remote reference to thesimilarcalculus of Newton, but lays no claim to the sole invention of the differential method. In the same work for June, 1686, he resumes the subject; and when Newton had not published a single word uponfluxions, and had not even made known his notation, the differential calculus was making rapid advances on the Continent, and in the hands of James and John Bernouilli had proved the means of solving some of the most important and difficult problems.
The silence of Newton was at last broken, and in the second lemma of the second book of the Principia, he explained the fundamental principle of the fluxionary calculus. His explanation, which occupied only three pages, was terminated with the following scholium:—“In a correspondence which took place about ten years ago between that very skilful geometer, G. G. Leibnitz, and myself, I announced to him that I possessed a method of determining maxima and minima, of drawing tangents, and of performing similar operations which was equally applicable to rational and irrational quantities, and concealed the same in transposed letters involving this sentence, (data equatione quotcunque fluentes quantitates involvente, fluxiones invenire et vice versa). This illustrious man replied that he also had fallen on a method of the same kind, and he communicated to me his method which scarcely differed from mine except in the notation [and in the idea of the generation of quantities.”]63This celebrated scholium, which is so often referred to in the present controversy, has, in our opinion, been much misapprehended. While M. Biot considers it as “eternalizing the rights of Leibnitz by recognising them in the Principia,” Professor Playfair regards it as containing “a highly favourable opinion on the subject of the discoveries of Leibnitz.” To us it appears to be nothing more than the simple statement of the fact, that the method communicated by Leibnitz was nearly the same as his own; and this much he might have said, whether he believed that Leibnitz had seen the fluxionary calculus among thepapers of Collins, or was the independent inventor of his own. It is more than probable, indeed, that when Newton wrote this scholium he regarded Leibnitz as a second inventor; but when he found that Leibnitz and his friends had showed a willingness to believe, and had even ventured to throw out the suspicion, that he himself had borrowed the doctrine of fluxions from the differential calculus, he seems to have altered the opinion which he had formed of his rival, and to have been willing in his turn to retort the charge.
This change of opinion was brought about by a series of circumstances over which he had no control. M. Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, a Swiss mathematician, resident in London, communicated to the Royal Society, in 1699, a paper on the line of quickest descent, which contains the following observations:—“Compelled by the evidence of facts, I hold Newton to have been the first inventor of this calculus, and the earliest by several years; and whether Leibnitz, thesecond inventor, has borrowed any thing from the other, I would prefer to my own judgment that of those who have seen the letters and other copies of the same manuscripts of Newton.” This imprudent remark, which by no means amounts to a charge of plagiarism, for Leibnitz is actually designated thesecond inventor, may be considered as showing that the English mathematicians had been cherishing suspicions unfavourable to Leibnitz, and there can be no doubt that a feeling had long prevailed that this mathematician either had, or might have seen, among the papers of Collins, the “Analysis per Equationes, &c.,” which contained the principles of the fluxionary method. Leibnitz replied to the remark of Duillier with much good feeling. He appealed to the facts as exhibited in his correspondence with Oldenburg; he referred to Newton’s scholium as a testimony in his favour; and, without disputing or acknowledging the priority of Newton’sclaim, he asserted his own right to the invention of the differential calculus. Fatio transmitted a reply to the Leipsic Acts; but the editor refused to insert it. The dispute, therefore, terminated, and the feelings of the contending parties continued for some time in a state of repose, though ready to break out on the slightest provocation.
When Newton’s Optics appeared in 1704, accompanied by his Treatise on the Quadrature of Curves, and his enumeration of lines of the third order, the editor of the Leipsic Acts (whom Newton supposed to be Leibnitz himself) took occasion to review the first of these tracts. After giving an imperfect analysis of its contents, he compared the method of fluxions with the differential calculus, and, in a sentence of some ambiguity, he states that Newton employed fluxions in place of the differences of Leibnitz, and made use of them in his Principia in the same manner as Honoratus Fabri, in his Synopsis of Geometry, had substituted progressive motion in place of the indivisibles of Cavaleri.64As Fabri, therefore, was not the inventor of the method which is here referred to, but borrowed it from Cavaleri, and only changed the mode of its expression, there can be no doubt that the artful insinuation contained in the above passage was intended to convey the impression that Newton hadstolenhis method of fluxions from Leibnitz. The indirect character of this attack, in place of mitigating its severity, renders it doubly odious; and we are persuaded that no candid reader can peruse the passage without a strong conviction that it justifies, in the fullest manner,the indignant feelings which it excited among the English philosophers. If Leibnitz was the author of the review, or if he was in any way a party to it, he merited the full measure of rebuke which was dealt out to him by the friends of Newton, and deserved those severe reprisals which doubtless imbittered the rest of his days. He who dared to accuse a man like Newton, or indeed any man holding a fair character in society, with the odious crime of plagiarism, placed himself without the pale of the ordinary courtesies of life, and deserved to have the same charge thrown back upon himself. The man who conceives his fellow to be capable of such intellectual felony, avows the possibility of himself committing it, and almost substantiates the weakest evidence of the worst accusers.
Dr. Keill, as the representative of Newton’s friends, could not brook this base attack upon his countryman. In a letter printed in the Philosophical Transactions for 1708, he maintained that Newton was “beyond all doubt” the first inventor of fluxions. He referred for a direct proof of this to his letters published by Wallis; and he asserted “that the same calculus was afterward published by Leibnitz, the name and the mode of notation being changed.” If the reader is disposed to consider this passage as retorting the charge of plagiarism upon Leibnitz, he will readily admit that the mode of its expression is neither so coarse nor so insidious as that which is used by the writer in the Leipsic Acts. In a letter to Hans Sloane, dated March, 1711, Leibnitz complained to the Royal Society of the treatment he had received. He expressed his conviction that Keill had erred more from rashness of judgment than from any improper motive, and that he did not regard the accusation as a calumny; and he requested that the society would oblige Mr. Keill to disown publicly the injurious sense which his words might bear. When this letter was read to thesociety, Keill justified himself to Sir Isaac Newton and the other members by showing them the obnoxious review of the Quadrature of Curves in the Leipsic Acts. They all agreed in attaching the same injurious meaning to the passage which we formerly quoted, and authorized Keill to explain and defend his statement. He accordingly addressed a letter to Sir Hans Sloane, which was read at the society on the 24th May, 1711, and a copy of which was ordered to be sent to Leibnitz. In this letter, which is one of considerable length, he declares that he never meant to state that Leibnitz knew either the name of Newton’s method or the form of notation, and that the real meaning of the passage was, “that Newton was the first inventor of fluxions or of the differential calculus, and that he had given, in two letters to Oldenburg, and which he had transmitted to Leibnitz, indications of it sufficiently intelligible to an acute mind, from which Leibnitz derived, or at least might derive, the principles of his calculus.”
The charge of plagiarism which Leibnitz thought was implied in the former letter of his antagonist is here greatly modified, if not altogether denied. Keill expresses only anopinionthat the letterseenby Leibnitz contained intelligible indications of the fluxionary calculus. Even if this opinion were correct, it is no proof that Leibnitz either saw these indications or availed himself of them, or if he did perceive them, it might have been in consequence of his having previously been in possession of the differential calculus, or having enjoyed some distant view of it. Leibnitz should, therefore, have allowed the dispute to terminate here; for no ingenuity on his part, and no additional facts, could affect an opinion which any other person as well as Keill was entitled to maintain.
Leibnitz, however, took a different view of the subject, and wrote a letter to Sir Hans Sloane, dated December 19, 1711, which excited new feelings,and involved him in new embarrassments. Insensible to the mitigation which had been kindly impressed upon the supposed charge against his honour, he alleges that Keill had attacked his candour and sincerity more openly than before;—that he acted without any authority from Sir Isaac Newton, who was the party interested;—and that it was in vain to justify his proceedings by referring to the provocation in the Leipsic Acts, because in that journalno injustice had been done to any party, but every one had received what was his due. He branded Keill with the odious appellation of an upstart, and one little acquainted with the circumstances of the case;65he called upon the society to silence his vain and unjust clamours,66which, he believed, were disapproved by Newton himself, who was well acquainted with the facts, and who, he was persuaded, would willingly give his opinion on the matter.
This unfortunate letter was doubtless the cause of all the rancour and controversy which so speedily followed, and it placed his antagonist in a new and a more favourable position. It may be correct, though few will admit it, that Keill’s second letter was more injurious than the first; but it was not true that Keill acted without the authority of Newton, because Keill’s letter was approved of and transmitted by the Royal Society, of which Newton was the president, and therefore became the act of that body. The obnoxious part, however, of Leibnitz’s letter consisted in his appropriating to himself the opinions of the reviewer in the Leipsic Acts, by declaring that, in a review which charged Newton with plagiarism, every person had got what was his due. The whole character of the controversy was now changed: Leibnitz places himself in theposition of the party who had first disturbed the tranquillity of science by maligning its most distinguished ornament; and the Royal Society was imperiously called upon to throw all the light they could upon a transaction which had exposed their venerable president to so false a charge. The society, too, had become a party to the question, by their approbation and transmission of Keill’s second letter, and were on that account alone bound to vindicate the step which they had taken.
When the letter of Leibnitz, therefore, was read, Keill appealed to the registers of the society for the proofs of what he had advanced; Sir Isaac also expressed his displeasure at the obnoxious passage in the Leipsic Review, and at the defence of it by Leibnitz, and he left it to the society to act as they thought proper. A committee was therefore appointed on the 11th March, consisting of Dr. Arbuthnot, Mr. Hill, Dr. Halley, Mr. Jones, Mr. Machin, and Mr. Burnet, who were instructed to examine the ancient registers of the society, to inquire into the dispute, and to produce such documents as they should find, together with their own opinions on the subject. On the 24th April the committee produced the following report:—
“We have consulted the letters and letter-books in the custody of the Royal Society, and those found among the papers of Mr. John Collins, dated between the years 1669 and 1677, inclusive; and showed them to such as knew and avouched the hands of Mr. Barrow, Mr. Collins, Mr. Oldenburg, and Mr. Leibnitz; and compared those of Mr. Gregory with one another, and with copies of some of them taken in the hand of Mr. Collins; and have extracted from them what relates to the matter referred to us; all which extracts herewith delivered to you we believe to be genuine and authentic. And by these letters and papers we find,—
“I. Mr. Leibnitz was in London in the beginningof the year 1673; and went thence, in or about March, to Paris, where he kept a correspondence with Mr. Collins by means of Mr. Oldenburg, till about September, 1676, and then returned by London and Amsterdam to Hanover: and that Mr. Collins was very free in communicating to able mathematicians what he had received from Mr. Newton and Mr. Gregory.
“II. That when Mr. Leibnitz was the first time in London, he contended for the invention of another differential method properly so called; and, notwithstanding that he was shown by Dr. Pell that it was Newton’s method, persisted in maintaining it to be his own invention, by reason that he had found it by himself without knowing what Newton had done before, and had much improved it. And we find no mention of his having any other differential method than Newton’s before his letter of the 21st of June, 1677, which was a year after a copy of Mr. Newton’s letter of the 10th of December, 1672, had been sent to Paris to be communicated to him; and above four years after, Mr. Collins began to communicate that letter to his correspondent; in which letter the method of fluxions was sufficiently described to any intelligent person.
“III. That by Mr. Newton’s letter of the 13th of June, 1676, it appears that he had the method of fluxions above five years before the writing of that letter. And by his Analysis per Æquationes numero Terminorum Infinitas, communicated by Dr. Barrow to Mr. Collins in July, 1669, we find that he had invented the method before that time.
“IV. That the differential method is one and the same with the method of fluxions, excepting the name and mode of notation; Mr. Leibnitz calling those quantities differences which Mr. Newton calls moments or fluxions; and marking them with the letterd—a mark not used by Mr. Newton.
“And therefore we take the proper question to benot who invented this or that method, but who was the first inventor of the method. And we believe that those who have reputed Mr. Leibnitz the first inventor knew little or nothing of his correspondence with Mr. Collins and Mr. Oldenburg long before, nor of Mr. Newton’s having that method above fifteen years before Mr. Leibnitz began to publish it in the Acta Eruditorum of Leipsic.
“For which reason we reckon Mr. Newton the first inventor; and are of opinion that Mr. Keill, in asserting the same, has been no ways injurious to Mr. Leibnitz. And we submit to the judgment of the society whether the extract and papers now presented to you, together with what is extant to the same purpose in Dr. Wallis’s third volume, may not deserve to be made public.”
This report being read, the society unanimously ordered the collection of letters and manuscripts to be printed, and appointed Dr. Halley, Mr. Jones, and Mr. Machin to superintend the press. Complete copies of it, under the title ofCommercium Epistolicum D. Johannis Collins et aliorum de analysi promota, were laid before the society on the 8th January, 1713, and Sir Isaac Newton, as president, ordered a copy to be delivered to each person of the committee appointed for that purpose, to examine it before its publication.
Leibnitz received information of the appearance of the Commercium Epistolicum when he was at Vienna; and “being satisfied,” as he expresses it, “that it must containmalicious falsehoods, I did not think proper to send for it by post, but wrote to M. Bernouilli to give me his sentiments. M. Bernouilli wrote me a letter dated at Basle, June 7th, 1713, in which he saidthat it appeared probable that Sir Isaac Newton had formed his calculus after having seen mine.”67This letter was published by a friend ofLeibnitz, with reflections, in a loose sheet entitledCharta Volans, and dated July 29, 1713. It was widely circulated without either the name of the author, printer, or place of publication, and was communicated to theJournal Literaireby another friend of Leibnitz, who added remarks of his own, and stated, that when Newton published the Principia in 1687,he did not understand the true differential method; and that he took his fluxions from Leibnitz.
In this state of the controversy, Mr. Chamberlayne conceived the design of reconciling the two distinguished philosophers; and in a letter dated April 28, 1714,68he addressed himself to Leibnitz, who was still at Vienna. In replying to this letter, Leibnitz declared that he had given no occasion for the dispute; “that Newton procured a book to be published, which was written purposely to discredit him, and sent it to Germany, &c. as in the name of the society;” and he statedthat there was room to doubt whether Newton knew his invention before he had it of him. Mr. Chamberlayne communicated this letter to Sir Isaac Newton, who replied that Leibnitz had attacked his reputation in 1705, by intimating that he had borrowed from him the method of fluxions; that if Mr. C. could point out to him any thing in which he had injured Mr. Leibnitz, he would give him satisfaction; that he would not retract things which he knew to be true; and that he believed that the Royal Society had done no injustice by the publication of the Commercium Epistolicum.
The Royal Society, having learned that Leibnitz complained of their having condemned him unheard, inserted a declaration in their journals on the 20th May, 1714, that they did not pretend that the report of their committee should pass for a decision of the society. Mr. Chamberlayne sent a copy of this to Leibnitz, along with Sir Isaac’s letter, and Dr. Keill’sanswer to the papers inserted in the Journal Literaire. After perusing these documents, M. Leibnitz replied, “that Sir Isaac’s letter was written with very little civility; that he was not in a humour to put himself in a passion against such people; that there were other letters among those of Oldenburg and Collins which should have been published; and that on his return to Hanover, he would be able to publish a Commercium Epistolicum which would be of service to the history of learning.” When this letter was read to the Royal Society, Sir Isaac remarked, that the last part of it injuriously accused the society of having made a partial selection of papers for the Commercium Epistolicum; that he did not interfere in any way in the publication of that work, and had even withheld from the committee two letters, one from Leibnitz in 1693, and another from Wallis in 1695, which were highly favourable to his cause. He stated that he did not think it right for M. Leibnitz himself, but that, if he had letters to produce in his favour, that they might be published in the Philosophical Transactions, or in Germany.
About this time the Abbé Conti, a noble Venetian, came to England. He was a correspondent of Leibnitz, and in a letter which he had received soon after his arrival,69he enters upon his dispute with Newton. He charges the English “with wishing to pass for almost the only inventors.” He declares “that Bernouilli had judged rightly in saying that Newton did not possess before him the infinitesimal characteristic and algorithm.” He remarks that Newton preceded him only in series; and he confesses that during his second visit to England, “Collins showed him part of his correspondence,” or, as he afterward expresses it, he saw “some of the letters of Newton at Mr. Collins’s.” He then attacksSir Isaac’s philosophy, particularly his opinions about gravity and vacuum, the intervention of God for the preservation of his creatures; and he accuses him of reviving the occult qualities of the schools. But the most remarkable passage in this letter is the following: “I am a great friend of experimental philosophy, but Newton deviates much from itwhen he pretends that all matter is heavy, or that each particle of matter attracts every other particle.”
The above letter to the Abbé Conti was generally shown in London, and came to be much talked of at court, in consequence of Leibnitz having been privy counsellor to the Elector of Hanover when that prince ascended the throne of England. Many persons of distinction, and particularly the Abbé Conti, urged Newton to reply to Leibnitz’s letter, but he resisted all their solicitations. One day, however, King George I. inquired when Sir Isaac Newton’s answer to Leibnitz would appear; and when Sir Isaac heard this, he addressed a long reply to the Abbé Conti, dated February 26th, O. S. 1715–16. This letter, written with dignified severity, is a triumphant refutation of the allegations of his adversary; and the following passage deserves to be quoted, as connected with that branch of the dispute which relates to Leibnitz’s having seen part of Newton’s letters to Mr. Collins. “He complains of the committee of the Royal Society, as if they had acted partially in omitting what made against me; but he fails in proving the accusation. For he instances in a paragraph concerning my ignorance, pretending that they omitted it, and yet you will find it in the Commercium Epistolicum, p. 547, lines 2, 3, and I am not ashamed of it. He saith that he saw this paragraph in the hands of Mr. Collins when he was in London the second time, that is in October, 1676. It is in my letter of the 24th of October, 1676, and therefore he then saw that letter. Andin that and some other letters writ before that time, I described my method of fluxions; and in the same letter I described also two general methods of series, one of which is now claimed from me by Mr. Leibnitz.” The letter concludes with the following paragraph: “But as he has lately attacked me with an accusation which amounts to plagiary; if he goes on to accuse me, it lies upon him by the laws of all nations to prove his accusations, on pain of being accounted guilty of calumny. He hath hitherto written letters to his correspondents full of affirmations, complaints, and reflections, without proving any thing. But he is the aggressor, and it lies upon him to prove the charge.”
In transmitting this letter to Leibnitz, the Abbé Conti informed him that he himself had read with great attention, and without the least prejudice, the Commercium Epistolicum, and the little piece70that contains the extract; that he had also seen at the Royal Society the original papers of the Commercium Epistolicum, and some other original pieces relating to it. “From all this,” says he, “I infer, that, if all the digressions are cut off, the only point is, whether Sir Isaac Newton had the method of fluxions or infinitesimals before you, or whether you had it before him. You published it first, it is true, but you have owned also that Sir Isaac Newton had given many hints of it in his letters to Mr. Oldenburg and others. This is proved very largely in the Commercium, and in the extract of it. What answer do you give? This is still wanting to the public, in order to form an exact judgment of the affair.” The Abbé adds, that Mr. Leibnitz’s own friends waited for his answer with great impatience, and that they thought he could not dispense with answering, if not Dr. Keill, at least Sir Isaac Newtonhimself, who had given him a defiance in express terms.
Leibnitz was not long in complying with this request. He addressed a letter to the Abbé Conti, dated April 9th, 1716, but he sent it through M. Ramond at Paris, to communicate it to others. When it was received by the Abbé Conti, Newton wrote observations upon it, which were communicated only to some of his friends, and which, while they placed his defence on the most impregnable basis, at the same time threw much light on the early history of his mathematical discoveries.
The death of Leibnitz on the 14th November, 1716, put an end to this controversy, and Newton some time afterward published the correspondence with the Abbé Conti, which had hitherto been only privately circulated among the friends of the disputants.71
In 1722, a new edition of the Commercium Epistolicum was published, and there was prefixed to it a general review of its contents, which has been falsely ascribed to Newton.72When the third editionof the Principia was published in 1725, the celebrated scholium which we have already quoted, and in which Leibnitz’s differential calculus was mentioned, was struck out either by Newton or by the editor. This step was perhaps rash and ill-advised; but as the scholium had been adduced by Leibnitz and others as a proof that Newton acknowledged him to be an independent inventor of the calculus,—an interpretation which it does not bear, and which Newton expressly states he never intended it to bear,—he was justified in withdrawing a passage which had been so erroneously interpreted, and so greatly misapplied.
In viewing this controversy, at the distance of more than a century, when the passions of the individual combatants have been allayed, and national jealousies extinguished, it is not difficult to form a correct estimate of the conduct and claims of the two rival analysts. By the unanimous verdict of all nations, it has been decided that Newton invented fluxions at least ten years before Leibnitz. Some of the letters of Newton which bore reference to this great discovery were perused by the German mathematician; but there is no evidence whatever that he borrowed his differential calculus from these letters. Newton was therefore thefirstinventor, and Leibnitz thesecond. It was impossible that the former could have been a plagiarist; but it was possible for the latter. Had the letters of Newton contained even stronger indications than they do of the new calculus, no evidence short of proof could have justified any allegation against Leibnitz’s honour. The talents which he displayed in the improvement of the calculus showed that he was capable of inventing it; and his character stood sufficiently high to repel every suspicion of his integrity. But if it would have been criminal to charge Leibnitz with plagiarism, what must we think of those who dared to accuse Newton of borrowinghis fluxions from Leibnitz? This odious accusation was made by Leibnitz himself, and by Bernouilli; and we have seen that the former repeated it again and again, as if his own good name rested on the destruction of that of his rival. It was this charge against Newton that gave rise to the attack of Keill, and the publication of the Commercium Epistolicum; and, notwithstanding this high provocation, the committee of the Royal Society contented themselves with asserting Newton’s priority, without retorting the charge of plagiarism upon his rival.
Although an attempt has been recently made to place the conduct of Leibnitz on the same level with that of Newton, yet the circumstances of the case will by no means justify such a comparison. The conduct of Newton was at all times dignified and just. He knew his rights, and he boldly claimed them. Conscious of his integrity, he spurned with indignation the charge of plagiarism with which an ungenerous rival had so insidiously loaded him; and if there was one step in his frank and unhesitating procedure which posterity can blame it is his omission, in the third edition of the Principia, of the references to the differential calculus of Leibnitz. This omission, however, was perfectly just. The scholium which he had left out was a mere historical statement of the fact, that the German mathematician had sent him a method which was the same as his own; and when he found that this simple assertion had been held by Leibnitz and others as a recognition of his independent claim to the invention, he was bound either to omit it altogether, or to enter into explanations which might have involved him in a new controversy.
The conduct of Leibnitz was not marked with the same noble lineaments. That he was the aggressor is universally allowed. That he first dared to breathe the charge of plagiarism against Newton, and that he often referred to it, has been sufficientlyapparent; and when arguments failed him he had recourse to threats—declaring that he would publish another Commercium Epistolicum, though he had no appropriate letters to produce. All this is now matter of history; and we may find some apology for it in his excited feelings, and in the insinuations which were occasionally thrown out against the originality of his discovery; but for other parts of his conduct we seek in vain for an excuse. When he assailed the philosophy of Newton in his letters to the Abbé Conti, he exhibited perhaps only the petty feelings of a rival; but when he dared to calumniate that great man in his correspondence with the Princess of Wales, by whom he was respected and beloved; when he ventured to represent the Newtonian philosophy as physically false, and as dangerous to religion; and when he founded these accusations on passages in the Principia and the Optics glowing with all the fervour of genuine piety, he cast a blot upon his name, which all his talents as a philosopher, and all his virtues as a man, will never be able to efface.
James II. attacks the Privileges of the University of Cambridge—Newton chosen one of the Delegates to resist this Encroachment—He is elected a Member of the Convention Parliament—Burning of his Manuscripts—His supposed Derangement of Mind—View taken of this by foreign Philosophers—His Correspondence with Mr. Pepys and Mr. Locke at the time of his Illness—Mr. Millington’s Letter to Mr. Pepys on the subject of Newton’s Illness—Refutation of the Statement that he laboured under Mental Derangement.
James II. attacks the Privileges of the University of Cambridge—Newton chosen one of the Delegates to resist this Encroachment—He is elected a Member of the Convention Parliament—Burning of his Manuscripts—His supposed Derangement of Mind—View taken of this by foreign Philosophers—His Correspondence with Mr. Pepys and Mr. Locke at the time of his Illness—Mr. Millington’s Letter to Mr. Pepys on the subject of Newton’s Illness—Refutation of the Statement that he laboured under Mental Derangement.
From the year 1669, when Newton was installed in the Lucasian chair, till 1695, when he ceased to reside in Cambridge, he seems to have been seldom absent from his college more than three or fourweeks in the year. In 1675, he received a dispensation from Charles II. to continue in his fellowship of Trinity College without taking orders, and we have already seen in the preceding chapter how his time was occupied till the publication of the Principia in 1687.
An event now occurred which drew Newton from the seclusion of his studies, and placed him upon the theatre of public life. Desirous of re-establishing the Catholic faith in its former supremacy, King James II. had begun to assail the rights and privileges of his Protestant subjects. Among other illegal acts, he sent his letter of mandamus to the University of Cambridge to order Father Francis, an ignorant monk of the Benedictine order, to be received as master of arts, and to enjoy all the privileges of this degree, without taking the oaths of allegiance and supremacy. The university speedily perceived the consequences which might arise from such a measure. Independent of the infringement of their rights which such an order involved, it was obvious that the highest interests of the university were endangered, and that Roman Catholics might soon become a majority in the convocation. They therefore unanimously refused to listen to the royal order, and they did this with a firmness of purpose which irritated the despotic court. The king reiterated his commands, and accompanied them with the severest threatenings in case of disobedience. The Catholics were not idle in supporting the views of the sovereign. The honorary degree of M.A. which conveys no civil rights to its possessor, having been formerly given to the secretary of the ambassador from Morocco, it was triumphantly urged that the University of Cambridge had a greater regard for a Mahometan than for a Roman Catholic, and was more obsequious to the ambassador from Morocco than to their own lawful sovereign. Though this reasoning might impose upon the ignorant, it producedlittle effect upon the members of the university. A few weak-minded individuals, however, were disposed to yield a reluctant consent to the royal wishes. They proposed to confer the degree, and at the same time to resolve that it should not in future be regarded as a precedent. To this it was replied, that the very act of submission in one case would be a stronger argument for continuing the practice than any such resolution would be against its repetition. The university accordingly remained firm in their original decision. The vice-chancellor was summoned before the ecclesiastical commission to answer for this act of contempt. Newton was among the number of those who resisted the wishes of the court, and he was consequently chosen one of the nine delegates who were appointed to defend the independence of the university. These delegates appeared before the High Court. They maintained that not a single precedent could be found to justify so extraordinary a measure; and they showed that Charles II. had, under similar circumstances, been pleased to withdraw his mandamus. This representation had its full weight, and the king was induced to abandon his design.73
The part which Newton had taken in this affair, and the high character which he now held in the scientific world, induced his friends to propose him as member of parliament for the university. He was accordingly elected in 1688, though by a very narrow majority,74and he sat in the Convention Parliament till its dissolution. In the year 1688 and 1689, Newton was absent from Cambridge during the greater part of the year, owing, we presume, to his attendance in parliament; but it appears fromthe books of the University that from 1690 to 1695 he was seldom absent, and must therefore have renounced his parliamentary duties.
During his stay in London he had no doubt experienced the unsuitableness of his income to the new circumstances in which he was placed, and it is probable that this was the cause of the limitation of his residence to Cambridge. His income was certainly very confined, and but little suited to the generosity of his disposition. Demands were doubtless made upon it by some of his less wealthy relatives; and there is reason to think that he himself, as well as his influential friends, had been looking forward to some act of liberality on the part of the government.
An event however occurred which will ever form an epoch in his history; and it is a singular circumstance, that this incident has been for more than a century unknown to his own countrymen, and has been accidentally brought to light by the examination of the manuscripts of Huygens. This event has been magnified into a temporary aberration of mind, which is said to have arisen from a cause scarcely adequate to its production.
While he was attending divine service in a winter morning, he had left in his study a favourite little dog called Diamond. Upon returning from chapel he found that it had overturned a lighted taper on his desk, which set fire to several papers on which he had recorded the results of some optical experiments. These papers are said to have contained the labours of many years, and it has been stated that when Mr. Newton perceived the magnitude of his loss, he exclaimed, “Oh, Diamond, Diamond, little do you know the mischief you have done me!” It is a curious circumstance that Newton never refers to the experiments which he is said to have lost on this occasion, and his nephew, Mr. Conduit, makes no allusion to the event itself. The distress, howeverwhich it occasioned is said to have been so deep as to affect even the powers of his understanding.
This extraordinary effect was first communicated to the world in the Life of Newton by M. Biot, who received the following account of it from the celebrated M. Van Swinden.
“There is among the manuscripts of the celebrated Huygens a small journal in folio, in which he used to note down different occurrences. It is side ζ, No. 8, p. 112, in the catalogue of the library of Leyden. The following extract is written by Huygens himself, with whose handwriting I am well acquainted, having had occasion to peruse several of his manuscripts and autograph letters. ‘On the 29th May, 1694, M. Colin,75a Scotsman, informed me that eighteen months ago the illustrious geometer, Isaac Newton, had become insane, either in consequence of his too intense application to his studies, or from excessive grief at having lost, by fire, his chymical laboratory and several manuscripts. When he came to the Archbishop of Cambridge, he made some observations which indicated an alienation of mind. He was immediately taken care of by his friends, who confined him to his house and applied remedies, by means of which he had now so far recovered his health that he began to understand the Principia.’” Huygens mentioned this circumstance to Leibnitz, in a letter dated 8th June, 1694, to which Leibnitz replies in a letter dated the 23d, “I am very glad that I received information of the cure of Mr. Newton, at the same time that I first heard of his illness, which doubtless must have beenvery alarming. ‘It is to men like you and him, sir, that I wish a long life.’”
The first publication of the preceding statement produced a strong sensation among the friends and admirers of Newton. They could not easily believe in the prostration of that intellectual strength which had unbarred the strongholds of the universe. The unbroken equanimity of Newton’s mind, the purity of his moral character, his temperate and abstemious life, his ardent and unaffected piety, and the weakness of his imaginative powers, all indicated a mind which was not likely to be overset by any affliction to which it could be exposed. The loss of a few experimental records could never have disturbed the equilibrium of a mind like his. If they were the records of discoveries, the discoveries themselves indestructible would have been afterward given to the world. If they were merely the details of experimental results, a little time could have easily reproduced them. Had these records contained the first fruits of early genius—of obscure talent, on which fame had not yet shed its rays, we might have supposed that the first blight of such early ambition would have unsettled the stability of an untried mind. But Newton was satiated with fame. His mightiest discoveries were completed and diffused over all Europe, and he must have felt himself placed on the loftiest pinnacle of earthly ambition. The incredulity which such views could not fail to encourage was increased by the novelty of the information. No English biographer had ever alluded to such an event. History and tradition were equally silent, and it was not easy to believe that the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge, a member of the English parliament, and the first philosopher in Europe could have lost his reason without the dreadful fact being known to his own countrymen.
But if the friends of Newton were surprised by the nature of the intelligence, they were distressedat the view which was taken of it by foreign philosophers. While one maintained that the intellectual exertions of Newton had terminated with the publication of the Principia, and that the derangement of his mind was the cause of his abandoning the sciences, others indirectly questioned the sincerity of his religious views, and ascribed to the aberration of his mind those theological pursuits which gilded his declining age. “But the fact,” says M. Biot, “of the derangement of his intellect, whatever may have been the cause of it, will explain why, after the publication of the Principia in 1687, Newton, though only forty-five years old, never more published a new work on any branch of science, but contented himself with giving to the world those which he had composed long before that epoch, confining himself to the completion of those parts which might require development. We may also remark, that even these developments appear always to be derived from experiments and observations formerly made, such as the additions to the second edition of the Principia, published in 1713, the experiments on thick plates, those on diffraction, and the chymical queries placed at the end of the Optics in 1704; for in giving an account of these experiments Newton distinctly says that they were taken from ancient manuscripts which he had formerly composed; and he adds, that though he felt the necessity of extending them, or rendering them more perfect, he was not able to resolve to do this, these matters being no longer in his way. Thus it appears that though he had recovered his health sufficiently to understand all his researches, and even in some cases to make additions to them, and useful alterations, as appears from the second edition of the Principia, for which he kept up a very active mathematical correspondence with Mr. Cotes, yet he did not wish to undertake new labours in those departments of science where he had done so much, and where he so distinctlysaw what remained to be done.” Under the influence of the same opinion, M. Biot finds “it extremely probable that his dissertation on the scale of heat was written before the fire in his laboratory;” he describes Newton’s conduct about the longitude bill as “almost puerile on so solemn an occasion, and one which might lead to the strangest conclusions, particularly if we refer it to the fatal accident which Newton had suffered in 1695.”
The celebrated Marquis de la Place viewed the illness of Newton in a light still more painful to his friends. He maintained that he never recovered the vigour of his intellect, and he was persuaded that Newton’s theological inquiries did not commence till after that afflicting epoch of his life. He even commissioned Professor Gautier of Geneva to make inquiries on this subject during his visit to England, as if it concerned the interests of truth and justice to show that Newton became a Christian and a theological writer only after the decay of his strength and the eclipse of his reason.
Such having been the consequences of the disclosure of Newton’s illness by the manuscript of Huygens, I felt it to be a sacred duty to the memory of that great man, to the feelings of his countrymen, and to the interests of Christianity itself, to inquire into the nature and history of that indisposition which seems to have been so much misrepresented and misapplied. From the ignorance of so extraordinary an event which has prevailed for such a long period in England, it might have been urged with some plausibility that Huygens had mistaken the real import of the information that was conveyed to him; or that the Scotchman from whom he received it had propagated an idle and a groundless rumour. But we are, fortunately, not confined to this very reasonable mode of defence. There exists at Cambridge a manuscript journal written by Mr. Abraham de la Pryme, who was a student in the universitywhile Newton was a fellow of Trinity. This manuscript is entitled “Ephemeris Vitæ, or Diary of my own Life, containing an account likewise of the most observable and remarkable things that I have taken notice of from my youth up hitherto.” Mr. de la Pryme was born in 1671, and begins the diary in 1685. This manuscript is in the possession of his collateral descendant, George Pryme, Esq., Professor of Political Economy at Cambridge, to whom I have been indebted for the following extract.
“1692, February 3d.—What I heard to-day I must relate. There is one Mr. Newton (whom I have very oft seen), Fellow of Trinity College, that is mighty famous for his learning, being a most excellent mathematician, philosopher, divine, &c. He has been Fellow of the Royal Society these many years; and among other very learned books and tracts, he’s written one upon the mathematical principles of philosophy, which has got him a mighty name, he having received, especially from Scotland, abundance of congratulatory letters for the same; but of all the books that he ever wrote, there was one of colours and light, established upon thousands of experiments which he had been twenty years of making, and which had cost him many hundred of pounds. This book, which he valued so much, and which was so much talked of, had the ill luck to perish and be utterly lost just when the learned author was almost at putting a conclusion at the same, after this manner: In a winter’s morning, leaving it among his other papers on his study table while he went to chapel, the candle, which he had unfortunately left burning there too, catched hold by some means of other papers, and they fired the aforesaid book, and utterly consumed it and several other valuable writings; and, which is most wonderful, did no further mischief. But when Mr. Newton came from chapel, and had seen what was done, every one thought he would have run mad, he wasso troubled thereat that he was not himself for a month after. A long account of this his system of light and colours you may find in the Transactions of the Royal Society, which he had sent up to them long before this sad mischance happened unto him.”
From this extract we are enabled to fix the approximate date of the accident by which Newton lost his papers. It must have been previous to the 3d January, 1692, a month before the date of the extract; but if we fix it by the dates in Huygens’s manuscript, we should place it about the 29th November, 1692, eighteen months previous to the conversation between Collins and Huygens. The manner in which Mr. Pryme refers to Newton’s state of mind is that which is used every day when we speak of the loss of tranquillity which arises from the ordinary afflictions of life; and the meaning of the passage amounts to nothing more than that Newton was very much troubled by the destruction of his papers, and did not recover his serenity, and return to his usual occupations, for a month. The very phrase that “every person thought he would have run mad” is in itself a proof that no such effect was produced; and, whatever degree of indisposition may be implied in the phrase “he was not himself for a month after,” we are entitled to infer that one month was the period of its duration, and that previous to the 3d February, 1692, the date of Mr. Pryme’s memorandum, “Newton was himself again.”
These facts and dates cannot be reconciled with those in Huygens’s manuscript. It appears from that document, that, so late as May, 1694, Newton had only so far recovered his health asto begin to again understand the Principia. His supposed malady, therefore, was in force from the 3d of January, 1692, till the month of May, 1694,—a period of more than two years. Now, it is a most important circumstance, which M. Biot ought to have known, that inthe very middle of this period,Newton wrote his four celebrated letters to Dr. Bentley on the Existence of a Deity,—letters which evince a power of thought and a serenity of mind absolutely incompatible even with the slightest obscuration of his faculties. No man can peruse these letters without the conviction that their author then possessed the full vigour of his reason, and was capable of understanding the most profound parts of his writings. The first of these letters was written on the 10th December, 1692, the second on the 17th January, 1693, the third on the 25th February, and the 4th on the 11th76February, 1693. His mind was, therefore, strong and vigorous on these four occasions; and as the letters were written at the express request of Dr. Bentley, who had been appointed to deliver the lecture founded by Mr. Boyle for vindicating the fundamental principles of natural and revealed religion, we must consider such a request as showing his opinion of the strength and freshness of his friend’s mental powers.
In 1692, Newton, at the request of Dr. Wallis, transmitted to him the first proposition of his book on quadratures, with examples of it in first, second, and third fluxions.77These examples were written in consequence of an application from his friend; and the author of the review of the Commercium Epistolicum, in which this fact is quoted, draws the conclusion, that he had not at that time forgotten his method of second fluxions. It appears, also, from the second book of the Optics,78that in the month of June, 1692, he had been occupied with the subject of haloes, and had made accurate observations both on the colours and the diameters of the rings in a halo which he had then seen around the sun.
But though these facts stand in direct contradiction to the statement recorded by Huygens, the reader will be naturally anxious to know the real nature and extent of the indisposition to which it refers. The following letters,79written by Newton himself, Mr. Pepys, Secretary to the Admiralty, and Mr. Millington of Magdalene College, Cambridge, will throw much light upon the subject.
Newton, as will be presently seen, had fallen into a bad state of health some time in 1692, in consequence of which both his sleep and his appetite were greatly affected. About the middle of September, 1693, he had been kept awake for five nights by this nervous disorder, and in this condition he wrote the following letter to Mr. Pepys:
Sept. 13, 1693.“Sir,“Some time after Mr. Millington had delivered your message, he pressed me to see you the next time I went to London. I was averse; but upon his pressing consented, before I considered what I did, for I am extremely troubled at the embroilment I am in, and have neither ate nor slept well this twelvemonth, nor have my former consistency of mind. I never designed to get any thing by your interest, nor by King James’s favour, but am now sensible that I must withdraw from your acquaintance, and see neither you nor the rest of my friends any more, if I may but leave them quietly. I beg your pardon for saying I would see you again, and rest your most humble and most obedient servant,“Is. Newton.”
Sept. 13, 1693.
“Sir,
“Some time after Mr. Millington had delivered your message, he pressed me to see you the next time I went to London. I was averse; but upon his pressing consented, before I considered what I did, for I am extremely troubled at the embroilment I am in, and have neither ate nor slept well this twelvemonth, nor have my former consistency of mind. I never designed to get any thing by your interest, nor by King James’s favour, but am now sensible that I must withdraw from your acquaintance, and see neither you nor the rest of my friends any more, if I may but leave them quietly. I beg your pardon for saying I would see you again, and rest your most humble and most obedient servant,
“Is. Newton.”
From this letter we learn, on his own authority, that his complaint had lasted for a twelvemonth, and that during that twelvemonth he neither ate nor slept well, nor enjoyed his formerconsistency of mind. It is not easy to understand exactly what is meant by not enjoying his former consistency of mind; but whatever be its import, it is obvious that he must have been in a state of mind so sound as to enable him to compose the four letters to Bentley, all of which were written during the twelvemonth here referred to.
On the receipt of this letter, his friend Mr. Pepys seems to have written to Mr. Millington of Magdalene College to inquire after Mr. Newton’s health; but the inquiry having been made in a vague manner, an answer equally vague was returned. Mr. Pepys, however, who seems to have been deeply anxious about Newton’s health, addressed the following more explicit letter to his friend Mr. Millington:—
Septemb. 26, 1693.“Sir,“After acknowledging your many old favours, give me leave to do it a little more particularly upon occasion of the new one conveyed to me by my nephew Jackson. Though, at the same time, I must acknowledge myself not at the ease I would be glad to be at in reference to the excellent Mr. Newton; concerning whom (methinks) your answer labours under the same kind of restraint which (to tell you the truth) my asking did. For I was loth at first dash to tell you that I had lately received a letter from him so surprising to me for the inconsistency of every part of it, as to be put into great disorder by it, from the concernment I have for him, lest it should arise from that which of all mankind I should least dread from him and most lament for,—I mean a discomposure in head, or mind, or both. Let me therefore beg you, sir, having now told you the true ground of the trouble I lately gave you, to let me know the very truth of the matter, as far at least as comes within your knowledge. For I own too great an esteem for Mr. Newton, as for a public good, tobe able to let any doubt in me of this kind concerning him lie a moment uncleared, where I can have any hopes of helping it. I am, with great truth and respect, dear sir, your most humble, and most affectionate servant,“S. Pepys.”
Septemb. 26, 1693.
“Sir,
“After acknowledging your many old favours, give me leave to do it a little more particularly upon occasion of the new one conveyed to me by my nephew Jackson. Though, at the same time, I must acknowledge myself not at the ease I would be glad to be at in reference to the excellent Mr. Newton; concerning whom (methinks) your answer labours under the same kind of restraint which (to tell you the truth) my asking did. For I was loth at first dash to tell you that I had lately received a letter from him so surprising to me for the inconsistency of every part of it, as to be put into great disorder by it, from the concernment I have for him, lest it should arise from that which of all mankind I should least dread from him and most lament for,—I mean a discomposure in head, or mind, or both. Let me therefore beg you, sir, having now told you the true ground of the trouble I lately gave you, to let me know the very truth of the matter, as far at least as comes within your knowledge. For I own too great an esteem for Mr. Newton, as for a public good, tobe able to let any doubt in me of this kind concerning him lie a moment uncleared, where I can have any hopes of helping it. I am, with great truth and respect, dear sir, your most humble, and most affectionate servant,
“S. Pepys.”
To this letter Mr. Millington made the following reply:—
Coll. Magd. Camb.Sept. the 30, 1693.“Honor’d Sir,“Coming home from a journey on the 28th instant at night, I met with your letter which you were pleased to honour me with of the 26th. I am much troubled I was not at home in time for the post, that I might as soon as possible put you out of your generous payne that you are in for the worthy Mr. Newton. I was, I must confess, very much surprised at the inquiry you were pleased to make by your nephew about the message that Mr. Newton made the ground of his letter to you, for I was very sure I never either received from you or delivered to him any such, and therefore I went immediately to wayt upon him, with a design to discourse him about the matter, but, he was out of town, and since I have not seen him, till upon the 28th I met him at Huntingdon, where, upon his own accord, and before I had time to ask him any question, he told me that he had writt to you a very odd letter, at which he was much concerned; added, that it was in a distemper that much seized his head, and that kept him awake for above five nights together, which upon occasion he desired I would represent to you, and beg your pardon, he being very much ashamed, he should be so rude to a person for whom he hath so great an honour. He is now very well, and, though I fear he is under some small degree of melancholy, yet I think there is no reason to suspect it hath atall touched his understanding, and I hope never will; and so I am sure all ought to wish that love learning or the honour of our nation,which it is a sign how much it is looked after, when such a person as Mr. Newton lyes so neglected by those in power. And thus, honoured sir, I have made you acquainted with all I know of the cause of such inconsistencys in the letter of so excellent a person; and I hope it will remove the doubts and fears you are, with so much compassion and publickness of spirit, pleased to entertain about Mr. Newton; but if I should have been wanting in any thing tending to the more full satisfaction, I shall, upon the least notice, endeavour to amend it with all gratitude and truth. Honored sir, your most faithfull and most obedient servant,“Joh. Millington.”
Coll. Magd. Camb.Sept. the 30, 1693.
“Honor’d Sir,
“Coming home from a journey on the 28th instant at night, I met with your letter which you were pleased to honour me with of the 26th. I am much troubled I was not at home in time for the post, that I might as soon as possible put you out of your generous payne that you are in for the worthy Mr. Newton. I was, I must confess, very much surprised at the inquiry you were pleased to make by your nephew about the message that Mr. Newton made the ground of his letter to you, for I was very sure I never either received from you or delivered to him any such, and therefore I went immediately to wayt upon him, with a design to discourse him about the matter, but, he was out of town, and since I have not seen him, till upon the 28th I met him at Huntingdon, where, upon his own accord, and before I had time to ask him any question, he told me that he had writt to you a very odd letter, at which he was much concerned; added, that it was in a distemper that much seized his head, and that kept him awake for above five nights together, which upon occasion he desired I would represent to you, and beg your pardon, he being very much ashamed, he should be so rude to a person for whom he hath so great an honour. He is now very well, and, though I fear he is under some small degree of melancholy, yet I think there is no reason to suspect it hath atall touched his understanding, and I hope never will; and so I am sure all ought to wish that love learning or the honour of our nation,which it is a sign how much it is looked after, when such a person as Mr. Newton lyes so neglected by those in power. And thus, honoured sir, I have made you acquainted with all I know of the cause of such inconsistencys in the letter of so excellent a person; and I hope it will remove the doubts and fears you are, with so much compassion and publickness of spirit, pleased to entertain about Mr. Newton; but if I should have been wanting in any thing tending to the more full satisfaction, I shall, upon the least notice, endeavour to amend it with all gratitude and truth. Honored sir, your most faithfull and most obedient servant,
“Joh. Millington.”
Mr. Pepys was perfectly satisfied with this answer, as appears from the following letter:—
October 3d, 1693.“Sir,“You have delivered me from a fear that indeed gave me much trouble, and from my very heart I thank you for it; an evil to Mr. Newton being what every good man must feel for his own sake as well as his. God grant it may stopp here. And for the kind reflection hee has since made upon his letter to mee, I dare not take upon mee to judge what answer I should make him to it, or whether any or no; and therefore pray that you will bee pleased either to bestow on mee what directions you see fitt for my own guidance towards him in it, or to say to him in my name, but your own pleasure, whatever you think may be most welcome to him upon it, and most expressive of my regard and affectionate esteem of him, and concernment for him.***Dear sir, your most humble and most faithful servant,“S. Pepys.”
October 3d, 1693.
“Sir,
“You have delivered me from a fear that indeed gave me much trouble, and from my very heart I thank you for it; an evil to Mr. Newton being what every good man must feel for his own sake as well as his. God grant it may stopp here. And for the kind reflection hee has since made upon his letter to mee, I dare not take upon mee to judge what answer I should make him to it, or whether any or no; and therefore pray that you will bee pleased either to bestow on mee what directions you see fitt for my own guidance towards him in it, or to say to him in my name, but your own pleasure, whatever you think may be most welcome to him upon it, and most expressive of my regard and affectionate esteem of him, and concernment for him.***
Dear sir, your most humble and most faithful servant,
“S. Pepys.”
It does not appear from the memoirs of Mr. Pepys whether he ever returned any answer to the letter of Mr. Newton which occasioned this correspondence; but we find that in less than two months after the date of the preceding letter, an opportunity occurred of introducing to him a Mr. Smith, who wished to have his opinion on some problem in the doctrine of chances. This letter from Pepys is dated November 22d, 1693. Sir Isaac replied to it on the 26th November, and wrote to Pepys again on the 16th December, 1693; and in both these letters he enters fully into the discussion of the mathematical question which had been submitted to his judgment.80
It is obvious, from Newton’s letter to Mr. Pepys, that the subject of his receiving some favour from the government had been a matter of anxiety with himself, and of discussion among his friends.81Mr. Millington was no doubt referring to this anxiety, when he represents Newton as an honour to the nation, and expresses his surprise “that such a person shouldlye so neglected by those in power.” And we find the same subject distinctly referred to in two letters written to Mr. Locke during the preceding year. In one of these, dated January 26th, 1691–2, he says, “Being fully convinced that Mr. Montague, upon an old grudge which I thought had been worn out, is false to me, I have done with him, and intend to sit still, unless my Lord Monmouth be still my friend.” Mr. Locke seems to have assured him of the continued friendship of this nobleman, and Mr. Newton, still referring to the same topic, in a letter dated February 16th, 1691–2, remarks,“I am very glad Lord Monmouth is still my friend, but intend not to give his lordship and you any farther trouble. My inclinations are to sit still.” In a later letter to Mr. Locke, dated September, 1693, and given below, he asks his pardon for saying or thinking that there was a design to sell him an office. In these letters Mr. Newton no doubt referred to some appointment in London which he was solicitous to obtain, and which Mr. Montague and his other friends may have failed in procuring. This opinion is confirmed by the letter of Mr. Montague announcing to him his appointment to the wardenship of the mint, in which he says that he is very glad he canat lastgive him good proof of his friendship.
In the same month in which Newton wrote to Mr. Pepys, we find him in correspondence with Mr. Locke. Displeased with his opinions respecting innate ideas, he had rashly stated that they struck at the root of all morality; and that he regarded the author of such doctrines as a Hobbist. Upon reconsidering these opinions, he addressed the following remarkable letter to Locke, written three days after his letter to Mr. Pepys, and consequently during the illness under which he then laboured.
“Sir,“Being of opinion that you endeavoured to embroil me with women, and by other means, I was so much affected with it, as that when one told me you were sickly and would not live, I answered, ’twere better if you were dead. I desire you to forgive me this uncharitableness; for I am now satisfied that what you have done is just, and I beg your pardon for my having hard thoughts of you for it, and for representing that you struck at the root of morality, in a principle you laid in your book of ideas, and designed to pursue in another book, and that I tookyou for a Hobbist.82I beg your pardon also for saying or thinking that there was a design to sell me an office, or to embroil me.—I am your most humble and unfortunate servant,“Is. Newton.“At the Bull, in Shoreditch, London,Sept. 16th, 1693.”
“Sir,
“Being of opinion that you endeavoured to embroil me with women, and by other means, I was so much affected with it, as that when one told me you were sickly and would not live, I answered, ’twere better if you were dead. I desire you to forgive me this uncharitableness; for I am now satisfied that what you have done is just, and I beg your pardon for my having hard thoughts of you for it, and for representing that you struck at the root of morality, in a principle you laid in your book of ideas, and designed to pursue in another book, and that I tookyou for a Hobbist.82I beg your pardon also for saying or thinking that there was a design to sell me an office, or to embroil me.—I am your most humble and unfortunate servant,
“Is. Newton.
“At the Bull, in Shoreditch, London,Sept. 16th, 1693.”