Galileo, that giant in physical science of the early seventeenth
century, died in 1642. On Christmas day of the same year there
was
born in
to carry forward the work of Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo to a
marvellous consummation through the discovery of the great
unifying law in accordance with which the planetary motions are
performed. We refer, of course, to the greatest of English
physical scientists, Isaac Newton, the Shakespeare of the
scientific world. Born thus before the middle of the seventeenth
century,
(1727). For the last forty years of that period his was the
dominating scientific personality of the world. With full
propriety that time has been spoken of as the "Age of Newton."
Yet the man who was to achieve such distinction gave no early
premonition of future greatness. He was a sickly child from
birth, and a boy of little seeming promise. He was an indifferent
student, yet, on the other hand, he cared little for the common
amusements of boyhood. He early exhibited, however, a taste for
mechanical contrivances, and spent much time in devising
windmills, water-clocks, sun-dials, and kites. While other boys
were interested only in having kites that would fly, Newton--at
least so the stories of a later time would have us
understand--cared more for the investigation of the seeming
principles involved, or for testing the best methods of attaching
the strings, or the best materials to be used in construction.
Meanwhile the future philosopher was acquiring a taste for
reading and study, delving into old volumes whenever he found an
opportunity. These habits convinced his relatives that it was
useless to attempt to make a farmer of the youth, as had been
their intention. He was therefore sent back to school, and in the
summer of 1661 he matriculated at Trinity College, Cambridge.
Even at college Newton seems to have shown no unusual mental
capacity, and in 1664, when examined for a scholarship by Dr.
Barrow, that gentleman is said to have formed a poor opinion of
the applicant. It is said that the knowledge of the estimate
placed upon his abilities by his instructor piqued Newton, and
led him to take up in earnest the mathematical studies in which
he afterwards attained such distinction. The study of Euclid and
Descartes's "Geometry" roused in him a latent interest in
mathematics, and from that time forward his investigations were
carried on with enthusiasm. In 1667 he was elected Fellow of
Trinity College, taking the degree of M.A. the following spring.
It will thus appear that Newton's boyhood and early manhood were
passed during that troublous time in British political annals
which saw the overthrow of Charles I., the autocracy of Cromwell,
and the eventual restoration of the Stuarts. His maturer years
witnessed the overthrow of the last Stuart and the reign of the
Dutchman, William of Orange. In his old age he saw the first of
the Hanoverians mount the throne of England. Within a decade of
his death such scientific path-finders as Cavendish, Black, and
Priestley were born--men who lived on to the close of the
eighteenth century. In a full sense, then, the age of Newton
bridges the gap from that early time of scientific awakening
under Kepler and Galileo to the time which we of the twentieth
century think of as essentially modern.
|
