Pioneers of Science Part 17

Hooke showed an experiment with a pendulum, which he likened to a planet going round the sun. The a.n.a.logy is more superficial than real. It does not obey Kepler's laws; still it was a striking experiment. They had guessed at a law of inverse squares, and their difficulty was to prove what curve a body subject to it would describe. They knew it ought to be an ellipse if it was to serve to explain the planetary motion, and Hooke said he could prove that an ellipse it was; but he was nothing of a mathematician, and the others scarcely believed him. Undoubtedly he had shrewd inklings of the truth, though his guesses were based on little else than a most sagacious intuition. He surmised also that gravity was the force concerned, and a.s.serted that the path of an ordinary projectile was an ellipse, like the path of a planet--which is quite right. In fact the beginnings of the discovery were beginning to dawn upon him in the well-known way in which things do dawn upon ordinary men of genius: and had Newton not lived we should doubtless, by the labours of a long chain of distinguished men, beginning with Hooke, Wren, and Halley, have been now in possession of all the truths revealed by the _Principia_. We should never have had them stated in the same form, nor proved with the same marvellous lucidity and simplicity, but the facts themselves we should by this time have arrived at. Their developments and completions, due to such men as Clairaut, Euler, D'Alembert, Lagrange, Laplace, Airy, Leverrier, Adams, we should of course not have had to the same extent; because the lives and energies of these great men would have been partially consumed in obtaining the main facts themselves.

The youngest of the three questioners at the time we are speaking of was Edmund Halley, an able and remarkable man. He had been at Cambridge, doubtless had heard Newton lecture, and had acquired a great veneration for him.

In January, 1684, we find Wren offering Hooke and Halley a prize, in the shape of a book worth forty shillings, if they would either of them bring him within two months a demonstration that the path of a planet subject to an inverse square law would be an ellipse. Not in two months, nor yet in seven, was there any proof forthcoming. So at last, in August, Halley went over to Cambridge to speak to Newton about the difficult problem and secure his aid. Arriving at his rooms he went straight to the point. He said, "What path will a body describe if it be attracted by a centre with a force varying as the inverse square of the distance." To which Newton at once replied, "An ellipse." "How on earth do you know?" said Halley in amazement. "Why, I have calculated it," and began hunting about for the paper. He actually couldn't find it just then, but sent it him shortly by post, and with it much more--in fact, what appeared to be a complete treatise on motion in general.

With his valuable burden Halley hastened to the Royal Society and told them what he had discovered. The Society at his representation wrote to Mr. Newton asking leave that it might be printed. To this he consented; but the Royal Society wisely appointed Mr. Halley to see after him and jog his memory, in case he forgot about it. However, he set to work to polish it up and finish it, and added to it a great number of later developments and embellishments, especially the part concerning the lunar theory, which gave him a deal of trouble--and no wonder; for in the way he has put it there never was a man yet living who could have done the same thing. Mathematicians regard the achievement now as men might stare at the work of some demiG.o.d of a bygone age, wondering what manner of man this was, able to wield such ponderous implements with such apparent ease.

To Halley the world owes a great debt of grat.i.tude--first, for discovering the _Principia_; second, for seeing it through the press; and third, for defraying the cost of its publication out of his own scanty purse. For though he ultimately suffered no pecuniary loss, rather the contrary, yet there was considerable risk in bringing out a book which not a dozen men living could at the time comprehend. It is no small part of the merit of Halley that he recognized the transcendent value of the yet unfinished work, that he brought it to light, and a.s.sisted in its becoming understood to the best of his ability.

Though Halley afterwards became Astronomer-Royal, lived to the ripe old age of eighty-six, and made many striking observations, yet he would be the first to admit that nothing he ever did was at all comparable in importance with his discovery of the _Principia_; and he always used to regard his part in it with peculiar pride and pleasure.

And how was the _Principia_ received? Considering the abstruse nature of its subject, it was received with great interest and enthusiasm. In less than twenty years the edition was sold out, and copies fetched large sums. We hear of poor students copying out the whole in ma.n.u.script in order to possess a copy--not by any means a bad thing to do, however many copies one may possess. The only useful way really to read a book like that is to pore over every sentence: it is no book to be skimmed.

While the _Principia_ was preparing for the press a curious incident of contact between English history and the University occurred. It seems that James II., in his policy of Catholicising the country, ordered both Universities to elect certain priests to degrees without the ordinary oaths. Oxford had given way, and the Dean of Christ Church was a creature of James's choosing. Cambridge rebelled, and sent eight of its members, among them Mr. Newton, to plead their cause before the Court of High Commission. Judge Jeffreys presided over the Court, and threatened and bullied with his usual insolence. The Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge was deprived of office, the other deputies were silenced and ordered away. From the precincts of this court of justice Newton returned to Trinity College to complete the _Principia_.

By this time Newton was only forty-five years old, but his main work was done. His method of fluxions was still unpublished; his optics was published only imperfectly; a second edition of the _Principia_, with additions and improvements, had yet to appear; but fame had now come upon him, and with fame worries of all kinds.

By some fatality, princ.i.p.ally no doubt because of the interest they excited, every discovery he published was the signal for an outburst of criticism and sometimes of attack. I shall not go into these matters: they are now trivial enough, but it is necessary to mention them, because to Newton they evidently loomed large and terrible, and occasioned him acute torment.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 68.--Newton when young. (_From an engraving by B.

Reading after Sir Peter Lely._)]

No sooner was the _Principia_ put than Hooke put in his claims for priority. And indeed his claims were not altogether negligible; for vague ideas of the same sort had been floating in his comprehensive mind, and he doubtless felt indistinctly conscious of a great deal more than he could really state or prove.

By indiscreet friends these two great men were set somewhat at loggerheads, and worse might have happened had they not managed to come to close quarters, and correspond privately in a quite friendly manner, instead of acting through the mischievous medium of third parties. In the next edition Newton liberally recognizes the claims of both Hooke and Wren. However, he takes warning betimes of what he has to expect, and writes to Halley that he will only publish the first two books, those containing general theorems on motion. The third book--concerning the system of the world, _i.e._ the application to the solar system--he says "I now design to suppress. Philosophy is such an impertinently litigious lady that a man had as good be engaged in law-suits as have to do with her. I found it so formerly, and now I am no sooner come near her again but she gives me warning. The two books without the third will not so well bear the t.i.tle 'Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy,' and therefore I had altered it to this, 'On the Free Motion of Two Bodies'; but on second thoughts I retain the former t.i.tle: 'twill help the sale of the book--which I ought not to diminish now 'tis yours."

However, fortunately, Halley was able to prevail upon him to publish the third book also. It is, indeed, the most interesting and popular of the three, as it contains all the direct applications to astronomy of the truths established in the other two.

Some years later, when his method of fluxions was published, another and a worse controversy arose--this time with Leibnitz, who had also independently invented the differential calculus. It was not so well recognized then how frequently it happens that two men independently and unknowingly work at the very same thing at the same time. The history of science is now full of such instances; but then the friends of each accused the other of plagiarism.

I will not go into the controversy: it is painful and useless. It only served to embitter the later years of two great men, and it continued long after Newton's death--long after both their deaths. It can hardly be called ancient history even now.

But fame brought other and less unpleasant distractions than controversies. We are a curious, practical, and rather stupid people, and our one idea of honouring a man is to _vote_ for him in some way or other; so they sent Newton to Parliament. He went, I believe, as a Whig, but it is not recorded that he spoke. It is, in fact, recorded that he was once expected to speak when on a Royal Commission about some question of chronometers, but that he would not. However, I dare say he made a good average member.

Then a little later it was realized that Newton was poor, that he still had to teach for his livelihood, and that though the Crown had continued his fellowship to him as Lucasian Professor without the necessity of taking orders, yet it was rather disgraceful that he should not be better off. So an appeal was made to the Government on his behalf, and Lord Halifax, who exerted himself strongly in the matter, succeeding to office on the accession of William III., was able to make him ultimately Master of the Mint, with a salary of some 1,200 a year. I believe he made rather a good Master, and turned out excellent coins: certainly he devoted his attention to his work there in a most exemplary manner.

But what a pitiful business it all is! Here is a man sent by Heaven to do certain things which no man else could do, and so long as he is comparatively unknown he does them; but so soon as he is found out, he is clapped into a routine office with a big salary: and there is, comparatively speaking, an end of him. It is not to be supposed that he had lost his power, for he frequently solved problems very quickly which had been given out by great Continental mathematicians as a challenge to the world.

We may ask why Newton allowed himself to be thus bandied about instead of settling himself down to the work in which he was so pre-eminently great. Well, I expect your truly great man never realizes how great he is, and seldom knows where his real strength lies. Certainly Newton did not know it. He several times talks of giving up philosophy altogether; and though he never really does it, and perhaps the feeling is one only born of some temporary overwork, yet he does not sacrifice everything else to it as he surely must had he been conscious of his own greatness.

No; self-consciousness was the last thing that affected him. It is for a great man's contemporaries to discover him, to make much of him, and to put him in surroundings where he may flourish luxuriantly in his own heaven-intended way.

However, it is difficult for us to judge of these things. Perhaps if he had been maintained at the national expense to do that for which he was preternaturally fitted, he might have worn himself out prematurely; whereas by giving him routine work the scientific world got the benefit of his matured wisdom and experience. It was no small matter to the young Royal Society to be able to have him as their President for twenty-four years. His portrait has hung over the President's chair ever since, and there I suppose it will continue to hang until the Royal Society becomes extinct.

The events of his later life I shall pa.s.s over lightly. He lived a calm, benevolent life, universally respected and beloved. His silver-white hair when he removed his peruke was a venerable spectacle. A lock of it is still preserved, with many other relics, in the library of Trinity College. He died quietly, after a painful illness, at the ripe age of eighty-five. His body lay in state in the Jerusalem Chamber, and he was buried in Westminster Abbey, six peers bearing the pall. These things are to be mentioned to the credit of the time and the country; for after we have seen the calamitous spectacle of the way Tycho and Kepler and Galileo were treated by their ungrateful and unworthy countries, it is pleasant to reflect that England, with all its mistakes, yet recognized _her_ great man when she received him, and honoured him with the best she knew how to give.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 69.--Sir Isaac Newton.]

Concerning his character, one need only say that it was what one would expect and wish. It was characterized by a modest, calm, dignified simplicity. He lived frugally with his niece and her husband, Mr.

Conduit, who succeeded him as Master of the Mint. He never married, nor apparently did he ever think of so doing. The idea, perhaps, did not naturally occur to him, any more than the idea of publishing his work did.

He was always a deeply religious man and a sincere Christian, though somewhat of the Arian or Unitarian persuasion--so, at least, it is a.s.serted by orthodox divines who understand these matters. He studied theology more or less all his life, and towards the end was greatly interested in questions of Biblical criticism and chronology. By some ancient eclipse or other he altered the recognized system of dates a few hundred years; and his book on the prophecies of Daniel and the Revelation of St. John, wherein he identifies the beast with the Church of Rome in quite the orthodox way, is still by some admired.

But in all these matters it is probable that he was a merely ordinary man, with natural ac.u.men and ability doubtless, but nothing in the least superhuman. In science, the impression he makes upon me is only expressible by the words inspired, superhuman.

And yet if one realizes his method of work, and the calm, uninterrupted flow of all his earlier life, perhaps his achievements become more intelligible. When asked how he made his discoveries, he replied: "By always thinking unto them. I keep the subject constantly before me, and wait till the first dawnings open slowly by little and little into a full and clear light." That is the way--quiet, steady, continuous thinking, uninterrupted and unhara.s.sed brooding. Much may be done under those conditions. Much ought to be sacrificed to obtain those conditions. All the best thinking work of the world has been thus done.[18] Buffon said: "Genius is patience." So says Newton: "If I have done the public any service this way, it is due to nothing but industry and patient thought." Genius patience? No, it is not quite that, or, rather, it is much more than that; but genius without patience is like fire without fuel--it will soon burn itself out.

NOTES FOR LECTURE IX

The _Principia_ published 1687.

Newton died 1727.

THE LAW OF GRAVITATION.--Every particle of matter attracts every other particle of matter with a force proportional to the ma.s.s of each and to the inverse square of the distance between them.

SOME OF NEWTON'S DEDUCTIONS.

1. Kepler's second law (equable description of areas) proves that each planet is acted on by a force directed towards the sun as a centre of force.

2. Kepler's first law proves that this central force diminishes in the same proportion as the square of the distance increases.

3. Kepler's third law proves that all the planets are acted on by the same kind of force; of an intensity depending on the ma.s.s of the sun.[19]

4. So by knowing the length of year and distance of any planet from the sun, the sun's ma.s.s can be calculated, in terms of that of the earth.

5. For the satellites, the force acting depends on the ma.s.s of _their_ central body, a planet. Hence the ma.s.s of any planet possessing a satellite becomes known.

6. The force constraining the moon in her orbit is the same gravity as gives terrestrial bodies their weight and regulates the motion of projectiles. [Because, while a stone drops 16 feet in a second, the moon, which is 60 times as far from the centre of the earth, drops 16 feet in a minute.]

7. The moon is attracted not only by the earth, but by the sun also; hence its...o...b..t is perturbed, and Newton calculated out the chief of these perturbations, viz.:--

(The equation of the centre, discovered by Hipparchus.)

(_a_) The evection, discovered by Hipparchus and Ptolemy.

(_b_) The variation, discovered by Tycho Brahe.

(_c_) The annual equation, discovered by Tycho Brahe.

(_d_) The retrogression of the nodes, then being observed at Greenwich by Flamsteed.

(_e_) The variation of inclination, then being observed at Greenwich by Flamsteed.