NEWTON, ISAAC (b. Woolsthorpe, England, 25 December 1642; d. London, England, 20 March 1727), mathematics, dynamics, celestial mechanics, astronomy, optics, natural philosophy.

    the size of the acid particles and the “pores” between the particles of metal. He did not, however, have a sound operational definition of acid, but referred to acids theoretically, in De natura acidorum, as those substances “endued with a great Attractive Force; in which Force their Activity consists.” He maintained this definition in query 31, in which he further called attention to the way in which metals may replace one another in acid solutions and even “went so far as to list the six common metals in the order in which they would displace one another from a solution of aqua fortis (strong nitric acid).”176

Alchemy, Prophecy, and Theology. Chronology and History.

Newton is often alleged to have been a mystic. That he was highly interested in alchemy has been embarrassing to many students of his life and work, while others delight in finding traces of hermeticism in the father of the “age of reason.” The entries in the Catalogue of the Portsmouth Collection give no idea of the extent of the documents in Newton's hand dealing with alchemy; these were listed in the catalogue, but not then presented to Cambridge University. Such information became generally available only when the alchemical writings were dispersed in 1936, in the Sotheby sale. The catalogue of that sale gives the only full printed guide to these materials, and estimates their bulk at some 650,000 words, almost all in Newton's hand.

A major problem in assessing Newton's alchemical “writings” is that they are not, for the most part, original compositions, nor even critical essays on his readings (in the sense that the early “De gravitatione et aequipondio fluidorum” is an essay based on his reading in Descartes's Principia). It would be necessary to know the whole corpus of the alchemical literature to be able to declare that any paper in Newton's hand is an original composition, rather than a series of extracts or summaries.177

In a famous letter to Oldenburg (26 April 1676), Newton offered an explanation of Boyle's presentations of the “incalescence” of gold and mercury (Philosophical Transactions, 9, no. 122 [1675], 515-533), and presented an explanation based on the size of the particles of matter and their mechanical action. Newton particularly commended Boyle for having concealed some major steps, since here was possibly “an inlet into something more noble, and not to be communicated without immense dammage to the world if there be any verity in the Hermetick writers.” He also gave some cautionary advice about alchemists, even referring to a “true Hermetic Philosopher, whose judgment (if there be any such)” might be of interest and highly regarded, “there being other things beside the transmutation of metalls (if those pretenders bragg not) which none but they understand.” The apparently positive declarations in Newton's letter thus conflict with the doubts expressed in the two parenthetical expressions.

Newton's studies of prophecy may possibly provide a key to the method of his alchemical studies. His major work on the subject is Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel, and the Apocalypse of St. John (London, 1733). Here Newton was concerned with “a figurative language” used by the prophets, which he sought to decipher. Newton's text is a historical exegesis, unmarked by any mystical short-circuiting of the rational process or direct communication from the godhead. He assumed an “analogy between the world natural, and an empire or kingdom considered as a world politic,” and concluded, for example, that Daniel's prophecy of an “image composed of four metals” and a stone that broke “the four metals into pieces” referred to the four nations successively ruling the earth (“viz. the peoples of Babylonia, the Persians, the Greeks, and the Romans”). The four nations are represented again in the “four beasts.”

“The folly of interpreters,” Newton wrote, has been “to foretell times and things by this Prophecy, as if God designed to make them Prophets.” This is, however, far from God's intent, for God meant the prophecies “not to gratify men's curiosities by enabling them to foreknow things” but rather to stand as witnesses to His providence when “after they were fulfilled, they might be interpreted by events.” Surely, Newton added, “the event of things predicted many ages before, will then be a convincing argument that the world is governed by providence.” (It may be noted that this book also provided Newton with occasion to refer to his favorite themes of “the corruption of scripture” and the “corruption of Christianity.”)

The catalogue of the Sotheby sale states that Newton's manuscript remains include some 1,300,000 words on biblical and theological subjects. These are not particularly relevant to his scientific work and—for the most part—might have been written by any ordinary divinity student of that period, save for the extent to which they show Newton's convinced anti-Trinitarian monotheism or Unitarian Arianism. (His tract Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture, for example, uses historical analysis to attack Trinitarian doctrine.) “It is the temper of the hot and superstitious part of mankind in matters of religion,” Newton wrote, “ever to be fond of mysteries, and for that reason to like best what they understand least.”178

Typical of Newton's theological exercises is his “Queries regarding the word homoousios.” The first query asks “Whether Christ sent his apostles to