Newton, page 33
49. Ibid., pp. 273, 276, and 272 (from ‘Originality’).
50. L’Encyclopédie, vol. 17, p. 630 (le Chevalier de Jancourt) (‘l’Angleterre peut se glorifier, d’avoir produit le plus grand & le plus rare génie, qui ait jamais existé’).
51. Lemercier (‘Ma fable à ton génie est un hommage’); from Claude Gueux, quoted in Patterson, p. 242, n. 42 (‘par une loi d’attraction irrésistible tous les cerveaux gravitaient . . . autour du cerveau rayonnant’).
52. Dieckmann.
53. Mercier, Mon bonnet de nuit, vol. 1, p. 13 (‘l’homme de génie, qui poursuivoit la vérité avec une sagacité si admirable’): Darnton, especially pp. 115–36, 300–36; Majewski; Patterson.
54. MacLeod, ‘Paradoxes of patenting’; Hesse.
55. Mercier, Le Génie, pp. 25–6 (‘Le Génie alors sous son nom, / Déploya sa grandeur divine; / Sous cent noms différens caressant la Raison, / Le Goût fut tour-à-tour Molière, Fenelon . . . / Milton souverain de l’Europe entier, / Le Génie inspira Newton, / Et Pope, & le sage Addison . . .’); Chénier, Marie-Josèphe, vol. 7, p. 248 (‘C’est le bons sens, la raison qui fait tout . . . / Et le génie est la raison sublime’); Furst; Fumaroli; Jaffe; Cassirer, pp. 312–31.
56. Halévy, p. 19 (on reading Helvétius in 1769).
57. Hall, Eighteenth-century Perspectives, p. 65; Condillac, Origin of Human Knowledge, p. 288.
58. Manuel and Manuel, pp. 461–86 (quotation p. 470); Meek, pp. 41–118.
59. Manuel and Manuel, pp. 487–518 (quotation p. 492).
60. Condillac, Origin of Human Knowledge, p. 288; Condorcet, pp. 124–72, 196 (quotations p. 150).
61. Beecher, pp. 71–4.
62. Saint-Simon (quotation pp. 19–20) (‘cette contrée qui a été constamment le refuge des hommes de génie’).
63. Quoted Manuel and Manuel, p. 119 (1808); Manuel Saint-Simon, especially pp. 59–129; Dhombres and Dhombres, pp. 302–13; Vidler, Writing of the Walls, pp. 83–102. Boullée produced his own designs in 1784 and 1785; the two relevant prize competitions were in 1785 and 1800; Saint-Simon was associated with the École Polytechnique during the 1790s.
64. Spencer, ‘Fourier’, pp. 19–20; Fourier, especially pp. xvi–xix, 3–16, 314–15; Beecher, especially pp. 71–4, 241–58; Lloyd-Jones; Vidler, Writing of the Walls, pp. 103–14.
65. Beecher, p. 66 and fig. 29.
66. Manuel and Manuel, pp. 717–34. Harrison, pp. v–viii, 615; Wright, Religion of Humanity.
7: MYTHS
1. History Today 21 (1971), advertisement for the Financial Times facing p. 1.
2. I am grateful to Somak Raychaudhury for this information.
3. Noyes, vol. 1 (The Watchers of the Sky), pp. v, 195–6; Searby, pp. 450–1; Williams, ‘Passing on the torch’.
4. Brown; Woodward.
5. De Morgan, Budget of Paradoxes, vol. 1, pp. 136–7; A’Beckett, vol. 2, pp. 271–3; Paradis.
6. Barthes; Friedman and Donley.
7. Abir-Am, ‘How scientists view heroes’ and ‘Historical ethnography’; Cajori; McNeil. The large literature on myth-making includes Connerton; Healy; Samuel; Wright, Living in an Old Country.
8. J. Secord, Victorian Sensation, pp. 515–32; Dunning-Davies.
9. Lightman; A. Secord, ‘Science in the pub’; Jordanova, ‘Science and nationhood’; Mali.
10. Linton, p. 83.
11. Stukeley, Memoirs, p. 20.
12. McKie and de Beer (a) and (b); Keesing; Wilbert.
13. Gentleman’s Magazine 1 (1731), 169; Thomas and Ober, pp. 44–5; Genesis 4: 17–18 and 5: 21–4; Yeo, Encyclopaedic Visions, pp. 22–32, 125–41.
14. Bacon, vol. 4, pp. 20–1 (preface to the Great Instauration).
15. Thomson, vol. 1, p. 251 (‘A poem sacred to the Memory of Isaac Newton’, ll. 17–23: ‘HAVE ye not listen’d while he bound the Suns, / And Planets to their Spheres! th’unequal Task / Of Human Kind till then. Oft had they roll’d / O’er erring man the Year, and oft disgrac’d / The Pride of Schools, before their Course was known / Full in its Causes and Effects to him, / All-piercing Sage!’).
16. Byron, Canto X, stanzas 1–2 (p. 375); Chandler, pp. 365–6.
17. Shapin, ‘Philosopher and the chicken’; Iliffe, ‘Isaac Newton’; More’s portrait reproduced in Manuel, Portrait, facing p. 111 (and elsewhere); Schaffer, ‘Earth’s fertility’, especially p. 130.
18. Thomas, pp. 192–223; Stafford, Last of the Race, pp. 109–33.
19. Hogg, vol. 1, p. 5; Dryden, ‘The Second Book of the Georgics’, ll. 595–9; Morrill, p. 291.
20. Chartres; Evelyn, Appendix. Letters between Henry Oldenburg and Newton reproduced in Turnbull: 18 January 1673 (vol. 1, pp. 255–6); 2 September 1676 (vol. 2, pp. 93–4); 24 October 1676 (vol. 2, p. 110); 14 November 1676 (vol. 2, p. 181).
21. Mirror of Literature 4 (1824), p. 399 (by Nemo); Maude, Wensley-dale, p. 29; Jerman, pp. 168–9.
22. Holmes, p. 130.
23. Watt; Ash; Poole, pp. 17–18.
24. Brewster, Life; Shortland and Yeo; Schaffer, ‘Scientific discoveries’; Secord, Victorian Sensation, pp. 46–51.
25. Brewster, Memoirs; Christie; Yeo, ‘Alphabetical lives’.
26. Cantor, ‘Scientist as hero’; Vicinus.
27. Hall, Eighteenth-century Perspectives; Yeo, ‘Alphabetical lives’.
28. Spence, vol. 1, p. 462; Paradise Regained, book IV, l. 330.
29. John Herschel, quoted in Schweber, p. 69; Byron, Canto VII, stanza 5 and Canto IX, stanza 18; Blau, p. 75.
30. Martin, Biographia Philosophica, p. 373; Merton, Shoulders of Giants.
31. British Quarterly Review (1855), 336–7; Haydon, Diary, vol. 4, pp. 94–5 (June 1833).
32. Maude, Wensley-dale, p. 28; Sir John Hobhouse, quoted in Haydon, Diary, vol. 4, pp. 125–6 (August 1833).
33. Brewster, Life, pp. 222–41; Brewster, Memoirs, vol. 2, pp. 138–9; Edleston, pp. lx–lxiii; Hazlitt, Works, vol. 8, p. 239 (Table Talk); Biot, ‘Newton’ (published in French in 1821); Buds of Genius, pp. 27–30; Lives of Learned and Eminent Men, pp. 159–75; Shaw.
34. John Conduitt quoted in Westfall, Never at Rest, p. 49.
35. Kris and Kurz; Nochlin, pp. 145–78; Cooper, Cooper’s Journal, pp. 233–4; Athenæum (1882), 93–4.
36. Edgeworth and Edgeworth, p. 240: I am grateful to Marilyn Butler for this reference; Shelley, Letters, vol. 1, pp. 50–1 (letter to his father of 6 February 1811); Yeo, ‘Genius’, especially p. 273.
37. Spence, vol. 1, p. 245; Shaw.
38. Edinburgh Review 103 (1856), 526; see also Galloway; Ditchburn.
39. Times, 21 September 1855, 8e–9a.
40. Shapin, ‘Philosopher and the chicken’ (quotation p. 21).
41. Hitchcock, p. 666.
42. Turnbull, vol. 2, pp. 437, 441 (letters of 20 and 29 June, 1686); Voltaire, p. 70.
43. Bigg, p. 115; Jerman. See also Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine 70 (1851), 2 and Cooper, Cooper’s Journal, pp. 250–1. Paradis.
44. Times, 21 September 1855, 8e–9a (see also Phrenological Journal 18 (1845), 154, and Christian Remembrancer 31 (1856), 365).
45. How We Used to Live, Yorkshire TV, 24 January 1995.
46. Quoted in Iliffe, ‘ “Is he like other men?” ’, p. 176; Stukeley, p. 57; Humphrey Newton (no relation), quoted in Manuel, Portrait, p. 105.
47. Whewell; Yeo, ‘Genius’ and Defining Science, pp. 116‘ “Is he like other men?” ’,44; Theerman.
48. Quarterly Review 110 (1861), 401.
49. Crompton (1866) (quotations pp. 3, 5) and Crompton (1867); Barlow; Becker; Yeo; ‘Genius’; Theerman. In 1850, the frontispiece of Edlestone showed a similar drawing owned by Pepys.
50. Crompton (1866), p. 3; Antiquary 15 (1887), 104–7; Leisure Hour 1 (1852), 634 (the picture is not named, but was clearly either Vanderbank’s or a derivative such as Seeman’s).
51. Martin, p. 362; McKie and de Beer (a) and (b); Keesing. The first printed references to the story were in 1727, the year Newton died.
52. Biot, ‘Newton’; Brewster, Life, p. 344, and Memoirs, vol. 2, pp. 416–17; Biot, ‘Brewster’s Newton’, p. 265n.; Galloway, p. 10; Chandler, pp. 155–202.
53. Biot, ‘Brewster’s Newton’, pp. 193–4; Outram; Yeo, Defining Science, pp. 135–8.
54. Illustrated London News 56 (1870), 589, 594; Schaffer, ‘Glass works’.
55. Yeo, ‘Scientific method’.
56. British Quarterly Review 22 (1855), 328.
57. Illustrated London News, 6 October 1860, 282, 310, 320 and 13 October 1860, 339, 344; O’Dwyer, pp. 252–7; Blau, pp. 48–81; Acland and Ruskin, pp. 25–8, 79–81, 102–4; Forgan.
58. Dellheim, pp. 1–31, 157–75.
59. Abrams, pp. 187–98 (quotation p. 192).
60. Ellison, p. 183 (from ‘The correspondencies of nature’). I am grateful to Thomas Coke for suggesting the Methodist comparison.
61. Quarterly Review 110 (1861), 421.
62. Morrell and Thackray.
63. Carlyle, p. 443; Turner.
64. Gaskell, p. 75; De Morgan, Budget of Paradoxes, vol. 1, pp. 375–6.
65. Phrenological Journal 18 (1845), 153–6 (letter from C.P.); Vago, pp. 76–83; Inwards, p. 8.
66. Yeo, ‘Idol’; Edinburgh Review 1 (1832), 29–37.
67. Williams, ‘Passing on the torch’; Yeo, Defining Science, pp. 116–44.
68. De Morgan, ‘Theory of probabilities’, p. 242, Essays on Newton, pp. 18–23, Budget of Paradoxes, vol. 1, p. 137, Penny Cyclopaedia 19 (1841), 5–12 (arguing against Stephen Rigaud) and 16 (1840), 197–203); Rice.
69. Cooper, Triumphs, pp. 103–4, 141.
70. Cooper, Purgatory of Suicides, p. 337.
71. Horne, p. 129; Ellis, p. 227 (and p. 118).
72. Leighton, p. 141 (from ‘Lowly work’); Smiles, p. 71. See also Cooper, Triumphs, p. 102 and Cooper’s Journal, p. 235; Craik, vol. 1, pp. 1–7; Buckley, pp. 218–28; All the Year Round, 18 April 1868, 443–4.
73. Saturday Magazine 1 (1832), 13–14 and 7 (1835), 241–3; Lives of Illustrious Men, p. 73. Massey, p. 21. See also Cooper, Paradise of Martyrs, Book IV.
74. Youth’s Instructer [sic] and Guardian 21 (1837), 78.
75. Buds of Genius, pp. 29–30; Lives of Learned and Eminent Men, p. 174. See also Chambers, vol. 1, p. 399, and Leighton, p. 141.
76. Jalland, pp. 17–58. For example, Halford, p. 278; Cooper, Cooper’s Journal, p. 252.
77. Suzuki; personal communication from Timon Screech; Fauvel, p. 240.
78. From ‘Letter to Alex Comfort’, in Heath-Stubbs and Salman, pp. 296–7.
79. Haydon, Lectures, p. 56, and Diary, vol. 2, p. 229 (see also pp. 154, 190–1); Falkner, p. 11; Cooter.
80. Whitwell, p. 314; Carlyle, p. 449.
81. Milner, p. 38.
82. Brewster, Life, p. 13, and Memoirs, vol. 1, p. 20.
83. King, Biographical Sketch, pp. 77–99; Timbs, pp. 149–52.
84. Athenæum (1882), 93. See Telescope, pp. 211–14; Craik, vol. 1, pp. 1–7, 196–210, vol. 2, p. 115.
85. Hodgskin, pp. 76–99 (quotation p. 89); MacLeod, ‘Concepts of invention’.
86. Telescope, p. 212; see also Edgar, p. 170; Smiles, p. 244; Combe, p. 130.
87. Secord, ‘Newton in the nursery’.
88. Casteras; Nochlin, pp. 145–78.
8: SHRINES
1. Disraeli, p. 120; Brown; Stukeley, p. 86.
2. Nature 119 (1927) 467 and supplement for 26 March; Grantham Journal, 26 March 1927, 4–8; Times, 19 March 1927, 14; Friedman and Donley.
3. Newspaper cuttings in Royal Society MS 657 / item 11; Geary; Wattenberg; Times, 21 March 1727, 10; Inwards; Vago.
4. Munby, History of Science and Cult of the Autograph Letter; Smith, Historical and Literary Curiosities.
5. Bate, Shakespeare, pp. 82–8; Outram; Pointon, ‘Shakespeare’.
6. The vast literature on these topics include Abir-Am, ‘How scientists view heroes’ and ‘Historical ethnography’, Bensaude-Vincent; Cohen, ‘Commemorations’, Connerton; Healy; Holderness; Lowenthal; McNeil; Nora; Samuel; Winter; Wright, Living in an Old Country.
7. Sotheby, pp. 7–10.
8. Yeo, Defining Science, especially pp. 110–13 (Mary Somerville quoted p. 112); Alaya.
9. Times, 29 April 1885, 9f, and 9 May 1892, 6e; 14 November 1890, 10e, and 29 November 1904, 86.
10. University of Cambridge Annual Report 1998–9, p. 26.
11. Winstanley, p. 434; Adrian; Edleston, p. xliv; McKitterick, p. 107; Ditchburn.
12. Jalland, pp. 265–83; King, Newton, p. 101; Yeo, Defining Science (Whewell quoted p. 16); Browne, pp. 180–8.
13. Yeo, ‘Genius’ and Defining Science, especially pp. 116–44; King, Newton, p. 101.
14. Prowett, pp. 236–7; Searby, pp. 423–544; Geary.
15. Edleston; Adrian.
16. Dening, pp. 75–111; Okri; Trinity College, Add. MS c.242.
17. Brewer, pp. 325–489; Bate, Shakespeare; Holderness; Keats quoted in Bate, Keats, p. 356 (letter of 11 July 1818).
18. Maude, Viator, p. vii (Appendix).
19. Spence, vol. 1, pp. 351–2; Maude, Wensley-dale, p. 30; Cooper, Cooper’s Journal, p. 219. Quoted Brewster, Life, p. 344 (the same verse, though differently punctuated, appeared on the engraving of Woolsthorpe in Maude, Wensley-dale, facing p. 28).
20. Charles Burney, quoted in Brewer, p. 472; Anderson, pp. 11–49.
21. Edinburgh Review 78 (1843), 436; Jordanova, ‘Science and nationhood’.
22. Turnor, pp. 157–86.
23. Biot, Life of Newton, p. 265n.; de Morgan, Paradoxes, vol. 1, p. 137; Gordon, p. 260.
24. Mais, p. 1224, Gaze, pp. 158–64; Notes and Records of the Royal Society 5 (1947), 34–6; Healy, pp. 30–41.
25. Cooper, Life, pp. 103–4, 116–18; Stamford Mercury, 29 September 1826, 4 (see also 27 July 1827, 3).
26. Moore; MacLeod, ‘James Watt’.
27. Quarterly Review 11 (1861), 433–5; Cantor, ‘Where the statue stood’; Brewster quoted in Gordon, p. 147 (from the North British Review).
28. Art Journal 4 (1858), 243, 372; Yarrington; Munsell; Barlow.
29. Quarterly Review 11 (1861) 435; unidentified newspaper article (evidently from 1853), Royal Society Box MS 657 / 9; Times, 16 September 1858, 12c, and 23 September 1858, 8c. Extract printed in Times, 25 September 1858, 10e. See also London Journal 28 (1858), 133–4.
30. Times, 21 January 1854, 6d; Royal Society Council Minutes, vol. 2, 250–1 (26 May 1853; see also MM.XIV.10) and 449 (28 October 1858); Royal Society Box MS 657 / 9.
31. Yarrington; Munsell; Jenkyns; Vago, pp. 76–83; Inwards, p. 8; Phrenological Journal 18 (1845), 153–6 (letter from C.P.).
32. Illustrated London News, 2 October 1858, 316; London Journal 28 (1858), 133. See also Times, 16 September 1858, 12c.
33. Acland and Ruskin, pp. 79–81.
34. Times, 22 September, 1858, 7b, and 23 September 1858; 8c; see also 9 September 1858; 10b, 10 September 1858, 7e. Brewster did not attend, probably because he was convalescing from bronchitis: Gordon, pp. 165–6.
35. Bell, pp. 91–169; Illustrated London News, 25 September 1858, 284 and 288, and 2 October 1858, 315–16.
36. King, Newton, p. 90.
37. White, Journals, p. 119; King, Newton, pp. 109–12 (Sir Benjamin Brodie quoted p. 111); Macleod, ‘Whigs and savants’.
38. King, Newton, pp. 117, 100–6.
39. Stamford Mercury, 24 June 1988; Times, 18 April 1987, 10a; Grantham Journal, 10 July 1987; Sunday Times, 22 March 1987, 31a.
40. Sir Isaac Newton; Brackenridge, pp. 89–93; Blaazer.
41. Ellison, p. 99; Thomas Steele, Times, 23 June 1834 (see also Times, 25 June 1834, 2e, and Morrell and Thackray, p. 343); Leisure Hour 1 (1852), 634–7; Jopling; Times, 9 August 1873, 12c, and 3 August 1870, 10f; European Magazine 60 (1811), 281–3; Notes and Queries 167 (1934), 164–5, 223; Times, 26 April 1866, 9a and 27 April 1866, 11b.
42. Smith, Antiquarian Ramble, vol. 1, p. 24; Goodman, pp. 242–80; Pahin-Champlain de la Blancherie (‘ce divin Personage’).
43. Masters (quotation p. 170 from the Hackney Carriage and Taxi-Cab Gazette of 1909); Hartill; King, Wonderful Things, pp. 10–12.
44. Basbanes; Smith, ‘Portraits’; Webber; Gardner, pp. 92–100.
45. Healy, p. 33; Babson.
46. Smith, Yankee Genius; Bal.
9: INHERITORS
1. This account is based on Ashworth (quotation from Stephen Rigaud p. 215) and Johns, pp. 543–621.
2. Turnbull, vol. 4, pp. 152–3 (letters of 20 and 23 July 1695).
3. Times, 2 October 1867, 8d (in The Times alone, there were thirteen letters and articles on the subject in under two months); Farrer, pp. 202–14; correspondence between Brewster and Sabine of 10 and 31 October 1867, Royal Society MSS, MC.8.91.
4. Nature, 26 March 1927, supplement, p. 24 (F. S. Marvin); Schweber, pp. 70–1; Moore; Jeans (quotation p. 28) and other articles in the special supplement to Nature of 26 March 1927.
5. Champion, 13 July 1742, reproduced in Gentleman’s Magazine 12 (1742), 364–6 (quotation p. 365). A series of American books by Gene Landrum links genius with computer expertise.
6. Traweek, pp. 74–105; Independent on Sunday, 24 October 1999, 6.
7. Quoted Brian, pp. 230–1 (in 1930). My major souces for the following account are: Brian, pp. 100–6; Earman and Glymour.
8. Calaprice: President Hibben of Princeton University (1921), quoted p. 234; Einstein, p. 184.
9. Friedman and Donley.
10. Russell, Analysis of Matter, p. 14.
11. Staley; Schaffer, ‘Newtonianism’.
12. Einstein, pp. 58, 222; Newton, Opticks, p. vii; Calaprice, p. 74.
13. My major source for the following account is Werskey, pp. 138–49.
14. Hessen (quotation p. 24).
15. Needham, quoted in Werskey, p. 147.
16. Bernal, Social Function, p. 23, and Science in History, pp. 337–43.
17. Merton, Science, Technology and Society (first published 1938).
18. Bernal, Social Function, pp. 191–237.
19. Einstein, Later Years, pp. 219–23 (quotation p. 219).
20. Gillespie, pp. 117–57 (quotations pp. 151, 150, 154, 521).
21. Hall, Ballistics, p. 158.
22. Cabral; Butterfield, especially, pp. 160, 179 (first published 1949).
