Isaac Newton. Eighteenth-century perspectives (Q2760861)

Recent years have seen the appearance of two masterly Newton biographies, both based on first-hand study of his manuscripts, correspondence, and works: \textit{Richard S. Westfall}'s ``Never at Rest'' [Cambridge University Press (1980; Zbl 0532.01023)], and \textit{A. Rupert Hall'}s ``Isaac Newton, Adventurer in Thought'', Blackwell (1992; Zbl 0976.01014)]. Both incorporate, as much as is possible in a scientific biography, the results of half a century of intensive research on Newton's life and works. Thus the time has come for a comparison of the modern picture of Newton with the public image as it was painted in about half a dozen eulogies published during the Eighteenth Century. NEWLINENEWLINENEWLINEAt the beginning stands the narrative of Newton's life, based on personal recollections, by John Conduitt (1688-1737), Newton's successor as Master of the Mint and husband of Newton's half-niece Catherine Barton who had kept Newton's household for many years. Conduitt supplied the Perpetual Secretary of the Académie des Sciences in Paris, Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle (1657-1757), with personal ``Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton'' for the official ``Eloge'' (read in the Académie on 12 November, 1727). This, also containing a (not uncritical) description of Newton's scientific work, was to become the main source of eighteenth-century knowledge of Newton's life and works. (Conduitt later, not being fully satisfied with Fontenelle's ``Eloge'', collected more material, never published in its entirety, for a projected biography.) NEWLINENEWLINENEWLINEThe next influential piece was the article on Newton by Thomas Birch (1705-1766), published in vol. 7 (1738) of the ``General Dictionary, Historical and Critical'', edited by Samuel Johnson; a few years later its publication in a French dictionary made it available to a wider audience on the continent, too. The second life of Newton produced in England (by an anonymous author) appeared in 1760 in vol. 5 of the ``Biographia Britannica''. NEWLINENEWLINENEWLINEStrangely enough, the first book-length biography was written by an Italian physicist, Paolo Frisi (1728-1784), whom Hall calls ``an unsung hero of the \textit{Illuminismo} in Italy''. In 1768 he published his ``Elogio del Cavalieri Isaaco Newton'', here reproduced for the first time in English (translated by Hall). It forms the core of the present book. -- Finally, at the end of the century, there appeared an article on Newton by Charles Hutton (1737-1823), written for his ``Mathematical and Philosophical Dictionary'', published in two volumes (1796/95). NEWLINENEWLINENEWLINEPart I of the present book opens with a wide-ranging essay about biography as a literary form, its scopes, purposes, and varying emphases; it describes Conduitt's `Memoir' as well as other life records of Newton, and ends with a bibliography of Newton's writings published before 1800. NEWLINENEWLINENEWLINEPart II presents the five biographies mentioned above. The very useful introductory comments make clear what the principal original contributions of their respective authors are, outline their main sources, and point to grave errors (and their tradition in later biographies). They also emphasize, what the biographies reveal: it was not the ``Principia'' but the ``Opticks'' which was best understood and on which a good deal of Newton's early fame rested. NEWLINENEWLINENEWLINEIn his ``Afterword: A new era'' Hall sketches the development of Newtonian research since 1800. To the description of the fate of the famous Portsmouth Collection one could now add a remark about the Macclesfield Collection: it has recently been transferred to Cambridge University Library and will be made available in the near future to all interested scholars. NEWLINENEWLINENEWLINEThe book contains several supplements, among which is a list of principal biographies of Newton down to the present day. (In it, Frisi's ``Elogio'' is missing.) One might also add the articles `Newton oder Neuton (Isaac)' and `Newtonsche Philosophie' in Johann Heinrich Zedler: ``Grosses vollständiges Universal-Lexicon'', vol. 24 (Leipzig and Halle, 1740, cols. 411-416): though not very long, they were an important source for German readers, and in addition, the second article contains a wealth of bibliographical references not quoted by the authors dealt with in this book. These citations refer especially to literature nowadays forgotten concerning the different philosophical and physical views of the Newtonian and the Leibnizian world view.) NEWLINENEWLINENEWLINEIt is to be hoped that a similar comparative study will follow which investigates the contents and tendencies of the most important Newton biographies published during the Nineteenth and the first half of the Twentieth Century. If done with the same competence as in the present volume, it would be a welcome contribution, illuminating the development of biographical writing in the history of science over five generations of scholars.