Isaac Newton: The Last Sorcerer

I was attracted to this book by a moronic blogger on another site who tried to rationalize the idiocy of "Intelligent Design" by arguing that Isaac Newton believed God created the universe! Another blogger recommended "The Last Sorcerer" as a rebutal to that comment. Michael White's scholarship is well-researched, incisive and thoughtful. He reveals the history of the awakening of scientific thought and inquiry of the 17th and 18th centuries in a readable and interesting manner. His descriptions of Newton, Hooke, Waterhouse, Huygens, et al, who opened the doors to the modern scientific method are easy to follow and carefully organized. Sir Isaac, indeed as much a man of God as he was a man of his time, was nonetheless largely responsible for the beginning of the end of superstition and ignorance and the awakening of inquiry and experiment. This is a good read for anyone interested in where we've been and how we got to where we are.

Think that Isaac Newton was the epitome of the cool, scientific, humanist mind? Think again. It turns out that the greatest scientific genius in history was a twisted, tortured mystic with homosexual tendencies, an ability to hold grudges for decades, an egomaniac, and a very petty man. The word "queen" (...) comes to mind. He spent a few years on his great mathematical and physics work. He spent decades and decades attempting to decipher alchemy and the Old Testament prophecies. He predicted the year that Chist would return to earth (1948). He thought the design of Solomon's temple was a code for all of recorded history. He wasted year after year on absurd alchemical experiments. He subscribed to the heresy of Arianism. He was deeply religious (and not at all secular) in his outlook (though not in his behavior). He was incapable of much human affection having been damaged by his upbringing. He went nuts several times. He sought revenge on his (perceived) enemies and did so with a tenacity and a ferocity that bordered on being satanic. This is an individual who would have been very comfortable as a guest on Art Bell's "Coast to Coast" program along with alien abduction "experts" and conspiracy theorists. He was brilliant and his mathematical work is still astounding. But forget the idea that he was some symbol of the new man of the enlightenment. He was nothing of the sort. A heck of a good read.

True, Newton was a "man of science" and certainly among thegreatest. But "science" was not in the 17th Century what itis to us today and like many of his contemporaries, Newtoninherited a scientific legacy which was steeped in alchemisticmysticism dating back to the Ancients.White cites the undeniable alchemistic, mystical influences in Newton's thinking not to stir up controversy or serve up "gossip"as some would superficially contend.Rather he intends to point out the quasi-magical, occult leanings in Newton's thought which enabled him to dream of or "conjure"such unseen forces as gravity while other minds remained trappedin commonplace and hence unfruitful modes of thinking. Basically, Newton's ability to shift his view of physical reality to a new paradigm, White's book seems to be saying, was as much a product of his sub-conscious imaginings as well as hisconscious, rational thought.Einstein purportedly said [and I paraphrase] that imagination was more important than knowledge because new knowledge comesto us nascently through sheer imagination.If this book seems to delve too much into Newton's mysticalbeliefs then it is simply to compensate for the two-dimensionaland in some cases, untruthful "rational" biographical depictionsthat have coloured our view of the man and ignored the role ofnon-rational philosophies in driving modern science to where itis today.The interesting question is: we speak of modern science as a rational endeavor today but in another hundred years, how superstitious and primitive will we appear to posterity?

I had been a little disappointed in White's biography of da Vinci, Leonardo: The First Scientist (for which see my review), because I felt he had overstepped the boundaries of the available data and wandered vastly into the realm of speculation. When his book Isaac Newton: The Last Sorcerer came to my attention I was dubious, but I needn't have been. This volume seems very well researched, and what speculation the author offers is not beyond that which arises naturally from his material. In fact, it is not much beyond that which other authors have also raised. Although I have never read a book entirely dedicated to the physicist, I have often run across biographical information on the man in my other reading on the topic of physics. My first introduction to Newton as a person was in an early book by Carl Sagan. The latter seemed inclined to view Newton as a petty, introverted man who came up with a brilliant contribution to science but who was otherwise enmeshed in the totally unscientific pursuit of alchemy, an endeavor that ultimately poisoned him after first driving him mad. It must be admitted, however, that Sagan's primary purpose had not been a biography of Newton. White definitely gives the subject a better and fairer hearing. In The Last Sorcerer, he makes it obvious that Newton's dabbling in the occult sciences, while less productive of useful information itself, helped structure his way of thinking about other problems which did. Furthermore, he gives credit to the man's thorough knowledge of metals, solvents, furnaces and techniques involved in alchemy, in short of incipient chemistry, as a contributing factor to his later successes in science and other endeavors. He notes too that other notable and productive scientists of the time are known to have dabbled in this subject. This after all was a time of emergent science, when anything yet seemed possible.In going beyond Newton the genius of physics, White brings the whole man to the fore. He explains some of his social background (upper middle class for the day), his ambition (the YUPPIES of that generation), the origin of his paranoia regarding his work (not unlike the high-tech world's concern over the loss of rights to its intellectual property through theft), and his pettiness (though here White wanders farthest into speculation). It was interesting to know that Newton had enjoyed several careers during his long lifetime. He brought his considerable talents and drive to the rolls of academic, politician, Master of the Mint (during which time he also became a detective and public prosecutor of sorts), and Royal Society president. I have to admit to a certain shock--obviously felt, too, by those of his time--at Newton's vicious persecution of scientific rivals. The degree to which he and Robert Hooke went at it, with the latter coming off as the villain, was surprising enough. The battles between Newton and the Astronomer Royal Flamsteed, whose life's work was v

This is an excellent account of Newtons life, including not only detailed antecdotes about Newton himself but we also find in this book detailed context. This includes a nice explanation of the state of physics, mathematics and astronomy at the time Newton went to college as well as a very interesting historical account of the development of these fields. The environment and state of affairs at Cambridge at the time is also detailed quite nicely. I think the other reviewers are not being fair, Newtons interest in alchemy lasted a long time and was hardly a "one time thing". I do agree that the passage about Newtons religious views was a bit ridiculous, the claim that Newton may have seen himself as Christ is ridiculous and based on flimsy evidence. But that is only one paragraph in the book and shouldn't deter a potential reader from getting this book. The excellent descriptions of Newtons early years and the historical developments of the sciences alone make this book worth reading. An excellent description on graphs of equations and tangent lines and how these provided problems for scientists and mathematicians at the time is also very interesting, and you can see how Newton used this to invent (or discover) calculus. The history of alchemy is also very interesting, and enlightening--the author shows that the art was not all quackery and many of the instruments of basic chemistry came from it. All in all I would say this book reveals Newton for what he was, a human being with faults and complexities just like everyone else. Highly recommended.