I do not
know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only
like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then
finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the
great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me. Sir
Isaac Newton;Memoirs of the
Life, Writings, and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton (1855) by Sir David
Brewster (Volume II. Ch. 27)
As
children gath’ring pebbles on the shore.
Or if I would delight my private hours
With music or with poem, where so soon
As in our native language can I find
That solace? John
Milton, Paradise Regained,Book iv. Line 330
I
will not define time, space, place and motion, as being well known to all. Sir Isaac
Newton; Principia Mathematica
Truth
is ever to be found in the simplicity, and not in the multiplicity and
confusion of things. Sir Isaac
Newton
Are not gross bodies and
light convertible into one another; and may not bodies receive much of their
activity from the particles of light which enter into their composition? The
changing of bodies into light, and light into bodies, is very conformable to
the course of Nature, which seems delighted with transmutations. Sir
Isaac Newton
In the absence of any
other proof, the thumb alone would convince me of God's existence. Sir Isaac
Newton; quoted in MacHale, Des, Wisdom (London, 2002)
He
very rarely went to bed until two or three of the clock, sometimes not till
five or six, lying about four or five hours, especially at springtime or
autumn, at which time he used to employ about six weeks in his laboratory,
the fire scarce going out night or day. What his aim might be I was unable
to penetrate into. One of the servants of Sir Isaac Newton; Source:Newton the Alchemist
Isaac
Newton wrote fellow alchemist Robert Boyle a letter urging him to keep
"high silence" in publicly discussing the principles of alchemy.
"Because the way by the Mercurial principle may be impregnated has been
thought fit to be concealed by others that have know it," Newton wrote,
"and therefore may possibly be an inlet to something more noble that is
not to be communicated without immense damage to the world if there be any
verity in [the warning of the] Hermetic writers. There are other things
besides the transmutation of metals which none but they understand." Source:Newton the Alchemist
…
a penchant for the occult was not Newton's only quirk. He is reported to
have laughed just once in his life-when someone asked him what use he saw in
Euclid. He took to decorating his rooms in crimson. He stuck a knife behind
his eyeball to induce optical effects, nearly blinding himself. He was a
Catholic-hating Puritan who secretly subscribed to the Arian heresy, which
denied the divinity of Christ. Newton was also given to endless feuding. He
seems to have had only two romantic attachments, both with younger males,
and suffered a paranoiac breakdown after the second came to rupture. Source:
Isaac Newton's Hidden Agenda of Mysticism and Alchemy
Plato
is my friend, Aristotle is my friend, but my best friend is truth. Sir Isaac
Newton; Quaestiones Quaedam Philosophicae (Certain
Philosophical Questions), 1664
Now in heaven the Sun
& Moon are by Interpreters of dreames put for the persons of Kings &
Queens, but in sacred Prophesy which regards not single persons, the Sun is
put for the whole species & race of Kings in ye
Kingdom or Kingdoms of the world politick shining wth
regal power & glory: the Moon for ye
body of the common people considered as the Kings wife: the stars for
subordinate Kings Princes & great men or for Bishops & Rulers of the
people of God when the Sun is Christ: Light|light
for the glory truth & knowledge wherewith great & good men shine
& illuminate others: darkness for obscurity of condition & for error
& ignorance: darkning, smiting or setting of ye
Sun Moon & stars for ye
ceasing of a kingdom or for the desolation thereof proportional to the
darkness: darkning the Sun turning the Moon into blood & falling of the
stars for the same. New Moons for ye
return of a dispersed people into a body politi{que} or ecclesiasti{que}. Sir
Isaac Newton,
Concerning
the Language of the Prophets, Chapter 1, ‘A Synopsis of the Prophetic
figures’Source:
The Newton Project
To
explain all nature is too difficult a task for any one man or even for any
one age. ’Tis much better to do a little with certainty, and leave the
rest for others that come after you, than to explain all things. Sir Isaac
Newton; quoted in Simmons, G, Calculus Gems (New York, 1992)
Who,
by vigour of mind almost divine, the motions and figures of the planets, the
paths of comets, and the tides of the seas first demonstrated. Epitaph ofSir
Isaac Newton
Sir
Isaac Newton
attained scientific immortality for formulating the law of gravity,
but he was also a theologian who wrote more than one million words
on biblical subjects and was influenced by Hebrew scripture,
according to academic articles on his work. He studied the Bible for
more than 50 years, trying to unravel what he believed were God's
secret laws of the universe.
Six years after his death, a book by the scientist about eschatology
(the end of the world, in this case as revealed by the Bible) was
published, On the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of
Saint John.
However, most
of his notes on the theme remained unknown, but in recent years a
document has been found in a Newton collection in the Jewish
National Library in Jerusalem that shows he set 2060 as the year the
world would expire. The
Newton Project, and in particular the academic, Stephen Snobelen,
have been working on Newton’s documents and have revealed that
Newton concluded that Armageddon
– a last great battle, would occur in 2060, with plagues, the
return of Christ, and the end of time. Newton wrote that this apocalypse
would be followed by a 1,000-year reign by the saints on Earth.
Newton stated:
This I mention not to assert when the time of the end shall be,
but to put a stop to the rash conjectures of fancifull men who are
frequently predicting the time of the end, and by doing so bring
the sacred prophesies into discredit as often as their predictions
fail.
"(It) is very counter-intuitive for people to think of Newton
in terms of date setting and working in prophecy," Stephen
Snobelen told Bible
Network News. "Because there's this conception that science
doesn't have anything to do with religion, and that's a very
unfortunate conception," he added. "You can find all sorts
of examples to disprove that. Historically and also today, most
scientists have some sort of religious background or
sentiment."
Snobelen
explained to Bible Network News how Newton devised his calculation.
"In the book of Daniel you will find the time period 1260 days.
And it appears there as 'a time, times, and a half', and that means
a year, two years, and a half a year. In other words, 1260 days or
42 months. Newton interpreted the days as years, so that gave him
1260 years. The 1260 date (also) does appear in the Book of
Revelation." These Biblical references can be found in Daniel
12:7, Revelation 11:3, 12:6 and 13:5.
The Newton
Project is working towards the publication, for the first time, of
all Newton’s theological and alchemical works, stating “There
are excellent editions of his mathematical and scientific papers, as
well as of his correspondence, but very few of his non-scientific
writings have ever appeared in print. The Newton Project will place
these writings in their relevant contexts, which will be made
accessible by means of hyperlinks.” (View
the manuscripts)
The BBC produced a documentary, Newton:
Dark Heretic, on the subject of Newton's eschatology.
In three words:
not likely. The story that an apple falling on the great English
scientist’s head led to his brilliant theories on gravity is
appealing but apocryphal. An associate of Newton’s, John Conduitt,
wrote “In the year 1666 ...whilst he was musing in a garden it
came into his thought that the power of gravity (which brought an
apple from the tree to the ground) was not limited to a certain
distance from the earth...” The apple was just an aside in the
story.
Voltaire
(1694 - 1778) popularised the account and over the centuries the
colourful myth of the falling fruit took shape.
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Snobelen
explained to Bible Network News how Newton devised his calculation.
"In the book of Daniel you will find the time period 1260 days.
And it appears there as 'a time, times, and a half', and that means
a year, two years, and a half a year. In other words, 1260 days or
42 months. Newton interpreted the days as years, so that gave him
1260 years. The 1260 date (also) does appear in the Book of
Revelation." These Biblical references can be found in Daniel
12:7, Revelation 11:3, 12:6 and 13:5.
