Famous Men of Science

But amid all the opposition to his discoveries and his poverty, the unparalleled devotion to study was continued. When he was weary of other branches, he said "he refreshed himself with history and chronology." Years afterward he published the "Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms amended, to which is prefixed a short chronicle, from the first memory of things in Europe, to the Conquest of Persia, by Alexander the Great." Says a gentleman who was with him for years, "I never knew him to take any recreation or pastime, either in riding out to take the air, walking, boating, or any other exercise whatever, thinking all hours lost that were not spent in his studies, to which he kept so close that he seldom left his chamber except at term time, when he read in the schools, as being Lucasianus Professor, where so few went to hear him, and fewer that understood him, that oftentimes he did in a manner, for want of hearers, read to the walls…

"So intent, so serious upon his studies that he ate very sparingly, nay, ofttimes he has forgot to eat at all, so that, going into his chamber, I have found his mess untouched, of which when I have reminded him he would reply, 'Have I?' and then making to the table, would eat a bit or two standing, for I cannot say I ever saw him sit at table by himself. At some seldom entertainments the masters of colleges were chiefly his guests.

"He very rarely went to bed till two or three of the clock, sometimes not till five or six, lying about four or five hours, especially at spring and fall of the leaf, at which times he used to employ about six weeks in his elaboratory, the fire scarcely going out either night or day, he sitting up one night, and I another, till he had finished his chemical experiments, in the performances of which he was the most accurate, strict, exact…"

When his most intense studies were carried on, "he learned to go to bed at twelve, finding by experience that if he exceeded that hour but a little, it did him more harm in his health than a whole day's study."

"He very rarely went to dine in the hall, except on some public days, and then if he has not been minded, would go very carelessly, with shoes down at heels, stockings untied, surplice on, and his head scarcely combed… At some seldom times when he designed to dine in the hall, he would turn to the left hand and go out into the street, when making a stop when he found his mistake, would hastily turn back, and then sometimes, instead of going into the hall, would return to his chamber again… In his chamber he walked so very much that you might have thought him to be educated at Athens, among the Aristotelian sect."

So absent-minded was he, the story is told of him, that going home to Colsterworth, he led his horse up a hill. When he designed to remount, the animal had slipped the bridle and gone away unperceived, though Newton held the bridle in his hand all the time. He would often sit down on his bedside after he rose, and remain there for hours without dressing, so completely absorbed was he in his thought. How few in all this world have been so devoted to science! And yet how many expect success without this devotion!

The same gentleman writes of Newton, "His carriage was very meek, sedate, and humble, never seemingly angry, of profound thought, his countenance mild, pleasant, and comely. I cannot say I ever saw him laugh but once."

In 1687, when Newton was forty-five, his Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica was published. "The Principia consists of three books. The First Book, besides the definition and axioms, or laws of motion, with which it begins, consists of fourteen sections, in the first of which the author explains the method of prime and ultimate ratios used in his investigations, and which is similar to the method of fluxions. The other sections treat of centripetal forces, and motions in fixed and movable orbits.

"The Second Book consists of nine sections, and treats of bodies moving in resisting media, or oscillating as pendulums.

"The Third Book consists of five sections, on the Causes of the System of the World, on the Quantity of Lunar Errors, on the Quantity of the Tides, on the Precession of the Equinoxes, and on Comets."

The great principle of the Principia is universal gravitation, "That every particle of matter in the universe is attracted by or gravitates to every other particle of matter, with a force inversely proportional to the squares of their distances." By the laws of gravity, Newton was enabled to calculate the quantity of matter in the sun, and in all the planets, and even to determine their density, results which Adam Smith said "were above the reach of human reason and experience." He ascertained that the weight of the same body would be twenty-three times greater at the surface of the sun than at the surface of the earth, and that the density of the earth was four times greater than that of the sun. He found the true figure of the earth; he explained the phenomena of the tides.

Of the "Principia," Sir David Brewster says, in his able life of Sir Isaac Newton, it is "a work which will be memorable not only in the annals of one science or of one country, but which will form an epoch in the history of the world, and will ever be regarded as the brightest page in the records of human reason, – a work, may we not add, which would be read with delight in every planet of our system, – in every system of the universe. What a glorious privilege was it to have been the author of the 'Principia'!

"There was but one earth upon whose form, and tides, and movements, the philosopher could exercise his genius, – one moon whose perturbations and inequalities and actions he could study, – one sun whose controlling force and apparent motions he could calculate and determine, – one system of planets whose mutual disturbances could tax his highest reason, – one system of comets whose eccentric paths he could explore and rectify, – and one universe of stars to whose binary and multiple combinations he could extend the law of terrestrial gravity.

"To have been the chosen sage summoned to the study of that earth, these systems, and that universe, the favored lawgiver to worlds unnumbered, the high priest in the temple of boundless space, – was a privilege that could be granted but one member of the human family; – and to have executed the last was an achievement which, in its magnitude, can be measured only by the infinite in space, and in the duration of its triumphs by the infinite in time. That sage, – that lawgiver, – that high priest was Newton."

The "Principia" created the greatest interest throughout Europe, but met with violent opposition. While Laplace said it would take "pre-eminence above all the other productions of human genius," the majority could not believe that great planets were suspended in empty space, and retained in their orbits by an invisible power in the sun.

When Newton presented copies to the heads of colleges, some of them, Dr. Babington of Trinity among the number, said, "they might study seven years before they understood anything of it."

In 1687, Newton's method of fluxions was first published, twenty years after its invention, and then because the friends of Leibnitz, the author of the "Differential Calculus," claimed priority of discovery. The quarrel aroused the scientific world, embittered the silent mathematician, and impaired his health.

In 1689, when he was forty-seven, he was chosen member of parliament, and represented Cambridge University in the House of Commons for thirteen months. He took no active part in the debates, but was of course respected for his wonderful mind.

This same year, his beloved mother died. Anxiously he had watched through whole nights by her bedside, seeking in all ways to keep her from leaving him alone in the world.

He was now nearly fifty. His life had been laborious, with an insufficient income. His friends, John Locke among the number, tried to obtain various positions for him, but failed. They recommended him for provost of King's College, but the position could not be obtained because he had not taken priest's orders.

Seemingly unappreciated, worn with his incessant brain work, his appetite failing, and unable to sleep, with neither mother nor wife to comfort him, the sensitive organization of the great man became overstrained, and mind and body were unfitted for work. It is stated that his ill health was in part consequent upon the burning of some manuscripts on optics, by a lighted candle on the table among his papers.

When he was fifty-three, the long hard road of poverty turned into a highway of plenty, through the influence of a friend. Charles Montague, an associate of Newton at the university and also in parliament, though nineteen years his junior, – intellectual affinities are uninfluenced by age, – had been made Commissioner of the Treasury, then Privy Councillor, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, and later still, Baron of Halifax.

Lord Halifax appointed Newton to be Warden of the Mint, and then Master, with an income of between six thousand and seven thousand five hundred dollars annually, which position he held for the remainder of his life. His home in London, where he kept six servants, with his brilliant niece, Miss Catherine Barton, for his companion, became a place of rest and comfort to the tired philosopher. Lord Halifax was a great admirer of Newton's niece, Miss Catherine Barton, to whom he left, at his death, a beautiful home and twenty-five thousand dollars, "as a token of the sincere love, affection, and esteem I have long had for her person, and as a small recompense for the pleasure and happiness I have had in her conversation."

The days of privation were over, and Newton had earned this rest and prosperity. Great people often came to dine with him. At one of his dinners, Newton proposed to drink, not to the health of kings and princes, but to all honest persons, to whatever country they belonged. "We are all friends," he added, "because we unanimously aim at the only object worthy of man, which is the knowledge of truth. We are also of the same religion, because, leading a simple life, we conform ourselves to what is right, and we endeavor sincerely to give to the Supreme Being that worship which, according to our feeble lights, we are persuaded will please him most."

Other honors now come to Newton. In 1703, he was elected President of the Royal Society, and was annually reëlected during the remaining twenty-five years of his life. On April 16, 1705, when he was sixty-three, Queen Anne conferred the honor of knighthood upon her most illustrious subject, Sir Isaac Newton, before a distinguished company at Cambridge University. In 1704, the year previous, his great work on optics had been published, written over twenty years before.

About this time, it seems that the great philosopher would have liked to marry Lady Norris, the widow of Sir William Norris, Baronet of Speke, and Member of Parliament. Sent to Delhi as ambassador to the Great Mogul, he died in 1702, between Mauritius and St. Helena, on his homeward passage. He was the third husband to Lady Norris, and Sir Isaac, now over sixty, desired to be the fourth, as appears from the following letter: —

"Madam, – Your ladyship's great grief at the loss of Sir William shows that if he had returned safe home, your ladyship could have been glad to have lived still with a husband, and therefore your aversion at present from marrying again can proceed from nothing else than the memory of him whom you have lost. To be always thinking on the dead, is to live a melancholy life among sepulchres, and how much grief is an enemy to your health, is very manifest by the sickness it brought when you received the first news of your widowhood. And can your ladyship resolve to spend the rest of your days in grief and sickness?

"Can you resolve to wear a widow's habit perpetually, – a habit which is less acceptable to company, a habit which will be always putting you in mind of your lost husband, and thereby promote you grief and indisposition till you leave it off? The proper remedy for all these mischiefs is a new husband, and whether your ladyship should admit of a proper remedy for such maladies, is a question which I hope will not need much time to consider of.

"Whether your ladyship should go constantly in the melancholy dress of a widow, or flourish once more among the ladies; whether you should spend the rest of your days cheerfully or in sadness, in health or in sickness, are questions which need not much consideration to decide them. Besides that your ladyship will be better able to live according to your quality by the assistance of a husband than upon your own estate alone; and, therefore, since your ladyship likes the person proposed, I doubt not but in a little time to have notice of your ladyship's inclinations to marry, at least, that you will give him leave to discourse with you about it.

"I am, madam, your ladyship's most humble and most obedient servant."

If Lady Norris "liked the person proposed," as Sir Isaac imagined, a marriage was not the result. It is just possible that he was like Leibnitz, who proposed to a lady when he was fifty. The lady asked for time to take the matter into consideration, and as Leibnitz thus obtained leisure to consider the matter again, he was never married.

For thirteen years Sir Isaac lived on Jermyn Street, London; then moved to Chelsea, a place dear to those who love George Eliot or admire Carlyle; and then to Martin Street, near Leicester Fields.

In his latter years he wrote much on theological subjects, especially to prove the existence of a Deity. When he was eighty-three he published a third edition of the "Principia." At eighty-five he read manuscript without spectacles. He reasoned as acutely as ever, his memory alone failing.

On March 2, 1727, he presided at a meeting of the Royal Society. He was taken ill on the following day, and, although a great sufferer for several days, never uttered a complaint. He died on Monday, March 20, and his body was laid in the Jerusalem Chamber, and thence conveyed to Westminster Abbey for burial. The pall was supported by the Lord High Chancellor and several Dukes and Earls.

On the front of his monument are sculptured youths, bearing in their hands emblematic designs of Newton's principal discoveries. One carries a prism, another a reflecting telescope, a third is weighing the sun and planets with a steelyard, a fourth is employed about a furnace, and two others are loaded with money newly coined. The monument bears this inscription.

Here LiesSIR ISAAC NEWTON, KNIGHT,Who by a vigor of mind, almost supernatural,First demonstratedThe motions and figures of the Planets,The Paths of the Comets, and theTides of the OceanHe diligently investigatedThe different refrangibilities of the Rays of Light,And the properties of the Colors to whichthey give riseAn Assiduous, Sagacious, and Faithful Interpreterof Nature, Antiquity, and the Holy Scriptures,He asserted in his Philosophy the Majesty ofGod, and exhibited in his Conduct thesimplicity of the GospelLet Mortals rejoice that there has existedsuch and so greatAn ornament of the human raceBorn 25 Dec., 1642; Died 20 March, 1727

A beautiful full-length, white marble statue of Sir Isaac was erected in the ante-chapel of Trinity College, where he had done his wonderful work, when scarcely more than a boy.

While he gave generously during his life, he said, "they who give nothing till they die, never give at all," – he left a personal estate of one hundred and sixty thousand dollars, to be divided among his nephews and nieces.

The world honored him at last, and has through all the years. Bishop Burnet said, "Newton had the whitest soul he ever knew." His habits were of the best. When asked to take snuff or tobacco, he declined, saying, "he would make no necessities to himself."

He was modest to the last, saying, "that whatever service he had done the public was not owing to any extraordinary sagacity, but solely to industry and patient thought." He said, a short time before his death: "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 seashore, 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."

CARL LINNÆUS

It was on the 24th of July that we left Stockholm, the Venice of the North, built on her nine islands, for the famous university town of Upsala, Sweden. The ride, of about two hours by rail, lay along fine fields of wheat, blue with corn-flowers, and past comfortable-looking red farmhouses and barns.

The town, of thirteen thousand people, is quaint and quiet, yet most interesting to a stranger. We wander over the grand old Gothic cathedral, begun six hundred years ago. Here is the silver-gilt sarcophagus of King Eric IX., who died in 1160, and of John III. Here, also, that of Gustavus Vasa, the deliverer of Sweden, on a high marble pedestal supported by pillars, a recumbent figure of a wife on either side. A third wife is buried near by. The walls of the chapel where he lies are covered with frescoes, depicting scenes in that wonderful life; from the rags of the miner, to the sumptuousness of the throne.

But especially are we interested in a plain slab, underneath which sleeps the man who, more than any other, has immortalized Upsala University, and helped to make Sweden an intellectual and studious country. Near by is the monument of dark porphyry, with the plain, shaven face in bronze, wreathed with laurel, and the words "Carolo a Linné Botanicorum Principi Amici et Discipuli, 1798."

Then we turn our steps to the University, the pride and hope of Sweden. Here fifteen hundred gather, not in dormitories – which were tried fifty years ago and discarded – but scattered in various homes, as in the German universities. Women are educated here on equal terms with men, and we are assured by the professors that, though admitted only a few years ago, their presence is most helpful, and the plan has proved entirely successful. No duels are allowed, these having been abolished by stringent laws two hundred years ago; a thing Germany should long since have done, and thus ended this brutal custom.

Here is the Astronomical Observatory, the Chemical Laboratory, Anatomy Building, Academic Department, and handsome library with two hundred thousand volumes and over seven thousand manuscripts. Here we look at the celebrated "Codex Argenteus," a translation of the four Gospels by Bishop Ulfila, dating from the second half of the fourth century, written on one hundred and eighty-eight leaves of parchment – gold and silver letters on a reddish ground; and the manuscript of Frithiof's Saga, by Tegnér.

Now we visit the Botanic Garden, which Linnæus so loved and developed, and go over the two-and-a-half-story stuccoed house, cream-colored, where the great naturalist lived and entertained princes. Under these dark poplars, enormous in size, he taught the pupils who came from all parts of the world to hear him. The dark, closed blinds are as he left them, for Sweden would not change one thing about the precious home. Too little in our own country do we treasure the homes of those who give honor to the nation.

The history of Linnæus is, indeed, a romance. Few have had such great struggles with poverty; few have come off such conquerors. Few lives have given to the world such lessons of cheerfulness, of perseverance, and of untiring industry. He was born, May, 1707, at Rashult, in the south of Sweden, the son of a poor minister, and the eldest of five children. The father, Nils Linnæus, had obtained his education by the hardest toil, and, while he had only poverty to offer his family, he gave them what money could not buy, tender affection, and the inspiring influence of a cultivated mind that loved nature and studied her closely. His mother, Christina, a woman of sense, prudence, and good judgment, was his idol. He wrote of her in later years: "She possessed all the virtues of her sex, devoting the utmost attention to impressing on my mind the love of virtue, both in precept and example."

From a child he was fond of his father's garden, and gathered from the fields all kinds of wild flowers. He says of himself in his autobiography: "He was scarcely four years old when he accompanied his father at a feast at Mökler, and in the evening, it being a very pleasant season of the year, the guests seated themselves on some flowery turf, listening to the pastor, who made various remarks on the names and properties of the plants, showing them the roots of the succisa, tormentilla, orchids, etc. The child paid the most uninterrupted attention to all he saw and heard, and from that hour never ceased harassing his father about the name, qualities, and nature of every plant he met with; indeed, he very often asked more than his father was able to answer, but, like other children, he used immediately to forget what he had learned, and especially the names of plants. Hence the father was sometimes put out of humor, and refused to answer him unless he would promise to remember what was told him. Nor had this harshness any bad effect, for he afterward retained with ease whatever he heard."

When he was eight, a piece of ground was assigned him, which was called "Carl's Garden." Here he gathered plants and flowers, and introduced so many rare weeds that his father had great trouble in eradicating them! So interested did Carl become, that he had nests of wild bees and wasps, not agreeable playthings usually.

But the play days with weeds and wasps came to an end, for the bright boy had to go to school. His first teacher was "a passionate and morose man, better calculated for extinguishing a youth's talents than for improving them," and the next "pursued the same methods, preferring stripes and punishments to encouragements and admonitions." There was little time now for the precious study of flowers. At seventeen he had to go to a gymnasium or high school, where he would be taught classics, and made ready for the ministry, like his father. He had no fondness for the languages, neither for theology or metaphysics: but having obtained two books on botany, he read them day and night, committing them to memory. The teachers and scholars called him "the little botanist."

What was his father's chagrin, when he came to the school to visit him, to hear that Carl was quite unfit for the ministry, but would probably make a good tailor or shoemaker! Poor as he was, he had kept his boy at school for about twelve years. Now, well-nigh disheartened, he stopped, on his way home, to confer with his family physician, Dr. Rothmann. That good man suggested that the boy might like medicine, and accomplish great things in natural history. He offered to take him into his own home, and give him lessons in physiology, which kind proposal the father accepted, though with little faith. The doctor also taught him botany, and Carl grew happy under the new régime.

The next year he was sent to the University of Lund, with the following not very creditable certificate from the head master of the Gymnasium: "Youth at school may be compared to shrubs in a garden, which will sometimes, though rarely, elude all the care of the gardener, but if transplanted into a different soil, may become fruitful trees. With this view, therefore, and no other, the bearer is sent to the University, where it is possible that he may meet with a climate propitious to his progress." Through a friend, entrance was obtained without showing the obnoxious certificate.

Carl took lodgings at the house of Dr. Stobæus, physician to the king, who gave him access to his minerals, shells, and dried plants. Delighted at this, the youth at once began to make a collection of his own, and glue them on paper. He longed to gain access to Dr. Stobæus's library, but how should it be accomplished? Finally a young German student, to whom he taught physiology, surreptitiously gained the books needed, and young Linnæus spent nearly the whole nights in reading. The doctor's aged mother did not understand why their lodger kept his light burning into the small hours, and besought her son to investigate. He did so, and found the crestfallen Carl reading his own library books. He forgave the student, took him to his own table and treated him as a son.

Advised by Dr. Rothmann to go to Upsala for better medical opportunities, he proceeded thither, and here began his bitterest poverty. His father could give him only forty dollars. As he was unknown, and without influence, he could obtain no private pupils. Starvation actually stared him in the face. He says, "he was obliged to trust to chance for a meal, and in the article of dress, was reduced to such shifts that he was obliged, when his shoes required mending, to patch them with folded paper, instead of sending them to the cobbler." Often hungry and half clothed, there seemed nothing before the poor Swedish lad but obscurity and early death.