by Stuart Clark
Yet the price if it were to go wrong! Even gravitation could be rejected if his reputation were ruined. For a moment he regretted making the Principia so difficult to understand. It made it all the easier for others to ignore.
‘Will you do it?’ pressed Locke, his doleful eyes unblinking.
Newton’s heart pounded. ‘To worship Christ as if he were the Lord is to me the foulest notion.’ Closing his eyes he said, ‘Yes, by my Godgiven strength, I will do it.’
On the fourth day, Locke and Newton returned from a walk at dusk and took their seats for supper. The pair sat at a table fit for twenty, in a narrow hall slung low with tarred beams. Locke was eating his usual morsels of vegetables while Newton’s stomach roared for meat and hearty sustenance.
A servant appeared. ‘A visitor insists he sees you, sir.’
Locke wiped his mouth with a cloth and made to get up.
‘Actually, sir, I was addressing Mr Newton.’
Fatio stepped into the room. He was wearing a flamboyant new green jacket, piped in gold, and an expression of defiance.
A shadow of suspicion crossed Locke’s face.
‘Monsieur Fatio de Duillier is the most promising mathematician of his generation,’ said Newton around his mouthful. ‘We’ve been working together in London.’
‘Then, Mr Fatio, you’re welcome. Join us for supper,’ said Locke coolly.
Working in the spartan back room, Newton ignored the first knock at the door. In his experience, that usually deterred unwelcome visitors. Not so in this case. The door hinges squeaked and a figure edged inside. Newton did not look round but hunched low over the work-table. It was hardly big enough for a single sheet of paper; the inkwell and finished sheets had to be laid on the floor, but it sufficed. This tactic of engrossment also often worked, compelling the intruder to retreat.
‘I wondered if you would like to walk with me into the village?’ said Fatio, though his tone implied it was not a request.
Newton finished writing his sentence. ‘It is not yet time. We usually walk after lunch, to aid the digestion.’
‘But I thought you might like to walk with me alone.’
‘This is a most painstaking document.’
‘You would go if Mr Locke asked you.’
Newton swung his head. ‘Nicolas, do not mistake my being busy for not wanting to be with you. Sit with me while I work.’
‘No, thank you. I have things of my own to do.’
At lunch, Fatio remained silent as Newton and Locke discussed progress in guarded terms. When the trio set out for their walk, Fatio sullenly tagged along behind, paying undue attention to the plants.
‘Tell me, Mr Newton, does your study of nature bring you closer to God?’ asked Locke.
Newton swept his gaze across the forest. ‘Indeed it does. Nature does nothing in vain. Its transformations bring forth all the order and the beauty in the world. When I look at it, I’m convinced that there is an intelligence behind it.’
‘Quite so, but there is one question I cannot resolve. Your laws of motion and gravity, they imply that the Universe is clockwork, running on mechanical principles. If that be the case, I am unable to see the role of God following the initial creation.’
‘Then let me explain to you about the sensorium of God–’
Fatio suddenly uttered a succession of guttural, anguished sounds.
Newton turned to see him doubled up, clutching his stomach. ‘Nicolas, are you ill?’
‘I’m strangled in the belly.’
‘Was it something you ate?’ Locke inquired.
‘Let me get you back to the house,’ said Newton.
‘No, you are deep in discourse. Do not let me stop you. What can I add to your elevated discussion?’ Fatio turned and limped back along the path.
Newton did his best to return to the conversation, but a dozen steps later he halted. ‘I’m sorry, John, I’m concerned about Nicolas. I must attend to him.’
‘Of course.’
Newton expected to catch up with the pain-stricken Fatio, but the man was nowhere to be seen. Back at the house, Newton headed for the kitchen.
‘Has Monsieur Fatio returned?’
‘Monsieur de Duillier is in his room, sir,’ a servant replied.
‘I understand he’s ill.’
‘He seemed quite well when I passed him on the landing just now, sir.’
Newton bounded from the kitchen and burst into Fatio’s room without knocking. The young man was sitting dejectedly by the window.
‘What is going on?’ asked Newton.
‘I’ve been waiting for an opportunity to see you alone. I bring important news.’ Fatio held out a worn leather-bound book.
‘That’s my Bible,’ said Newton.
‘There’s a message in it,’ Fatio weighted his words, ‘from Reverend Flamsteed. He called the day after you left.’
‘Flamsteed?’ He closed the door and took the Bible. There was a strip of paper sticking out of the top. On it was written: Read Jeremiah, chapter 10 to the 10th verse.
Newton did not need to, especially not after the work he had been doing this week. Those were passages against false idols and liars.
‘What does it mean?’ asked Fatio.
‘Did he say anything else?’
‘No, what does he mean?’
‘It’s nothing you need to worry about,’ Newton said distractedly.
‘Isaac, please. Secret meetings, cryptic passages, veiled conversations with Locke; what’s happening? Don’t treat me like a child. I thought we meant something to each other.’ His young face was hot with indignation.
The sight pierced Newton. He sat on Fatio’s unmade bed. ‘Come and sit down. I’ll explain.’
Fatio sat next to Newton.
‘In the fourth century there was a fierce debate in the Church about the nature of Jesus Christ. There were those who believed that He was as eternal as the Father and therefore made of the same divine substance.’
‘You describe the Holy Trinity.’
‘Yes, but an Egyptian presbyter called Arius argued against it. Both views gathered followers and threatened to split the Church. When the argument erupted into violence, the Roman Emperor Constantine called his bishops together for the first-ever Council of the Catholic Church. Arius was defeated and denounced as a heretic. Thus Trinitarianism became the orthodoxy . . . but it was the wrong decision.’
Fatio had turned white. ‘Isaac, this is heresy. They can hang you for holding such a belief.’
‘Now do you understand why I wanted to leave you out of this?’
Fatio looked crestfallen.
Newton softened his voice. ‘I know it’s difficult for you to hear, dangerous even, but I think you can carry this burden. Even since that decision, Christianity has been perverted so completely that, even in the Anglican Church, they’re unaware of the abomination they perpetrate whenever they accept the sacrament. The blood of Christ and the body of Christ; it’s the most evil manifestation of idolatry ever committed. It must be reversed.’
‘So, this is the real goal of your work. The overthrow of religion.’
‘I work for the glory of God. I am His most humble servant. Fatio, look at me. Do you believe me?’
Fatio looked nervous but he bowed his head.
Newton took him in his arms. ‘If I fail, everyone is damned.’
Newton spent the night wrestling with his thoughts. There had been thirteen hundred years of endemic perversion. How many had lived and died under that false doctrine? Every single one of them had lost their souls because of a single decision taken in a desert temple during the fourth century. Even if Newton could begin to turn the Church back now, what was to be done for those already lost? His own mother and father were among them.
Newton felt a tear roll down his cheek. He surrendered to his emotions. The voices in his head spoke their own cacophonous suggestions.
When dawn arrived, he watched the sky with stinging eyes, and a wave of elatio
n overcame him. It was so unexpected that he thought he might weep again. In the grip of the epiphany, he realised there was only one course open to him.
The Philosopher’s Stone.
With that in his possession, he could save all humanity – all of those that lived and all of those that had already died. But to do it, he needed to be back in Cambridge with his furnace.
33
Cambridge
1693
Sweat snaked down Newton’s back. Hunched as close to the furnace as he could bear to be, he watched the small puddle of gold and lead in the bottom of the crucible. The metals slid together, ready and waiting, approaching the critical point.
Despite the heat, he felt shivery and tense. Days ago he had been stupid enough to admit his maladies to Fatio, thereby giving his companion the excuse to drag him outside for some fresh air. Regardless of their time together, it still escaped Fatio that Newton preferred to persist when experiments failed. The setbacks served to redouble his resolve, not furnish excuses for giving up. Fatio, however, would idle, cursing their lost effort and seeking diversions: meals, turns round the quad, walks along the river. What had happened to the boy’s determination these past months? Since their return from High Laver he had been a changed person.
He was sitting now in the corner, listlessly grinding a sample to powder.
‘Mercury,’ Newton demanded.
Fatio moved the pestle and mortar aside and rooted through the shelves.
Newton watched the noxious potion. The surface would darken at any moment and he would pour in the mercury in a single unbroken flow. He beckoned to Fatio to hurry up.
A fortnight ago they had come so close to success. The sudden fizz and bubble in the crucible had ignited a momentary elation, but it had faded as quickly as the reaction had stalled. Nevertheless, in the wake of the disappointment, Newton had glimpsed the correct formulation. He saw it not in words or numbers, but in his mind’s eye as creatures pacing the primitive earth, grappling each other with their clawed feet, fighting with hooked beaks and spreading their scaly wings to take flight.
He had tried to write it all down, but words were inadequate to describe these processes; they had to be pictured – as in the old alchemical treatises. Newton had clung to the images in his head, bought more gold and taken delivery of more charcoal to prepare the samples again.
For those two weeks he had been unable to sleep for more than a few minutes at a time, lest the beasts escape from his imagination. He had buried himself so deeply in the vision that he now glimpsed them around him in reality. Sometimes it would be a shadow passing the bell tower of Trinity, or a scraping outside his door in the early hours of the morning. Once he heard the bark of a griffin.
Fatio waved a flask in front of him and Newton grasped its glass neck. In the split-second before he slipped the silver metal into the crucible, he checked himself and threw the flask into the darkness.
‘No! The purified mercury! It must be sophic,’ he shouted over the shattering glass.
Fatio corrected his mistake and Newton tipped the flask. The silvery liquid slipped effortlessly into the crucible, filling it halfway. A moment later the potion began to bubble and the hot breath of alchemy surrounded him. He closed his eyes and he could see the dragon breathing; in its glassy eyes lay the recipe for the Great Stone.
‘Look!’ he shouted, opening his eyes and wiping sweat from his face.
The froth rose up the side of the vessel so rapidly that Newton thought it would overflow. It was growing in volume. Even in the orange light, the liquid had the unmistakable glow of gold about it.
Fatio was beside him, naked astonishment on his face.
When the first bubble collapsed, Newton thought little of it. Then a second popped and disappeared, followed by a third and a fourth. Within seconds the liquid had returned almost to stillness, filling just half the crucible. A black, scummy top settled over the useless potion. Newton stared at the failed experiment in disbelief.
‘Let’s get some air,’ said Fatio.
‘You don’t understand what’s at stake,’ spat Newton.
‘You’re right, I don’t understand. You’ve had me copying out page after page of recipes and procedures, but I can scarcely understand any of it. What do the green dragon, the doves of Diana and the menstrual flux of Mars have to do with anything? It’s all gibberish!’
‘How can you not know of these things? We’ve made each one together these past months.’
Fatio held up his hands. ‘I can make no sense of it all. You have me crushing salts and mixing metals, you talk about our final goal and how these things we do are taking us towards it – but I cannot fathom any progress at all.’
Newton stepped away from the furnace, hands pressed into his temples.
‘This is no philosophy that I know of,’ ranted Fatio. ‘I carry the stink of chemicals in my clothes, in my hair. No one will sit next to me at the inn.’
‘Then leave! Come and live in college. I’ll find you rooms.’
‘That’s not what I meant.’
‘Then what do you mean? Philosophy, gravity, alchemy – all are linked by the active principles. Once we understand those, natural philosophy will be linked from the planets of heaven to the trees of Earth, to the rocks and our bones. We will have a theory of everything.’
‘Active principles? A theory of everything?’ Fatio spun to face him. ‘We would make better progress if we stuck to the second edition of Principia.’
‘There’s no point. Flamsteed will not release his lunar data, so apart from minor corrections there would be nothing to add.’
‘My explanation of gravity – I thought we had agreed that it would form a fourth part of the book. Many of my correspondents in Europe are eagerly awaiting it.’
Newton thought his head would split. ‘If you truly knew what I am trying to achieve, you would not argue with me. You would work as hard as I do.’
‘But we can finish gravity together.’
‘No! Until I can understand the motion of the Moon, there is no point in continuing. Besides, this new work is much more important. Once we have the Philosopher’s Stone . . . things are just not ready. I have written to Mr Locke, begging him to withdraw the publication of the pamphlet. I must have everything in place before I launch the attack.’
‘But we’re getting nowhere.’
Newton glared at Fatio. ‘You just don’t understand.’
‘There’s no logic or pattern in what you’re doing. You’re increasingly erratic. You’re hiding things from me.’ Fatio was becoming tearful. He looked wretched and pleading.
‘Listen to me.’ Newton leaned against the shelves, beckoning his companion so close that their foreheads touched. He spoke in a whisper. ‘Are you familiar with the term anti-Christ?’
Fatio tensed. ‘I think so.’
‘The anti-Christ leads his people into a semblance of religion, one almost indistinguishable from the real thing, except that it’s an illusion. It provides no eternal salvation. I believe it was an anti-Christ who perverted the Council of Nicaea. The decision against Arius was not whim or feeble human error, pardonable by God. It was a deliberate act of devilment by Athanasius. I had once thought that the Pope was the anti-Christ, but his evil is nothing compared to the original perversion, introduced so early that it destroyed the true religion within just four centuries of its creation.’
Newton could hear Fatio’s shallow breaths.
‘Everyone who has died worshipping the Trinity has been damned by the falsity of their belief, by their inability to see into themselves and sense the truth. Even now they’re burning – lost to the devil – unless I can succeed with my experiments. This is no time for your childish behaviour, Nicolas. Can you appreciate the urgency now?’
Fatio leaned back, shaking his head.
‘I can help them. I can save them.’
‘How?’
‘The Philosopher’s Stone. Remember I told you it would give us power
over nature – allow us to control the transformation of matter from one state to another.’
Fatio nodded.
‘You’ve seen the way it can force dead metals to take the form of living trees. It would give us the power of life over death.’
Fatio clasped his hands together. ‘Please, Isaac, stop talking. I don’t want to hear this.’
‘We could resurrect the dead, teach them the true way. We could give them eternal life.’
‘But what does that mean for the Book of Revelations, the Apocalypse and the Judgement?’
‘It would be the Judgement,’ said Newton. ‘The Church is a crippled stallion, awaiting a miracle. The Philosopher’s Stone is that miracle. Whoever discovers it would have the power to grant eternal life.’
‘But I’ve always believed that the Judgement heralded the return of Christ.’
‘And with it the reign of the true religion for a millennium. Yes, it does. What you forget is that Christ was a man created by God and graced by divine favour to see the world differently. He then used that knowledge to change the world. But if Christ is not fully divine, then it’s possible that another man may be equally blessed with new insight for a new age. That man may be among us already.’
Fatio began to sob. ‘You cannot mean . . .’
‘My father died before I was born. For all I know, he never existed. Graves are easy to fake. I was born on December twenty-fifth . . .’
‘Stop, Isaac. You’re sounding deranged.’
‘Not deranged: chosen. I have been anointed with God’s confidence. Join me.’ Newton held out his trembling hand. ‘We can lead the world through the Apocalypse.’
Fatio stared at the hand as if it were a burning poker. ‘You’re insane. Look at yourself, you’re a ghost. You think yourself so powerful. Well, I know your secret now, this hideous blasphemy. How far would you fall if word of your Arianism were revealed?’
Newton began to shake.
‘You dismiss my gravity hypothesis, when it was you who urged me on. What foul game have you played with me, Isaac? Well, now I can shame you. You think yourself a new prophet, but I’m the one with the power. I can do more than just ruin you, I can see you hanged at Tyburn.’