by Stuart Clark
More guards . . . Winslow . . . and Newton!
When Newton was led into the state apartments he was still thinking hard.
‘Wait here,’ said Winslow. He disappeared into an adjoining room and appeared moments later with Halley in tow. ‘No time for a reunion, I’m afraid. Someone has asked to see you both.’ He led the two men deeper into the building before bringing them to a halt before a pair of panelled doors and gesturing with his right arm. ‘Do go in.’
Newton led the way. A hooded figure was sitting at the far end of the room, silhouetted against the window. There was a guard in each corner of the room.
‘Sir Isaac Newton and Mr Edmond Halley, Your Royal Highness,’ Winslow announced.
The figure reached up and pushed back the hood, revealing an abundance of flaxen curls crowning a high forehead. Her milky skin contrasted with the black of her cloak. Tawny eyes radiated confidence.
From the look on Halley’s face Newton deduced two things in quick succession: that the astronomer knew her, and that he and the astronomer were in trouble.
She placed her hands in her lap as though posing for a portrait. At her side was a copy of Opticks, from which thin fabric strips dangled.
‘I don’t know you,’ said Newton.
Winslow scowled. ‘This is Her Royal Highness, Princess Caroline, the Princess of Wales.’
Newton mumbled an apology.
‘Your Royal Highness,’ said Halley, bowing from the waist, ‘a pleasure to see you again.’
‘Gentlemen, thank you for coming today.’ Her voice betrayed no warmth or intention. ‘I’m aware that many men hold you in the highest esteem, and that my predecessors also held you in regard. Nevertheless, I have questions; particularly for you, Sir Isaac.’
Winslow stepped forward. ‘Ma’am, Mr Halley was the editor and publisher of the book that started all this, Sir Isaac’s Principia.’
She gave the slightest acknowledgement, keeping her focus on Newton. ‘Someone whom I respect greatly for his learning and wisdom has brought to my attention certain matters that are most troubling to me. I admit that I’m still finding England new and perhaps a little strange. The thinking and the customs are different, but one thing I would never be able to adjust to would be a country that does not hold the highest moral and religious principles. We are here today to establish whether your experimental philosophy is leading this country into a state of theological decay. Tell me, what does God mean to you?’
‘God is our supreme Creator, the fountainhead of all knowledge and love.’
‘And yet by your own printed words, you seek to diminish the power of God.’ The stark challenge in her voice was evident.
‘In no way whatsoever–’
‘Forgive me, but how do you explain the passage in your latest book that talks of God’s need for senses to perceive the universe?’
Newton made to speak, but she raised her voice. ‘Do not think of contradicting me. You call the Universe the sensorium of God. You suggest that we are all figments of God’s imagination. That we are somehow held as illusions in his sensorium.’
Newton steeled himself. ‘You have been schooled by Leibniz, but may I remind you that the Royal Society has found him a plagiarist and a liar? He has yet to answer these most serious of charges.’
‘I have known Mr Leibniz for much of my life and I have found him to be neither a plagiarist nor a liar. You will treat him with respect.’
Newton brought his hands together. ‘I fear you take my inadequate words too literally over the sensorium of God. Look again and you will see that it says as if it were the sensorium of God, rather than a definitive assertion.’
‘Are you calling Her Royal Highness a liar, Mr Newton?’ Winslow growled.
‘Never.’
‘I can assure you that the copy I have seen has no such words,’ she said.
Newton opened his liver-spotted hands. ‘Then I admit that, by a careless pen-stroke, I omitted those vital words in my first manuscript. While the book was in the press, I realised my mistake and submitted the change to be corrected. We had the page cut from the book and a replacement stitched in. Examine the copy on my shelf and you will see. However, I fear that a few copies were dispatched before the correction was made. You may have seen one of those false volumes. Unlike our Lord, I am fallible.’
‘The excuse makes no difference,’ said Winslow. ‘You were a friend of John Locke’s.’
Newton’s skin prickled into gooseflesh. ‘I knew of him.’
‘You spent time with him at High Laver a number of years ago.’
‘What of it?’
‘His papers reveal heretical thoughts about the divinity of Christ.’
‘I am not Mr Locke.’ The room seemed to be shrinking. Winslow was definitely closer.
‘But you have had revolutionary thoughts about religion, have you not? Tell us of your association with Mr Fatio and the Camisard prophets.’
Newton found words impossible.
‘Then let me remind you,’ said Winslow. ‘The Camisards are a group of French Huguenots and plotters. They’ve been gathering followers, claiming that the monarchy is about to fall and will be replaced by the divine Saviour. But, I ask you, who is the Saviour?’
‘All you need to know is that I was the one who exposed the Camisards. Would I do so if I shared sympathies with them?’
‘Quite so, sir,’ said Caroline before turning to Winslow. ‘That is quite enough of your conspiracies . . . Sir Isaac, you still have not explained why you think God needs senses to perceive His own creation. The mere suggestion sets the two apart from one another and denies God’s omnipotence.’
‘I never intended God’s sensorium to imply that He needs eyes and ears – all of those are material objects, and God cannot be material like the rest of his creations. He must be as pure as the tiny part of us that thinks and reasons. Our sense of identity and our reasoned perception are not flesh and blood; they are God’s gift to us. They raise us from the animals and provide the essential link between our Creator and us. Using His gift, we can recognise Him in everything around us. If not for God’s design, the creatures of the Earth would be hideously misshapen – here a useless arm, there a redundant lump of flesh. One needs only to look at the phenomena of nature to see God’s work. Even if there had been no revealed truth and therefore no Bible, my treatise shows that we would know that God exists. This is what I mean by calling this great Universe His sensorium: that we would know the presence of His supreme intelligence because our experimental investigations show the design of nature.’
Princess Caroline studied him. ‘You believe the Universe is a mechanical place, do you not? A place governed by the laws of gravity and motion?’
‘Yes, I do. Fashioned by God’s own design,’ Newton said with growing confidence. ‘My works in this regard can be seen as new gospels–’
‘Then you must have a poor opinion about His capability. Have you not written that your law of gravity means that the planets will nudge each other from their orbits, and that our Lord will be forced to rearrange them back into the perfect order?’ She lifted the book and removed one of the fabric strips. ‘He may fashion and refashion all parts of the Universe as he chooses.’ She lifted her eyes to look straight at Newton. ‘It is a poor clockmaker, is it not, who is forced continually to repair his creation, and doubly so if he has to do it with miraculous interventions? For anything that goes against the natural laws must surely be a miracle, and miracles must surely be actions of God’s grace, rather than necessity.’
Newton was again at a loss for words. How was it possible for a woman to do this to him?
‘Well, Sir Isaac,’ she said in her deceptively soft voice, ‘is God not capable of the divine wisdom to make a perfect creation?’
Halley, too, was looking at him expectantly.
Newton mustered his courage. ‘Who are we to say what is perfect? God does everything for the best – even Leibniz believes this – but what constitu
tes best is for God alone to know. We cannot presume to know His mind. The mechanical laws are just one aspect of this Universe; His divine will is another. I’m no further towards understanding the cause of gravity. I can describe it from the phenomena I see around me, and that elevates it from being occult, but its cause remains beyond any mechanical explanation. Gravity may even be the will of God Almighty. I study two sides of the same coin: natural laws on one, God’s will on the other. That which I cannot understand must be God’s will.’
Princess Caroline opened the book again. ‘You write in another passage that the sensorium of God is analogous – though to a far higher degree – to the way in which our souls, which are the very images of God implanted within us, are capable of moving the parts of our bodies at will. This strikes me again that you are clearly asserting God is a material entity, with the various celestial objects as His limbs.’
‘On the contrary, Your Royal Highness. That is not my intention at all.’ Newton fingered the curls of his wig, then blurted, ‘There is a flaw at the heart of my theory. It is heinous to my reputation, but I must tell you, because through it I have found God.’
‘Found God?’ growled Winslow.
‘Proved God!’ Newton clasped his hands in supplication. ‘You will never again say that my work is irreligious if you will just hear me out.’
He looked from one to the other.
‘Continue,’ said Caroline.
There was twisted glee on Winslow’s face. ‘Yes, continue, Sir Isaac! At last, tell us of your great revelation, about how you think yourself the equal of our Saviour, Jesus Christ. Did you or did you not confess this to Mr Duillier?’
They were flies trapped in amber. Halley looked at Newton in horror; his arguments had sounded increasingly desperate, and now he had stopped talking altogether.
‘Did you not confess this to Mr Duillier?’ pressed the spymaster.
Say something, Isaac!
Halley stepped forward and addressed Winslow. ‘You pilloried Fatio for his crimes. You can hardly claim him as a reliable witness.’
‘Did you or did you not confess it?’ insisted Winslow, ignoring Halley’s outburst.
Halley persisted. ‘If you were any good at collecting intelligence instead of pursuing your own petty prejudices, you would have discovered that Sir Isaac laboured under a fearsome distemper in 1693. It made him shout out many strange notions. We feared for his life and his sanity. He wrote letters to people – Samuel Pepys, for one – letters that made no sense, accusing these men of dreadful things. They at once alerted us to the fact that he needed help. If Monsieur Duillier also heard something out of turn–’
‘Once I was rested, my shameful notions passed,’ Newton cut in.
‘I’ve heard different.’ Winslow’s sour breath touched Halley’s face.
‘What makes you always right, Mr Winslow? For decades now I have served the monarchy of England faithfully through you. I have done everything that was asked of me without question. But now I want to know, what is it that makes you so absolutely right, and Sir Isaac and me so absolutely wrong?’
Winslow’s face flushed. ‘Because I believe in God with all my heart. I need no proof. Your Royal Highness, these men are a threat to natural law and justice as written in the Bible. There must be absolute belief or England will slide into chaos. The King’s powers are curtailed, and Parliament is still a fragile thing–’
Caroline silenced him with a raised hand. ‘My father-in-law, the King, is a devout believer, Mr Winslow, as am I. There will be no decay in England during our reign.’ Her words restored some calm. ‘Now, I believe Mr Newton was going to tell us about how he has proved the existence of God.’
Halley stepped back from Winslow and noticed that Newton looked utterly calm. He seemed to have unknotted himself and his head was up. When he spoke it was with assurance, as if the interruption had given him the chance to collect his thoughts.
‘Thomas Aquinas believed that the Creation was a continual process; that God’s love sustains the Universe around us. I can prove that this is true, yet I am accused of attacking religion. My revelation was universal gravity, a mathematical description of how every celestial object exerts an attractive force on every other body, but that concept leads to a grave paradox. All the stars are surely other Suns, blazing as brightly as our own but viewed from greater distance. They sit in the unchanging tapestry of the night, as proved by the ancient civilisations seeing the same patterns and handing down myths. Yet those stars must all be attracting each other with gravity. With nothing but a simplistic application of my notions, the Universe should have collapsed long before now, everything pulled into everything else.’
Caroline cocked her head.
‘Yet the Universe remains stable around us. This, then, is observational evidence of God’s sustaining love. I have found the agency through which God nurtures us. He supports the Universe, allowing it to live. Gravity and its actions are God’s will, nothing less than the physical manifestation of His given grace. For too long humans have wallowed in doubt, fear and superstition. The revealed scriptures served us to start with, but now we need more. Ever since Martin Luther’s Reformation, Europe has been sinking deeper into a crisis of what and how to believe. We need certainty to guide us in this uncertain age. I have shown a method of investigation and proof through a crucial experiment that leads to certain knowledge. Natural philosophy can protect us from going astray. It can give us new gospels to read and believe, new gospels to know the Creator through. Judge me on this and this alone.’
‘Double-talk!’ spat Winslow. ‘You have perjured yourself with this nonsense, if not committed outright blasphemy.’
‘Mr Winslow, you grossly overstep your mark.’ Caroline’s voice was sharp.
‘With respect,’ snapped Winslow, though his voice held none, ‘you have only the makings of a stable monarchy. Until you are established beyond doubt, we need stability of the law as well. Parliament is not a religious body, and it will wrest power from the Church as it has wrested it from the Crown. And these men’ – Winslow swung an accusing arm – ‘with their science of proof will become a weapon against natural belief. How can you, a woman, possibly comprehend this?’
‘I comprehend considerably more than you think, Mr Winslow. There will be no arrests today unless you persist in your disobedience.’
Halley noticed a shiver of fear cross the spymaster’s face.
‘If any doubt remains of my pure intentions,’ said Newton, ‘ask others, Your Royal Highness. The noted clergyman Samuel Clarke recently translated Opticks into Latin. He is ably positioned to provide an independent assessment of these matters. Ask his advice before you allow others to judge me. Ask him to write to Mr Leibniz on my behalf. I fear that the enmity between myself and your former teacher would not be conducive to impartial debate.’
Caroline nodded. ‘Very well, but if I am to leave this room satisfied, Sir Isaac, there is one thing that you must promise me you will do.’
‘Anything.’
‘Cease your attacks on Mr Leibniz and write him a letter of apology.’
Newton bowed low to disguise his irritation. ‘Immediately, Your Royal Highness.’
‘Come, Mr Winslow. We’ve detained these men quite long enough. They are free to go.’
Winslow looked incredulously at Caroline for a moment. Halley noticed how old and tired he looked.
Only when the royal party’s footsteps had faded did Halley release the breath he had been holding. Newton flung himself into an adjacent chair, looking more defeated than triumphant.
‘Why do people find it so hard to understand what we do?’ Halley asked.
‘There will always be suspicion where there is ignorance. Ordinary people do not comprehend that when a natural philosopher says I believe it is a statement backed by experiment and observation, not a whim or a flight of fancy. It’s a wholly new route to knowledge. I hope that even ordinary people will learn this, but it will take time.’
‘Then let us pray for that day to come. Perhaps when the comet returns in 1758, and people see the power of your mathematics and method they will be persuaded.’ Halley smiled hopefully.
Newton raised an eyebrow at the suggestion. ‘Indeed. However, confidence in us and our methods will not be helped if word gets out that we were dragged to the Tower under suspicion by the royal family.’
‘Then let us never speak of this scene again,’ suggested Halley.
‘Absolutely,’ said Newton. ‘It can remain a fiction, and we will let the Reverend Clarke’s letters be our defence in these matters. I’ll see to it that he begins the correspondence, even if Her Royal Highness does not request it.’
A moment of understanding passed between them.
Halley clapped his hands to his thighs and stood. ‘I must get home to Mary, she’ll be worried; but before I go, tell me one thing: does it trouble you that as individuals we’ll never know it all? How Nature works, I mean. When I calculated the return of the comet, I knew that it was so far in the future I should never know if I were right or wrong.’
For perhaps the first time, Halley saw an emotion akin to empathy in Newton’s eyes.
‘To explain all of Nature is too difficult a task for any one man, or even for any one age. Our lives have seen a beginning of something, not an ending. It’s much better to do a little with certainty and leave the rest for those who will surely come after us.’
Halley nodded in acknowledgement. ‘So, what you said about God’s will supporting the Universe – have we really found the boundary of our science, or do you think someone will come after us and explain it with rational means?’
Newton’s eyes flashed. ‘Only time will tell.’
44
The mice were scratching in the rafters again. Bent double from the stocks, Fatio had kindled a fire in the grate and was now hobbling from one untidy corner to another, collecting together the various pages of his manuscript.
He looked at the sheaf of papers, his unfinished explanation of gravity. His gaze moved to his damaged hands and a lump appeared in his throat. When his wrists had been trapped in the wood, he had wondered if he would ever recover from the numbness. When the pain had flooded back into them after his release, he had wished for the dead feeling to return again. Like his hands, the rest of him had also erupted in agony. He could not stand, sit or lie without pain. Now the only thing he could imagine easing his body was death itself.