NEWTON (SIR Isaac), in biography, one of the greatest philosophers and ma thematicians the world has produced, was born at Woolstrop, in Lincolnshire, on Christmas Day, 1642. He was descended from the eldest branch of the family of Sir John Newton, Bart who were Lords of the manorof Woolstrop, and had been possessed of the estate for about two cen turies before ; to which they had remov ed from Westley, in the same county ; but originally they came from the town of Newton, in Lancashire.
Other accounts say, probably with more truth, that he was the only child of Mr. John Newton, of Colesworth, near Gran tham, in Lincolnshire, who bad There an estate of about 1201. a year, which he kept in his own hands. His mother was of the ancient and opulent family of the Ays coughs, or Askews of the same county. Our author losing his father while he was very young, the care of his education de volved on his mother, who, though she married again, did not neglect to improve by a liberal education the promising ge nius that was observed in her son. At twelve years of age, by the advice of his maternal uncle, he was sent to the gram mar school at Grantham, where be made a good proficiency in the languages, and laid the foundation of his future studies. Even here was observed in him a strong inclination to figures and philosophical subjects. One trait of this early disposi tion is told of him : he had then a rude method of measuring the force of the wind blowing against him, by observing how much farther he could leap in the direction of the wind, or blowing on his back, than he could leap the contrary way, or opposed to the wind; an early mark of his original infantine genius.
After a few years spent here, his mo ther took him home ; intending, as she had no other child, to have the pleasure of his company ; and that, after the man ner of his father before him, he should occupy his own estate.
But instead of attending to the mar kets, or the business of the farm, he was always studying andporing over his books, even by stealth from his mother's knowledge. On one of these occasions his uncle discovered him one day in a hay-loft at Grantham, whither he had been sent to the market, working a ma thematical problem ; and having other wise observed the boy's mind to be un commonly bent upon learning, he pre vailed upon his sister to part with him ; and he was accordingly sent, in 1660, to Trinity College, in Cambridge, where his uncle, having himself been a member of it, htid still many friends. Isaac was
soon taken notice of by Dr. Barrow, who was at this time appointed the first Luca. sian professor of mathematics ; and ob serving his bright genius, contracted a great friendship for him. At his com mencement, Eutlicl was first put into his hands, as usual ; but that author was soon dismissed, seeming to him too plain and easy, and unworthy of taking up his time. He understood him almost before he read him ; and a cast of his eye upon the con tents of his theorems, was sufficient to make him master of them : and as the analytical method of Des Cartes was then much in vogue. he particularly applied to it, and Kepler's optics, &c. making se veral improvements on them, which he entered upon the margins of the books as he went on, as his custom was in study ing any author.
Thus he was employed till the year 1664, when he opened a way into his new method of Fluxion' and Infinite Series ; and the same year took the degree of Bachelor of Arts. In the mean time, ob serving that the mathematicians were much engaged in the business of improv ing telescopes, by grinding glasses into one of the figures made by the three sec tions of a cone, upon the principles then generally entertained, that light was ho mogeneous, he set himself to grinding of optic glasses, of other figures than sphe rical, having as yet no distrust of the ho megeneous nature of light ; but not hit ting presently upon any thing in this at tempt to satisfy his mind, be procured a glass prism, that he might try the cele brated phenomena of colours, discovered by Grimaldi not long before. He was much pleased at first with the vivid brightness of the colours produced by this experiment ; but after a while, con sidering them in a philosophical way, with that circumspection which was na tural to him, he was surprised to see them in an oblong form, which, accord ing to the received rule of refractions, ought to be circular. At first he thought the irregularity might possibly be no more than accidental ; but this was what he could not leave without further en quiry: accordingly, he soon invented an infallible method of deciding the ques tion, and the result was his new Theory of Light and Colours.