Newton

The following question greeted me on Facebook this morning:

“Since you’re such a biography buff, any chance you can recommend a Newton bio?”

Upon reading this, I was shocked to realize that I have never actually read a full-length biography of Newton. And I’m not sure why not. Newton was not only a great thinker, but also a great psychotic and paranoid, which would have to make the biography very interesting.

Newton did intrude into the Locke biography I read a few years ago… He sent Locke a letter, admitting that he had been harboring “hard thoughts” against Locke for some time, and apologizing for it. Locke responded warmly and big-heartedly. It was a sad but charming exchange.

Otherwise, all the biographical information I have about Newton comes from encyclopedia articles read over the years, and it was indeed a painfully interesting life… Abandoned by his parents at an early age. Surely the greatest undergraduate career in the history of universities. Terrible paranoia in response to his opponents. In his treasury post, he took a genuine delight in hanging counterfeiters. And then the famous machinations against Leibniz during the calculus controversy.

Really, this has to be the greatest lapsus in my long history of devouring biographies. The life of Newton must be an incredible read.

Speaking of that Locke biography… The middle of his life is fascinating, but the beginning and end are as boring as it gets. Locke’s early life almost put me to sleep. And the last 10 or 15 years of his life are nothing but: “Oh, I’m so old and unhealthy and will surely die soon,” and after 10 or 15 years of it he does finally die. (Sorry to sound harsh, but read the biography and you’ll see what I mean.)

But the middle part of Locke’s life is interesting not only in intellectual terms, but also in cloak-and-dagger terms. In exile in Holland, he is spied on by English agents. They view him through a telescope conferring with rebels on a ship in Amsterdam. (The rebel ship is later met upon landing in Britain and nearly all of the rebels are slaughtered.) The spies follow Locke to Utrecht. It’s really quite exciting. But the penalty for these exciting parts is having to listen to Locke complain for a decade and more about how old and unhealthy he is.

Locke is generally viewed with disdain in continental circles, but is appreciated by most analytic philosophers. The analytics are right this time. If you don’t already enjoy Locke, read Whitehead’s Process and Reality and the references there will make you start to like him.