How Important Was Religion to Newton's "Secular" Studies?

Abstract

The three books discussed in this symposium, Scott Mandelbrote writes, "rest heavily" on the representation of Newton's manuscripts "through the medium of the international digital Newton Project." While sharing Mandelbrote's high regard for the Project – of which I'm proud to have been, together with Harvey Shoolman, a founding father – the research that led to Newton and the Origin of Civilization relied primarily on the manuscripts themselves, as well as on the semi-legible Chadwyck-Healey microfilms. Fully cognizant of the confused state of the manuscripts, we sought to establish order by carefully threshing through the chaotic nachlass to tease out an accurate progression of Newton's ideas regarding chronology within the context of his other studies, both scientific and religious. Regrettably, subsequent scholars, favoring alternative interpretations, have generally bypassed our reconstruction instead of bringing evidence to prove it wrong. I shall focus on specific examples in order to raise more sweeping issues pertaining to contemporary Newtonian research.

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