For the Newton Centenary
FOR THE NEWTON CENTENARY "THE whole development of our ideas concerning natural phenomena," writes Albert Einstein in the Manchester Guardian, "may be conceived as an organic development of...
...The argument, however, interests us of the present, not because it is perfect or imperfect, but because it testifies to that awakening of the "natural human conscience" which so frequently accompanies the discovery or the vision of cosmic principle...
...FOR THE NEWTON CENTENARY "THE whole development of our ideas concerning natural phenomena," writes Albert Einstein in the Manchester Guardian, "may be conceived as an organic development of Isaac Newton's thought...
...The layman, however, may well consider what the "most imaginative of all Englishmen" (as some have termed Newton) thought about life as a whole...
...Kant later criticized the argument as proving, at best, the existence of a Divine Designer...
...Was he to any extent the prototype or herald 01 that negative attitude toward spiritual life which has been so widely termed scientific...
...As a matter of fact, there are many reasons why he might have been driven into such an attitude by environment...
...The marvelous way in which the universe obeys mechanical principle could not, he thought, be viewed as anything but a "creation"—that is, the product of Infinite Intelligence...
...Newton might have replied, if he had lived long enough, that it would be strange logic to assume that an Intelligence having an infinite power to design could not create...
...It may be that the coming generation will recognize in Isaac Newton not merely the man who, in Professor Einstein's words, "pointed out, as none before or after him did, the path of western thought, research and practical construction," but also as the scientist who conserved, over and above the venturesome ideas he projected into the universe, that familiarity with the Presiding Spirit which alone guarantees the greatness and sanity of mankind...
...There are, however, other reasons why we need to remember him just now...
...The scientist is concerned with Newton's practical and theoretical discoveries...
...Newton's "proof" for the existence of God, outlined primarily in his Letters to Doctor Bentley, is based chiefly upon a reasoned consideration of the law he himself had discovered...
...Such a tribute on the occasion of the second centenary of the death of the great English discoverer is sufficient warrant for pausing to think about the man...
...Professor Einstein, for instance, compares the Newtonian idea of motion with later concepts formulated in the wake of electrical discoveries...
...But, in company with Leibnitz, who was his contemporary and almost his opponent, he rises above his era as one who discerned the Divine Spirit in all the manifestations of nature...
...Newton's own time was starred by a wide variety of emancipations...
...See this in relation to the complex world of stars, he said, and you will realize that "the diurnal rotations of the planets could not be derived from gravity, but required a Divine Arm to 650 impress them...
...He is interested in seeing to what an extent his hypothesis of gravitation has stood time's test, and in going over again the ground Newton covered in his Optics...
...In our own time it is plain that agnosticism no longer derives from science, which is vigorously repudiating all monism as well as emphasizing the prevalence of intelligent design, but from varied criticisms of knowledge...
...The disposition of all "naturalists" from Francis Bacon onward had been to assume that the verities of religion deserved to be credited, at the most, because they were "incredible...
Vol. 5 • April 1927 • No. 24
