first to formulate what has become known as the experimental or inductive method. It was Bacon who, some time before Descartes dismissed magic and superstition, argued that scientific discipline should be guided and inspired by religious motivations. In The Advancement of Learning he wrote:
To conclude therefore, let no man out of weak deceit of sobriety, or an ill-applied moderation, think or maintain, that a man can search far or be too well studied in the book of God’s word, or in the book of God’s works; divinity or philosophy; but rather let men endeavour an endless progress or proficiency in both.6
Although he would have agreed with Descartes’s dismissal of metaphysics, Bacon objected to scientific ideas being driven purely by philosophy and the deductive reasoning employed by Aristotle, which Descartes did not completely shake off. In effect, Bacon was the first to conceive of a ‘Christian Technocracy’. Quoting Daniel in the Old Testament, that ‘many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased’, he envisaged a science driven by religion, guided by strict logical rules and experimental verification (almost as modern scientists perceive it) and aimed at enlightenment and practical applicability. Although Cartesianism provided Newton with a platform of reasoning about a mechanical philosophy which in turn led to the Industrial Revolution, it was Bacon’s scientific method, which was readily adopted by generations of natural philosophers, including Newton, that provided the modus operandi for the Scientific Revolution.
So, by the middle of the seventeenth century, as Newton was preparing to enter the academic world, natural philosophy was in a state of flux. The old notions of Aristotle still provided the traditional backbone of university study in the areas of logic, astronomy and natural philosophy, but this was primarily because of an old school of influential academics. Gradually, radical ideas from the Continent were eroding the Greek philosopher’s supreme position. According to one historian of science, ‘From being a realm of substances in qualitative and teleological relations, the world of nature had definitely become a realm of bodies moving mechanically in space and time.’7
It was within this climate of change that Newton entered university in 1661 and took the first steps towards finding his own path through the shifting philosophies of the time and establishing his own views.
[Truth is] the offspring of silence and unbroken meditation.
ISAAC NEWTON1
Cambridge during the 1660s was far from a Utopia of academic purity. It was both academically backward and a dangerous place in which to live. The buildings were overcrowded and huddled together along filthy streets which at night were unlit and during the day teemed with merchants, beggars, unschooled children and gowned students. An anonymous visitor to the town described it as:
so abominably dirty that Old Street, in the middle of the winter’s thaw, or Bartholomew’s Fair, after a shower of rain, could not have more occasion for a scavenger than the miry streets of this famous corporation, and most of them so very narrow that should two wheelbarrows meet in the largest of their thoroughfares they are enough to make a stop for half an hour before they can well clear themselves of one another to make room for passengers. The buildings in many parts of the town are so little and so low that they looked more like huts for pygmies than houses for men.2
Covering little more than half a square mile, Cambridge had a population of about 8,000 including almost 3,000 students, graduates and university staff. Students could easily find themselves at risk – their souls in jeopardy from the attentions of prostitutes and innkeepers (a danger made much of by the hypocritical masters), and their physical safety threatened by ubiquitous thieves and murderers. In a letter to his mother written in 1664, one John Strype, a young student in his first year at the university, describes graphically the social climate in the town:
We have hereabouts most intolerable robbing: never by reports so much. I have heard within two or three days of six or seven robberies hereabouts committed: whereof two or three killed. No longer than last Sabbath, a mile off, a man knocked on the head. Lately a scholar of Peter House had both his ears cut off, because he told the thieves, after he had delivered some money to them, that he would give them leave to inflict any punishment upon him, if he had a farthing more: but they searching him, found, it seems, 20s. more: so they took him at his word, and inflicted the cheater’s punishment upon him.3
Such incidents were not attributable solely to the perceived wealth of the students, nor was it simply that students were easy targets for thieves; there had been bad feeling between town and gown for centuries. Although town considerably outnumbered gown, the lives of the townsfolk were dominated by an autocratic university governing body that often behaved in corrupt and self-interested fashion. Most of the town’s tradesmen relied upon the university for their livelihoods, and many resented the draconian powers of the Vice-Chancellor. His sphere of influence was by no means restricted to university property or the student body: he was, in all but name, a feudal lord who controlled all forms of commerce and oversaw all legal and financial matters within the town. A royal charter drawn up in 1600 stipulated that Cambridge was allowed a mayor, bailiffs and burgesses and that the civic authorities could have and use their own seal. But the final clause of the charter specified that ‘Nothing in this charter shall prejudice or impede the privileges, liberties and profits of the Chancellor, Masters and Scholars of the University.’4
Little over a year before Newton arrived in the town, the Mayor had been humiliated by the Vice-Chancellor and made to apologise for apparently overstepping his authority. In his written recantation, he was forced to make it clear exactly who was boss:
Whereas I, Edward Chapman, Mayor of the Town of Cambridge, did upon the XXVIth day of February 1660 by error send my warrant for releasing of William Land, John Devole and James Delamot out of the Tolbooth Gaol, to which they had been committed by the then Vice-Chancellor, Dr Ferne, I therefore, in satisfaction to the University, hereby acknowledge the error and do promise not to do or to my power suffer anything hereafter to be done that may anyways infringe the liberties or privileges of this University to my knowledge. In witness whereof I have set my hand the second day of March in the year of our Lord God 1660.5
Amazingly, little changed until the late Victorian era, when both the power of the university over the town and the limitations placed upon the freedom of students were gradually eroded. In Newton’s student days – and until long after Darwin attended the university during the late 1820s – the activities of the students were monitored by the university police, the proctors. Students were forbidden to associate with tradesmen, to drink in taverns, to have dealings with prostitutes and to break an evening curfew. Although many of these rules were frequently broken by the students and their enforcement was lax, examples were made.
Outside the city walls, England had changed and was continuing to change, but little of this was reflected in the attitude of the university authorities or in the antiquated curriculum taught. The peaceful restoration of the monarchy in 1660 had brought with it a nationwide climate of renewal. Cromwell’s Protestant Commonwealth had died with him in 1658, and, although the country would remain suspicious of the Catholic leanings of the house of Stuart, Newton entered Cambridge in 1661 in a new age of religious tolerance and political stability.
This radically altered the broader
