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| Program > Early Modern Science |
| Programme > La science au XVIIe siècle |
| Stephen
D. Snobelen
(University of King's College) Newton and Women |
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Isaac Newton made two pointed statements on his deathbed in 1727. One came in his refusal to take the sacrament of the Church of England. The other was the confession that he was dying having never known a woman. The first statement likely signalled the heretic Newton's final break with the Anglican Church. The second was uttered as a final triumph of a scholar who took seriously the purest ideals of the true philosopher to reject carnal and domestic pleasure and withdraw into the world of learning. This paper recovers Newton's espousal of this culture of learned celibacy. Beginning with antecedents in the seventeenth century and earlier, I situate Newton in the context of his time at Cambridge (where Fellows were forbidden to marry) and London (where he remained unmarried), outline his relationships with women and demonstrate how Newton's actions suggest a deliberate strategy of self-denial. I also explicate Newton's actions with illuminating material from his unpublished manuscripts that provide clues as to his views on women, marriage, scholarly discipline and avoiding the temptations of the flesh. Finally, I show how Newton's celibacy, like that of Robert Boyle, exemplifies an insufficiently understood early modern tradition in which the natural philosopher is not only modelled as a "high priest of nature", but whose body and soul are devoted to the pursuit of learning and the discovery of God's truth in nature.
History
of Science and Technology Programme
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