The deification of Newton in 1711

Abstract

The mathematician William Jones obtained a number of Isaac Newton’s manuscripts and letters through the acquisition of papers owned by John Collins. Jones published them in 1711 in a book entitled Analysis per quantitatum series, fluxiones, ac differentias. It was one of the small events in the priority controversy between Newton and Leibniz over the calculus. Inserted in the book, as well as on the title page, are a number of allegorical engravings, almost certainly commissioned by Jones. This article discusses some interpretations of the engravings. As with Halley’s dedicatory poem to Newton in Principia mathematica, the engravings endow Newton with a god-like status. At the same time, the engravings also show some of Newton’s activities as a mortal and place him in a superior position to Leibniz with respect to the discovery of the calculus and as a mathematician.

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to University College London and the librarians in the rare book collection for permission to reproduce the allegorical engravings from their copy of Newton’s book. I would also like to thank Niccolò Guicciardini for his comments on an earlier draft of the paper. This work was supported by a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

Notes

¹ It may also be found on the website European Cultural Heritage Online (ECHO), http://echo.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/home, by searching for ‘Straet, Jan van der’.

² The reference to the Sloane bequest to the British Museum can be found by going to the British Museum’s online collection database at http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/search_the_collection_database.aspx and searching on the keywords ‘nova reperta color olivi’.