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Unquestionably one of the greatest intellectuals of all human history, re- elected for twenty-five successive years president of the prestigious Royal Society, this towering genius is also one of the most misunderstood.

In the British Library catalogue there are 395 author entries under Newton, Sir Isaac. There was hardly an aspect of science or human endeavour which his genius did not touch. He was at once mathematician, physicist, astronomer, historian, sociologist, geographer, economist and administrator. A modern scientist, Andrade, believes Newton carried out dangerous experiments which brought him very close to discovering the 'secret' of atomic power. He "left results so far advanced that to this day we cannot imagine how they were obtained -- far beyond what he published, or any one of his time''.4

His modern biographers make much of his alleged irascibility -- due mainly to his gout -- and little of his faith and of his deep personal humility. He was a secret admirer of the Brethren, their writings and possibly their meetings, a friend of John Locke and acquainted with several preachers among the Brethren such as Fontein. Voltaire mentions this sympathy in his Lettres Anglaises.276

His friend John Craig disarmed later criticism when he wrote: "he has written a long explication of remarkable parts of the Old and New Testaments while his understanding was in its greatest perfection, lest the infidels might pretend that his applying himself to the study of religion was the effect of dotage".175

Another near-contemporary, the essayist Joseph Addison, said of him in 1763: "Sir Isaac, universally acknowledged to

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be the ablest philosopher and mathematician that this or perhaps any other nation has produced, is also well known to have been a firm believer and a serious Christian. This great man applied himself with the utmost attention to the study of the Holy Scriptures".2 In fact, he wrote over two million words on Biblical topics.

In his preface to the famous Principia (now safely omitted by publishers!) he pointedly told his readers that his purpose in writing it was so that his readers may "behold the beauties of nature, and be thence excited the more profoundly to reverence and adore the Maker and Lord of all. He must be blind who, from the most wise and beautiful contrivances of things, cannot see the infinite wisdom and goodness of their Almighty Creator; and he must be mad or senseless, who refuses to acknowledge them".190