Cambridge

Newton entered Trinity College, Cambridge, in June 1661, as a “subsizar,” meaning
that he received free board and tuition in exchange for menial service. In the
Cambridge social hierarchy, sizars and subsizars were on the lowest level. Evidently Hannah Smith could have afforded better for her son, but for some reason
(possibly parsimony) chose not to make the expenditure.
With his lowly status as a subsizar, and an already well developed tendency
to introversion, Newton avoided his fellow students, his tutor, and most of the
Cambridge curriculum (centered largely on Aristotle). Probably with few regrets,
he went his own way. He began to chart his intellectual course in a “Philosophical
Notebook,” which contained a section with the Latin title Quaestiones quaedam
philosophicam (Certain Philosophical Questions) in which he listed and
discussed the many topics that appealed to his unbounded curiosity. Some of
the entries were trivial, but others, notably those under the headings “Motion”
and “Colors,” were lengthy and the genesis of later major studies.
After about a year at Cambridge, Newton entered, almost for the first time, the
field of mathematics, as usual following his own course of study. He soon traveled
far enough into the world of seventeenth-century mathematical analysis to
initiate his own explorations. These early studies would soon lead him to a geometrical
demonstration of the fundamental theorem of calculus.
Beginning in the summer of 1665, life in Cambridge and in many other parts
of England was shattered by the arrival of a ghastly visitor, the bubonic plague.
For about two years the colleges were closed. Newton returned to Woolsthorpe,
and took with him the many insights in mathematics and natural philosophy that
had been rapidly unfolding in his mind.
Newton must have been the only person in England to recall the plague years
1665–66 with any degree of fondness. About fifty years later he wrote that “in
those days I was in the prime of my age for invention & minded Mathematicks
& Philosophy more then than at any time since.” During these “miracle years,”
as they were later called, he began to think about the method of fluxions (his
version of calculus), the theory of colors, and gravitation. Several times in his
later years Newton told visitors that the idea of universal gravitation came to him
when he saw an apple fall in the garden at Woolsthorpe; if gravity brought the
apple down, he thought, why couldn’t it reach higher, as high as the Moon?
These ideas were still fragmentary, but profound nevertheless. Later they
would be built into the foundations of Newton’s most important work. “The miracle,”
says Westfall, “lay in the incredible program of study undertaken in private
and prosecuted alone by a young man who thereby assimilated the achievement
of a century and placed himself at the forefront of European mathematics and
science.”
Genius of this magnitude demands, but does not always receive, recognition.
Newton was providentially lucky. After graduation with a bachelor’s degree, the
only way he could remain at Cambridge and continue his studies was to be
elected a fellow of Trinity College. Prospects were dim. Trinity had not elected
fellows for three years, only nine places were to be filled, and there were many
candidates. Newton was not helped by his previous subsizar status and unorthodox
program of studies. But against all odds, he was included among the elected.
Evidently he had a patron, probably Humphrey Babington, who was related to
Clark, the apothecary in Grantham, and a senior fellow of Trinity.
The next year after election as a “minor” fellow, Newton was awarded the
Master of Arts degree and elected a “major” fellow. Then in 1668, at age twentyseven
and still insignificant in the college, university, and scientific hierarchy,
he was appointed Lucasian Professor of Mathematics. His patron for this surprising
promotion was Isaac Barrow, who was retiring from the Lucasian chairand expecting a more influential appointment outside the university. Barrow had
seen enough of Newton’s work to recognize his brilliance.
Newton’s Trinity fellowship had a requirement that brought him to another
serious crisis. To keep his fellowship he regularly had to affirm his belief in the
articles of the Anglican Church, and ultimately be ordained a clergyman. Newton
met the requirement several times, but by 1675, when he could no longer escape
the ordination rule, his theological views had taken a turn toward heterodoxy,
even heresy. In the 1670s Newton immersed himself in theological studies that
eventually led him to reject the doctrine of the Trinity. This was heresy, and if
admitted, meant the ruination of his career. Although Newton kept his heretical
views secret, ordination was no longer a possibility, and for a time, his Trinity
fellowship and future at Cambridge appeared doomed.
But providence intervened, once again in the form of Isaac Barrow. Since leaving
Cambridge, Barrow had served as royal chaplain. He had the connections at
Court to arrange a royal dispensation exempting the Lucasian Professor from the
ordination requirement, and another chapter in Newton’s life had a happy
ending.