Isaac Newton: The Last Sorcerer (British Commonwealth, United States, United Nations, 1993) [Paperback]

I had been a little disappointed in White's biography of da Vinci, Leonardo: The First Scientist (for which see my review), because I felt he had overstepped the boundaries of the available data and wandered vastly into the realm of speculation. When his book Isaac Newton: The Last Sorcerer came to my attention I was dubious, but I needn't have been. This volume seems very well researched, and what speculation the author offers is not beyond that which arises naturally from his material. In fact, it is not much beyond that which other authors have also raised.

Although I have never read a book entirely dedicated to the physicist, I have often run across biographical information on the man in my other reading on the topic of physics. My first introduction to Newton as a person was in an early book by Carl Sagan. The latter seemed inclined to view Newton as a petty, introverted man who came up with a brilliant contribution to science but who was otherwise enmeshed in the totally unscientific pursuit of alchemy, an endeavor that ultimately poisoned him after first driving him mad. It must be admitted, however, that Sagan's primary purpose had not been a biography of Newton. White definitely gives the subject a better and fairer hearing. In The Last Sorcerer, he makes it obvious that Newton's dabbling in the occult sciences, while less productive of useful information itself, helped structure his way of thinking about other problems which did. Furthermore, he gives credit to the man's thorough knowledge of metals, solvents, furnaces and techniques involved in alchemy, in short of incipient chemistry, as a contributing factor to his later successes in science and other endeavors. He notes too that other notable and productive scientists of the time are known to have dabbled in this subject. This after all was a time of emergent science, when anything yet seemed possible.

In going beyond Newton the genius of physics, White brings the whole man to the fore. He explains some of his social background (upper middle class for the day), his ambition (the YUPPIES of that generation), the origin of his paranoia regarding his work (not unlike the high-tech world's concern over the loss of rights to its intellectual property through theft), and his pettiness (though here White wanders farthest into speculation). It was interesting to know that Newton had enjoyed several careers during his long lifetime. He brought his considerable talents and drive to the rolls of academic, politician, Master of the Mint (during which time he also became a detective and public prosecutor of sorts), and Royal Society president.

I have to admit to a certain shock--obviously felt, too, by those of his time--at Newton's vicious persecution of scientific rivals. The degree to which he and Robert Hooke went at it, with the latter coming off as the villain, was surprising enough. The battles between Newton and the Astronomer Royal Flamsteed, whose life's work was virtually stolon without compensation for Newton's benefit, and that between him and the brilliant mathematician Leibneiz, with whom Newton now shares the laurels for the creation of the Calculus, is appalling. It certainly shows the degree to which even our scientific heros participate in "feet of clay!" It also shows the pitfalls of hero worship. In the end White reminds us that wonderful work can come from people we don't really like very much, which reminds us too that, unlike technology and art wherein things are invented or created and are therefore one of a kind, science is a body of discoveries. If not Einstein, then probably someone else. Maybe later than it actually occurred, but still eventually. Newton was apparently enough aware of this fact to guard his priority with all the aggressiveness of a lioness her cubs.

I found it most interesting the degree to which Newton and others of his time were self taught. Although many of the scientifically productive men of the time received university education, as did Newton himself, much of their overall knowledge had been gleaned by their own studies. It has always been my opinion that our educational system tends to discourage the student's curiosity by channeling it forcefully along specific courses, without due attention to that individual's personal interests. While not all of us will be Newtons, and certainly not all of us have his gift of concentration and driven singleness of purpose, most might benefit from a greater latitude in what we read when we are learning to read, and how we use mathematics when we learn them.

Isaac Newton: The Last Sorcerer is a well-written, well-researched, and insightful account of the life of one of the (maybe THE) most influential and important scientists and mathematicians in history. Michael White, as implied by the title of his work, has an ambitious thesis to his study: that alchemy was key to Newton's ground-breaking discoveries. According to White, without his controversial pursuit of alchemical goals like the Philosopher's Stone, Newton would not have established his theory on gravity, etc. While the idea is intriguing and probably true (one's interests and studies in specific areas will often influence what one discovers and how one understands other areas), White provides very little evidence to support his thesis and relies mostly on speculation and guessing.

As a biography, I found this book intellectually stimulating, yet very readable with many interesting details that help the reader understand Newton as a scientist and as a person. Although the author claims at the beginning to concentrate on Newton's alchemical research, the book is a thorough biographical account that covers his troubled youth, his autodidactic study at Cambridge, his most important findings (theory on light and colors, gravity, calculus), his religious views and study in prophesy, his work at the Mint (he was instrumental in England's recoinage), his Presidency in the Royal Society, and his relationships with fellow intellectuals including feuds with Robert Hooke, John Flamsteed, and Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz. White also devotes what I believe to be too many pages on Newton's niece and her affair/marriage with Lord Halifax.

White examines many different areas of Newton's life and also provides background information to help the reader understand the intellectual and scientific foundation that led to Newton as well as the popular biographical accounts of Newton until the 1930s when John Maynard Keynes purchased some of Newton's documents on alchemy from Sotheby's. Newton claims that earlier biographers ignored or covered up Newton's interest in alchemy. White does an excellent job explaining how Plato and Aristotle's reliance on syllogistic logic rather than experimentation stifled the growth of knowledge for centuries (31). Newton was the first to apply fully the scientific method that is used today (182). As to Newton's findings, White is very adept in scientific principles, but does not bog down his work with too much esoteric jargon. He describes Newton's research (he experimented with light in dangerous ways that almost damaged his eye sight, pp. 58-61), his thoughts, ideas, and hypotheses found in his notebooks, documents, and correspondence.

Where White's work becomes weak is when his branches off into alchemy (mostly in chapters 6 and 7). It is not that White does not explain alchemy well, or does not outline Newton's work in alchemy, or ignores the influence of alchemists like Michael Maier and Robert Boyle; it is that White makes the sweeping claim that alchemy was key to Newton's discoveries with little to back it up. He will introduce alchemy, its history, its disciples, and its influence on Newton and how Newton went about his alchemical studies with a furnace in his room at Cambridge, and then will throw in statements like "The creation of the Star Regulus was PROBABLY one step along this road [to a full-blown theory of gravity]" (146), "It is QUITE POSSIBLE that, by manipulating the tale [about documents Newton lost in a fire at Cambridge], they managed to neatly dismiss Newton's alchemical interests" (148). White maintains that the popular apple story was created by Newton to cover up alchemy's role in his theory on gravitation (no evidence provided). In examining Newton's biblical study, White makes a connection between Solomon's temple and Newton's concept on universal gravitation and then admits "There is no surviving record of an explicit reference to the Star Regulus or the Temple of Solomon to support the idea that they may have symbolized an attractive force" (pp. 159-62). Later in the book, White becomes preoccupied by Newton's relationship with upstart intellectual Fatio de Duillier and, while discussing their relatively intimate correspondence (White implies a possible homosexual relationship), suggests that the censored parts of the letters had to do with alchemy (238). White adds that Fatio "may have" spoken of alchemy in front of other intellectuals and that he possibly got Newton interested in the black arts (291-99). Of course, White seized on Newton burning his papers at the Mint weeks before his death: "the burning incident MAY have some bearing on the conclusion we reach about this. Did Newton venture along paths leading far from his study of alchemy-paths we would now consider those of pure magic, pure heresy?" (355).

I am not criticizing White for asking these questions or for speculating about Newton's secret endeavors. My problem is that White makes the claim that alchemy was key to Newton's discoveries and makes it the thesis of this book and not only doesn't cover alchemy throughout the book (mainly only in 2 chapters and sporadically sprinkled through the rest of the work) but his proof is only speculation and rumor. He doesn't, for example, draw connections between Newton's alchemical documents and his theories. Near the end of his book, White throws in this puzzling paragraph: "Unlike the central theme of this biography-that Newton arrived at his theory of gravity PARTLY [he backs off a little from his thesis here] through his exploration of alchemy and early biblical theory---the notion that he crossed the line into black magic is not supported by any hard evidence, but the circumstantial evidence available offers an intriguing possibility" (358). This sentence applies to his central thesis as well. I almost gave this book 3 stars but decided to compromise as it would be head and shoulders above other books I've given 3 stars. Actually, I would have given this book 5 stars, as it shows excellent care and scholarship, if he wasn't so adamant in claiming to prove a thesis he did not support with information provided in The Last Sorcerer.

This is from a review I wrote for the Philadelphia Inquirer:

Michael White, a British journalist who specializes in popular science (he is best known as the co-author of a book on Stephen Hawking, and also wrote "The Science of the X-Files") seeks to explain Newton's scientific insights in terms of his well-known interest in alchemy. With regard to his work on gravity, at least, this theory has long been widely accepted: In an era in which forces were understood in terms of material objects pushing upon one another, to realize that gravity constituted "action at a distance" was seemingly to truck with the more mystical notions of alchemy. Had Newton not been sympathetic to these concepts (although he insisted on testing them scientifically, and never achieved positive results), he may never have realized that gravitational force does indeed involve invisible powers of attraction.

Born in 1642 to a young country woman whose husband -- a property-owning but illiterate yeoman -- had died two months earlier, Newton enjoyed material security but emotional uncertainty to a peculiarly painful degree. His mother remarried when Newton was three, moving into her husband's house but not taking Isaac with her. A beloved only child until then, Isaac was banished to his grandparents' home, and could only watch in resentful exile as his mother gave birth to three half-siblings. By the time his mother was again widowed, Newton was eleven, and had already nurtured the seeds of a lifelong resentment, suspiciousness, and secrecy.

The outlines of Newton's later life -- as a teenager, he proved unfit for managing his father's estate so was sent off to Cambridge, where he remained for the next thirty-four years -- are well known, and White plows through them dutifully, pausing to discuss matters of history and elementary physics in alternate chapters. White compare poorly with other biographers of Newton: he often writes badly, and frequently makes mistakes in matters of history, which is evidently outside his expertise.

More troublesome, however, is his tendency to make excessive claims for his thesis. White (who earlier called an ill-advised book on Isaac Asimov "the Unauthorized Biography") here calls Newton "the last sorceror," a sensational reference to the Cambridge professor's one-time interest in alchemy. Newton was not, however, the last scientist interested in alchemy (although his was almost the last generation of scientists that could reasonably think its claims worth investigating). Moreover, the word "sorceror" has a specific meaning, and cannot be used as a synonym for alchemist. White's title is simply irresponsible, and an ominous harbinger of his book's other problems.

White exaggerates Newton's need to be secretive about alchemy (which he inaccurately calls "heretical") and later suggests, on no evidence, that Newton may have dabbled in what White calls "the black arts." A consistent practice of White's is to suggest that something "may" be true, then treat it a few pages later as fact. Regarding Newton's unorthodox religious views (he believed that Jesus Christ was not a divine being, but an intermediate figure between God and humanity), White writes: "Would it be unreasonable to suggest that he wanted to identify himself with Christ?"

White's suggestion that Newton rejected traditional Christian belief in the Trinity because he detested his long-dead father and couldn't accept a religion in which the Father and the Son are of one substance is, to put it kindly, undocumented; but a page later he is presenting it as established fact:

"Although this may seem madness to us, it was of the greatest importance to Newton, for the simple reason that he needed to justify his whole world-view, to reveal the falsehood that was Trinitarianism, because in so doing he could confirm his subconscious belief that he was superhuman."

Six pages later, White does this again: He suggests that while various alchemical symbols could not have offered actual evidence for Newton's theory of gravity, "they may nevertheless have provided signposts along the way to his grand conclusions," and notes a sentence later that these signposts "may have been subconscious." But on the following page White is treating these "subconscious triggers" as established factors, speaking confidently how they "had played their part." For a science writer, White seems astoundingly careless in letting conjecture turn into assertion.

Newton's long involvement in alchemy and in Scriptural fundamentalism (he labored for years to create Biblical chronologies and work out the dates for various prophecies) is well known; and the case for his alchemical speculations providing some inspiration for his theory of gravity has been made before, and more prudently and sagely. Readers interested in Newton's bizarre life and extraordinary achievement should look at Frank Manuel's "A Portrait of Isaac Newton" (which White mentions only in passing) or the Oxford University Press anthology "Let Newton Be!," which offers a range of essays by various Newton authorities. White's own book, alas, is too careless and sensationalistic to be recommended.