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until I was eleven. All those years I felt guilty. I thought she had left me
because I had committed some& unthinkable deed. The Lord forgive me
but I have never trusted her since. And save for the solace of my God in
my desolation, only the Lord knows what would have become of me.
CATHERINE: Father says you re a genius. Are you?
NEWTON: (Laughing) Your father taught me much. He s a fine
apothecary.
CATHERINE: So how do you set about solving the problems of the
Universe?
NEWTON: The process isn t so grand. When I have an original thought
about a problem, I commit it to a notebook, and wait until the first
dawnings open little by little into the clear light of day. Then it s only a
34 Newton s Darkness: Two Dramatic Views
matter of time until the problem is solved. But it s always a solitary, and
often a sleepless process. Now you must go, Catherine.
CATHERINE: You can at least tell me what you ve discovered in your
solitary, sleepless travails.
NEWTON: You wouldn t understand.
CATHERINE: (Laughing) Because I am a woman?
NEWTON: Because you think you want to understand, but you don t
really.
CATHERINE: You once considered marrying me, Isaac. You wouldn t
have done so if you had despised my intellect. So the least you can do is
to reveal something of your secret world.
NEWTON: If I do; will you go, and promise never to return?
CATHERINE: (Smiling) I ll go, certainly.
NEWTON: You are a woman to be reckoned with.
CATHERINE: I like to think so.
NEWTON: Do you believe Descartes is right?
CATHERINE: Is this your discovery?
NEWTON: I told you that you wouldn t understand.
CATHERINE: Don t patronise me, Isaac, until you have tried me to the
full.
NEWTON: Very well. Descartes asserts that all the bodies in the
Universe have moved in perfect order since their creation by God, and
will continue to do so until the end of time.
CATHERINE: A beautiful theory. Is it true?
NEWTON: (Silencing her with a gesture) According to Descartes,
there is no spontaneous motion in the Universe. Space is an infinite
continuum, filled with an all-pervading aether of limitless divisibility.
(With a mischievous smile) Are you still with me?
Newton s Hooke: Act 1, Scene 2 35
CATHERINE: (Returning his smile with interest) Absolutely.
NEWTON: (Describing Descartes vision with his hands) At the
moment of creation, Descartes asserts that God fashioned the denser
parts of the aether into the Sun, the Earth, the stars and the planets. He
assembled all the pieces of the Universe together like a vast cosmic
clock. Then He set His Clock to tick silently to itself forever, without any
need of further refinement or repair. And since that time God has taken
no further part in the destiny of His Universe.
CATHERINE: It certainly has an exquisite logic to it.
NEWTON: Yet it is flawed on two counts. Firstly; by banishing God
from the daily workings of the Universe, Descartes effectively denies the
existence of the Almighty Himself.
CATHERINE: That is a disturbing thought.
NEWTON: And secondly; in Descartes Universe there are no Forces,
and Motion is only relative. But I believe that Motion is absolute, and
that Space is an empty and fixed framework in which all astral bodies
move only under the influence of Forces.
CATHERINE: How can you possibly know this to be true?
NEWTON: Last year, with the aid of my reflecting telescope, I tracked
the progress of comets across the firmament the whole winter long while
the University and its bibulous baboons snored in their cages.
CATHERINE: (Laughing) You are so wonderfully intolerant at times.
NEWTON: After a long lull without seeing a single comet, my lonely
nights were finally rewarded when I spied a comet, with its firedrake tail,
shooting through the constellation. From this I deduced that it was
impossible that all these random comets could move with such seeming
impunity through Descartes God-pre-arranged continuum of space.
CATHERINE: (Moving close to him) I forgot how passionate you
could be.
NEWTON: (Avoiding her) I see that my dispute with Descartes bores
you.
36 Newton s Darkness: Two Dramatic Views
CATHERINE: On the contrary. (In an attempt to placate his irritation)
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