Isaac Newton and the Statute of Secrecy
May. 16th, 2011 04:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sunnyskywalkerI was reading this article - Isaac Newton, World's Most Famous Alchemist - when an odd detail caught my eye. It says, "Principe notes that Newton suffered a mental breakdown a year after Boyle’s death [in 1691] and wonders if that episode might have been brought on by mercury poisoning... But Newman thinks that Newton’s breakdown is just as likely to be related to Locke’s trying to set him up with a well-to-do widow."
So. Newton's alchemy partner dies and he has a nervous breakdown. Sounds understandable enough, if he thought now he'd never manage to make a philosopher's stone and join the ranks of Nicholas Flamel and... well, Nicholas Flamel. But the timing leaves some interesting possibilities for the Potterverse!
Consider: the Statute of Secrecy was apparently drafted or maybe signed in 1689 and put into effect in 1692 - the year Newton had his breakdown. I would imagine that if he had close ties to both Muggles and wizards, the statute could be a major stressor. Plus, if Locke was pressuring him to marry a witch he didn't like simply because marrying a Muggle was not looked on favorably at the moment and he had a duty to propagate magical traits or whatever, that could be stressful even if Newton had been inclined to marry as a general principle. (Since iirc Cambridge required fellows to be ordained - which Newton managed to wriggle out of - and since I've heard fellows were unmarried before the 19th century, maybe his reluctance to marry had as much to do with liking his job as not liking women.) So, not only has he had a major setback to his chances at making a stone, he also has to live a double life and dodge his friend's attempts to marry him off to that awful Cornelia Black! It's no wonder he cracked a bit.
(He was discreet about his alchemical work even before this date, but that might have more to do with the King not being too keen on anyone learning how to make gold and thus screw with the economy, which is why some alchemical practices were technically illegal.)
Newton obviously remained prominent in Muggle society, so either he cut ties with wizards somehow, or he was allowed to keep his identity so long as he didn't do any actual magic where Muggles could see. Which actually makes sense from a strategic standpoint: what better way to get Muggles on the track of deciding magic isn't real than to have an actual wizard there distracting them with math and science? And what do you know, in 1693 he started publishing his work on calculus, which shortly led to the HEY GUYZ I TOTALLY DISCOVERED CALCULUS BEFORE LEIBNIZ controversy. And then he went on to run the Muggle mint. No goblins here, no, of course there's no such thing, your majesty! What ever gave you that idea? And I can assure you, those counterfeiters I caught absolutely were not using any supernatural methods of reproducing coinage, no way. And psst, wizard friends, you might want to explain again to Julius here about the not letting Muggles get ahold of magicked objects part again... Finally, some of his papers were destroyed in a laboratory fire, and others (the Portsmouth Papers) disappeared from view until the 1930s, when they could safely be passed off with, "Isn't it interesting how silly superstitions like alchemy paved the way for modern chemistry!"
So. Newton's alchemy partner dies and he has a nervous breakdown. Sounds understandable enough, if he thought now he'd never manage to make a philosopher's stone and join the ranks of Nicholas Flamel and... well, Nicholas Flamel. But the timing leaves some interesting possibilities for the Potterverse!
Consider: the Statute of Secrecy was apparently drafted or maybe signed in 1689 and put into effect in 1692 - the year Newton had his breakdown. I would imagine that if he had close ties to both Muggles and wizards, the statute could be a major stressor. Plus, if Locke was pressuring him to marry a witch he didn't like simply because marrying a Muggle was not looked on favorably at the moment and he had a duty to propagate magical traits or whatever, that could be stressful even if Newton had been inclined to marry as a general principle. (Since iirc Cambridge required fellows to be ordained - which Newton managed to wriggle out of - and since I've heard fellows were unmarried before the 19th century, maybe his reluctance to marry had as much to do with liking his job as not liking women.) So, not only has he had a major setback to his chances at making a stone, he also has to live a double life and dodge his friend's attempts to marry him off to that awful Cornelia Black! It's no wonder he cracked a bit.
(He was discreet about his alchemical work even before this date, but that might have more to do with the King not being too keen on anyone learning how to make gold and thus screw with the economy, which is why some alchemical practices were technically illegal.)
Newton obviously remained prominent in Muggle society, so either he cut ties with wizards somehow, or he was allowed to keep his identity so long as he didn't do any actual magic where Muggles could see. Which actually makes sense from a strategic standpoint: what better way to get Muggles on the track of deciding magic isn't real than to have an actual wizard there distracting them with math and science? And what do you know, in 1693 he started publishing his work on calculus, which shortly led to the HEY GUYZ I TOTALLY DISCOVERED CALCULUS BEFORE LEIBNIZ controversy. And then he went on to run the Muggle mint. No goblins here, no, of course there's no such thing, your majesty! What ever gave you that idea? And I can assure you, those counterfeiters I caught absolutely were not using any supernatural methods of reproducing coinage, no way. And psst, wizard friends, you might want to explain again to Julius here about the not letting Muggles get ahold of magicked objects part again... Finally, some of his papers were destroyed in a laboratory fire, and others (the Portsmouth Papers) disappeared from view until the 1930s, when they could safely be passed off with, "Isn't it interesting how silly superstitions like alchemy paved the way for modern chemistry!"
