Jim Farmelant wrote:
>
>
> Today, as the world pauses on the birthday of one of history's
> greatest
> men, whose teachings continue to benefit the entire human race,
> let us join in toasting the memory of Sir Isaac Newton, and of all
> the giants on whose shoulders he stood.
>
>
Newton exemplifies the Dr. Strangelove sort of science Nietzsche and Foucault hope will ultimately bring about the Rapture of "humanity sacrificing itself." He was not an exponent of the gospel of love.
Here again is Frank Manuel's desciption of Newton's remorseless pursuit of counterfeiters and clippers as Warden and Master of the Mint.
"One side of Newton relished these interrogations in the Tower, as he ferreted out criminal evil with perseverance and without pity. The plots against him only whetted his appetite for more quarry. He would prosecute or relent, allow bail or get a man put in chains, threaten recalcitrants with reprisals or dangle the promise of a pardon in exchange for solid information about other rascals. He was like the God of Deuteronomy whom he knew so well: 'I kill and I make alive, I wound and I heal.' He would rage at prisoners and their wives and mistresses with impunity - all in a holy cause. In the Mint Newton was gratified with the exercise of naked power over fellow creatures. The Inquisitor may or may not be relieved of his own guilt by discovering it and punishing it in his victims. There are those who hold that the revelations of the criminal evoke dangerous hidden parallels in the inquisitor and that the expression of righteous indignation is anything but therapeutic for the prosecutor. Newton was not wholly delivered from the bondage of his anger by ranting at prisoners, for there was an inexhaustible font of rage in the man, but he appears to have found some release from its burden in these tirades in the Tower. With such avenues available to him, he never again suffered a psychic breakdown like the one in 1693. He no longer needed beat his head against the bars of his inner consciousness. There were other human beings upon whom he could vent his wrath." (Manuel, A Portrait of Isaac Newton. pp. 234-5)
Ted