Manuel, Frank Edward. 1968. A Portrait of Isaac Newton (Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press).
234-5: "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."
-- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929
Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu michaelperelman.wordpress.com