評論
打印
Isaac Newton
艾薩克·牛頓
I. Bernard Cohen
I.伯納德·科恩
The mind and personality of Isaac Newton challenge any historian. Newton was a strange, solitary figure, and the wellsprings of his behavior were hidden even from his contemporaries. A biographer of his time compared Newton to the River Nile, whose great powers were known butwhose source had not been discovered.Nevertheless, the few facts we have about his early life do allow some speculations about Newton's character and development.
研究艾薩克·牛頓的心理與個性對任何一位歷史學家來說都是一種挑戰。牛頓是個生性孤僻的奇特人物，就連他同時代的人也無法弄清他行為的由來。一位與牛頓同時代的傳記作家把他比作尼羅河：其巨大威力人所共知，但其源頭卻仍無覓處。不過，我們掌握的有關歹早年生活的少量事實確能使我們對他的性格及其發展作出一些推測。
He was born prematurely, a physical weakling. It is said that he had to wear a "bolster" to support his neck during his first months, that no one expected him to live. Newton later was fond of saying that his mother had said he was so tiny at birth that he could have been put into a quart mug.
牛頓是個早產兒，身體羸弱。據說他出生后的最初幾個月里，他得戴一種"支撐物"撐住頭頸，沒有人會認為他會活下來。日后牛頓喜歡對人家說，他母親曾說他生下來時只有一點兒大，簡直可以放進一夸脫的杯子里。
Newton's father died three months before he was born. When the boy was less than two year old, his mother remarried, and he was turned over to his aged grandmother. He lived on an isolated farm, deprived of parental care and love, without the friendly companionship and rivalry of brothers and sisters. The late Louis T. More, author of the best-known modern biography of the man, held that much of Newton's "inwardness" could be attributed to his lonely and unhappy childhood. Born in 1642, Newton grew up in an era when England was still tasting the "terrors of a protracted and bitter civil war". Raiding and plundering parties were common. His grandmother was "suspected of sympathy to the royal forces". In the face of these real terrors and "the frights of his imagination", he could not have received much comfort from his grandmother or the hired laborers on the farm. Naturally enough, as More observed, the boy turned to "the solace of lonely meditation", and developed a strong habit of self-absorption. A girl who knew him in his youth described him as a "sober, silent, thinking lad" who "was never known scarce to play with the boys abroad, at their silly amusements".
牛頓的父親在他出生前三個月就去世了，不滿兩歲，母親也改嫁了， 他被交給年邁的祖母撫養。他住在一個與世隔絕的農場上，失去了父母的關懷疼愛，沒有兄弟姐妹親密相伴，相互競爭。已故的路易斯·T·莫爾---那部最有名的現代牛頓傳記作家---認為，牛頓的"內向"在很大程度上可歸因于孤寂寡歡的童年。牛頓生于1642年，長在不安定時代，當時英國依舊在體驗"長期激烈內戰造成的恐怖"。結伙打家劫舍司空見慣。他祖母"被疑為同情王室軍隊"。 面對這些真實的恐怖以及"他想象出來的驚嚇"，牛頓不可能從祖母和農場上的雇工那里得到多少安慰。毫不奇怪，正如莫爾所言，這孩子轉向"獨思冥想以求慰藉"，形成了根深蒂固的自我專注習性。一位在他青年時代認識他的姑娘曾說, 他是個"持重寡言、喜愛思考的小伙子"，"從不跟外面的男孩玩他們那些無聊的游戲"。
