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Newton suffered some kind of "nervous breakdown" after the completion of the Principia. He complained that he could not sleep， and said that he lacked the "former consistency of his mind". He wrote angry letters to friends and then apologized; he protested bitterly to John Locke, for example, that the philosopher had attempted to "embroil him with women".
寫完《原理》，牛頓得了某種"神經崩潰癥"。他訴說自己睡不著覺，缺乏"原先的思維連貫性"。他給朋友寫去泄憤的信件，然后又向他們道歉。比如，他曾憤懣地向約翰·洛克抗議說，這位哲學家曾企圖"使他卷入緋聞"。
In 1696 Newton abandoned the academic life for the position of Warden, later Master, of theMint. Honors for his scientific achievements continued to come to him: he was knighted in 1705 and served many years as president of the Royal Society.
1696 年，牛頓放棄學術生涯，就任造幣廠廠長的職位，后又充任該廠掌管人。但他的科研成就繼續給他帶來榮譽：他于1705年被封為爵士，還當了多年皇家學會會長。
Although he made no important discoveries in the last quarter century of his life, Newton's last years were not barren of ideas. Now famous and honored, he felt secure enough to offer many public speculations on scientific problems. He suggested various possible hypotheses asto the "cause" of gravitation and speculated on the nature of the "ether", the size of theconstituent units of matter, the forces of electricity and magnetism, the cause of muscular response to the "commands of the will", the origins of sensation, the creation of the world, the ultimate destiny of man. In the century after Newton, physical experimenters followed up many of his bold speculations.
牛頓在生命的最后二十五年中雖然沒有作出重大發現，但他在晚年并非再無新鮮見解。這時他聲名卓著，受人敬重，不再感到有什么顧忌了，于是對科學上的問題公開提出了許多推斷與猜測。他對萬有引力的"成因"作了各種可能的假設，還對以下種種加以推測：醚的性質、物質組成單位的大小、電力與磁力、肌肉對"意志所發指令"作出反應的原因、知覺的來源、世界的創造以及人類的最終命運。在牛頓之后的整整一百年中，物理學實驗人員對他的許多大膽推測與猜測作了進一步研究。
Newton is often described as the inaugurators of the "Age of Reason". Alexander Pope expressed the sentiment of his time in the famous lines:
牛頓常被稱為"理性時代"的開創者，亞歷山大·蒲柏則以他的著名的詩句表達了他那個時代的感受：
Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in night:
大自然與自然法則為夜色籠罩：
God said, Let Newton be! and all was light.
上帝說道，讓牛頓降生！萬物頓被陽光普照。
