"Newton's goal was incomparably more vast than the discovery of the "mathematical principles of natural philosophy." Newton wished to penetrate the divine principles beyond the veil of nature, and beyond the veils of human record and received revelation as well. His goal was the knowledge of God, and for achieving that goal he marshaled the evidence from every source available to him: mathematics, experiment, observation, reason, revelation, historical method, myth, the tattered remnants of ancient wisdom. ...one result of the restricted interests of modernity has been to look askance at Newton's biblical, chronological, and alchemical studies: to consider his pursuit of prisca sapientia [ancient wisdom] as irrelevant. None of those was irrelevant to Newton, for his goal was considerably more ambitious than a knowledge of nature. His goal was Truth, and for that he utilized every possible resource."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
, The Janus Faces of Genius: The Role of Alchemy in Newton's Thought (2002)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mathematics_and_mysticism
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Mathematics and mysticism
61 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Mathematics and mysticism →
Related Quotes
"Of the perfection of the number six, which it the first of the numbers which is composed of its aliquot parts. These …"
"What English mathematicians were most intrigued by and, at times, embarrassed about was the explanation Ramanujan off…"
"If a 'religion' is defined to be a system of ideas that contains unprovable statements, then Gödel taught us that mat…"
"Throughout history philosophers and mystics have sought a compact key to universal wisdom, a finite formula or text w…"
"The Pythagorean mathematical concepts, abstracted from sense impressions of nature, were... projected into nature and…"
"Number mysticism was not original with the Pythagoreans. The number seven, for example, had been singled out for spec…"
"When a man counts one, two, three, he is not only doing mathematics, he is on the path to the mysticism of numbers in…"
"Figuration can be one of the values or qualities that the Divine Artificer uses to decorate or adorn the invisible fi…"
"At Babylon... we see a practical polytheism... combined with the application of the exact sciences, and the gods of h…"
"Now this ratio of the single to the double arises, no doubt, from the ternary number, since one added to two makes th…"