"Quicksilver"

[fiefoe]

Progress of a natural philosopher:

• Daniel experienced a faint echo of what it must he like, all the time, to be Isaac Newton: a permanent ongoing epiphany, an endless immersion in lurid radiance, a drowning in light, a ringing of cosmic harmonies in the ears.
• Newton: "Translating a thing into the analytical language is akin to what the alchemist does when he extracts, from some crude ore, a pure spirit, or virtue, or pneuma."
• "I'd go so far as to say that if a proper philosophical language existed, it would be impossible to express any false concept in it without violating its rules of grammar," Daniel hazarded.
• "I have entabulated the animals troublesome to other animals - the louse, the flea.. Those designed for further transmutation - the caterpillar..."
• "As I drew up all of these lists and tables, it occurred to me that... Noah must have found a way to fit all of these creatures into one gopher-wood tub three hundred cubits long! I became concerned that certain Continental savants, of an atheistical bent, might misuse my list to suggest that events related in Genesis could not have happened-... Which makes it imperative that I include, in a separate chapter, a complete plan of Noah's Ark - demonstrating not only where each of the beasts was berthed, but also the fodder."
• Hooke: "True beauty is to be found in natural forms. The more we magnify, and the closer we examine, the works of Artifice, the grosser and stupider they seem. But if we magnify the natural world it only becomes more intricate and excellent."
• Isaac was accustomed to being so much brighter than everyone else that he really had no idea of what others were or weren't capable of. So when he got it into his head to be tricky, he came up with tricks that would not deceive a dog.
  

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