Abstract

It is impossible for us to understand the character of Newton or the state of the physical sciences in the seventeenth century, without referring at length to the life and work of Robert Hooke.’ So writes the author of a recent biography of Newton. Well might we ask with him ‘What manner of man was he whose personal opposition delayed the publication of Newton's Optics for thirty years and almost prevented the completion of the Principia; whose bitter tongue confirmed Newton's tendency to secrecy and isolation, destroyed his early enthusiasm for the Royal Society, and disgusted him with science?’ It is not surprising that a man, capable of all this, should play a conspicuous rôle in the history of natural philosophy. Indeed a study of Hooke's career throws much light on the origins of modern science and, in particular, it helps to determine the much disputed status of mathematics in the development of physical theory.