'Making a mousetrap on Thy day'

The many sins of 19-year-old Isaac Newton

Welcome to the third issue of the Lists of Note newsletter: each Sunday, a fascinating list from history. If you haven’t already, sign up.

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Newton’s sins. From the Lists of Note book.

Sir Isaac Newton is undoubtedly one of the most influential scientists in human history. In 1668, he built the world’s first successful reflecting telescope; then, in 1687, he published Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, a hugely important book in which he laid out the laws of motion and universal gravitation. In 1964, three hundred years before he made his mark on the world, a page in one of his notebooks, penned cryptically in 1662, was finally decoded; on it, addressed to God, was a list of sins 19-year-old Newton had committed.

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Before Whitsunday 1662

1. Using the word (God) openly

2. Eating an apple at Thy house

3. Making a feather while on Thy day

4. Denying that I made it.

5. Making a mousetrap on Thy day

6. Contriving of the chimes on Thy day

7. Squirting water on Thy day

8. Making pies on Sunday night

9. Swimming in a kimnel on Thy day

10. Putting a pin in Iohn Keys hat on Thy day to pick him

11. Carelessly hearing and committing many sermons

12. Refusing to go to the close at my mothers command

13. Threatning my father and mother Smith to burne them and the house over them

14. Wishing death and hoping it to some

15. Striking many

16. Having uncleane thoughts words and actions and dreamese

17. Stealing cherry cobs from Eduard Storer

18. Denying that I did so

19. Denying a crossbow to my mother and grandmother though I knew of it

20. Setting my heart on money learning pleasure more than Thee

21. A relapse

22. A relapse

23. A breaking again of my covenant renued in the Lords Supper

24. Punching my sister

25. Robbing my mothers box of plums and sugar

26. Calling Dorothy Rose a jade

27. Glutiny in my sickness

28. Peevishness with my mother

29. With my sister

30. Falling out with the servants

31. Divers commissions of alle my duties

32. Idle discourse on Thy day and at other times

33. Not turning nearer to Thee for my affections

34. Not living according to my belief

35. Not loving Thee for Thy self

36. Not loving Thee for Thy goodness to us

37. Not desiring Thy ordinances

38. Not long [longing] for Thee in [illeg]

39. Fearing man above Thee

40. Using unlawful means to bring us out of distresses

41. Caring for worldly things more than God

42. Not craving a blessing from God on our honest endeavors.

43. Missing chapel.

44. Beating Arthur Storer.

45. Peevishness at Master Clarks for a piece of bread and butter.

46. Striving to cheat with a brass halfe crowne.

47. Twisting a cord on Sunday morning

48. Reading the history of the Christian champions on Sunday

Since Whitsunday 1662

1. Glutony

2. Glutony

3. Using Wilfords towel to spare my own

4. Negligence at the chapel.

5. Sermons at Saint Marys (4)

6. Lying about a louse

7. Denying my chamberfellow of the knowledge of him that took him for a sot.

8. Neglecting to pray (3)

9. Helping Pettit to make his water watch at 12 of the clock on Saturday night

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The above list is one of 125 that feature in the Lists of Note book. It’s now out of print, but I’m selling the last remaining copies of its gorgeous special edition here.