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From The Gulliver Code

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The President of the Royal Society, Sir Isaac Newton, was born on Christmas day in the year of Galileo’s death. While his briliant work in physics and mathematics set in motion the Age of Enlightenment, Newton spent much more time on alchemy and mystical theology than on science.

Newton's religion was Arian, holding that Christ and God were not of one substance, which was considered heretical within the Anglican Church.

Newton was so convinced of his supernatural powers that he once constructed an anagram of his name - Isaacus Neutonus - in terms of “God’s holy one” (Jeova sanctus unus). His position as a fellow of Trinity College and Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge (a chair held by Stephen Hawking), his role as Master of the Mint, and his knighthood from Queen Anne should have required him to adhere to the Anglican Church, or even be an ordained minister. Yet Newton's brillance and domineering nature let him sidestep the problem throughout his life. Only on his deathbed in 1727 did his true religion emerge, when the 85 year old refused to accept the last rites of the Church of England. Even then, Newton was given a lavish state burial in Westminster Abbey, and a mammoth monument was unveiled to his memory in 1731. ^[1]

A case can be made that some of Newton's alchemical experiments, kept secret from all but a few intimates, may have inspired Swift and Arbuthnot to craft the satire on projectors featured in Book III of Gulliver's Travels. But I think it is more likely that Arbuthnot, as chief editor of the Royal Society, told Swift about some of the more ludicrous experiments proposed to the Society, which held public lectures at the time.

Arbuthnot was clearly in on the joke. Swift wrote to Pope on November 17, 1726, that "Dr. Arbuthnot likes the Projectors [of Lagado] least - Because he understood it to be a satire on the Royal Society."

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Notes

1. ↑ The movement to erect this monument was led by Alexander Pope, who was also involved in the erection of a monument to William Shakespeare. Pope's poetry had made him wealthy, and I suspect he paid for the monuments out his own money.

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