III-971 Newton was not the first of the age of reason. He was the last of the magicians, the last of the Babylonians and Sumerians, the last great mind which looked out on the visible and intellectual world with the same eyes as those who began to build our intellectual inheritance rather less than 10,000 years ago. Isaac Newton, a posthumous child born with no father on Christmas Day, 1642, was the last wonder child to whom the Magi could do sincere and appropriate homage. [J. M. Keynes, “Newton, the Man” 1946)]
III-972 There are his telescopes and his optical experiments, These were essential accomplishments, part of his unequalled all-round technique, but not, I am sure, his peculiar gift, especially amongst his contemporaries. His peculiar gift was the power of holding continuously in his mind a purely mental problem until he had seen straight through it. [J. M. Keynes, “Newton, the Man” (1946)]
III-973 I believe that Newton could hold a problem in his mind for hours and days and weeks until it surrendered to him its secret. Then being a supreme mathematical technician he could dress it up, how you will, for purposes of exposition, but it was his intuition which was pre-eminently extraordinary - ’so happy in his conjectures’, said De Morgan, ’as to seem to know more than he could possibly have any means of proving’. The proofs, for what they are worth, were, as I have said, dressed up afterwards - they were not the instrument of discovery. There is the story of how he informed Halley of one of his most fundamental discoveries of planetary motion. ’Yes,’ replied Halley, ’but how do you know that? Have you proved it?’ Newton was taken aback - ’Why, I’ve known it for years’, he replied. ’If you’ll give me a few days, I’ll certainly find you a proof of it’ - as in due course he did. [J. M. Keynes, “Newton, the Man” (1946)]
III-974 Certainly there can be no doubt that the peculiar geometrical form in which the exposition of the Principia is dressed up bears no resemblance at all to the mental processes by which Newton actually arrived at his conclusions.
His experiments were always, I suspect, a means, not of discovery, but always of verifying what he knew already. [J. M. Keynes, “Newton, the Man” (1946)]
III-975 He regarded the universe as a cryptogram set by the Almighty - just as he himself wrapt the discovery of the calculus in a cryptogram when he communicated with Leibniz. By pure thought, by concentration of mind, the riddle, he believed, would be revealed to the initiate. [J. M. Keynes, “Newton, the Man” (1946)]
III-976 All would be revealed to him if only he could persevere to the end, uninterrupted, by himself, no one coming into the room, reading, copying, testing-all by himself, no interruption for God’s sake, no disclosure, no discordant breakings in or criticism, with fear and shrinking as he assailed these half-ordained, half forbidden things, creeping back into the bosom of the Godhead as into his mother’s womb.
...
And so he continued for some twenty-five years. In 1687, when he was forty-five years old, the Principia was published.
....
During these twenty-five years of intense study mathematics and astronomy were only a part, and perhaps not the most absorbing, of his occupations. Our record of these is almost wholly confined to the papers which he kept and put in his box when he left Trinity for London. [J. M. Keynes, “Newton, the Man” (1946)]
III-977 All his unpublished works on esoteric and theological matters are marked by careful learning, accurate method and extreme sobriety of statement. They are just as sane as the Principia, if their whole matter and purpose were not magical. [J. M. Keynes, “Newton, the Man” (1946)]
III-978 Very early in life Newton abandoned orthodox belief in the Trinity. He arrived at this conclusion, not on so-to-speak rational or sceptical grounds, but entirely on the interpretation of ancient authority. He was persuaded that the revealed documents give no support to the Trinitarian doctrines which were due to late falsifications. The revealed God was one God.
....
But this was a dreadful secret which Newton was at desperate pains to conceal all his life. It was the reason why he refused Holy Orders, and therefore had to obtain a special dispensation to hold his Fellowship and Lucasian Chair and could not be Master of Trinity. Even the Toleration Act of 1689 excepted anti-Trinitarians. After his death Bishop Horsley was asked to inspect the box with a view to publication. He saw the contents with horror and slammed the lid. A hundred years later Sir David Brewster looked into the box. He covered up the traces with carefully selected extracts and some straight fibbing. His latest biographer, Mr More, has been more candid. Newton’s extensive anti-Trinitarian pamphlets are, in my judgement, the most interesting of his unpublished papers . [J. M. Keynes, “Newton, the Man” (1946)]
迷信について
迷信とは信じる合理的理由がないことを信じることである．たとえばキリスト教やユダヤ教の聖書に書いてある奇蹟を信じることを迷信と区別することは出来ない．このようなあからさまに馬鹿げた迷信と，ここで相手にしているような相関関係を因果関係と受け取るような迷信とは区別したほうがいいだろう．ただし，この二つの迷信が截然と分離できない可能性はあるが．
まず相関関係を想定することは仮説を立てることであることに注意．二度あることは三度あるという言い方も，三度目の正直という言い方もあることから考えて，だいたい三度何かが起こるとあるいは３回に一回くらい何かが起こると，われわれはある種の規則性を認める傾向がある．これが迷信の基盤である．これと時間の順序のある規則性の認識は容易に，この規則性を因果関係と認めさせる方向にみちびくだろう．ヒトが他の生きものに対抗してきた有力な手段が因果性の認識能力であったと考えられるから，ヒトが迷信深いとしても驚くに当たらない．かなりしばしばこの世で成功する推論の形式に頼りすぎるようになるとしてもそれは理解できることだ．つまり，意識的無意識的に懐疑によるチェックをしない限り，迷信にとらわれるのは人間精神の基本的性格なのである．それは自然選択の結果といってもいい． ( 未完 )
Gell-Mannはその Quark and Jaguar p276 で迷信について次のように書いている:
Is the prevalence of superstition alongside science a phenomenon peculiar to human beings or should intelligent complex adaptive systems elsewhere in the universe be expected to have similar proclivities?
そして
In more anthropomorphic terms, we can expect intelligent complex adaptive systems everywhere to be liable to a mixture of superstition and denial.
「ドグマに縛られてはいけない」というのはドグマではないか．
これで 著者がいつも連想するのは 宝積経 である(ここでは中央公論社の「世界の名著」の中の大乗仏典の巻による引用)．残念ながら， 宝積経 は電子化されていないようである(英訳も知らない; ご教示を乞う):
829 カーシャパよ、自我があるというならば、これは一つの極端論である。無我というならば、これももう一つの極端論である。有我と無我との中正は、形をもたないもの、見られないもの、あらわれ出ないもの、認知されないもの、基体のないもの、名づけられないものである。カーシャパよ、このことが中道であり、存在についての真実の観察である。 [宝積経 （57） ]
830 カーシャパよ，あるということ，これは一つの極端論であり，無いと言うこと，これももう一つの極端論である． [宝積経 （60） ]
831 カーシャパよ、その場合、悟りと迷いは二つのものではなく、二つに区別されるべきものではない。
[宝積経 （61） ]
832 まことに，カーシャパよ，もしある人々が空性という観念をつくり，その空性に帰依するならば，カーシャパよ，わたくしは彼らをこの教えにそむき，破壊する者とよぼう． [宝積経 （64） ]
833 世尊が仰せられた。—カーシャパよ、それと同じように、観念に固執する者をすべて（自由な境地へ）超越させるのが空性である、しかし、カーシャパよ、もしその空性の観念に固執する者があるならば、彼こそはいやすことのできないものと私はよぶ。 [宝積経 （65） ]