Quicksilver (104 page)

RAVENSCAR:
Then I’ll convey a copy to the Doctor forthwith, so that he may join us on his knees.

WATERHOUSE:
Don’t bother. Leibniz’s objection lies not in what Newton has done but in what he has
not
done.

RAVENSCAR:
Perhaps we can get Newton to do it in Book III, then, and remove the objection! You have influence with him…

WATERHOUSE:
The ability to annoy Isaac is not to be confused with influence.

RAVENSCAR:
We will convey Leibniz’s objections to him directly, then.

WATERHOUSE: Y
ou do not grasp the nature of Leibniz’s objections. It is not that Newton left some corollary unproved, or failed to follow up on some promising line of inquiry. Turn back, even before the Laws of Motion, and read what Isaac says in his introduction. I can quote it from memory: “For I here design only to give a mathematical notion of these forces, without considering their physical causes and seats.”

RAVENSCAR:
What is wrong with that?

WATERHOUSE:
Some would argue that as Natural Philosophers we are
supposed
to consider their physical causes and seats! This morning, Roger, I sat in this empty courtyard, in the midst of a whirlwind. The whirlwind was invisible; how did I know ‘twas
here? Because of the motion it conferred on innumerable scraps of paper, which orbited round me. Had I thought to bring along my instruments I could have taken observations and measured the velocities and plotted the trajectories of those scraps, and if I were as brilliant as Isaac I could have drawn all of those data together into a single unifying picture of the whirlwind. But if I were Leibniz I’d have done none of those things. Instead I’d have asked,
Why is the whirlwind here?

ENTR’ACTE

Noises off: A grave Procession ascending Fish Street Hill, coming from the TOWER OF LONDON.

Traders exhibit startlement and dismay as the Procession marches into the Exchange, disrupting Commerce.

Enter first two platoons of the King’s Own Black Torrent Guards, armed with muskets, affixed to the muzzles whereof are long stabbing-weapons in the style recently adopted by the French Army, and nominated by them
bayonets.
Leveling these, the soldiers clear all traders from the center of the ‘Change, and compel them to form up in concentric ranks, like spectators gathered round an impromptu Punchinello-show at a fair.

Enter now trumpeters and drummers, followed by a HERALD bellowing legal gibberish.

As drummers beat a slow and dolorous cadence, enter JACK KETCH in a black hood. The assembled traders are silent as the dead.

Jack Ketch walks slowly into the center of the empty space and stands with arms folded.

Enter now a wagon drawn by a black horse and loaded with faggots and jars, flanked by the ASSISTANTS of Jack Ketch. Assistants pile the wood on the ground and then soak it with oil poured from the jars.

Enter now BAILIFF carrying a BOOK bound up in chains and padlocks.

JACK KETCH:
In the name of the King, stop and identify yourself!

BAILIFF:
John Bull, a bailiff.

JACK KETCH:
State your business.

BAILIFF:
It is the King’s business. I have here a prisoner to be bound over for execution.

JACK KETCH:
What is the prisoner’s name?

BAILIFF:
A History of the Late Massacres and Persecutions of the French Huguenots; to which is appended a brief relation of the bloody and atrocious crimes recently visited upon blameless Protestants dwelling in the realms of the Duke of Savoy, at the behest of King Louis XIV of France
.

JACK KETCH:
Has this prisoner been accused of a crime?

BAILIFF:
Not only accused, but justly convicted, of spreading contumacious falsehoods, attempting to arouse civil discord, and leveling many base slanders against the good name of The Most Christian King Louis XIV, a true friend of our own King and a loyal ally of England.

JACK KETCH:
Vile crimes, indeed! Has a sentence been pronounced?

BAILIFF:
Indeed, as I mentioned before, it has been ordered by Lord Jeffreys that the prisoner is to be bound over to you for immediate execution.

JACK KETCH:
Then I’ll welcome him as I did the late Duke of Monmouth.

Jack Ketch advances toward the Bailiff and grips the end of the chain. The bailiff drops the Book and dusts off his hands. To a slow cadence of muffled drums, Jack Ketch marches to the wood-pile, dragging the book across the pavement behind him. He heaves the book onto the top of the pile, steps back, and accepts a torch from an assistant.

JACK KETCH:
Any last words, villainous Book? No? Very well, then to hell with thee!

Lights the fire
.

Traders, Soldiers, Musicians, Executioner’s Staff, &c. watch silently as the Book is consumed by the flames.

Exeunt Bailiff, Herald, Executioners, Musicians, and Soldiers, leaving behind a smouldering heap of coals.

Traders resume commerce as if nothing had happened, save for EDMUND PALLING, an old man.

PALLING:
Mr. Waterhouse! From the fact that you are the only one who brought something to sit on, may I assume you knew that this shameful poppet-show would disgrace the ‘Change today?

WATERHOUSE:
That would appear to be the unspoken message.

PALLING:
Unspoken
is an interesting word…what of the truths that were
spoken
in the late Book, concerning the persecutions of our brethren in France and Savoy? Have they now been
unspoken
because the pages were burnt?

WATERHOUSE:
I have heard many a sermon in my life, Mr. Palling, and I know where this one is bound…you’re going to say that just as the immortal spirit departs the body to be one with God, so the contents of the late Book are now going to wherever its smoke is distributed by the four winds…say, weren’t you Massachusetts-bound?

PALLING:
I am only bating until I have raised money for the passage, and would probably be finished by now if Jack Ketch had not muddied and stirred the subtle currents of the market.

Exits. Enter Sir Richard Apthorp.

APTHORP:
Burning books…is that not a favorite practice of the
Spanish Inquisition?

WATERHOUSE:
I have never been to Spain, Sir Richard, and so the only way I know that they burn books is because of the vast number of books that have been published on the subject.

APTHORP:
Hmmm, yes…I take your meaning.

WATERHOUSE:
I beg of you, do not say ‘I take your meaning’ with such ponderous significance…I do not wish to be Jack Ketch’s next guest. You have asked, sir, over and over, why I am sitting here in a chair. Now you know the answer: I came to see justice done.

APTHORP:
But you knew ‘twould happen—you had aught to do with it. Why did you set it in the ‘Change? At Tyburn tree, during one of the regularly scheduled Friday hangings, ‘twould’ve drawn a much more appreciative crowd—why, you could burn a whole
library
there and the Mobb would be stomping their feet for an encore.

WATERHOUSE:
They don’t read books. The point would’ve been lost on ‘em.

APTHORP:
If the point is to put the fear of God into
literate
men, why not burn it at Cambridge and Oxford?

WATERHOUSE:
Jack Ketch hates to travel. The new carriages have so little leg-room, and his great Axe does not fit into the luggage bins…

APTHORP:
Could it be because College men do not have the money and power to organize a rebellion?

WATERHOUSE:
Why, yes, that’s it. No point intimidating the weak. Threaten the dangerous.

APTHORP
: To what end? To keep them in line? Or to put thoughts of rebellion into their minds?

WATERHOUSE:
Your question, sir, amounts to asking whether I am a turncoat against the cause of my forebears—corrupted by the fœtid atmosphere of Whitehall—or a traitorous organizer of a secret rebellion.

APTHORP:
Why, yes, I suppose it does.

WATERHOUSE:
Then would you please ask easier questions or else go away and leave me alone? For whether I’m a back-stabber or
a Phanatique, I am in either case no longer a scholar to be trifled with. If you must ply someone with such questions, ask them of yourself; if you insist on an answer, unburden your secrets to me before you ask me to trust you with mine. Assuming I have any.

APTHORP:
I think that you do, sir.

Bows.

WATERHOUSE:
Why do you doff your hat to me thus?

APTHORP
: To honor you, sir, and to pay my respects to him who made you.

WATERHOUSE:
What, Drake?

APTHORP:
Why, no, I refer to your Mentor, the late John Wilkins, Lord Bishop of Chester—or as some would say, the living incarnation of Janus. For that good fellow penned the
Cryptonomicon
with one hand and the
Universal Character
with the other; he was a good friend of high and mighty Cavaliers at the same time he was wooing and marrying Cromwell’s own sister; and, in sum, was Janus-like in diverse ways I’ll not bother enumerating to you. For you are truly his pupil, his creation: one moment dispensing intelligence like a Mercury, the next keeping counsel like Pluto.

WATERHOUSE:
Mentor was a guise adopted by Minerva, and her pupil was great Ulysses, and so by hewing to a strict Classical interpretation of your words, sir, I’ll endeavour not to take offense.

APTHORP:
Endeavour and succeed, my good man, for no offense was meant. Good day.

Exits
.

Enter Ravenscar, carrying
Principia Mathematica.

RAVENSCAR:
I’m taking this to the printer’s straightaway, but before I do, I was pondering this Newton/Leibniz thing…

WATERHOUSE:
What!? Jack Ketch’s performance made no impression on you at all?

RAVENSCAR:
Oh, that? I assume you arranged it that way in order to buttress your position as the King’s token Puritan bootlick—whilst in fact stirring rebellious spirits in the hearts and minds of the rich and powerful. Forgive me for not tossing out a compliment. Twenty years ago I’d have admired it, but by my current standards it is only a modestly sophisticated ploy. The matter of Newton and Leibniz is much more interesting.

WATERHOUSE: G
o ahead, then.

RAVENSCAR:
Descartes explained, years and years ago, that the planets move round the sun like slips of paper caught up in a
wind-vortex. So Leibniz’s objection is groundless—there is no mystery, and therefore Newton did not gloss over any problems.

WATERHOUSE:
Leibniz has been trying to make sense of Descartes’ dynamics for years, and finally given up. Descartes was wrong. His theory of dynamics is beautiful in that it is purely geometrical and mathematical. But when you compare that theory to the world as it really is, it proves an unmitigated disaster. The whole notion of vortices does not work. There is no doubt that the inverse square law exists, and governs the motions of all heavenly bodies along conic sections. But it has nothing to do with vortices, or the cœlestial æther, or any of that other nonsense.

RAVENSCAR:
What brings it about, then?

WATERHOUSE:
Isaac says it is God, or God’s presence in the physical world. Leibniz says it has to be some sort of interaction among particles too tiny to see…

RAVENSCAR:
Atoms?

WATERHOUSE:
Atoms—to make a long story short and leave out all the good bits—could not move and change fast enough. Instead Leibniz speaks of monads, which are more fundamental than atoms. If I try to explain we’ll both get headaches. Suffice it to say, he is going at it hammer and tongs, and we will hear more from him in due course.

RAVENSCAR:
That is very odd, for he avers in a personal letter to me that, having published the Integral Calculus, he’ll now turn his attention to genealogical research.

WATERHOUSE:
That sort of work entails much travel, and the Doctor does his best work when he’s rattling round the Continent in his carriage. He can do both things, and more, at the same time.

RAVENSCAR:
In the decision to study history, some will see an admission of defeat to Newton. I myself cannot understand why he should want to waste his time digging up ancient family trees.

WATERHOUSE:
Perhaps I’m not the only Natural Philosopher who can put together a “moderately sophisticated ploy” when he needs to.

RAVENSCAR:
What on earth are you talking about?

WATERHOUSE:
Dig up some ancient family trees, stop assuming that Leibniz is a defeated ninehammer, and consider it. Put your
philosophick
acumen to use: know, for example, that the children of syphilitics are often syphilitic themselves, and unable to bear viable offspring.

RAVENSCAR: N
ow you are swimming out into the deep water, Daniel. Monsters are there—bear it in mind.

WATERHOUSE:
‘Tis true, and when a man has got to a point in his life when he needs to slay a monster, like St. George, or be eaten by one, like Jonah, I think that is where he goes a-swimming.

RAVENSCAR: I
s it your intention to slay, or be eaten?

WATERHOUSE:
I have already been eaten. My choices are to slay, or else be vomited up on some bit of dry land somewhere—Massachusetts, perhaps.