The individual who imagines that embezzlers are all riotous in nature, and by habit are spendthrifts, does not know humanity. The embezzler is one man; the model citizen another, and yet both souls reside in the one body.
Nero had a passion for pet pigeons, and the birds used to come at his call, perch on his shoulder and take dainty crumbs from his lips.
The natures of some men are divided up into water-tight compartments. Sir Isaac Newton kept his religion in one compartment, and his science in another--they never got together.
Voltaire has said, "When Sir Isaac Newton discovered the Law of Gravitation he excited the envy of the learned men of the world; but they more than got even with him when he wrote a book on the prophecies of the Bible."
When Newton was only twenty-seven years old he was elected the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Trinity, an office that carried with it a goodly salary and also very much honor. Never before had so young a man held this chair.
Newton was a pioneer in announcing the physical properties of light.
Every village photographer now fully understands this, but when Newton first proclaimed it he created a whirlwind of disapproval.
When a man at that time put forth an unusual thought, it was regarded as a challenge. Teachers and professors all over Great Britain, and also in Germany and France, at once set about to show the fallacy of Newton's conclusions.
Newton had issued a pamphlet with diagrams showing how to study light, and the apparatus was so simple and cheap that the "Newton experiments" were tried everywhere in schoolrooms.
People always combat a new idea when first presented, and so Newton found himself overwhelmed with correspondence.
Cheap arguments were fired into Cambridge in volleys. These were backed up by quibbling men--Pro Bono Publico, Veritas and Old Subscriber--men incapable of following Newton's scientific mind. In his great good-nature and patience Newton replied to his opponents at length.
His explanations were construed into proof that he was not sure of his ground. One man challenged him to debate the matter publicly, and we hear of his going up to London, king that he was, to argue with a commoner.
Such terms as "falsifier," "upstart," "pretender," were freely used, and poor Newton for a time was almost in despair.