"Leibniz made his second visit to England. He went incognito to Cambridge, for no purpose other than to have a conversation with Isaac. Which did occur. But as they punted down the Cam, discoursing, I came upon papers in our chambers proving that Isaac had fallen into Arianism, which I saw as an unspeakable heresy. I burned those papers, and with them many of Isaac's alchemical notes and books—for to me they were all of a piece. To which crime I now confess freely, and offer my repentance, and ask for forgiveness."

"You speak as if you never expect to see me again!" Newton exclaimed, with tears in his eyes. "I perceived your shame, and knew your heart, and forgave you long ago, Daniel."

"I know it."

"Most of what you burned anyway was twaddle. You'll see none of it here. Yet here I am infinitely closer to the Grand Magisterium."

"I know you have torn Alchemy down to its foundations, and built it back up, and are recording it in a book called Praxis, which will be to Alchemy what Principia Mathematica was to physics. And perhaps 'tis hoped that in combination with some new reading of scriptures from Fatio, here, and new philosophy from Locke, there, and a reworking of Christianity on Arian principles from your disciples scattered round England, it shall all come together in some grand unifying discourse, a kind of scientific apocalypse in which the whole universe, and all history, shall be made clear as distilled water."

"You mock us, by making it simple."

"It is not simple, then? 'Twill not all happen at once, in a flash?"

"It is not for us to say in advance the manner of how it might happen."

"Yet you have been awake five nights tending some work that you'll not entrust to any assistant. You suffer obvious ill effects of quicksilver poisoning. You will not admit it is the Great Work, but what else could it be? And I cannot read your mind, Isaac, or ask you to divulge secrets, but I can see plainly enough that it failed. And if it was meant to combine with Fatio's theory of gravity, then that has failed as well."

"Before you mock our work, sir, prithee tell us in what way Leibniz's has succeeded," Fatio demanded.

"His differs from yours in that it does not need to succeed—only not to fail. And I take that to be a more sound way of doing science than your approach, which is all-or-nothing. For as I grow older and see new men coming into the Royal Society I perceive that though Natural Philosophy may have begun with our generation, it need not end with us. Nor am I alone in thinking so." Daniel now lifted up a sheet he had taken from Locke's study, and read: "It is of great use to the sailor to know the length of his line, though he cannot with it fathom all the depths of the ocean. It is well he knows that it is long enough to reach the bottom, at such places as are necessary to direct his voyage, and caution him against running upon shoals that may ruin him."

"What sniveling fool penned that nonsense?" Fatio demanded.

"Mr. John Locke. And the ink is still damp on it," Daniel replied.

"I am quite sure he did not mean it to apply to Isaac Newton!" Fatio returned, jarred, but recovering quickly.

"I believe what you really mean to say is, ‘Newton and Fatio,' " Daniel said.

Newton and Fatio looked at each other, and Daniel looked at them. Fatio had a kind of tender, insinuating look on his face, and Daniel got the idea it was very far from the first time he had shown that sort of face to Newton, and that Fatio was used to seeing a tender and loving face looking back his way. But not today. Newton was staring at Fatio not with love, but with avid curiosity, as if suddenly perceiving what had escaped his notice before. Daniel had no love for Fatio, but this made him so uneasy that he lost the courage he'd maintained up until now.

"I wish to tell you a story about Robert Hooke," he announced.

This was one of the few things that could get Isaac's attention away from his minute, penetrating study of Nicolas Fatio de Duillier. He turned his eyes toward Daniel, who went on: "Before I came up to Woolsthorpe, Isaac, I did an experiment with him. We set up a scale above a well, and weighed the same object at the level of the ground, and again three hundred feet below it, to see if there was a difference. For you see, Hooke had an inkling of the inverse-square law."

Isaac did a little calculation in his head and said, "There was no observable difference."

"Just so. Hooke was let down, of course, but as we drove home he conceived a refinement of the experiment, which has never been carried out. But the point of the story is that our colloquium at Epsom succeeded at much, but failed in that, its most ambitious effort. Did it mean the end of Natural Philosophy? No. The end of Hooke's career, or Wilkins's, or mine? By no means. On the contrary, it led straight on to a flourishing of all those things. Which has led me to mistrust apocalyptic readings of Science or of Society. I have not been quick to learn that lesson, either. For example, I phant'sied that the Glorious Revolution would change all, but now I see that Cavaliers and Roundheads have only been replaced by Tories and Whigs, and the war goes on."

"Am I to gather that you intend to draw some parallel between the failures of Hooke, and the prospects for our collaboration?" Fatio said, with forced hilarity. "I supposed you were here as a cat's paw for Leibniz! He at least is a worthy opponent! He came out with calculus after Isaac and I did so, but at least he knows what it is! Hooke is nothing more than a sooty, bloody empiricist!"

"I am here as a cat's paw for Isaac Newton, my friend of thirty years. I fear for him because I perceive that he has an idea of what Natural Philosophy is, and of what he is, that is false. He is so far above all of the rest of us that he has come to believe that he carries the burden of some millennial destiny, and that he must bring Natural Philosophy to some ultimate omega-point or be a failure. He has been encouraged to believe this by certain sycophantic admirers."

"You want him back! You want Isaac to revoke the decision he made on Whitsunday of 1662!"

"No. I want him to repeat the same decision in respect of you, Fatio. He withdrew from me in '62. From Leibniz in '77. Now it is '93, and your card has been dealt."

"I know all about what happened in '62 and '77. Isaac told me. But with us it is a different case. With us there is a real, lasting, mutual affection."

"Nicolas, that much is true," Isaac said. "But you misunderstand. Daniel is working his way round towards another matter."

"What could Mr. Waterhouse possibly say that would be of interest? He is an amanuensis, a secretary."

"Do not make any more such offending statements about Daniel," Isaac commanded. "He has done us the favor, Nicolas, of thinking about our future. Which is a matter we did not consider at all, so confident were we. But Daniel is right. We have failed. Our line was not long enough to fathom the depths on which we had ventured. It will be necessary to regroup, to start over again. We shall require time and money and leisure."

"Isaac," Daniel said, "two or three years ago, before you set out on the Great Work that has just come to an end, you made inquiries, with Pepys and Roger Comstock and others, concerning the possibility of a position in London. Since then Trinity College has only become more impoverished—your need of a reliable income cannot have been met from that quarter. Now I have come to offer you the Mint."

Everyone now observed a prayerful silence for a minute or two as Isaac Newton considered it.

"In normal circumstances the position would be without interest," he said, "but Comstock has sent adumbrations my way concerning a great Recoinage."

"It is intended that Recoinage would be your Great Work. Which I do not say in jest. For perhaps that is indeed the only way that the Philosophic Mercury could ever be recovered."