QQC Part Three

"Once he inserted a bodkin-a long needle of the sort used for sewing leather-into his eye socket and rubbed it around "betwixt my eye and the bone as near to [the] backside of my eye as I could" just to see what would happen. What happened, miraculously, was nothing-at least nothing lasting."

I find this quote hilarious, amazing, and completely mad. Starting with 'mad' in the sense that Newton did this just to see what would happen, but it is also completely human because if no one did something "just to see what would happen" our race would not advance. Amazing because this man took the chance to go blind! To literally take the chance to never be able to write a formula straight again is aw inspiring. I do think it is a little hilarious because the notion that a man with Newton's reputation seemed to do this type of thing a lot, and as it is I see myself doing some of the same things. I have stared into the sun to see what happens, touched a flame, eaten things I probably should not have, but all for that very odd reason "to see what would happen". This quote does raise a question for me though, how far will someone go to "just see what would happen", and if someone does not go that far what will not be discovered because of it?