Isaac Newton is one of the most remarkable, prolific, and influential cross-disciplinary scientists in human history. The Newton Project, one of these important digital humanities projects, catalogs the 4.2 million published and unpublished words by Newton, which are made available as interactive diplomatic transcriptions. Among them is this curious list of 48 sins 19-year-old Newton self-admittedly “committed” before Whitsunday:

BEFORE WHITSUNDAY 1662

1. Using the word (God) openly
2. Eating an apple at Thy house
3. Making a feather while on Thy day
4. Denying that I made it
5. Making a mousetrap on Thy day
6. Contriving of the chimes on Thy day
7. Squirting water on Thy day
8. Making pies on Sunday night
9. Swimming in a kimnel on Thy day
10. Putting a pin in Iohn Keys hat on Thy day to pick him
11. Carelessly hearing and committing many sermons
12. Refusing to go to the close at my mothers command
13. Threatning my father and mother Smith to burne them and the house over them
14. Wishing death and hoping it to some
15. Striking many
16. Having uncleane thoughts words and actions and dreamese
17. Stealing cherry cobs from Eduard Storer
18. Denying that I did so
19. Denying a crossbow to my mother and grandmother though I knew of it
20. Setting my heart on money learning pleasure more than Thee
21. A relapse
22. A relapse
23. A breaking again of my covenant renued in the Lords Supper
24. Punching my sister
25. Robbing my mothers box of plums and sugar
26. Calling Dorothy Rose a jade
27. Glutiny in my sickness
28. Peevishness with my mother
29. With my sister
30. Falling out with the servants
31. Divers commissions of alle my duties
32. Idle discourse on Thy day and at other times
33. Not turning nearer to Thee for my affections
34. Not living according to my belief
35. Not loving Thee for Thy self
36. Not loving Thee for Thy goodness to us
37. Not desiring Thy ordinances
38. Not long [longing] for Thee in [illegible]
39. Fearing man above Thee
40. Using unlawful means to bring us out of distresses
41. Caring for worldly things more than God
42. Not craving a blessing from God on our honest endeavors
43. Missing chapel
44. Beating Arthur Storer
45. Peevishness at Master Clarks for a piece of bread and butter
46. Striving to cheat with a brass halfe crowne
47. Twisting a cord on Sunday morning
48. Reading the history of the Christian champions on Sunday

Besides the list’s endearing earnestness — which brings to mind Woody Guthrie’s 1942 New Year’s resolution list — it also contains intriguing counter-evidence for the age-old tension between science vs. religion, standing in particularly stark contrast with modern scientists’ unabashedly nihilistic attitude towards “God.” And for those of us who prod organized religion with the rational stick of skepticism, it’s an intriguing perspective shift to consider that a groundbreaking scientists could also be a pious man.