o_19kdfsn0q18e31dfraas1esh19vta.pdf

duties that came with the position was hunting down counterfeiters. 300
Not that Newton actually wanted to hunt down counterfeiters. He complained about it to the
powers that be, but they told him to suck it up. So he was left with no choice.
At that time, there was no police force, so his first step was to create his own law enforcement
agency (quite a first step!) He gradually built up a web of informants and spies that extended
throughout Europe. Newton also had to interrogate suspects himself, do all the work that would be
necessary to put a case together for the jury, capture the suspects, and deposit them into the hands of
the legal system for hopeful execution. (If a suspect was convicted, the punishment for
counterfeiting was death.)
Levenson (2009) describes Newton's approach toward law enforcement as "terrifyingly persistent."
White (1997) notes that "Newton was feared and reviled in equal measure both by his prisoners as
they awaited execution and by those he sought to monitor going about their illegal trade." But it
was not even safe to criticize the Warden of the Mint in the comfort of one's own cell, because a
prisoner's cellmates might very well be informants working for Newton in exchange for clemency.
So Newton got to hear prisoners making complaints like, "Damne my blood, I had been out before
now but for him," or accusing him of being a "rogue," or threatening to shoot him. Curse those
meddlesome INTJs!
Newton would go out into taverns to discuss matters with witnesses, but in some matters he
remained a homebody. He preferred to interrogate suspects at his workplace, the Tower of
London. 301 The counterfeiters noted this tendency and started monitoring who came and left the
Tower so that they would know who was singing. (Did Nero Wolfe ever have this problem, I
wonder?) Newton preferred to follow a set interrogation procedure and accumulated boxes of
detailed notes.
As a results oriented Rational, Newton was interested in removing the root motivation for crime
rather than endlessly catching and punishing criminals. He discerned how various monetary
conditions were providing an economic incentive for crime, and put together some suggestions on
how the incentives could be removed. Alas, his excellent ideas would have had the unfortunate side
effect of making people who were currently rich less so, and were therefore ignored.
Most INTJs have an ESTP assistant. Newton had ETP opponent (ENTP or ESTP, I do not know) by
the name of William Chaloner. Chaloner was no average counterfeiter, nor was he content merely
to coin money. An accomplished scam artist, he actually tried to worm his way into the Mint itself
in a supervisory capacity. He wrote tracts about how to prevent counterfeiting, suggested there was
corruption within the Mint, and offered his humble services to straighten things out.
Newton hated him on a personal level. The Warden of the Mint proceeded to interview, bribe, and
threaten anyone associated with Chaloner in an effort to accumulate the mound of evidence that
would be necessary to hang him. (And even this might not have been enough, since Chaloner had
already paid off members of the jury to find him innocent—but his scheme didn't pan out.)
Finally Newton was successful; ignoring the pitiful letters in which Chaloner bewailed his
innocence with ETP guile, Newton dumped a massive pile of evidence on the jury. They had
Chaloner prosecuted, convicted and put to death. Newton didn't even bother attending the
execution.
Next time you think of Sir Isaac Newton, imagine him sitting in the dark bowels of the Tower of
London, fingers steepled as he stares off into space, pondering not universal forces, but how to
undermine the tangled criminal web of London.
300 Levenson, 2009
301 Levenson, 2009