Many years later, I reread Wilson’s astonishing biography and wondered what (in clinical terms) Cavendish “had.” Newton’s emotional singularities—his jealousy and suspiciousness, his intense enmities and rivalries—suggested a profound neurosis; but Cavendish’s remoteness and ingenuousness were much more suggestive of autism or Asperger’s syndrome. I now think Wilson’s biography may be the fullest account we are ever likely to have of the life and mind of a unique autistic genius.
