MATH.-STAT.
SIM ISAAC MIBWf OM
NEWTON S PRINCIPIA.
THE
MATHEMATICAL PRINCIPLES
OF
NATURAL PHILOSOPHY,
BY SIR ISAAC NEWTON;
TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH BY ANDREW MOTTE.
TO WHICH IS ADDKTV
NEWTON S SYSTEM OF THE WORLD ;
With a Portrait taken from the Bust in the Royal Observatory at Greenwich.
FIRST AMERICAN EDITION, CAREFULLY REVISED AND CORRECTED,
WITH A LIFE OF THE AUTHOR, BY PI. W. CHITTENDEN, M. A., &e.
NEW-YORK
PUBLISHED BY DANIEL ADEE, 45 LIBERTY STREET.
p*-
Kntered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1846, by
DANIEL ADEE.
3!Ltht Clerk s Office ut tiie Southern Oisli:ct Court of New-York.
TWuey * Lockwoof, Stom
16 Spruce St. N. Y.
DEDICATION.
TO THE
TEACHERS OF THE NORMAL SCHOOL
OF THE STATE OF NEW-YORK.
GENTLEMEN !
A stirring freshness in the air, and ruddy streaks upon the
horizon of the moral world betoken the grateful dawning of a new
ora. The days of a drivelling instruction are departing. With
us is the opening promise of a better time, wherein genuine man
hood doing its noblest work shall have adequate reward.
TEACHER is the highest and most responsible office man can fill.
Its dignity is, and will yet be held commensurate with its duty
a duty boundless as man s intellectual capacity, and great as his
moral need a duty from the performance of which shall emanate
an influence not limited to the now and the here, but which surely
will, as time flows into eternity and space into infinity, roll up, a
measureless curse or a measureless blessing, in inconceivable
swellings along the infinite curve. It is an office that should be
esteemed of even sacred import in this country. Ere long a hun
dred millions, extending from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from
Baffin s Bay to that of Panama, shall call themselves American
citizens. What a field for those two master-passions of the hu
man soul the love of Rule, and the love of Gain ! How shall
our liberties continue to be preserved from the graspings of Am
bition and the corruptions of Gold ? Not by Bills of Rights
4 DEDICATION.
Constitutions, and Statute Books ; but alone by the rightly culti
vated hearts and heads of the PEOPLE. They must themselves
guard the Ark. It is yours to tit them for the consecrated
charge. Look well to it : for you appear clothed in the majesty
of great power ! It is yours to fashion, and to inform , to save,
and to perpetuate. You are the Educators of the People : you
are the prime Conservators of the public weal. Betray your
trust, and the sacred fires would go out, and the altars crumble
into dust : knowledge become lost in tradition, and Christian no
bleness a fable ! As you, therefore, are multiplied in number,
elevated in consideration, increased in means, and fulfill, well and
faithfully, all the requirements of true Teachers, so shall our fa
voured land lift up her head among the nations of the earth, and
call herself blessed.
In conclusion, Gentlemen, to you, as the conspicuous leaders
in the vast and honourable labour of Educational Helbrm, ana
Popular Teaching, the First American Edition of the PRINCIPIA ol
Newton the greatest w r ork of the greatest Teacher is most
respectfully dedicated.
N. W. CHITTENDEN.
INTRODUCTION TO THE AMERICAN EDITION.
THAT the PRINCIPIA of Newton should have remained so gen
erally unknown in this country to the present day is a somewhat
remarkable fact ; because the name of the author, learned with
the very elements of science, is revered at every hearth-stone
where knowledge and virtue are of chief esteem, while, abroad,
in all the high places of the land, the character which that name
recalls is held up as the noblest illustration of what MAN may be,
and may do, in the possession and manifestation of pre-eminent
intellectual and moral worth ; because the work is celebrated, not
only in the history of one career and one mind, but in the history
of all achievement and human reason itself; because of the spirit
of inquiry, which has been aroused, and which, in pursuing its
searchings, is not always satisfied with stopping short of the foun
tain-head of any given truth ; and, finally, because of the earnest
endeavour that has been and is constantly going on, in many
sections of the Republic, to elevate the popular standard of edu
cation and give to scientific and other efforts a higher and a
better aim.
True, the PRINCIPIA has been hitherto inaccessible to popular
use. A few copies in Latin, and occasionally one in English may
be found in some of our larger libraries, or in the possession of
some ardent disciple of the great Master. But a d^ad language
in the one case, and an enormous price in both, particularly in
that of the English edition, have thus far opposed very sufficient
obstacles to the wide circulation of the work. It is now, how
ever, placed within the reach of all. And in performing this la
bour, the utmost care has been taken, by collation, revision, and
otherwise, to render the First American Edition the most accurate
and beautiful in our language. u Le plus beau monument que
l ? on puisse clever a la gloire de Newton, c est une bonne edition
de ses ouvrages :" and a monument like unto that we would here
V: INTRODUCTION TO
set up. The PRINCIPIA, above all, glows with the immortality of
a transcendant mind. Marble and brass dissolve and pass away ;
but the true creations of genius endure, in time and beyond time,
forever : high upon the adamant of the indestructible, they send
forth afar and near, over the troublous waters of life, a pure, un
wavering, quenchless light whereby the myriad myriads of barques,
richly laden with reason, intelligence and various faculty, are
guided through the night and the storm, by the beetling shore
and the hidden rock, the breaker and the shoal, safely into havens
calm and secure.
To the teacher and the taught, the scholar and the student, the
devotee of Science and the worshipper of Truth, the PRINCIPIA
must ever continue to be of inestimable value. If to educate
means, not so much to store the memory with symbols and facts,
as to bring forth the faculties of the soul and develope them to the
full by healthy nurture and a hardy discipline, then, what so effec
tive to the accomplishment of that end as the study of Geometri
cal Synthesis ? The Calculus, in some shape or other, is, indeed,
necessary to the successful prosecution of researches in the higher
branches of philosophy. But has not the Analytical encroached
upon the Synthetical, and Algorithmic Formulae been employed
when not requisite, either for the evolution of truth, or even its
apter illustration ? To each method belongs, undoubtedly, an
appropriate use. Newton, himself the inventor of Fluxions,
censured the handling of Geometrical subjects by Algebraical
calculations ; and the maturest opinions which he expressed were
additionally in favour of the Geometrical Method. His prefer
ence, so strongly marked, is not to be reckoned a mere matter oi
taste ; and his authority should bear with preponderating weight
upon the decision of every instructor in adopting what may be
deemed the best plan to insure the completes! mental develop
ment. Geometry, the vigorous product of remote time ; blended
with the earliest aspirations of Science and the earliest applica
tions of Art ; as well in the measures of music as in the move
ment of spheres ; as wholly in the structure of the atom as in that
of the world; directing MOTION and shaping APPEARANCE; in a
wonl, *t the moulding of the created all, is, in comprehensive
THE AMERICAN EDITION. Vll
view, the outward form of that Inner Harmony of which and in
which all things are. Plainly, therefore, this noble study has
other and infinitely higher uses than to increase the power of ab
straction. A more general and thorough cultivation of it should
oe strenuously insisted on. Passing from the pages of Euclid or
Legendre, might not the student be led, at the suitable time, to
those of the PRINCIPIA wherein Geometry may be found in varied
use from the familiar to the sublime ? The profoundest and the
happiest results, it is believed, would attend upon this enlargement
of our Educational System.
Let the PRINCIPIA, then, be gladly welcomed into every Hall
where a TRUE TEACHER presides. And they who are guided to
the diligent study of this incomparable work, who become
strengthened by its reason, assured by its evidence, and enlight
ened by its truths, and who rise into loving communion with the
great and pure spirit of its author, will go forth from the scenes
of their pupilage, and take their places in the world as strong-
minded, right-hearted men such men as the Theory of our
Government contemplates and its practical operation absolutely
demands.
LIFE OF
SIE ISAAC NEWTON.
Nec fas est proprius mortal? attingere Divos. HALLEY.
FROM the thick darkness of the middle ages man s struggling
spirit emerged as in new birth ; breaking out of the iron control
of that period ; growing strong and confident in the tug and din
of succeeding conflict and revolution, it bounded forwards and
upwards with resistless vigour to the investigation of physical and
moral truth ; ascending height after height ; sweeping afar over
the earth, penetrating afar up into the heavens ; increasing in en
deavour, enlarging in endowment ; every where boldly, earnestly
out-stretching, till, in the AUTHOR of the PRINCIPIA, one arose,
who, grasping the master-key of the universe and treading its
celestial paths, opened up to the human intellect the stupendous
realities of the material world, and, in the unrolling of its harmo
nies, gave to the human heart a new song to the goodness, wis
dom, and majesty of the all-creating, all-sustaining, all-perfect
God.
Sir Isaac Newton, in whom the rising intellect seemed to attain,
as it were, to its culminating point, was born on the 25th of De
cember, O. S. 1642 Christmas day at Woolsthorpe, in the
parish of Colsterworth, in Lincolnshire. His father, John New
ton, died at the age of thirty-six, and only a few months after his
marriage to Harriet Ayscough, daughter of James Ayscough, oi
Rutlandshire. Mrs. Newton, probably wrought upon by the
early loss of her husband, gave premature birth to her only and
posthumous child, of which, too, from its extreme diminutiveness,
she appeared likely to be soon bereft. Happily, it was otherwise
decreed ! The tiny infant, on whose little lips the breath of life
10 LIFE OF SIR ISAAC NEWTON.
so doubtingly hovered, lived ; lived to a vigorous maturity, to a
hale old age ; lived to become the boast of his country, the won
der of his time, and the "ornament of his srjecies."
Beyond the grandfather, Robert Newton, the descent of Sir
Isaac cannot with certainty be traced. Two traditions were held
in the family : one, that they were of Scotch extraction ; the
other, that they came originally from Newton, in Lancashire,
dwelling, for a time, however, at Westby, county of Lincoln, be
fore the removal to and purchase of Woolsthorpe about a hundred
years before this memorable birth.
The widow Newton was left with the simple means of a com
fortable subsistence. The Woolsthorpe estate together with
small one which she possessed at Sewstern, in Leicestershire, yield
ed her an income of some eighty pounds ; and upon this limited sum,
she had to rely chiefly for the support of herself, and the educa
tion of her child. She continued his nurture for three years,
when, marrying again, she confided the tender charge to the care
of her own mother.
Great genius is seldom marked by precocious development ;
and young Isaac, sent, at the usual age, to two day schools at
Skillington and Stoke, exhibited no unusual traits of character.
In his twelfth year, he was placed at the public school at Gran-
tham, and boarded at the house of Mr. Clark, an apothecary.
But even in this excellent seminary, his mental acquisitions con
tinued for a while unpromising enough : study apparentlv had no
charms for him ; he was very inattentive, and ranked low in the
school. One day, however, the boy immediately above our seem
ingly dull student gave him a severe kick in the stomach ; Isaac,
deeply affected, but with no outburst of passion, betook himself,
with quiet, incessant toil, to his books ; he quickly passed above
the offending classmate ; yet there he stopped not ; the strong
spirit was, for once and forever, awakened, and, yielding to itb
noble impulse, he speedily took up his position at the head of all.
His peculiar character began now rapidly to unfold itself.
Close application grew to be habitual. Observation alternated
with reflection. " A sober, silent, thinking lad," yet, the wisest
and the kindliest, the indisputable leader of his fellows. Gener-
LIFE OF SIR ISA VC NEWTON. 11
osity, modesty, and a love of truth distinguished him then as ever
afterwards. He did not often join his classmates in play ; but he
would contrive for them various amusements of a scientific kind.
Paper kites he introduced ; carefully determining their best form
and proportions, and the position and number of points whereby
to attach the string. He also invented paper lanterns ; these
served ordinarily to guide the way to school in winter mornings,
but occasionally for quite another purpose ; they were attached to
the tails of kites in a dark night, to the dismay of the country people
dreading portentous comets, and to the immeasureable delight ol
his companions. To him, however, young as he was, life seemed
to have become an earnest thing. When not occupied with his
studies, his mind would be engrossed with mechanical contrivances ;
now imitating, now inventing. He became singularly skilful in the
use of his little saws, hatchets, hammers, and other tools. A
windmill was erected near Grantham ; during the operations ol
the workmen, he was frequently present ; in a short time, he had
completed a perfect working model of it, which elicited general
admiration. Not content, however, with this exact imitation, he
conceived the idea of employing, in the place of sails, animal power ,
and, adapting the construction of his mill accordingly, he enclosed
in it a mouse, called the miller, and which by acting on a sort ot
treadvvheel, gave motion to the machine. He invented, too, a
mechanical carriage having four wheels, and put in motion with
a handle worked by the person sitting inside. The measurement
of time early drew his attention. He h rst constructed a water
clock, in proportions somewhat like an old-fashioned house clock.
The index of the dial plate was turned by a piece of wood acted
upon by dropping water. This instrument, though long used by
himself, and by Mr. Clark s family, did not satisfy his inquiring
mind. His thoughts rose to the sun ; and, by careful and oft-re
peated observations of the solar movements, he subsequently
formed many dials. One of these, named Isaac s dial, was the
accurate result of years labour, and was frequently referred to
for the hour of the day by the country people.
May we not discern in these continual efforts the diligent re
search^ the patient meditation, the aspiring glance, and the energy
12 LIFE OF SIR ISAAC NEWTON.
of discovery the stirring elements of that wondrous spirit,
which, clear, calm, and great, moved, in after years, through
deep onward through deep of Nature s mysteries, unlocking her
strongholds, dispelling darkness, educing order everywhere si
lently conquering.
Newton had an early and decided taste for drawing. Pictures,
taken sometimes from copies, but often from life, and drawn,
coloured and framed by himself, ornamented his apartment. He
was skilled also, in poetical composition, " excelled in making
verses ;" some of these were borne in remembrance and repeated,
seventy years afterward, by Mrs. Vincent, for whom, in early
youth, as Miss Storey, he formed an ardent attachment. She
was the sister of a physician resident near Woolsthorpe ; but
Newton s intimate acquaintance with her began at Grantham.
where they were both numbered among the inmates of the same
house. Two or three years younger than himself, of great per
sonal beauty, and unusual talent, her society afforded him the
greatest pleasure ; and their youthful friendship, it is believed,
gradually rose to a higher passion ; but inadequacy of fortune
prevented their union. Miss Storey was afterwards twice mar
ried ; Newton, never; his esteem for her continued unabated
during life, accompanied by numerous acts of attention and
kindness.
In 1656, Newton s mother was again left a widow r , and took
up her abode once more at Woolsthorpe. He was now fifteen
years of age, and had made great progress in his studies ; but she,
desirous of his help, and from motives of economy, recalled him
from school. Business occupations, however, and the manage
ment of the farm, proved utterly distasteful to him. When sent to
Grantham Market on Saturdays, he would betake himself to his
former lodgings in the apothecary s garret, where some of Mr.
Clark s old books employed his thoughts till the aged and trust
worthy servant had executed the family commissions and announced
the necessity of return : or, at other times, our young philosopher
would seat himself under a hedge, by the wayside, and continue
his studies till the same faithful personage proceeding alone to
the town and completing the day s business stopped as he re-
LIFE OF SIR ISAAC NEWTON, 13
turned. The more immediate affairs of the farm received no
better attention. In fact, his passion for study grew daily more
absorbing, and his dislike for every other occupation more in
tense. His mother, therefore, wisely resolved to give him all the
advantages which an education could confer. He was sent back
to Grantham school, where he remained for some months in busy
preparation for his academical studies. At the recommendation
of one of his uncles, who had himself studied at Trinity College,
Cambridge, Newton proceeded thither, and was duly admitted.
on the 5th day of June 1660, in the eighteenth year of his age.
The eager student had now entered upon a new and wider
field ; and we find him devoting himself to the pursuit of know
ledge with amazing ardour and perseverance. Among other sub
jects, his attention was soon drawn to that of Judicial Astrology
He exposed the folly of this pseudo-science by erecting a figure
with the aid of one or two of the problems of Euclid ; and thus
began his study of the Mathematics. His researches into this
science were prosecuted with unparallelled vigour and success.
Regarding the propositions contained in Euclid as self-evident
truths, he passed rapidly over this ancient system a step which
he afterward much regretted and mastered, without further pre
paratory study, the Analytical Geometry of Descartes. Wallis s
Arithmetic of Infinites, Saunderson s Logic, and the Optics of
Kepler, he also studied with great care ; writing upon them
many comments ; and, in these notes on Wallis s work was un
doubtedly the germ of his fluxionary calculus. His progress was
so great that he found himself more profoundly versed than his tutor
in many branches of learning. Yet his acquisitions were not
gotten with the rapidity of intuition ; but they were thoroughly
made and firmly secured. Quickness of apprehension, or Intel
lectual nimbleness did not belong to him. He saw too far : his,
insight was too deep. He dwelt fully, cautiously upon the least
subject ; while to the consideration of the greatest, he brought a
massive strength joined with a matchless clearness, that, regard
less of the merely trivial or unimportant, bore with unerring sa
gacity upon the prominences of the subject, and, grappling with
its difficulties, rarely failed to surmount them.
14 LIFE OF SIR ISAAC NEWTON
His early and fast friend, Dr. Barrow in compass of inven
tion only inferior to Newton who had been elected Professor
of Greek in the University, in 1660, was made Lucasian Profes
sor of Mathematics in 1663, and soon afterward delivered his
Optical Lectures : the manuscripts of these were revised by New
ton, and several oversights corrected, and many important sug
gestions made by him ; but they were not published till 1669.
In the year 1665, he received the degree of Bachelor of Arts ;
and, in 1666, he entered upon those brilliant and imposing dis
coveries which have conferred inappreciable benefits upon science,
and immortality upon his own name.
Newton, himself, states that he was in possession of his Method
of Fluxions, " in the year 1666, or before." Infinite quantities
had long been a subject of profound investigation ; among the
ancients by Archimedes, and Pappus of Alexandria ; among the
moderns by Kepler, Cavaleri, Roberval, Fermat and Wallis.
With consummate ability Dr. Wallis had improved upon the la-
hours of his predecessors : with a higher power, Newton moved
forwards from where Wallis stopped. Our author first invented
his celebrated BINOMIAL THEOREM. And then, applying this
Theorem to the rectification of curves, and to the determination
of the surfaces and contents of solids, and the position of their
centres of gravity, he discovered the general principle of deducing
the areas of curves from the ordinate, by considering the area as
a nascent quantity, increasing by continual fluxion in the propor
tion of the length of the ordinate, and supposing the abscissa
to increase uniformly in proportion to the time. Regarding lines
as generated by the motion of points, surfaces by the motion of
lines, and solids by the motion of surfaces, and considering that
the ordinates, abscissae, &c., of curves thus formed, vary accord
ing to a regular law depending on the equation of the curve,
he deduced from this equation the velocities with which these
quantities are generated, and obtained by the rules of infinite
series, the ultimate value required. To the velocities with which
every line or quantity is generated, he gave the name of FLUX
IONS, and to the lines or quantities themselves, that of FLUENTS.
A discovery that successively baffled the acutest and strongest
LIFE OF SIR ISAAC NEWTON. 15
intellects : that, variously modified, has proved of incalculable
service in aiding to develope the most abstruse and the highest
ruths in Mathematics and Astronomy : and that was of itself
enough to render any name illustrious in the crowded Annals of
Science.
At this period, the most distinguished philosophers were direct
ing all their energies to the subject of light and the improvement
of the refracting telescope. Newton, having applied himself to
the grinding of "optic glasses of other figures than spherical," ex
perienced the impracticability of executing such lenses ; and con
jectured that their defects, and consequently those of refracting
telescopes, might arise from some other cause than the imperfect
convergency of rays to a single point. He accordingly "procured
a triangular glass prism to try therewith the celebrated phenom
ena of colours." His experiments, entered upon with zeal, and
conducted with that industry, accuracy, and patient thought, for
which he was so remarkable, resulted in the grand conclusion,
that LIGHT WAS NOT HOMOGENEOUS, BUT CONSISTED OF RAYS,
SOME OF WHICH WERE MORE REFRANGIBLE THAN OTHERS. This
profound and beautiful discovery opened up a new era in the
History of Optics. As bearing, however, directly upon the construc
tion of telescopes, he saw that a lens refracting exactly like a prism
would necessarily bring the different rays to different foci, at
different distances from the glass, confusing and rendering the
vision indistinct. Taking for granted that all bodies produced
spectra of ^ jtial length, he dismissed all further consideration of
the refracting instrument, and took up the principle of reflection.
Rays of all colours, he found, were reflected regularly, so that the
angle of reflection was equal to the angle of incidence, and hence
he concluded that ojitical instruments might be brought to any
degree of perfection imaginable, provided reflecting specula of
the requisite figure and finish could be obtained. At this stage
of his optical researches, he was forced to leave Cambridge on
account of the plague which was then desolating England.
He retired to Woolsthorpe. The old manor-house, in which he
was born, was situated in a beautiful little valley, on the west side
of the river Witham ; and here in the quiet home of his boyhood,
2
16 LIFE OF SIR ISAAC NEWTON.
he passed his days in serene contemplation, while the stalking
pestilence was hurrying its tens of thousands into undistinguisha
ble graves.
Towards the close of a pleasant day in the early autumn of
1666, he was seated alone beneath a tree, in his garden, absorbed
in meditation. He was a slight young man ; in the twenty-fourth
year of his age ; his countenance mild and full of thought. For
a century previous, the science of Astronomy had advanced with
rapid strides. The human mind had risen from the gloom and
bondage of the middle ages, in unparalleled vigour, to unfold the
system, to investigate the phenomena, and to establish the laws
of the heavenly bodies. Copernicus, Tycho Brahe, Kepler,
Galileo, and others had prepared and lighted the way for him
who was ta give to their labour its just value, and to their genius
its true lustre. At his bidding isolated facts were to take order
as parts of one harmonious whole, and sagacious conjectures grow
luminous in the certain splendour of demonstrated truth. And
this ablest man had come was here. His mind, familiar with
the knowledge of past effort, and its unequalled faculties develop
ed in transcendant strength, was now moving on to the very
threshold of Its grandest achievement. Step by step the untrod
den path was measured, till, at length, the entrance seemed dis
closed, and the tireless explorer to stand amid the first opening
wonders of the universe.
The nature of gravity that mysterious power which causes
all bodies to descend towards the centre of the earth had, in
deed, dawned upon him. And reason busily united link to link
of that chain which was yet to be traced joining the least to the
vastest, the most remote to the nearest, in one harmonious bond.
From the bottoms of the deepest caverns to the summits of the
highest mountains, this power suffers no sensible change : may not
its action, then, extend to the moon ? Undoubtedly : and furthei
reflection convinced him that such a power might be .sufficient for
retaining that luminary in her orbit round the earth. But, though
this power suffers no sensible variation, in the little change of
distance from the earth s centre, at which we may place our-
. lves, yet, at the distance of the moon, :miy not its force undergo
LIFE OF SIR ISAAC NEWTON. 17
more or less diminution ? The conjecture appeared most proba
ble : and, in order to estimate what the degree of diminution
might be, he considered that if the moon be retained in her orbit
by the force of gravity, the primary planets must also be carried
round the sun by the like power; and, by comparing the periods
of the several planets with their distances from the sun, he found
that, if they were held in their courses by any power like gravity,
its strength must decrease in the duplicate proportion of the in
crease of distance. In forming this conclusion, he supposed the
planets to move in perfect circles, concentric to the sun. Now
was this the law of the moon s motion ? Was such a force, em
anating from the earth and directed to the moon, sufficient, when
diminished as the square of the distance, to retain her in her
orbit ? To ascertain this master-fact, he compared the space
through which heavy bodies fall, in a second of time, at a given
distance from the centre of the earth, namely, at its surface, with
the space through which the moon falls, as it were, to the earth,
in the same time, while revolving in a circular orbit. He was
absent from books ; and, therefore, adopted, in computing the
earth s diameter, the common estimate of sixty miles to a degree
of latitude as then in use among geographers and navigators.
The result of his calculations did not, ot course, answer his ex
pectations ; hence, he concluded that some other cause, beyond the
reach of observation analogous, perhaps, to the vortices of Des
cartes joined its action to that of the power of gravity upon the
rnooil. Though by no means satisfied, he yet abandoned awhile
further inquiry, and remained totally silent upon the subject.
These rapid marches in the career of discovery, combined with
the youth of Newton, seem to evince a penetration the most
lively, and an invention the most exuberant. But in him there
was a conjunction of influences as extraordinary as fortunate.
Study, unbroken, persevering and profound carried on its inform
ing and disciplining work upon a genius, natively the greatest,
and rendered freest in its movements, and clearest in its vision,
through the untrammelling and enlig} tenirig power of religion.
And, in this happy concurrence, are to be sought the elements of
those amazing abilities, which, grasping, with equal facility, the
18 LIFE OF SIR ISAAC NEWTON.
minute and the stupendous, brought these successively to light,
and caused science to make them her own.
In 1667, Newton was made a Junior Fellow ; and, in the year
following, he took his degree of Master of Arts, and was appoint
ed to a Senior Fellowship.
On his return to Cambridge, in 1668, he resumed his optical
labours. Having thought of a delicate method of polishing metal,
he proceeded to the construction of his newly projected reflect
ing telescope ; a small specimen of which he actually made with
his own hands, It was six inches long ; and magnified about
forty times ; a power greater than a refracting instrument of six
feet tube could exert with distinctness. Jupiter, with his four
satellites, and the horns, or moon-like phases of Venus were
plainly visible through it. THIS WAS THE FIRST REFLECTING
TELESCOPE EVER EXECUTED AND DIRECTED TO THE HEAVENS.
He gave an account of it, in a letter to a friend, dated February 23d,
1668-9 a letter which is also remarkable for containing the firs
allusion to his discoveries " concerning the nature of light." En
couraged by the success of his first experiment, he again executed
with his own hands, not long afterward, a second and superior
instrument of the same kind. The existence of this having come
to the knowledge of the Royal Society of London, in 1671, they
requested it of Newton for examination. He accordingly sent it
to them, It excited great admiration; it was shown to the king*
a drawing and description of it was sent to Paris ; and the tele-
scope itself was carefully preserved in the Library of the Society.
Newton lived to see his invention in public use, and of eminent
service in the cause of science.
In the spring of 1669, he wrote to his friend Francis Aston,
Esq., then about setting out on his travels, a letter of advice and
directions, it was dated May 18th, and is interesting as exhibit
ing some of the prominent features in Newton s character.
Thus :
" Since in your letter you give me so much liberty of spending
my judgment about what may be to your advantage in travelling,
1 shall do it more freely than perhaps otherwise would have been
decent, Fir, c t, then, I will lay down some general rules, most of
LIFE OF SIR ISAAC NEWTON. 19
which, I bolieA e, you have considered already ; but if any of
them be new to you, they may excuse the rest ; if none at all,
yet is my punishment more in writing than yours in reading.
"When you come into any fresh company. 1. Observe their
humours. 2. Suit your own carriage thereto, by which insinua
tion you will make their converse more free and open. 3. Let
your discourse be more in queries and doubtings than peremptory
assertions or disputings, it being the design of travellers to learn,
not to teach. Besides, it will persuade your acquaintance that
you have the greater esteem of them, and so make them more
ready to communicate what they know to you ; whereas nothing
sooner occasions disrespect and quarrels than peremptoriness.
You will find little or no advantage in seeming wiser or much
more ignorant than your company. 4. Seldom discommend any
thing though never so bad, or do it but moderately, lest you be
unexpectedly forced to an unhandsome retraction. It is safer to
commend any thing more than it deserves, than to discommend
a thing so much as it deserves; for commendations meet not
so often with oppositions, or, at least, are not usually so ill re
sented by men that think otherwise, as discommendations ; and
you will insinuate into men s favour by nothing sooner than seem
ing to approve and commend what they like ; but beware o
doing it by comparison. 5. If you be affronted, it is better, in c
foreign country, to pass it by in silence, and with a jest, though
with some dishonour, than to endeavour revenge ; for, in the first
case, your credit s ne er the worse when you return into England,
or come into other company that have not heard of the quarrel.
But, in the second case, you may bear the marks of the quarrel
while you live, if you outlive it at all. But, if you find yoursell
unavoidably engaged, tis best, I think, if you can command your
passion and language, to keep them pretty evenly at some certain
moderate pitch, not much heightening them to exasperate your
adversary, or provoke his friends, nor letting them grow overmuch
dejected to make him insult. In a word, if you can keep reason
above passion, that and watchfulness will be your best defendants.
To which purpose you may consider, that, though such excuses
is this He provok t me so much I could not forbear may pass
20 LIFE OF SIR ISAAC NEWTON.
among friends, yet amongst strangers they are insignificant, ina
only argue a traveller s weakness.
" To these I may add some general heads for inquiries or ob
servations, such as at present I can think on. As, 1. To observe
the policies, wealth, and state affairs of nations, so far as a soli-
f ary traveller may conveniently do. 2. Their impositions upon
all sorts of people, trades, or commodities, that are remarkable.
3. Their laws and customs, how far they differ from ours. 4.
Their trades and arts wherein they excel or come short of us in
England. 5. Such fortifications as you shall meet with, their
fashion, strength, and advantages for defence, and other such mili
tary affairs as are considerable. 6. The power and respect be
longing to their degrees of nobility or magistracy. 7. It will not
be time misspent to make a catalogue of the names and excellen
cies of those men that are most wise, learned, or esteemed in any
nation. 8. Observe the mechanism and manner of guiding ships.
9. Observe the products of Nature in several places, especially in
mines, with the circumstances of mining and of extracting metals
or minerals out of their ore, and of refining them ; and if you
meet with any transmutations out of their own species into
another (as out of iron into copper, out of any metal into quick
silver, out of one salt into another, or into an insipid body, &c.),
those, above all, will be worth your noting, being the most lucif-
erous, and many times lucriferous experiments, too, in philosophy.
10. The prices of diet and other things. 11. And the staple
commodities of places.
" These generals (such as at present I could think of), if they
will serve for nothing else, yet they may assist you in drawing up
a model to regulate your travels by. As for particulars, these that
follow are all that 1 can now think of, viz. ; whether at Schem-
nitium, in Hungary (where there are mines of gold, copper, iron,
vitriol, antimony, &c.). they change iron into copper by dissolving
t in a vitriolate water, which they find in cavities of rocks in the
mines, and then melting the slimy solution in a stroi ig fire, which
in the cooling proves copper. The like is said to be done in other
places, which I cannot now remember ; perhaps, too, it may be
lone in Italy. For about twenty or thirty years agone there was
LIFE OF SIR ISAAC NEWTON, 21
a certain vitriol came from thence (called Roman vitriol), but of
a nobler virtue than that which is now called by that name ;
which vitriol is not now to be gotten, because, perhaps, they make
a greater gain by some such trick as turning iron into copper
with it than by selling it. 2. Whether, in Hungary, Sclavonia,
Bohemia, near the town Eila, or at the mountains of Bohemia
near Silesia, there be rivers whose waters are impregnated with
gold ; perhaps, the gold being dissolved by some corrosive water
like aqua regis, and the solution carried along with the stream,
that runs through the mines. And whether the practice of laying
mercury in the rivers, till it be tinged with gold, and then strain
ing the mercury through leather, that the gold may stay behind,
be a secret yet, or openly practised. 3. There is newly con
trived, in Holland, a mill to grind glasses plane withal, and I
think polishing them too ; perhaps it will be worth the while to see
it. 4. There is in Holland one Borry, who some years since
was imprisoned by the Pope, to have extorted from him secrets
(as I am told) of great worth, both as to medicine and profit, but
he escaped into Holland, where they have granted him a guard.
I think he usually goes clothed in green. Pray inquire what you
can of him, and whether his ingenuity be any profit to the Dutch.
You may inform yourself whether the Dutch have any tricks to
keep their ships from being all worm-eaten in their voyages to
the Indies. Whether pendulum clocks do any service in finding
out the longitude, &c.
" I am very weary, and shall not stay to part with a long
compliment, only I wish you a good journey, and God be with
you."
It was not till the month of June, 1669, that our author made
known his Method of Fluxions. He then communicated the
work which he had composed upon the subject, and entitled,
ANALYSIS PER EQUATIONES NUMERO TERMINORUM INFINITAS,
to his friend Dr. Barrow. The latter, in a letter dated 20th of the
same month, mentioned it to Mr. Collins, and transmitted it to
him, on the 31st of July thereafter. Mr. Collins greatly approv>
ed of the work ; took a copy of it ; and sent the original back
to Dr. Barrow. During the same and the two following years, Mr
< LIFE OF SIR ISAAC NEWTON.
Collins, by his extensive correspondence, spread the knowledge
of this discovery among the mathematicians in England, Scotland,
France, Holland and Italy.
Dr. Barrow, having resolved to devote himself to Theology,
resigned the Lucasian Professorship of Mathematics, in 1669, in
favour of Newton, who accordingly received the appointment to
the vacant chair.
During the years 1669, 1670, and 1671, our author, as such
Professor, delivered a course of Optical Lectures. Though these
contained his principal discoveries relative to the different re-
frangibility of light, yet the discoveries themselves did not be
come publicly known, it seems, till he communicated them to the
Royal Society, a few weeks after being elected a member there
of, in the spring of 1671-2. He now rose rapidly in reputation,
and was soon regarded as foremost among the philosophers of the
age. His paper on light excited the deepest interest in the Royal
Society, who manifested an anxious solicitude to secure the author
from the " arrogations of others," and proposed to publish his
discourse in the monthly numbers in which the Transactions were
given to the world. Newton, gratefully sensible of these expres
sions of esteem, willingly accepted of the proposal for publication.
He gave them also, at this time, the results of some further ex
periments in the decomposition and re-composition of light : that
the same degree of refrangibility always belonged to the same
colour, and the same colour to the same degree of refrangibility :
that the seven different colours of the spectrum were original, or
simple, and that whiteness^ or white light was a compound of all
these seven colours.
The publication of his new doctrines on light soon called forth
violent opposition as to their soundness. Hooke and Huygens
men eminent for ability and learning were the most conspicuous
of the assailants. And though Newton effectually silenced all his
adversaries, yet he felt the triumph of little gain in comparison
.vith the loss his tranquillity had sustained. He subsequently re-
narked in allusion to this controversy and to one with whom
he was destined to have a longer and a bitterer conflict " I was
so persecuted with discussions arising from the publication of m v
LIFE OF SIR ISAAC NEWTON. 23
theory ot light, that I blamed my own imprudence for parting
with so substantial a blessing as rny quiet to run after a shadow. 7
In a communication to Mr. Oldenburg, Secretary of the Royal
Society, in 1672, our author stated many valuable suggestions re
lative to the construction of REFLECTING MICROSCOPES which he
considered even more capable of improvement than telescopes.
He also contemplated, about the same time, an edition of Kirick-
huysen s Algebra, with notes and additions; partially arranging,
as an introduction to the work, a treatise, entitled, A Method of
Fluxions ; but he finally abandoned the design. This treatise,
however, he resolved, or rather consented, at a late period of his
life, to put forth separately ; and the plan would probably have
been carried into execution had riot his death intervened. It was
translated into English, and published in 1736 by John Colson,
Professor of Mathematics in Cambridge.
Newton, it is thought, made his discoveries concerning the
INFLECTION and DIFFRACTION of light before 1674. The phe
nomena of the inflection of light had been first discovered more
than ten years before by Grimaldi. And Newton began by re
peating one of the experiments of the learned Jesuit admitting
a beam of the sun s light through a small pin hole into a dark
chamber : the light diverged from the aperture in the form of a,
cone, and the shadows of all bodies placed in this light were
larger than might have been expected, and surrounded with three
coloured fringes, the nearest being widest, and the most remote
the narrowest. Newton, advancing upon this experiment, took
exact measures of the diameter of the shadow of a human hair,
and of the breadth of the fringes, at different distances behind it,
and discovered that these diameters and breadths were not pro
portional to the distances at which they were measured. He
hence supposed that the rays which passed by the edge of the
hair were deflected or turned aside from it, as if by a repulsive
force, the nearest rays suffering the greatest, the more remote a
less degree of deflection. In explanation of the coloured fringes,
he queried : whether the rays which differ in refrangibility do not
differ also in flexibility, and whether they are n<t, by these dif
ferent inflections, separated from one another, so as after separa-
< LIFE OF SIR ISAAC NEWTON.
tion to make the colours in the three fringes above described ?
Also, whether the rays, in passing by the edges and sides ol
bodies, are not bent several times backwards and forwards with
an eel-like motion the three fringes arising from three such
bendings ? His inquiries on this subject were here interrupted
and fiever renewed.
His Theory of the COLOURS of NATURAL BODIES was commu
nicated to the Royal Society, in February, 1675. This is justly
regarded as one of the profoundest of his speculations. The fun
damental principles of the Theory in brief, are : That bodies
possessing the greatest refractive powers reflect the greatest
quantity of light ; and that, at the confines of equally refracting
media, there is no reflection. That the minutest particles of al
most all natural bodies are in some degree transparent. That
between the particles of bodies there are pores, or spaces, either
empty or filled with media of a less density than the particles
themselves. That these particles, and pores or spaces, have some
definite size. Hence he deduced the Transparency, Opacity, and
colours of natural bodies. Transparency arises from the particles
and their pores being too small to cause reflection at their com
mon surfaces the light all passing through ; Opacity from the
opposite cause of the particles and their pores being sufficiently
large to reflect the light which is " stopped or stifled 7 by the
multitude of reflections ; and colours from the particles, accord
ing to their several sizes, reflecting rays of one colour and trans
mitting those of another or in other words, the colour that
meets the eye is the colour reflected, while all the other rays are
transmitted or absorbed.
Analogous in origin to the colours of natural bodies, he con
sidered the COLOURS OF THIN PLATES. This subject was interest
ing and important, and had attracted considerable investigation.
He, however, was the first to determine the law of the produc
tion of these colours, arid, during the same year made known the
results of his researches herein to the Royal Society. His mode
of procedure in these experiments was simple and curious. He
placed a double convex lens of a large known radius of curvature,
the flat surface of a plano-convex object glass. Thus, from
UFE OF SIR ISAAC NEWTON. 25
their point of contact at the centre, to the circumference of the
lens, he obtained plates of air, or spaces varying from the ex-
tremest possible thinness, by slow degrees, to a considerable thick
ness. Letting the light fall, every different thickness of this
plate of air gave different colours the point of contact of the
lens and glass forming the centre of numerous concentric colored
nags. Now the radius of curvature of the lens being known, the
thickness of the plate of air, at any given point, or where any par
ticular colour appeared, could be exactly determined. Carefully
noting, therefore, the order in which the different colours ap
peared, he measured, with the nicest accuracy, the different thick*
nesses at which the most luminous parts of the rings were pro
duced, whether the medium were air, water, or mica all these
substances giving the same colours at different thicknesses ; the
ratio of which he also ascertained. From the phenomena obser
ved in these experiments, Newton deduced his Theory of Fits of
EASY REFLECTION AND TRANSMISSION of light. It consists in suppos
ing that every particle of light, from its first discharge from a lumi
nous body, possesses, at equally distant intervals, dispositions to
be reflected from, or transmitted through the surfaces of bodies
upon which it may fall. For instance, if the rays are in a Fit of
Easy Reflection, they are on reaching the surface, repelled,
thrown off] or reflected from it ; if, in a Fit of Easy Transmission,
they are attracted, drawn in, or transmitted through it. By this
Theory of Fits, our author likewise explained the colours of
thick plates.
He regarded light as consisting of small material particles
emitted from shining substances. He thought that these parti
cles could be re-combined into solid matter, so that " gross bodies
and light, were convertible into one another ;" that the particles of
light and the particles of solid bodies acted mutually upon each
other ; those of light agitating and heating those of solid bodies,
and the latter attracting and repelling the former. Newton was
the first to suggest the idea of the POLARIZATION of light.
In the paper entitled An Hypothesis Explaining Properties of
Light, December, 1675, our author first introduced his opinions re
specting Ether opinions which he afterward abandoned and again
26 LIFE OF SIR S.\AC 1SEWTON.
permanently resumed " A most subtle spirit which pervades" ah
bodies, and is expanded through all the heavens. It is electric,
and almost, if not quite immeasurably elastic and rare. " By the
force and action of which spirit the particles of bodies mutually
attract one another, at near distances, and cohere, if contiguous ;
and electric bodies operate at greater distances, as well repelling
as attracting the neighbouring corpuscles ; and light is emitted,
-reflected, refracted, inflected and heats bodies ; and all sensation
is excited, and the members of animal bodies move at the com
mand of the will, namely, by the vibrations of this spirit, mutu
ally propagated along the solid filaments of the nerves, from the
outward organs of sense to the brain, and from the brain into the
muscles." This " spirit" was no anima mundi ; nothing further
from the thought of Newton ; but was it not, on his part, a par
tial recognition of, or attempt to reach an ultimate material force,
or primary element, by means of which, " in the roaring loom of
time," this material universe, God s visible garment, may be
woven for us ?
The Royal Society were greatly interested in the results of
some experiments, which our author had, at the same time, com
municated to them relative to the excitation of electricity in glass ;
and they, after several attempts and further direction from him,
succeeded in re-producing the same phenomena.
One of the most curious of Newton s minor inquiries related to
the connexion between the refractive powers and chemical com
position of bodies. He found on comparing the refractive powers
and the densities of many different substances, that the former
were very nearly proportional to the latter, in the same bodies.
Unctuous and sulphureous bodies were noticed as remarkable excep
tions as well as the diamond their refractive powers being two
or three times greater in respect of their densities than in the
case of other substances, while, as among themselves, the one was
generally proportional to the other. He hence inferred as to the
diamond a great degree of combustibility ; a conjecture which
the experiments of modern chemistry have shown to be true.
The chemical researches of our author were probably pursued
with more or less diligence from the time of his witnessing some
LIFE OF .SIR ISAAC NEWTON. 27
?t the uractical operations in that science at the Apothecary s at
Grantham. DE NATURA ACIDORUM is a short chemical paper, on
various topics, and published in Dr. Horsley s Edition of his
works. TABULA QUANTITATUM E r GRADUUM COLORIS was in
serted iii the Philosophical Transactions ; it contains a compara
tive scale of temperature from that of melting ice to that of a
small kitchen coal-fire. He regarded fire as a body heated so hot
as to emit light copiously ; and flame as a vapour, fume, or ex
halation heated so hot as to shine. To elective attraction, by
the operation of which the small particles of bodies, as he con
ceived, act upon one another, at distances so minute as to escape
observation, he ascribed all the various chemical phenomena ot
precipitation, combination, solution, and crystallization, and the
mechanical phenomena of cohesion and capillary attraction. New
ton s chemical views were illustrated and confirmed, in part, at
least, in his own life-time. As to the structure of bodies, he was
of opinion " that the smallest particles of matter may cohere by
the strongest attractions, and compose bigger particles of weaker
virtue ; and many of these may cohere and compose bigger par
tides whose virtue is still weaker ; and so on for divers succes
sions, until the progression end in the biggest particles, on which
the operations in chemistry and the colours of natural bodies de
pend, and which by adhering, compose bodies of sensible magni
tude."
There is good reason to suppose that our author was a diligent
student of the writings of Jacob Behmen ; and that in conjunction
with a relative, Dr. Newton, he was busily engaged, for several
months in the earlier part of life, in quest of the philosopher s
tincture. " Great Alchymist," however, very imperfectly de
scribes the character of Behmen, whose researches into things
material and things spiritual, things human and things divine, ai-
ford the strongest evidence of a great and original mind.
More appropriately here, perhaps, than elsewhere, may be
given Newton s account of some curious experiments, made in his
own person, on the action of light upon the retina, Locke, who
was an intimate friend of our author, wrote to him for his opinion
on a certain fact stated in Boyle s Book of Colours. Newton, in
2S LIFE OF SIR ISAAC NEWTON.
his reply, dated June 30th, 16 ( Jl, narrates the following circum
stances, which probably took place in the course of his optical
researches. Thus :
" The observation you mention in Mr. Boyle s Book of Colours
I once tried upon myself with the hazard of my eyes. The
manner was this ; I looked a very little while upon the sun in the
looking-glass with my right eye, and then turned my eyes into a
dark corner of my chamber, arid winked, to observe the impres
sion made, and the circles of colours which encompassed it, and
how they decayed by degrees, and at last vanished. This I re
peated a second and a third time. At the third time, when the
phantasm of light and colours about it were almost vanished, in
tending my fancy upon them to see their last appearance, I found,
to my amazement, that they began to return, and by little and
little to become as lively and vivid as when I had newly looked
upon the sun. But when I ceased to intend my fancy upon them,
they vanished again. After this, I found, that as often as I went
into the dark, and intended my mind upon them, as when a man
looks earnestly to see anything which is difficult to be seen, I
could make the phantasm return without looking any more upon
the sun ; and the oftener I made it return, the more easily I could
make it return again. And, at length, by repeating this, without
looking any more upon the sun, I made such an impression on my
eye, that, if I looked upon the clouds, or a book, or any bright
object, I saw upon it a round bright spot of light like the sun,
and, which is still stranger, though I looked upon the sun with
my right eye only, and not with my left, yet my fancy began *o
make an impression upon my left eye, as well us upon my right.
For if I shut my right eye, or looked upon a book, or the clouds,
with my left eye, I could see the spectrum of the sun almost as
plain as with my right eye, if I did but intend my fancy a little
while upon it ; for at first, if I shut my right eye, and looked with
my left, the spectrum of the sun did not appear till I intended my
fancy upon it ; but by repeating, this appeared every time more
easily. And now, in a few hours time, I had brought my eyes
to such a pass, that I could look upon no blight object with either
eye, but I saw the sun before me, so that I durst neither write
LIFE OF SIR ISAAC NEWTON. 29
nor read ; but to recover the use of my eyes, shut myself up in
my chamber made dark, for three days together, and used all
means to divert my imagination from the sun. For if I thought
upon him, I presently saw his picture, though I was in the dark.
But by keeping in the dark, and employing my mind about other
things, I began in three or four days to have some use of my eyes
again ; and by forbearing to look upon bright objects, recovered
them pretty well, though not so well but that, for some months
after, the spectrum of the sun began to return as often as I began
to meditate upon the phenomena, even though I lay in bed at mid
night with my curtains drawn. But now I have been very well
for many years, though I am apt to think, if I durst venture my
eyes, I could still make the phantasm return by the power of my
fancy. This story I tell you, to let you understand, thaj; in the
observation related by Mr. Boyle, the man s fancy probably con
curred with the impression made by the sun s light to produce
that phantasm of the sun which he constantly saw in bright ob
jects. And so your question about the cause of phantasm in
volves another about the power of fancy, which I must confess is
too hard a knot for me to untie. To place this effect in a constant
motion is hard, because the sun ought then to appear perpetually.
It seems rather to consist in a disposition of the sensorium to
move the imagination strongly, and to be easily moved, both by
the imagination and by the light, as often as bright objects are
looked upon." J
Though Newton had continued silent, yet his thoughts were
by no means inactive upon the vast subject of the planetary mo
tions. The idea of Universal Gravitation, first caught sight of, so
to speak, in the garden at Woolsthorpe, years ago, had gradually
expanded upon him. We find him, in a letter to Dr. Hooke,
Secretary of the Royal Society, dated in November, 1679, pro
posing to verify the motion of the earth by direct experiment,
namely, by the observation of the path pursued by a body falling
from a considerable height. He had concluded that the path
would be spiral ; but Dr. Hooke maintained that it would be an
eccentric ellipse iu vacuo, and an ellipti-spiral in a resisting me
dium. Our author, aided by this correction of his error, and by
30 LIFE OF SIR ISAAC NEWTON.
the discovery that a projectile would move in an elliptical orbil
when under the influence of a force varying inversely as the
square of the distance, was led to discover " the theorem bj
which he afterwards examined the ellipsis ;" and to demonstrate
the celebrated proposition that a planet acted upon by an attrac
tive force varying inversely as the squares of the distances will
describe an elliptical orbit, in one of whose foci the attractive
force resides.
When he was attending a meeting of the Royal Society, in
June 1682, the conversation fell upon the subject of the measure
ment of a degree of the meridian, executed by M. Picard, a
French Astronomer, in 1679. Newton took a memorandum oi
the result ; and afterward, at the earliest opportunity, computed
from it the diameter of the earth : furnished with these new data,
he resumed his calculation of 1666. As he proceeded therein,
he saw that his early expectations were now likely to be realized ;
the thick rushing, stupendous results overpowered him ; he be
came unable to carry on the process of calculation, and intrusted
its completion to one of his friends. The discoverer had, indeed,
grasped the master-fact. The law of falling bodies at the earth s
surface was at length identified with that which guided the moon
in her orbit. And so his GREAT THOUGHT, that had for sixteen
years loomed up in dim, gigantic outline, amid the first dawn of a
plausible hypothesis, now stood forth, radiant and not less grand,
in the mid-day light of demonstrated truth.
It were difficult, nay impossible to imagine, even, the influence
of a result like this upon a mind like Newton s. It was as if the
keystone had been fitted to the glorious arch by which his spirit
should ascend to the outskirts of infinite space spanning the immea
surable weighing the imponderable computing the incalculable
mapping out the marchings of the planets, and the far-wander
ings of the come f s, and catching, bring back to earth some clearer
notes of that higher melody which, as a sounding voice, bears
perpetual witness to the design and omnipotence of a creating
Deity.
Newton, extending the law thus obtained, composed a series
of about twelve propositions on the motion of the primary planets
LIFE OF SIR ISAAC NEWTON. 31
about the sun. These were sent to London, and communicated
to the Royal Society about the end of 1683. At or near this pe
riod, other philosophers, as Sir Christopher Wren, Dr. Halley,
and Dr. Hooke, were engaged in investigating the same subject ;
but with no definite or satisfactory results. Dr. Halley, having
seen, it is presumed, our author s propositions, went in August,
1684, to Cambridge to consult with him upon the subject.
Newton assured him that he had brought the demonstration to
perfection. In November, Dr. Halley received a copy of the
work ; and, in the following month^ announced . it to the Royal
Society, with the author s promise to have it entered upon their
Register. Newton, subsequently reminded by the Society of his
promise, proceeded in the diligent preparation of the work, and.
though suffering an interruption of six weeks, transmitted the
manuscript of the first book to London before the end of April.
The work was entitled PHILOSOPHI/E NATURALIS PRINCIPIA
MATHEMATICA, dedicated to the Royal Society, and presented
thereto on the 28th of April, 1685-6. The highest encomiums
were passed upon it ; and the council resolved, on the 19th of
May, to print it at the expense of the Society, and under the di
rection of Dr. Halley. The latter, a few days afterward, com
municated these steps to Newton, who, in a reply, dated the 20th
of June, holds the following language : " The proof you sent me
I like very well. I designed the whole to consist of three books ;
the second was finished last summer, being short, and only wants
transcribing, and drawing the cuts fairly. Some new propositions
I have since thought on, which I can as well let alone. The
third wants the theory of comets. In autumn last, I spent two
months in calculation to no purpose for want of a good method,
which made me afterward return to the first book, and enlarge it
with diverse propositions, some* relating to comets, others to other
things found ou f last winter. The third I now design to sup
press. Philosophy is such an impertinently litigious lady, that a
man had as good be engaged in liw-suits as have to do with her.
I found it so formerly, and now I can no sooner come near her
again, but she gives me warning. The first two books without
the third will not so well bear the title of P/iilosophicc Naturalis
3
32 LIFE OF SIR ISAAC NEWTON.
Principia Mathematicia ; and thereupon I had altered it to this,
De Motu Corporum Libri duo. But after second thought I re
tain the former title. It will help the sale of the book, which I
ought not to diminish now tis yours."
This " warning" arose from some pretensions put forth by Dr.
Hooke. And though Newton gave a minute and positive refuta
tions of such claims, yet, to reconcile all differences, he gener
ously added to Prop. IV. Cor. 6, Book I, a Scholium, in which
Wren, Hooke and Halley are acknowledged to have indepen
dently deduced the law of gravity from the second law of
Kepler.
The suppression of the third book Dr. Halley could not endure
to see. " I must again beg you" says he, " not to let your re
sentments run so high as to deprive us of your third book, where
in your applications of your mathematical doctrine to the theory
of comets, and several curious experiments, which, as I guess by
what you write ought to compose it, will undoubtedly render it
acceptable to those who will call themselves philosophers without
mathematics, which are much the greater number." To these
solicitations Newton yielded. There were no "resentments," how
ever, as we conceive, in his " design to suppress." He sought
peace ; for he loved and valued it above all applause. But, in
spite of his efforts for tranquillity s sake, his course of discovery
was all along molested by ignorance or presumptuous rivalry.
The publication of the great work now went rapidly forwards,
The second book was sent to the Society, and presented on the
2d March ; the third, on the 6th April ; and the whole was com
pleted and published in the month of May, 1686-7. In the sec
ond Lemma of the second book, the fundamental principle of his
fiuxionary calculus was, for the first time, given to the world ; but
its algorithm or notation did not appear till published in the
second volume nf Dr. Wallis s works, in 1693.
And thus was ushered into existence The PRINCIPIA a work
to which pre-eminence above all the productions of the human
intellect has been awarded a work that must be esteemed of
priceless worth so long as Science has a votary, or a single wor
shipper be left to kneel at the altar of Truth.
LIFE OF SIR ISAAC NEWTON. 33
The entire work bears the general title of THE MATHEMATICAL
PRINCIPLES OF NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. It consists of three books:
the first two, entitled, OF THE MOTION OF BODIES, are occupied
with the laws and conditions of motions and forces, and are illus
trated with many scholia treating of some of the most general
and best established points in philosophy, such as the density and
resistance of bodies, spaces void of matter, and the motion of
sound and light. From these principles, there is deduced, in the
third book, drawn up in as popular a style as possible and entitled,
OF THE SYSTEM OF THE WORLD, the constitution of the system of
i he world. In regard to this book, the author say^ " I had, indeed,
composed the third Book in a popular method, that it might be read
by many ; but afterwards, considering that such as had not suf-
ficently entered into the principles could not easily discover the
strength of the consequences, nor lay aside the prejudices to which
they had been many years accustomed, therefore, to prevent dis
putes which might be raised upon such accounts, I chose to reduce
the substance of this Book into the form of Propositions (in the
mathematical way), which should be read by those only who had
first made themselves masters of the principles established in the
preceding Books : not that I would advise any one to the previous
study of every Proposition of those Books." "It is enough it
one carefully reads the Definitions, the Laws of Motion, and the
three first Sections of the first Book. He may then pass on to
this Book, and consult such of the remaining Propositions of the
first two Books, as the references in this, and his occasions shall re
quire." So that " The System of the World" is composed both
" in a popular method," and in the form of mathematical Propo
sitions.
The principle of Universal Gravi ition, namely, that every
particle of matter is attracted by, or gravitates to, every other
particle of matter, icith a force inversely proportional to the
squares of their distances is the discovery w? ich characterizes
The PRINCIPIA. This principle the author deduced from the mo
tion of the moon, and the three laws of Kepler laws, which
Newton, in turn, by his greater law, demonstrated to be true.
From the first law of Kepler, namely, the proportionality of
LIFE OF SIR ISAAC NEWTON.
the areas to t\ie times of their description, our author inferred
that the force which retained the planet in its orbit was always
directed to the sun ; and from the second, namely, that every
planet moves in an ellipse with the sun in one of its foci, he drew
the more general inference that the force by which the planet
moves round that focus varies inversely as the square of its dis
tance therefrom : and he demonstrated that a planet acted upon
by such a force could not move in any other curve than a conic
section ; showing when the moving body would describe a circu
lar, an elliptical, a parabolic, or hyperbolic orbit. He demon
strated, too, that this force, or attracting, gravitating power re
sided in every, the least particle ; but that, in spherical masses, it
operated as if confined to their centres ; so that, one sphere or
body will act upon another sphere or body, with a force directly
proportional to the quantity of matter, and inversely as the square
of the distance between their centres; and that their velocities of
mutual approach will be in the inverse ratio of their quantities o*
matter. Thus he grandly outlined the Universal Law. Verify
ing its truth by the motions of terrestrial bodies, then by those of
the moon and other secondary orbs, he finally embraced, in one
mighty generalization, the entire Solar System all the move
ments of all its bodies planets, satellites and comets explain
ing and harmonizing the many diverse and theretofore inexplica
ble phenomena.
Guided by the genius of Newton, we see sphere bound to
sphere, body to body, particle to particle, atom to mass, the min
utest part to the stupendous whole each to each, each to all,
and all to each in the mysterious bonds of a ceaseless, recipro
cal influence. An influence whose workings are shown to be
alike present in the globular dew-drop, or oblate-spheroidal earth ;
in the falling shower, or vast heaving ocean tides ; in the flying
thistle-down, or fixed, ponderous rock ; in the swinging pendulum,
or time-measuring sun ; in the varying and unequal moon, or
earth s slowly retrograding poles ; in the uncertain meteor, or
oiazing comet wheeling swiftly away on its remote, yet determined
round. An influence, in fine, that may link system to system
through all the star-glowing firmament ; then firmament to iirma-
LIFE OF SIR ISAAC NEWTON. 35
merit ; aye, firmament to firmament, again and again, till, con
verging home, it may be, to some ineffable centre, where more
presently dwells He who inhabiteth immensity, and where infini
tudes meet and eternities have their condux, and where around
move, in softest, swiftest measure, all the countless hosts that
crowd heaven s fathomless deeps.
And yet Newton, amid the loveliness and magnitude of Om
nipotence, lost not sight of the Almighty One. A secondary,
however universal, was not taken for the First Cause. An im
pressed force, however diffused and powerful, assumed not the
functions of the creating, giving Energy. Material beauties,
splendours, and sublimities, however rich in glory, and endless in
extent, concealed not the attributes of an intelligent Supreme.
From the depths of his own soul, through reason and the WORD,
he had risen, a priori, to God : from the heights of Omnipotence,
through the design and law of the builded universe, he proved </
posteriori, a Deity. " I had," says he, " an eye upon such prin
ciples as might work, with considering men, for the belief of a
Deity," in writing the PRINCIPIA ; at the conclusion whereof, he
teaches that " this most beautiful system of the sun, planets and
comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an
intelligent and powerful Being. And if the fixed stars are the
centres of other like systems, these, being forme 1 by the like
wise counsels, must be all subject to the dominion of One ; especially
since the light of the fixed stars is of the same nature with the
light of the sun, and from every system light passes into all other
systems : and lest the systems of the fixed stars should, by their
gravity, fall on each other mutually, he hath placed those systems
at immense distances one from another.
" This Being governs all things, not as the soul of the world,
but as Lord over all ; and on account of his dominion he is wont,
to be called Lord God Travrowparwp or Universal Ruler ; for God
is a relative word, and has a respect to servants ; and Deity is
the dominion of God, not over his own body, as those imagine
who fancy God to be the soul of the world, but over servants.
The Supreme God is a Being eternal, infinite, absolutely perfect ;
but a being, however perfect, without dominion, cannot be said to
36 LIFE OF SIR ISAAC NEWTON.
be Lord God ; for we say, my God, your God, the God of Israel
the God of Gods, and Lord of Lords ; but we do not say, my
Eternal, your Eternal, the Eternal of Israel, the Eternal of Gods :
we do not say my Infinite, or my Perfect : these are titles which
have no respect to servants. The word God usually signifies
Lord ; but every Lord is not God. It is the dominion of a spir
itual Being which constitutes a God ; a true, supreme, or imagi
nary dominion makes a true, supreme, or imaginary God. And
from his true dominion it follows that the true God is a living,
intelligent and powerful Being ; and from his other perfections,
that he is supreme or most perfect. He is eternal and in
finite, omnipotent and omniscient ; that is, his duration reaches
from eternity to eternity ; his presence from infinity to infinity ;
he governs all things and knows all things, that are or can be
done. He is not eternity or infinity, but eternal and infinite ;
he is not duration and space, but he endures and is present.
He endures forever and is everywhere present ; and by existing
always and everywhere, he constitutes duration and space. Since
every particle of space is always, and every indivisible moment
of duration is everywhere, certainly the Maker and Lord of things
cannot be never and nowhere. Every soul that has perception
is, though in different times and different organs of sense and mo
tion, still the same indivisible person. There are given succes
sive parts in duration, co-existent parts in space, but neither the
one nor the other in the person of a man, or his thinking
principle ; and much less can they be found in the thinking sub
stance of God. Every man. so far as he is a thing that has j:er-
ceptiori, is one and the same man during his whole life, in all and
each of his organs of sense. God is one and the same God, al
ways and everywhere. He is omnipresent, not virtually only,
but also substantially ; for virtue cannot subsist without sub
stance. In him are all things contained and moved ; yet neither
affects the other ; God suffers nothing from the motion of bodies ;
bodies find no resistance from the omnipresence of God. It is
allowed by all that the Supreme God exists necessarily ; and by
the same necessity he exists always and everywhere. Whence
also he is all similar, all eye, all ear, all brain, all arm, all powei
LIFE CF SIR ISAAC NEWTON. 37
to perceive, to understand, and to act ; but in a manner not at all
human, in a manner not at all corporeal, in a manner utterly un
known to us. As a blind man has no idea of colours, so have we
no idea of the manner by which the all-wise God perceives and
understands all things. He is utterly void of all body, and bodily
figure, and can therefore neither be seen, nor heard, nor touched ;
nor ought he to be worshipped under the representation of any
corporeal thing. We have ideas of his attributes, but what the
real substance of anything is we know not. In bodies we see
only their figures and colours, we hear only the sounds, we touch
only their outward surfaces, we smell only the smells, and taste
only the savours ; but their inward substances are not to be known,
either by our senses, or by any reflex act of our minds : much
less, then, have we any idea of the substance of God. We know
him only by his most wise and excellent contrivances of things,
and final causes ; we admire him for his perfections ; but we rev
erence and adore him on account of his dominion ; for we adore
him as his servants ; and a god without dominion, providence, and
final causes, is nothing else but Fate and Nature. Blind meta
physical necessity, which is certainly the same always and every
where, could produce no variety of things. All that diversity of
natural things which we find suited to different times and places
could arise from nothing but the ideas and will of a Being neces
sarily existing."
Thus, the diligent student of science, the earnest seeker of
truth, led, as through the courts of a sacred Temple, wherein, at
each step, new wonders meet the eye, till, as a crowning grace,
they stand before a Holy of Holies, and learn that all science and
all truth are one which hath its beginning and its end in the
knowledge of Him whose glory the heavens declare, and whose
handiwork the firmament showeth forth.
The introduction of the pure and lofty doctrines of the PRIN-
CIPIA was perseveringly resisted. Descartes, with his system of
vortices, had sown plausibly to the imagination, and error had
struck down deeply, and shot up luxuriantly, not only in the
popular, but in the scientific mind. Besides the idea in itself so
simple and so grand that the great masses of the planets were
38 LIFE OF SIR ISAAC NEWTON.
suspended in empty space, and retained in their orbits by an in
visible influence residing in the sun was to the ignorant a thing
inconceivable, and to the learned a revival of the occult qualities
of the ancient physics. This remark applies particularly to the
continent. Leibnitz misapprehended ; Huygens in part rejected ;
John Bernouilli opposed ; and Fontenelle never received the doc
trines of the PRINCIPIA. So that, the saying of Voltaire is prob
ably true, that though Newton survived the publication of his
great work more than forty years, yet, at the time of his death,
lie had not above twenty followers out of England.
But in England, the reception of our author s philosophy was
rapid and triumphant. His own labours, while Lucasian Pro
fessor ; those of his successors in that Chair Whiston and
Saunderson ; those of Dr. Samuel Clarke, Dr. Laughton, Roger
Cotes, and Dr. Bentley ; the experimental lectures of Dr. Keill
and Desaguliers ; the early and powerful exertions of David
Gregory at Edinburgh, and of his brother James Gregory at St.
Andrew s, tended to diffuse widely in England and Scotland a
knowledge of, and taste for the truths of the PRINCIPIA. Indeed,
its mathematical doctrines constituted, from the first, a regular
part of academical instruction ; while its physical truths, given to
the public in popular lectures, illustrated by experiments, had,
before the lapse of twenty ) ( ar.s, become familiar to, and adopted
by the general mind. Pemberton s popular " View of Sir Isaac
Newton s Philosophy" was published, in 1728 ; and the year after
ward, an English translation of the PRINCIPIA, and System of the
World, by Andrew Motte. And since that period, the labours of
Le Seur and Jacquier, of Thorpe, of Jebb, of Wright and others
have greatly contributed to display the most hidden treasures of
the PRINCIPIA.
About the time of the publication of the Principia, James II.,
bent on re-establishing the Romish Faith, had, among other ille
gal acts, ordered by mandamus, the University of Cambridge to
confer the degree of Master of Arts upon an ignorant monk.
Obedience to this mandate was resolutely refused. Newton was
one of the nine delegates chosen to defend the independence of
the University. They appeared before the High Court ; and
LIFE OF SIR ISAAC NEWTON. 39
successfully : the king abandoned his design. The prominent
part which our author took in these proceedings, and his eminence
in the scientific world, induced his proposal as one of the parlia
mentary representatives of the University. He was elected, in
1688, and sat in the Convention Parliament till its dissolution.
After the first year, however, he seems to have given little or no
attention to his parliamentary duties, being seldom absent from
the University till his appointment in the Mint, in 1695.
Newton began his theological researches sometime previous to
1691 ; in the prime of his years, and in the matured vigour of
his intellectual powers. From his youth, as we have seen, he
had devoted himself with an activity the most unceasing, and an
energy almost superhuman to the discovery of physical truth ;
giving to Philosophy a new foundation, and to Science a new
temple. To pass on, then, from the consideration of the material,
more directly to that of the spiritual, was a natural, nay, with so
large and devout a soul, a necessary advance. The Bible was to
him of inestimable worth. In the elastic freedom, which a pure
and unswerving faith in Him of Nazareth gives, his mighty facul
ties enjoyed the only completest scope for development. His
original endowment, however great, combined with a studious
application, however profound, would never, without this libera
tion from the dominion of passion and sense, have enabled him to
attain to that wondrous concentration and grasp of intellect, for
which Fame has as yet assigned him no equal. Gratefully he
owned, therefore, the same Author in the Book of Nature and the
Book of Revelation. These were to him as drops of the same
unfathomable ocean ; as outrayings of the same inner splendour ;
as tones of the same ineffable voice ; as segments of the same
infinite curve. "With great joy he had found himself enabled to
proclaim, as an interpreter, from the hieroglyphs of Creation, the
existence of a God : and now, with greater joy, and in the fulness
of his knowledge, and in the fulness of his strength, he laboured
to make clear, from the utterances of the inspired Word, the far
mightier confirmations of a Supreme Good, in all its glorious
amplitude of Being and of Attribute ; and to bring the infallible
workings thereof plainly home to the understandings and the
40 LIFE OF SIR ISAAC NEWTON.
affections of his fellow-men ; and finally to add the weight of his
own testimony in favour of that Religion, whose truth is now. in
deed, " girded with the iron and the rock of a ponderous and co
lossal demonstration."
His work, entitled, OBSERVATIONS UPON THE PROPHECIES OF
HOLY WRIT, PARTICULARLY THE PROPHECIES OF DANIEL AND THE
APOCALYPSE OF ST. JOHN, first published in London, in 1733 4to.
consists of two parts : the one devoted to the Prophecies oi
Daniel, and the other to the Apocalypse of St. John. In the first
part, he treats concerning the compilers of the books of the Old
Testament ; of the prophetic language ; of the vision of the
four beasts ; of the kingdoms represented by the feet of the
image composed of iron and clay ; of the ten kingdoms repre
sented by the ten horns of the beast ; of the eleventh horn of
Daniel s fourth beast ; of the power which should change times
and laws ; of the kingdoms represented in Daniel by the ram
and he-goat ; of the prophecy of the seventy weeks ; of the
times of the birth and passion of Christ ; of the prophecy of the
Scripture of Truth ; of the king who doeth according to his will,
and magnified himself above every god, and honoured Mahuzzims,
and regarded not the desire of women ; of the Mahuzzim, hon
oured by the king who doeth according to his will. In the sec
ond part, he treats of the time when the Apocalypse was written ,
of the scene of the vision, and the relation which the Apocalypse
has to the book of the law of Moses, and to the worship of God
in the temple ; of the relation which the Apocalypse has to the
prophecies of Daniel, and of the subject of the prophecy itself
Newton regards the prophecies as given, not for the gratification
of man s curiosity, by enabling him to foreknow ; but for his con
viction that the world is governed by Providence, by witnessing
their fulfilment. Enough of prophecy, he thinks, has already
been fulfilled to afford the diligent seeker abundant evidence of
God s providence. The whole work is marked by profound
erudition, sagacity and argument.
And not less learning, penetration and masterly reasoning are
conspicuous in his HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF Two NOTABLE
CORRUPTIONS OF SCRIPTURES IN A LETTER TO A FRIEND. This
LIFE OF SIR ISAAC NEWTON. 41
Treatise, first accurately published in Dr. Horsley s edition of his
works, relates to two texts : the one, 1 Epistle of St. John v. 7 ;
the other, 1 Epistle of St. Paul to Timothy iii. 16. As this
work had the effect to deprive the advocates of the doctrine of
the Trinity of two leading texts, Newton has been looked upon
as an Arian ; but there is absolutely nothing in his writings to
warrant such a conclusion.
His regaining theological works consist of the LEXICON PRO-
PHETICUM, which was left incomplete ; a Latin Dissertation on
the sacred cubit of the Jews, which was translated into English,
and published, in 1737. among the Miscellaneous Works of John
Greaves ; and FOUR LETTERS addressed to Dr. Bentlty, contain
ing some arguments in proof of a Deity. These Letters were
dated respectively : 10th December, 1692 ; 17th January, 1693 ;
25th February, 1693; and llth February, 1693 the fourth
bearing an earlier date than the third. The best faculties and
the profoundest acquirements of our author are convincingly
manifest in these lucid and powerful compositions. They were
published in 1756, and reviewed by Dr. Samuel Johnson.
Newton s religious writings are distinguished by their absolute
freedom from prejudice. Everywhere, throughout them, there
glows the genuine nobleness of soul. To his whole life, indeed,
we may here fitly extend the same observation. He was most
richly imbued with the very spirit of the Scriptures which he so
delighted to study and to meditate upon. His was a piety, so
fervent, so sincere and practical, that it rose up like a holy incense
from every thought and act. His a benevolence that not only
willed, but endeavoured the best for all. His a philanthropy
that held in the embracings of its love every brother-man.
His a toleration of the largest and the truest ; condemning per
secution in every, even its mildest form ; and kindly encouraging
each striving after excellence : .1 toleration that came not of
indifference for the immoral and the impious met with their
quick rebuke but a toleration that came of the wise humbleness
and the Christian charity, which see, in the nothingness of self
and the almightiness of TRUTH, no praise for the ablest, and no
blame for th^ feeblest in their strugglings upward to light and life.
42 LIFE OF SIR ISAAC NEWTON,
Tn the winter of 1691-2, on returning from chapel, one morn
ing, Newton foima tnat a favourite little dog, called Diamond,
had overturned a lighted taper on his desk, and that several pa
pers containing the results of certain optical experiments, were
nearly consumed. His only exclamation, on perceiving his loss,
was, " Oh Diamond, Diamond, little knowest thou the mischiel
thou hast done," Dr. Brewster, in his life of our author, gives the
following extract from the manuscript Diary of Mr. Abraham De
La Pryme. a student in the University at the time of this oc
currence.
" 1692. February, 3. What I heard to-day I must relate.
There is one Mr. Newton (whom I have very oft seen), Fellow
of Trinity College, that is mighty famous for his learning, being a
most excellent mathematician, philosopher, divine, &c. He has
been Fellow of the Royal Society these many years ; and among
other very learned books and tracts, he : s written one upon the mathe
matical principles of philosophy, which has given him a mighty
name, he having received, especially from Scotland, abundance of
congratulatory letters for the same ; but of all the books he ever
wrote, there was one of colours and light, established upon thou
sands of experiments which he had been twenty years of making,
and which had cost him many hundreds of pounds. This book
which he vaiued so much, and which was so much talked of, had
the ill luck to perish, and be utterly lost just when the learned
author was almost at pitting a conclusion at the same, after this
manner : In a winter s morning, leaving it among his other papers
on his study table while he went to chapel, the candle, which he
had unfortunately left burning there, too, catched hold by some
means of other papers, and they fired the aforesaid book, and ut
terly consumed it and several other valuable writings ; arid which
is most wonderful did no further mischief. But when Mr. New
ton came from chapel, and had seen what was done, every one
thought he would have run mad, he was so troubled thereat that
he was not himself for a month after. A long account of this his
system of colours you may find in the Transactions of the Royal
Society, which he had sent up to them long before this sad mis
chance happened unto him."
LIFE OF SIR ISAAC NEWTON. 43
It will be borne in mind that all of Newton s theological wri
tings, with the exception of the Letters to Dr. Bentley, were
composed before this event which, we must conclude, from
Pryme s words, produced a serious impression upon our author for
about a month. But M. Biot, in his Life of Newton, relying on a
memorandum contained in a small manuscript Journal of Huygens,
declares this occurrence to have caused a deran-gement of New
ton s intellect. M. Blot s opinions and deductions, however, as
well as those of La Place, upon this subject, were based upon
erroneous data, and have been overthrown by the clearest proof.
There is not, in fact, the least evidence that Newton s reason was,
for a single moment, dethroned ; on the contrary, the testimony
is conclusive that he was, at all times, perfectly capable of carry
ing on his mathematical, metaphysical and astronomical inquiries.
Loss of sleep, loss of appetite, and irritated nerves will disturb
somewhat the equanimity of the most serene ; and an act done, or
language employed, under such temporary discomposure, is not a
just criterion of the general tone and strength of a man s mind.
As to the accident itself, we may suppose, whatever might have
been its precise nature, that it greatly distressed him, and, still
further, that its shock may have originated the train of nervous
derangements, which afflicted him, more or less, for two years
afterward. Yet, during this very period of ill health, we find him
putting forth his highest powers. In 1692, he prepared for, and
transmitted to Dr. Wallis the first proposition of the Treatise on
Quadratures, with examples of it in first, second and third flux
ions. He investigated, in the same year, the subject of haloes ;
making and recording numerous and important observations rela
tive thereto. Those profound and beautiful Letters to Dr. Bentley
were written at the close of this and the beginning of the next
year. In October, 1693, Locke, who was then about publishing a
second edition of his work on the Human Understanding, request
ed Newton to reconsider his opinions on innate ideas. And in
1694, he was zealously occupied in perfecting his lunar theory ;
visiting Flamstead, at the Royal Observatory of Greenwich, in
September, and obtaining a series of lunar observations ; and
14 LIFE OF SIR ISAAC NEWTON.
commencing, in October, a correspondence with that distinguished
practical Astronomer, which continued till 1698.
We now arrive at the period when Newton permanently with
drew from the seclusion of a collegiate, and entered upon a more
active and public life. He was appointed Warden of the Mint,
in 1695, through the influence of Charles Montague, Chancellor
of the Exchequer, and afterward Earl of Halifax. The current
roin of the nation had been adulterated and debased, and Mon
tague undertook a re-coinage. Our author s mathematical and
chemical knowledge proved eminently useful in accomplishing
this difficult and most salutary reform. In 1699, he was pro
moted to the Mastership of the Mint an office worth twelve or
fifteen hundred pounds per annum, and which he held during the
remainder of his life. He wrote, in this capacity, an official Re
port on the Coinage, which has been published ; he also prepared
a Table of Assays of Foreign Coins, which was printed at the
end of Dr. Arbuthnot s Tables of Ancient Coins, Weights, and
Measures, in 1727.
Newton retained his Professorship at Cambridge till 1703.
But he had, on receiving the appointment of Master of the Mint,
in 1699, made Mr. Whiston his deputy, with all the emoluments
of the office ; and, on finally resigning, procured his nomination to
the vacant Chair.
In January 1697, John Bernouilli proposed to the most distin
guished mathematicians of Europe two problems for solution.
Leibnitz, admiring the beauty of one of them, requested the time
for solving it to be extended to twelve months twice the period
originally named. The delay was readily granted. Newton, how
ever, sent in, the day after he received the problems, a solution of
them to the President of the Royal Society. Bernouilli obtained
solutions from Newton, Leibinitz and the Marquis De L Hopital ;
but Newton s though anonymous, he immediately recognised
" tanquam ungue leonem" as the lion is known by his claw.
We may mention here the famous problem of the trajectories
proposed by Leibnitz, in 1716, for the purpose of "feeling the
pulse of the English Analysts." Newton received the problem
about five o clock in the afternoon, as he was returning from the
LIFE OF SIR ISAAC NEWTON. 45
Mint ; and though it was extremely difficult and he himself much
fatigued, yet he completed its solution, the same evening before
he went to bed.
The history of these problems affords, by direct comparison, a
striking illustration of Newton s vast superiority of mind. That
amazing concentration and grasp of intellect, of which we have
spoken, enabled him to master speedily, and, as it were, by a
single effort, those things, for the achievement of which, the many
would essay utterly in vain, and the very, very few attain only
after long and renewed striving. And yet, with a modesty as
unparalleled as his power, he attributed his successes, not to any
extraordinary sagacity, but solely to industry and patient thought.
Mr- kept the subject of consideration constantly before him, and
waited till the first dawning opened gradually into a full and
clear light ; never quitting, if possible, the mental process till the
object of it were wholly gained. He never allowed this habit of
meditation to appear in his intercourse with society ; but in the
privacy of his own chamber, or in the midst of his own family, he
gave himself up to the deepest abstraction. Occupied with some
interesting investigation, he would often sit down on his bedside,
after he rose, and remain there, for hours, partially dressed.
Meal-time would frequently come and pass unheeded ; so that,
unless urgently reminded, he would neglect to take the re
quisite quantity of nourishment. But notwithstanding his anx
iety to be left undisturbed, he would, when occasion required,
turn aside his thoughts, though bent upon the most intricate re
search, and then, when leisure served, again direct them to the
very point where they ceased to act : and this he seemed to ac
complish not so much by the force of his memory, as by the force
of his inventive faculty, before the vigorous intensity of which, no
subject, however abstruse, remained long unexplored.
Me was elected a member of the Royal Academy of Sciences
at Paris, in 1699, when that distinguished Body were empowered,
by a new charter, to admit a small number of foreign associates.
In 1700, he communicated to Dr. Halley a description of his re
flecting instrument for observing the moon s distance from the
fixed stars. This description was published in the Philosophical
46 LIFE OF SIR ISAAC NEWTON,
Transactions, in 1742. The instrument was the same as that
produced by Mr. Hadley, in 1731, and which, under the name of
Hadley s Quadrant, has been of so great use in navigation. On
the assembling of the new Parliament, in 1701, Newton was re-
elected one of the members for the University of Cambridge. In
1703, he was chosen President of the Royal Society of London,
to which office he was annually re-elected till the period of his
decease about twenty-five years afterward.
Our author unquestionably devoted more labour to, and, in
many respects, took a greater pride in his Optical, than his other
discoveries. This science he had placed on a new and indestruc
tible basis ; and he wished not only to build, but to perfect the
costly and glowing structure. He had communicated, before the
publication of the PRINCIPIA, his most important researches on
light to the Royal Society, in detached papers which were inserted
in successive numbers of the Transactions ; but he did not pub
lish a connected view of these labours till 1704, when they appeared
under the title of OPTICS : OR, A TREATISE ON THE REFLEXIONS,
REFRACTIONS, INFLEXIONS AND COLOURS OF LIGHT. To this,
but to no subsequent edition, were added two Mathematical Trea
tises, entitled, TRACTATUS DUO DE SPECIEBUS ET MAGNITUDINE
FIGURARUM cuRViLiNEARUM ; the one bearing the title TRACTATUS
DE QUADRATURA CuRVARUM ; and the other, that of ENUMERATIO
LINEARUM TERTII ORDiNis. The publication of these Mathemati
cal Treatises was made necessary in consequence of plagiarisms
from the manuscripts of them loaned by the author to his friends.
Dr. Samuel Clarke published a Latin translation of the Optics, in
in 1706 ; whereupon he was presented by Newton, as a mark of
his grateful approbation, with five hundred pounds, or one hun
dred pounds for each of his children. The work was afterward
translated into French. It had a remarkably wide circulation,
and appeared, in several successive editions, both in England and
on the Continent. There is displayed, particularly on this Opti
cal Treatise, the author s talent for simplifying and communica
ting the profoundest speculations. It is a faculty rarely united to
that of the highest invention. Newton possessed both ; and thus
that mental perfectness which enabled him to create, to combine,
LIFE OF SIR ISAAC NEWTON. 47
and to teach, and so render himself, not the "ornament" cnly ;
but inconceivably more, the pre-eminent benefactor of his species.
The honour of knighthood v/as conferred on our author in
1705. Soon afterward, he was a candidate again for the Repre
sentation of the University, but was defeated by a large majority.
It is thought that a more pliant man was preferred by both min
isters and electors. Newton was always remarkable for simplicity
of dress, and his only known departure from it was on this oc
casion, when he is said to have appeared in a suit of laced
clothes.
The Algebraical Lectures which he had, Juring nine years,
delivered at Cambridge, were published by Whiston, in 1707,
under the title of ARITHMETICS UNIVERSALIS, SINE DE COMPOSI
TIONS ET RESOLUTIONS ARITHMETICA LIBER. This publication
is said to have been a breach of confidence on Whiston s part. Mr.
Ralphson, not long afterward, translated the work into English ;
and a second edition of it, with improvements by the author, was
issued at London, 1712, by Dr. Machin. Subsequent editions,
both in English and Latin, with commentaries, have been published.
In June, 1709, Newton intrusted the superintendence of a
second edition of the PRINCIPIA to Roger Cotes, Plumian Pro
fessor of Astronomy at Cambridge. The first edition had been
sold off for some time. Copies of the work had become very
rare, and could only be obtained at several times their original
cost. A great number of letters passed oetween the author and
Mr. Cotes during the preparation of the edition, which finally
appeared in May, 1713. It had many alterations and improve
ments, and was accompanied by an admirable Preface from the
pen of Cotes.
Our author s early Treatise, entitled, ANALYSIS PER EQUATIONES
NUMERO TERMINORUM INFINITAS, as well as a small Tract, Gearing
the title of METHODUS DIFFERENTIALS, was published, witn nis
consent, in 1711. The former of these, and the Treatise De
Quadratura Curvarum, translated into Englisn, witn a .arge com
mentary, appeared in 1745. His work, entitled. ARTIS ANA
LYTICS SPECIMINA, VEL GEOMETRIA ANALYTICA, was iirs; given
to the world in the edition of Dr. Horsley, 1779.
48 LIFE OF SIR ISAAC NEWTON.
It is a notable fact, in Newton s history, that he never volun*
tarily published any one of his purely mathematical writings
The cause of this unwillingness in some, and, in other instances,
of his indifference, or, at least, want of solicitude to put forth his
works may be confidently sought for in his repugnance to every
thing like contest or dispute. But, going deeper than this aver
sion, we find, underlying his whole character and running parallel
with all his discoveries, that extraordinary humility which always
preserved him in a position so relatively just to the behests of
time and eternity, that the infinite value of truth, and the utter
worthlessness of fame, were alike constantly present to him.
Judging of his course, however, in its more temporary aspect, as
bearing upon his immediate quiet, it seemed the most unfortunate.
For an early publication, especially in the case of his Method of
Fluxions, would have anticipated all rivalry, and secured him
from the contentious claims of Leibnitz. Still each one will solve
the problem of his existence in his own way, and, with a manlike
Newton, his own, as we conceive, could be no other than the best
way. The conduct of Leibnitz in this affair is quite irreconcilable
with the stature and strength of the man ; giant-like, and doing
nobly, in many ways, a giant s work, yet cringing himself into the
dimensions and performances of a common calumniator. Opening
in 1699, the discussion in question continued till the close of
Leibnitz s life, in 1716. We give the summary of the case as
contained in the Report of the Committee of the Royal Society,
the deliberately weighed opinion of which has been adopted as an
authoritative decision in all countries.
" We have consulted the letters and letter books in the custody
of the Royal Society, and those found among the papers of Mr.
John Collins, dated between the years 1669 and 1677, inclusive ;
and showed them to such as knew and avouched the hands of Mr.
Barrow, Mr. Collins, Mr. Oldenburg, and Mr. Leibnitz ; and
compared those of Mr. Gregory with one another, and with copies
of some of them taken in the hand of Mr. Collins ; and have
extracted from them what relates to the matter referred to us :
all which extracts, herewith delivered to you, we believe to be
genuine and authentic. And by these letters and papers wf
find:
LIFE OF SIR ISAAC NEWTON. 49
" I. Mr. Leibnitz was in London in the beginning of the year
1673 ; and went thence in or about March, to Paris, where he
kept a correspondence with Mr. Collins, by means of Mr. Olden
burg, till about September, 1676, and then returned, by London
and Amsterdam, to Hanover: and that Mr. Collins was very free
in communicating to able mathematicians what he had received
from Mr, Newton and Mr. Gregory.
" II. That when Mr. Leibnitz was the first time in London,
he contended for the invention of another differential method,
properly so called ; and, notwithstanding he was shown by Dr.
Pell that it was Newton ? s method, persisted in maintaining it to
be his own invention, by reason that he had found it by himself
without knowing what Newton had done before, and had much
improved it. And we find no mention of his having any other
differential method than Newton s before his letter of the 21st of
June, 1677, which was a year after a copy of Mr. Newton s letter
of the 10th of December, 1672, had been sent to Paris to be
communicated to him ; and above four years after Mr. Collins
began to communicate that letter to his correspondents ; in which
letter the method of fluxions was sufficiently described to any
intelligent person.
"III. That by Mr. Newton s letter, of the 13th of June, 1676
it appears that he had the method of fluxions above five years
before the writing of that letter. And by his Analysis per ^Equa-
tiones numero Terminorum Infmitas, communicated by Dr. Barrow
to Mr. Collins, in July, 1669, we find that he had invented the
method before that time.
"IV. That the differential method is one and the same with
the method of fluxions, excepting the name and mode of notation ;
Mr. Leibnitz calling those quantities differences which Mr. Newton
calls moments, or fluxions ; and marking them with a letter d a
mark not used by Mr. Newton.
" And, therefore, we take the proper question to be, not who
invented this or that method, but, who was the first inventor of
the method ? And we believe that those who have reputed Mr.
Leibnitz the first inventor knew little or nothing of his correspond
ence with Mr. Collins and Mr. Oldenburg long before, nor of Mr.
50 LIFE OP SIR ISAAC NEWTON.
Newton s hiving that method above fifteen years before Mr
Leibnitz began to publish it in the Acta Eruditorum of Leipsic.
" For which reason we reckon Mr. Newton the first inventor ;
and are of opinion that Mr. Keill, in asserting the same, has been
no ways injurious to Mr. Leibnitz. And we submit to the judg
ment of the Society, whether the extract and papers, now pre
sented to you, together with what is extant, to the same pur
pose, in Dr. Wallis s third volume, may not deserve to be made
public."
This Report, with the collection of letters and manuscripts,
under the title of COMMERCIUM EPISTOLICUM D. JOHANNIS COLLINS
ET ALIORUM DE ANALYSI PROMOTA JuSSU SoCIETATIS REGIES
EDITUM, appeared accordingly in the early part of 1713. Its
publication seemed to infuse additional bitterness into the feelings
of Leibnitz, who descended to unfounded charges and empty
threats. He had been privy counsellor to the Elector of Han
over, before that prince was elevated to the British throne ; and
in his correspondence, in 1715 and 1716, with the Abbe Conti,
then at the court of George L, and with Caroline, Princess of
Wales, he attacked the doctrines of the PRINCIPIA, and indirectly
its author, in a manner very discreditable to himself, both as a
learned and as an honourable man. His assaults, however, were
triumphantly met; and, to the complete overthrow of his rival
pretensions, Newton was induced to give the finishing blow. The
verdict is universal and irreversible that the English preceded
the German philosopher, by at least ten years, in the invention
of fluxions. Newton could not have borrowed from Leibnitz ;
but Leibnitz might have borrowed from Newton. A new edition
of the Commercium Epistolicum was published in 1722-5 (?) ; but
neither in this, nor in the former edition, did our author take any
part. The disciples, enthusiastic, capable and ready, effectually
shielded, with the buckler of Truth, the character of the Master,
whose own conduct throughout was replete with delicacy, dignity
and justice. He kept aloof from the controversy in which Dr.
Keill stood forth as the chief representative of the Newtonian
side till the very last, when, for the satisfaction of the King,
George L. rather than for his own, he consented to put forth his
LIFE OF SI| L^.-vJ NEWTON. 5i
hand and firmly secure his rights upon a certain and impregnable,
basis.
A petition to have inventions for promoting the discovery of the
longitude at sea, suitably rewarded, was presented to the House
of Commons, in 1714. A committee, having been appointed to
investigate the subject, called upon Newton and others for their
opinions. That of our author was given in writing, A report,
favourable to the desired measure, was then taken up, and a bill
for its adoption subsequently passed.
On the ascension of George I., in 1714, Newton became an
object of profound interest at court. His position under govern
ment, his surpassing fame, his spotless character, and. above all,
his deep and consistent piety, attracted the reverent regard of the
Princess of Wales, afterward queen -consort to George II. She
was a woman of a highly cultivated mind, and derived the greatest
pleasure from conversing with Newton and corresponding with
Leibnitz. One day, in conversation with her, our author men
tioned and explained a new system of chronology, which he had
composed at Cambridge, where he had been in the habit " of
refreshing himself with history and chronology, when he wa c
weary with other studies." Subsequently, in the year 1718, she
requested a copy of this interesting and ingenious work Newton,
accordingly, drew up an abstract of the system from the separate
papers in which it existed, and gave it to her on condition that it
should riot be communicated to any other person. Sometime
afterward she requested that the Abbe Conti might be allowed
to have a copy of it The author consented: and the abbe
received a copy of the manuscript, under the like injunction and
promise of secrecy. This manuscript bore the title of " A short
Chronicle, from the First Memory of Tilings in Europe, to the
Conquest of Persia, by Alexander the Great."
After Newton took up his residence in London, he lived in a
style suited to his elevated position and rank. He kept his car
riage, with an establishment of three male and three female serv
ants. But to everything like vain show and luxury he was utterly
averse. His household affairs, for the last twenty years of his
life, were under the charge of his niece, Mrs. Catherine Barton,
52 LIFE OF SIR ISAAC NEWTON.
wife and widow of Colonel Barton a woman of great beauty and
accomplishment and subsequently married to John Conduit, Esq.
At home Newton was distinguished by that dignified and gentle
hospitality which springs alone from true nobleness. On all pro
per occasions, he gave splendid entertainments, though without
ostentation. In society, whether of the palace or the cottage,
his manner was self-possessed and urbane ; his look benign and
affable ; his speech candid and modest ; his whole air undisturb
edly serene. He had none of what are usually called the singu
larities of genius ; suiting himself easily to every company
except that of the vicious and wicked ; and speaking of himself
and others, naturally, so as never even to be suspected of vanity.
There was in him, if we may be allowed the expression, a WHOLE
NESS of nature, which did not admit of such imperfections and
weakness the circle was too perfect, the law too constant, and
the disturbing forces too slight to suffer scarcely any of those
eccentricities which so interrupt and mar the movements of many
bright spirits, rendering their course through the world more like
that of the blazing meteor than that of the light and life-impart
ing sun. In brief, the words GREATNESS and GOODNESS could
not, humanly speaking, be more fitly employed than when applied
as the pre-eminent characteristics of this pure, meek and vene
rable sage.
In the eightieth year of his age, Newton was seized with
symptoms of stone in the bladder. His disease was pronounced
incurable. He succeeded, however, by means of a strict regimen,
and other precautions, in alleviating his complaint, and procuring
long intervals of ease. His diet, always frugai, was now extremely
temperate, consisting chiefly of broth, vegetables, and fruit, with,
now and then, a little butcher meat. He gave up the use of his
carriage, and employed, in its stead, when he went out, a chair.
All invitations to dinner were declined ; and only small parties
were received, occasionally, at his own house.
In 1724 he wrote to the Lord Provost of Edinburgh, offering
to contribute twenty pounds yearly toward the salary of Mr.
Maclaurin, provided he accepted the assistant Professorship of
Mathematics in the University of that place. Not only in the
LIFE OP SIR ISAAC NEWTON. 53
cause of ingenuity and learning, but in that of religion in relieving
the poor and .assisting his relations, Newton annually expended
large sums. He was generous and charitable almost to a fault.
Those, he would often remark, who gave away nothing till they
died, never gave at all. His wealth had become considerable by
a prudent economy ; but he regarded money in no other light
than as one of the means wherewith he had been intrusted to do
good, and he faithfully employed it accordingly.
He experienced, in spite of all his precautionary measures, a
return of his complaint in the month of August, of the same year,
1 724, when he passed a stone the size of pea ; it came from him
in two pieces, the one at the distance of two day.s from the other.
Tolerable good health then followed for some months. In Janu
ary, 1725, however, he was taken with a violent cough and inflam
mation of the lungs. In consequence of this attack, he was pre
vailed upon to remove to Kensington, where his health greatly
improved. In February following, he was attacked in both feet
with the gout, of the approach of which he had received, a few
years before, a slight warning, and the presence of which now
produced a very beneficial change in his general health. Mr.
Conduit, his nephew, has recorded a curious conversation which
took place, at or near this time, between himself and Sir Isaac.
"I was, on Sunday night, the 7th March, 1724-5, at Kensing
ton, with Sir Isaac Newton, in his lodgings, just after he was out
of a fit of the gout, which he had had in both of his feet, for the
first time, in the eighty-third year of his age. He was better after
it, and his head clearer and memory stronger than I had known
them for some time. He then repeated to me, by way of dis
course, very distinctly, though rather in answer to my queries,
than in one continued narration, what he had often hinted to me
before, viz. : that it was his conjecture (he would affirm nothing)
that there was a sort of revolution in the heavenly bodies ; that
the vapours and light, emitted by the sun, which had their sedi
ment, as water and other matter, had gathered themselves, by
degrees, into a body, and attracted more matter from the planets,
and at last made a secondary planet (viz. : one of those that go
round another planet), and then, by gathering to them, and
54 LIFE OF SIR ISAAC NEWTON.
attracting more matter, became a primary planet ; and then, bf
increasing still, became a comet, which, after certain revolutions,
by coming nearer and nearer to the sun, had all its volatile parts
condensed, and became a matter tit to recruit and replenish the
sun (which must waste by the constant heat and light it emitted),
as a faggot would this fire if put into it (we were sitting by a
wood fire), and that that would probably be the effect of the
comet of 1680, sooner or later ; for, by the observations made
upon it, it appeared, before it came near the sun, with a tail only
two or three degrees long ; but, by the heat it contracted, in going
so near the sun, it seemed to have a tail of thirty or forty degrees
when it went frpm it ; that he could not say when this comet
would drop into the sun ; it might perhaps have five or six revo
lutions more first, but whenever it did it would so much increase
the heat of the sun that this earth would be burned, and no ani
mals in it could live. That he took the three phenomena, seen
by Hipparchus, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler s disciples, to have been
of this kind, for he could not otherwise account for an extraor
dinary light, as those were, appearing, all at once, among the
the fixed stars (all which he took to be suns, enlightening other
planets, as our sun does ours), as big as Mercury or Venus seems
to us, and gradually diminishing, for sixteen months, and then
sinking into nothing. He seemed to doubt whether there were
not intelligent beings, superior to us, who superintended these
revolutions of the heavenly bodies, by the direction of the Supreme
Being. He appeared also to be very clearly of opinion that the
inhabitants of this world were of short date, and alledged, as one
reason for that opinion, that all arts, as letters, ships, printing,
needle, &c., were discovered within the memory of history, which
could not have happened if the world had been eternal ; and that
there were visible marks of ruin upon it which could not be
effected by flood only. When I asked him how this earth could
have been repeopled if ever it had undergone the same fate
it was threatened with hereafter, by the comet of 1680, he
answered, that required the power of a Creator. He said he
took all the planets to be composed of the same matter with this
earth, viz. : earth, water, stones, &c. 3 but variously concocted. J
LIFE OP SIR ISAAC NEWTON. 55
asked him why he would not publish his conjectures, as conjec
tures, and instanced that Kepler had communicated his ; and
though he had not gone near so far as Kepler, yet Kepler s
guesses were so just and happy that they had been proved and
demonstrated by him. His answer was, " I do not deal in con
jectures." But, on my talking to him about the four observations
that had been made of the comet of 1680, at 574 years distance,
and asking him the particular times, he opened his Principia,
which laid on the table, and showed me the particular periods,
viz.: 1st. The Julium Sidus, in the time of Justinian, in 1106,
in 1680.
" And I, observing that he said there of that comet, incidet
in corpus solis, and in the next paragraph adds, stellae fixae
refici possunt, told him I thought he owned there what we had
been talking about, viz. : that the comet would drop into the sun,
and that fixed stars were recruited and replenished by comets
when they dropped into them ; and, consequently, that the sun
would be recruited too ; and asked him why he would not own as
fully what he thought of the sun as well as what he thought of
the fixed stars. He said, that concerned us more; and, laugh
ing, added, that he had said enough for people to know his
meaning."
In the summer of 1725, a French translation of the chronolo
gical MS., of which the Abbe Conti had been permitted, some
time previous, to have a copy, was published at Paris, in violation
of all good faith. The Punic Abbe had continued true to his
promise of secrecy while he remained in England ; but no sooner
did he reach Paris than he placed the manuscript into the hands
of M. Freret, a learned antiquarian, who translated the work, and
accompanied it with an attempted refutation of the leading points
of the system. In November, of the same year, Newton received
a presentation copy of this publication, which bore the title of
ABREGE DE CHRONOLOGIE DE M. LE CHEVALIER NEWTON, FAIT
PAR LUI-MEME, ET TRADUIT SUR LE MANUSCRIPT ANGLAIS. Soon
afterward a paper entitled, REMARKS ON TFE OBERVATIONS MADE
ON A CHRONOLOGICAL INDEX OF SIR ISAAC NE.WTON, TRANSLATED
INTO FRENCH BY THE OBSERVATOR, ANL PUBLISHED AT PARIS,
56 LIFE OF SIR ISAAC NEWTON,
was drawn up by our author, and printed in the Philosophical
Transactions for 1725. It contained a history of the whole
matter, and a triumphant reply to the objections of M. Freret.
This answer called into the field a fresh antagonist, Father Soueiet,
whose five dissertations on this subject were chiefly remarkable
for the want of knowledge and want of decorum, which they
displayed. In consequence of these discussions, Newton was in
duced to prepare his larger work for the press, and had nearly
completed it at the time of his death. It was published in 1728,
under the title of THE CHRONOLOGY OF THE ANCIENT KINGDOMS
AMENDED, TO WHICH is PREFIXED A SHORT CHRONICLE FROM THE
FIRST MEMORY OF THINGS IN EUROPE TO THE CONQUEST OF
PERSIA BY ALEXANDER THE GREAT. It consists of six chap
ters: 1. On the Chronology of the Greeks; according to Whis-
ton, our author wrote out eighteen copies of this chapter with his
own hand, differing little from one another. 2. Of the Empire
of Egypt; 3. Of the Assyrian Empire; 4. Of the two contempo
rary Empires of the Babylonians and Medes ; 5. A Description
of the Temple of Solomon ; 6. Of the Empire of the Persians ;
this chapter was not found copied with the other five, but as it
was discovered among his papers, arid appeared to be a continu
ation of the same work, the Editor thought proper to add it
thereto. Newton s LETTER TO A PERSON OF DISTINCTION WHO
HAD DESIRED HIS OPINION OF THE LEARNED BlSHO^ LLOYD S
HYPOTHESIS CONCERNING THE FORM OF THE MOST ANCIENT
^EAR, closes this enumeration of his Chronological Writings.
A ihird edition of the PRINCIPIA appeared in 1726, with many
changes and additions. About four years were consumed in its
preparation and publication, which were under the superintend-
ance of Dr. Henry Pemberton, an accomplished mathematician,
and the author of "A VIEW OF SIR ISAAC NEWTON S PHILO
SOPHY." 1728. This gentleman enjoyed numerous opportunities
of conversing with the aged and illustrious author. " I found,"
says Pemberton, " he had read fewer of the modern mathemati
cians than one could have expected; but his own prodigious
invention readily supplied him with what he might have an occa
sion for in the pursuit of any subject he undertook. I have often
LIFE OF SIR ISAAC NEWTON. 57
heard him censure the handling geometrical subjects ly algebraic
calculations ; and his book of Algebra he called by the name of
Universal Arithmetic, in opposition to the injudicious title of
Geometry, which Descartes had given to the treatise, wherein he
shows how the geometer may assist his invention by such kind
of computations. He thought Huygens the most elegant of any
mathematical writer of modern times, and the most just imitator
of the ancients. Of their taste and form of demonstration, Sir
Isaac always professed himself a great admirer. I have heard
him even censure himself for not following them yet more closely
than he did ; and speak with regret of his mistake at the begin
ning of his mathematical studies, in applying himself to the works
of Descartes and other algebraic writers, be
