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NEWTON, ISAAC (b. Woolsthorpe, England,
25 December 1642; d. London, England, 20 March
1727), mathematics, dynamics, celestial mechanics,
astronomy, optics, natural philosophy.
NOTES
167. Although Newton had suspected the association of color
with wavelength of vibration as early as his “Hypothesis”
of 1675, he did not go on from his experiments on rings,
which suggested a periodicity in optical phenomena, to a
true wave theory—no doubt because, as A. I. Sabra has
suggested, his a priori “conception of the rays as discrete
entities or corpuscles” effectively “prevented him from
envisaging the possibility of an undulatory interpretation
in which the ray, as something distinguished from
the waves, would be redundant” (Theories of Light,
p. 341).
168. Both printed in facsimile in I. B. Cohen, ed., Isaac Newton's
Papers and Letters on Natural Philosophy. They were
published and studied in the eighteenth century and had a
significant influence on the development of the concept
of electric fluid (or fluids) and caloric. This topic is explored
in some detail in I. B. Cohen, Franklin and Newton
(Philadelphia, 1956; Cambridge, 1966; rev. ed. in press),
esp. chs. 6 and 7.
169. Henry Guerlac has studied the development of the queries
themselves, and in particular the decline of Newton's use
of the ether until its reappearance in a new form in the
queries of the 2nd English ed. He has also noted that the
concept of the ether is conspicuously absent from the Latin
ed. of 1706. See especially his “Newton's Optical Aether,”
in Notes and Records. Royal Society of London, 22
(1967), 45-57. See, further, Joan L. Hawes, “Newton's
Revival of the Aether Hypothesis . . .,” ibid., 23
(1968),
200-212.
170. A. R. and M. B. Hall have found evidence that Newton
thought of this “spiritus” as electrical in nature; see
Unpublished Papers, pp. 231 ff., 348 ff. Guerlac has shown
that Newton was fascinated by Hauksbee's electrical
experiments and by certain experiments of Desaguliers;
see bibliography for this series of articles.
171. University Library, Cambridge, MS Add. 3970, sec. 9,
fols. 623 ff.
172. These works, especially queries 28 and 31, have been
studied in conjunction with Newton's MSS (particularly
his notebooks) by A. R. and M. B. Hall, D. McKie,
J. R. Partington, R. Kargon, J. E. McGuire, A. Thackray,
and others, in their elucidations of a Newtonian doctrine
of chemistry or theory of matter. De natura acidorum has
been printed from an autograph MS, with notes by
Pitcairne and transcripts by David Gregory, in Correspondence,
III, 205-214. The first printing, in both Latin and
English, is reproduced in I. B. Cohen, ed., Newton's
Papers and Letters, pp. 255-258.
173. According to M. B. Hall, “Newton's Chemical Papers,”
in Newton's Papers and Letters, p. 244.
174. Ibid., p. 245.
175. Discussed by T. S. Kuhn, “Newton's ‘31st Query’
and the
Degradation of Gold,” in Isis, 42 (1951), 296-298.
176. M. B. Hall, “Newton's Chemical Papers,” p. 245; she
continues that there we may find a “forerunner of the
tables of affinity” developed in the eighteenth century, by
means of which “chemists tried to predict the course of a
reaction.”
177. In “Newton's Chemical Experiments,” in Archives
internationales d'histoire des sciences, 11 (1958),
113-152—a
study of Newton's chemical notes and papers—A. R.
and M. B. Hall have tried to show that Newton's primary
concern in these matters was the chemistry of metals, and
that the writings of alchemists were a major source of
information on every aspect of metals. Humphrey Newton
wrote up a confusing account of Newton's alchemical
experiments, in which he said that Newton's guide was
the De re metallica of Agricola; this work, however, is
largely free of alchemical overtones and concentrates on
mining and metallurgy.
178. R. S. Westfall, in Science and Religion in Seventeenth-Century
England, ch. 8, draws upon such expressions by
Newton to prove that “Newton was a religious rationalist
who remained blind to the mystic's spiritual communion
with the divine.”
179. These MSS are described in the Sotheby sale catalog and
by F. Sherwood Taylor, in “An Alchemical Work of Sir
Isaac Newton,” in Ambix, 5 (1956), 59-84.
180. These have been the subject of a considerable study by
Frank E. Manuel, Isaac Newton, Historian (Cambridge,
Mass., 1964).
181. Newton's interest in alchemy mirrors all the bewildering
aspects of that subject, ranging from the manipulative
chemistry of metals, mineral acids, and salts, to esoteric
and symbolic (often sexual) illustrations and mysticism
of a religious or philosophical kind. His interest in alchemy
persisted through his days at the mint, although there is no
indication that he at that time still seriously believed that
pure metallic gold might be produced from baser metals—if,
indeed, he had ever so believed. The extent of his notes
on his reading indicate the seriousness of Newton's
interest in the general subject, but it is impossible to
ascertain to what degree, if any, his alchemical concerns
may have influenced his science, beyond his vague and
general commitment to “transmutations” as a mode for
the operations of nature. But even this belief would not
imply a commitment to the entire hermetic tradition, and
it is not necessary to seek a unity of the diverse interests
and intellectual concerns in a mind as complex as
Newton's.
182. P. M. Rattansi, “Newton's Alchemical Studies,” in Allen
Debus, ed., Science, Medicine and Society in the
Renaissance, II (New York, 1972), 174.
183. The first suggestion that Newton's concept of the ether
might be linked to his alchemical concerns was made by
Taylor; see n. 179, above.
184. Leibniz, Tentamen . . . (“An Essay on the Cause of the
Motions of the Heavenly Bodies”), in Acta eruditorum
(Feb. 1689), 82-96, English trans. by E. J. Collins.
Leibniz' marked copy of the 1st ed. of the Principia,
presumably the one sent to him by Fatio de Duillier at
Newton's direction, is now in the possession of E. A.
Fellmann of Basel, who has discussed Leibniz' annotations
in “Die Marginalnoten von Leibniz in Newtons Principia
Mathematica 1687,” in Humanismus und Technik, 2 (1972),
110-129; Fellmann's critical ed., G. W. Leibniz, Marginalia
in Newtoni Principia Mathematica 1687 (Paris, 1973),
includes facsimiles of the annotated pages.
185. Translated from some MS comments on Leibniz' essay,
first printed in Edleston, Correspondence, pp. 307-314.
186. Leibniz' excepts from Newton's De analysi, made in 1676
from a transcript by John Collins, have been published
from the Hannover MS by Whiteside, in Mathematical
Papers, II, 248-258. Whiteside thus demonstrates that
Leibniz was “clearly interested only in its algebraic
portions: fluxional sections are ignored.”
187. Several MS versions in his hand survive in University
Library, Cambridge, MS Add. 3968.
188. At this period the year in England officially began on
Lady Day, 25 March. Hence Newton died on 20 March
1726 old style, or in 1726/7 (to use the form then current
for dates in January, February, and the first part of
March).
189. In the 2-vol. ed. of the Principia with variant readings
edited by A. Koyré, I. B. Cohen, and Anne Whitman;
Koyré has shown that in the English Opticks Newton used
the word “feign” in relation to hypotheses, in the sense of
“fingo” in the slogan, a usage confirmed by example in
Newton's MSS. Motte renders the phrase as “I frame no
hypotheses.” Newton himself in MSS used both “feign”
and “frame” in relation to hypotheses in this regard;
see I. B. Cohen, “The First English Version of Newton's
Hypotheses non fingo,” in Isis, 53 (1962),
379-388.
190. University Library, Cambridge, MS Add. 3968, fol. 437.
