Correspondence of Sir Isaac Newton and Professor Cotes : including letters of other eminent men (English Edition) [Kindle-editie] beoordelingen het boek quotes

PREFACE.Newton's PhilosopMce Naturalis Principia Mathema^ tica, the most remarkable production of the human intellect that has yet been seen on the earth, whose mysterious path through space was first explained in its pages, was published about the middle of the year 1C87, a few weeks after his appearance before James's Ecclesiastical Commission, as the upholder of the rights of his University and the laws of the realm, against the aggressions of arbitrary power. We are not informed how many copies of the work were printed, but the number probably was not large. If the extent of the impression had been rigorously limited to the number of persons likely to comprehend its contents, the volume would now have been one of excessive rarity. The work, however, seems to have found a readier sale than the abstruse nature of the subject and the engrossing interest of politics at that crisis of our history might have prepared us to expect; and the sensation which it produced was long remembered, even by those who saw but darkly that tlie veil was now raised from the face of nature, which successive generations of philosophers, from the first dawn of science, had vainly endeavoured to draw aside. It is true that, in a legal argument by Lord Mansfield, when Solicitor-General, the names of Locke and Newton are coupled with that of the author of Paradise Lost, as affording instances of the neglect shewn to works ofgenius for a considerable time after their being given to the world. Dugald Stewart has assigned good reasons for doubting the correctness of the statement with respect to the Essay on the Human Understanding, and I believe the assertion to be equally unfounded as predicated of the Princi'pia, except so far as the slow reception of the Newtonian doctrines, in some parts of the continent, may be considered as supplying ground for affirming the fact. Doubtless there were others besides Locke who tried to master the first principles, read the enunciations of the propositions, and accepted them either on the faith of the author's own word, or in reliance upon the judgment of some known mathematician; nor was Bentley, we may rest assured, the only person in that inquisitive age who was struck with the wonderful truths developed by the new philosophy, and strove to attain to an intellectual appreciation of them. Locke's more popular book appeared in 1G90, and a second edition was published in 1G04. The Principia seems to have been sold off with almost equal rapidity. In 1691 we hear of an improved edition of it as being in contemplation. In 1C94 Newton renewed his attack on the lunar and planetary theories with a view to a new edition of his book. And if Flamsteed, the Astronomer-Royal, had cordially co-operated with him in the humble capacity of an observer in the way that Newton pointed out and requested of him, (and for his almost unpardonable omission to do so I know of no better apology that can be offered than that he did not understand the real nature and, consequently, the importance of the researches in which Newton was engaged, his purely empirical and tabular views never having been replaced in hismind by a clear conception of the Principle of Universal Gravitation,) the lunar theory would, if its creator did not overrate his own powers, have been completely investigated, so far as he could do it, in the first few months of 1695, and a second edition of the Principia would probably have followed the execution of the task at no long interval. But science and the world were not destined to such good fortune. Flamsteed's infirmities of temper and bodily health conspired to thwart Newton's plans for the first half of the year just mentioned; and the imperfect manner in which the Astronomer-Royal then met his wishes, leaves it uncertain whether we are to attribute the entire blame of the non-completion of the lunar theory in the latter half of the year to the circumstance of steps being at last taken by Newton's friends to ..