This text is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
in English
r
When I wrote my treatise about r
Principles as might work the
& nothing can rejoyce me more then to find it usefull for that purpose
But if I have done e
thing but industry & a patient thought.
As to rr
& Planets & all e
out all the heavens, & every particle had an innate gravity towards all the
rest & the whole space throughtch
finite: the matter on e
towards all ee
middle of the whole space & there compose one great spherical mass
But if thi
would not never convene into one mass but some of it convene into one
mass & some into another so as to make an infinite number of great
masses scattered at great distances from one another throughout all t
infinite space. And thus might e
the matter were of a lucid nature. But how the matter should divide it
self into two sorts & that part of it ch
should fall down into one mass & make a Sun & the rest ch
to compose an opake body should coalesce not into one e
shining matter but into many little ones: or if the Sun was at first
an opake body like eee
how he alone should be changed into a shining body whilst all they con
tinue opake or all they be changed into opake ones whilst he remains
unchanged, I do not think explicable by mere natural causes but am
forced to ascribe it to e
The same power whether natural or supernatural, che
the center of the orbs of e
the center of esatellites
in eee
the Moons orb; & therefore had this cause been a blind one th
contrivance & designe the Sun would have been a body of the same
kind the
is one body in re
rest I know no reason but because the author of e
thought
I know no reason but because one was sufficient to warm &
enlighten all the rest. ffor the Cartesian Hypothesis of Sun's loosing
their light & then turning into Planets Comets & Comets into Planets
can have no place in my systeme & is plainly erroneous because its
certain that Comets as often as they appear to us descend into the re
lower then the orbs of
but always return from the Sun with the same degrees of motion
by thch
To your second Query I answer that eche
Planets now have could not spring from any naturall cause
alone but were imprest by an intelligent Agent. ffor since Comets
descend into er
of ways going sometimes the same way th
the contrary way & sometimes in cross ways in planes inclined
to e
that there is no naturall cause cheeeth
ble variation. This must have been the effect of Counsel. Nor is
there any natural cause ch
of velocity in proportion to their distances from e
bodies about che
those bodies, ch
about those bodies. Had the Planets been as swift as Comets in
proportion to their distances from e
had their motions been caused by their gravity, o
first formation of ee
wards ethey they would not move in concentric orbs but in
such excentric ones as e
as swift as Mercury or as slow as Saturn or his Satellites, or were
their
have been had they arose from any other cause then their gravity)
or had their distances from Saturn from the centers about ch
they move been greater or less then they are the
velocities; or had the quantity of matters in the Sun or in
Iupiter & the earth
Planets could not have revolved about ee
about e
moved in Hyperbolas or Parabolas or in Ellipses very excentric. To
make this systeme therefore thche
several bodies of ee
from thence, the e
secondary ones from Saturn Iupiter & eethch
of matter in e
together
to be not blind & fortuitous, but very well skilled in Mechanicks
& Geometry.
To your third Query I answer that it may be
the Sun may ch
them to be better concocted & more condensed by concoction. But when
I consider that ry
the upper crust by subterraneous fermentations of mineral bodies
then by the Sun, I see not why the interior parts of Iupiter &
Saturn might
tions
some other cause then eee
the Planets of Iupiter & Saturn as they are rarer then the rest
so they are vastly greater & contein a far greater quantity of
matter & have many Satellites about them: ch
surely arose not from their being placed at so great a distance
from ee
them at t
very sensibly as I find by some late Observations of Mr Flam
steed, & had they been placed much nearer to e
another they would by the same powers have caused a consi
derable disturbance in the whole Systeme.
To eth Query I answer that in e
the inclination of ee
ascribed to ee
by ee
Comet; but this inclination ought constantly to decrease in
ance the
inclined to ee
carried about therein. If the sun by his rays could carry
the Planets, yet I do not see how he could thereby af
diurnal motions.
Lastly I see nothing extraordinary in ee
axis for proving a Deity unless you will urge it as a contrivance
for winter & summer & for making the earth habitable towards e
poles, & that ee
arise from any cause purely mechanical, so by being determined all
the same way with the annual & menstrual motions they seem
to make up that harmony in ech
was the effect of choice rather then of chance.
There is yet another argument for a Deity ch
very strong one, but till ech
received I think it more advisable to let it sleep. I am
r
Is. Newton.
Cambridge Dec. 10th
1692.
For the dr Bentley
at the p
in Park stret in
Westminster
London