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Newton and the Cyclical Cosmos: Providence and the Mechanical PhilosophyAuthor(s): David KubrinSource: Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 28, No. 3 (Jul. - Sep., 1967), pp. 325-346Published by: University of Pennsylvania PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2708622

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NEWTON AND THE CYCLICALCOSMOS:

PROVIDENCE AND THE MECHANICAL PHILOSOPHY

BY DAVID KUBRIN

The importantdebate between Newton and Leibniz in 1715 over

metaphysicalprinciplesserved to bring out many fundamentaldif-

ferences in the way the two conceived of physical reality. At the

heart of the debate were several basic tenets of Newtonian science

which Leibniz objected to, one of which was Newton's 1706 state-

ment of the world'sdecay.Newton had said that though the systemof the sun and planets would continue for "many Ages," over thecourse of years irregularitiesarising from the mutual attraction of

the planets and the comets ". . . will be apt to increase, till this

System wants a Reformation. . . ."

Leibnizobjected to such a conceptionof an imperfect system of

the world: to him it implied an imperfectCreator, ackingeither the

foresight or the ability to fashion a cosmic machineryable to last

without His constant meddling.A truly perfect Creator,Leibnizin-

sisted, would have fashioned a worldwhichwould last foreverunlessHe were to intervene purposelyto destroy it. This contrastedwithNewton's belief that God would wisely fashion His creationin sucha way that ". .. nothing is done without his continual governmentand inspection . . . ,"2 so that God had to act merely to allow the

world to continue.Left by itself, an imperfectsystem made of meredead matter, the world would tend over the course of centuries tobecomeso unwoundthat a new creation-or reformation,as Newton

put it-would be necessary.31 This paper is a revisionof a publiclecture deliveredon April 22, 1966 at the

JohnsHopkinsUniversity.The quotation s fromNewton's23rdQueryto the 1706Latin Opticks,but the 23rd Querybecame the 31st Queryfor the 1717 edition I

quote from the Dover reprint (New York, 1952) of the fourth edition (London,1730), 402.

2H. G. Alexander (ed.), The Leibniz-Clarke Correspondence (Manchester,

1956), 14. The quotation s fromSamuelClarke,Newton'sspokesmann the debatewith Leibniz.I am usingClarke's tatements n this debateto

representhe ideasof

Newton. For the very active role that Newton took in the formulationof Clarke's

statements,see Marie Boas and A. R. Hall, "Clarkeand Newton,"Isis lii (1961),583-85, and I. B. Cohen and A. Koyre, "Newtonand the Leibniz-ClarkeCorre-

spondence," Archives internationales d'histoire des sciences, xv (1962), no. 58-59:

63-127. As ProfessorHenry Guerlachas pointed out to me, Newton's desire to

preserve God's Providence is reflected also in his General Scholium to the

Principia. (Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy . . ., translated byAndrewMotte and revisedby FlorianCajori [Berkeley, 1960], 544).

3 The Leibniz-Clarke Correspondence, passim.

325



326 DAVID KUBRIN

This aspect of Newton's thought is, of course,well known. ButI do not believeits realsignificanceandmeaninghave been fathomed.In this paper,I would like to show why Newton was led to believethe worldwas unwindingand to relate this opinion to Newton's cos-

mogony,a cosmogonywhich indicated how the worldwould eventu-

ally be correctedorresetby its Creator.8a shall treat firstthe reasonsfor Newton'sbelievingin the unwindingcosmos, ollowthis by a brief

descriptionof Newton'scosmogony n its matureform,and then givean account of the development of these views. To understand thecontext of this aspect of Newton's thought, we must consider firstthe reactionof most English philosophers o the mechanicalphiloso-phy whichwas the world-viewof the late scientificrevolution.ManyEnglishmen,while initially seeing in the mechanismofferedby Des-cartesa supportboth for naturalphilosophyand for religiousortho-

doxy, had by the late 1660's severe misgivings that Cartesianismwouldusherout of the world all notions of Providence.Henry More,the CambridgePlatonist,Robert Boyle, the naturalphilosopher,andWalter Charleton,the physician, for example, all saw that the me-chanicalphilosophy,to be acceptable,had to make God more thana mere Creator; for a mere Creator,once His task was done, mightbecome a mere absenteedeity, and such a view of God was danger-ously similarto the teachingsof the deists.

To avoid such an implication,many of the English adopted an

interpretationof the mechanical philosophy which made God re-

sponsiblenot only for initially creatingmatter and motion-the twoprinciplesresponsible or all phenomenaaccording o the mechanical

philosophy-but also for preservingmotion in bodies.Merely toper-sist in their movements,bodiesneededconstant Providentialcare by

God; in this sense, He was the cause of motion.5Worriedby the3aBy cosmogonyI mean not only a theory accountingfor the creation of the

cosmos,but one which also soughtto explainits subsequentdevelopment.4 It is convenient or my purposes o use Descartes'systemas the epitomeof the

mechanicalphilosophy.See on More, Marjorie Nicolson, "The Early Stage ofCartesianism n England,"Studies in Philology xxvi (1929) 3:356-74; SterlingLamprecht,"The Role of Descartes in Seventeenth-CenturyEngland,"Studies in

the History of Ideas (New York, 1935), III, 181-243; J. E. Saveson,"DifferingReactions o DescartesAmong he CambridgePlatonists,"JHI, XXI (1960),560-67;Danton Sailor, "Cudworthand Descartes," Ibid., XXIII (1962), 133-40; andRobert A. Greene,"HenryMoreandRobertBoyle: Onthe Spiritof Nature,"Ibid.,XXIII (1962), 451-74. On Boyle and Charleton,see Robert Kargon, "WalterCharleton,Robert Boyle, and the Acceptanceof EpicureanAtomism n England,"Isis, LV (1964), 184-93. Newton's place in this tradition is discussedin HenryGuerlac,Newton et Epicure, Conferencedonnde au Palais de la D6couverte,]e2 Mars 1963 (Paris, 1963).

5See, for example,Harry IHynne o Henry More (August 19, 1671), Christ

CollegeCambridgeMS BB. 6. 7, no. 19, and More'sanswer to him (August 21,



NEWTON ON CYCLICAL COSMOS 327

dangersinherent in a thoroughlymechanizedworld, many Englishphilosopherswould allow neither their growing knowledge of thelaws of motion6 nor the

conceptof inertia

(claimingthat a

bodyin

motion will stay in that state unless disturbed) to persuadethem

that motion couldpersistwithout God'scare.AmongEnglish divinesand natural philosophers,there was a further fear: unless it couldbe shown that God's Providence acted at the present time, somewoulddoubtwhether t had everbeen a forcein the world.Criticizingthe attempt in George Cheyne's PhilosophicalPrinciplesof Natural

Religion (1705) to make motion dependent upon God's will, the

Englishmathematician Brook

Taylor-illustratingthis

danger-wrote:

As we can conceivea portionof Matter,whichnowis, to continuetsbeing without the operation of a Cause, to all Eternity, (for it seemsratherto requirea Cause to make it cease to be, than to continueit) sowe may as easily conceive it to have been from all Eternity, or to havehad no cause of its existence,that is to be Self-Existen[t].7

Taylor extended his argument to the motion of the planets, seeingno reason why this could not have gone on from all eternity.8 Earlier

arguments,similar to Taylor's,had led RichardBentley to attack inhis sermons those who "have asserted, that the same quantity ofmotion is always kept up in the world; which may seem to favourthe opinion of its infinite duration. . . ." 9

This centralproblem,that of the relation of God's Providencetothe mechanismsat the foundationof the new philosophy,thus arose,in part, from a general concernthat the banishmentof Providencefromthe presentworld wouldleadmen to believe that the worldhad

always been without Providence,indeed, had been without Creatoror Creation, asting fromall eternity.Bentley, co-editorof the secondedition of Newton's Principia (1713), changed certain lines in Ed-mundHalley's Odeto Newton, whichhad appearedat the beginningof the first edition, because Bentley thought these lines were open

1671), CambridgeUniversity Library MS Gg. VI. 11, fol. 3r. More and othersmisinterpretedDescarteson the extent of God's concurrence n the phenomenaofnature.

6For this reason, Robert Boyle objected to the very term "law of nature."

(Boyle, ChristianVirtuoso,quoted n JohnRay, The Wisdomof God Manifested nthe Worksof the Creation[London,4th edition, 1704], 56.)

7 [Brook Taylor], Royal Society MS [82], if. 13r-13v.WrittenMarch 1713/14.I am gratefulto the Royal Societyfor permission o use and quote this manuscriptand those mentionedbelow in notes 46 and 52. 8Ibid., fol. 13'.

9Richard Bentley, A Confutationof Atheism (1693) in Works (ed.), Rev.

AlexanderDyce (London, 1838), III, 144.



328 DAVIDKUBRIN

to the interpretationthat the world had always existed.10AlthoughHalley obtained a promisefrom Newton that the Ode would appearin its originalform for the third editionof 1726,the editorof the third

edition, Henry Pemberton,again struck out the offendinglines andleft them in the form of Bentley's innocuousemendation."

Bentley's and Pemberton'sconcernabout the belief in the world's

eternity reflectedseveral decades of argumentby the English hier-

archy against this particularchallenge to orthodoxy.l2These argu-ments had been implicitly directedagainst a few atheists and deistswho were-in conversation, in manuscripts, and even in printedpamphlets-proclaiming the eternity of the world.13Two

yearsafter

his edition of the Principia, in which he persisted in emendingHalley's Ode to Newton, Pemberton wrote an exposition of New-tonian philosophyin which he made the logical connectionbetweenNewton's belief that the world was unwinding and the orthodox

10The variousLatin versionsof the Ode are given in AppendixV of EugeneMacPike (ed.), Correspondence nd Papers of Edmund Halley (London, 1937),reprinted romSir David Brewster,Memoirsof the Life, Writingsand Discoveriesof Sir Isaac Newton (Edinburgh,1855). Neither Halley'snor Newton'spermission

had been obtained for the changes. Halley had written these lines as follows:"... until, the originof things/ He established, he omnipresentCreator,unwillingthe laws/ To violate,He fixed the eternal[my emphasis]foundationsof His work."Bentley changedthem to ". . . until, the originof things / He put together,theall-powerfulCreatorHimself,His laws, / Named; and indeed set the foundationsof His works."

11Ibid. See also Conduitt'smemoirof Newton'spromise o Halley,KingsCollegeCambridge,MS Keynes 30, no. 7, cited in part in AppendixV of Correspondenceand Papers.

12Seeespecially

thejurist

Sir MatthewHale,

ThePrimitive OriginationofMankind,Consideredand ExaminedAccordingto the Light of Nature (London,

1677); the Bishop of Worchester,Edward Stillingfleet,OriginesSacrae, or aRational Account of the Groundsof Christian Faith . . . (London, 1662); theArchbishopof Canterbury,John Tillotson, "The Wisdom of Being Religious,"Works (London,9th edition, 1728), Vol. I, 10. Their argumentswere repeatedbydozens of less eminentwriters.

13 One of these is the anonymousmanuscriptin what appears to be a mid-seventeenthcenturyscriptand style, Wheyre whether] therewereany men beforeAdam?Answre,BM Sloane MS 1115,ff. 15-16. See also the early workby Henry

More, written prior to his disillusionmentwith Cartesianmechanism,DemocritusPlatonissans:oranEssayontheInfinitieof Worldsout of PlatonickPrinciples(Cam-bridge,1646). The idea also is foundin [Isaac de la Peyrere], Men beforeAdam,translated from the Latin (London,1656) and A TheologicalSysteme Upon thatPresvppositionThat Men were beforeAdam, translatedfrom the Latin (London,1655). See also Lady Anne Conway, The Principles of the Most Ancient andModernPhilosophy,ConcerningGod,Christ and the Creatures .. (London,1692),and the work of the deist CharlesBlount, Oraclesof Reason ... (London,1693).In anotherpaper on Halley, I discuss these assertionsof the world'seternity at

greater ength.




position that the world could not be eternal:

I think it not improper to mention a reflection made by our excellent

author [Newton] upon these small inequalities in the planets motions;which contains under it a very strong philosophical argument against the

eternity of the world. It is thus, that these inequalities must continually

increase by slow degree, till they render at length the present frame of

nature unfit for the purposes it now serves. And a more convincing proof

cannot be desired against the present constitutions having existed from

eternity than this, that a certain number of years will bring it to an end.

Chiding Leibniz for his pretension of knowing "all the omniscient

Creator's purposes in making this world . . .," Pemberton arguedthat the Leibnizian position cast "a reflection upon the wisdom of

the author of nature, for framing a perishable work." 14

Newton and Samuel Clarke, in their debate with Leibniz, made

this same point in a more pointed way:

by the same reason that a philosopher can represent all things going on

from the beginning of the creation, without any government or interpositionof providence; a sceptic will easily argue still farther backwards, and

suppose that things have from eternity gone on . . . without any truecreation or author at all, but only what such arguers call all-wise and

eternal nature.15

In his fifth and last letter to Leibniz, Clarke asked rhetorically,

[w]hether my inference from this learned author's [Leibniz] affirming that

the universe cannot diminish in perfection . . . [that] the world must

needs have been . . . eternal, be a just inference or no, I am willing to

leave to the learned . . . to judge.16

To maintain a role for Providence meant providing essential chores

for God to perform, so that He did not rule over a universe able to

exist without Him:

And as those men [said Clarke], who pretend that in an earthly govern-ment things may go on perfectly well without the king himself orderingor disposing of any thing, may reasonably be suspected that they would

like very well to set the king aside ...

14Henry Pemberton,A Viewof Sir Isaac Newton'sPhilosophy(London, 1728),180-81. Leibniz'opinionsare attacked,but he is not named.

15Clarke's irstreplyto Leibniz(Nov. 26, 1715),Leibniz-ClarkeCorrespondence,14.

6 October 29, 1716, Ibid., 113. Compare Newton's draft number 10 of hisletter to the Abate Antonio Conti (February 26, 1716) reprintedin Cohen and

Koyre, op. cit. in note 2, 114: "Andby the same Argumentany man may affirm

... that God createdthe worldfromall Eternity. ..."



330 DAVID KUBRIN

so too those who think that the universe does not constantly need"God'sactual government"but that the laws of mechanismalonewould allow

phenomenato

continue,"in effect tend to exclude God

out of the world." 17

Now, in orderto include God in the world,Newton declared, nthe 1706 Latin Opticks, hat the worldby itself tendedto dissolution,and consequentlyneededperiodicreformationby the Creator.New-

ton, however,not only felt the need for these periodicacts of re-

formation,he later hit upon a possible mechanismby which theycould be performed.This mechanism, ultimately controlledby theProvidential

God,used the

recentlydiscovered

periodicityof comets

to accomplishthe acts of reformationand, in Newton's view, was

part of a complexcosmogony, nvolving the creationand subsequentdevelopmentof stars, planets, moons, and comets, a cosmogonytowhich we now turn.

It is a commonplace hat the Newtonian world-pictureconsistedof a cosmos which since its Creationex nihilo, had remained sub-

stantially the same through the courseof time, changing,if at all,

only insignificantly.It

is, however,a

commonplacewell worth chal-

lenging. There is, to be sure, some evidence to support a static in-

terpretationof the Newtonian cosmos. Did not Newton even dis-

couragespeculationabout the creation,writingin the 31st Queryofthe Opticks that God at the creation set the material universe in

order, and that "if he did so, it's unphilosophicalto seek for anyother Originof the World,or to pretendthat it might arise out of aChaosby the mere Laws of Nature"?18 And did not Newton in hisletters to Richard

Bentleyseek to reassurehim that "rt]he

Hypoth-esis of deriving the Frame of the World by mechanical Principlesfrom Matter evenly spread through the Heavens . . . [is] inconsist-ent with my System .. ."?19 Newton also seemingly discouragedtreatmentsof the developmentof the planetary system. He explicitlyrejectedas erroneousand inconsistentwith his system "the Cartesian

Hypothesisof Suns losing their Light, and then turninginto Comets,and Comets [turning] into Planets. . . ." And Newton similarlydismissedas absurdthe belief in "the Growth of new

Systems [of17Clarke's irst and fifth replies,Leibniz-ClarkeCorrespondence, 4, 117.s8

Opticks, 402.19Written February 11, 1692/93, and reprintedin Isaac Newton, Papers &

Letters on Natural Philosophy,ed. I. B. Cohen (Cambridge,Mass., 1958), 310.20 Newton to Bentley, December10, 1692, Ibid., 283. Descartes held that after

stars lost their light, they wanderedas comets through the heavens. Citation to

Descartes,Les Principesde la Philosophie . . Oeuvresde Descartes,ed. Adam et

Tannery (Paris, 1904), tome 9, article119, 172-73.




the sun and planets] out of old ones, without the Mediation of adivine Power. .,, 21

It isimportant, however,

to notecarefully

Newton'squalifica-tions in the above admonitionsagainst cosmogonies:what appeared

absurdto Newton was the attempt to show how the system of sunand planets could have arisenby mechanicalprinciples"withouttheMediation of a divine Power."If accomplishedby the will of sucha power,either directly or indirectly,such attempts were allowable.Similartreatmentsof the developmentof the alreadycreatedcosmoswere also acceptable. When Thomas Burnet in 1680 sent Newtonan attempt to show how God could have

accomplishedhe creation

of the Earth by mechanicalprinciples,Newton was in generalsym-pathy with the treatise.22He suggestedto Burnet severalalternativemechanismsby which the surfaceof the Earth could have been putinto its present uneven form,with its numerouscaverns,mountains,seas, and rivers. He also discussed with Burnet the possibility ofmechanismsby which the rotationof the Earth could graduallyhavebeen increasedduringthe six days of the Mosaic Creation,so thatCreationcould have taken

longerthan what are now six

days.23n

addition,Newton later encouragedhis disciple,WilliamWhiston,towrite a treatise on the Creation of the Earth.24

We must turn elsewhere to find the development of Newton'scosmogony, for he nowhere followed up his early suggestions toBurnet, and he did not enter later into the controversysurroundingthe treatisesby Burnet and Whiston.We turn to the seeminglyun-related concernwhich Newton had for the problemof renewingthesources, whatever

they were,of

heat, motion,and other forms of

activity found in nature. At various times Newton suggested thatthis renewalwas accomplishedby certain aetherealspirits. At othertimes, he suggestedthat it was performedby what he called "activeprinciples,"an agency Newton insisted was necessary in order toreintroducesome principle of activity into nature to act on thematter which the Cartesianmechanicalphilosophy had made dead

21Newton to Bentley, (Feb. 25, 1692/93), Ibid., 302. Professor MauriceMandelbaumhas

suggestedto me that

manyof these statements

of Newton werepossiblyexpressionsmoreof his hostilityto Cartesianismhan to cosmogony.22 Sir David Brewster,Memoirsof the Life, WritingsandDiscoveriesof Sir Isaac

Newton,Vol. II, 99-101.Two letters fromNewton,of whichone has been lost, andone fromBurnet,quotingpart of the lost letter,wereexchanged.See IsaacNewton,The Correspondenceed.) H. W. Turnbull (Cambridge,1959-), Vol. II, 319-35.

2 Ibid., 322, 329-31, 333-34. In the case of the slow increaseof the Earth'srotation,Newton did not think a mechanism o accomplish his could be found.

24 WilliamWhiston,Memoirsof the Life and Writingsof WilliamWhiston. ..(London,2nd ed., 1753), I, 38-39.



332 DAVIDKUBRIN

and passive. Newton first introduced this concept in the Queriestothe 1706 Latin Opticks,insisting that from the vis inertiae, a mere

passive principleof bodies,there couldbe no motion in the world;25

for both the beginningsand the conservationof motion, some other,active, principleswere necessary.Newton saw such active principlesin the causesof gravity, fermentation, ight, heat, cohesion,and life.

If the amount of motion and activity decreasedwithout beingrenewed, there would be an eventual cessation of the various

phenomenathey generated,and all bodies would become cold, lifewouldcease,and "the Planets and Cometswould not remainin theirOrbs." 6 Newton thus apparentlyassociatedthe loss of the amountof motion with. the increasing rregularitiesarisingfrom the mutualattractions of the planets. When he later suggesteda mechanismbywhichthe planetaryorbscouldbe reformed, hat mechanismwas alsoassociatedwith replenishing he motion and activity in the cosmos.

This reformation,however, was to be of more than physicalsignificance;not only would t reform he planetaryorbsandreplenishthe amount of motion in the cosmos,but it was meant to provide,as

promised n the Apocalyptictradition,for the new Earthto ariseafterthe Millenium.As a student at Cambridgen the 1660's,in the con-

eludingpart of his earliest surviving notebook,Newton had writtenof the Earth, "Its conflagration estified 2 Peter 3d [chapter], vers6, 7, 10, 11, 12.... The successionof worlds, probablefrom Pet 3c.13. .... 27But how was this succession to be carried out? Newtonwrote to Burnet in 1680 that probably"all ye [the] Planets aboutourSun werecreatedtogether,therebeingin no history any mentionof new ones appearingor old ones ceasing." 8 By 1694,Newton hadconceivedof a possiblesourcefor new planets,and he told his disciple

25Opticks, 397.

26Ibid., 399-401. This was addedto the 1717 secondEnglishedition.Newton's

concept of active principleschangedsometimeafter 1706. When in 1717 he re-vived his earlier aetherealspeculationsin order to suggest a possible cause forgravity, he tended to use the concept of the aether and that of active principlesinterchangeably.n effectwhat had earlier been metaphysical,now had a materialbasis in the aether.Throughouthis life, however,it was both the aether and theactive principles,and the later marriageof the

two,which fulfilledthe

importanttask of replenishing he sources of activity.27Isaac Newton, "Of Earth," in Qu[a]estiones quaedamPhilosophiae,Cam-

bridgeAdd. MS 3996,fol. 101r.RichardS. Westfall,"TheFoundationsof Newton's

Philosophyof Nature,"(BritishJournal or the History of Science [1962] part II,no. 2: 171-82) suggeststhat this early notebook of Newton's was begun in early1664. Newton's interests in the Apocalyptic tradition continued; for example,"De Millenioac Die Judicij,"A ComnPlace Book of Sr Is: Newton,Kings College,CambridgeMS, Keynes 2, 21.

28 The Correspondence,I, 332.




David Gregory that"[t]he Satellites of Jupiter and Saturn can take

the places of the Earth, Venus, Mars if they are destroyed, and beheld in reserve for a new Creation." 29Some thirty years later, New-

ton greatly elaborated the suggestion he had made to Gregory. As

John Conduitt related, Newton told him at the end of 1724, that

it was his [Newton's] conjecture . .. that there was a sort of revolution

in the heavenly bodies . . . that the vapours & light emitted by the sun

. . . gathered themselves by degrees, into a body ... & at last made a

secondary planett [that is, a moon] . . . & then by gathering . . . more

matter becamea primaryplanet; & then by increasingstill becamea cometwch [eventually] . . .became a matter set to recruit & replenish the

Sun... 30

Such a "revolution in the heavenly bodies" could account for the

succession of worlds, and guided by "the direction of the supreme

being," 31 the system would undergo a reformation and have its

quantity of motion restored.

This was the cosmogony that Newton held in his final years. It is

instructive to see the development of these ideas, for the younger

Newton had neither perceived this same solution, nor indeed recog-nized the problems which would engender this solution. Though a

skeletal outline of his final ideas had been formulated relatively early,it was not until the second edition of the Principia in 1713 that theflesh of these ideas appeared in something approaching their finalform. In Newton's hypothesis of an aethereal mechanism to accountfor gravity-a mechanism tried and then rejected in his privatemanuscripts and letters, only to be revived by him at last in the 1717

edition of his Opticks 32-this skeletal outline can be found. But whenhe first proposed this aethereal hypothesis for gravity about 1664,Newton did not believe that the amount of motion in the world

29Memorandum y Gregory (May 5-7, 1694), Ibid., III, 336.Gregory'svisits to

Newton,after whichhe madenumerousmemoranda elatingwhat Newtonhad toldhim, form an invaluablesourcefor Newton'sideas,since Newton himselfwas loathto publishanythingthat might bringon controversy.

Memorandumby Conduitt,Kings College,CambridgeMS, Keynes 130, no.11.The memorandumwillbe discussedat lengthbelow. 31Ibid.

32 See the papers of Henry Guerlac,Newton et Epicure; "Sir Isaac and theIngenious Mr. Hauksbee," MIlanges AlexandreKoyre (Paris, 1964); "FrancisHauksbee: experimentateurau profit de Newton," Arch. int. d'hist. des sciencesXVI (1963), 119-28. I am very much indebted to ProfessorGuerlacfor allowingme to use his copies of manuscriptdrafts by Newton for the Queriesto theOpticks, for bringingto my attention the numerous mportant changesbetweenthe variouseditionsof the Opticks,and, in general,for introducingme as a studentin his seminarat CornellUniversity to Newton's problems regardinggravitationand the aether.



334 DAVID KUBRIN

tended to decrease. On the contrary, throughout the manuscriptQu[a]estionesquaedamPhilosophiae n whichhis aetherealhypothe-sis first

appeared,Newton went so far as to

suggestvarious

waysin

which one could obtain perpetualmotion.33Later in his career,however, as we have seen, Newton came to

hold that the amount of motion in the worlddoes tend to decrease.The first clear reference to this appearedonly in the Latin Opticksof 1706,but some related forms of "decay" n nature had appearedearlierin the 1687Principia.He was led to this conceptof decay, atleast in part, by his growingrealization that a mechanicaluniversein which the amount of motion remainedthe same could be used

byatheists to argue against the existence of a Deity.34Once he haddecidedthat the amountof motiondiddecrease,Newton turnedto hisearlieraetherealhypothesisfor an indicationof a mechanismby whichthe amount of motion in the world could be renewed.Newton wasable to indicatesuch a mechanismonly after the writingof the secondedition of the Principia.The remainderof this paperwill be concernedwith the developmentof Newton's ideas on this renewalof the cos-

mos; I shalltry

to show how he becameawareof theproblems

andin what ways he was led to the solutions which make up his cos-

mogony.Newton's aethereal hypothesis for gravity, in one of its forms,

picturedthe Earth like a sponge,drinkingup the constant stream offine aethereal matter falling from the heavens, this stream by its

impact on bodies above the Earth causing them to descend.35To

prevent the Earth from becoming larger and larger as the aether

accumulated,Newtonsuggested

that theaether,having

fallen on the

Earth, changed ts form,and then ascendedagain into the heavens.36As Newton suggestedin an hypothesis concerningthe propertiesof

light which he sent to Henry Oldenburg n 1675, nature seemed tohave its originin the transmutationsof certainaetherealspirits intodifferent orms:

Perhapsthe whole frame of Nature [Newtonwrote to Oldenburg]may be

nothingbut various Contexturesof some certaineaethereallSpirits or va-

pours condens'das it were by praecipitation,much after the mannerthatvapours are condensed into water or exhalations into grosser Sub-33

Newton, Qu[a]estionesquaedamPhilosophia, f. 97r, 102r,121'.34As a student at Cambridge,Newton had read Henry More, who warned

against this tendency; Newton referredto More in his Qu[a]estiones quaedamPhilosophia.In addition,see Newton'sand Clarke'sstatementsabove, n. 15.

35Newton, "Questiones . .. Of Gravity & Levity," Qu[a]estiones quaedamPhilosophiae,CambridgeAdd. MS 3996, ff. 97r, 121r.Newton to Oldenburg, Dec.7, 1675,) The Correspondence,, 366.

36CambridgeAdd. MS 3996, fol. 97r; The Correspondence,, 366.




stances...; and after condensationwrought nto variousformes.... Thus

perhapsmay all things be originatedfrom aether.37

Newton indicated how there followed from this the possibility oftransformations back and forth between these various states, so that

spiritous matter in space would be absorbed by the thirsty Earth,while gross matter in the bowels of the Earth would be changed to anaereal and then to an aethereal form as it rose first into the atmos-

phere and then into the heavens:

naturemakeinga circulationby the slow ascent of as much matter out ofthe bowells of the Earth in an aereall forme weh for a time constitutes

the Atmosphere,but being continuallyboyed up by the new Air, Exhala-tions, & Vapoursriseing underneath,at length . . . vanishes againe intothe aethereallSpaces, & there perhapsin time ... is attenuated into itsfirst principle. . . 38

From the functions given by Newton to the aethereal matter, itis clear that it served, as would later what he came to call "active

principles," as the source of motion and activity in the cosmos. Thisaethereal source of activity was perpetually being circulated.

For natureis a perpetuallcirculatoryworker,generating luids out of solids,and solids out of fluids,fixedthings out of volatile, &volatile out of fixed,subtile out of gross,& grossout of subtile,Some things to ascend,& makethe upperterrestriall uices, Rivers, and the Atmosphere;& by consequenceothersto descendfor a Requitall to the former.And as the Earth, so per-haps may the Sun imbibe this Spirit copiouslyto conserve his Shineing,&keep the Planets fromrecedeing urtherfromhim.And they that will, mayalso suppose, that this Spirit affordsor carryeswith it thither the solary

fewell & materiallPrincipleof Light; And that the vast aethereallSpacesbetweenus, & the stars are for a sufficientrepository for this food of theSunn & Planets.9 [Emphasis mine.]

The paper to Oldenburg was written in late 1675; by 1687 whenhe wrote his Principia, Newton was evidently less convinced of theexistence of aethereal mechanisms in nature, for nothing was saidof either the aether or these mechanisms in the Principia. Newton, in

avoiding this spiritous aether dispersed through space, turned his

attention instead to another possible means of achieving a circulationof the sources of motion. This means he found in comets, a new mem-ber of the celestial machinery, using them as a causal instruments.

As late as the early 1680's, Newton had not been convinced of the

periodic nature of comets. In 1680/81 he argued against the astrono-mer John Flamsteed's contention that the two appearances of comets

87Newton's paper was entitled "An Hypothesis explainingthe PropertiesofLight."Newton to Oldenburg,The Correspondence,, 364.

88Ibid., 366. 39Ibid.



336 DAVIDKUBRIN

in that year on either side of the sun were from one and the same

body.40 By the time of his Principia, however, Newton believed that

comets, like other bodies of the sun's system, moved around the sunin orbits corresponding to the conic sections.41 Perhaps the most

striking aspect of the appearances of the comets was their tails; thesewere able to grow in the short time that comets were visible from a

mere two or three degrees to fifty or sixty degrees in angular length.Indeed, whatever made up these tails must be a rare and subtle formof matter. There is a tendency, Newton noted in the first edition ofthe Principia, for the matter of these tails slowly to dissipate into

space, so that it was

scatteredthroughthe whole heavens,and by little and little . . attractedtowards the planets by its gravity, and mixed with their atmosphere; . .for the conservationof the seas, and fluids of the planets, comets seem tobe required, hat, fromtheir exhalationsand vapors condensed, he wastesof the planetary fluids spent upon vegetation and putrefaction,and con-verted into dry earth, may be continually supplied and made up; ...and hence it is that the bulk of the solid earth is continually increased;[emphasismine] and the fluids, if they are not supplied from without,must be in continualdecrease,and quite fail at last. I suspect,moreover,that it is chiefly from the comets that spirit comes, which is indeed thesmallest but most subtle and useful part of our air, and so much requiredto sustain the life of all things with us.42

Rather than abandon his earlier conjectures to Oldenburg, which werebased on the aether, Newton simply altered the conjectures slightly.In the 1675 paper the circulation throughout the heavens of aetherealmatter was the mechanism which renewed motion and activity in

the cosmos; but in 1687 Newton suggested that the circulation of thetails of comets performed this function.

Two significant changes in Newton's outlook had taken place,however. In his paper to Oldenburg, Newton had suggested a mecha-nism to recruit new fuel for the sun and stars as well as for the Earth,but no such mechanism was described in the first edition of the

Principia; only the Earth was replenished. Since the tails of comets,at their longest when near the sun, were always found pointing awayfrom the sun, Newton inferred that there was a force overcoming the

40See his correspondencewith Flamsteed (Feb. 28, 1680/81) The Correspond-ence,II, 340-47, and (Sept. 18, 1685), Ibid., 419-21. At the time of the latter letter,Newton was writingthe Principia.See in additionthe notes to Flamsteed's etterto Newton (Dec. 15, 1680), Ibid., 315-17.

41 At first Newton thoughtthese wouldbe parabolas,but by the secondeditionof the Principiahe believedthat they were elongatedellipses.

42Newton, Philosophiaenaturalisprincipiamathematica (London,1687), 506.I have used the

Motte-Cajoritranslationin Mathematical

Principles of NaturalPhilosophy ... (Berkeley, 1960), 529-30.




gravitational attraction of the sun and stars for these rare vapors.Such a force prevented the vapors from replenishing the sun andstars.43 There was another

changein the

Principiafrom his

1675letter, in which the Earth had been pictured as absorbing aether fromthe heavens and giving up aereal matter to the heavens, "Some

things to ascend . . . and by consequence others to descend for a

Requitall to the former."44 But this balance claimed to exist betweenthe matter being lost and that being gained no longer was acceptedin the Principia of 1687, where Newton now claimed that "the bulkof the solid earth is continually increased. . . ."45

By thesechanges,

Newton for the first timesuggested

that thecosmos was a machine that was unwinding. Nature in 1675 had beena "perpetual worker." In 1687, by implication, nature would have its

period: at a certain time the sun and stars, not being replenished,would lose their fuel; at a certain time also the Earth would have soincreased in size that she would no longer fit harmoniously in the

present system with the sun and moon. It is not certain that Newtonnoticed these implications of his Principia immediately. But by 1694,he realized that the Earth's

systemwould

change dynamicallyin the

course of time:

Halley say'd that Mr.Newton had lately told him, That there was reasonto ConcludeThat the bulk of the Earth did grow and increase . . . bythe perpetuallAccessionof New particles attracted out of the Ether byits Gravitatingpower,and he [Halley] Supposed. . . That this Encreseof the Moles of the Earth would occasion an Acceleration of the Moons

Motion, she being at this time Attracted by a StrongerVis Centripetathan in remoteAges.46

It was twelve years later, in the 1706 Queries to the Latin

Opticks, that the various ways in which Newton believed nature torun down were, for the first time, made explicit and developed at

length. For the first time Newton emphasized the increasing irregular-ities in motions of the planets, which he thought would lead to an endof things if not reformed.47For the first time also, he mentioned the

tendency for the amount of motion in the world to diminish, whichhe thought would lead to an end of

thingsif not

replenished:... Motionis moreapt to be lost than got, and is always uponthe Decay.. . . Seeingtherefore the variety of Motion which we find in the Worldisalways decreasing,there is a necessity of conservingand recruiting t byactive Principles...48

43 Newton,MathematicalPrinciplesof NaturalPhilosophy,522-29.44 Newton, The Correspondence,, 366. 45 Newton,Principia(1687), 506:

MathematicalPrinciplesof NaturalPhilosophy,530.46Journal Book of the Royal Society, Oct. 31, 1694. Newton mentionedthis

idea in the 2nd editionof the Principia,481, but omittedit in the 3rd edition.47

Opticks,402. 48 Ibid., 398-399.



338 DAVIDKUBRIN

To Bentley Newton had written in 1692 that the frame of nature

impliedGodand His Providence.49n 1706he made explicit the waysGod and His Providence were indeed essential. Without His Provi-

dence, Newton emphasized, he world could not long continue.But the questionstill remainedhow God was to accomplishthis

renewalof motion and this reformationof the planetaryorbits. Wasthis to be doneby a directfiat orwas it to be by God'susingsecondarymechanisms?"Wherenatural causes are at hand God uses them asinstruments n his works,but I doe not think them alone sufficientfor ye creation . .. ," Newton had written Burnet in 1680.50Nor did

natural causes alone seem sufficient for thereformation,

for thatwouldseeminglydefeat the wholepurposeof requiringa reformation.

From 1692 to 1706 Newton was uncertain about the extent ofGod's role in naturalphenomena.To Bentley he had written

Gravitymustbecausedby anAgentactingconstantly ccordingo certainLaws;but whether his Agentbe materialor immaterial, have left tothe Considerationf my Readers.61

The attempt by Newton's friend Fatio de Duillier to provide a

mechanicalexplanationfor gravity based on the aether met neitherwith Newton'soutright approvalnor with his cleardisapproval;whileinterested in the possibilitiesof such an explanation,he was moreattractedto the suppositionthat gravity was implanted n matter byGod.62Newton was also ambiguousabout the meansby which motionwas initiated.In 1706,he suggestedthat all motion in the world aroseeither throughthe effectsof the active principlesor by "the dictates

49Letters to Bentley in Isaac Newton,Papers& Letterson NaturalPhilosophy,284-87,298,306, 311.

50Newton,The Correspondence,I, 334.51Feb. 25, 1692/93, Papers & Letters on Natural Philosophy,303.52 Fatio's hypothesishas been reprintedalong with a commentaryby Bernard

Gagnebinin Notes and Records of the Royal Society VI (1949), 106-60. It isdescribedby Gregory n a memorandumDec. 28, 1691), The Correspondence,II,191. Gregory's ast line in this memorandum, elling of Newton's amusementatFatio's hypothesis,was addedat some date later than the originalentry, for it isin a different nk and is written off to one side. (Royal Society MS Gregory,fol.

71v.) See also the letter of Fatio to De Beyrie to be forwarded o Leibniz (March30, 1694), The Correspondence,II, 309. Newton came more and more to believe,in this period,that gravity was probablycausedby the will of God. See Gregory'smemorandum f Dec. 21, 1705,WalterHiscock (ed.), David Gregory,Isaac New-ton and their Circle; Extracts from David Gregory'smemoranda 1677-1708

(Oxford,1937), 29-30, and the quotationfrom Fatio given in The Correspondence,III, 70 nl. While Newton was tempted to think that God might be the directcause of gravity, his disciples Clarke,Whiston,Bentley, and John Freind all ex-

plicitly committedthemselvesto an immaterialcause for gravity. See in additionto their works the excellent book by Helene Metzger, Attraction Universelleet

ReligionNaturelle chez quelquescommentateurs nglaisde Newton (Paris, 1938).




of a will;" 53the latter in Newton's sense could be either the will of

an individualinfluencing he movementsof his own body or the will

of the Deity who has powerover the world of matter.54In the decade following 1706, Newton changed his mind about

God's role, and, resolving his ambiguity, began to commit himself

to seemingly mechanical means. At the beginning of the 1717 edition

of the Opticks, Newton wrote that he had added some indications of

how gravity might be the result of an aethereal mechanism ". . to

shew that I do not take Gravity for an essential Property of Bodies

...." 55Similarly, he now attributed motion only to the effects of an

activeprinciple,

now in effectmaterialized, instead of to a meta-

physical active principle, or dictates of a will, as he had in 1706.56

Not only were the underlying causes of gravity and motion in

general seemingly mechanical in his opinion, but sometime in the

same period he similarly conceived a natural mechanism by which

God could reform the system of sun and planets and renew the active

principles in the cosmos. Whatever the reasons for his change of mind

regarding gravity and motion,57his discovery of a mechanism to re-

new and reform the cosmos seemsto have

arisen from his work in

preparing the second edition of the Principia. There he extended his

theory of the motion of heavenly bodies to show more precisely how

comets moved, using, he wrote, "more examples of the calculation of

their orbits, done also with greater accuracy."58 In the first edition

of the Principia, Newton had indicated a cometary mechanism which

served to replenish the vapors and spirits lost by the planets, but the

same mechanism could not have worked for the sun or stars. In the

new work on comets for the secondedition,

he was struckby

howclose some comets came to the sun, and by the possibilitythat such

comets, if disturbedslightly in their orbits, might fall from their

regularorbits into the body of the sun. The regularityand perma-nenceof comets'orbits,so recentlyestablished,had turnedout to besomewhat dubious. To the second edition of the Principia Newtonadded a new paragraph:

The comet which appeared n the year 1680was in its perihelion ess dis-

tant fromthe sun than by a sixth part of the sun's diameter;and becauseof its extremevelocity in that proximity. .. and some density of the sun's

atmosphere, t must have sufferedsome resistance and retardation;and

53 H. G. Alexander,"Introduction,"Leibniz-ClarkeCorrespondence,viii.54CambridgeUniversity Library Add. MS 3970, fol. 619r. I wish to thank

ProfessorHenry Guerlacfor drawing my attention to this MS, and allowingmeto consulthis copy of it.

55Opticks,cxv. 56 bid., 399.57Reasonshave been suggestedby Henry Guerlac;cf. above,note 32.58 MathematicalPrinciplesof Natural Philosophy,xix.



340 DAVIDKUBRIN

therefore,being attractedsomewhat nearerto the sun in every revolution,will at last fall downuponthe body of the sun.Nay, in its aphelion,where

it moves the slowest, it may sometimeshappento be yet furtherretarded

by the attractionsof other comets, and in consequenceof this retardationdescendto the sun. So fixed stars, that have been graduallywasted by the

light and vapors emitted from them for a long time, may be recruitedbycomets that fall upon them... .59 [my emphasis.]

Such recruiting of the fuel of stars, Newton suggested, might enable

the stars to shine suddenly with new brilliance, explaining the puz-

zling occasional sudden appearances of new stars in the heavens.60

With comets now apt to fall occasionally into stars, the stars' and

planets' sources of motion and activity might well be replenished.And thus once more, as in his 1675 paper to Oldenburg, there was a

continuous circulation of spiritous matter reaching to all parts of the

cosmos, and nature once more was a "perpetual circulatory worker."

Newton went further, working out a complete theory of the cycles of

the cosmos. The cycles of his theory turned upside down the Cartesian

hypothesis-which Newton had rejected in his letter to Bentley 61

of suns turning into comets, and comets, in turn, becoming planets.Newton's cosmogony now accounted both for the creation of thecosmos and for the cyclical development of the already created cosmos.

He was able to account for both the periodic recruiting of motion and

activity for the sun and planets and the "reformations" necessary to

reset the system from time to time.

In a conversation with John Conduitt in March 1724/25, some

six years after the second edition of the Principia, Newton made

Conduitt privy to his ideas:

[Newtonrepeated]what he had often hintedto me before,viz. that it washis conjecture(he would affirmnothing) that there was a sort of revolutionin the heavenlybodies that the vapours&light62 emittedby the sun whichhad their sediment in water and other matter, had gatheredthemselves

by degreesin to a body & attractedmore matter from the planets & atlast made a secondary planett (viz one of those that go round another

planet) & then by gatheringto them & attractingmore matter became a

primary planet, & then by increasing still became a comet wCh after

certain revolutionsby comingnearer & nearerthe sun had all its volatileparts condensed& becamea matter set to recruit &replenishthe Sun . . .& that would probably be the effect of the comet in 1680 sooner orlater.. .. 63

59Philosophiae naturalis principia mathematica (Cambridge, 1713), 481;MathematicalPrinciplesof Natural Philosophy,540-41.

60Ibid. 61See above, note 20.62 Conduittcrossedout "gathered."

63Memorandum y Conduitt,Kings College,CambridgeMS, Keynes130,no. 11.




Newton had told David Gregory in 1694 how the satellites of

Jupiter and Saturn "can take the places of the Earth, Venus, Mars

if they are destroyed, and be held in reserve for a new Creation."64

Gregory probably later learned from Newton how his cometary mech-anism could accomplish this celestial transmigration, for in Gregory'sElements of Physical & Geometrical Astronomy, he told how comets

could cause such a change of a moon into a planet:

Theremay also be anotherEffect or Use of a Comet.Namely, if a Comet

passes near a Planet ... it will so attract it that its Orbitwill be chang'd. . . whence the Planet's Period will also be chang'd.But the Cometmayalso

byits Attraction so disturb the

Satellite,as to make it leave its

PrimaryPlanet and itself become a PrimaryPlanet about the Sun . ..65

In a similar manner, one imagines a planet could be so disturbed in

its orbit as to become a comet, as Newton had also indicated toConduitt. Newton also told Conduitt of the eventual replenishmentof the sun by the comet of 1680,

that he could not say when this comet would drop in to the sun it mightperhapshave 5 or 6 revolutionsmorefirst, but whenever t did it would66

so muchencreasethe heat of the Sun that this earth would be burnt &noanimals in this earth could live. . ..67

Newton added that it was his belief that the new stars seen by

This memorandumhas been printed with some changes in Edmund Tumor,Collectionsor the Historyof the Town andSokeof Grantham ontainingAuthenticMemoirsof Sir Isaac Newton (London,1806), 172-73.

64 See above,note 29.65

David Gregory,The Elements of Physical & GeometricalAstronomy (Lon-don, 17262), II, 853. Gregorymight also have obtainedthis suggestedmechanismfrom Whiston,A New Theoryof the Earth (London, 1696). It is not clear whofirst decidedthat comets could serve to recruit the active principleslost by the

sun, as well as those lost by the planets. Gregory'sAstronomiaePhysicae &GeometricaeElementa (Oxford,1702), 481, from which the above was translated,expressedthe idea before Newton did in the secondedition of his Principia.It ispossiblethat Newton got the idea from Gregory.It is also possiblethat Newton,who was planningfrom the early 1690'sto put out a new edition of the Principia,found,well before 1713,the supposedtendencyof cometsto fall into the

sun,and

told Gregoryabout it. Gregory'sbook was in fact used by Newton to publishhisown short discourseon how the ancientsagreedthat gravity existed. This discoursewas insertedinto the PrefaceunderGregory'sname, althoughit had been writtenby Newton. (JamesGregory,"Noticeconcerningan AutographManuscriptby SirIsaacNewton ... ," Transactions f the Royal Society of Edinburgh,XII [1830]1,64-77.) The issue of priorityis of small matter, however,for the idea was pickedup by Newton'svariouscommentators nd disciplesand attributedto him, and hiscontemporaries new it as his idea not Gregory's.

66 Conduittcrossedout "occasion."

67Kings College,CambridgeMS, Keynes 130, no. 11.



342 DAVID KUBRIN

Hipparchus,Tycho, and Keplerwerereally the effectsof the increaseof light of regularstars occasionedby such a comet.68

Such revolutions n the heavens,replenishing

stars andprovidinga cycle amongthe heavenlybodies,wereaccomplishedby mechanical

means,but Newton believedthat they wereunderdivine supervision.

He69 seemed to70 doubt [whether?]there were not intelligent beings su-

periorto us who superintendedhese revolutions of the 71 heavenly bodies

by the direction of the supremebeing. . .72

Of course,such a complexmachineryas Newton was describingcouldnot be without divine guidance.For the comets to pass by the moons

or planets only after their size had so increased hat they were fit tobe changedinto anothertype of body (planet or comet, as the case

may be) and for this, in turn, to occurat the times when new crea-tions wereneeded to take the place of an earth or a Venus destroyedin the Apocalypse-all this would require the utmost attention tocoordinate.

Such coordinationby the Creatorwould indeed requirethat He

be, as Newton had describedHim in a letter to Bentley, "very well

skilled in Mechanicks and Geometry."73And we can understandNewton's insistence that comets, moving in orbits quite differentfromthose of planets,have uses quite differentfrom those of planetsin the schemeof things.74For to Newton, as to his friendsHalley 75

and Whiston,76comets were instruments of the divine will. ForNewton the cometswereinstrumentswhich God used to reconstitutethe cosmos; for Halley, comets wereinstrumentsused to bringaboutthe Noachiandeluge,and for Whiston,the fundamentalbasis for the

Creation,deluge,and conflagrationas well as for the variouschangesto the Earth which took place after Adam'sFall. Newton believedthat such a reconstitutionby comets had occurred n the past andwas likely to occurin the future.

68Ibid. He later included this in the third edition of the Principia (1726),(MathematicalPrinciples of Natural Philosophy,541-42.)

69Conduittcrossedout "said he di." 70 Conduitt crossedout "think."71 Conduittcrossedout "planet."72

Kings College,CambridgeMS, Keynes 130, no. 11.78Dec. 10, 1692,in Papers& Letters on NaturalPhilosophy,287.74Opticks,369.Memorandum y Gregory,May 5-7, 1694; The Correspondence,

III, 336.75

Halley, "The Obliquityof the Ecliptick and Elevation of the Pole continueunaltered,"PhilosophicalTransactions . . Abridged. . . ed. John Lowthorp,I(London,5th ed., 1749),*263-65; Halley,"Of the cause of the universaldeluge...."Ibid., ed. Reid and Gray,vol. VI, part 2 (London,1st ed., 1733),38-41. Halleyhadbegunto suggesthis ideason comets as early as 1686/87.

76WilliamWhiston,A New Theoryof the Earth . . . (London,5th ed., 1737)Book II, passim.The first editionappeared n 1696.




He seemed to be very clearly of the opinion that the inhabitantsof thisearth were of a short date & alledgedas one reason for that opinion thatall arts as letters . . . printing needle &c were discoverd within the mem-

ory of History wchcould not have happened f the world had been eternal:& that there were visible marks of ruin upon it wch could not be effected

by a floodonly, whenI askedhim how this earthcouldhave been repeopledif ever it had undergonethe same fate it was threatenedwith hereafter

by the Comet of 1680, he answeredthat requiredthe power of a Cre-ator.. . 77

When Conduitt asked Newton why he did not make these ideas

public, Newton answered somewhat characteristically that he would

not, because, "I do not deal in conjectures. . . 78 Conduitt men-

tioned, however, the passage in the second edition of the Principia

where, after noting the close approach to the sun by the comet of

1680, Newton had suggested that the fixed stars could be replenishedby comets falling into them.79 Conduitt relates:

I observingthat he [Newton] said there of that comet [of 1680] incidentin corpus solis, & in the next paragraphadds stellae fixae refici poss[unt]&c told him I thoughthe owned there what wee had been talking about-viz. that the Comet would drop into the sun, & that fixed stars were re-cruited & replenishedby Comets when they dropt in to them, & conse-

quently the sun would be recruitedtoo & asked him, why he would notown as freely what he thought of the Sun as well as what he thought ofthe fixed stars-he said that concernedus more,& laughingadded he hadsaid enough for people to know his meaning. .. .80

"That concerned us more . . ."-Newton felt free to express hisideas as they applied to a system of stars and planets far removedfrom us, but felt that to speak openly of the system of our sun and

planets was not advisable. For Newton's ideas implied the existenceof Earths before this one, with the presence of races of man before

Adam, and it was probable that the creation of the Earth describedin Genesis was only one in a series of creations. Carrying the impli-cations even further, an orthodox divine might have seen in Newton's

conjectures the belief that the world in one form or another hadexisted from all eternity.81

This, indeed, was the danger in the attempt by Newton-and bycertain of his contemporaries-to enforce the belief in God's Provi-dence by showing how, at regular intervals, He must intervene inthe mechanisms of the world: such an assertion of intervention, or

77Kings College,CambridgeMS, Keynes 130,no. 11. 78 Ibd.79See above.80Kings College,CambridgeMS, Keynes 130, no. 11. This endedthe conversa-

tion.

81For example,Bentley, Confutationof Atheismin Works,III, 65.



344 DAVIDKUBRIN

re-creationfrom time to time, tended to lead to the inferencethata series of Earths have existed from eternity, each one arisingout ofthe ruins of its

predecessor.Paradoxically,t had been the fear

ofthis very notion of an eternalEarth whichhad promptedthe Englishphilosophers'concern to demonstratethat God's Providence acted

continuously. Such, it seems, was the almost inevitable conflictbetween natural philosophy and religion in XVIIth- and earlyXVIIIth-centuryEngland,a conflict not between reason and revela-tion so much as between a mechanisticphilosophyand a Providen-tial God.

To besure,

each newEarth, according

oNewton,

arose out ofa past Earth only through"the Mediationof a divine Power."82Butthe necessity for that mediation could and would be overlookedbythose deists, sceptics,and atheists who wishedto use the mechanicalmeans provided by Newton and certain of his contemporaries oshow that no other divine means were at all necessary.In fact, some

amongNewton'sfriends werethought to have so negatedProvidence.Edmund Halley, whose lines in the Ode at the beginning of thePrincipiahad been

changedbecause

theyseemed to

implysuch an

eternity of the world, had failed in 1694 to obtain the position ofSavilian Professorof Astronomyat Oxfordbecause the ecclesiasticalauthorities thought Halley "guilty of asserting the eternity of theworld."83Newton, who had kept his own unorthodoxquestioningof the divinity of Christ secret in order not to lose his position at

Cambridge,would not jeopardizethat position by disclosinghis un-orthodoxcosmogony.

Conclusion

Although Newton was unwilling explicitly to indicate his cos-

mogonic speculations, I think it clear that he did entertain suchideas. He was led to these ideas as a result of his belief that thecosmosdeclinedin its powersand regularity,a belief he sharedwith

many other Englishmen.Thus he hoped to avoid the doctrineof theworld's eternity. Once having decided that the cosmos declined,Newton sought a mechanismby which the Creator at times couldrenew the amount of motion and the

regularityof the

motions ofthe heavenly bodies.He found such a mechanism n comets.Havingshown how comets could account for the circulationof the sourcesof motion, he then showed how they could account for changes inthe bodies of the sun's system. This vision of the cosmos explained

82See above, note 21.

83Halley to AbrahamHill (June 22, 1691), Correspondence nd Papers ofEdmundHalley, 88. Halley'sbelief in this unorthodox dea of the eternity of theworld, the way in which it influencedhis astronomicalresearches,and his con-

troversies with the ecclesiasticalauthoritiesbecause of these beliefs will be thesubjectof a later paper.




not merely the renewal of the amount of motion but also the con-tinual cyclicalre-creationof the system and its subsequent develop-ment in time until the momentof the next creation.

This being so, two widespread nterpretationsof XVIIth-centuryscientificthoughtseemopen to reconsideration.The firstis that givenby the late R. F. Jonesin his Ancientsand Moderns,A Study of theRise of the ScientificMovement in Seventeenth-CenturyEngland;here he characterized he scientificrevolution as proceeding rom the

energyreleasedby man'snew-found confidence n his powersof rea-son once the notion of the world'sdecay had been abandoned.84uchan

interpretation gnoresthe fact that in

XVIIth-century Englandthe idea of the declineof the world meant not that the worldwould

end in an ignoble dissolution,but rather, that the Millenium andsecond coming of Christ was at hand.85Even at the end of theXVIIth century,millenialthought was still quite widespreadn Eng-land. The various treatiseson world-makingwritten near the end of

the centuryby Burnet,JohnRay, and Whiston wereall concernednot

only with the creation,but also with the future conflagration f theworld and the millenium associatedwith it. In additionto the mil-lenial aspects of his cosmogony,Newton dealt with the future mil-lenium in his theologicalwritings.86Those who anticipatedthe mil-lenium did so with optimismrather than pessimism.This optimisticmillenialism s associated,no doubt,with primitivism n XVIIth- and

XVIIIth-century English thought, a subject which cannot be ex-

plored in this paper. A revealing statement by Newton's discipleWhiston, however,reveals the extent to which the notion of decaywas associatedwith a

joyous expectationof the dissolutionand sub-

sequentreconstitutionof the world.Whiston wrote of Newton's dis-

covery of the gravitational principlesof the world:

Whichnoblediscoveryproved he happyoccasionof the inventionof thewonderfulNewtonianphilosophy:which ndeed, look uponin a higherlight than others,and as an eminentpreludeand preparationo thosehappy imesof the restitution f all things,whichGodhas spokenof ...sincethe worldbegan,Acts iii, 21.87

84 Berkeley,secondedition,1965. The first edition was published n 1936. This isthe central thesis of the work,but see particularlypage 22.

85There were doctrinaldisagreementsamong millenialistsas to the order ofoccurrenceof the dissolutionof the world,the secondcoming,and the millenium,but the three were associated.

86"De Millennioac Die Judicij,"A ComnPlace Book of Sr Is: Newton, KingsCollege CambridgeMS Keynes 2, p. 21.

87 Whiston,Memoirsof the Life and Writingsof Whiston,(London,1753), I, 34.Acts iii, 20-21: "Andhe shall sendJesus Christ...

[w]homthe heavenmust receive

until the times of restitutionof all things...."



346 DAVIDKUBRIN

Whiston's point is clear: with the writing of Newton's Principia,man had attained such insight that it broughthim to a state of near

perfection.And this, in turn, made the Millenium all the more im-minent.The second interpretationof the XVIIth century which I think

warrantsreconsiderations the idea that the world-view of Newton,and by inferencethat of the century in general,was a static one. IfNewton did have ideasregardingcosmogeny, hen it is wrongto claimthat "the formation of the world ... was seen during the seventeenth

and eighteenth centuries as a single creative event, which once ac-

complished [the world] was eternally enduringand finished for alltime." 88

This is not to say that I think we shouldlook to Newton for ideaswhich "anticipated"those of the late XVIIIth, still more of theXIXth century, in which the development of animals, societies,Earth, and cosmos alike were widely treated. Rather, Newton and

many of his English contemporarieseem, like the Stoics, to view thecosmos as going through successive cycles. The destroyed Earth of

one cycle would serve as the chaos out of which the Earth of thenext cycle would emerge. Illustrative of this outlook is the frontis-

piece of Burnet'sSacredTheoryof the Earth89 n which the progressof the Earth is pictured as it goes from primitive chaos to matureEarth and on to final dissolution.The Earth after its dissolutiondoesnot fade into nothingness or into a permanent oblivion; instead,Burnet portrays the states of the Earth in cyclical series, and theskeleton of the Earth, after its destruction,remains to develop later

into a new Earth. Newton, I think, would have agreed.Dartmouth College.88Among many such interpretations,this one is from Stephen F. Mason, A

History of the Sciences (New York, 2nd ed., 1962), 318.89 As mentioned above, Burnet sent Newton a copy of this work for his

criticism.

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Kubrin Cyclical