an Autograph Manuscript by Sir Isaac Newton. 67 



cument in my possession, however, appears to me to furnish 

 clear evidence that NEWTON had formed the theological opi- 

 nions expressed in the Scholium already mentioned, at least 

 fifteen years before the publication of the edition of the Princi- 

 pia, in which it first appeared ; and it has occurred to me, that a 

 short statement of this evidence, in opposition to the opinion en- 

 tertained by LA PLACE, might not be unacceptable to the Royal 

 Society- 

 Several years ago, in looking over some manuscript mathema- 

 tical papers which belonged to DAVID GREGORY, Savilian Pro- 

 fessor of Astronomy in the University of Oxford, the contempo- 

 rary and intimate friend of NEWTON, I found (along with several 

 other autograph fragments on mathematical subjects), one ma- 

 nuscript, consisting of twelve folio pages, in the handwriting of 

 NEWTON, and containing, in the form of additions and scholia 

 to some propositions in the Third Book of the Principia, an ac- 

 count of the opinions of the ancient philosophers on gravitation 

 and motion, and on natural theology, with various quotations from 

 their works. 



It appears from this manuscript, that NEWTON was not only 

 well acquainted with the opinions and reasonings of the ancients 

 upon these subjects, but that he has done ample justice to 

 their sagacity. This is a point which it is of some importance 

 to have ascertained, as it has been asserted, particularly by M. 

 DUTENS, in his " Recherches sur 1'Origine des Decouvertes at- 

 tribuees aux Modernes," published in 1766, that the modern phi- 

 losophers supposed the principle of universal gravitation to have 

 been quite unknown to the ancients, and had therefore claimed 

 the merit of the first discovery *. The authorities and quotations 



* His expressions are, " C'est ici ou les modernes se flattent d'avoir un avant- 

 age, marque, s'imaginant avoir les premiers decouvert le principe de la gravitation 

 universelle, quails regardent comme une verite qui avoit e"te inconnue aux Anciens. 



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