(( 



MINING ALL, WITHIN " 223 



to introduce longer notes, notably of Boyle's hydrostatical 

 paradoxes and his experiments on taste, smells and so on.^* 

 And, most important of all, he provides a brief but uncom- 

 promising exposition of Newtonian gravitation, in his views 

 of the cause of which he was further from the Cartesian position 

 than Newton at times seemed to be.-'' In Part I he remarks 

 in passing that " it is now allowed, that gravity does not depend 

 upon the air or aether, but is an original connate and immutable 

 affection of all matter," ^° and he develops the theory in a series 

 of three notes near the end of Part II. The Cartesian account 

 of gravity is now dismissed as " a very ingenious hypothesis," 

 and it is Newton who has " established the true system of the 

 world beyond all controversy." ^^ His admiration is expressed 

 in the highest terms: Newton " in his wonderful book of the 

 Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy has explained 

 the true system of the world, and shown the true and adequate 

 causes of all the celestial motions almost beyond the genius 

 of a man." ^^ 



Clarke explains that, according to Newton, gravity is asso- 

 ciated with every pair of particles, wherever they are, whatever 

 the bodies in question, and whatever the time; it is propor- 

 tional to the quantities of matter, and inversely proportional 

 to the square of the distances. This being so, it follows 

 (he says) that gravity is an ultimate fact: " gravity of the 

 weight of bodies is not any accidental effect of motion or of 

 any very subtle matter, but an original and general law of 

 all matter impressed on it by God, and maintained in it per- 

 petually by some efficient power, which penetrates the solid 



^^ Hydrostatical paradoxes, notes pp. 23-26. On taste, notes pp. 35-36. On smell, 

 notes pp. 36-38. Boyle is mentioned in some ten notes altogether, and Dr. M. Boas' 

 remark (Rev. d'Hist. des Sc, IX (1956), 124) that Boyle's experiments are quoted 

 almost as often as those of Newton is true of the 1702 notes. 



"* On Clarke's views as expressed in his other works, see H. Metzger, Attraction 

 UniveTselle et Religion Naturelle chez quelques Commentateurs Anglais de Newton 

 in (Act. Sci. Ind. 623), (Paris, 1938), pp. 113-139. On the relations between the 

 views of Newton and Clarke, see A. Koyre, From the Closed World to the Infinite 

 Universe (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1957), pp. 300-301. 



'" Notes, p. 18. '^ Notes, p. 80. '^ Notes, p. 72. 



