PRINC1PIA 15 



Augustus De Morgan in his Budget of Paradoxes (p. 83) says : * I greatly doubt that 

 Newton wrote this book.' But a copy of the work in manuscript is in Trinity College 

 Library, Cambridge, partly in the handwriting of Roger Cotes. "The title there given is 

 ' De Motu Corporum Liber* and not ' De Mundi SystetnatcJ as in the printed book. This 

 tract, drawn up ' methodo populari ut a pluribus legeretur,' was intended to form the third 

 book of the Principia, but readers who have not mastered the principles, says the author, 

 ' vim consequentiarum minime percipient, neque praejudicia deponent quibus a multis retro 

 annis insueverunt,' and therefore 'ne res in disputationes trahatur, summam libri illius tran- 

 stuli Propositiones, more Mathematico, ut ab iis solis legantur qui principia prius evolve- 

 rint.'" Edleston's Correspondence of Newton and Cotes, p. xcviii. 



The English translation of this work was printed first (in 1728, see No. 30) along with a 

 Preface on the state of Astronomy. The second edition, which evidently appeared imme- 

 diately after the Text had been printed, omitted this Preface, and in its place gave the extract 

 from the Principia (in English) as printed in the Text and mentioned above, whilst the 

 translation was added to to agree with the printed text. 



Abridgments and Portions of the "Principia" 



Excerpta quaedam | e Newtoni | Principiis Philosophiae Naturalis, \ 



cum notis variorum. | Cantabrigiae : | Typis Academicis excude- 



bat J. Bentham. j Veneunt apud T. & J. Merrill, et J. Nicholson, 



Cantabrigiae ; J. Fletcher et | D. Prince, Oxoniae ; B. Dod, 



J. Whiston & B. White, et J. Nourse, Londini ; | Tesseman, 



Ebor. ; Kincaid & Bell, Edinburgiae ; R. & A. Foulis, Glas- 



guiae ; | et Gul. Smith, Dublini. M.DCC.LXV. 4to. [20 



Collation: Title, and List of Subscribers, x pp. + 180. 12 Plates : Tab. 



I. to XII. 



Edited by John Jebb, educated at Peterhouse, afterwards a Fellow of the College ; 

 M.D. of St. Andrews University, d. 1786. 



Excerpta ex Principiis Naturalis Philosophiae, cum annotationibus 

 Thomae Le Seur et Francisci Jacquier. Oxon. 1831. 8vo. [21 

 Contains Newton's Preface of May 8, 1686, and Roger Cotes's Preface. 



Principia. Book I. Sections I. II. III. in the original Latin, with 

 explanatory notes and references. Edited by William Whewell, 

 D.D., Master of Trinity College, &c. London : John W. Parker, 

 West Strand. MD.CCC.XLVI. 8vo. [22 



Pp. vii + 66. Printed from the text of the third edition of the Principia. 



These three sections were used as a text-book at Cambridge. Other editions, in English, 

 were issued in 1821, 1826, etc. (see pp. 20, 21). 



