VOLTAIRE. 61 



book, containing his more general sketch of the 

 Newtonian system, was written as early as 1727 or 1728 ; 

 but this is certainly incorrect. The letters were in 

 great part written while he was living at the house of 

 Mr. Falconer at Wandsworth ; but those on Sir Isaac 

 Newton's discoveries were so far from being then 

 finished, that they were probably not commenced ; for 

 we find in the ' Correspondance ' letters as late as the 

 autumn of 1732, in which he consulted Maupertuis upon 

 the doctrine of attraction, and was wavering between 

 that and the vortices. There are no less than five 

 letters written by him on this subject ; and after his 

 objections to the Newtonian doctrine had been removed 

 by Maupertuis, he falls back and sends him a long 

 paper on the moon's motion, dated 5th November, 

 1732.* The ' Letters ' at length appeared, however, and 

 his own account of that portion of them is at once 

 accurate and witty. " I carefully avoid entering into 

 calculations," he says : " I am like a person who settles 

 with his steward, but does not go to work arithme- 

 tically." The ' Elements' were written between 1732 

 and 1736, were finished about that time, and were 

 published in 1738. 



The other matter for consideration is the assistance 

 which Voltaire had privately in preparing this work. 

 It is clear that he must have begun his physical 

 studies with a very indifferent provision of mathe- 

 matical knowledge. It is equally clear that he studied 

 natural philosophy with Madame du Chatelet, who 

 had a particular taste for the mathematics. She had 



* Cor. Gen., i. 244 et seq., and 259 ; ii. 493, 514. 



