22 



" practice, and is in fact nothing else than that part of 

 ** Universal Mechanics which accurately lays down and 

 " demonstrates the art of measuring." He next ex- 

 plains that rational Mechanics is the science of motion 

 resulting from forces, and adds, " The whole difficulty of 

 " Philosophy seems to me to lie in investigating the forces 

 ** of Nature from the phenomena of motion ; and in 

 " demonstrating that from these forces other phenomena 

 " will ensue." Then, after stating the problems of 

 which he has treated in the work itself, he says : "I 

 " would that all other Natural Phenomena might simi- 

 " larly be deduced from mechanical principles. For 

 " many things move me to suspect that everything 

 *' depends upon certain forces in virtue of which the 

 " particles of bodies, through forces not yet under- 

 " stood, are either impelled together so as to cohere in 

 " regular figures, or are repelled and recede from one 

 *' another." 



Newton's views, then, are clear : he regards Mathema- 

 tics, not as a method independent of, though applicable 

 to various subjects, but as itself the higher side or aspect 

 of the subjects themselves ; and it would be little more 

 than a translation of his notions into other language, 

 little more than a paraphrase of his own words, if we 

 were to describe the mathematical as one aspect of the 

 material world itself, apart from which all other 

 aspects are but incomplete sketches, and, however 

 accurate after thoir own kind, are still liable to the 

 imperfections of the inaccurate artificer. Mr. Burro wes, 

 in his Preface to the first volume of the Trans- 

 actions of the Royal Irish Academy, has carried out 

 the same argument, approaching it from the other side : 

 " No one Science," he says, *" is so little connected with 

 *' the rest as not to afford many principles whose use may 



