SEQUEL TO THE EPOCH OF NEWTON. 429 



and observations independently of their suggestion by Newton as the 

 results of Theory (Supp. p. 692, Note, and p. 698), appears to me not 

 to be adequately supported by the evidence given.] 



Sect. 3. — Reception of the Newtonian Theory abroad. 



The reception of the Newtonian theory on the Continent, was 

 much more tardy and unwilling than in its native island. Even those 

 whose mathematical attainments most fitted them to appreciate its 

 proofs, were prevented by some peculiarity of view from adopting it 

 as a system ; as Leibnitz, Bernoulli, Huyghens ; whc .all clung to one 

 modification or other of the system of vortices. In France, the Car- 

 tesian system had obtained a wide and popular reception, having been 

 recommended by Fontenelle with the graces of his style ; and its em- 

 pire was so firm and well established in that country, that it resisted 

 for a long time the pressure of Newtonian arguments. Indeed, the 

 Newtonian opinions had scarcely any disciples in France, till Voltaire 

 asserted their claims, on his return from England in 1728: until 

 then, as he himself says, there were not twenty Newtonians out of 

 England. 



The hold which the Philosophy of Descartes had upon the minds 

 of his countrymen is, perhaps, not surprising. He really had the 

 merit, a great one in the history of science, of having completely 

 overturned the Aristotelian system, and introduced the philosophy of 

 matter and motion. In all branches of mixed mathematics, as we 

 have already said, his followers w r ere the best guides who had yet ap- 

 peared. His hypothesis of vortices, as an explanation of the celestial 

 motions, had an apparent advantage over the Newtonian doctrine, in 

 this respect ; — that it referred effects to the most intelligible, or at 

 least most familiar kinds of mechanical causation, namely, pressure 

 and impulse. And above all, the system was acceptable to most 

 minds, in consequence of being, as was pretended, deduced from a few 

 simple principles by necessary consequences ; and of being also di- 

 rectly connected with metaphysical and theological speculations. We 

 may add, that it was modified by its mathematical adherents in such 

 a way as to remove most of the objections to it. A vortex revolving 

 about a centre could be constructed, or at least it was supposed that it 

 could be constructed, so as to produce a tendency of bodies to the 

 centre. In all cases, therefore, where a central force acted, a vortex 

 was supposed ; but in reasoning to the results of this hypothesis, it was 



