548 ADDITIONS. 



at Halley's request, lie returned to the subject; and in Februarys 1685, 

 there was inserted in the Register of the Royal Society a paper of 

 Newton's (Isaaci Newtoni Propositiones de Motu), which contained 

 some of the principal propositions of the first two Books of the Prin- 

 cipia. This paper, however, does not contain the proposition " Lunam 

 gravitare in Terram," nor any of the propositions of the Third Book. 



CHAPTER III. 

 The Principia. 



Sect. 2. — Reception of the Principia. 



LORD BROUGHAM has very recently {Analytical View of Sir 

 Isaac Newton's Princijna, 1855) shown a strong disposition still 

 to maintain, what he says has frequently been alleged, that the recep- 

 tion of the work was not, even in this country, " such as might have 

 been expected." He says, in explanation of the facts which I have 

 adduced, showing the high estimation in which Newton was held im- 

 mediately after the publication of the Principia, that Newton's previ- 

 ous fame was great by former discoveries. This is true ; but the effect 

 of this was precisely what was most honorable to Newton's country- 

 men, that they received with immediate acclamations this new and 

 greater discovery. Lord Brougham adds, " after its appearance the 

 Principia was more admired than studied ;" which is probably true 

 of the Principia still, and of all great works of like novelty and diffi- 

 culty at all times. But, says Lord Brougham, " there is no getting 

 over the inference on this head which arises from the dates of the tw r o 

 first editions. There elapsed an interval of no less than twenty-seven 

 years between them ; and although Cotes [in his Preface] speaks of 

 the copies having become scarce and in very great demand when the 

 second edition appeared in 1713, yet had this urgent demand been of 

 many years' continuance, the reprinting could never have been so long 

 delayed." But Lord Brougham might have learnt from Sir David 

 Brewster's Life of JYeivton (vol. i. p. 312), which he extols so emphat- 

 ically, that already in 1691 (only four years after the publication), a 

 copy of the Principia could hardly be procured, and that even at that 



