ERRORS OF NEWTON. 37 



own hypothesis, that they are impelled or drawn 

 with an equal force at right angles to the direction 

 of the original projection. Moreover, when New- 

 ton referred the centrifugal force to the immediate 

 agency of the Deity, and that of gravity to an 

 inherent property of matter, he departed from 

 that uniformity of nature and of causation, on 

 which all true science is founded. To be con- 

 sistent, he ought to have referred all physical 

 power to the immediate agency of the Deity, or 

 to the inherent properties of matter. 



That the illustrious author of the Principia was 

 not ultimately satisfied with the data on which 

 his theory of planetary motion was founded, viz. 

 the projectile impulse, the vacuum of space, and the 

 vis insita of matter* is plain enough from what has 



in nature which is not counteracted by another force. It is there- 

 fore evident that Newton's first law of motion does not apply, as 

 he originally intended, to the planetary revolutions. Mr. Whe- 

 well is equally explicit in renouncing the vacuum of space : for 

 when treating of the luminiferous aether, he says, " it must not 

 be merely like a material fluid poured into the vacant spaces of the 

 material world ; it must affect the physical, chemical, and vital 

 properties of whatever it touches, and be the means of communi- 

 cation between planets and systems/' (Book i. ch. xvii. and 

 book ii. ch. xi.) Yet he observes in another chapter, that " in the 

 machinery of the universe there is, so far as we know, no material 

 connection between the parts which act on each other." (Book 

 ii. ch. i.) 



* It might as well be said that " opium causes sleep by means 

 of a dormitive property," as that the particles of bodies are held 

 together by means of an inherent power of attraction termed co- 

 hesion ; or that planets are maintained in their orbits by an in- 



