152 PHILOSOPHICAL TRAXSACTIONS. [aNNO 1714. 



his Principles, after he had mentioned the properties of gravity, he added: 

 " But the reason of these properties of gravity I could not deduce from phae- 

 nomena, and I do not devise hypotheses. For whatever is not deduced from 

 phaenomena, is to be called an hypothesis ; and hypotheses, whether metaphy- 

 sical or physical, or of occult or mechanical qualities, have no place in experi- 

 mental philosophy. It is sufficient that gravity really exists, and acts according 

 to the laws I have explained, and that it solves all the motions of the celestial 

 bodies and of our sea." And after all this, one would wonder that Mr. Newton 

 should be reflected on, for not explaining the causes of gravity, and other at- 

 tractions by hypotheses; as if it were a crime to content himself with certain- 

 ties, and let uncertainties alone. And yet the editors of the Acta Eruditorum,* 

 have told the world, that Mr. Newton denies that the cause of gravity is me- 

 chanical, and that if the spirit or agents by which electrical attraction is per- 

 formed, be not the ether or subtile matter of Cartes, it is less valuable than an 

 hypothesis, and perhaps may be the hylarchic principle of Dr. Henry Moor: 

 and Mr. Leibnitz-}' has accused him of making gravity a natural or essential 

 property of bodies, and an occult quality and miracle. And by this sort of 

 raillery they are persuading the Germans that Mr. Newton wants judgment, 

 and was not able to invent the infinitesimal method. 



It must be allowed that these two gentlemen differ very much in philosophy. 

 The one proceeds on the evidence arising from experiments and phasnomena, 

 and stops where such evidence is wanting; the other is taken up with hypo- 

 theses, and propounds them, not to be examined by experiments, but to be 

 believed without examination. The one for want of experiments to decide 

 the question, does not affirm whether the cause of gravity be mechanical or 

 not mechanical: the other that it is a perpetual miracle if it be not mechanical. 

 The one, by way of inquiry, attributes it to the power of the Creator that the 

 least particles of matter are hard : the other attributes the hardness of matter 

 to conspiring motions, and calls it a perpetual miracle if the cause of this hard- 

 ness be other than mechanical. The one does not affirm that animal motion 

 in man is purely mechanical: the other teaches that it is purely mechanical, 

 the soul or mind (according to the hypothesis of an harmonia praestabilita) 

 never acting on the body so as to alter or influence its motions. The one 

 teaches that God (the God in whom we live and move and have our being) is 

 omnipresent; but not a soul of the world : the other that he is not the soul of 

 the world, but intelligentia supramundana, an intelligence above the bounds of 



• Anno 1714, mense niartio, p. 141, 142. — Orig. 



f In tractatu de bonitate Dei et in Plpistolis ad D. Harsoeker et alibi,— Orig. 



