53S POPULAR LECTURES AND ADDRESSES. 



the aid of any gravific medium or mechanism. 

 But in this he was more Newtonian than Newton 

 himself. 



Indeed Newton was not a Newtonian, according 

 to Daniel Bernoulli's idea of Newtonianism, for in 

 his letter to Bentley of date 25th February, I/92, 1 

 he wrote : " That gravity should be innate, in- 

 herent, and essential to matter, so that one body 

 may act upon another -at a distance through a 

 vacuum without the mediation of anything else, by 

 and through which their action and force may be 

 conveyed from one to another, is to me so great an 

 absurdity that I believe no man who has in philo- 

 sophical matters a competent faculty of thinking- 

 can ever fall into it." Thus Newton, in giving out 

 his great law, did not abandon the idea that matter 

 cannot act v/here it is not. In respect, however, 

 merely of philosophic thought, we must feel that 

 Daniel Bernoulli was right ; we can conceive the 

 Sun attracting Jupiter, and Jupiter attracting the 

 Sun, without any intermediate medium, if they are 

 ordered to do so. But the question remains Are 



1 The Correspondence of Richard Bentley , D.D., vol. i, ]>. ;<>. 



