Background Image

...

The Folly Of Interpreters Has Been, To Foretell Times And Things By This Prophecy, As If God Designed To Make Them Prophets. By This Rashness They Have Not Only Exposed Themselves, But Brought The Prophecy Also Into Contempt. The Design Of God Was Much Otherwise. He Gave This And The Prophecies Of The Old Testament, Not To Gratify Mens Curiosities By Enabling Them To Foreknow Things, But That After They Were Fulfilled They Might Be Interpreted By The Event, And His Own Providence, Not The Interpreters, Be Then Manifested Thereby To The World.

-Isaac Newton

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

The Folly Of Interpreters

Isaac Newton

...

The Folly Of Interpreters Has Been, To Foretell Times And Things By This Prophecy, As If God Designed To Make Them Prophets. By This Rashness They Have Not Only Exposed Themselves, But Brought The Prophecy Also Into Contempt. The Design Of God Was Much Otherwise. He Gave This And The Prophecies Of The Old Testament, Not To Gratify Mens Curiosities By Enabling Them To Foreknow Things, But That After They Were Fulfilled They Might Be Interpreted By The Event, And His Own Providence, Not The Interpreters, Be Then Manifested Thereby To The World.

Views: 6

Topic

More From Isaac Newton

God Created Everything By Number, Weight And Measure.

As I Am Writing, Another Illustration Of Ye Generation Of Hills Proposed Above Comes Into My Mind. Milk Is As Uniform A Liquor As Ye Chaos Was. If Beer Be Poured Into It & Ye Mixture Let Stand Till It Be Dry, The Surface Of Ye Curdled Substance Will Appear As Rugged & Mountanous As The Earth In Any Place.

Doth Not This Æthereal Medium In Passing Out Of Water, Glass, Crystal, And Other Compact And Dense Bodies Into Empty Spaces, Grow Denser And Denser By Degrees, And By That Means Refract The Rays Of Light Not In A Point, But By Bending Them Gradually In Curve Lines? And Doth Not The Gradual Condensation Of This Medium Extend To Some Distance From The Bodies, And Thereby Cause The Inflexions Of The Rays Of Light, Which Pass By The Edges Of Dense Bodies, At Some Distance From The Bodies?

If I Have Ever Made Any Valuable Discoveries, It Has Been Due More To Patient Attention, Than To Any Other Talent

Let Me Think... I Wonder If An Anvil Will Drop Like An Apple?

Atheism Is So Senseless & Odious To Mankind That It Never Had Many Professors. Can It Be By Accident That All Birds Beasts & Men Have Their Right Side & Left Side Alike Shaped (except In Their Bowels) & Just Two Eyes & No More On Either Side The Face & Just Two Ears On Either Side The Head & A Nose With Two Holes & No More Between The Eyes & One Mouth Under The Nose & Either Two Fore Legs Or Two Wings Or Two Arms On The Shoulders & Two Legs On The Hips One On Either Side & No More?

It Is The Weight, Not Numbers Of Experiments That Is To Be Regarded.

I Shall Not Mingle Conjectures With Certainties.

What Descartes Did Was A Good Step. You Have Added Much Several Ways, And Especially In Taking The Colours Of Thin Plates Into Philosophical Consideration. If I Have Seen A Little Further It Is By Standing On The Shoulders Of Giants.

Our Design, Not Respecting Arts, But Philosophy, And Our Subject, Not Manual, But Natural Powers, We Consider Chiefly Those Things Which Relate To Gravity, Levity, Elastic Force, The Resistance Of Fluids, And The Like Forces, Whether Attractive Or Impulsive; And Therefore We Offer This Work As Mathematical Principles Of Philosophy; For All The Difficulty Of Philosophy Seems To Consist In This From The Phenomena Of Motions To Investigate The Forces Of Nature, And Then From These Forces To Demonstrate The Other Phenomena.

Thus You May Multiply Each Stone 4 Times & No More For They Will Then Become Oyles Shining In Ye Dark And Fit For Magicall Uses. You May Ferment Them With Gold And Silver, By Keeping The Stone And Metal In Fusion Together For A Day, & Then Project Upon Metalls. This Is The Multiplication Of Ye Stone In Vertue. To Multiply It In Weight Ad To It Of Ye First Gold Whether Philosophic Or Vulgar.

To Me There Has Never Been A Higher Source Of Earthly Honor Or Distinction Than That Connected With Advances In Science.

Do Not Great Bodies Conserve Their Heat The Longest, Their Parts Heating One Another, And May Not Great Dense And Fix'd Bodies, When Heated Beyond A Certain Degree, Emit Light So Copiously, As By The Emission And Re-action Of Its Light, And The Reflexions And Refractions Of Its Rays Within Its Pores To Grow Still Hotter, Till It Comes To A Certain Period Of Heat, Such As Is That Of The Sun?

We Are Not To Consider The World As The Body Of God: He Is An Uniform Being, Void Of Organs, Members, Or Parts; And They Are His Creatures, Subordinate To Him, And Subservient To His Will.

The Prophecies Of Daniel Are All Of Them Related To One Another, As If They Were But Several Parts Of One General Prophecy, Given At Several Times. The First Is The Easiest To Be Understood, And Every Following Prophecy Adds Something New To The Former.

The Other Part Of The True Religion Is Our Duty To Man. We Must Love Our Neighbour As Our Selves, We Must Be Charitable To All Men For Charity Is The Greatest Of Graces, Greater Then Even Faith Or Hope & Covers A Multitude Of Sins. We Must Be Righteous & Do To All Men As We Would They Should Do To Us.

I Am Ashamed To Tell You To How Many Figures I Carried These Calculations [of Pi], Having No Other Business At The Time

Daniel Was In The Greatest Credit Amongst The Jews, Till The Reign Of The Roman Emperor Hadrian . And To Reject His Prophecies, Is To Reject The Christian Religion. For This Religion Is Founded Upon His Prophecy Concerning The Messiah .

When The Adversaries Of Erasmus Had Got The Trinity Into His Edition, They Threw By Their Manuscript As An Old Almanac Out Of Date.

Against Filling The Heavens With Fluid Mediums, Unless They Be Exceeding Rare, A Great Objection Arises From The Regular And Very Lasting Motions Of The Planets And Comets In All Manner Of Courses Through The Heavens.

To Myself I Am Only A Child Playing On The Beach, While Vast Oceans Of Truth Lie Undiscovered Before Me

I Have Presented Principles Of Philosophy That Are Not, However, Philosophical But Strictly Mathematical-that Is, Those On Which The Study Of Philosophy Can Be Based. These Principles Are The Laws And Conditions Of Motions And Of Forces, Which Especially Relate To Philosophy.

Pontus, Instituted Among All People, As An Addition Or Corollary Of Devotion Towards God, That Festival Days And Assemblies Should Be Celebrated To Them Who Had Contended For The Faith (that Is, To Lie Martyrs ).

I See I Have Made Myself A Slave To Philosophy, But If I Get Free Of Mr. Linus's Business I Will Resolutely Bid Adew To It Eternally, Excepting For What I Do For My Private Satisfaction Or Leave To Come Out After Me. For I See A Man Must Either Resolve To Put Out Nothing New Or To Become A Slave To Defend It.

He Rules All Things, Not As The World Soul But As The Lord Of All. And Because Of His Dominion He Is Called Lord God Pantokrator". For “god" Is A Relative Word And Has Reference To Servants, And Godhood Is The Lordship Of God, Not Over His Own Body "as Is Supposed By Those For Whom God Is The World Soul', But Over Servants.

Henceforward The Christian Churches Having A Form Of Godliness, But Denying The Power Thereof, Came Into The Hands Of The Encratites: And The Heathens, Who In The Fourth Century Came Over In Great Numbers To The Christians, Embraced More Readily This Sort Of Christianity, As Having A Greater Affinity With Their Old Superstitions, Than That Of The Sincere Christians; Who By The Lamps Of The Seven Churches Of Asia, And Not By The Lamps Of The Monasteries, Had Illuminated The Church Catholic During The Three First Centuries.

Do Not Bodies And Light Act Mutually Upon One Another; That Is To Say, Bodies Upon Light In Emitting, Reflecting, Refracting And Inflecting It, And Light Upon Bodies For Heating Them, And Putting Their Parts Into A Vibrating Motion Wherein Heat Consists?

It Seems Probable To Me That God, In The Beginning, Formed Matter In Solid, Massy, Hard, Impenetrable, Moveable Particles, Of Such Sizes And Figures, And With Such Other Properties, And In Such Proportions To Space, As Most Conduced To The End For Which He Formed Them; And That These Primitive Particles, Being Solids, Are Incomparably Harder Than Any Porous Bodies Compounded Of Them, Even So Very Hard As Never To Wear Or Break In Pieces; No Ordinary Power Being Able To Divide What God Had Made One In The First Creation.

My Principal Method For Defeating Error And Heresy Is By Establishing The Truth. One Purposes To Fill A Bushel With Tares, But If I Can Fill It First With Wheat, I May Defy His Attempts.

I Consider My Greatest Accomplishment To Be Lifelong Celibacy.

[1.] And First I Suppose That There Is Diffused Through All Places An Aethereal Substance Capable Of Contraction & Dilatation, Strongly Elastick, & In A Word, Much Like Air In All Respects, But Far More Subtile. 2. I Suppose This Aether Pervades All Gross Bodies, But Yet So As To Stand Rarer In Their Pores Then In Free Spaces, & So Much Ye Rarer As Their Pores Are Less ... 3. I Suppose Ye Rarer Aether Within Bodies & Ye Denser Without Them, Not To Be Terminated In A Mathematical Superficies, But To Grow Gradually Into One Another.

As In Mathematicks, So In Natural Philosophy, The Investigation Of Difficult Things By The Method Of Analysis, Ought Ever To Precede The Method Of Composition. This Analysis Consists In Making Experiments And Observations, And In Drawing General Conclusions From Them By Induction, And Admitting Of No Objections Against The Conclusions, But Such As Are Taken From Experiments, Or Other Certain Truths. For Hypotheses Are Not To Be Regarded In Experimental Philosophy.

I Do Not Define Time, Space, Place, And Motion, As Being Well Known To All. Only I Must Observe, That The Common People Conceive Those Quantities Under No Other Notions But From The Relation They Bear To Sensible Objects. And Thence Arise Certain Prejudices, For The Removing Of Which It Will Be Convenient To Distinguish Them Into Absolute And Relative, True And Apparent, Mathematical And Common.

I Can See So Far Because I Stood On The Shoulders Of Giants.

And From True Lordship It Follows That The True God Is Living, Intelligent, And Powerful; From The Other Perfections, That He Is Supreme, Or Supremely Perfect. He Is Eternal And Infinite, Omnipotent And Omniscient; That Is, He Endures From Eternity To Eternity; And He Is Present From Infinity To Infinity; He Rules All Things, And He Knows All Things That Happen Or Can Happen.

You Have To Make The Rules, Not Follow Them

All The Characters Of The Passion Agree To The Year 34; And That Is The Only Year To Which They All Agree.

He Who Thinks Half-heartedly Will Not Believe In God; But He Who Really Thinks Has To Believe In God.

The Great Ocean Of Truth Lay All Undiscovered Before Me.

No Great Discovery Was Ever Made Without A Bold Guess.

To Arrive At The Simplest Truth Requires Years Of Contemplation.

The Way To Chastity Is Not To Struggle Directly With Incontinent Thoughts But To Avert The Thoughts By Some Imployment, Or By Reading, Or Meditating On Other Things.

For The Rays, To Speak Properly, Have No Colour. In Them There Is Nothing Else Than A Certain Power And Disposition To Stir Up A Sensation Of This Colour Or That.

Are Not Gross Bodies And Light Convertible Into One Another; And May Not Bodies Receive Much Of Their Activity From The Particles Of Light Which Enter Into Their Composition? The Changing Of Bodies Into Light, And Light Into Bodies, Is Very Conformable To The Course Of Nature, Which Seems Delighted With Transmutations.

No Sciences Are Better Attested Than The Religion Of The Bible.

Because Of Diamond, I Have Had To Begin Much Of The Work Afresh. I Will Not, However, Rid Myself Of Her, Nor Even Punish Her. She Knew Not What She Was Doing, And That Which She Did Was For My Protection And For Love Of My Person. Her Place Remains At My Side Or Against My Feet When I Lie Abed.

Poetry Is A Kind Of Ingenious Nonsense.

The Folly Of Interpreters Has Been, To Foretell Times And Things By This Prophecy, As If God Designed To Make Them Prophets. By This Rashness They Have Not Only Exposed Themselves, But Brought The Prophecy Also Into Contempt. The Design Of God Was Much Otherwise. He Gave This And The Prophecies Of The Old Testament, Not To Gratify Mens Curiosities By Enabling Them To Foreknow Things, But That After They Were Fulfilled They Might Be Interpreted By The Event, And His Own Providence, Not The Interpreters, Be Then Manifested Thereby To The World.

All Knowledge And Understanding Of The Universe Was No More Than Playing With Stones And Shells On The Seashore Of The Vast Imponderable Ocean Of Truth.

A Body In Motion Tends To Stay In Motion Unless Acted On By An Outside Force.

Bodies In Motion

Impressed Force Is The Action Exerted On A Body To Change Its State Either Of Resting Or Of Moving Uniformly Straight Forward.

Therefore, The Causes Assigned To Natural Effects Of The Same Kind Must Be, So Far As Possible, The Same.

Yet One Thing Secures Us What Ever Betide, The Scriptures Assures Us That The Lord Will Provide.

To Explain All Nature Is Too Difficult A Task For Any One Man Or Even For Any One Age. Tis Much Better To Do A Little With Certainty & Leave The Rest For Others That Come After Than To Explain All Things By Conjecture Without Making Sure Of Any Thing.

If I Have Seen Further Than Others, It Is By Standing Upon The Shoulders Of Giants.

How Came The Bodies Of Animals To Be Contrived With So Much Art, And For What Ends Were Their Several Parts? Was The Eye Contrived Without Skill In Opticks, And The Ear Without Knowledge Of Sounds?...and These Things Being Rightly Dispatch’d, Does It Not Appear From Phænomena That There Is A Being Incorporeal, Living, Intelligent...?

You Ask Me How, With So Much Study, I Manage To Retene My Health. Morpheus Is My Last Companion; Without 8 Or 9 Hours Of Him Yr Correspondent Is Not Worth One Scavenger's Peruke. My Practices Did At Ye First Hurt My Stomach, But Now I Eat Heartily Enou' As Y' Will See When I Come Down Beside You.

Truth Is The Offspring Of Silence And Meditation.

All Material Things Seem To Have Been Composed Of The Hard And Solid Particles ... Variously Associated With The First Creation By The Counsel Of An Intelligent Agent. For It Became Him Who Created Them To Set Them In Order: And If He Did So, It Is Unphilosophical To Seek For Any Other Origin Of The World, Or To Pretend That It Might Arise Out Of A Chaos By The Mere Laws Of Nature.

Truth Is Ever To Be Found In The Simplicity, And Not In The Multiplicity And Confusion Of Things.

The Kingdoms Represented By The Second And Third Beasts, Or The Bear And Leopard, Are Again Described By Daniel In His Last Prophecy Written In The Third Year Of Cyrus Over Babylon , The Year In Which He Conquered Persia. For This Prophecy Is A Commentary Upon The Vision Of The Ram And He-goat.

God Is Able To Create Particles Of Matter Of Several Sizes And Figures And Perhaps Of Different Densities And Forces, And Thereby To Vary The Laws Of Nature, And Make Worlds Of Several Sorts In Several Parts Of The Universe.

I Do Not Know What I May Appear To The World, But To Myself I Seem To Have Been Only A Boy Playing On The Seashore.

What The Latins Have Done In This Text (1 John V, 7) The Greeks Have Done To Paul (1 Tim. Iii, 16). They Now Read, "great Is The Mystery Of Godliness; God Manifest In The Flesh"; Whereas All The Churches For The First Four Or Five Hundred Years, And The Authors Of All The Ancient Versions, Jerome As Well As The Rest, Read, "great Is The Mystery Of Godliness, Which Was Manifest In The Flesh." Our English Version Makes It Yet A Little Stronger. It Reads, "great Is The Mystery Of Godliness: God Was Manifest In The Flesh."

This Thing Is But A Puny Imitation Of A Much Grander System Whose Laws You Know, And I Am Not Able To Convince You That This Mere Toy Is Without A Designer Or Maker; Yet You Profess To Believe That The Great Original From Which The Design Is Taken Has Come Into Being Without Either Designer Or Maker! Now Tell Me By What Sort Of Reasoning Do You Reach Such An Incongruous Conclusion?

The Ignis Fatuus Is A Vapor Shining Without Heat.

The Seed Of A Tree Has The Nature Of A Branch Or Twig Or Bud. It Is A Part Of The Tree, But If Separated And Set In The Earth To Be Better Nourished, The Embryo Or Young Tree Contained In It Takes Root And Grows Into A New Tree.

Whence Arises All That Order And Beauty We See In The World?

If Two Angels Were Sent Down From Heaven -one To Conduct An Empire And The Other To Sweep The Streets -they Would Feel No Inclination To Change Employment Because An Angel Would Know That No Matter What We Are Doing, It's An Opportunity To Bring Joy, Deepen Our Understanding And Expand Our Life.

I Know Not How I Seem To Others, But To Myself I Am But A Small Child Wandering Upon The Vast Shores Of Knowledge, Every Now And Then Finding A Small Bright Pebble To Content Myself With While The Vast Ocean Of Undiscovered Truth Lay Before Me.

Sir Isaac Newton Was Asked How He Discovered The Law Of Gravity. He Replied, "by Thinking About It All The Time.

The Instinct Of Brutes And Insects Can Be The Effect Of Nothing Else Than The Wisdom And Skill Of A Powerful Ever-living Agent.

Plato Is My Friend, Aristotle Is My Friend, But My Greatest Friend Is Truth.

Thus This Earth Resembles A Great Animall Or Rather An Inanimate Vegetable, Draws In Aethereal Breath For Its Dayly Refreshment And Vitall Ferment And Transpires Again Grosses Exhalations. And, According To The Condition Of All Other Things Living, Ought To Have Its Time Of Beginning, Youth, Old Age And Perishing.

Atheism Is So Senseless. When I Look At The Solar System, I See The Earth At The Right Distance From The Sun To Receive The Proper Amounts Of Heat And Light. This Did Not Happen By Chance.

God Who Gave Animals Self Motion Beyond Our Understanding Is Without Doubt Able To Implant Other Principles Of Motion In Bodies [which] We May Understand As Little. Some Would Readily Grant This May Be A Spiritual One; Yet A Mechanical One Might Be Showne, Did Not I Think It Better To Pass It By.

If The Ancient Churches, In Debating And Deciding The Greatest Mysteries Of Religion, Knew Nothing Of These Two Texts, I Understand Not Why We Should Be So Fond Of Them Now The Debate Is Over.

All My Discoveries Have Been Made In Answer To Prayer.

My Design In This Book Is Not To Explain The Properties Of Light By Hypotheses, But To Propose And Prove Them By Reason And Experiments: In Order To Which, I Shall Premise The Following Definitions And Axioms.

An Object That Is At Rest Will Tend To Stay At Rest. An Object That Is In Motion Will Tend To Stay In Motion.

That One Body May Act Upon Another At A Distance Through A Vacuum, Without The Mediation Of Any Thing 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 Philosophical Matters A Compentent Faculty Of Thinking, Can Ever Fall Into It.

In The Absence Of Any Other Proof, The Thumb Alone Would Convince Me Of God's Existence.

As A Blind Man Has No Idea Of Colors, So We Have No Idea Of The Manner By Which The All-wise God Perceives And Understands All Things.

Live Your Life As An Exclamation Rather Than An Explanation

The Degree And Duration Of The Torment Of These Degenerate And Anti-christian People, Should Be No Other Than Would Be Approved Of By Those Angels Who Had Ever Labored For Their Salvation, And That Lamb Who Had Redeemed Them With His Most Precious Blood.

Trials Are Medicines Which Our Gracious And Wise Physician Prescribes Because We Need Them; And He Proportions The Frequency And Weight Of Them To What The Case Requires. Let Us Trust His Skill And Thank Him For His Prescription.

I Have A Fundamental Belief In The Bible As The Word Of God, Written By Those Who Were Inspired. I Study The Bible Daily.

I Have A Fundamental Belief In The Bible As The Word Of God, Written By Men Who Were Inspired. I Study The Bible Daily. Opposition To Godliness Is Atheism In Profession And Idolatry In Practice. Atheism Is So Senseless And Odious To Mankind That It Never Had Many Professors.

God In The Beginning Formed Matter In Solid, Massy, Hard, Impenetrable, Movable Particles, Of Such Sizes And Figures, And With Such Other Properties, And In Such Proportion To Space, As Most Conduced To The End For Which He Formed Them.

The Main Business Of Natural Philosophy Is To Argue From Phænomena Without Feigning Hypotheses, And To Deduce Causes From Effects Till We Come To The Very First Cause, Which Certainly Is Not Mechanical; And Not Only To Unfold The Mechanism Of The World, But Chiefly To Resolve These, And To Such Like Questions.

Hypotheses Non Fingo. I Frame No Hypotheses.

...from The Same Principles, I Now Demonstrate The Frame Of The System Of The World.

It Is The Perfection Of God's Works That They Are All Done With The Greatest Simplicity. He Is The God Of Order And Not Of Confusion. And Therefore As They Would Understand The Frame Of The World Must Endeavor To Reduce Their Knowledge To All Possible Simplicity, So Must It Be In Seeking To Understand These Visions.

What We Know Is A Drop, What We Don't Know Is An Ocean.

The Description Of Right Lines And Circles, Upon Which Geometry Is Founded, Belongs To Mechanics. Geometry Does Not Teach Us To Draw These Lines, But Requires Them To Be Drawn.

I Understood. I Have Understood. I Do Understand.

Nature Is Very Consonant And Conformable With Herself.

He That In Ye Mine Of Knowledge Deepest Diggeth, Hath, Like Every Other Miner, Ye Least Breathing Time, And Must Sometimes At Least Come To Terr. Alt. For Air.

I Have Not Been Able To Discover The Cause Of Those Properties Of Gravity From Phenomena, And I Frame No Hypotheses; For Whatever Is Not Deduced From The Phenomena Is To Be Called A Hypothesis, And Hypotheses, Whether Metaphysical Or Physical, Whether Of Occult Qualities Or Mechanical, Have No Place In Experimental Philosophy.

Blind Metaphysical Necessity, Which Is Certainly The Same Always And Every Where, Could Produce No Variety Of Things. All That Diversity Of Natural Things Which We Find Suited To Different Times And Places Could Arise From Nothing But The Ideas And Will Of A Being, Necessarily Existing.

Ax: 100 Every Thing Doth Naturally Persevere In Yt State In Wch It Is Unlesse It Bee Interrupted By Some Externall Cause, Hence... [a] Body Once Moved Will Always Keepe Ye Same Celerity, Quantity & Determination Of Its Motion.

Now The Smallest Particles Of Matter May Cohere By The Strongest Attractions, And Compose Bigger Particles Of Weaker Virture.... There Are Therefore Agents In Nature Able To Make The Particles Of Bodies Stick Together By Very Strong Attraction. And It Is The Business Of Experimental Philosophy To Find Them Out.

This Most Beautiful System Of The Sun, Planets And Comets, Could Only Proceed From The Counsel And Dominion Of An Intelligent And Powerful Being.

The Best And Safest Way Of Philosophising Seems To Be, First To Enquire Diligently Into The Properties Of Things, And To Establish Those Properties By Experiences [experiments] And Then To Proceed Slowly To Hypotheses For The Explanation Of Them. For Hypotheses Should Be Employed Only In Explaining The Properties Of Things, But Not Assumed In Determining Them; Unless So Far As They May Furnish Experiments.

The Daily Disappearance And The Subsequent Rise Of The Sun Appeared To Many Of The Ancients As A True Resurrection; Thus, While The East Came To Be Regarded As The Source Of Light And Warmth, Happiness And Glory, The West Was Associated With Darkness And Chill, Decay And Death. This Led To The Custom Of Burying The Dead So As To Face The East When They Rose Again, And Of Building Temples And Shrines With An Opening Toward The East. To Effect This, Vitruvius, Two Thousand Years Ago, Gave Precise Rules, Which Are Still Followed By Christian Architects.

To Every Action There Is Always Opposed An Equal Reaction.

The Best Way To Understanding Is A Few Good Examples.

The Qualities Of Bodies, Which Admit Neither Intension Nor Remission Of Degrees, And Which Are Found To Belong To Fill Bodies Within The Reach Of Our Experiments, Are To Be Esteemed The Universal Qualities Of All Bodies Whatsoever.

A Heavenly Master Governs All The World As Sovereign Of The Universe. We Are Astonished At Him By Reason Of His Perfection, We Honor Him And Fall Down Before Him Because Of His Unlimited Power. From Blind Physical Necessity, Which Is Always And Everywhere The Same, No Variety Adhering To Time And Place Could Evolve, And All Variety Of Created Objects Which Represent Order And Life In The Universe Could Happen Only By The Willful Reasoning Of Its Original Creator, Whom I Call The Lord God.

What Is There In Places Empty Of Matter? And Whence Is It That The Sun And Planets Gravitate Toward One Another Without Dense Matter Between Them? Whence Is It That Nature Doth Nothing In Vain? And Whence Arises All That Order And Beauty Which We See In The World? To What End Are Comets? And Whence Is It That Planets Move All One And The Same Way In Orbs Concentrick, While Comets Move All Manner Of Ways In Orbs Very Excentrick? And What Hinders The Fixed Stars From Falling Upon One Another?

His Epitaph: Who, By Vigor Of Mind Almost Divine, The Motions And Figures Of The Planets, The Paths Of Comets, And The Tides Of The Seas First Demonstrated.

If You Are Affronted It Is Better To Pass It By In Silence, Or With A Jest, Though With Some Dishonor, Than To Endeavor Revenge. If You Can Keep Reason Above Passion, That And Watchfulness Will Be Your Best Defenders.

I Do Not Know What I May Appear To The World, But To Myself I Seem To Have Been Only Like A Boy Playing On The Seashore, And Diverting Myself In Now And Then Finding A Smoother Pebble Or A Prettier Shell Than Ordinary, Whilst The Great Ocean Of Truth Lay All Undiscovered Before Me.

Centripetal Force Is The Force By Which Bodies Are Drawn From All Sides, Are Impelled, Or In Any Way Tend, Toward Some Point As To A Center.

Atheism Is So Senseless And Odious To Mankind That It Never Had Many Professors.

A Cylinder Of Air Reaching To The Top Of The Atmosphere Is Of Equal Weight With A Cylinder Of Water About 33 Feet High.

A Good Watch May Serve To Keep A Recconing At Sea For Some Days And To Know The Time Of A Celestial Observ[at]ion: And For This End A Good Jewel Watch May Suffice Till A Better Sort Of Watch Can Be Found Out. But When The Longitude At Sea Is Once Lost, It Cannot Be Found Again By Any Watch.

Pictures, Propagated By Motion Along The Fibers Of The Optic Nerves In The Brain, Are The Cause Of Vision.

Godliness Consists In The Knowledge Love & Worship Of God, Humanity In Love, Righteousness & Good Offices Towards Man.

Nature Is Pleased With Simplicity. And Nature Is No Dummy.

We Account The Scriptures Of God To Be The Most Sublime Philosophy.

Qu. 31. Have Not The Small Particles Of Bodies Certain Powers, Virtues Or Forces, By Which They Act At A Distance, Not Only Upon The Rays Of Light For Reflecting, Refracting And Reflecting Them, But Also Upon One Another For Producing A Great Part Of The Phænomena Of Nature?

Therefore To The Same Natural Effects We Must, As Far As Possible, Assign The Same Causes.

To Any Action There Is Always An Opposite And Equal Reaction; In Other Words, The Actions Of Two Bodies Upon Each Other Are Always Equal And Always Opposite In Direction.

I Do Not Feign Hypotheses.

The Monarchy Of The Greeks For Want Of An Heir Was Broken Into Several Kingdoms; Four Of Which, Seated To The Four Winds Of Heaven, Were Very Eminent. For Ptolemy Reigned Over Egypt, Lybia And Ethiopia ; Antigonus Over Syria And The Lesser Asia; Lysimachus Over Thrace ; And Cassander Over Macedon, Greece And Epirus .

Do Not Bodies Act Upon Light At A Distance, And By Their Action Bend Its Rays; And Is Not This Action (caeteris Paribus) [all Else Being Equal] Strongest At The Least Distance?

Do Not Several Sorts Of Rays Make Vibrations Of Several Bignesses, Which According To Their Bigness Excite Sensations Of Several Colours, Much After The Manner That The Vibrations Of The Air, According To Their Several Bignesses Excite Sensations Of Several Sounds? And Particularly Do Not The Most Refrangible Rays Excite The Shortest Vibrations For Making A Sensation Of Deep Violet, The Least Refrangible The Largest Form Making A Sensation Of Deep Red, And Several Intermediate Sorts Of Rays, Vibrations Of Several Intermediate Bignesses To Make Sensations Of Several Intemediate Colours?

We Are To Admit No More Causes Of Natural Things Than Such As Are Both True And Sufficient To Explain Their Appearances.

Errors Are Not In The Art But In The Artificers.

A Vulgar Mechanick Can Practice What He Has Been Taught Or Seen Done, But If He Is In An Error He Knows Not How To Find It Out And Correct It, And If You Put Him Out Of His Road He Is At A Stand. Whereas He That Is Able To Reason Nimbly And Judiciously About Figure, Force, And Motion, Is Never At Rest Till He Gets Over Every Rub. (from A Letter Dated 25 May, 1694)

If I Am Anything, Which I Highly Doubt, I Have Made Myself So By Hard Work.

No Old Men (excepting Dr. Wallis) Love Mathematicks.

Gravity Explains The Motions Of The Planets, But It Cannot Explain Who Sets The Planets In Motion.

Tact Is The Art Of Making A Point Without Making An Enemy.

Nature Does Nothing In Vain When Less Will Serve; For Nature Is Pleased With Simplicity And Affects Not The Pomp Of Superfluous Causes.

This Most Beautiful System Of The Sun, Planets And Comets Could Only Proceed From The Counsel And Dominion Of An Intelligent And Powerful Being. And If The Fixed Stars Are The Centres Of Other Like Systems, These, Being Formed By The Like Wise Counsel, Must Be All Subject To The Dominion Of One; Especially Since The Light Of The Fixed Stars Is Of The Same Nature With The Light Of The Sun.

I Have Been Much Amused At Ye Singular Phenomena Resulting From Bringing Of A Needle Into Contact With A Piece Of Amber Or Resin Fricated On Silke Clothe. Ye Flame Putteth Me In Mind Of Sheet Lightning On A Small-how Very Small-scale.

It Is Indeed A Matter Of Great Difficulty To Discover, And Effectually To Distinguish, The True Motions Of Particular Bodies From The Apparent; Because The Parts Of That Immovable Space, In Which Those Motions Are Performed, Do By No Means Come Under The Observation Of Our Senses. Yet The Thing Is Not Altogether Desperate; For We Have Some Arguments To Guide Us, Partly From The Apparent Motions, Which Are The Differences Of The True Motions; Partly From The Forces, Which Are The Causes And Effects Of The True Motions.

Bullialdus Wrote That All Force Respecting Ye Sun As Its Center & Depending On Matter Must Be Reciprocally In A Duplicate Ratio Of Ye Distance From Ye Center.

Physics, Beware Of Metaphysics.

The Changing Of Bodies Into Light, And Light Into Bodies, Is Very Conformable To The Course Of Nature, Which Seems Delighted With Transmutations.

The Wonderful Arrangement And Harmony Of The Cosmos Would Only Originate In The Plan Of An Almighty Omniscient Being. This Is And Remains My Greatest Comprehension.

My Powers Are Ordinary. Only My Application Brings Me Success.

Thus Far I Have Explained The Phenomena Of The Heavens And Of Our Sea By The Force Of Gravity, But I Have Not Yet Assigned A Cause To Gravity. Indeed, This Force Arises From Some Cause That Penetrates As Far As The Centers Of The Sun And Planets Without Any Diminution Of Its Power To Act, And That Acts Not In Proportion To The Quantity Of The Surfaces Of The Particles On Which It Acts (as Mechanical Causes Are Wont To Do) But In Proportion To The Quantity Of Solid Matter, And Whose Action Is Extended Everywhere To Immense Distances, Always Decreasing As The Squares Of The Distances.

Every Particle Of Matter Is Attracted By Or Gravitates To Every Other Particle Of Matter With A Force Inversely Proportional To The Squares Of Their Distances.

By Such Deductions The Law Of Gravitation Is Rendered Probable, That Every Particle Attracts Every Other Particle With A Force Which Varies Inversely As The Square Of The Distance. The Law Thus Suggested Is Assumed To Be Universally True.

Absolute, True, And Mathematical Time, In And Of Itself And Of Its Own Nature, Without Reference To Anything External, Flows Uniformly And By Another Name Is Called Duration. Relative, Apparent, And Common Time Is Any Sensible And External Measure (precise Or Imprecise) Of Duration By Means Of Motion; Such As A Measure-for Example, An Hour, A Day, A Month, A Year-is Commonly Used Instead Of True Time.

Do Not The Rays Which Differ In Refrangibility Differ Also In Flexibity; And Are They Not By Their Different Inflexions Separated From One Another, So As After Separation To Make The Colours In The Three Fringes Above Described? And After What Manner Are They Inflected To Make Those Fringes?

From What Has Been Said It Is Also Evident, That The Whiteness Of The Sun's Light Is Compounded All The Colours Wherewith The Several Sorts Of Rays Whereof That Light Consists, When By Their Several Refrangibilities They Are Separated From One Another, Do Tinge Paper Or Any Other White Body Whereon They Fall. For Those Colours ... Are Unchangeable, And Whenever All Those Rays With Those Their Colours Are Mix'd Again, They Reproduce The Same White Light As Before.

Every Body Persists In A State Of Rest Or Of Uniform Motion In A Straight Line, Unless It Is Compelled To Change That State By Forces Having Impact Upon It.

One [method] Is By A Watch To Keep Time Exactly. But, By Reason Of The Motion Of The Ship, The Variation Of Heat And Cold, Wet And Dry, And The Difference Of Gravity In Different Latitudes, Such A Watch Hath Not Yet Been Made.

I Keep The Subject Of My Inquiry Constantly Before Me, And Wait Till The First Dawning Opens Gradually, By Little And Little, Into A Full And Clear Light.

Our Present Work Sets Forth Mathematical Principles Of Philosophy. For The Basic Problem Of Philosophy Seems To Be To Discover The Forces Of Nature From The Phenomena Of Motions And Then To Demonstrate The Other Phenomena From These Forces. It Is To These Ends That The General Propositions In Books 1 And 2 Are Directed, While In Book 3 Our Explanation Of The System Of The World Illustrates These Propositions.

No Being Exists Or Can Exist Which Is Not Related To Space In Some Way. God Is Everywhere, Created Minds Are Somewhere, And Body Is In The Space That It Occupies; And Whatever Is Neither Everywhere Nor Anywhere Does Not Exist. And Hence It Follows That Space Is An Effect Arising From The First Existence Of Being, Because When Any Being Is Postulated, Space Is Postulated.

I Do Not Think That This [the Universe] Can Be Explained Only By Natural Causes, And Are Forced To Impute To The Wisdom And Ingenuity Of An Intelligent.

There Are More Sure Marks Of Authenticity In The Bible Than In Any Profane History.

Is Not Fire A Body Heated So Hot As To Emit Light Copiously? For What Else Is A Red Hot Iron Than Fire? And What Else Is A Burning Coal Than Red Hot Wood?

The Latest Authors, Like The Most Ancient, Strove To Subordinate The Phenomena Of Nature To The Laws Of Mathematics.

In The Reign Of The Greek Emperor Justinian , And Again In The Reign Of Phocas , The Bishop Of Rome Obtained Some Dominion Over The Greek Churches, But Of No Long Continuance. His Standing Dominion Was Only Over The Nations Of The Western Empire, Represented By Daniel's Fourth Beast.

You Sometimes Speak Of Gravity As Essential And Inherent To Matter. Pray Do Not Ascribe That Notion To Me, For The Cause Of Gravity Is What I Do Not Pretend To Know, And Therefore Would Take More Time To Consider Of It.

As Attraction Is Stronger In Small Magnets Than In Great Ones In Proportion To Their Bulk, And Gravity Is Greater In The Surfaces Of Small Planets Than In Those Of Great Ones In Proportion To Their Bulk, And Small Bodies Are Agitated Much More By Electric Attraction Than Great Ones; So The Smallness Of The Rays Of Light May Contribute Very Much To The Power Of The Agent By Which They Are Refracted.

I Feign No Hypotheses.

Oh Diamond! Diamond! Thou Little Knowest The Mischief Done! [apocryphal]

To Derive Two Or Three General Principles Of Motion From Phænomena, And Afterwards To Tell Us How The Properties And Actions Of All Corporeal Things Follow From Those Manifest Principles, Would Be A Very Great Step In Philosophy.

Our Ordination: Sir Isaac Newton, 1642 – 1747 About The Times Of The End, A Body Of Men Will Be Raised Up Who Will Turn Their Attention To The Prophecies, And Insist Upon Their Literal Interpretation, In The Midst Of Much Clamor And Opposition.

Did Blind Chance Know That There Was Light And What Was Its Refraction, And Fit The Eyes Of All Creatures After The Most Curious Manner To Make Use Of It? These And Other Suchlike Considerations, Always Have, And Always Will Prevail With Mankind, To Believe That There Is A Being Who Made All Things, Who Has All Things In His Power, And Who Is Therefore To Be Feared.

Through Algebra You Easily Arrive At Equations, But Always To Pass Therefrom To The Elegant Constructions And Demonstrations Which Usually Result By Means Of The Method Of Porisms Is Not So Easy, Nor Is One's Ingenuity And Power Of Invention So Greatly Exercised And Refined In This Analysis.

When Two Forces Unite, Their Efficiency Double.

Where Both Are Friends, It Is Right To Prefer Truth.

I See I Have Made My Self A Slave To Philosophy.

Do Not The Rays Of Light Which Fall Upon Bodies, And Are Reflected Or Refracted, Begin To Bend Before They Arrive At The Bodies; And Are They Not Reflected, Refracted, And Inflected, By One And The Same Principle, Acting Variously In Various Circumstances?

What Goes Up Must Come Down.

'tis The Temper Of The Hot And Superstitious Part Of Mankind In Matters Of Religion Ever To Be Fond Of Mysteries, And For That Reason To Like Best What They Understand Least.

Definition Of Inertia: 'the Vis Insita, Or Innate Force Of Matter, Is A Power Of Resisting By Which Every Body, As Much As In It Lies, Endeavours To Preserve Its Present State, Whether It Be Of Rest Or Of Moving Uniformly Forward In A Straight Line.

A Man May Imagine Things That Are False, But He Can Only Understand Things That Are True, For If The Things Be False, The Apprehension Of Them Is Not Understanding.

I Can Calculate The Motion Of Heavenly Bodies, But Not The Madness Of People.

To Explain All Nature Is Too Difficult A Task For Any One Man Or Even For Any One Age

In Experimental Philosophy, Propositions Gathered From Phenomena By Induction Should Be Considered Either Exactly Or Very Nearly True Notwithstanding Any Contrary Hypotheses, Until Yet Other Phenomena Make Such Propositions Either More Exact Or Liable To Exceptions.

I Can Measure The Motion Of Bodies But I Cannot Measure Human Folly.

Philosophy Is Such An Impertinently Litigious Lady That A Man Had As Good Be Engaged In Lawsuits As Have To Do With Her.

The Alternation Of Motion Is Ever Proportional To The Motive Force Impressed; And Is Made In The Direction Of The Right Line In Which That Force Is Impressed.

Those Qualities Of Bodies That Cannot Be Intended And Remitted [i.e., Qualities That Cannot Be Increased And Diminished] And That Belong To All Bodies On Which Experiments Can Be Made Should Be Taken As Qualities Of All Bodies Universally.

The Synthesis Consists In Assuming The Causes Discovered And Established As Principles, And By Them Explaining The Phænomena Proceeding From Them, And Proving The Explanations.

In Scripture We Are Told Of Some Trusting In God And Others Trusting In Idols, And That God Is Our Refuge, Our Strength, Our Defense. In This Sense God Is The Rock Of His People, And False Gods Are Called The Rock Of Those That Trust In Them. In The Same Sense The Gods Of The King Who Shall Do According To His Will Are Called Mahuzzims, Munitions, Fortresses, Protectors, Guardians, Or Defenders.

Absolute, True And Mathematical Time, Of Itself, And From Its Own Nature Flows Equably Without Relation To Anything External.

If Others Would Think As Hard As I Did, Then They Would Get Similar Results.

Are Not All Hypotheses Erroneous, In Which Light Is Supposed To Consist In Pression Or Motion, Propagated Through A Fluid Medium? For In All These Hypotheses The Phaenomena Of Light Have Been Hitherto Explain'd By Supposing That They Arise From New Modifications Of The Rays; Which Is An Erroneous Supposition.

If I Have Done The Public Any Service, It Is Due To My Patient Thought.

. . . Newton Was An Unquestioning Believer In An All-wise Creator Of The Universe, And In His Own Inability - Like The Boy On The Seashore - To Fathom The Entire Ocean In All Its Depths. He Therefore Believed That There Were Not Only Many Things In Heaven Beyond His Philosophy, But Plenty On Earth As Well, And He Made It His Business To Understand For Himself What The Majority Of Intelligent Men Of His Time Accepted Without Dispute (to Them It Was As Natural As Common Sense) - The Traditional Account Of The Creation.

Every Action Has An Equal And Opposite Reaction

This Principle Of Nature Being Very Remote From The Conceptions Of Philosophers, I Forbore To Describe It In That Book, Least I Should Be Accounted An Extravagant Freak And So Prejudice My Readers Against All Those Things Which Were The Main Designe Of The Book.

This Excellent Mathematician Having Given Us, In The Transactions Of February Last, An Account Of The Cause, Which Induced Him To Think Upon Reflecting Telescopes, Instead Of Refracting Ones, Hath Thereupon Presented The Curious World With An Essay Of What May Be Performed By Such Telescopes; By Which It Is Found, That Telescopical Tubes May Be Considerably Shortened Without Prejudice To Their Magnifiying Effect. On His Invention Of The Catadioptrical Telescope, As He Communicated To The Royal Society.

If I Had Stayed For Other People To Make My Tools And Things For Me, I Had Never Made Anything.

Trending Author

George Edward Moore

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Jackie Robinson

Category