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The Methodological Origins of Newton's Queries PDF
The Methodological Origins of Newton's Queries PDF
35 (2004) 247269
www.elsevier.com/locate/shpsa
Abstract
This paper analyses the dierent ways in which Isaac Newton employed queries in his
writings on natural philosophy. It is argued that queries were used in three dierent ways by
Newton and that each of these uses is best understood against the background of the role
that queries played in the Baconian method that was adopted by the leading experimenters
of the early Royal Society. After a discussion of the role of queries in Francis Bacons natural historical method, Newtons queries in his Trinity Notebook are shown to reveal the
inuence of his early reading in the new experimental philosophy. Then after a discussion of
Robert Hookes view of the role of queries, the paper turns to an assessment of Newtons
correspondence and Opticks. It is argued that the queries in his correspondence with Oldenburg on his early optical experiments are closely tied to an experimental program, whereas
the queries in the Opticks are more discursive and speculative, but that each of these uses of
queries represents a signicant Baconian legacy in his natural philosophical methodology.
# 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Bacon; Experiment; Hypothesis; Method; Newton; Query
1. Introduction
Among the most famous passages in all of Isaac Newtons writings are the queries appended to the Opticks. In fact, Query 31 from the second edition of the
Opticks (1717) is one of the most widely quoted and discussed passages from
Newtons whole oeuvre. Yet if the contents of this and others of Newtons queries
E-mail address: Peter.Anstey@arts.usyd.edu.au (P.R. Anstey).
0039-3681/$ - see front matter # 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.shpsa.2003.11.001
248
are well known and studied, their precise origins are rather less well understood.
This paper aims to shed new light upon the methodological origins of Newtons
queries; not simply the queries to the Opticks, but to all of his queries in natural
philosophy. Why did Newton write queries? And what can his adoption of this
methodological tool tell us about his connections with the natural philosophy of
his day and his own methodological views? We will explore these questions rst, by
examining the function of queries in the emerging natural philosophical methodologies of the early Royal Society; second, by an examination of the role and function of queries in the methodology of Robert Hooke; and third, by an analysis
of Newtons own comments on the use of queries. Surprisingly, our analysis of
Newtons adoption and deployment of queries will take us to the very heart of his
methodological views about how one is to proceed in natural philosophy.
Questions played an important role in each of the three chief scholastic exercises
(lectures, disputations, and declamations) that prevailed in the universities of
Cambridge and Oxford in the mid-seventeenth century.1 For example, in a typical
disputation a question would be stated and then the armative or negative answer
defended by the disputant. Furthermore, students frequently used queries or questions in common-placing to raise doubts or diculties in relation to the material
under consideration or to introduce additional issues not addressed by the author
under review. John Lockes commonplace books from the late 1650s provide very
extensive examples of this use of queries. It is not surprising therefore, that a section in the young Newtons Trinity Notebook entered in the mid-1660s is headed
Questiones qudem Philosoph[i]c (Certain Philosophical Questions)2 and contains a series of questions by which discussions of natural philosophical topics are
introduced. These queries of the young Newton are indicative of the pedagogical
tradition in which he had trained. A nice example is the rst entry which is entitled
Of the rst matter. It begins Whether it be mathematical points, or mathematical
points and parts, or a simple entity before division indistinct, or individuals, i.e.,
atoms.3 Newton rejects the rst three answers and in the second entry arms that
rst matter is comprised of atoms.4 However, the queries found later in the Notebook and those in his published works, his correspondence and his manuscripts are
of a somewhat dierent form and were developed in the theoretical and polemical
context of the newly emerging experimental philosophy. In order to understand
1
For discussion of the scholastic exercises at Cambridge in the early seventeenth century see Costello
(1958), pp. 1135. For further background on Restoration Cambridge see Gascoigne (1985), and on
Oxford see Feingold (1997) (who also provides a corrective to Costello (1958)) and Frank (1997),
pp. 526527. For general background see Chapter X of Lawn (1993), and for the American George
Starkeys use of the scholastic method see Newman and Principe (2002), pp. 164174.
2
Reproduced with an extensive introduction and commentary by McGuire & Tamny (1983). Also
available online at The Newton Project, Imperial College London, at http://www.newtonproject.ic.
ac.uk/web_keynes/cul3996a_w.xml.
3
McGuire & Tamny (1983), p. 336/337.
4
Ibid., p. 340/341.
249
this context we need rst to turn to the role of queries in the predominant natural
philosophical method of the early Royal Society, the method of Francis Bacon.
See Parasceve, V & VII, Bacon (18571874), Vol. IV, pp. 257259, and De augmentis scientiarum,
ibid., pp. 369371.
6
Descriptio globi intellectualis, Bacon (1996), p. 104/105.
7
See Hunter & Wood (1989).
8
See for example, Oldenburgs comment that A considerable piece of the grand Design of the
Modern Experimental Philosophers being, to procure and accumulate Materials for a good Natural History, whence to raise in progress of time a solid Structure of Philosophy, Philosophical Transactions, 19,
19 November 1666, p. 344. See also Oldenburg (19651986), Vol. II, pp. 143144, Vol. III, p. 537, Vol.
IV, p. 315.
9
Glanvill (1668), p. 9, and Sprat (1667), passim.
250
251
tive of this are the comments of the natural historian Martin Lister, who in 1670
when listing a series of observations on colours says in passing:
It would have been a much safer way, to have put these Inferences in the fashion of Quris; but besides that I arm no more but matter of fact, it is lawful
for our encouragement (as my Lord Bacon advises) to set up rests by the way . . .
[in the construction of natural histories].15
The naturalness of the reference to the fashion of Quris and the appeal to
Bacon are again illustrative of how widespread this use of queries was amongst
members of the early Royal Society. But it is also important to note that the
method of queries is not the sole province of the promoters of natural histories of
natural objects and qualities, but was also practised and applied in the domain of
arts or experiments. This is signicant not only for our understanding of the practice of natural history in general, but more particularly for our analysis of Newtons queries. With one (slightly ambiguous) exception, Newton never appears
explicitly to have endorsed the method of natural history and yet he clearly
employed one of the central components of this method, the query.
The young Newton was aware of this natural historical programme for the
advancement of natural philosophy since he took notes, some very detailed, on a
number of the most important early productions of this approach to natural philosophy. These included Boyles Spring of the air (1660) and Colours (1664), and
Hookes Micrographia (1665). Boyles Spring of the air was the rst instalment in
an ongoing history of the air which continued unabated even beyond his death in
the capable hands of John Locke who saw his General history of the air through
the press in 1692. His Colours, which was a stimulus to Newtons early optical
experiments, was conceived as a Beginning to a History not hitherto, that I know,
begun by any.16 Likewise, Hookes Micrographia was conceived in Baconian terms
as contributing the meanest foundations whereon others may raise nobler
Superstructures.17 Newton also took notes on the rst twenty-four issues of the
Philosophical Transactions which reveal an awareness of the role of queries in the
new natural philosophy.18
Further evidence of Newtons knowledge of the method of natural history is
found in his letter to Francis Aston of 18 May 1669.19 This letter has long been
15
252
thought to have been inspired by an abridgement of Robert Southwells Concerning travelling which gives advice to gentlemen for travelling abroad and which survives among Newtons papers.20 Southwells advice contains a number of
suggestions as to inquires that might be made about foreign lands, but it does not
bear a distinctively Baconian stamp. By contrast, Boyles more generic General
heads for the natural history of a countrey which Newton would have read in the
eleventh issue of the Philosophical Transactions of April 1666 is a classic statement
of a natural historical approach to gleaning facts from overseas travel.21 The methodological background of this document is summed up in one of Oldenburgs
numerous statements of the aims of the Royal Society. He claims we shall even
appoint philosophical ambassadors to travel throughout the world to search and
report on the works and productions of nature and art, in order to compose in
time a Natural and Articial History which will be perfect, and which can provide
materials sucient to build an unshakeably rm system of philosophy.22 Robert
Southwells travel correspondence with Oldenburg shows not only that he followed
his own advice, but that he did so with Oldenburgs agenda in mind, for he sent
back numerous natural historical observations.23 We should note in Newtons letter therefore, the repeated references to mines,24 the lists of generall heads for
Inquirys, the recommendation that the travellers discourse bee more in Qurys &
doubtings . . . it being ye designe of Travellers to learne not teach and the word
play, popular at the time, on Bacons luciferous experiments. Newton advises:
if you meet wth any transmutations out of one species into another [of metals or
salts] . . . those above all others will bee worth your noting being ye most luciferous & many times lucriferous experiments too in Philosophy.25
Whatever we are to make of the intent of this letter,26 it is clear from its contents
that Newton was very familiar with some of the central elements of the Baconian
method as practised by members of the early Royal Society.
This then is the natural philosophical context in which we should view many of
the questions in Newtons Trinity Notebook and also the queries at the end of his
20
Kings College Library, Cambridge, Keynes MS 152. For verbal parallels see Newton (19591977),
Vol. I, p. 12 n. 1.
21
Philosophical Transactions, 11, 2 April 1666, pp. 186189. In Cambridge University Library,
Additional Manuscript 3958, fol. 11r Newton writes Boyls directions for the generall History of a
country.
22
Oldenburg to Sorbie`re, 3 January 1663/1664, Oldenburg (19651986), Vol. II, p. 142/144. See also
Hookes Preface to Knox (1681), sig. a2v-a3r.
23
See Oldenburg (19651986), Vol. I, pp. 323325, 355356.
24
For Newtons own notes on mines from this period see University Library, Cambridge Additional
Manuscript 3958, fols 25r26r.
25
Newton (19591977), Vol. I, p. 10. Boyle used the word play in Forms and qualities (1666), Boyle
(19992000), Vol. V, p. 418, and William Petty in his The advice of W. P. to Mr. Samuel Hartlib (1647),
p. 20. The Baconian connection in Newtons use of the terms was noted by Blay (1985), p. 373 n. 66.
26
Westfall nds the letter itself more ludicrous than eloquent (1980, p. 193).
253
notes on Hookes Micrographia made in 1665.27 It was noted above that the Notebook begins with some instances of the scholastic disputational style. However, as
the notebook develops, the disputational format quickly drops away and the queries recorded begin to take the familiar form of the lists of queries found amongst
the natural philosophers of the early Royal Society. For example, the notes on Of
water and salt are really a set of observations and queries arising from a close
reading of Chapters I & III of Descartess Meteora. Here is an excerpt:
Why water is clearer than vapors?
Whether burning waters and hot spirits be of small spherical or oval gured parts, and have many such globuli as re is of. . . .
Why does hot water rst contract itself (viz., in cooling), and then dilate
itself before and as it freezes?
Why does salt and snow freeze other water? Why is heated water sooner
frozen than raw water?
Whether there be more vapors when air is clearest? How salt hinders corruption, but fresh water helps it. Why, though salt be heavier, yet it will
mix with water and gather into grains at the top of it?28
If one compares this excerpt with a typical list of queries from, say, an excerpt
from Boyles lists of queries on elasticity from the 1660s, the parallels are striking.
What Bodys are Naturally endowd with elasticity.
What Bodys Naturally want Springs.
What Bodys there are that have Springs under some Dimensions, & not
under others . . .
What Bodys Naturally Elasticall may be deprivd of their Spring (to this
belongs the Glasse of Lead & other Minerales per se, & the reductions of
that Minerall.
By what operations & meanes Elasticity may be introducd into Bodys, as
fusion hammering, wire drawing &c.
By what operations & meanes the Elasticity of a Body may be destroyd, as
nealing, melting &c.
What are the cheif & most usual Concomitants of Elasticitie, & of the
absence or losse of it.29
Note the piling up of queries, the prominent position of the interrogative particle, and the attempt more or less systematically to cover outstanding issues pertaining to the topic at hand. Clearly during his course of reading, Newton had
begun to imbibe one of the prominent literary forms of the new philosophy.
27
254
What is interesting from such lists is that the queries are used as series of
pointers by which experimental programmes might be pursued or as checks to
interpretations of experimental results, and so on. Another Boyle list found among
Lockes manuscripts asks,
Whether there be ames that will really continue under water without
being extinguishd by it & whether the same ames or some others would
not burn without aire.
Whether Aire by any degree of agitation how high soever be capable of
being inamd.
Whether a great heat can be given by ame alone or by coles &c. without
ame.
How great a part of a Combustible body may be supposd to be burnt into
ame, exemplifyd in Alcole of wine.30
Thus the humble query served two functions. First, it delineated the domain or
scope of a natural history that needed to be prosecuted, and second it also served
to direct experimental inquiry. This tted well with the Baconian agenda for pursuing mechanical or experimental knowledge as a form of natural history and was a
natural and easy application of the Baconian method.
3. Hooke on queries
This brings us to the case of Robert Hooke who is a nice example of a natural
philosopher who was able to dovetail the two uses of queries in natural philosophy. He develops lists like those of Boyle, modelled on Bacon, which are for the
development of natural histories and yet he also deploys queries about, say, the
nature of earthquakes31 or comets32 which are directly related to experiments,
observations and hypotheses. Now what is particularly useful for our purposes is
that Hooke did not merely practise the Baconian method of queries, he reected
on the role of queries in his methodological lectures. And it will repay us to briey
examine Hookes prescriptions for the assembling and application of queries in
natural philosophy. This is particularly relevant, because it is in the context of
Newtons conict with Hooke on the nature of colour and light that Newton himself rst publicly deploys queries.
In his Method of improving natural philosophy, published posthumously but
written around 1668, Hooke develops a neo-Baconian natural philosophical methodology in the spirit of the Parasceve, rst expostulating upon the necessity of and
structure of natural histories and then providing a very elaborate reticulated
30
Bodleian Library, MS Locke c. 42, pp. 266267. I would like to thank Michael Hunter for the transcription of these folios.
31
A discourse of earthquakes, Hooke (1705), p. 345.
32
Cometa and Hooke (1678), sig. A3r.
255
schema of heads for the composition of natural histories.33 Hooke clearly regards
this as a universally applicable method which can be used for any natural philosophical inquiry. He then introduces an extended discussion of the uses of queries.
First he tells us how we should go about setting down queries and then he examines their function within the natural history itself:
And having set down these Queries, he ought in the next place to consider what
things seem requisite to attain those ends; what means he can imagine may be
conducive to the solving or answering those Questions, that is, what Observations, Examinations, or Experiments would seem conducive thereunto, and
accordingly under every such Query or Question, he ought to set down the
things requisite to be known for the obtaining the full Knowledge of a compleat
and full Answer to it; afterwards with Care and Diligence he ought to make
Examination and Tryal of what he has propounded, one thing after another,
with much Circumspection . . . The Tryal of these Experiments, tis very likely,
will much further his Knowledge, and shew him perhaps the Solution of some of
his Queries, as well as the Error and Insignicancy of others . . . 34
Once the queries are set down the natural philosopher sets about contriving experiments and observations that will provide answers to them. Elsewhere Hooke
emphasises that queries should only be set down if they are solvable and that it is
preferable that they be devised by those who are strangers to the phenomenon
under investigation, though not anyone is capable of devising them.35 Furthermore, once the project of prosecuting queries is undertaken with due thoroughness,
the natural philosopher will nd that it has a ow on eect for other inquiries:
Thus the nding out the Cause of Fluidity, Heat, Gravity, Brittleness, &c. in one
Body, will much facilitate the Inquiry after the like Properties in any other Body.36
It is important to stress here that queries for Hooke are to be dierentiated from
hypotheses. Even as early as the Micrographia Hooke can be found to dierentiate
the two. He claims in his dedicatory epistle to the Royal Society that with respect
to the use of hypotheses in this work,
there may perhaps be some Expressions, which may seem more positive then
YOUR Prescriptions will permit: And though I desire to have them understood
only as Conjectures and Quries (which YOUR Method does not altogether disallow) . . . 37
It is easy with the benet of hindsight to see that in some cases the functional
role of queries is equivalent to what we would call working hypotheses, but it
33
256
would be anachronistic to foist this equivalence upon the early moderns. The
formation and testing of queries in Hooke, Boyle, and others is a distinct step in
the neo-Baconian methodology of experimental natural philosophy. To be sure,
queries might explicitly be deployed in the testing of a theory, but this remains a
clearly dened step in a well articulated process that originates from the method of
constructing natural histories.
257
between his theory and the experiments that support it dierentiates it from other
possible theories. He regards this epistemic relation between his theory and the
experiments as somehow unique and he suggests two methods for exploring this
further: rst, by re-examining the relation between the original experiments and the
theory; and second, by proposing new experiments suggested by the theory itself.
This, he says, should be done in a due Method and he proceeds to spell this out:
It may not be amiss to proceed according to the series of these Queries:. He goes
on to list eight queries and concludes by claiming:
To determin by experiments these & such like Queries wch involve the propounded Theory seemes the most proper & direct way to a conclusion. And
therefore I could wish all objections were suspended, taken from Hypotheses or
any other Heads then these two; Of showing the insuciency of experiments to
determin these Queries or prove any other parts of my Theory, by assigning the
aws & defects in my Conclusions drawn from them; Or of producing other
Experiments wch directly contradict me, if any such may seem to occur.39
Newton is requesting that rather than focusing on other hypotheses, such as
Hookes, and how they save the phenomena, one should focus on the adequacy or
otherwise of experiments that are developed to pursue answers to his queries and
on nding experiments that might directly contradict his theory.
Clearly Newton conceives the queries as comprising part of due or proper
method in resolving the problem at hand. Clearly too, Newton sees them as standing in important evidential relations to both the experimental programme and to
the theory under examination. Note also that they are distinguished from hypotheses like Hookes wave theory of light. Rather they are subsidiary propositions that
arise in the particular experimento-theoretical context. Thus for Newton, in the
context of an ongoing controversy over his optical experiments and his theory of
coloured lighta controversy that involved some of the leading purveyors of the
natural historical method and the deployment of queriesqueries have a central
role in his natural philosophical method. They are not hypotheses; they are not
part of the theory. Rather they are propositions that function as heuristic devices
that are derived in a specic experimental and theoretical context.
Not surprisingly, the letter of 6 July was read to the Royal Society on the very
next day and it was recommended there to prosecute experiments such as might
determine the queries lately sent by Mr. NEWTON, which involve his theory
of light.40 That Newton regarded his methodological comments as signicant
is evident from his opening comment in his letter to Oldenburg of 13 July 1672.
He says:
39
40
Ibid., p. 210.
Birch (17561757), Vol. III, p. 57.
258
I am glad you are pleased to accept my answer to your inquiry, together with
the following discourse about the properest Method of examining the truth of
my proposalls; wch you may print when you think t.41
Oldenburg must have concurred, because he excerpted the queries of the letter 6
July and printed them in both English and Latin in the Philosophical Transactions
of 15 July.42 They were introduced under the heading A Series of Queres propounded by Mr. Isaac Newton, to be determind by Experiments . . . and Oldenburg went on to speak of Newtons Method as appearing to be most genuine
and proper to the purpose it is propounded for, and deserving therefore to be considered and put to trial by Philosophers, abroad as well as at home.43
Let us now turn to Newtons use of queries in his rejoinder of 11 June 1672
to Hookes Considerations. He begins the sixth section of his rejoinder with the
following claim:
You see therefore how much it is besides the buisinesse in hand to dispute about
Hypotheses. For wch reason I shall now in the last place proceed to abstract the
diculties involved in Mr Hooks discourse, & without having regard to any
Hypothesis consider them in generall termes. And they may be reduced to these
three Queries. Whether . . .; Whether there be more then two sorts of colours; &
whether . . .44
Note rstly the eschewing of hypotheses and the clear dierentiation between
queries and hypotheses. Hypotheses in this context, such as Hookes, merely
muddy the waters. Throughout the exchanges Newton is adamant that his theory is
not an hypothesis in so far as it stands in a unique evidential relation to the experimental observations, a relation not shared by the hypothesis of Hooke. Newton is
very specic about this. Indeed, in the letter of 10 June 1672 (sent one day before
this reply to Hooke) he takes umbrage at Pardiess calling his theory an hypothesis,
afraid that it was being considered merely in a loose philosophical sense as anything expounded in philosophy [quicquid exponitur in Philosophia dicatur
Hypothesis].45
Secondly, Newtons use of queries here is exactly as prescribed in the subsequent
letter to Oldenburg which has already been discussed. Note thirdly that this use of
queries is in reply to Hooke who we have also seen was committed to their deployment in a proper method of natural philosophy. Finally, we need to note that in
the subsequent sections of his rejoinder to Hooke, Newton immediately applies his
method by exploring the heuristic implications of each of the three queries he has
proposed.
41
259
But Newton does not leave the method of queries there; he apparently drew up
a series of Expts for determining ye Qures wch yt Letter conteined46 and forwarded them via Oldenburg to Huygens. A correspondence then ensued which
revolved around the application of the second query concerning Whether there be
more then two sorts of colours. Thus on 19 January 1672/1673 Huygens (via Oldenburg) comments that Il me semble, que la plus importante objection, quon luy
fait en forme de Qure, est celle. Sil y a plus de deux sortes de couleurs?47
Newton replies on 3 April 1673, again construing the problem at hand in terms of
queries: As to the contents of his letter I conceive my former answer to the
Qure about the number of colours is sucient, wch was to this eect . . ..48 Not
surprisingly, Newton concludes his letter for Huygens with a new set of queries.49
Queries here are clearly functioning not merely rhetorically as part of some
newly formed methodological discourse, but as an eective heuristic device guiding
the formation of new experiments and steering theoretical reection and debate.
These are just the sorts of functions that one would expect queries to have in a
broadly Baconian experimental natural philosophy. That Hooke, Huygens, and
Oldenburg acquiesced in this heuristic method is entirely in keeping with what we
know independently about their own methodological views. The deployment of
queries is not the only methodological element in Newtons correspondence. It is
clear that he was formulating a mathematico-experimental method that involved
the statement of axioms in a quasi-mathematical style50 and that this was related to
what he regarded as a demonstrative relation between experiment and theory.
These latter features may have been inspired by Isaac Barrow, as some have
suggested,51 and were to be articulated dierently in the domain of celestial mechanics. But the fundamentally Baconian strand in Newtons methodological thought
is unambiguous. Or is it?
Many years ago A. I. Sabra noted that Newtons letter to Oldenburg of 6
February 1672 had a Baconian ring to it and he implied that it had been tailored
to the methodological prescriptions of the Royal Society. After quoting the crucial
paragraph in which Newton claims [a] naturalist would scearce expect to see ye
science of those [colours] become mathematicall, Sabra says that Newton proceeds in his paper as Bacon and members of the Royal Society would have
required him to do.52 Two decades later Michel Blay took a similar line, claiming
that once interpreted correctly, Newtons charade of Baconianism in this letter is
evidence that in fact he was not a Baconian at all!53 More recently, Peter Dear has
46
260
claimed that in this letter Newton presents his approach . . . as if it simply conformed to the logic of the Royal Societys experimental philosophy.54 What are we
to make of these claims?
There is no doubt that there is an element of rational reconstruction on Newtons part in his discussions of his optical experiments and the process by which he
came upon his theory of coloured light in the rst of this sequence of letters.55 It
should be pointed out, however, that the rst letter, that of 6 February 1672, contains only a minimal amount of methodological content comprising two sentences.
However, if we take the clutch of letters from this episode in Newtons exchanges
with Oldenburg, we can see that they are really part of the rst phase of the public
presentation of Newtons experimental and theoretical work and therefore it
is only natural that its presentation should include methodological reections.
Furthermore, it must be stressed that Newton saw dierences between himself and
the triad of Hooke, Pardies, and Huygensthe main theoretical antagonists in the
correspondenceon matters of methodology. There is therefore no reason why we
should not regard Newton here as articulating his newly formed natural philosophical method, albeit with something of a public edge to it.56 Indeed, already in
the then unpublished Lectiones opticae, completed by October 1671, Newton had
expressed similar sentiments.57 Moreover, the fact that Oldenburg excised the two
aforementioned sentences from the version published in the Philosophical Transactions suggests, if anything, that the letter did not conform to the Societys, or perhaps Oldenburgs, supposed methodological prescriptions, rather than that it was
tailored to do so.
I suggest that we take Newtons methodological claims in all of these letters at
face value. We have seen from Newtons letter of 13 July 1672 that he took his
methodological prescriptions seriously and the implication of his suggestion that
Oldenburg might print them in the Philosophical Transactions is that he considered
them both novel and important. It is clear therefore, particularly in the light of the
continuity of the methodological claims in these letters with Newtons later writings, that there is no evidence for the claim that the letter of 6 February has been
tailored to the prescriptions of others and by implication does not represent
Newtons true methodological views. The letters of 11 June, 6 July, 21 September
1672, and 3 April 1673 which contain or discuss queries serve to reinforce the honest though muted Baconianism of the letter of 6 February 1672, and together they
show that (at least) from early 1672 Newton was in the process of becoming a
neo-Baconian experimental philosopher, albeit with a particularly mathematical
orientation.
54
261
262
this intends the right ordering of them all, and the making them serviceable to
each other.61
And John Lockes opponent John Sergeant, in his The method to science (1696),
sets the problem of the method of science in what by the end of the century were
very familiar terms of reference:
The METHODS which I pitch upon to examine, shall be of two sorts, viz.
that of Speculative, and that of Experimental Philosophers; The Former of
which pretend to proceed by Reason and Principles; the Later by Induction; and
both of them aim at advancing Science.62
This is not to say that there were no methodological dierences or tensions
within the experimental camp: far from it. Mordechai Feingold has documented
the political fallout within the Society over the status and ecacy of the application of the natural historical method in natural philosophy. And in this dispute,
Newton appears to have been opposed to the promoters of natural history, or at
least the more descriptive and taxonomic histories of generations and pretergenerations.63 Yet throughout, the main opponent of natural philosophical progress was
thought to be the speculative or dogmatic philosopher. As John Dunton put it in
his student manual of 1692:
We must consider, the distinction we have made of Speculative and Experimental [natural philosophy], and, as much as possible, Exclude the rst, for an
indefatigable and laborious Search into Natural Experiments, they being only
the Certain, Sure Method to gather a true Body of Philosophy, for the Antient
Way of clapping up an entire building of Sciences, upon pure Contemplation,
may make indeed an Admirable Fabrick, but the Materials are such as can
promise no lasting one.64
Newton was clearly conceiving of his natural philosophical method within these
terms of reference as early as 1671, for he says in his Lectiones opticae:
I therefore urge geometers to investigate nature more rigorously, and those
devoted to natural science to learn geometry rst. Hence the former shall not
entirely spend their time in speculations of no value to human life, nor shall the
latter, while working assiduously with an absurd method, perpetually fail to
reach their goal. But truly with the help of philosophical geometers and geometrical philosophers, instead of the conjectures and probabilities that are now
61
62
63
64
263
being blazoned about everywhere, we shall nally achieve a natural science supported by the greatest evidence.65
It appears that this opposition to speculative natural philosophy gathered
force in the 1680s as Descartess vortex theory came to be seen as the paradigm
speculative system divorced from experiment and observation. Furthermore, as
I. Bernard Cohen has documented, an increasing antipathy towards hypotheses
developed in Newtons thought in the last decade of the century.66 It is inconceivable that Newton could have expressed himself as he did in his 1675 Hypothesis
of light by the end of the 1690s.67 Newtons antipathy was matched by that of
Locke and others within the ambit of the Royal Society at the end of the century,
irrespective of whether they were promoters of the method of natural history.
Experimental natural philosophy was the rallying point for the anti-hypotheticalists even if they could not fully agree as to precisely what the new philosophy
entailed.
It is also important to note, in the light of this polemical context, that hypotheses of any kind came to be tainted by the dangers and indulgences of the speculative methodology. This is especially important in the case of Newton who clearly
used the term hypothesis with a variety of dierent senses, some of which were, in
fact, immune from the charge of speculation. It is symptomatic of the, at times,
crude methodological polarisation within which Newton pursued his natural philosophy that the multifaceted nature and roles of hypotheses in his actual science
were obscured by the predominant anti-hypothetical stance which he and the promoters of the experimental philosophy embraced. Needless to say, this has proven
to be a major stumbling block for his later interpreters over the last ve decades as
they have sought to reconcile the tensions within Newtons very numerous references to hypotheses.
Aware of this background then, we turn now to the most famous of Newtons
queries, the queries to the Opticks. They were appended to the rst edition of 1704
and expanded in the subsequent Latin translation of this edition (1706), and further augmented in the second edition of 1717. Happily Newton tells us why he
included the queries in his Opticks of 1704 and the revised Latin queries of 1706.
In his anonymous An account of the book entituled Commercium epistolicum
(1715) Newton claims:
The Philosophy which Mr. Newton in his Principles and Optiques has pursued is
Experimental; and it is not the Business of Experimental Philosophy to teach the
Causes of things any further than they can be proved by Experiments. We are not
65
Lectiones opticae, Lecture 3, x29, Newton (1984), pp. 86/8788/89. In his letter to Boyle of 28 February 1678/1679 Newton expresses that his reluctance to share his thoughts on certain physical qualities
arose, in part, because in natural philosophy there is no end of fansying (Newton, 19591977, Vol. II,
p. 288).
66
Cohen (1966), p. 179.
67
For Newtons An hypothesis explaining the properties of light discoursed of in my severall papers
see Newton (19591977), Vol. I, pp. 362386.
264
265
6. Conclusion
From the foregoing discussion we are able to glean that Newton found three different, though not entirely discrete, uses for his queries. First, he employed queries
as general questions arising from reection on problems on natural philosophy.
This use is evident in his early reading notes on the natural philosophy of Hooke
and Descartes. The queries written out in response to his reading in turn became
the stimulus for further reection. That he continued to employ this use of queries
until late in his life, though not in natural philosophical inquiry, is evidenced, for
example, by a list of twenty-three queries on the word homoousios datable to
73
266
267
tance within the broader framework of Newtons methodological views and the
context in which they arose. Nearly fty years ago I. Bernard Cohen claimed that
[t]he BaconBoyle approach to natural philosophy did inuence Newtons speculative experimental science.79 Apart from the expression speculative experimental,
which to early modern ears would have been an oxymoron, Cohen was basically
right. Newtons use of the method of queries is arguably the best proof of
Cohens claim.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Mordechai Feingold, John Gascoigne, Michael Hunter,
and Rob Ilie for their constructive comments on this paper.
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