"The first thoughts, which gave rise to his Principia, he had, when he retired from Cambridge in 1666 on account of the plague. As he sat alone in a garden, he fell into a speculation on the power of gravity; that as this power is not found sensibly diminished at the remotest distance from the centre of the earth to which we can rise, neither at the tops of the loftiest buildings, nor even on the summits of the highest mountains, it appeared to him reasonable to conclude that this power must extend much further than was usually thought: why not as high as the moon? said he to himself."
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As cited in: Pierre Bayle, ‎John Peter Bernard, ‎John Lockman (1738), A general dictionary, historical and critical, p. 783;
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Henry_Pemberton
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Henry Pemberton
Henry Pemberton (1694 – 9 March 1771) was an English physician and man of letters. He became Gresham Professor of Physic, and edited the third edition of Isaac Newton's Principia Mathematica.
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