"[T]o make way for the regular and lasting Motions of the Planets and Comets, it's necessary to empty the Heavens of all Matter, except perhaps some very thin Vapours, Steams or Effluvia, arising from the Atmospheres of the Earth, Planets and Comets, and from such an exceedingly rare Æthereal Medium...A dense Fluid can be of no use for explaining the Phænomena of Nature, the Motions of the Planets and Comets being better explain'd without it. It serves only to disturb and retard the Motions of those great Bodies, and make the frame of Nature languish: And in the Pores of Bodies, it serves only to stop the vibrating Motions of their Parts, wherein their Heat and Activity consists. And as it is of no use, and hinders the Operations of Nature, and makes her languish, so there is no evidence for its Existence, and therefore it ought to be rejected. And if it be rejected, the Hypotheses that Light consists in Pression or Motion propagated through such a Medium, are rejected with it."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Query 28 (4th ed. 1730)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Opticks
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Opticks
Opticks: or, A Treatise of the Reflexions, Refractions, Inflexions and Colours of Light is a collection of three books by Isaac Newton that was published in English in 1704 (a scholarly Latin translation appeared in 1706). The treatise analyses the fundamental nature of light by means of the refraction of light with prisms and lenses, the diffraction of light by closely spaced sheets of glass, and the behaviour of colour mixtures with spectral lights or pigment powders.
37 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Opticks →
Related Quotes
"[T]he Instinct of Brutes and Insects, can be the effect of nothing else than the Wisdom and Skill of a powerful ever-…"
"Are not gross Bodies and Light convertible into one another, and may not Bodies receive much of their Activity from t…"
"And since Space is divisible in infinitum, and Matter is not necessarily in all places, it may be also allow'd that G…"
"[T]o derive two or three general Principles of Motion from Phænomena, and afterwards to tell us how the Properties an…"
"By this way of Analysis we may proceed from Compounds to Ingredients, and from Motions to the Forces producing them; …"
"How these Attractions may be perform'd, I do not here consider. What I call Attraction may be perform'd by impulse, o…"
"[I]t seems probable to me that God, in the Beginning, formed Matter in solid, massy, hard, impenetrable, moveable Par…"
"Have not the small Particles of Bodies certain Powers, Virtues, or Forces, by which they act at a distance, not only …"
"As in Mathematicks, so in Natural Philosophy, the Investigation of difficult Things by the Method of Analysis, ought …"
"[W]e are not to consider the World as the Body of God, or the several Parts thereof, as the Parts of God. He is an un…"