come to a standstill long
ago. Despite his attacks on Descartes' views, it is clear from recent
research that Newton was a Cartesian right up to the publication of the
"Principia"; and when one reads the work, one is struck by an awesome
fact: Newton made the Cartesian world view tenable by falsifying all of
its details. In other words, although Descartes' facts were wrong and his
theories insupportable, the central Cartesian outlook -- that the world
is a vast machine of matter and motion obeying mathematical laws -- was
thoroughly validated by Newton's work. For all of Newton's brilliance,
the real hero (some would say ghost) of the Scientific Revolution was
René Descartes.
But Newton did not have his triumph so easily. His entire view of the
cosmos hinged on the law of universal gravitation, or gravity, and even
after it had been given an exact mathematical formulation, no one knew
just what this attraction was. Cartesian thinkers pointed out that their
own mentor had wisely restricted himself to motion by direct impact, and
ruled out what scientists would later call action-at-a-distance. Newton,
they argued, has not explained gravity, but merely stated its effects,
and thus it really is, in his system, an occult property. Where is this
"gravity" that he makes so much of? It can be neither seen, nor heard,
nor felt, nor smelled. It is, in short, as much a fiction as the vortices
of Descartes.
Privately, Newton agonized over this judgment. He felt that his critics
were correct. Early in 1692 or 1693 he wrote his friend the Reverend
Richard Bentley the following admission:
That gravity should be innate, inherent 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 philosophical
matters a competent faculty of thinking can ever fall into it. Gravity
must be caused by an agent acting constantly according to certain
laws, but whether this agent be material or immaterial I have left
to the consideration of my readers.20
Publicly, however, Newton adopted a stance that established, once and
for all, the philosophical relationship between appearance and reality,
hypothesis and experiment. In a section of the Principia entitled "God
and Natural Philosophy," he wrote:
Hitherto we have explained the phenomena of the heavens and of our
sea by the power of gravity, but have not yet assigned the cause of
this power. This is certain, that it must proceed from a cause that
penetrates to the very centers of the sun and planets. . . . But
hitherto 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.21
Newton was echoing the major theme of the scientific Revolution: our
goal is how, not why. That I cannot explain gravity is irrelevant. I
can measure it, observe it, make predictions based on it, and this is
all the scientist has to do. If a phenomenon is not measurable, it can
"have no place in experimental philosophy." This philosophical position,
in its various forms called "positivism," has been the public face of
modern science down to the present day.22
The second major aspect of Newton's work was best delineated in the
"Opticks" (1704), in which he was able to wed philosophical atomism
to the definition of experiment which had been crystallizing in the
minds of scientists throughout the previous century. As a result,
Newton's researches on light and color became the model for the correct
analysis of natural phenomena. The
ago. Despite his attacks on Descartes' views, it is clear from recent
research that Newton was a Cartesian right up to the publication of the
"Principia"; and when one reads the work, one is struck by an awesome
fact: Newton made the Cartesian world view tenable by falsifying all of
its details. In other words, although Descartes' facts were wrong and his
theories insupportable, the central Cartesian outlook -- that the world
is a vast machine of matter and motion obeying mathematical laws -- was
thoroughly validated by Newton's work. For all of Newton's brilliance,
the real hero (some would say ghost) of the Scientific Revolution was
René Descartes.
But Newton did not have his triumph so easily. His entire view of the
cosmos hinged on the law of universal gravitation, or gravity, and even
after it had been given an exact mathematical formulation, no one knew
just what this attraction was. Cartesian thinkers pointed out that their
own mentor had wisely restricted himself to motion by direct impact, and
ruled out what scientists would later call action-at-a-distance. Newton,
they argued, has not explained gravity, but merely stated its effects,
and thus it really is, in his system, an occult property. Where is this
"gravity" that he makes so much of? It can be neither seen, nor heard,
nor felt, nor smelled. It is, in short, as much a fiction as the vortices
of Descartes.
Privately, Newton agonized over this judgment. He felt that his critics
were correct. Early in 1692 or 1693 he wrote his friend the Reverend
Richard Bentley the following admission:
That gravity should be innate, inherent 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 philosophical
matters a competent faculty of thinking can ever fall into it. Gravity
must be caused by an agent acting constantly according to certain
laws, but whether this agent be material or immaterial I have left
to the consideration of my readers.20
Publicly, however, Newton adopted a stance that established, once and
for all, the philosophical relationship between appearance and reality,
hypothesis and experiment. In a section of the Principia entitled "God
and Natural Philosophy," he wrote:
Hitherto we have explained the phenomena of the heavens and of our
sea by the power of gravity, but have not yet assigned the cause of
this power. This is certain, that it must proceed from a cause that
penetrates to the very centers of the sun and planets. . . . But
hitherto 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.21
Newton was echoing the major theme of the scientific Revolution: our
goal is how, not why. That I cannot explain gravity is irrelevant. I
can measure it, observe it, make predictions based on it, and this is
all the scientist has to do. If a phenomenon is not measurable, it can
"have no place in experimental philosophy." This philosophical position,
in its various forms called "positivism," has been the public face of
modern science down to the present day.22
The second major aspect of Newton's work was best delineated in the
"Opticks" (1704), in which he was able to wed philosophical atomism
to the definition of experiment which had been crystallizing in the
minds of scientists throughout the previous century. As a result,
Newton's researches on light and color became the model for the correct
analysis of natural phenomena. The
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