McGuire, J. E. - Force, Active Principles, and Newton's Invisible Realm (1968)

154 J. E.
McGUIRE
FORCE, ACTIVE PRINCIPLES, AND NEWTON'S INVISIBLE REALM
By J. E. MCGUIRE·
IN recent years, scholarship has made it possible to achieve a more extended

interpretation of the development of Newton's thought in the years following
the publication of the Principia. It is now time to attempt the task of offering
a framework within which the results of certain of these investigations can be
linked together in a synoptic way. I shall concentrate on what I take to be
one of the central problems which Newton attempted to solve in this later
period, namely, the ontological problem of the causation of force.
This included, for Newton, speculation on different sorts of aethereal media
and on various kinds of immaterial agents: and both types of speculation had
firm roots in his thought of the sixties and seventies. The key passages on
which my analysis will primarily base itself are to be found in the 1706 Latin
edition of the Opticks and in the second English edition of 1717-8. These
passages are concerned with the ontological connexions among motion, force,
and active principles, and are reproduced in Section II of this paper. There
are a considerable number of manuscript variants of these, which clearly
show the important role that chemical and biochemical phenomena played in
Newton's attempts to clarify the properties of the "smaller" forces of nature.
These and other related documents will be analysed in conjunction with the
printed sources.
Lastly, I shall attempt to argue that the basic concepts of Newton's natural
philosophy can be ultimately clarified only in terms of the theological frame-
work which guided so much of his thought. This thesis is not origina1.1&
* Department of Philosophy, University of Leeds, England.

1. See the fundamental studies of H. Metzger, Attraction universelle et religion lIaturelle
chez quelques commentateu"s anglais de Newton, Paris, 1938, and A. Koyre, F"om the Closed
Wo"ld to the Infinite Unive"se, Harper edition, 1958. Also see H. Guerlac, "Newton et
Epicure", Conferences du palais de la decouverte, no. 91, Paris, 1963; an excellent study
by David Kubrin, "Newton and the Cyclical Cosmos: Providence and the Mechanical
Philosophy", j.H.I., 1967, XXVIII, 325-46; J. E. McGuire and P. M. Rattansi, "Newton
and the Pipes of Pan", Notes and Reco"ds of the Royal Society of London, 1966,21, 108-43;
J. E. McGuire, "Body and Void and Newton's De Mundi Systemate: some new sources",
A"chive for Histo"y of Exact Sciences, 1966, 3, 206-48; an important lengthy study by
A. Koyre and 1. B. Cohen, "Newton and the Leibnitz-Clarke correspondence", Archive
Internationales d'histoire des Sciences, 1962, 15, 63-126; and A. R. and M. B. Hall, Un-
published Scielltific Papers of Isaac Newton, Cambridge, 1962, part 3.
FORCE, ACTIVE PRINCIPLES, AND NEWTON'S INVISIBLE REALM 155
But it will be empty of content unless these concepts can be tightly linked
with his theology. This I believe can be done, by showing the fundamental
role that the traditional Judeo-Christian doctrines of creation and providence
played in Newton's thought.
I
From the time of the publication of the Principia in 1687 to about 1707,
Newton seemslargely to have abandoned attempts at a quasi-material explana-
tion of force. Many of the arguments in the 1687edition of the Principia tum
on the acceptance of a matterless vacuum in nature,lb and the closing section
of Book II is a sustained criticism of Descartes's theory of vortical motion in
a fluid aether.2 In the emendations for an abortive edition of the Principia
undertaken in the early 1690's,the doctrine of void space is explicitly considered
by Newton.3 Also in the 1706 Optice, the doctrine is well represented, being
used in explaining a host of phenomena by means of an interstitial vacuum.4
About 1707, however, Newton's thought seems to have returned to his earlier
speculations on the aether as a means of explaining certain phenomena.5 By
1713,in the General Scholium, there is an explicit mention of a "certain spirit"
as a casual agent.6 And finally in the 1717-8 Opticks there is a return to a
quasi-mechanicalaether, diffusedthroughout space, as an explanation of optical
effects, and as a conjectural cause of gravity. 7
This story is now well known and is generally accepted by Newtonian
scholars. Still largely shrouded in mystery are the various reasons for these
changes in Newton's views. Added to the usual difficulties of establishing
Ib See McGuire, Body and Void and Newton's "De Mundi Systemate", op. cit.
Ilbid.
Ilbid.
• Arnold Thackray, "'Matter in a Nut-Shell': Newton's Opticks and Eighteenth-
Century Chemistry", Ambix, 1968, XV, 29-53; and McGuire, ibid., note lb.
• Henry Guerlac, "Francis Hauksbee-experimentateur au profit de Newton", Archive
Internatiollales d'histoire des Sciences, 1963, 16, 113-28.
• Isaac Newton, Philosophias Naturalis Principia Mathematics, trans. A. Motte, London,
vol. II, 1729, p. 393.
7 Henry Guerlac, "Newton's Optical Aether", Notes and Records, 1967, 22, 45-57.
I cannot in this study undertake the major task of analysing Newton's ideas regarding
the aether from the beginning of his career: thus I have restricted myself to the post-
Principia period. Professor Richard Westfall has in preparation a major study of the
development of these ideas in Newton's thought. He is also studying in a broad historical
context the origin of Newton's views on force prior to the appearance of the Principia
in 1687.
J. E. McGUIRE
sources which will serve to clarify this sort of problem,s a student of Newton's
thought is faced with a special difficulty. Many of his characteristic ideas were
adumbrated early in his career, and then progressively refined into their mature
form. This is so with the nature of force and its possible causes. The main
approaches to the ontological problem of causation, developed at various times
in later writings, are found in an embryonic stage in an early treatise. This is
De Gravitatione et Aequipondio Flzeidorum,9 written no later than r670, and
the first sustained expression of Newton's philosophy of nature. Are forces
to be explained by some intermediary agent such as a world soul or a quasi-
mechanical aether? Or are they a direct and continuous expression of Divine
Providence? After considering the hypothesis of a world soul as a plausible
but improbable source of activity in the world, Newton inclines to the view
that God acts in nature without intermediaries: "But I do not see why God
himself does not directly inform space with bodies; so long as we distinguish
between the formal reason of bodies and the act of divine will.IO Nevertheless,
a subtle aether is not dismissed as a possible means of transferring the "mutual
actions"ll of bodies. In the later r670's various aether hypotheses embodying
elements of alchemical and platonic ideas were formulated as possible explana-
tions for a variety of phenomena, and as a source of activity in nature. II Earlier,
in De Aere et Aethere, written about r673, Newton attempted to explain the
nature of forces by means of an intrinsic repulsive power attributed to particles
of air.13 By 1679 in his letter to Boyle,14he had transferred repulsion to aether
particles and, as the Halls suggest, probably conceived the reduction of all
force for a time to this primoridal agent. Iii In this period the possible existence
8 Of primary importance are the internal circumstances of Newton's thought: that he,
for example, continually reconsidered his ideas in the light of his increasing knowledge of
phenomena. The 1670'S and 1680'S generated various social and religious tensions: in
response to atheism and enthusiasm, Anglican divines such as Glanvill, Casaubon, Stil·
lingfleet, More, Rust, Hallywell and Tillotson developed apologetics based primarily on
Descartes and Platonism. The stress on the immaterial and the spiritual may well have
influenced Newton's view of the relation between philosophy and theology. In the 1690'S
the nature of apologetic controversies changed. The empiricism of Locke's Essay replaced
the crude sensationalism of Hobbes; and a more effective type of polemic against the
social and religious consequences of freethinking was based on the order of nature
rather than on Cartesian conceptualism. Newton certainly approved of the "Newtonian"
apologetics of the Boyle lectures based as they were on his experimental empiricism.
II Hall and Hall, Ope cit., note la, pp. 91-156.
10 Ibid., p. 142•
11 Ibid., p. 146.
11 Kubrin, Ope cit., and J. E. McGuire, "Transmutation and Immutability: Newton's

Doctrine of Physical Qualities", Ambi%, 1967, XIV, 69-95.
11 Hall and Hall, Ope cit., 187-9.
1C H. W. Turnbull [ed.], The Correspondence of Isaac Newton, 1960, vol. II, p. 288.
16 Hall and Hall, Ope cit., p. 189.
of void spaces and the nature of God's intervention in the world tended to
move to the periphery of Newton's thought. As in the mid-seventies, aethereal
media also probably played an important role in his analysis of optical
phenomena.l6
As already indicated, at least by the time of publishing the first edition of
the Principia, Newton seems to have rejected the aether speculations of the
1670's. This rejection no doubt came in the wake of an exacting analysis,
developed in that treatise, of motion in resisting and non-resisting media. The
quantitative expression of the law of gravitation and of the laws of Kepler
were thought by Newton to be incompatible with the existence of a vortically
structured fluid aether,17 Thus the dynamics of the heavens seemed to pre-
suppose the near vacuity of planetary spaces. And since he considered these
interplanetary spaces to be relatively empty, Newton no longer sought the
source of motion and activity in the diffused alchemical aether of 1675, but in
a very tenuous spirit or vapour emanating from the tails of comets which
move throughout the planetary system.l8
It is possible to conclude that one of the important stages in Newton's
thought-an apparent rejection of the aether and a clear commitment to the
void-began in the early nineties with revisions intended for the third book
of the unimplemented edition of the Principia and later in draft materials
relating to the new Queries of the 1706 Optice. These ideas first found public
expression in the new Queries to the Optice and in the corrigenda at the front
of the book.l9
The significanceof Newton's commitment to the void, from 1687 to 1706,
has not been sufficiently appreciated. In the first place intimately related to
this doctrine, in Newton's mind, was the view that there exists in nature a
paucity of matter. Again there is evidence from early post-I700 to support
this interpretation. In a draft Query, probably written about 1705and related
to many similar drafts connected with the Principia,20 Newton gives an elegant
expression of his belief in the extreme porosity of matter. The first part of
the unpublished Query describes a plausible progression through continuing
combinations of parts with vacuities, to show that a body could "have above
1. J. Lohne, "Newton's 'Proof' of the Sine Law and Mathematical Principles of Colours",
Arch. for the History of Exact Sc., 1961, I, p. 401.
11 McGuire, "Body and Void", note la, and Lohne, ibid.
18 Kubrin, op. cit., note 1. This study is fundamental for an understanding of the
development of Newton's ideas on the sources of activity in nature. See also McGuire,
op. cit., note 12.
It See Thackray, op. cit., note 4, p. 34, and Guerlac, note I, for a discussion of the
void in the new Queries.
I' See McGuire, "Body and Void", note I.
J. E. McGUIRE
a thousand thousand thousand times more pores than parts & so on per-
petually".2! These ideas are probably the basis of David Gregory's observation
in 1705, "that water is not one part of twenty full matter, & yet by the strongest
machine incompressible. Sir Isaac Newton proposed this as one theory of
making bodies in any degree porous & yet solid".22 Newton concludes the
Query with a reference to the contrivance of matter being a token of the
wisdom of God:
And it [porosity] may be further argued from the great capacity of
(one & the same matter) by corruption & generation to put off & put
on all manner of forms, & be changed into all sorts of shapes. The
contrivance of the bodies of living creatures is admirable. Not a member
but has its use & is mighty well fitted for that use. And (since the
forms & uses of matter are infinite) can we believe that he who contrived
ye bodies of animals with so much artifice was not as skilful & curious
in (the contrivance of matter) contriving the texture (of matter so as
to fit it, make it capable by corruption of all manner of forms & uses
applicable) of matter for those ends for which it is fitted. For the
forms & uses of matter are innumerable & therefore we are not to
consider it as composed of irregular particles casually laid together like
stones in a heap, but as formed wisely for all those uses. One use of
matter is to admit. menstrums easily into its pores in order to new
mixtures & actions by fermentation, putrefaction, corruption & genera-
tion. Another to conceive heat easily & keep it long for promoting
changes by (fermentation) putrefaction & generation. Another to trans-
mit, refract & reflect light for producing all the (phaenomena) of colours
of bodies (without which) wherein the beauty of nature (mightily)
chiefly consists. Without these uses the earth would have been a dead
lump void of heat & motion & alternation & variety of colours: & there-
fore it is reasonable to allow that he who contrived all things with
wisdom, framed matter in such a manner as to fit it best for these uses,
& by consequence made it very porous.23
It would be difficult so find another passage in Newton's writings which
conveys these ideas with the same intensity of commitment. Not only is the
porosity of matter essential grounds for explaining a variety of phenomena,
many of them chemical in nature, but being so structured it manifests God's
wisdom. Accordingly, this doctrine, as many others, is subordinate to Divine
11 The full account of this progression as a possible way of showing how matter might
be extremely porous, did not appear in the body of the Opticks until 1717-8, pp. 242-4,
see Thackray, op. cit., note 4.
II W. G. Hiscock (ed.), David Gregory, Isaac Newton and Their Circle, Oxford, 1937,
p. 29. Gregory concludes his observation with a full description of the progression of
void to matter.
13 U.L.C. Add. 3970, fols. 234r-v• In another intended Query, written about the same
time, Newton expresses these ideas in a form very similar to the manner they were to
be expressed in the Optice in 1706. It is found on fol. 296r, Add. 3970.
purpose and foresight. And it is therefore possible that Newton's acceptance

of atomism was from the beginning conditioned by the Christian doctrine of
Providence.24. For as we will see later, he never considered that any part of
nature was either purposelessor bereft of the constant supervision of God.
In the second place, the paucity of matter in relation to the void, is con-
nected with another significant characteristic of Newton's thought-his belief
in the existence of a variety of forces in nature. It is within the internal
vacuities of matter that these forcesoperate. And "almost all the phenomena
of nature ... depend on the forces of particles".25 Newton was led to this
belief because "if Nature be simple and pretty conformable to herself, causes
will operate in the same kind of way in all phenomena, so that the motions
of smaller bodies depend upon certain smaller forces just as the motions of
larger bodies are ruled by the greater force of gravity".26 In this passage
written in 1687 the "analogy of nature" prompted Newton to investigate the
properties of these "invisible" forces interacting with particles in the inter-
stitial vacuities of matter. A clear reference to these speculations on force
and the paucity of matter is found in the 1704 edition of the Opticks. In the
closingparagraph of Proposition VIII, Book II, Part III Newton observes that
"we may understand that Bodies are much more rare and porous than is
commonly believed". He concludes:
And he that shall find out an Hypothesis, by which water may be so
rare, and yet capable of compression by force, may doubtless by the
same Hypothesis make Gold and Water, and all other Bodies as much
rarer as he pleases, so that Light may find a ready passage through
transparent substances.21
In a typically cautious mood, Newton did not mention his own hypothesis,
but there is no doubt that he believed in the rarity of matter. By 1713 in
Book III of the Principia, Corollary III, Proposition VI, he became more
emphatic about his doctrine: "And if the quantity of matter in a given space
•• There are entries in one of Newton's early commonplace books to support this con-
jecture. It is the Quaestiones found in U.L.C. Add. 3996. Not sufficient attention has
been paid to the variety of atomic hypotheses in the seventeenth century, or to the variety
of reasons which led philosophers to adopt atomism .
•1 Hall and Hall, op. cit., p. 345.
• 1 Ibid., p. 307. The passage is from a partial draft preface intended for the first edition
of the Principia.
17 Isaac Newton, OPTICE sive de rejlexionibus, Refractionibus Injlexionibus Coloribus
LUCIS, London, 1706, see Thackray, op. cit., note 4, and McGuire, "Body and Void",
note I. In this study I endeavoured to show that Newton was committed to the doctrine
of the paucity of matter by the early nineties, and I indicated how this was reflected by
the early followers of Newton. In his study Thackray has conclusively shown how the
doctrine was taken over especially by early eighteenth-century English chemistry.
160 J. E. McGUIRE
can ... be diminished, what should hinder a diminution to infinity?"28 This

did not, of course, include the primordial particles: they are immutable. The
Newtonian explanation of phenomena demanded that these particles be affected
by forces which cause them to approach or recede from one another: hence
increasing or diminishing the number filling a place occupied by any given
body. The paucity of matter, therefore, seems to have been clearly connected
in Newton's mind with an increasing ten.dency to stress the way in which forces
arrange the constituents of matter in the explanation of phenomena. Thus
in such explanations little emphasis was placed on the geometrical qualities
of the constituents.
The primacy of force in Newton's thought during this period was a conse-
quence of another characteristic doctrine. This was the view that the smaller
a particle of matter the stronger the forces associated with it. This doctrine
is intriguingly employed in an hypothesis to the effect that once light "enters
the composition of all bodies, why may it not be the chief principle of activity
in them ?"29 In draft materials relating to Query 22 of the 1706 Optice there
are three substantially similar versions of the hypothesis:
Now in bodies of the same kind & virtue attraction is stronger in the
smallest bodies in proportion to their bulk. It is found stronger in
small magnets for their weight than in great ones. For the parts of
small ones being closer together unite their forces more easily. And there-
fore since the rays of light are the smallest bodies known to us we may
expect to find their attractions very strong. And how strong they are
may be gathered by this rule [after briefly analysing the strength of
a ray of light from its interaction at a reflecting surface in analogy to
the bulk, velocity and curve of a projectile with respect to the horizon
Newton concludes] and so great a force in the rays cannot but have
a very great effect upon the particles of matter with which they are
compounded for causing the particks to attract one another & for
putting them in motion amongst themselves: for the better under-
standing of which I will propose the following questions.30
Unfortunately this Query, if written, has not survived. The force of the particles
in rays as a cause of microscopic attractions is, as will be seen below, another
speculative attempt to solve the problem of "smaller" forces, and the internal
18 Isaac Newton, Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, trans. A. Motte,
London, vol. I, 1728, p. 224.
III U.L.C. Add. 3970, fol. 292f• The thesis regarding "the smallness of the Rays of Liglit"
is mentioned in the new Query 21of the 1717-8 edition of the Opticks. Newton also
mentions that attraction is stronger in the smallest magnets, and "in the surfaces of small
planets than in those of great ones in proportion to bulk". He concludes, not surprisingly,
that the particles of the aether being the smallest of all, have the strongest force.
10 U.L.C. Add. 3970, fols. 259f, 26of• These could have been written as late as 1708.
The third reference to the light hypothesis is on fol. 291v.
composition of matter. What is of interest here, however, is the connection

posited between the size of a particle and the forces surrounding it. For this
leads to the possibility that in the limit the dimensions of particles could be
vanishingly small, leaving space containing forces clustering around a changing
network of foci. Although this possibility almost certainly occurred to Newton,
he could never have taken it seriously because the transmission of force pre-
supposes inertia31: a vanishingly small particle 'could not be endowed with
such a property.
In any event, as the properties and size of particles became less important,
so the reduction of matter in any given place became more plausible. Thus,
not surprisingly, forces became for Newton agents of change in phenomena,
and the cause of activity in nature. Therefore his commitment to the void
helped to shape the related doctrines of the paucity of matter and the primacy
of force. Consequently as the totality of matter in the world seemed to fade
in significance,the operation of various forces not reducible to it increased in
importance. Not only did Newton enrich his ontology by including forces,
but in the nineties they became essential to his natural philosophy. By 1706 he
seemed to consider them, rather than matter, to be the primordials of nature.
We can now return to his views on the causative nature of force in this
period. Was gravity, for example, a direct fiat of God's will or was it explicable
within the natural order through the Divine use of second causes? What little
evidencewe possessindicates that from 1687to about 1705the first alternative
seems to have been Newton's opinion. His tendency to vacillation at the
beginning of this period is clear. Fatio de Duillier observed in 1689-90 that
Newton "did not scruple to say that there is but one possible mechanical cause
of gravity to wit that which I had found out: tho he would often seem to incline
to think that Gravity had its foundation only in the arbitrary will of God ... ".32
In a letter to Leibniz on 16 October, 1693, Newton may have had in mind
Fatio's hypothesis which is based on the vacuity of matter. Having stated
that all the phenomena of the heavens and sea follow solely from the laws of
gravity Newton declares:
... and since nature is very simple, I have myself concluded that all
other causes are to be rejected and that the heavens are to be stripped
11 Kant was the first thinker to give a fully coherent alternative to the transmission
of force from one place to another without presupposing solid, inert matter. Indeed, he
conceived "matter" as arising from the combination of attractive and repulsive forces,
the latter manifesting degrees of intensity. See Metaphysical Foundations of Natural
Science, trans. E. B. Bax, London, 1883.
II Bernard Gagnebin, "De la Cause de la Pesanteur. Memoire de Nicolas Fatio de
Duillier Presente a la Royal Society Ie 26 Fevrier 1690", Notes and Records of the Royal
Society, 1949, 6, 117.
162 J. E. McGUIRE
as far as may be of all matter, lest the motions of planets and comets
be hindered or rendered irregular. But, if meanwhile, someone explains
gravity along with all its laws by the action of some subtle matter,
I shall be far from objecting.33
A year later on 30 March, 1694, Fatio wrote to Leibniz via De Beyrie: "Monsr.
Newton est encoure indetermine entre ces deux sentimens. Le premier que
la cause de la Pesanteur soit inherente dans la matiere par une Loi immediate
du Createur de l'Univers: et l'autre que la Pesanteur soit produite par la cause
Mechanique que j'en ai trouVee".34
In characteristic fashion Newton is keeping possible explanatory options
open. By 1716 his thought prompted by new evidence would return to a more
serious consideration of a quasi-aether. But in the nineties, with the strong
commitment to the void, he did not take the "action of some subtle matter"
seriously. The earliest direct rejection of it is found in a memorandum written-
by David Gregory in December, 1691. Referring to Fatio's "mechanical"
explanation of gravity read to the Royal Society on 26 February, 1690, he
observes that "Mr. Newton and Mr. Halley laugh at Mr. Fatio's manner of
explaining gravity".35 Two manuscript passages from the early nineties support
Gregory's observation. The first is an unpublished Hypothesis inserted as part
of a conclusion to an unfinished Fourth Book of the Opticks. There Newton
unambiguously declares, "All solid bodies are Atoms. Prove this first ad-
hominem by assuming ye vulgar supposition that gravity is mechanical, &
then by the difficulty of making the parts of solid bodies cohere by any other
principle".36 At the about the same time, Newton explicitly dismissed the
fluid aether in unmistakeable terms. The following fragment is part of an
emendation associated with the revision of the Principia in the early 1690's.
The heavens ~nd universal space some persons fill with a most subtle
fluid matter, but the existence of this is neither evident to the senses
nor is proved by any arguments, but is precariously assumed for the
sake of an hypothesis. Moreover, if we may trust reason and the senses,
33 Correspondence, vol. III, p. 287.

Professor 1. B. Cohen has pointed out to me that in all three editions of the Principia
Newton speaks of a "Medii interea, si quod fuerit, intestitia particum libere pervadentis .. ,"
in Definition I, which defines the Quantity of Matter, This would seem to indicate that
some sort of aethereal medium remained a possibility from 1687 to 1727. though as such
it became less significant from 1687 to 1704. •
311 U.C.L. Add. 3970, fol. 338r-v. The full set of five hypotheses are published in 1. B,
Cohen's "Hypotheses in Newton's Philosophy", Physis, 8,163-84,1966. In the forthcoming
publication of his Wiles lectures, Professor Cohen will include a full analysis of this material.
that matter will be in exile from the nature of things. For one cannot
understand how movement can be accomplished in a: plenum.37
In both these passages it is evident that Newton is against any form of
mechanical or fluid aether on grounds of reason and evidence. Thus, though
he remained interested in the possibility of a mechanical explanation of gravity,
he seemed more inclined to think that it was a manifestation of the Divine
presence in nature.
By the end of the 1690's, his ideas began to crystallize in favour of the
latter opinion. On 20 February, 1697-8, David Gregory wrote in a memoran-
dum that Christopher Wren had a mechanical metnocfof explaining gravity:
"He smiles at Mr. Newton's belief that it does not occur by mechanicaliUeafis
but was introduced originally by the Creator".38 Lastly, on 21 December,
1705, Gregory wrote that the question, "what the space that is empty of body
is filled with", could only be answered for Newton in theological terms:
"The plain truth is, that he believes God to be omnipresent in the
literal sense ... for he supposes that as God is present in space when
there is no body, he is present in space when a body is also present.
But if this way of proposing this his notion be too bold, he thinks of
doing it thus: What cause did the ancients assign to gravity? He [Newton]
believes that they reckoned God the cause of it, nothing else, that is
-no body being cause; since every body is heavy".39
It seems, then, that a firm commitment to a non-mechanical mode of explaining
gravity had occurred by 1705. And as we shall see, an important problem
became the ontological status of the various agencies operating on matter.
Before 1694, however, there is abundant manuscript evidence to support
the view that Newton was interested in a non-mechanical mode of explaining
gravity. In draft scholia intended for Proposition IV to IX of the Third Book
of the Principia, Newton hoped to show that the ancients had anticipated the
doctrines contained in these Propositions. As Dr. P. M. Rattansi and I have
shown elsewhere,j()these scholia were used to establish four basic theses which
Newton attributed to antiquity: that matter is atomic in structure and moves
by gravity through an infinite void; that gravitational force acts universally:
37 Gregory MS. 247, fol. 14a, Library of the Royal Society. The "classical" scholia,
part of which were published in "Newton and the Pipes of Pan", [note I] are in the same
manuscript book. There is little doubt that the fragment is'connected with the rejection
of the aether explicit in these scholia. The Latin was published in James Crauford Gregory's
"Notice concerning an autograph manuscript. of Isaac Newton •.. ". Tl'ans. R. Soc. Edinb.,
12. 1834. 64-76.
38 Correspondmce, IV, p. 267.
sa Hiscock. op. cit., p. 29.

40 "Newton and the 'Pipes of Pan' ", op. cit .• note I.
J. E. McGUIRE
that its action diminishes in the inverse square of the distance between bodies
and that God's direct action is the true cause of gravity.
This material certainly confirms our interpretation of Newton's opinior
regarding the causative nature of gravity in the nineties, namely, God himselJ
who is ubiquitously present in space. The "classical" material also throw!
light on Gregory's memorandum of 1705. Passive, inert matter could neve]
originate activity in nature: thus matter itself presupposes an immateria
principle "since every body is heavy": therefore God is the direct cause o~
activity. In commenting on Newton's belief that nothing material could bE
the cause of gravity, Gregory was probably also referring to another additiot
that was intended for the unfinished revision of the Principia undertaken it
the nineties. It was meant to strengthen the doctrine of void space discussed
in all editions of the Principia in Corollary III of Proposition VI, Book III.41~
Newton argues that the only means of explaining gravity mechanically is tc
postulate the existence of a less dense set of particles, but the gravity of thest:
in turn can only be explained by a third set of particles less dense again: and
so a regress begins. On the other hand, if an explanation by postulating tht:
existence of non-gravitational matter is attempted, not only is the notion
without physical significance, but it violates the conception of universal gravi·
tation.4tb Thus at this stage in Newton's thought the only viable explanation
of gravity seemed to involve an immaterial agent operating in a nearly vacuom
universe. From the mid-nineties to 1706, this was the Divine Will. The
harmonious order of nature immediately revealed the continuous influence oj
the Divine power actually present in nature. For the exquisite structure oj
nature seemed antithetical to the presence of intermediaries such as a world
soul or a quasi-mechanical aether.
II
With this background established, it is possible to turn to the central
concern of the present study. This arises from a problem which, from r687,
exercised Newton's mind in a systematic way. How can we obtain experi-
mental knowledge of hidden forces in the invisible realm of nature? With
almost a cry from the heart he exclaimed in his preface to the Principia:
I wish we could derive the rest of the phenomena of Nature by the
same kind of reasoning from mechanical principles as in the case of
universal gravitation, for I am induced by many reasons to suspect
that they may all depend upon certain forces by which the particles of
bodies, by some causes hitherto unknown are either mutually impelled
41& Is. Newton, Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, London, 1687, p. 4II.
41b This intended addition to Corollary III is published and discussed in my paper
cited in note 12 above.
FORCE, ACTI~,E PRINCIPLES, AND NEWTON'S INVISIBLE REALM 165
towards one another and cohere in regular figUfes, or are repelled and
recede from each other; which forces being unknown, Philosophers have
hitherto attempted the search of Nature in vain. But I hope the prin-
ciples here laid down will afford some light either to that or some truer
method of Philosophy.42
In a draft Preface and Conclusion intended for the Principia, Newton
elaborated his philosophy of force.43 Each of these documents argues that
chemical evidence will most probably provide the key to the invisible realm.
Another key which he discussed extensively in the Opticks was light. In the
Second- Bpok,44 Newton reports his patient experiments on thin films which
pr?duce differenrspectr~~~.t~elated the coloured rings with the
thIckness of the film, and then argued oy anat6gy from the colours of natural
bodies to the relative dimensions of their particles: these he held to be respon-
sible for the reflection and absorption of light rays. This method offered a
possibility of indirectly ascertaining the properties of the associated-fofCCS;-
But chemical evidence offered a much broader and richer foundation of possi-
bilities and seemed to Newton, as we shall see, a more feasible way of attempting
to determine the "properties, quantities and effects"40 of invisible forces. The
clearest expression of this programme as Newton conceived it in the early
1690's, is to be found in another hypothesis intended to form part of a projected
Fourth Book of the Opticks. It reads:
Hypoth.2. As all the great motions in the world depend upon a certain
kind of force (wch in this earth we call gravity) whereby great bodies
attract one another at great distances: so all the little motions in ye world
depend upon certain kinds of forces whereby minute bodies attract or
dispell one another at little distances.
Here is Newton's characteristic appeal to the "analogy of nature" which
abounds in his writings. Nature "observes the same method in regulating the
motions of smaller bodies", he continues in his remarks on the Hypothesis,
"wch she doth in regulating those of the greater":
This principle of nature being very remote from the conceptions of
Philosophers I forbore to describe it in that Book [Principia] least I
should be accounted an extravagant freak & so prejudice my Readers
against all those things wch were yemaTii -aeslgne ot the BoOK:l>f:it~
yet I hinted at it both in the Preface & in ya book it self-WhereT-speak
u Op. cit., note 6, vol. I, p. A2. I shall not deal with the so-called problem of "trans-
diction", as it is independent of the evidence on which such inferences are based.
U Hall and Hall, op. cit., pp. 302-8, 321-7. Also, of course, it was developed later in
Query 31 of the Opticks .
•• Isaac Newton, Opticks, New York, 1952, Book II, section III.
46 Hall and Hall, op. cit., p. 307.
166 J. E. McGUIRE
of the inflection of light & of ya elastick power of ya Air but the design
of yt book being secured by the approbation of Mathematicians, I had
not [doubted crossed out] scrupled to propose this Principle in plane
words. The truth of this Hypothesis I assert not, because I cannot
prove it, but I think it very probable because a great part of the
phaenomena of nature do easily flow from it wch seem otherways in-
explicable: such as are chymical solutions, precipitations, philtrations,
... volatizations, fixations, rarefactions, condensations, unions, separa-
tions, fermentations, the cohesion, texture, fluidity and porosity of
bodies, the rarity & elasticity of air, the reflexions & refraction of light,
the rarity of air in glass pipes, & ascention of water therein, the per-
miscibility of some bodies & impermiscibility of others, the conception
& lastingnesse of heat, the emission & extinction of light, the generation
& destruction of air, the nature of fire & flame, ye springinesse or
elasticity of hard bodies.46
It is difficult to imagine a more frank and fascinating passage from Newton's
pen. It shows how "unphilosophical" he considered his use of the grand
analogy of nature. Yet he could not forbear appealing to it, though he clearly
knew it could never be justified according to his standards of rigour and
cerlainty.47 It was, nevertheless, an assumption that made the world intel-
ligible. The passage sho\\:'s, furthermore, the beguiling attractiveness that the
invisible realm had for Newton. He felt his work would not be complete unless
he could indicate a plausible path into the secret bowers of nature. Lastly,
it is important to notice the considerable list of chemical phenomena probably
caused by hidden forces. These are for the most part the same as those
discussed in the draft Preface and Conclusio, the De Natura Acidorum of 1692,48
and later in Query 31 of the Opticks. Earlier in the 1670's, Newton had devoted
considerable time to chemistry and alchemy. Again many of the same
phenomena are explained in terms of a "certain secret principle in nature,
by wch liquors are sociable to some things, & unsociable to others" .49 By 1686
this "secret principle" had become the attractive and repulsive forces of
Newton's mature philosophy. 50 There can be little doubt that chemistry
•• D.L.C. Add. 3970, fo1. 338r-v. This is also published in I. B. Cohen's paper cited in
note 36 above.
47 There are at least twenty-five separate references to the "analogy of nature" in
Newton's published and unpublished writings. For its role in Rule III, Book III of the
Principia see the present writer's forthcoming study to appear in Centaurus, vol. 12,
part IV.
48 I. B. Cohen (ed.), Isaac Newtotl'S Papers and Letters on Natural Philosophy, Cambridge,
1958, pp. 255-<)·

4t Correspondence, vol. II, p. 292. Earlier in his letter to Oldenburg of 1675 Newton
used the "Sociablenes" to cover the action of the nerves and animal juices, Correspondence,
vol. I, pp. 368-<).
60 See M. Boas-HaIl's introduction to "Newton's Chemical Papers" in Cohen, Ope cit.,
note 48, p. 246.
playc<t"acentral role in Newton's attempts to extend his methodology beyond

observable phenomena.
Between 1704 and 1706, Newton began to employ a wider framework of

ideas in his treatment of the problem.
The elaboration of these ideas, regarding chemical evidence as a key to
the nature of hidden forces and the connexion of the latter with active principles,
occurs in a series of manuscript drafts of some important passages which appear
for the first time in Query 23 of the Latin Optice of 1706. Since there are some
important differences in these passages as they appear in the 1717-8 edition,
__ tsh~ll reproduce them in pairs of parallel columns. Hereafter I shall cite the
number of the pair when it is necessary to make a reference:
(a) (b)
Query 23 Query 3I
Optice, I706, p. 34I Opticks, I7I7-8, pp. 372-3
V is inertiae, est Principium passivum The V is inertiae is a passive Prin-
quo Corpora in Motu suo vel Quiete ciple by which Bodies persist in their
perstant, recipiunt Motum Vi moventi Motion or Rest, receive Motion in
semper proportione respondentem, & proportion to the Force impressing it,
resistunt tantum quantum sibi resis- and resist as much as they are resisted.
titur. Ab hoc solo Principio nullus By this -Principle alone there never
unquam in rerum Universitate oriri could have- been any motion in the
potuisset Motus. Alio aliquo Prin- world. Some oth~r Principle was
cipio omnino opus erat ad movenda necessary for putting Bodies into
Corpora; & jam, cum moventur, alio Motion; and now they are in Motion,
itidem Principio opus est, ad Motum some other Principle is necessary for
ipsorum conservandurn. conserving the Motion.
II
(a) (b)
P·343 P·375
-Quonianrigiturvariiittr-Motus, qui in Seeing therefore the variety of Motion
Mundo conspiciuntur~"perpetu(T des~ which we find in the World is always
crescunt universi; necesse est prorsus, decreasing, there is a necessity of con-
quo ii conservari & recrescere possint, serving and recruiting it by active
ut ad actuosa aliqua principia recur- Principles, such as are the cause of
ramus: Qualia utiq; sunt Gravitatis Gravity, by which Planets and Comets
causa, qua Planetae & Cometae Motus keep their Motions in their Orbs, and
suos in perpetuis Orbibus conservant, Bodies acquire great Motion in falling;
Corporaq; omnia Moturn magnum sibi and the cause of Fermentation by
acquirunt, cadendo; F ermentationis which the Heart and Blood of Animals
168 J. E. McGUIRE
II (cont.)
Causa, quo Cor & Sanguis Animalium are kept in perpetual Motion and
& Caloreperpetuo consoventur, partes Heat; the inward Parts of the Earth
interiores Terrae perpetuo calesiunt, are constantly warm'd, and in some
corpora permulta ardent & lucent, places grow very hot; Bodiesburn and
Montes ignem concipiunt, cavernae shine, Mountains take Fire, the
Telluris ictibus subitis disjiciuntur, & Caverns of the Earth are blown up,
Solipse perpetuum vehementer candet and the Sun continues violently hot
& lucet & Luce sua omnia calefacit ac and lucid, and warms all things by his
fovet. Nam admodum paullum Motus Light. For we meet with very little
in mundo invenimus praeterquam Motion in the World, besides what is
quod vel ex his Principiis actuosis, owing te these active Principles.
vel ex imperio Voluntatis, manifesto
oritur.
III
(a) (b)
P·344 P·376
Porro, videntur mihi hae particulae It seems to further, that these Par-
primigeniae, non modo in se Vim ticles have not only Vis inertiae,
in.ertiae habere, Motusq; Leges passivas accompanied with such passive Laws
illas, quae ex Vi ista necessario oriun- of Motionas naturally result from that
tur; verum etiam M otum perpetuo Force, but also that they are moved
accipere a certis Principiis actuosis; by certain active Principles, such as
& qualia nimirum sunt Gravitas, & is that of Gravity, and that which
Causa Fermentationis & cohaerentiae causesFermentation, and the Cohesion
corporum. Atq; haec quidem Principia of Bodies. These Principles, I con-
considero, non et occultas Qualitates, sider not as occult Qualities, supposed
quae ex Specificis rerum Formis orid to result from the specifick Form of
Singantur; sed ut universales Naturae Things, but as general Laws of
Leges, quibus res ipsae sunt Formatae. Nature, by which the Things them-
Nam Principia quidem talia revera selves are form'd: Their Truth appear-
existere, ostendunt Phaenomena Na- ing to us from Phaenomena, though
turae; licet ipsorum Causae quae sint, their Causes be not yet discover'd.
nondum fuerit explicatum.
IV
(a) (b)
P·3z6 P·354
... utiq; intelligere poterimus, omnino we may learn that sulphureous
ita comparatum esse Terram, ut in Steams abound in the Bowels of the
visceribus ejus abundent Vapores sul- Earth and ferment with Minerals,and
phurosi, qui cum mineralibus Fer- sometimes take Fire with a sudden
mentesceredebeant, & interdum ignem Coruscation and Explosion; and if
concipere, cum subita coruscatione & pent up in subterraneous Caverns,
displosu; &, si Forte in cavernis sub- burst the Cavernswith a great shaking
terraneis arcte inclusi contineantur, of Earth, as in springing of a Mine.
IV (cont.)
vehementer conquassare Terram, & And then the Vapour generated by
cavemas ejus disrumpere, quemad- the Explosion, expiring through the
modum cuniculi pulvere tormentario Pores of the Earth, feels hot and
repleti terram suffossam mira cum suffocates, and makes Tempests and
violentia disjiciunt; Quod cum accidit Hurricanes, and sometimes causes the
tum vapores explosione ista generatos Land to slide, or the sea to boil, and
per occultos Terrae meatus expirare, carries up the Water thereof in Drops,
aestuososq; sentiri & suffocantes; pro- which by their weight fall down again
cellasque, turbines & tempestates in Spouts. Also some sulphureous
ciere, efficereq; nonnunquam ut terrae Steams, at all times when the Earth
Tractus de locis suis transportentur, is dry, ascending into the Air, Ferment
ebulliatq; Mare, & guttatim subve- there with nitrous Acids, and some-
hantur in caelum Aquae, quae dein- times taking Fire cause Lightning and
ceps acemvatim & vorticoso pondere Thunder and Fiery Meteors.... Now
corruant, quasi e nubibus effusae the above mention'd Motions are so
Praeterea, Exhalationes quaedam sul- great and violent as to shew that in
phurosae omni tempore, quando Terra Fermentations, the Particles of Bodies
sit siccior, in Aerem ascendentes, which almost rest are put into new
Fermentescunt ibi cum Acidis nitrosis; Motions by a very potent Principle ....
& nonunquam ignem concipientes,
Fulmina generant, & Tonitrua, aliaq;
Meteora ignea: ... Jam vero hi, quos
diximus, Motus, tanti sunt tamq;
violenti, ut ex eis sat is appareat,
utiq; in Fermentationibus particulas
corporum, quae Ferme quieverant,
noVis motibus cieri a Principio aliquo
praepotent~ . . .
There are a·number of problems which arise from these passages. Foremost
among them, of course, is the doctrine of active and passive principles. Since
it is clearly related to Newton's conception of motion and force, the latter is
better considered first. Preliminary to this, however, it is necessary to consider
some draft passages which bear on II and IV. All were most probably written
in 1705, when Newton was preparing the new Queries for the 1706 Optice,
and are thus related in the first instance to Query 23 of that edition; moreover,
they throw considerable light on the connexions Newton made between
chemical phenomena, motion, force, and active principles. The following
passage is an expanded version of II, but it contains ideaA which are found
in IV and aftenvards cancelled:'
Seeing therefore the variety of motion (wch we see) in the world is
always decreasing, there is a necessity of conserving & recruiting it by
active principles; such as are (the power of life & Will by which animals
move their bodies with great & lasting force;) [this is bracketed and
170 J. E. McGUIRE
cancelled] the cause of gravity by which Planets & Comets keep their
motions in their Orbs & bodies acquire great motion in falling; & the
cause of fermentation by wch the heart and blood of animals are kept
in perpetual motion & heat, the inward parts of the earth are constantly
warmed, bodies bum & shine, mountains take fire, the caverns of the
earth are blown up, & the Sun continues violently hot & lucid & warms
all things by his light (For we meet with very little motion on the world
besides what is owing to these active principles & therefore we ought
to enquire diligently into the general Rules or Laws observed by nature
in the preservation or production of motion by these principles as the
Laws of motion on wch the frame of Nature depends & the genuine
Principles of the MechanicalPhilosophy & the inward parts of the earth
are constantly warmed & generate hot sulphureous unhealthful exhala-
tions wch breaking forth with violence cause earthquakes, tempests,
& hurricanes, raise or subvert Islands & Mountains, sink Lakes & carry
up the sea (partly) in columns, (partly) in drops & thick mists wch
convening above fall down in spouts, & sulphureous steams, set moun-
tains on fire & the inward parts of the earth are constantly warmed)
[all the material in round brackets is cancelled.] For we meet with
very little motion in the world besides what is (visibly) owing to these
active principles, & the power of the will.51
As in the case of II and IV, many of the phenomena dted in the passage
are chemical in character.' In the second place, Newton speaks of laws of
motion directly produced by active principles. And lastly he refers to these
laws as the "genuine Principle of the Mechanical Philosophy". But what are
these laws and to what sort of motion do they refer? Consideringthe type of
phenomena discussedin the printed passage and in the draft, it would seem that
Newton does not mean local motion-movements of terrestrial and planetary
bodies as treated in the Principia. In IV he refers to such phenomena as
"Motions ... so great and violent". Does Newton mean that these phenomena
give rise to a type of motion that cannot be reduced to the doctrine of matter
in motion characteristic of the classicalmechanical philosophies? The evidence
in the followingpassages suggests an affirmative answer. In two draft variants
related to I, Newton is explicit:
I have hitherto been arguing from the effects to their causes & carried
the argument (as high as) up to certain forces (the powers) by wch little
bodies act on one another at small distances. These Forces may be
reckoned among the laws of motion (& referred to an active principle)
but whether they depend on bodies alone may be a question. For
Bodies (alone considered as long, broad & thick ..• ) are passive. By
their vis inertiae they continue in their state of moving or resting &
receive motion proportional to ye force impressing it & resist as much
as they are resisted; but they cannot move themselves; & without some
61 U.L C. Add. 3970, £ols. 255'-256'. These drafts are all written in English.
other principle than the vis inertiae there could be no motion in the
world. (And what that Principle is & by (means of) laws it acts on
matter is a mystery or how it stands related to matter is difficult to
explain). And if there be another Principle of motion there must be
other laws of motion depending on that Principle. And the first thing
to be done in Philosophy is to find out all the general laws of motion
(so far as they can be discovered) on wch the frame of nature depends.
(For the powers of nature are not in vain [two words are illegible].
And in this search metaphysical arguments are very slippery. A man
must argue from phenomena). We find in Of selves a power of moving
our bodies by Of thoughts (but the laws of this power we do not know)
& see ye same power in other living creatures but how this is done &
by what laws we do not know. And by this instance & that of gravity
it appears that there are other laws of motion (unknown to us) than
those wch arise from Vis inertiae (unknown to us) wch is enough to
justify & encourage Of search after them. We cannot say that all
nature is not alive.52
The second passage occurs in a draft of Query 23 which argues that the
ancient philosophers believed in the doctrine of atoms and the void, and that
God was the source of gravitation:
Whence it seems to have been an ancient opinion that matter depends
upon a Deity for its (laws of) motion as well as for its existence. The
Cartesians make God the author of all motion & its as reasonable to
make him the author of the laws of motion. Matter is a passive principle
& cannot move itself. It continues in its state of moving or resting unless
disturbed. It receives motion proportional to the force impressing it,
and resists as much as it is resisted. These are passive laws & to affirm
that there are no other is to speak against experience. For we find in
orselves a power of moving our bodies by or thought. Life & Will
(thinking) are active Principles by wch we move our bodies, & thence
arise other laws of motion unknown to us.53
And lastly, in a passage related to IV, Newton again makes the point with
clear emphasis:
Now the above mentioned motions are so great & violent as to shew
that (in Fermentations) there is new motion in the world generated from
other Principles than the usual laws of motion [Newton bracketed this
sentence, then repeated it again verbatim as far as the term 'Fermenta-
tion' after which he wrote] bodies (webalmost rest) are put into (new)
motIons by a (very potent active Principle which acts upon them only
when they approach one another & wch is much more potent than are
the passive laws of motion arising from the Vis inertiae of the matter).M
.2 V.L.C. Add. 3970, fol. 620r •
•• V.L.C. Add. 3970, fol. 619r •

•• V.L.C. Add. 3970, fol. 244r•
172 J. E. McGUIRE
Since Newton's appeal to "a power of moving our bodies" is connected

with active principles, and the sensorium analogy, I shall comment on it later.
From the above evidence it is clear that by 1706 he had come to the con-
clusion that there are active and passive principles in nature which produce
two different sorts of motion, falling under two different categories of law.
Thus Newton's ontology contains four fundamental types of entities existing
in void space; matter, a passive principle, which is movable; active principles
which "conserve" and "recruit" motion: and a variety of forces.
What is of great interest, and adds to the unexpected complexity of Newton's
ontology, is the contention that there are two sorts of motion in nature. In
the Preface to the First edition of the Principia, we are informed that the
central problem of philosophy is to move "from the phenomena of motions
to investigate the forces of Nature, and then from these forces to demonstrate
the other phenomena".65 Motion is important, therefore, in determining the
properties of forces as considered· in the Principia. "V is inertiae", we are
told in Query 31, is "accompanied with such passive Laws of Motion as
naturally result from that Force" .56 These are the laws of the Principia, which
only apply to the atomic part of reality-matter in motion. Newton certainly
hoped, nevertheless, that this system of quantitative laws could be transferred
to the motions of the invisible particles of matter. Perhaps this was all that
the "analogy of nature" would bear. The draft passages, however, contrast
the "passive laws of motion arising from the vis inertiae of the matter" with
"new motion", or as Newton had called it in Query 8 "vital Motion",57arising
from a "very potent active principle". Moreover, unlike the published passages,
they suggest a possibility of knowing the laws of such motion, and thereby
something of the micro-forces which give rise to it; perhaps in the manner
that the laws and properties of gravity were "deduced" from planetary and
terrestrial motion by the techniques of the Pri11,cipia.
The connexion between force, active principles and the new category of
motion is implicit in the published Queries 23 and 31. In all cases, fermentation,
generation, explosions and exhalations are described as "great and violent"
motions. Such phenomenon, Newton seems to hold, are not explained by mere
matter in motion. Unlike the mechanical philosophers, he did not think that
all phenomena could be reduced to this simple basis. In so far as phenomena
of this sort occur as a result of the changing configurations of particles, passive
matter is important. But their sheer activity suggested to Newton the existence
of powerful "agents in Nature", which it was the "business of Experimental
Philosophy" to find out.
66 Principia, Ope cit., note 6, p. A2, vol. I.
61 Opticks, p. 376.
67 Opticks, p. 340.
Not only do these drafts provide evidence for Newton's belief in an ontology
richer and more complex than any version of the mechanical philosophy, but
they also suggest that he considered his methodology could be extended to
cover the establislunent of these new laws of motion. Thus Newton conceived
the possibility that, by reasoning and experimentation based on non-mechanical
phenomena, these laws could be characterized. A systematic investigation of
nature was not in principle restricted to phenomena which fell under the
categories of the Principia. For, "if there be another Principle of motion
there must be other laws of motion depending on that Principle".
A fascinating interpretation of Newton's intentions can now be considered.
The evidence strongly suggests that by 1706 he believed that a natural
philosophy based more directly on the phenomena of force-a natural agency
not reducible to matter-was a distinct possibility. As the Queries to the
Opticks alone justify, he did not think that the philosophy of the Principia,
with its rigorous treatment of the motions of gross bodies, was the only type
of physical knowledge open to the inquiring mind. The ontology of 1706 was
far richer than that. Nor did he, as is now apparent, think that future advances
in natural philosophy would necessarily have to be made within the mathe-
matical framework of his classic treatise.58 The possibility was now open, not
only of applying the laws of the Principia to the motions of invisible particles,
but of establishing another framework of laws characterizing motions caused
by agents different from gravitation. In this way the range of phenomena
on which a sound philosophy could be based, might be considerably broadened
by future generations.
A problem appears to arise concerning the measuring and quantifying of
these agents in terms of the motions they cause. The present interpretation
claims that Newton conceived the possibility of determining the mode of action
of laws not based directly on matter: laws of forces causing such motions as
fermentation and putrescence, phenomena not reducible to the mere translation
of matter or to mechanical impulse. Since forces causing these motions exist
separately from matter, these laws should also be independent of material
phenomena. But such agents are invisible and intangible: though causing
uniform effects, they are not in themselves phenomena. How, then, could the
properties of such forces be measured except through those of matter?
There is nothing strange in speaking of laws of invisible agents, or even
of measuring them. After all, the law of gravitation is itself a clear example:
the force whose action it characterizes is measured only through its effects.
18 For an opposing view see Henry Guerlac, "Where the Statue Stood: Divergent
Loyalties to Newton in the Eighteenth Century", Aspects of the Eighteenth Century, Johns
Hopkins Press, 1965.
174 J. E. McGUIRE
And in his drafts Newton is proposing that the laws of hidden forces be based
on "new motions" different from the "phenomena of motions" upon which the
laws of the Principia were established. As these laws determine the effects of
large-scale forces such as gravity, so the laws of the other sort of motion would,
when established, partially characterize the hidden forces of nature. Here
in 1706, the matter rested. The philosophy of the invisible realm was to be
squarely based on chemical motions, and a new physics was conceived which
would attempt to infer the laws of these hidden forces. There are sufficient
outcrops from these drafts, evident in the passages from Query 31, indicating
that for Newton, this approach to the problem remained a possibility as late
as 1717-8.
III
His commitment to a philosophy of force and the void from 1686 to 1706
was certainly a major cause of Newton's apparent abandonment of earlier
attempts at a quasi-material explanation of forces. In character incorporeal,
these forces were never such that could be explained away by an aethereal
medium operating by mechanical impulses. Even when such an aethereal
medium was introduced in Query 31 in 1717-8, as a tentative means of explain-
ing gravity, immaterial active principles still sustained the motions to which
it gave rise.59 With force so conceived, it is hardly surprising that Newton
should be concerned to devise a means of bringing it within the scope of
experimentation.
But Newton's restless and fertile mind did not remain content with the
solution of 1706. By early 1707 he began to consider the possibility that the
hidden forces of nature might be electrical in character. eo These speculations
mark an interesting shift in his thought. His general view from 1686 to 1706
was that a host of short-range forces existed in nature-as many as phenomena
to be explained. However, on the occasion of the experiments of Francis
Hauksbee in 1706-'7 on electro-luminescence and on electrical attraction and
611 In the 1717-8 edition of the Opticks, eight new Queries were added (17-24) and 21
is concerned with the aether as a possible cause of gravity. Query 31 of that edition is
concerned, in part, with active principles as the cause of a wide range of phenomena. Thus
the latter term is much wider in connotation than the term "aether". I cannot, therefore,
entirely agree with David Kubrin's opinion that by 1717-8 Newton "tended to use the
concept of the aether and that of active principles interchangeably": see his study cited
in note I. My disagreement with Kubrin's interpretation is found in section VI below.
80 Guerlac, op. cit., note 5.
repulsion, Newton began to consider again61 not only that short-range attractions
and repulsions might be electrical in nature, but perhaps other hidden forces
as well. The difference between this approach to the physics of the invisible
realm and that based on chemicalphenomena is important. The latter approach
attempted to develop a procedure which would establish the laws of motion of
non-mechanical phenomena, and thereby reveal some of the properties of
hidden forces. Newton remained agnostic, however, about the nature of these
forces. But between 1706 and 1713, he seriously considered the possibility
that the forces producing insensible motions among particles were electrical,
as large-range motions were produced by gravity. In 1713, this conception
was announced in the concluding paragraph of the General Scholium in terms
of a description of "a certain most subtle Spirit", electric and elastic in nature,
which "lies hid in all gross bodies" .62 Short-range attractions causing cohesion,
electrical bodies attracting at greater distances, the emission, reflection, refrac-
tion, diffraction of light, the heating of bodies, the causing of sensations and
the power of moving muscles were all attributed to "the force and action"
of this Spirit. In characteristic fashion, Newton claimed that he was not yet
able to determine the laws of action of this agency. There can be little doubt,
however, that he considered its existence as highly probable.
In a fascinating draft which is probably an early version of new Queries
finally to appear in 1717-8 (nos. 17-24), Newton indicates the nature of this
force:
Quaest 24. May not the forces by web the small particles of bodies
cohere & act upon one another at small distances for producing the
above mentioned phaenomena of nature [the same as those mentioned
in Hypothesis II of the intended Book IV of the Opticks] be electric?
For altho electric bodies do not act at a sensible distance unless their
virtue be excited by friction, yet that virtue may not be generated by
friction but only expanded. For the particles of all bodies may abound
with an electric spirit wch reaches not to any sensible distance from the
particles unless agitated by friction or by some other cause & rarified
by the agitation. And the friction may rarify the spirit not of all the
particles in the electric body but of those only wcb are on the outside
of it: so that the action of the particles of the body upon one another
.1 A similar approach to the problem is to be found in the letter to Oldenburg in 1675,

Co"espondence, vol. I, pp. 362-86. In a series of Observations which are to be discussed
in this section, Newton said of the attractive and repulsive virtue of a rubbed piece of
glass, "Above forty years ago I sent the following Observation to Mr. Oldenburg and
have now copied it from one of the Books of the Royal Society". U.L.C. Add. 3970,
fol. 626v•
II PrifJcipia, op. cit., note 6, vol. II, p. 393. See M. B. Hall and A. R. Hall, "Newton's
Electric Spirit-Four Oddities", 1959, Isis, 50, 473-6; also A. Koyre and 1. B. Cohen,
"Newton's 'Electric and Elastic Spirit' ", 1960, Isis, 51, 337.
J. E. McGUIRE
for cohering & producing the above-mentioned phaenomena may be

vastly greater than that of the whole electric body to attract at a
sensible distance by friction. And if there be such an universal electric
spirit in bodies, certainly it must very much influence the motions &
actions of the particles of the bodies amongst one another, so that without
considering it, philosophers will never be able to give an account of the
Phenomena arising from those motions & actions. And so far as these
phaenomena may be performed by the spirit weh causes electric attraction
it is unphilosophical to look for any other cause.63
Without doubt, then, some time between 1707 and 1713, electricity became
the chief contender for the role of a primordial microscopic force. The import-
ance which Newton placed on this possibility is evident by his saying that "it is
un philosophical to look for any other cause" of electrical attraction. The only
other place in which he uses this form of words is in Query 31 when he states
that God created nature as it is: "if he did so, it is unphilosophical to seek
for any other Origin of this world ... ".84 In any event, by agitation or some
other means this latent spirit may be expanded from bodies over a sensible
distance, and by such means it could influence the interaction among particles
of matter.
The universality and flexibility of this spirit is illustrated by the beginning
of a draft Query which, at this stage, Newton probably planned to follow
after "Quest. 24":
Quest 25. Do not all bodies therefore abound with a very subtile, but
active. potent, electric spirit by weh light is emitted, refracted, &
reflected, electric attractions & fugations are performed, & the small
particles of bodies cohere when continguous, agitate one another at
small distances & regulate almost all their motions amongst themselves.
For electric ... uniting the thinking soul & unthinking body. This spirit
may be also of great use in vegetation, wherein three things are to be
considered, generation, nutrition & preparation of nourishment.85
In this truly extraordinary conjecture we witness the power of Newton's

creativity, controlled by disciplined scientific imagination. The breadth of the
conception is remarkable: he has in mind not only the chemical and optical
phenomena mentioned in Query 31 and the draft Preface and Conclusion- to the
Principia, but also principles of life and a substitute for animals spirits-an
electrical arche connecting mind with matter. Two and a half sheets are then
II D.L.C. Add. 3970, fol. 235v.
··Opticks, New York, p. 402 •

• t. V.L.C. Add. 3970, fo!' 235v. Similar ideas are to be found in fols. 24Iv, and 295r.
FORCE, ACTiVE PlUNCU'J...ES, AND NEWTON'S INVISIBLE REALM 177
devoted to a more detailed development of these ideas.66 By means of this

primordial agent or spirit, Newton was speculating on the possibility of uniting
under one principle, life and nature, vitality and matter. Thus this unifYing
principle, electrical in nature and latent in all matter, might form a bridge
between the animate and inanimate. We could have no better evidence for
the importance of force in Newton's thought, especially with respect to the
problems of the invisible realm of nature.
In a Latin manuscript of six Folio pages, Newton developed these ideas
in even greater detail. The following passage illustrates the extent to which
he considered, at this time, referring chemical phenomena to the operation
of this electrical spirit:
Hence also, in proportion as the particles of bodies the more easily
or with more difficulty glide among themselves, the bodies by the
agitation of this spirit either become soft and ductile or else become
fluid and are converted into liquids. And some bodies become fluid and
put on liquid form by very small agitations of this spirit, as do water,
oil, spirit of wine, quicksilver; others by greater agitations, such as
wax, cebum, resin, bismuth, pewter: others by very great agitation, as
clay, stones, copper, silver, gold. And in proportion as the particles of
the bodies the more firmly cohere or are the more easily separated from
each other, some of them by the agitation of this spirit are quickly
converted into vapour and smoke, as are water, spirit of wine, spirit
of turpentine, spirit of urine: others with more difficulty, as oil, spirit of
vitriol, sulphur, quicksilver; others with very great difficulty, as lead,
copper, iron, stones; while others even with the strongest fire remain
stable, as gold and diamond. '
By the action of the same spirit some particles of bodies can the
more strongly attract one another, others less strongly, and thence can
arise varying congregationsand separations of particles in fermentations
and digestions, especially if the particles are agitated by slow heat.
Heat in fact, brings together homogeneous particles on account of
greater attraction, and separate heterogeneous particles on account of
lesser attraction. And by these operations living bodies attract parts
of aliment which are like themselves, and get nourishment. Between
acid particles and fixed particles deprived of acid by fire, there is very
"Ibid., fols. 235v, 24Ir-v. Newton is primarily concerned with the growth anu genera-
tion of vegetable and animal life in terms of his electrical a,ehe. Similar ideas are treated
in greater detail in a series of Latin manuscripts: Add. 3970, fols. 236r, 237r, 238v, 240r-v.
These are entitled, "De vita and morte vegetabili". None of this material found its way
into the Queries. The electric spirit as a vehicle for uniting the soul with the body is also
considered by Newton on fol. 241'. "This spirit therefore may be the medium of sense
& animal motion and by consequence of uniting the thinking soul & unthinking body".
It is interesting to note the residual influence of Descartes on this formulation.
J. E. McGUIRE
great attraction. Out of these are compounded particles less attractive,

and out of these by slow fermentation and continuous digestion are
compounded the bodies of animals and vegetables and minerals.67
It is again clear that chemical, and other phenomena which in earlier
writings were simply attributed to attractive and repulsive forces are referred
to this subtle electrical spirit. Newton has simplified his proQlem considerably.
Not only, by 1707-13, has he attempted to reduce the cause of microscopic
forces to one primordial-something not yet conceived in the 1690's-but he
has thereby narrowed the problem of determining the proportion and rule of
action of these hidden forces. Though, as Newton says, it was the "experiments
shown by Mr. Hauksby before ye R. Society"68 that recalled his mind to earlier
speculations on electrical phenomena, it is clear that he thought this electrical
primordium could be extended to cover the explanation of phenomena other
that those on which Hauksbee experimented.
But Newton's thought did not rest content with this possibility. As Pro-
fessor Guerlac has shown in an important paper,69 Newton became more
convinced by 1716 of the possible existence of an all-pervading and continuous
medium which he called an aether. Guerlac also argues persuasively, following
the evidence of a letter from Desaguliers to Hans Sloane in March, 1730-1,
17 V.L.C. Add. 3970, fol. 604r. These and related ideas in various stages of preparation
are found in fols. 240r, 241V, 597r-v, 601r, 602r-v, and 603r. I have in preparation an
~dited study of these manuscripts and those cited in notes 65 and 66. The Latin of
fol. 604r reads:
Hine etiam eorpora perinde ut eorum particulae faeilius vel diffieiluis interlabuntur,
per agitationes hujus spiritus vel molleseunt et ductiles evadunt vel fluunt et in liquores
vertuntur. Et aligua quidem per spiritus hujus agitationes quam minimas ut aqua, oleum,
spiritus vini, argentum vivum, alia per agitationes majores ut cera, cebum, resina, bis-
mutum, stannum, alia per maximas ut argilla, lapides, cuprum, argentum, aurum, fluunt
et forman liquorum induunt. Et perinde ut particulae corporum vel fortius cohaerent vel
faeilius ab invicem separantur, eorum aligna per agitationem hujus spiritus cito vertuntur
in vapores et fumos ut aqua, spiritus vini, spiritus terebinthi, spiritus urinae, alia diffieilius
et oleum, spiritus vitrioli, sulphur, argentum vivum, alia difficillime ut plumbum, euprum,
ferrum lapides, alia igne fortissimo fixa manent, ut aurum et adamas.
Per ejusdem spiritus actionem, aliquae eorporum particulae a invicem fortius attrahere
possunt, aliae minus fortiter, et inde variae particularum congregationes et separationes
in fermentationi1.>usae digestioni1.>usoriri, praesertim si particulac per eolorcm lcntum
agitentur. Calor utique particulas homogeneas ob attraetiollem majorem congregat. et
heterogeneas ob attraetionem minorem segregate Et per has operationes corpora viva
attrahent partes alimenti sibi similes et nutriuntur. Inter particulas acidas & particulas
fixes acidis per ignem privatas maxima est attractio. Ex his componuntur partieulae minus
attraetivae, & ex his per fermentationem lentam & digestionem continuam componuntur
animalium vegetabilium & mineralium corpora.
18 V.L.C. Add. 3970, fol. 241v•
88 "Newton's Optical Aethcr". Ope cit., note la.

that Newton took his aethereal medium more seriously for explaining optical
phenomena than for explaining gravity. The evidence for this change in his
thought is six folio sheets relating to a revision of the 1717-8 edition of the
Opticks, in which Newton develops some "Observations" on the experiments of
Hauksbee and gives an account of the origin of the "two-thermometer"
experiment of Query r8.70
Not only did Newton distinguish an optical from a gravitational aether,
and the aethereal medium from electrical spirits, but he made some other
important distinctions which help to clarify his conception of force in 1717-8.
He tells us in Observation I that, since this medium "readily pervades the solid
body of Glass, it is reasonable to believe that it is not bounded by any solid
body but readily pervades them all & is diffused through all the heavens".71
Thus it is different from the earlier electrical spirit, since the latter was con-
tinuous only in the vicinity of bodies. After describing the operations of this
"very subtile active substance or medium"72which are those formerly attributed
to the "elastic spirit" Newton definesit: "To distinguish this Medium from the
bodies which Bote in it, & from their effluvia & emanations & from the Air,
I will hence forward call it Aether & by the word bodies I will understand
the bodies which Hote in it, taking this name not in the sense of the modern
metaphysicians, but in the sense of the common people & leaving it to the
Metaphysicians to dispute whether the Aether & bodies can be changed into
one another". 73
The aethereal medium, therefore, is to be distinguished from other media
such as aJr, and from bodies, effluviaand emanations. Newton's firm reference
to what he understands by the term "body" is almost certainly related to
definitions of body and void which were intended to' preface Book III in
the third edition of the Principia."f. These were probably written late in 1716,
at the same time as the Observations. Like the Observations these definitions are
anti-Cartesian and anti-Leibnizian in spirit. Body is definedas "everything that
can be moved and touched, in which there is resistance to tangible things it
is indeed in this sense that the common people always accept the word "."5
And anything that is "nypothetically termed body is more properly treated
70 U.L.C. Add. 39]0.9. fols. 623-629. Desagulicrs letter is in Sloane MS. 4°51, fo1. 200,
British Museum.
71 Ibid., fo1. 623r.
71 Ibid.
71 Ibid.
7( McGuire, "Body and Void", Ope cit .• note la. These definitions were never entered
into any personal copy of Newton's Principia.
71 Ibid.
180 J. E. McGUIRE
of in metaphysics and hypothetical philosophy".76 The definitions also indicate

that Newton must have thought his aethereal medium, as defined in Observa-
tion I, was quite different from other conceptions of the aether since he says:
"This subtle matter in which the planets float, and in which bodies move
without resistance is not a phenomenon. And what are not phenomena, and
subject to n01?-eof the senses, have no place in experimental philosophy".??
But this is the point. As Professor Guerlac has argued,?8the aether, because
of the experimental work of Hauksbee and Desaguliers, became for Newton
a phenomenon, something perceptible and tangible. Therefore, though he
speaks of bodies floating in an aethereal medium in Observation I, this is-not
intended literally. Newton is attempting, by contrast, to state the difference
between the two entities, for at this stage the aether, as he conceived it, was
a possible phenomenon. If the Cartesian fluid aether, however, which he
has in mind in the passage cited from the definition did exist, bodies could
literally float in it. But as the last section of Book II in the Principia amply
demonstrates such an aether being a physical impossibility, could not be a
phenomenon.?9
Newton has not, however, rejected his earlier speculation on the cause of
interstitial attractions and ~epulsions. In his customary and cautious fashion,
he again keeps his alternatives open. This is evident in an interesting passage
from the Observations:
There are therefore Agents in Nature able to make the particles of

bodies attract one another very strongly & to stick to-gether strongly
by those attractions. One of these Agents may be the Aether above
mentioned whereby light is refracted. Another may be the Agent or
Spirit which causes electrical attraction. For tho this Agent acts at
great distances (only)except when it is excited by the friction of electrick
bodies: yet it may act perpetually at very small distances without
friction & that not only in bodies accounted electric, but also in some
others. And as there are still other mediums which may cause attractions,
78 Ibid.
77 Ibid.
78 Guerlac, op. cit., note I.
71 McGuire, op. cit., note 74.
80 Op. cit., note 70, fo1. 622f• In fo1. 240f Newton combines the force of both electrical
and magnetical particles:
All dense bodies in fact seem to consist of electric particles and also to have a certain
number of magnetic particles. And just as the attraction of gravity suffices to
explain the greater movements of Planets and Comets and of our sea, even so do
electric and magnetic forces seem to suffice to explain the interactions and move-
ments of the particles of each several body.
FORCE, ACTIVE PRINCIPLES, AND NEWTON'S INVISIBLE REALI"I 181
such as are the Magnetick effluvia; it is the business of experimental

Philosophy to find out all these Mediums with their properties. so
Thus, by 1717, Newton had once again changed his attitude towards force.
In the Observations he argues for an optical aether diffused throughout space.
He is, however, less certain that a continuous medium of this sort can explain
gravity. With respect to electrical and chemical phenomena, however, Newton
still thinks that they might be explained by an electrical spirit seat.ed in bodies.
But as the use of the term medium indicates more assuredly than with either
agent or spirit, Newton's thought becomes focussed at this stage more on the
interplay of force in spaces surrounding matter. Lastly, the doctrine of the
paucity of matter developed from the 1690's, in large measure provided the
general background in terms of which he came to concentrate on the problems
of force, and its possible explanations.
IV
The last two sections have concentrated on Newton's concern with activity
in nature, in terms of the "downgrading" of matter and his changing attitudes
towards hidden forces. In order to analyse his conception of active principles,
it is first necessary to consider in some detail what he meant by force in contrast
to the possible causes of force. Was force material or immaterial, or something
else besides? A. R. Hall and M. Boas Hall have called our attention to the fact
that Newton has two ways of speaking about attractions between bodies: in
terms either of a language of force or that of an aether.81 Since he never doubted
the sheer existence of a hierarchy of forces, they rightly argue that the latter
mode of speaking was more fundamental. Aether hypotheses, on the other
hand, where postulated as possible causal mechanisms of force, were always
cautiously qualified. The Halls, however, tend to agree with Leibniz's reaction
to Newtonian forces. He attempted, in the Correspondence, to persuade Clarke
We could want no clearer indication as to how far Newton's thought had temporarily
moved away from chemical affinities as the binding forces of particles. I do not wish to
suggest that Newton only began to concentrate on media in the second decade of the
eighteenth century. For example, in a draft variant for Prop 3, Book II, part III of the
Opticks, probably written before 1695 he describes "a certain medium by the force of
wch surfaces of bodies act upon light". Add. 3970, fol. 374f•
81Hall and Hall, op. cit., note I, p. 190.
182 J ~ E. McGUIRE
to accept the following dichotomy: either forces are material and_mechanical,

or else they are truly a 'direct manifestation of God's will and thus miraculous.
If the validity of the dichotomy is denied by attempting to introduce a tertium
quid, for Leibniz this constituted a reversion to occult qualities.82 So the
Newtonians were charged with making force either "a perpetual Miracle" or
an inexplicable quality in nature. Of Clarke's view that "the means by which
two different bodies attract each other, may be invisible and intangible and
of a different nature from mechanism, and yet, acting regularly and constantly,
may well be called natural".83 Leibniz observes cynically: "He might as well
have added, inexpljc~ple, unintelligible, precarious, groundless and un-
exam pled" .84 _.... -. - - ...- ---.::. _
Thus Leibniz rejected the Newtonian criterion of nafural action. To be

construed as an explanation of physical phenomenon a force must be intelligible;
for Leibniz this meant that it must be an efficient and mechanical cause. The
non-mechanical transcends the "powers of creatures" and therefore according-
to Leibniz's criterion is miraculous: it does not matter that it manifests uniform
effects. But it is precisely this issue that divides Leibniz and the Newtonians.
For the latter the regular operations of gravity and other forces can be charac-
terized by law, and are therefore in some sense real and natural. Furthermore,
since many forces cannot be reduced to mechanical impact, the Newtonians
argued that they must be construed as non-mechanical. "If the word natural
forces, means here mechanical; then all animals, and even men, are as mere
machines as a clock".86
Is there any reason for supposing that Newton must accept one or other
alternative of Leibniz's dichotomy? This would be so if he could only say
that forces exist and that they are neither mechanical nor a "perpetual miracle".
Negatively defined in terms of such general characteristics, Newton's conception
of force would not be an entirely acceptable tertium q~tid. But such forces can
be determined by law, because of the regularity of their effects operating
uniformly through long periods of time. Thus the Newtonians could point
to three criteria to indicate the existence of an invisible agency in nature
different from matter. Leibniz's denial that a non-mechanical agent is natural,
though it can be shown to act on matter, is a prejudice: anything which is
subject to law and which acts regularly, can in a perfettly-ffieaIiingftIt-s~n-S"ebe--
called natural. Newton did not, after all, deny the existence of mechaniCal-
forces. He was, however, concerned to maintain the existence of other sorts
of forces.
81 H. G. Alexander (ed.), Tile Leibnilz-Clarke Correspondence, Manchester, 1956, p. 94.

88 Ibid., p. 14.
84 Ibid., p. 84.
8li Ibid., p. 14.

Nor did he accept the idea of action at a distance. Change in nature must
be the result of action and this means contact. Newton, however, was resisting
a tendency to conceive all change in terms of the interaction of matter. For
him the existence of invisible agents was evident from phenomena: the problem
was the experimental determination of their properties. Certainly, measuring
and quantifying forces could only be done mathematically by determining their
magnitude and direction in terms of interactions among gross bodies. From
this it does not follow, as Newton perceived, that force simply means impact
or change of momentum. Or that the laws of motion determined by a force
are the laws of impact: rather they are the laws of bodies in motion with impact
as a special case. This is evident from Section II, where Newton's conception
of different sorts of laws based on the motion of invisible particles was discussed.
Though he was not compelled to accept Leibniz's dichotomy, were there
positive characteristics, independent of its effects on matter, that his conception
of force possessed? In common with contemporaries, Newton used the terms
"power", "virtue", or "agent" synonomously with force. Often, however, the
mechanical philosophers used these terms merely as a convenient shorthand
in referring to the changing configuration of matter. Newton, we have seen,
held that there was activity in nature_ which could not be explained solely in
terms of the ontologies of the mechanical philosophy. Gravity is clearly a
phenomenon of this sort. It proceeded from a cause "that penetrates to the
very centers of the Sun and Planets" and which "operates not according to
the quantity of the surfaces of the particles upon which it acts (as mechanical
causes are accustomed), but according to the quantity of the solid matter which
they contain .. :'.86 Unlike matter, then, gravity is something that can
spread or diffuse itself through the solid particles of bodies. And since it can
affect them, it is in some sense physical. For given that the laws of action
of some forces are known from their effects on matter, the problem of their
operations on matter is different from that of how the soul influences the body.
From this point of view mechanical causes, such as impulse, are really the
passive manifestation of activity in nature. Again, in the Opticks Newton
holds that light and matter do not mutually interact at a "single point of the
reflecting Body, but by some power of the Body which is evenly diffused all
over its Surface, and by which it acts upon the Ray without immediate
Contact" .87 In Query 29, he observes that "Magnetism may be intended and
remitted"88 and the same phenomenon is described in the Principia as the
"intensione virtutis" .89 Lastly, in Query 31, he speaks of attractive forces in
88 Motte, op. cil., note 6, p. 392.
IT Opticks, op. cit., note 44, Book II, part III, p. 266.
II Ibid., p. 373.
8. Principia, op. cit., note 4la, p. 3.

J. E. McGUIRE
analogy to negative and positive quantities in algebra: where one vanishes the
other begins, "so in Mechanicks, where Attraction ceases, there a repulsive
Virtue ought to succeed" as "Rays are repelled by Bodies ... without the
immediate Contact of the reflecting or inflecting Body". 90
What can be concluded from these descriptions of force taken at random
from Newton's published work? In general, the Newtonian conception of force,
at least from 1687, is that of a subtle and diffuse agent, able to penetrate
through solid bodies, which can manifest varying degrees of intensity, and
whose mode of operation is attraction or repulsion between the particles of
matter. Like matter, force so conceived is a physical fact. Though like matter,
~naent on Jhe_ ~ill of God, it can originate motion and activity. Not
surprisingly, his conceptlon of non-material agents affecting matter was not
yet emancipated from notions such as alchemical powers. We have sufficient
evidence to show that in the 1670'S he was considerably influenced in his view
of activity by alchemical and chemical literature. Since this view haanof--
changed substantially, Newton's conception of force remained a meaningful
but not yet a distinct physical concept. His physics was not yet that of the
late eighteenth century.
He was also influenced by a pervasive thrust in English thought of the
latter part of the seventeenth century-its belief in the realm of the spiritual. 91
This is especially evident in a group of thinkers who influenced Newton, the
Cambridge Platonists. For example, in many of his works, Henry More devoted
considerable effort to clarifying the notion of "spirit". For More, it had
positive characteristics: it was penetrable, indiscerpible (no part of it removable),
self-active, indivisible, and it had "essential spissitude"-a disposition to con-
tract and dilate.92 More was deeply concerned to emphasize the reality of the
spiritual, stressing that there were many phenomena in nature "as cannot be
resolved into mere mechanical powers".93 Moreover, the world was populated
with different forms of the spiritual: God, created spirits, plastic spirits and the
spirit of nature. Only God, the angels and the soul of man possessed the higher
attributes of spirituality, thought and will. Like More, Newton stressed the
spiritual aspects of nature. At the level of phenomena this is shown by his
emphasis_on the activity ot(Qrces, ~<l!he consequent minimizing of the role
of passive matter. NewtoILdisclaimed, however, that his conception of force
'0 Opticks, op. cit., p. 395.
,. McGuire and Rattansi, op. cit., note la. For an interesting discussion of the role of
the spiritual in the literature and Church of England polemics of the period see P. Harth:
Swift and Anglican Rationalism: The Religious Background of a Tale of a Tub, Chicago, 1961.
II Henry More, A collection of several philosophical writings of Dr. Henry More, London,
1712. The Immortality of the Soul, chap. II, p. 6; chap. III, pp. 8-9. Newton owned
the 1662 edition of this work.
II Ibid., The Preface, p. xiii.
had anything in common with More's spirit of nature or Hylarchic Principle.94

The notion of an unreflecting intermediary which blindly performed Divine
edicts, struck Newton as not only an ontological extravagance, but also as
scientifically impotent not being based on any experimental evidence.
Admittedly, Newton's general conception of force shared many characteris-
tics in common with More's concept of spirit. Both concepts were forged in
the beliefthat not otherwise could such non-mechanical phenomena as cohesion,
electricity and gravity be explained. Spirit and force both had a disposition
to penetrate matter, were indivisible, and admitted of degrees of intensity.
Neither shared the higher attributes of spirituality, and unlike "purely"
spiritual substances, they overtly interacted with phenomena, as exemplified
by light and matter. Still, Newton's doctrine of force, though probably in-
fluencedby More,was based on a careful analysis of a wide range of phenomena,
many of whichwere chemicalin nature. Thus, it is clear that no straightforward
answer can be given as to whether Newton's forces are material or immaterial.
They are manifestly different from both matter and spiritual substance, and
thus they seem to occupy a twilight zone between the corporeal and the incor-
poreal. Relative to ponderable bodies they are incorporeal; but relative to
the higher realms of the spiritual they are corporeal. From the time of the
first edition of the Principia to 1706 in the Optice Newton's conception of
force rested here.
Before 1717-8, however, his ideas began to change. And this was largely
brought about, as we have seen, by his attempting to explain invisible motion
in terms of the interplay of electrical forces. In this period, Newton spoke
of spirits and of aethereal media, and very little of virtues, powers and forces.
The electric spirit was "so subtle as to pervade the solid body"; it was "capable
of contraction & dilation expanding itself to great distances"; capable of being
"agitated like a turbulent wind"; also "elastic and susceptible of vibratory
motions", and "exceptionally active"; sometimes said to be continuous, some-
times likened to effluvia.'s Again, however, Newton did not accept the strict
dualism which stated that a thing must be either material or immaterial. In
a draft for the "Account" of the Commercium this is clearly stated. Referring
to the "subtile spirit pervading the pores of bodies" of the 1713 edition of
the Principia, Newton observes that he has "nowhere denyed that the cause
of gravity is Mechanical nor affirmed whether that subtile spirit be material
or immaterial". 96
14 Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. London, 1714-9. p. 223.

iii These phrases abound in the manuscripts cited in notes 66 and 67 above.
II U.L.C. Add. 3968, fo1. 12Sf. For a similar analysis of Henry Power's conception of
Spiritus see my colleague's study: C. Webster, "Henry Power's Experimental Philosophy"
Ambix, 1967. XIV, 150-78.
186 J. E. McGUIRE
The term "spirit", as used in the seventeenth and early eighteenth century,
is notoriously slippery and ambiguous. Denying, in the company of most
English thinkers, the implication of strict Cartesian dualism, Newton was
employing the full range of connotations associated with the term. Thus he
could move from spirit of vitriol to electric spirit, through animal, aerial, and
aethereal spirits, to angelicspirits, and God. If Newton were not fully ·conscious
of the subtle shifts in meaning it mattered little; for his abiding concern was
to assert the existence of non-material in the world. The vivifying effects of
chemical spirits merged imperceptibly in Newton's world, through a chain of
gradations, into the spiritual realm: he and the seventeenth century made no
clear distinction between the "spirituous" and the "spiritual".
Nevertheless, Newton was concerned with an electric spirit which he .took
to exist on the evidence of Hauksbee's experiments, and on his own observations
_ made in the 1670'S. Though he claimed to make no affirmation about the
nature of the spirit, it was nevertheless allied more to matter than to God
and the higher spiritual realities. Thus after 1706 Newtonian forces became
more definitely material in character, and were more directly based on the
perception of such phenomena as electro-luminescenceand electrical attraction,
rather than on inferencesfrom non-mechanicalphenomena such as fermentation.
Not only, however, did Newton believe in the existence of forces which
brought about two different sorts of motions, he also consistently held that
forces themselves were caused by agents which were characterized by the
general rubric·of active principles. As mentioned above, relative to matter,
a force was non~Ihaterial,but relative to its cause it was material. Again, this
conception is not surprisil'lgwhen it is realized that Newton implicitly accepted
in general outline the ancient doctrine regarding a chain of being stretching
from the throne of God into nature.97 Though he rejected overt intermediaries
such as plastic natures, Newton tacitly assumed that existing entities move
imperceptibly up the chain from the material through the immaterial to the
greatest reaches of spirituality.
Newton's conception of the cause of force changed again, we have seen,
just prior to the second English edition of the Opticks in 1717-8. In the
Qbservations he spoke of a tenuous medium filling all space. This aethereal
medium was put forth as a plausible explanation of long-range forces such as
gravitation and, in particular, optical phenomena. As described in the new
Queries of the Opticks (nos. 17-24) it became at once quasi-mechanical"and
17 This doctrine will be considered in a forthcoming study of Rule III of the Pt'incipia
in conjunction with the problem of "transdiction". For a general discussion of the chain
of being in seventeenth-century thought see: M. Madden, 'Phe Anatomy of the Wot'ld:
Relations between Natut'al and Moral Law ff'om Donne to Pope. Minnesota, 1958. The
doctrine is also clearly presented in the work of Locke and Berkeley.
particulate in structure, and is characterized by the following terms: "rare",

"subtile", "elastick", and that which "dilates and contracts", "condenses",
has graduated "density" and "vibrates".98 In all cases the basic operation
of this aether is in terms of the gradations of a medium with the dispositional
property of differential density, a property not mentioned in the Observations.99
It is different from, but modelled on, some of the characteristics of continuous
media such as air and to a lesser extent water. Thus it has no imaginary
properties and in good Newtonian fashion it is based on sensory experience.
Though this aethereal medium, because its particles mutually repelled one
another, could be analysed mathematically, it is difficult to suppose that Newton
took it seriously. It was subject to obvious conceptual inconsistencies; it was
a flagrant example of the sort of intermediary entity which Newton had always
tended to reject; and more significantly it repudiated his basic metaphysics of
God in an empty universe. To whatever extent it may have exonerated him
from the continental charge of employing gravity as an occult quality, the
1717-18 aether remains the most puzzling of Newton's attempts at the problem
of the cause of force.
It is important to notice, however, that Newton did not explicitly apply
this aethereal notion to the hidden forces of nature. Apart from its tentative
use in explaining neurological processes such as the operation of nerves and
muscles,loohe maintained various other media and spirits, of an electrical and
magnetical sort, as possible explanations of the origin of invisible motion. But
these speculations do not appear as such in the Queries.IOl Rather, in Query 31
of 1717-8, Newton again discussed the role of chemical phenomena as a basis
from which to investigate the properties and mode of action of micro-forces.
We can only conclude that "vital" motions still provided the basic experimental
route to the invisible realm.
V
In order to appreciate fully the significance of the changes in Newton's
conception of matter, force, active principles and the aether, it is necessary
to reconsider the salient characteristics of the theological framework within
which his physical thought was developed. This framework remained relatively
II In terms of the graduated density of the aether, Newton suggested in Query 21 that
the aether was rarer in the pores of bodies than in the surrounding space. Therefore the
differential between the two places might cause bodies to move towards one another.
This idea is only fully developed in the 1717-8 Opticks.
18 Guerlac, op. cit., note 7.
1000pticks, op. cit., New York, Queries 23 and 24, pp. 353-4.
101 There are faint outcrops in Queries 8, 18 and 22.
188 J. E. McGUIRE
constant throughout his intellectual development, and influenced the formation

and transformation of many of the basic concepts of his natural philosophy.
English theological and natural philosophical thought in the post-restoration
period continued to be concerned with the relation between God's Providence
and the working of secondary causes in nature. Boyle, the apologists for the
Royal Society Sprat and Glanvill, the Cambridge Platonists, and the physico-
theoiogians102were all cautious in their use of second causes, for fear of unduly
diminishing God's Power over nature. Omnipotence was "the cardinal
Praerogative of Divinity"; and the "chaining up his armes in the adamantine
fetters of Destiny"l03 was blasphemous. The position of the English thinkers
is admirably expressed by Thomas Burnet in his Sacred Theory:
... we are far from excluding Divine Providence, either ordinary or
extraordinary from the Causes and conduct of the Deluge. I know a
Sparrow doth not fall to the ground without the Will of our Heavenly
Father, much less doth the great World fall into Pieces without his
good Pleasure and Superintendency. In him all things live, move and
have their Being. Things that have Life and Thought have it from him,
he is the Fountain of both. Things that have Motion only, without
Thought, have it also from him. And what only naked Being
without Thought or Motion, owe still that Being to him. And these
are not only derived from God at first, but every Moment continued
and conserv'd by him. So intimate and universal is the dependence
of all Things upon the Divine Will and Power.
In the second place, they are guilty ... of a great Error or indis-
cretion, that oppose the course of Nature to Providence . . . nor are
things less Providential because constant and regular: on the contrary
such a disposition or establishment of second Causes as will in the best
Order, and for a long succession, produce the most regular effects,
assisted only with the ordinary concourse of the First Cause, is a greater
102 T. Sprat, History of the Royal Society, London, 1667; R. Boyle, Notion of Nature,
Works, IV, pp. 362, 370, 371, 367, 373: Christian Virtuoso, V, pp. 45-6, and Excellency of
Theology, III (mostly written in 1665: published in 1673), p. 411; Joseph Glanvill's Essays
o,~ several important su.bjects in Philosophy and Religion, London, 1676; Henry More, A
Collection of Several Philosophical Writings, London, 1712, fourth edition; The General
Preface, and also An Antidote against Atheism and the Immortality of the Soul; Ralph
Cudworth, The True Intellectual System of the Universe, Cambridge, 1678; Samuel Clarke,
A Demonstratio,.~ of the Being and Attributes of God: more particularly in answer to Mr. Hobbes,
Spinoza and their Followers, London, 1705. William Whiston, A New Theory of the Earth,
London (fifth edition), 1734,pp. 293-5; William Whiston, Astronomical Principles of Religion
llatural and revealed, London, 1717; William Derham, Physico-Theology of a Demonstration
of the being and attributes of God from his work of Creation, London, 1714; Edward Stilling
fleet, Origines Sacrae, or a Rational account of the Grounds of Christian Faith, London, 1662.
Both Hobbes and Spinoza were outside the tradition of voluntarist theology evident in the
work.of these writers.
loa Walter Charleton, The Darkness of Atheism Dispelled by the Light of Nature: A
Physico-Theological Treatise, London, 1652, p. 329.
Argument of Wisdom and Contrivance, than such a Disposition of Causes

as will not in so good an Order, or for so long a time, produce regular
Effects without an extraordinary concourse and interposition of the
First Cause ....
Thirdly, besides the ordinary Providence of God in the ordinary
Course of Nature, there is doubtless an extraordinary Providence that
doth attend the greater Scenes and the greater Revolutions of Nature.
This methinks besides all other Proof from the Effects, is very rational
and necessary in itself; for it would be a limitation of the Divine Power
and Will so as to be bound up to Second Causes, as never to use, upon
occasion an extraordinary influence or direction.104
Apart from a strong assertion of God's immanence in nature, Burnet is
concerned to distinguish between two modes of Divine Providence: his ordinary
and extraordinary concourse. In mediaeval theology ~his distinction was made
by the terms potentia ordinata and potentia absoluta: God's ordained and absolute
power. 105 In the theology, the natural philosophy, the legal and natural law
theories of the seventeenth century, the distinction was held to be relevant
to all operations of the Divine Will.l06 According to the tradition of voluntarist
104 Thomas Burnet, The Sacred Theory of the Earth cotltaining an account of tI,e original
of the Earth, and of the general changes which it had undergone, 01' is to undergo, till the con-
summation of all things, London, 1684, pp. 106-7.
1011 The distinction was considerably clarified by William of Ockham, see Opus N onaginta
Dierum, chap. 95, Guillelmi de Ockham: Opera Politica, Manchester, 1940-63, II, 718 ft.
Especially relevant is Nota di duplici potentia dei. For a classic study of voluntarism in
natural law and legal theories see Otto von Gierke, Political Theories of the Middle Ages,
Cambridge, 1927; also the informative article of Francis Oakley, "Medieval Theories of
Natural Law: William of Ockham and the Significance of the Voluntarist Tradition",
Natural Law Forum, 6, 1961. The distinction is found in Suarez, Metaphysicarum disputa-
tionum, Salmanticae, 1597, <lisp. 7, sect. 2, arts. 7-8, a treatise widely read in England,
and in Comnuntarii in octo libros physicorum Aristotelis, Conimbricae, 1592, Lib. II, cap. 7,
quaest. 16, art. I.
101 Robert Boyle, The Excellency of Theology, Works, III; Notion of Nature, Works, IV;
Of the High Veneration Man's Intellect owes to God, particularly for his Wisdom and Power,
Works, IV; The Christian Virtuoso, Works, V; John Locke, The Reasonableness ofChristianily,
Works, VI, London, 1824; Walter Charleton, The Darkness of Atheism Dispelled by the
~ight of Nature: A Physico-Theological Treatise, London, 1652; Henry More, op. cit.;
Edward Stillingfleet, op. cit.; Samuel Clarke, op. cit.; William Whiston, op. cit.; William
Derham, op. cit.; John I{eill, An Examitlation of Dr. Burnet's Theory of the Earth together
with some remarks on Mr. Whiston's New Theory of the Earth, Oxford, 1698; Lady Anne
Conway, The Principles of the Most AtlCient afld Modern Philosophy, CotJCerni1lg God,
Christ and the Creatures, London, 1692; George Cheyne, Philosophical Principles of Religion,
London, 1715;John Ray, Three Physico-Theological Discourses, London, 1693. With respect
to morality and natural law some of the Cambridge Platonists were against voluntarist
theology. Edward Fowler, The Principles and Practices of Ceriain Moderate Divines of
the ChurcJl of England Abusively Called LatitftdiflariatJS, London, 1671,and Ralph Cudworth,
A Treatise Conceruiflg Immutable Morality, London, 1731. The distinction can be traced
190 J. E. McGUIRE
theology God, by his absolute power, established the natural and moral order.
\Vithin and with respect to that established framework, second causes and
moral laws are absolute and immutable. It is to the greater glory of Divine
activity that it operates through the constant and regular laws of that order.
For as Burnet tells us, God, has created by his wisdom and foresight, an order
able to produce regular effects for a "long succession". Though all laws and
causes have their continual source in the Divine Will, that Will itself is not
completely arbitrary and capricious. If it were, there could be no law in the
natural order. So in terms of natural regularities-his "ordinary concourse"
-God's omnipotence normally expresses itself; for we are assured that he will
work through the scriptural dispensation. God is not, however, bound by the
natural order. He could, by his absolute power, abrogate the present economy
of the world.:there is nothing ultimate about the order of nature. The absolute
mode of Divine activity is seen in the case of miracles, whereby God imposes
his sovereign will not through physical causes, but by suspending them or using
them in an extraordinary way.
Though he nowhere uses the terms "ordinary" and "extraordinary" con-
course, or potentia ordinata and potentia absoluta, the distinction and the
theological tradition behind it was accepted by Newton. His clearest statement
of it is found in a draft of 'some ideas written in the early nineties, which in
another form are found in the General Scholium of 1713:
That God is an entity in the highest degree perfect, all agree. But
the highest idea of the perfection of an entity is that it should be one
substance, simple, indivisible, living and life-giving, always everywhere
of necessity existing, in the highest degree understanding all things,
freely willing good things;' by his will effecting things possible; com-
municating as far as is possible his own similitude to the more noble
effects; containing all things in himself as their principle and location;
decreeing and ruling all things by means of his substantial presence
(as the thinking part of a man perceives the appearances of things
brought into the brain and thence rules its own body); and constantly
co-operating with all things according to accurate laws, as being the
foundation and cause of the whole of nature, except where it is good
to act otherwise.107
In language more sublime than that of the General Scholium itself, the
central idea is God's absolute Dominion over nature. All things have their
through the vast Puritan and "Calvinist" literature of the century. For a treatment of
some of these themes see Francis Oakley, "Christian-Theology and the Newtonian Science:
The Rise of the Concept of the Laws of Nature", Church History, 30, 443-70, and Edgar
Zilsel, "Genesis of the Concept of Physical Law", Philosophical Review, 51, 1942. This
distinction between the two modes of God's power and the doctrine of imposed Laws is
found in F. Bacon's "A Confession of Faith", Works, vol. VII, pp. 220-1.
107 The Latin is published in Crauford Gregory's article, op. cit., note 37. The original
is in the David Gregory MS. 245, fol. 14a, Library of the Royal Society.
source and continuing existence in his Will; for He is "living and life-giving".
But again, once the natural order is established, God operates "according to
accurate laws". These, of course, could be abrogated by Divine discretion: his
Will is omnipotent. For Newton will. not reason, lies at the heart of God's
decrees upon nature which are manifested by physical and moral laws. Only
"an intelligent entity, acting by the force of its own will according to the
intellectual ideas of objects in terms of final causes could have introduced the
varie.ty of objects" .108 Such variety could never have arisen from "blind
necessity".
Natural objects are present to God in a way that can only be hinted at in
analogy to images of things in the human mind. As we rule our bodies in
terms of our ideas and intentions, God in an absolute fashion rules nature, being
present to the world as the mind is present to the body. By thus evoking a
macrocosm-microcosmanalogy between God and man. Newton was drawing
upon an unstated assumption still current amongst educated classesof his time.
Later in using this analogy, he spoke of space as the sensorium of God. But
in the above passage, however, and also in De Gravitatione of 1670, the term
is not used.
An aspect of the analogy is of interest here, as it is concerned directly with
the modes of God's omnipotence. This is the relation between the Divine Ideas
and their copies in nature hinted at in the manuscript. A fuller indication of
this relation between archetype and ectype is found in the 1675 letter to
Oldenburg in which Newton reports that the world was:
. . . after condensation wrought into various formes, at first by the
immediate hand of the Creator, and ever since by the power of Nature,
wch by virtues of the command Increase & Multiply, became a complete
Imitator of the copies sett her by the Protoplast. lOt
101 Ibid., fo1. 14a.

101 Correspondence, vol. I, p. 364. A similar conception of the process of creation is
found in the writings of More and Boyle. In the general preface to the Collection (note 92),
p. xv, More says of the spirit of nature subordinating matter: "This therefore being a mute
copy of the eternal Word (that is, of that Divine Wisdom that is entirely everywhere), is
in every part naturally appointed to do all the best services that matter is capable of,
according to such or such modifications, and according to that Platform of which it is a
Transcript, I mean, according to the Comprehension and Purpose of these Ideas of things
which are in the external Intellect of God". In one of his Commonplace Books, 185,
Library of the Royal So.ciety, fol. 35v, Boyle tells us in a fascinating passage: "I conceive
yt ye omniscient as well as almigh~ Creator of ye universe & al ye substances it contains
has himself a most intimate & perfect knowledge of the whole system they make up &
of every one of them in particular they being al his own creatures & works & their particular
natures being but transcripts of those eternal ideas of ye divine mind according to wich
they were originally framed ••. ". From internal evidence this was probably written in
the 1680'S.
J. E. McGUIRE
The main contention is that after the initial creation ex nihilo the whole of
nature originated by Divine fiat from a primitive and spiritous aetherllO which
can transmute by alchemical means into multitudinous forms. The statement
itself is platonic in character abounding as it does with such notions as imitation,
copy, protoplast, and creator, and it is made explicitly Christian by reference
to the biblical command "increase and multiply". Thus by a sovereign decree
God brought the world into existence. Once established, however, that order
maintains itself by "the power of nature". Which in turn exacts the Divine
decrees, by generating phenomena according to the protoplast or archetype.
These copies are therefore physical imitations, manifesting physical laws, of
the Divine Ideas.
An interesting account of the creation of matter by God's absolute power
is found in De Gravitatione. Newton advances an hypothesis involving a
notion of "immaterial" matter, to show how God could have created some-
thing which, without being material, could manifest all the effects produced
by physical phenomena:
Since each man is conscious that he can move his body at will, and
believes further that all men enjoy the same power of similarly moving
their bodies by thought alone; the free power of moving bodies at will
can by no means be denied to God, whose facility of thought is infinitely
greater and more swift. And by like argument it must be agreed that
God, by the sole action of thinking and willing, can prevent a body
from penetrating any space defined by certain limits.lll
Thus God is able to endow certain determinate parts of space with such
properties as impenetrability and mobility, so that if "this world were consti-
tuted of this kind of being, it would seem hardly any different"1l2 from matter.
As we can move created bodies by an act of the will, God by his omnipotence
can directly inform space with bodies. Moreover, their motion is regulated
"hither and thither according to certain laws" which "God has imposed"118
upon the established order. Once again, we see the distinction reflected in
Newton's thought.
This hypothesis concerning the creation of "immaterial" matter throws light
on the doctrine of matter's paucity and on the related doctrine concerning its
imperfection as an existing thing. In contrast to space, force and God, as
110 Newton would seem to have accepted the idea of creation e:r materia praeexistente,
or secondary creation, as did Whiston and Burnet in their analysis of Chaos, op. cit., note 106.
See also Newton's letter to Burnet, Correspondence, vol. II, 32I-(}. None of these thinkers,
however, denies that God created formless matter ex 1lihilo.
111Hall and Hall, Ope cit., note I, pp. 138-9.
111 Ibid., p. 139.
113 Ibid., p. 139.

I have discussed elsewhere,u4 matter according to this conception is an entirely

impoverished being embodying the lowest degree of reality and perfection.
Newton was certainly in agreement with More's contention that the higher
operations of reality could not have sprung from "so contemptible a Principle
as bare Body or Matter".u5 It is evident that he wished to advance a con-
ception of matter which, for theological reasons, emphasized its complete
dependence on the will of God. In company with many English contem-
poraries,us he held that the Cartesian, the Hobbesian, and later the Leibnizian
doctrines of matter offered a sure path to atheism, since they all could be
interpreted as supporting its independence of God, and even its eternity.u7
Newton never abandoned either his hypothesis regarding the creation of "im-
material" matter, or his view of its low degree of reality and perfection.u8
With an adherence to these theological doctrines, it is hardly surprising that
he should come to regard space as containing little solid matter. By 1690,
as we have seen, he was convinced that there was sufficient evidence to support
the hypothesis and its implications. Among the latter, was a firm commitment
to the existence of force and a belief prior to 1706 that God was the direct
cause of their operations in a matterless void. There can be little doubt, then,
that the entrenched theological commitments of Newton's thought had a deep
influence on his conception of space, force and matter.
By way of summing up up it may be said in general that for Newton as
for many of his contemporaries there was nothing necessary or ultimate about
the present state of nature. Though there was no reason to suppose that God
would abrogate nature's laws, it was in his power to do so. This is implied in
Query 31 of the Opticks. Everything in the world is "subordinate to him, and
subservient to his will". Since "Matter is not necessarily in all place, it may
be also allow'd that God is able to create Particles of Matter of several Sizes
and Figures, and in several Proportions to Space ... and thereby to vary the
m McGuire, op. cit., note la.

115 More, op. cit., note 92, p. 60.
111 For a general discussion of this see Samuel 1. Mintz, The HuntiJlg of Leviatha'Jl,
Cambridge, 1962, and McGuire, op. cit., note I.
117 Kubrin, op. cit., note la.
118 A. Koyre, Newtonian Studies, London, 1965, p. 92. Koyre quotes Pierre Coste's
report in his translation of Locke's Essay of a discussion which he had with Newton
in the latter's old age. Newton's account of the creation of matter by God is the same as
that of De Gravitatione. Coste recorded: On pourrait, dit-il [Newton], se former en quelque
maniere une idee de la creation de la matiere en supposant que Dieu ent empeche par sa
puissance que rien ne put entrer dans une certaine portion de l'espace pur, qui de sa nature
est penetrable. etemel, necessaire, infini, car des de la cette portion d'espace aurait l'im-
penetrabilite l'une des qualites essentielles a la matiere ... ". I have suggested that Newton
may have adopted this conception from Henry More, see McGuire, op. cit., note la, p. 227.
194 J. E. McGUIRE
Laws of Nature, and make Worlds of several sorts in several parts of the
Universe. At least, I see nothing of Contradiction in all this".1l9 For Newton,
therefore, the world comprehended by the Principia could have been different
than it is.
VI
The passages, and their related drafts, from the Opticks quoted in section II,
show that matter and force equally depend upon the will of God. In them,
Newton also speaks of active principles as "causes" of such forces as gravitation
and fermentation. This doctrine raises one of the most difficult issues in
Newton's philosophy of nature, and the following questions must be considered.
Are active principles natural agents which act within the physical order? That
is, are they a sort of physical cause? Or are they an intermittent manifestation
of God's power in nature, in the character of special divine interventions?
But before considering tins, we must ask: what did Newton mean in the
context of these passages by the term "principle"?
In the late seventeenth century, three traditional distinctions were still
current: a principle could mean something formulated or asserted: the primitive
arche out of which all things were thought to originate: or the primary cause
of existing phenomena as, for example, the "principles of matter and motion"
celebrated in the mechanical philosophies. The second sense of the term em-
bodies the notion of being prior in time. As Newton himself said in the letter
of 1675 to Oldenburg, "Thus perhaps may all things be originated from aether".
The first sense ranged from primary truths and mathematical propositions,
through normative expressions, to laws of nature.
Both this sense and the third are found in the passages partially considered
in section II. Vis inertiae, the passive principle of matter, is contrasted with
some "other Principle" which changes the state of matter, and which is
responsible for the "conserving and recruiting" of the "variety of Motion"120
in nature. In all places where Newton uses the term "principle" in conjunction
with the adjective "active", he has in mind various causal agencies which
bring about the manifest effects of phenomena, and which maintain by inter-
mittent action a conservation of motion. He also refers to active principles
when speaking of the genesis of the world. "Now by the help of these Prin-
ciples, all material Things seems to have been composed of the hard and solid
Particles above mentioned, variously associated in the First Creation by the
Counsel of an intelligent Agent". He ends by maintaining that it is vain
"to pretend that it might arise out of a Chaos by the mere Laws of Nature;
111 Opticks, op. ci#., note 44, pp. 403-4.

120 Ibid., p. 339.
though once form'd, it may continue by those laws for many Ages".121 Thus
active principles are meant to depict some evident characteristic of reality.
In no way are they to be confused with occult qualities which only impede
the progress of knowledge. For Newton, therefore, they are not mere verbal
formulations, but aspects of reality, partially categorized by the mind. Conse-
quently, these principles are laws in the sense of being features of reality rather
than confirmed assertions about it. For unlike the laws of the Principia they
were never fully formulated. Furthermore, they can neither be reduced to
changes in matter nor be originated from such changes. Lastly, in their most
general character, active principles are a clear manifestation of God's activity
in nature conceived, ontologically, within a classical neoplatonic framework.122
As causal agents, these principles are basic to Newton's immaterial ontology.
This point can best be developed by considering two passages which occur only
in Query 23 of the Optice.l23 Firstly, II (a) of 1706 in section II is notably
different from II (b) of 1717-8. In the latter, Newton simply says that motion
arises from active principles; but in II (a) he says: "For we find very little
motion in the world, except what evidently arises from these active Principles
or from the power of a will". Instead of the customary opposition of God's
will with a mechanical aether as means of explaining gravity and other
phenomena, the Divine will is opposed to active principles. In III (a) he is
more forthright about active principles than in III (b), saying that "natural
phenomena show that such principles really exist: though it has not yet been
explained what their causes are".
Both passages strongly suggest that active principles are within the order
of nature rather than existing solely as divine interventions. In the first place,
Newton used vel-the exclusive "or"-to contrast active principles with the
divine will. Characteristically, he is being cautious. Motion may arise from
active principles or it may be the direct result of Providence, but not both
together. Though when God does work through the mediation of these prin-
ciples, his concourse with nature is not abrogated. Secondly, Newton strongly
links active principles with physical and chemical phenomena, which again
suggests that they are natural agents the characteristics of which are not
yet entirely known.
Before 1706, however, the situation was somewhat different. In a manu-
script probably related to the "classical" scholia of the abortive 1690's edition
111Ibid., p. 402•
122McGuire and Rattansi, op. cit., note la.
113 These differences were first noticed by Alexander in his edition of the Leibniz-
Clarke Correspondence, pp. 178-9. He did not, however, attempt to judge the significance.
196 J. E. McGUIRE
of the Principia, Newton was quite unambiguous about the status of active
principles:
The Epicureans making a distinction of the whole of nature into body
and void, denied the existence of God, but very absurdly. For two
planets distant from one another by a long and empty interval will not
approach one another by any force of gravity, nor will they act upon
one another, except by the mediation of some active principle which
comes between them both, and by means of which force is propagated
from each into the other . . . consequently those ancients who more
rightly held unimpaired the mystical Philosophy as Thales and the
Stoics taught that a certain infinite spirit pervades all space into infinity,
and contains and vivifies the entire world: and this spirit was their
supreme divinity, according to the Poet cited by the Apostle, in him
we live and move and have our being.1M
In this passage, which strongly emphasises the existence of divinity in nature,
Newton unmistakenly refers to God, as the cause of the "force of gravity",
by means of the term "active principle". We could scarcely wish for a clearer
expression of Newton's view that active principles are the cause lYingbehind
the variety of forces in nature, and especially of those operating in the invisible
realm. In 1705 in a draft f.orQuery 23 of the Optice, he still exclusively used
the term in referring to God: "Life and will are active principles" and "if there
be an universal life and all space be the sensorium of a thinking being ... then
laws of motion arising from life or will may be of universal extent" .125 Without
doubt Newton's voluntarist theology is to the fore.
The Query as puelished in 1706 states, as we have seen, an exclusive
disjunction between active principles and the will of God. This is not surprising.
In the first place, at no stage in the development of his thought did Newton
achieve a full solution, within the natural order, to the ontological problem
of the causation of force. Thus he always maintained a cautious posture, and
in this instance made a direct reference to the power of Providence in nature.
Secondly, in keeping with this attitude, he continued to entertain alternative
lilt
.
U.L.C. Add. 3965.12, fo1. 269r: (italics mine) Epicurei naturam totam in corpus et
inane distinguentcs Deum pemegebant, at absurde nimius. Nam Planetae duo ab inviccm
longo vacuo intervallo distantes non petent se mutuo vi aliquo gravitatis neque ullo modo
agent in sc inviccm nisi mediante principio aliquo activo quod utrumque intercedat, et
per quod vis ab utrogue in alterum propagetur .... Ideoque Veteres qui mysticam Philoso-
phiam rectius tenuere ut Thales et Stoici docabant spiritum quidam infinitum spatia
omnia in infinitum pervadere & totam universum continere & vivificare; et hicce spiritus
supremum numen, juxta Poetam ab Apostola citatum In eo vivimus et movemur et sumus.
It is interesting to notice that Newton uses the phrase "spiritum quidam", 20 years later
in the General Scholium of 1713, to refer to his speculations on an electric agent in nature.
126 U.L.C. Add. 3970, fo1. 619r. This passage is from the same document as the third
draft for Query 23 quoted in section II above.
possibilities for a solution to the problem of the causation of force and motion.
So at this stage, active principle became a general term for any sort of funda-
mental causal agent, and became less a theological term signifYing God's direct
action in the world.
By 1717-8 in Query 31, Newton once more strongly implied that active
principles were part of the natural order since, as we have seen, the reference
to "the power of a Will" was suppressed. The reason for this is probably two-
fold. Leibniz in the Correspondence had severely criticized the orientation of
the Newtonian theology around the sovereign will of God. He especially
objected to the notion that God was compelled to act from time to time to
reform the system of the world. For Leibniz, this impugned Divine foresight,
and constituted "a very mean notion of the wisdom and power of God"128 in
creating the world. In reaction to such sustained criticism, Newton probably
decided to delete any direct reference to God's will. Thereby he began con-
sciously to relate the intermittent reformation of motion and force to active
principles themselves, now characterized as operating entirely within the estab-
lished order at God's behest. Secondly, at Newton's own direction, as we have
seen, the work of Hauksbee and Desaguliers on electro-luminescence and
related phenomena occasioned the serious return to earlier speculations on the
causes of force. Having increasingly considered from 1687 to 1717 various
sorts of spirits, different types of media, and vapours streaming from the tails
of comets, as sources of activity, he was now more inclined to talk in terms of
natural agents as causes of heat, fermentation, gravity, cohesion, light, and life.
Thus in this way Newton hoped to indicate a possibility of extending knowledge
within the established order. All these various speculations, therefore, on the
causes of such phenomena were subsumed in Query 31 under the term "active
principle" .
136 Alexander, Ope cit., note 82, p. 12. In one of its fundamental aspects the theological
issue between Leibniz and the Newtonians has to do with the nature of Divine Providence.
Leibniz did not deny that the world "goes without God's interposition" (p. 18) or that
"the creation wants to be continually influenc'd by its creator" but he "maintains it to
be a watch, that does without wanting to be mended by him ... " (p. 18). For if the world
needed to be mended it "would indeed show the power of God; but it would not sufficiently
show his wisdom" (p. 18). This is the issue: the Newtonians emphasize the attribute of
omnipotence which is central to any voluntarist theology, and Leibniz emphasizes omniscience
which is central to his view that God had created a world which is intelligible to human
reason in terms of the logical necessities which led Him to create it. Thus creation can
be understood by the exercise of reason, using the principle of non-contradiction and that
of sufficient reason as tools in the analysis. But if, on the other hand creation is a continge1.'
artifact of God's arbitrary fiat with laws imposed by Divine will, experimental methods
will have to be employed to supplement our knowledge of Providence as gathered from
nature; since in this case there are no intrinsic connexions among things.
Ig8 J. E. McGUIRE
I have discussed the meaning, status and changing emphasis which Newton
placed on active principles, but their ontology will only be fully understood
in connexion with the doctrine of the potentia Die absoluta et ordinata. Newton's
position can best be clarified by contrasting it with the theology of Descartes.
Descartes' system of theology and natural philosophy are both intimately
connected with his affirmation of God's sovereign and transcendent will. In
the timelessness of divine unity, God's understanding and will are inseparably
blended. Thus, nature, as well as nature's laws are completely dependent on
divine decree for their existence and continuance in existence; laws of nature
are established, "just as a King establishes the laws in his Kingdom".12?Once
established, these laws according to finite comprehension are "immutable and
etemal'',l28 and the established order thus maintains itself by God's potentia
ordinata. Accordingly, human understanding can comprehend nature as a
self-regulating system operating by changelesslaws in terms of an imperishable
fund of motion. To the transcendent mind, however, the essence of dependent
existence is otherwise. Not only could the established order have been decreed
to exist in a different manner, but all created things are so dependent on God
that they must be re-created from moment to moment:
For the whole duration of life is divisible into countless parts, all
mutually independent; so from my having existed a little while ago
it does not follow that I need exist now, unless some cause creates me
anew at this very moment, in other words preserves me. For it is clear,
when one considers the nature of time, that just the same power and
agency is needed to preserve any object at the various moments of its
duration, as would be needed to create it anew if it did not yet exist.129
Apart from this rather curious conception of time, Descartes is simply asserting
the traditional distinction between causa secundum fieri and secundum esse.130
In the reply to the Fifth Objections, he puts the point emphatically:
God is the cause of created things, not only in respect of their coming
to be but also in respect of their being, and so he must always expend
his activity on the effect in the same way, to make it remain the same
thing.131
Thus from a logical point of view the initial act of creation is of the same
type as the continuance of something in existence. One could not expect less
111 C. Adam and P. Tannery, Oeuvres de Descartes, I, pp. 145-6.
118 Ibid., VII, p. 380. Passages where Descartes explicitly uses the phrase "Puissance
ordinaire et puissance extraordinaire de Dieu" are VII, 435, and VIII. 2", I67.
111 E. Anscombe and P. Geach (trans.). Descartes Philosophical Writing, London, 1964,
p. 88. Many of the Arabic philosophers held views similar to Descartes. See Moses
Maimonides, The Guide for the Perplexed, trans. M. Friedlander, 1956, Part I, chap. 71-4.
180 For the sources of Descartes' use of these terms, see E. Gilson, Index Scolastieo-
Cartesian, Paris, 1913, pp. 62-3.
181 C. Adam and P. Tannery, op. cit., VII, p. 369.
from a thinker who adopted so uncompromisingly the theory of unconditioned

creation. Creation out of nothing in the Christian sense meant for Descartes,
as for many of the schoolmen, that no finite thing once created was self-
enduring, or self-subsisting in space. Moreover, should a body be allowed even
a momentary self-continuing mode of existence, there would be no reason for
denying it power to exist longer. Only God and the activity of his omnipresent
agency can be continuous and enduring. Thus within a framework which
strongly contrasts eternal and independent existence with the finite and de-
pendent, Descartes collapses the distinction between the two modes of God's
activity132; the divine Will continually exercises its potentia absoluta, since
everything is actively recreated from moment to moment.
There are some broad affinities between the theological views of Descartes
and those of Newton. Both thinkers stress the absolute and sovereign will of
God which involves a strict adherence to the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo. By
means of the traditional distinction in the modes of God's potentia, both make
the doctrine of the creative will fundamental to their theology and natural
philosophy. But with respect to their intentions there are important differences
which divide them. Newton's position regarding the general relation obtaining
between God and nature is more difficult to interpret than that of Descartes.
Certainly he did not wish to make God transcend the world as an intelligentia
supramundana. or to make Him identical in any sense with nature. Following
the main stream of Christian thought, Newton's God was immanent in creation:
and he would have followed St. Augustine in regarding the natural and spiritual
orders as "interpenetrating one another in all the phenomena of the world" .133
While insisting on an intimate connexion between God and nature, Newton
repeatedly attempted to characterize a mode of Divine existence which did
not make his omnipresence one with creation. Thus space and time in Newton's
philosophy are physical manifestations of God's existence; neither, however,
are properties or qualities of God. In an Advertissement au Lecteur which he
sent to Des Maizeaux, Newton was emphatic on this point:
... wherever in the following papers, through unavoidable narrowness
of language, infinite space Of immensity & endless duration or eternity
are spoken of as Qualities or Properties of the substance which is immense
or eternal [God]; the terms Quality & Property are not to be taken in
laS The distinction between the two modes of God's potentia is coherent enough at a
certain level; however, on analysis it reduces to the power of God simpliciter. To the
seventeenth century, however, God's scriptural dispensation to work through the established
orders of nature and grace was a serious matter. The world was also a contingent creation
which, though depending on God, could be known by the finite mind independently of
the creator.
133 Comment by T. A. Lacey, Nature. Miracle and Sin. 1916, pp. 31-2.
200 J. E. McGUIRE
that sense wherein they are vulgarly, by the writers of Logick & Meta-
physicks applied to finite & created beings .... They have a nearer
relation to the Predicaments of Ubi and Quan.do when applied to
uniquity & Eternity.1M
Thus God is everywhere and always: his "where" and "when" are categorically
different from finite things, and his relation to nature is not akin to that
obtaining between dependent thipgs and their attributes. Language, however,
is too impoverished to allow the finite mind to express this difference fully:
it can only be hinted at.
Newton, however, was never easy about his conception of the relation be-
tween God and the world, and he often used biblical references, similes, and
figures to characterize it. Thus unlike the Cartesian conception, God does not
dwell in a timeless and transcendent realm of eternity, but exists semi-
eternally in unending time: the one "who is and who was and who is to come" .135
But it was the Newtonian conception of space that drew the most vehement
criticism .. Newton's use of the sensorium, and the macrocosm-microcosm
analogies was certainly misleading. His real position was perhaps best stated
by two figures which never appeared in any of his published work. The first
is his use of the Hebrew conception of MAKOlvl which occurs in two places.
In the Advertissement, in order to clarify God's substantial presence, Newton
says that "when the Hebrews called God M AKOM place, the place in weh
we live & move and have our being 'they' did not mean that space is God
in a literal sense" .136 Thus the point is made sufficiently clear that space is
the M akom of God wherein he substantially dwells, not a property that
characterizes his nature. In a passage from one of the classical scholia intended
for the abortive 1690's edition of the Principia Newton elaborated this figure:
"This one God they [the ancients] would have it dwelt in all bodies whatsoever
as in his own temple, and thence they shaped ancient temples in the manner
of the heavens".137 God was therefore in the world but not of it, for "The
entire universe was rightly designated a Temple of God".138
134 KOy'nSand Cohen, op. cit., note la, p. 101.

111 V.L.C. Add. 3965.13, fo1.54Iv which is a draft of ideas found in the Scholium on space
and time in the Principia, and ideas on the mode of God's existence found later in the
General SchoUum. There are a number of manuscript sheets on which similar ideas are
developed, fols. 541v, 524r-v and 54Sr-v. These were probably written in the late 1690'S.
lSI Koyre and Cohen, op. cit., p. 101. The other place where the term Makom appears
is in the manuscript cited in note 135. Newton's phraseology is similar to the passage quoted
in the text above.
131 Gregory MS. 245, fol. 14b•
138 Ibid., fo1. 3. Newton had copied verbatim the passage in which this sentence is
found-from Macrobius' Commentary on the Dream of Scipio. See W. H. Stahl's translation,
New York, 1952, chap. XIV, p. 142.
The most important question, however, is Newton's conception of God's

causal connexion with nature. Does he hold that the world once created is
thereby actively sustained by God from moment to moment? Is his position
akin to that of Descartes; or is the world sufficientlymaintained by laws except
when the total order needs a "reformation"? Newton's thought is not explicit
on this point. It is clear, however, that he argued for God's substantial
presence since "The human race is prone towards mysteries, and considers
nothing holy and perfect which can be easily understood". Hence "the con-
ception of God from the disputation of the scholastics emerges sterner as when
it' is said that God is everywhere according to his power and yet nowhere
according to substance ... ".139 This conception Newton could not abide.
God's essenceand substance are inseparable: since nothing acts where it is not,
his power and presence are everywhere. For God has a propensity to action,
H
that he should never and nowhere be idle especially concerns his glory and
majesty; though what God did before the creation of this visible work and
outside its limits, we cannot think".140 God is thus necessarily and substantially
omnipresent and "thereby able to act in all times & places for creating &
governing the present Universe".l41
The "Lord of the Universe or Pantokrator"142 had, therefore, in terms of
Newton's interpretation of divine immanence absolute dominion over all.
Though he could never have accepted Descartes' atomic view of time involving
as it did a rigorous recreationalist hypothesis, Newton was committed to a
doctrine of conc'ursus as a mode of Providence. This could not be otherwise
111 V.L.C. Add. 3965.13, 54Iv, translated from the Latin.

140 Ibid., translated from the Latin.
tn Koyre and Cohen, op. cit., note I, p. 101. The idea that Providence is continually
and actively guiding Nature abounds in the literature of the second half of the seventeenth
century' as it did in the first. Whiston uses Donne's metaphor of the "Vicegerent": we
"shall attempt to consider and Remark his Vicegerent Nature in her Mechanical Operations
therein", op. cit., note 102, p. 296. Whiston elaborates in a fashion characteristic of the
period: "Tis from him everything is ultimately deriv'd: He preserves the Natures, and
continues the Powers of every Creature: He not only at first produc'd but perpetually
disposes and makes use of the whole Creation, and everypart thereof, as the Instruments
of his Providence ... ", ibid., p. 294. Charleton criticizes the rhetorical traditional which
likens God to a "Pilot, Emperour, and General of Nature" because there is "still this difference
to be allowed, that though a Pilot is not ubquitary in all parts of his ship, nor an Emperour
actually omnipresent in all places of his dominions, nor a General locally present in all quarters
and stations of his Army; yet God is intimately omnipresent in every particle of the World:
so that what is uncertainly said of the Soul, Tota in Toto & tota in qualibet parte: may most
certainly be said of God", op. cit., note 103, p. II4. For an important discussion of this
theme in English thought see C. A. Patrides, Milton and the Christian Tradition, Oxford,
1966.
141 Hall and Hall, op. cit., note I, p. 363.
202 J. E. McGUIRE
since he accepted creation ex nihilo, which involves the preservation of dependent

creation in existence. The position is clearly put by Newton's contemporary
the Cambridge Platonist Peter Sterry:
Learned men and Divines teach us, that the Preservation of the world
is continuata Creatio, a continued Creation in every moment of time
from the Beginning of the world to the end, the Divine Act of Preserving
and Governing the world according to the Present form proper to it
for that Season is entirely the same with the Act of Creation.143
Thus Providence acts to conserve nature which, relative to the initial creation
by decree, is a sort of continuata creatio, though the essential identity of the
established order is not abolished: for Newton, too, the same essence remains
and is preserved by God. Thus unlike Descartes' doctrine the world is not
strictly recreated from moment to moment nor is it maintained, once created.
by physical laws alone.
For God does not disdain to work through second causes. This is accom-
plished by another mode of Providence the divine concurrence with the estab-
lished order-God's potentia ordinata. Thus from the design of nature Divine
power and wisdom are knowable. Therefore to know the laws of nature is,
for Newton, to know the decrees of God's will, since he concurs with second
causes by continually implanting efficacy in them. They are thus a manifesta-
tion of Divine volition put into execution by the power of God: there are
II ••• no powers of nature independent upon God, as the powers of weight5
and springs are independent upon men" .144
Clarke repeatedly points out in the Correspondence: IInatttral and super-
natttral are nothing at all different with regard to God, but distinctions merely
in our conceptions of things".146 There can be no doubt that this was Newton'!
view. In a letter of May, 1712, intended for Leibniz, he forcibly describe5
this position. He is attempting to counter Leibniz's opinion, as expressed ir-
a letter to Hartsoeker, that if gravity is not explained mechanically the only
alternative is the unintelligibility of miracles or occult qualities:
So then gravity & hardness go for unreasonable occult qualities unles~
they can be explained mechanically. And why may not the same bE
said of the vis inertiae & the extension, the duration & mobility of bodie~
143 Peter Sterry, The Kingdom of God in the Soul of Man, London, 1683, p. 29. CharletOI
firmly adheres to the same position. Speaking of "the Creation of the World ex nihilo
and the constant conservatio'u of the same in its primitive order ... ", he say's: "I doe n01
intend that those are Acts really distinct each from other (for in the demonstration of th«
existence of God tis plainly, though succinctly evinced, that the conservation of the Universl
is nothing but the Act of Creati01Jprolonged or continuetl), op. cit., note 103, p. 94.
Itt Clarke, op. cit., note 82, p. 22.
In Ibid., p. 24.
& yet no man ever attempted to explain these qualities mechanically,

or took them for miracles or supernatural things or fictions or occult
qualities. They are the natural, real, reasonable manifest qualities of
all bodies seated in them by the will of God from the beginning of the
creation & perfectly incapable of being explained mechanically, & so
may the hardness of primitive particles of bodies. And therefore if any
man should say that bodies attract one another by a power whose
cause is unknown to us or by a power seated in the frame of nature
by the will of God, or by a power seated in (an immaterial) a substance
in webbodies move & Bote without resistance & which has therefore no
vis inertiae, but acts by other laws than those that are mechanical, I
know not why he should be said to introduce miracles & occult qualities
& fictions into ye world. For Mr. Leibnitz himself will scarce say that
thinking is mechanical as it must be if to explain it otherwise be to
make it a miracle, an occult quality & a fiction.lf8
In this fascinating statement of his philosophical position, Newton plainly
holds that all natural phenomena-force, matter, and their qualities-are
equally manifestations of God's potentia absoluta. As Clarke puts it: "'vVith
regard to God, no one possible thing is more miraculous than another; and that
therefore a miracle does not consist in any difficulty in the nature of the thing
done, but merely in the unusualness of God's doing it",l41 The view of creation
and its preservation developed in the passage is similar in spirit to that
expressed much earlier by Newton in De Gravitatione. Again, the various
possible solutions to an ontological explanation of force are open-God, non-
mechanical causes, or the aether. Moreover, Newton's outright denial that
basic causal explanations are mechanical, unmistakably places him outside the
traditional "new" philosophies: no more than thought itself are the basic
features of nature accounted for by systems such as those of Descartes and
"I U.L.C. Add. 3965.17, fol. 257'-v unpublished. The correspondence between N.
Hartsocker and Leibniz appeared in the Mentoires de Trevoux from 1706 to l1II.
m Clarke, op. cit., note 82, p. 114. Clarke's view of miracles is a faithful refiection of
Newton's. The latter's clearest expressions of his doctrine occurs in a theological common-
place book, see H. McLachlan, Sir Isaac Newton: Tlleological1l'lattuscripts, Liverpool, 1950,
pp. 17-8. Newton tells us: " ... miracles are so called not because they are the works of
God, but because they happen seldom, and for that reason create wonder. 1£they should
happen constantly according to certain laws impressed upon the nature of things, they
would be no longer wonders or miracles, but might be considered in philosophy as a part
of the phenomena of nature [notwithstanding their being the effects of the laws impressed
upon nature by the powers of God] notwithstanding that the cause of their causes might
be unknown to us". Newton sees clearly that voluntarist theology implies that laws of
nature are imposed upon contingent phenomena, rather than being inherent in the nature
of things. His view of miracles is not orthodox. Moreover, it entails the difficulty that
in order to know a miracle had occurred it would be necessary to know that we knew aU
nature's laws: since the doctrine involves God in using existing laws in an extraordinary
way.
204 J. E. McGUIRE
Hobbes. Nevertheless, the present natural order having been established by

divine fiat, the enquiring mind can attempt to explain it by means of second
causes.
With this background considered, we can now investigate further the
ontology of active principles. Typical of the expressions in the draft passages of
section II is the statement that "We cannot say that all nature is not alive".
These expressions are significant. Not only do they affirm the ontological
priority of spirituality in Newton's philosophy, but they provide a further
link with the Cambridge Platonists, especially with Cudworth. The significance
of this link ~ill be placed in perspective if the connexions between "life",
"will", "thought", and active principles are explored. Newton's use of the
term "life" in the draft passages of section II surely reflects the influence of
Cudworth. For example, in summing up the true philosophy of the ancients
Cudworth tells us that they divided the world into passive matter and active
power. "To the latter of which belongs both cogitation, and the power of
moving matter, whether by express consciousness or no. Both of which together
may be called by one general name of life; so that they made these two general
heads of being or entity, passive matter or bulk, and self-activity or life. The
former of these was commonly called by the ancients the To 1To'UXOV 'that which
suffers and receives' and the latter the To 1TOLOVV 'the active principle'."148
Newton also divides the world into two principles, and like Cudworth uses
"life" to cover the volitions and intentions of God and man, as well as the
various causal agencies which move matter and replenish activity in nature.
Thus the term refers to all manifestations of the non-material from forces to
the higher attributes of the spiritual. In another important respect the
influence of Cudworth is evident. In the Queries, Newton uses active and
passive principles in contexts where he wishes to show that atoms and the void
are insufficient principles with which to explain nature: material principles of
148 Ralph Cudworth (notes by j. L. Mosheim, trans. by John Harrison), The True Intel-
lectual System of the Universe, I, London, 1845, p. 55. Professor Guerlac has conjectured
that Cudworth influenced Newton, but he has not offered any evidence, see op. cit., note la.
Newton made four folio pages of notes on Cudworth's System. The manuscript is in the
William Andrews Clark Memorial Library of the University of California at Los Angeles.
Cudworth's use of the Aristotelian terms To paschon and To poioun is interesting. In
Aristotle they really function as adverbial qualifiers in the category of substance. Cud-
worth, however, uses them as terms which describe two basic categories of reality. This
may indicate a Stoic influence; for they used these terms to distinguish two sorts of entities.
See james S. Reid's M. TVLLI CICERONIS ACADEMICA, London, 1885, p. 124.
Stillingfieet considers these two principles to be of Stoic origin. In this discussion of the
production of the world he speaks of the active principle (God) working upon the passive
principle (matter) Origines Sacrae, 1680, PP.415-416. The distinction is attributed to the
Stoics on the authority of Plutarch, Diogenes, Laertius, Seneca, Cicero and Stobaeus,
p. 399 and pp. 415-416. A late edition of Stillingfieet's work was in Newton's library.
this sort in themselves presuppose an immaterial realm. In the writings of

'Valter Charleton and Henry More active and passive principles are used in this
context,149but Cudworth's use of them is characteristically closer to that of
Newton. In the context of tracing the atomic philosophy of Moses, Cudworth
concludes that the ancient atomists Ujoined both active and passive principles
together, the corporeal and incorporeal nature, mechanisms and life, atomology
and pneumatology; and from both of these united, they made an entire system
of philosophy, correspond with, and agreeable to, the true and real world
without them" .150 As causal agents, however, active principles are more closely
linked with will, thought, and final causes, which in tum are characterized
by the sensorium and volition analogies which occur in many passages con-
sidered above. In yet another draft passage related to Query 23 of the 1706
Opticks, Newton plainly states these relations:
Life and will are active principles by which we move bodies & thence
arise other laws of motion not yet known to us. And since all matter
duly formed by generation & nutrition is attended with signes of life,
& all things are framed with perfect art and wisdome, & Nature does
nothing in vain; if there be an universal life, & all space be the sensorium
of a immaterial living, thinking, being, who by immediate presence
perceives things in it as that wch thinks in us perceives their pictures
in the brain and whose Ideas work more powerfully upon matter than
the Imagination of a mother works upon an embrio, or that of a man
upon his body for promoting health or sickness, the laws of motion
arising from life or will may be of universal extent.161
Again, there is a clear reference to the laws of another sort of motion discussed
in section II. And as the other draft passages to Query 23 indicate, Newton
was attempting in principle to show how these laws could be discovered, so
that something might be known about the physical operations of active
principles within the established order. For these "other laws of motion"
were conceived by Newton as the laws of active principles, working through
such forces as generation, fermentation and gravity.
1411 Charleton uses the term active principle when arguing that atomism is insufficient
"unless it be supported by this additional base; that there be some first active principle,
which by its infinite power first created out of nothing .. .", op. cit., note 106. More uses
both terms: "Wherefore it is most rational to conclude, that no lvl atter whatsoever of its
own Nature by any active Principle of Motion •.. " and "It is sufficiently manifest from
sense and experience, that Matter is a principle purely passive", op. cit., note 92. The
Immortality of the Soul, pp. 43, 57. Newton certainly read the latter treatise. See Richard
S. Westfall, "The Foundations of Newton's Philosophy of Nature", Brit. J. for the Hist.
of Sci., 1962, I, 172-82.
160 Cudworth, op. cit., p. 90.
m U.L.C. Add. 3790, fo1. 252v. This version is similar in content to the third draft
passage quoted in section II.
206 J. E. McGUIRE
But active principles are also periodic revelations of God's agency in the
world. Here the analogies at once reveal the difficultyin clarifying how active
principles affect natural phenomena, and the extent to which Newton con-
nected causation with the volition of an active agent. True causation must
originate something, make something happen, and the paradigm of this is the
exercise of the will,l52 Thus "mechanical causation" in the sense of Hobbes
or Locke did not constitute, fqr Newton, causation at all; it did not involve
agency, but was merely a description of events, like the "passive laws of
motion". God's immanence and power are reflected by the analogies, and
since Newton held that God actively governed the world, "universal life" was
omnipresent. Within this framework Divine agency is strikingly characterized
by the Platonic image of mind working upon matter as nature upon her off-
spring. Thus active principles express the "intending" causalityl53of God
which always acts to bring about its ends "with perfect art and wisdom": the
mind of God has worked and is working upon creation.
We can at last draw an important conclusion. Active principles are
intimately connected with the causation of Divine agency. By virtue of God's
concurrence with second causes the laws of nature sustain the physical order:
"Where natural causes are at hand God uses them as instruments of his
work ... ".154 But nature, according to Newton's interpretation of Providence,
has been so conceived by God, that from time to time he will more directly
intervene to reform it and replenish motion and activity.155 Thus PrO\"idence
planned the world so that divine power should not be limited, and so that it
111 In this respect Newton's doctrine of causation is similar to that found in Berkeley's
The Principles of Human Knowledge, Works, II (ed. T. E. Jessop), Edinburgh, 1949, p. 63,
sections 50-3 and 25-32. At section 27 Berkeley says: "A spirit is one single, individed,
active being: as it perceives ideas, it is called understanding, and as it produces or otherwise
operates about them it is called the will. Hence there can be no idea formed of a soul or
spirit: for all ideas whatever, being passive and inert vide Sect. 25, they cannot represent
unto us, by way of image or likeness, that which acts. A little attention will make it plain
to anyone, that to have an idea which shall be like that active principle of motion and
change of ideas, is absolutely impossible". The similarity between the thought of Newton
and Berkeley with respect to their use of the terms Will and active principle is striking.
Newton's earliest use of these terms, in a context similar to Berkeley's, occurs in 1705
(see Section II above). Berkeley's Principles was published in 1710.
113 Cudworth, The True Intellectual System of the Universe, London, 1678, p. 672:
"Nevertheless we acknowledge, that God and Nature do things every where, in the most
frugal and compendious way, and with the least Operosseness and therefore that the Meclzanik
Powers are not rejected, but taken in, so far as they could comply serviceably with the
Intellectual Model and Platform. But still so, as that all is supervised by the Understanding
and Intending Cause, and nothing passes with his approbation: •.. ".
IN Correspondence, op. cit., II, Newton to Burnet, 1680-1, p. 334.
1&1 Here again Newton is stressing the Divine attribute of omnipotence.

would be manifest to those who studied nature with piety. From this point
of view active principles are the expression of God's potentia absoluta in nature,
such that laws and forces in the present natural order are used intermittently
to actualize the pre-conceived ends of Providence.
To Newton's contemporaries, therefore, there would be nothing surprising
in this interpretation of Providence; they, too, shared many of Newton's
unstated theological assumptions. In fact many contemporaries were gratified
by Newton's achievement in harmonizing the traditional doctrine of Providence
with "scientific" evidence from nature. Thus God's potentia absoluta was given
a new meaning since motion "is always upon the decay" and planetary irregu-
larities will increase "till the system wants a reformation".156 Once Newton's
thought is seen within the framework of this traditional theology, it is readily
evident that there "isno conflict between Providence and natural philosophy.157
Just as God pre-ordained that nature could be partly explained by second
causes, so he pre-ordained that he would intervene in creation to manifest his
power. As Clarke put it "this amendment is only relative, with regard to our
conceptions. In reality, and with regard to God; the present frame, and the
consequent disorder, and the following renovation, are all equally parts of the
design framed in God's original perfect idea".158 For too long, Newton's
conception of Providence in relation to nature has been judged from the point
of view of Leibniz, and the eighteenth-century deists. Thus the natural
philosophy of Newton was compatible with the traditional Christian inter-
pretation of creation and Providence: indeed, as I have tried to show, his
interpretation of nature was deeply influenced by this tradition.
CONCLUSION
I have endeavoured in this study to offer a framework in which to interpret

Newton's conception of the natural world as it developed in the post-Principia
period. Beginning then, he became more consciously involved with the basic
principles, stated or assumed, of his physical thought. It must be again
emphasized, however, that his characteristic ideas were forged in embryonic
form in the 1660'S, and then developed and brought to fruition through decades
of reflection. Thus, for example, his consideration of electrical spirits and
aethers in the second decade of the eighteenth century was occasioned rather
than caused by the work of Hauksbee and Desaguliers: these ideas had been
from the seventies a possible answer to the ontological problem of causation.
In the tradition of Renaissance thought embodied in England by the
I" apticks, op. cit., New York, note 44. p. 402.

117 For an opposing opinion see Kubrin, op. cit., note I, p. 344.
168 ap cit., note 82, p. 23.
208 J. E. McGUIRE
Cambridge Platonists, one of Newton's central concerns was the existence of

the spiritual in nature. Apart from the existence of gravitation, Newton saw
in the wide range of chemical and biochemical phenomena evidence of the
spiritual~ As we saw, these "vital" motions inclined his mind to the possibility
of a system based on laws categorically different from the axiomata of the
Principia: a natural philosophy of the hidden realm based on micro-forces.
Though Newton for a time considered these forcesto be electrical or magnetical,
or to be genera~ed by the activation of light particles, chemical activity
remained the best evidence on which to ascertain their characteristics.
In the 1690's the void was linked with the operations of Providence and
Divine omnipresence in nature. In order that Divine purpose might be dis-
played in the physical realm, Newton conceived that God had made matter
extremely porous. Thus contrived, it best exemplified the Divine idea of how
its multitudinous functions would be performed. As its actual properties
became less important for explaining phenomena, so forces operated more
and more in the vacuum left by the diminished amount of matter occupying
space. And Newton probably conceived particles in the limit as insubstantial
foci about which clustered attractive and repulsive forces. Intimately related
to this, was the theologic~l doctrine of the creation of "immaterial" matter,
and its consequent ontological imperfection.
Newton's doctrine of creation and the connected doctrine of Providence
almost certainly influenced these developments. All created things, matter
and force alike, continually depended for their existence on the will of God;
thus at each moment they bespoke His power and Providential foresight.
Thus, though God will not abrogate his scriptural dispensation to work through
the created order, he had foreordained that from time to time he will intervene
in nature to manifest his potentia absoluta: it is in this context that we must
see the ontology of active principles and the various instruments of Providence
for replenishing nature, such as comets. To Leibniz's general criticism that his
God was a cosmictinker continually repairing a faulty artifact, Newton replied:
He insinuates that it is the fault of the workman & not of the materials
that a Watch will at length cease to go & in like manner that it would
be God's fault if the world should ever decay & want an amendment.
And by the same way of arguing a man may say that it would be
God's fault if matter do not think.159
In a sense this statement represents the highwater mark of a long theological
tradition centering on the Sovereign Will.
llit Koyre and Cohen, op. cit., note I, p. 110. Newton's point is that Leibniz's position
leads to "very narro Ideas of God's wisdom and power". Ibid., p. Iq.

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154 J. E.

FORCE, ACTIVE PRINCIPLES, AND NEWTON'S INVISIBLE REALM

IN recent years, scholarship has made it possible to achieve a more extended

* Department of Philosophy, University of Leeds, England.

11 Kubrin, Ope cit., and J. E. McGuire, "Transmutation and Immutability: Newton's

purpose and foresight. And it is therefore possible that Newton's acceptance

can ... be diminished, what should hinder a diminution to infinity?"28 This

composition of matter. What is of interest here, however, is the connection

33 Correspondence, vol. III, p. 287.

311 Correspondence, vol. III, p. 191.

sa Hiscock. op. cit., p. 29.

1958, pp. 255-<)·

playc<t"acentral role in Newton's attempts to extend his methodology beyond

Between 1704 and 1706, Newton began to employ a wider framework of

.2 V.L.C. Add. 3970, fol. 620r •

•• V.L.C. Add. 3970, fol. 619r •

Since Newton's appeal to "a power of moving our bodies" is connected

.1 A similar approach to the problem is to be found in the letter to Oldenburg in 1675,

for cohering & producing the above-mentioned phaenomena may be

In this truly extraordinary conjecture we witness the power of Newton's

II D.L.C. Add. 3970, fol. 235v.

··Opticks, New York, p. 402 •

devoted to a more detailed development of these ideas.66 By means of this

great attraction. Out of these are compounded particles less attractive,

88 "Newton's Optical Aethcr". Ope cit., note la.

of in metaphysics and hypothetical philosophy".76 The definitions also indicate

There are therefore Agents in Nature able to make the particles of

71 McGuire, op. cit., note 74.

such as are the Magnetick effluvia; it is the business of experimental

to accept the following dichotomy: either forces are material and_mechanical,

Thus Leibniz rejected the Newtonian criterion of nafural action. To be

81 H. G. Alexander (ed.), Tile Leibnilz-Clarke Correspondence, Manchester, 1956, p. 94.

8li Ibid., p. 14.

8. Principia, op. cit., note 4la, p. 3.

had anything in common with More's spirit of nature or Hylarchic Principle.94

14 Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. London, 1714-9. p. 223.

particulate in structure, and is characterized by the following terms: "rare",

constant throughout his intellectual development, and influenced the formation

Argument of Wisdom and Contrivance, than such a Disposition of Causes

101 Ibid., fo1. 14a.

113 Ibid., p. 139.

I have discussed elsewhere,u4 matter according to this conception is an entirely

m McGuire, op. cit., note la.

111 Opticks, op. ci#., note 44, pp. 403-4.

from a thinker who adopted so uncompromisingly the theory of unconditioned

134 KOy'nSand Cohen, op. cit., note la, p. 101.

The most important question, however, is Newton's conception of God's

111 V.L.C. Add. 3965.13, 54Iv, translated from the Latin.

since he accepted creation ex nihilo, which involves the preservation of dependent

& yet no man ever attempted to explain these qualities mechanically,

Hobbes. Nevertheless, the present natural order having been established by

this sort in themselves presuppose an immaterial realm. In the writings of

1&1 Here again Newton is stressing the Divine attribute of omnipotence.

I have endeavoured in this study to offer a framework in which to interpret

I" apticks, op. cit., New York, note 44. p. 402.

Cambridge Platonists, one of Newton's central concerns was the existence of

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