98
they all recognized one supreme God. Likewise, Newton tried to prove that ancient scholars had known about heliocentrism, gravity, internal structure of matter etc. And, like Cudworth, he did so by quoting a large number of ancient authors. However, finally, Newton used the Scholium as the conclusion of his Principia quite differently. He felt that he had no need for ancient philosophers. Scholium Generale (further S.G.) has become an “abstract” of the Principia; it summarizes the natural-philosophical, methodological, metaphysical and religious opinions of their author. In the Principia, those opinions are included implicitly.240 At the time of the second edition of the Principia, Newton was already seventy years old, he had attained a significant social status, and was even ennobled. He was still intellectually active, though no longer in the field of natural philosophy. He turned his interest to areas which we would today probably call economics. He became the Master of the Royal Mint. And he was fully occupied by his historical and theological studies, too. So the work of his last few years is perhaps his spiritual testament. It exposes his ideas at the end of his life, reveals his deepest intentions, and reveals the way of his thinking in the times of his greatest mental powers. Scholium Generale is a peculiar text. It is extremely dense and complex. It consists of just five paragraphs, of altogether 1450 words. Newton managed to discuss a multitude of topics there, including gravity, pla netary systems, the movement of comets, space and time, but also his design arguments for the creationess of the world, the tides, active power, electricity, even the nervous system. He refuted Cartesianism with its hypothesis of vortices,241 swept the views of Leibniz, justified the true purpose of natural philosophy, and defended his own methodology based on induction. However, the text includes much more. It is not just one of the most complex, most famous and most polemical texts in the history of science; its main themes are Newton’s ideas about God. Those 240 However, Bernard Cohen has shown that a natural theology was present right from the start in all editions of Principia, not only implicitely, but explicitely. Thus, in Corollatium 4 of Proposition VIII in Book III, Newton writes: “God therefore placed the planets at different distances from the Sun so that according to their degrees of density they may enjoy a greater or less proportion of the Sun’s heat.” See Bernard Cohen: Isaac Newton’s Principia, the Scriptures, and the divine providence, in Philosophy, science, and method, ed. Sidney Morgenbesser, et al. (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1969), p. 523–48. 241 In Chapter V. we have already mentioned his departure from Descartes in connection with the manuscript De Gravitatione. This also shows that the Scholium Generale is not just a subsequent justification of the Principia, written more than twenty years after their first edition. Many ideas of the Scholium Generale can be found in the manuscript from the year 1684.
Ukázka elektronické knihy, UID: KOS204681
99
ideas go far beyond the scope of similar texts of other contemporary authors. We believe that it is Newton’s most concise and most honest text on that subject. It reveals his true beliefs about God and the world. And it most conclusively shows the pattern of thought from which Newton’s science grew. S.G. is a well-known text. However, to what extent it has been comprehended, is questionable. Even its most famous phrase, “hypotheses non fingo,” presents ambiguity. If it is used out of context, it can substantially distort the image of its author. Many ideas of the S.G. may be found in a more comprehensive form in Newton’s other private manuscripts, not intended for publication. They are now a significant help in the interpretation of S.G., which is sometimes so dense that it borders on obscurity. Today it is widely agreed that the principal purpose of the S.G. can be expressed as follows: the laws of physics reveal that the universe must have been built according to a plan. It is absolutely impossible that such a perfect object would have been developed merely by blind chance (the design argument). And so Newton wrote his Principia with the intention of making the creation of the world more comprehensible. His natural philosophy was to become a kind of corollary to the Biblical texts. Essentially, he created an apologetic work which brought a rational that intention, therefore undeniable, proof of the existence of God. In the S.G. is expressed several times, always very brief and concise. For example: Elegantissima hacce solis, planetarum & cometarum compages non nisi consilio & dominio entis intelligentis & potentis oriri potuit.242
To understand such a profound statement more thoroughly, we present a few more of Newton’s remarks on the subject. For example, in his now well-known and often quoted letter of 10 December 1692,243 addressed to Richard Bentley, Newton is more explicit about his ideas: 242 Isaac Newton: Philosophiae naturalis principia mathematica, Cantabrigiae MDCCXIII, p. 482. This most beautiful System of the Sun, Planets, and Comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful being. English translation: The mathematical principles of natural philosophy by Sir Isaac Newton: translated into English by Andrew Motte, 1729, 2 vols. reprinted with an introduction by I. Bernard Cohen, London: Dawsons, 1968, vol. 2, p. 388. 243 That letter dates before the year 1693 when Newton suffered a nervous breakdown, which some scholars would like to see as the cause of his sudden turn toward theology. However, that argument is faulty.
Ukázka elektronické knihy, UID: KOS204681
100
Sir When I wrote my treatise about our Systeme I had an eye upon such Principles as might work with considering men for the beliefe of a Deity & nothing can rejoyce me more then to find it usefull for that purpose But if I have done the publick any service this way ’tis due to nothing but industry & a patient thought. […] ...if the Sun was at first an opake body like the Planets or the Planets lucid bodies like the Sun, how he alone should be changed into a shining body whilst all they continue opake or all they be changed into opake ones whilst he remains unchanged, I do not think explicable by mere natural causes but am forced to ascribe it to the counsel & contrivance of a voluntary Agent. The same power whether natural or supernatural, which placed the Sun in the center of the orbs of the six primary Planets, placed Saturn in the center of the orbs of his five secondary Planets & Iupiter in the center of the orbs of his four secondary ones & the earth in the center of the Moons orb; & therefore had this cause been a blind one without contrivance & designe the Sun would have been a body of the same kind with Saturn Iupiter & the earth, that is without light & heat. Why there is one body in our Systeme qualified to give light & heat to all the rest I know no reason but because the author of the Systeme thought it convenient, & why there is but one body of this kind I know no reason but because one was sufficient to warm & enlighten all the rest. […] To your second Query I answer that the motions which the Planets now have could not spring from any naturall cause alone but were imprest by an intelligent Agent. […] This must have been the effect of Counsel. Nor is there any natural cause which could give the Planets those just degrees of velocity in proportion to their distances from the Sun & other central bodies about which they move & to the quantity of matter conteined in those bodies, which were requisite to make them move in concentrick orbs about those bodies. Had the Planets been as swift as Comets in proportion to their distances from the Sun (as they would have been, had their motions been caused by their gravity, whereby the matter at the first formation of the Planets might fall from the remotest regions towards the Sun) they would not move in concentric orbs but in such excentric ones as the Comets move in. Were all the Planets as swift as Mercury or as slow as Saturn or his Satellites, or were their several velocities otherwise much greater or less then they are (as they might have been had they arose from any other cause then their gravity) or had their distances from the centers about which they move been greater or less then they are with the same velocities; or had the quantity of matter in the Sun or in Saturn Iupiter & the
Ukázka elektronické knihy, UID: KOS204681