occupied by his duties at the mint. Rumours, however, of his work, and of a new edition, were heard from time to time. In February 1700 Leibnitz writes of Newton, “J’ai appris aussi (je ne sçai où) qu’il donnera encore quelque chose sur le mouvement de la lune: et on m’a dit aussi qu’il y aura une nouvelle édition de ses principes de la nature.”
Dr Bentley, the master of Trinity College, had for a long time urged Newton to give his consent to the republication of the Principia. In the middle of 1708 Newton’s consent was obtained, but it was not till the spring of 1709 that he was prevailed upon to entrust the superintendence of it to a young mathematician of great promise, Roger Cotes, fellow of Trinity College, who had been recently appointed the first Plumian professor of astronomy and experimental philosophy. On the 21st of May 1709, after having been that day with Newton, Bentley announced this arrangement to Cotes:—“Sir Isaac Newton,” he said, “will be glad to see you in June, and then put into your hands one part of his book corrected for the press.” About the middle of July Cotes went to London, in the expectation doubtless to bring down with him to Cambridge the corrected portion of the Principia. Although Cotes was impatient to begin his work, it was nearly the end of September before the corrected copy was put into his hands.
During the printing of this edition a correspondence went on continuously between Newton and Cotes. On the 31st of March 1713, when the edition was nearly ready for publication, Newton wrote to Cotes:—
“I heare that Mr Bernoulli has sent a Paper of 40 pages to be published in the Acta Leipsica relating to what I have written upon the curve Lines described by Projectiles in resisting Mediums. And therein he partly makes Observations upon what I have written & partly improves it. To prevent being blamed by him or others for any disingenuity in not acknowledging my oversights or slips in the first edition, I believe it will not be amiss to print next after the old Praefatio ad Lectorem, the following account of this new Edition.
“ ‘In hac secunda Principiorum Editione, multa sparsim emendantur & nonnulla adjiciuntur. In Libri primi Sect. ii. Inventio virium quibus corpora in Orbibus datis revolvi possint, facilior redditur et amplior. In Libri secundi Sect. vii. Theoria resistentiae fluidorum accuratius investigatur & novis experimentis confirmatur. In Libro tertio Theoria Lunae & Praecessio Aequinoctiorum ex Principiis suis plenius deducuntur, et Theoria Cometarum pluribus et accuratius computatis Orbium exemplis confirmatur.
| “ ‘28 Mar. 1713. | I. N.’ |
“If you write any further Preface, I must not see it, for I find that I shall be examined about it. The cuts for ye Comet of 1680 & 1681 are printed off and will be sent to Dr Bently this week by the Carrier.”
Newton’s desire to have no hand in writing the preface seems to have proceeded from a knowledge that Cotes was proposing to allude to the dispute about the invention of fluxions. At last, about midsummer 1713, was published the long and impatiently expected second edition of the Principia, and, on the 27th of July, Newton waited on the queen to present her with a copy of the new edition.
In 1714 the question of finding the longitude at sea, which had been looked upon as an important one for several years, was brought into prominence by a petition presented to the House of Commons by a number of captains of Her Majesty’s ships and merchant ships and of London merchants. The petition was referred to a committee of the House, who called witnesses. Newton appeared before them and gave evidence. He stated that for determining the longitude at sea there had been several projects, true in theory but difficult to execute. He mentioned four: (1) by a watch to keep time exactly, (2) by the eclipses of Jupiter’s satellites, (3) by the place of the moon, (4) by a new method proposed by Mr Ditton. Newton criticized all the methods, pointing out their weak points, and it is due mainly to his evidence that the committee brought in the report which was accepted by the House, and shortly afterwards was converted into a Bill, passed both Houses, and received the royal assent. The report ran “that it is the opinion of this committee that a reward be settled by parliament upon such person or persons as shall discover a more certain and practicable method of ascertaining the longitude than any yet in practice; and the said reward be proportioned to the degree of exactness to which the said method shall reach.”
Sir Isaac Newton was a very popular visitor at the court of George I. The princess of Wales, afterwards Queen Caroline, wife of George II., took every opportunity of conversing with him. Having one day been told by Sir Isaac that he had composed a new system of chronology while he was still resident at Cambridge, she requested him to give her a copy. He accordingly drew up an abstract of the system from his papers, and sent it to the princess for her own private use; but he afterwards allowed a copy to be made for the Abbé Conti on the express understanding that it should not be communicated to any other person. The abbé, however, lent his copy to M Fréret, an antiquary at Paris, who translated it, and endeavoured to refute it. The translation was printed under the title Abrégé de chronologie de M le Chevallier Newton, fait par lui-même et traduit sur le manuscrit anglais. Upon receiving a copy of this work, Sir Isaac Newton printed, in the Philosophical Transactions for 1725, a paper entitled “Remarks on the observations made on a Chronological Index of Sir Isaac Newton, translated into French by the observator, and published at Paris.” In these remarks Sir Isaac charged the abbé with a breach of promise, and gave a triumphant answer to the objections which Fréret had urged against his system. Father Souciet entered the field in defence of Fréret; and in consequence of this controversy Sir Isaac was induced to prepare his larger work, which was published in 1728, after his death, and entitled The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms amended, to which is prefixed a short Chronicle from the First Memory of Kings in Europe to the Conquest of Persia by Alexander the Great.
From an early period of his life Newton had paid great attention to theological studies, and it is well known that he had begun to study the subject of the prophecies before the year 1690. M Biot, with a view of showing that his theological writings were the productions of his dotage, has fixed their date between 1712 and 1719. That Newton’s mind was even then quite clear and powerful is sufficiently proved by his ability to attack the most difficult mathematical problems with success. For it was in 1716 that Leibnitz, in a letter to the Abbé Conti, proposed a problem for solution “for the purpose of feeling the pulse of the English analysts.” The problem was to find the orthogonal trajectories of a series of curves represented by a single equation. Newton received this problem about 5 o’clock in the afternoon as he was returning from the mint, but, though he was fatigued with business, he solved the problem the same evening.
One of the most remarkable of Sir Isaac’s theological productions is his Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of the Scripture, in a letter to a friend. This friend was Locke, who received the letter in November 1690. Sir Isaac seems to have been then anxious for its publication; but, as the effect of his argument was to deprive the Trinitarians of two passages in favour of the Trinity, he became alarmed at the probable consequences of such a step. He therefore requested Locke, who was then going to Holland, to get it translated into French, and published on the continent. Being prevented from going to Holland, Locke copied the manuscript, and sent it, without Newton’s name, to Le Clerc, who received it before the 11th of April 1691. On the 20th of January 1692 Le Clerc announced to Locke his intention to publish the pamphlet in Latin; and, upon the intimation of this to Sir Isaac, he entreated him “to stop the translation and impression as soon as he could, for he designed to suppress them.” This was accordingly done; but Le Clerc sent the manuscript to the library of the Remonstrants, and it was afterwards published at London in 1754, under the title of Two Letters from Sir Isaac Newton to M le Clerc. This edition is imperfect, and in many places erroneous. Dr Horsley therefore published a genuine one, which is in the form of a single letter to a friend, and was taken from a manuscript in Sir Isaac’s own hand.
Sir Isaac Newton left behind him in manuscript a work entitled Observations on the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St John, which was published in London in 1733, in one volume 4to; another work, entitled Lexicon Propheticum,
