Stukeley's Cosmology and the Newtonian Origins of Olbers's Paradox

Piggott Stuart , William Stukeley: An eighteenth-century antiquary (Oxford, 1950). His list of extant manuscripts (Appendix A) runs to 13 pages.

Royal Society MS App. XXXVI (hereafter: RS MS). This comprises some 10pp of partly numbered ‘prelims’, followed by the main text in which the right-hand pages are numbered 1 to 81, together with an allegorical sketch of Newton, an engraving of Colsterworth Church, and a sketch of the manor house at Woolsthorpe.

Stukeley William , Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton's life, edited by White Hastings A. (London, 1936). Hereafter: Stukeley , Memoirs.

Hereafter: Grantham MS. The draft comprises a title page and the main text in which the right-hand pages are numbered 1–54, followed by four pages of which the first is numbered 49a.

Consisting of eight pages larger in size than the draft Memoirs.

Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, MS 615, XV. There is a title page, a figure (our Figure 3), and 32 pages of which the right-hand ones are numbered 1–16. As usual the text is on the right-hand pages and the left-hand are reserved for possible changes.

Cf. Stukeley , Memoirs, 12.

Ibid., 17.

Ibid., 21.

Stukeley himself has a modest place in the history of astronomical instruments, for in 1747 he devised a “Lunaesolarium or machine which I invented for shewing by rackwork the apparent motions of the moon and sun round the globe of the earth, with the course of the tides &c, the rising and setting of the sun and moon & southing, the passage of the light and darkness over the globe of the earth: The reason of high and neap tides, of equinoctial & solstitial tides: The time of day when the sun shines”. See Millburn John R. , “William Stukeley and the early history of the orrery”, Annals of science, xxxi (1974), 511–28, p. 523. I owe this reference to Dr Simon Schaffer. Stukeley (Memoirs, 21) says John Machin was a Visitor and Hadley not, but his memory is at fault (RGO 6/21, p. 14; I owe this reference to Miss Janet Dudley of Royal Greenwich Observatory).

This dating is introduced in Version III (RS MS f.67r), and is not in Version II where the conversation is first described.

“…this discourse put me upon studying the Mosaic cosmogony seriously, wh[ich] I did, when I lived in Ormon street, and wrote a large tract upon it…” (RS MS, ff. 71r-72r). Stukeley lived in Great Ormond Street from 1717 ( Piggott , Stukeley, 38) until his move to Grantham in 1726.

Stukeley , Memoirs, 71–78.

The first being numbered 49a.

We have an early source for this conversation in the letter from Stukeley to Richard Mead, 15 July 1727 (King's College, Cambridge, Keynes MS 136, f. 10). The account there does not differ in substance from that in the published Memoirs (pp. 14–15). For Halley's contribution to the conversation, see Stukeley's Diary entry (below, and ref. 81).

Halley E. , “Of the infinity of the sphere of fix'd stars”, Philosophical transactions, xxxi (1720), 22–24, p. 23. The date, 1720, is nominal only.

See ref. 6 above.

On f. 16.

Thomas Wright of Durham, An original theory or new hypothesis of the universe (London, 1750; reprinted with an introduction by Michael Hoskin, London, 1971). Lambert J. H. , Cosmologische Briefe (Augsburg, 1761), trans. by Jaki Stanley L. as Cosmological letters (Edinburgh, 1976).

‘Chyndonax’ was the name, supposedly of a Druid priest, engraved on an archaeological find allegedly made in 1598. In 1722 Stukeley and some friends formed an antiquarian club for the study of Roman Britain. This club they termed the “Society of Roman Knights”, and each member adopted a suitable Celtic or similar name; Stukeley was known as Chyndonax. See Piggott , Stukeley, 53–55.

See ref. 11 above.

Grantham MS, f. 49a seq.

In somewhat similar vein, Halley Edmond “adventured to make the Earth hollow and to place another Globe within it” (“An account of the cause of the change of the variation of the magnetical needle; with an hypothesis of the structure of the internal parts of the Earth”, Philosophical transactions, xvi (1686–87), 563–78, p. 572). This interior globe was to permit a physical explanation of the variation in magnetic north; but in addition Halley saw it as offering the Creator further scope for the creation of living creatures, for “no Man can doubt but the Wisdom of the Creator has provided for the Macrocosm by many more ways than I can either imagine or express” (p. 573). In addition to these extensions of the creation in space, some thinkers wished to extend it backwards as well as forwards in time. Halley writes of “those Changes which might have happen'd to the Earth in Times before the Creation, and which might possibly have reduc'd a former World to a Chaos, out of whose Ruins the present might be formed, than of the Deluge whereby Mankind was in a manner extinguished about 4000 Years since” (“Some farther thoughts…”, Philosophical transactions, xxxiii (1724–25), 123–5, p. 123 (but read to the Royal Society in December 1694)). I owe these references to Dr Simon Schaffer.

It should be noted that such public speculations, proposed openly at a meeting of the Royal Society, offer easy disproof of the persistent legend that the universe as a whole was thought by everyone to be no more than six thousand years old. An example of speculations about future ‘creations’ is in David Gregory's memorandum of what Newton told him in May 1694, that “The Satellites of Jupiter and Saturn can take the places of the Earth, Venus, Mars if they are destroyed, and be held in reserve for a new Creation” (“…et ad novam Creationem reservari”, Memoranda by Gregory (Royal Society Library), 5–7 May 1694, available in The correspondence of Isaac Newton [hereafter: Newton, Correspondence], iii, ed. by Turnbull H. W. (Cambridge, 1961), 334/336).

RS MS, 67r-68r.

On this see my “The English background to the cosmology of Wright and Herschel”, in Cosmology, history, and theology, ed. by Yourgrau W. and Breck A. D. (New York, 1977), 219–31.

Whiston William , Praelectiones astronomicae (Cambridge, 1707), Lectio IV; transl. from the English edn, Astronomical lectures (London, 1715), 41–42.

Derham William , Astro-theology, 3rd edn (London, 1719), pp. xvi, 40, 52, 57–58.

RS MS, ff. 69r–70r.

Hoskin Michael , Stellar astronomy: Historical essays (Chalfont St Giles, 1982), chapters B3, B4, C1 and C2.

The interpolations are on f. 69v.

Halley E. , “Of the number, order, and light of the fix't stars”, Philosophical transactions, xxxi (1720), 24–26, p. 24. (As remarked above, the date, 1720, is nominal only.) Stukeley uses the term again in the Corpus Christi MS, as we shall see.

RS MS, ff. 69v, 68v.

Kant I. , Allgemeine Naturgeschichte und Theorie des Himmels (Königsberg and Leipzig, 1755), Part I. English transl. by Jaki Stanley L. as Universal natural history and theory of the heavens (Edinburgh, 1981).

Lambert , Cosmologische Briefe (ref. 19). See Hoskin Michael , “The cosmology of J. H. Lambert”, in Stellar astronomy (ref. 29), 117–21.

Wright , An original theory (ref. 19). See Hoskin Michael , “The cosmology of Thomas Wright of Durham”, Journal for the history of astronomy, i (1970), 44–52, reprinted in Hoskin , Stellar astronomy, 101–16.

Version II is quoted above. The phrase is crossed out in Version III (RS MS, f. 69r).

RS MS, f. 71r.

Newton's investigations are examined in detail, with an edition of the principal text, in my “Newton, Providence and the universe of stars” [hereafter: “Newton, Providence”], Journal for the history of astronomy, viii (1977), 77–101, reprinted in Hoskin , Stellar astronomy (ref. 29), 71–95.

Newton Isaac , Philosophiae naturalis principia mathematica (London, 1687), Book III, Prop. XIV.

In the familiar Motte-Cajori translation of Newton's Principia (Berkeley & Los Angeles, 1934; hereafter: Principia, ed. Motte-Cajori ), 596–7.

Gregory J. , Geometriae pars universalis (Padua, 1668), 148.

In De mundi systemate (Principia, ed. Motte-Cajori , 596), and in the Principia drafts c. 1693 ( Hoskin , “Newton, Providence” (ref. 38), 96, and see below).

Newton , Principia, ed. Motte-Cajori , 597.

See “Bentley and Newton” by Miller Perry , in Isaac Newton's papers and letters on natural philosophy , ed. by Cohen Bernard I. (Cambridge, 1958), 271–8. This volume contains a reprint of the 1756 edition of Newton's four letters to Bentley, and of the relevant sermons by Bentley. A more accurate edition of Newton's letters to Bentley, and the text of the surviving letter from Bentley to Newton, are in Newton , Correspondence (ref. 23), iii.

See Lambert , Cosmologische Briefe (ref. 19), and Hoskin , op. cit. (ref. 34).

Halley E. , “Considerations on the change of the latitudes of some of the principal fixt stars”, Philosophical transactions, xxx (1717–19), 736–8.

Halley , “Of the infinity of the sphere of fix'd stars” (ref. 16), 23.

As quoted in Newton's reply of 10 December 1692, Newton , Correspondence, iii, 233–6, p. 234.

Newton to Bentley , 17 January 1692/3, ibid., 238–40, p. 238.

Bentley to Newton , 18 February 1692/3, ibid., 246–52, pp. 250–1.

Newton to Bentley , 25 February 1692/3, ibid., 253–6.

“Continuo opus esse miraculo ne Sol et fixae per gravitatem coeant”, Memoranda by Gregory, 5–7 May 1694; Newton , Correspondence, iii, 334/6.

Newton I. , Optice (London, 1706), Qu. 20: “…Et Quidnam est quod impedit, quominus Sol & Stellae fixae in se mutuo irruant?”.

Ibid., Qu. 23: “Nam cum Cometae moventur in Orbibus valde eccentricis, undique & quoquoversum in omnes coeli partes; utique nullo modo fieri potuit, ut caeco fato tribuendum sit, quod Planetae in orbibus concentricis Motu consimili ferantur eodem omnes; exceptis nimirum irregularitatibus quibusdam vix notatu dignis, quae ex mutuis Cometarum & Planetarum in se invicem actionibus oriri potuerint, quaeque verisimile est fore ut longinquitate temporis majores usque evadunt, donec haec Naturae Compages manum emendatricem tandem sit desideratura.” The Latin is more tentative than the (later) English translation.

Alexander H. G. (ed.), The Leibniz-Clarke correspondence (Manchester, 1956), 14.

See Hoskin , “Newton, Providence” (ref. 38), espec. p. 93.

ULC (=University Library, Cambridge) Add. MS 3965, f. 152v. Ibid., f. 362r; text edited in Hall A. R. and Hall M. B. , Unpublished scientific papers of Isaac Newton (Cambridge, 1962), 355–9, p. 358.

Newton , Principia, 3rd edn (London, 1726), 527; ed. Motte-Cajori , 544: “Et ne fixarum systemata per gravitatem suam in se mutuo cadant, hic eandem immensam ab invicem distantiam posuerit.”

Newton's annotated copy of the second edition of the Principia is in the library of Trinity College, Cambridge. His annotations are published in the variorum edition of the Principia edited by Koyré A. and Cohen I. B. (Cambridge, 1971).

The drafts are scattered throughout ULC Add. MS 3965. For details, see Hoskin , “Newton, Providence” (ref. 38).

Halley , op. cit. (ref. 31), 26.

ULC Add. MS 3965, f. 74r, reproduced in Hoskin , “Newton, Providence” (ref. 38), Fig. 2.

ULC Add. MS 4005, ff. 21r-22r; Hall & Hall, Unpublished papers of Newton (ref. 58), 374–6, pp. 375–6.

ULC Add. MS 4005, ff. 45r-49r; Hall & Hall, Unpublished papers of Newton, 378–85.

Memoranda by Gregory , 4 May 1694; Newton , Correspondence, iii, 312/317.

Memoranda by Gregory , 5–7 May 1694; Newton , Correspondence, iii, 334/336.

Memoranda by Gregory , 16 May 1694; Newton , Correspondence, iii, 355.

“Sed et praeter immensam distantiam earum positio circum circa effectus impedit ex prop: LXX lib: 1.”

David Gregory's “Notae” on the Principia, Royal Society MS 210, f. 47: “Verum si corpora omnia in omnia sint gravia, Quidni Stellae fixae ex gravitate coeant et concurrant? An continuo opus est miraculo ad hunc effectum impediendum? an in immensa quae intercedit inter eas distantia, languescit gravitas? an potius circa diversa centra rotata planetarum more revolvuntur.” Later added: “Si mundus esset finitus obtineret haec obiectio: Existente vero infinito vim nullam obtinet.” I owe this reference to Miss Christina Eagles.

Gregory David , Astronomiae physicae et geometricae elementa (Oxford, 1702). The translations cited are from the second English edn, The elements of physical and geometrical astronomy (London, 1726).

Royal Society MS 247, ff. 74r, 76r.

See the Introduction by Cohen Bernard I. to the modern reprint of the second English edn of Gregory's Elements (New York, 1972).

Gregory , Elementa, 159–60; second English edn, 288–90.

Gregory , Elementa, 483; second English edn, 856.

Halley's copy of the 1702 Elementa is in the University Library, Cambridge, and contains at the back the autograph of Halley's famous Astronomiae cometicae synopsis, signed and dated 8 June 1705. (On this see “The first predicted return of Comet Halley” by Peter Broughton elsewhere in this issue of JHA.) A copy of the 1715 Elements, with a marginal note said to be by Halley on p. 116 of vol. i and with his name on the title page, was offered for sale in February 1983 by the book dealers Jay Books (D. & J. Brayford) of Edinburgh.

RS MS, f. 69v.

RS MS, f. 70r.

See ref. 43 above.

See ref. 58 above.

Op. cit. (refs 16, 31).

Grantham MS, f. 5v; Stukeley , Memoirs , 14–15; Stukeley , Diary, printed in The family memoirs of the Rev. William Stukeley, M. D., ed. by Lukis W. C. for the Surtees Society (3 vols, London, 1882–87), i, 63.

Stukeley , Diary (ref. 81).

The date is given in the relevant Journal Book of the Royal Society.

In what follows I have borrowed some sentences from “Halley and ‘Olbers's Paradox’”, in Hoskin , Stellar astronomy (ref. 29), 95–100.

Op. cit. (ref. 31), 26.

Halley E. , “De iride”, Philosophical transactions, xxii (1700), 714–25, p. 720: “… Lucem albam puramque quam conspicimus, ex omnigenarum Colorum corpusculis….” Translation by Albury W. R. , “Halley and the Traité de la lumière of Huygens”, Isis, lxii (1971), 445–68, p. 464. Albury discusses Halley's pre-1700 views on the nature of light. I owe this reference to Dr Simon Schaffer.

Again, the date is given in the Journal Book.

This is stated in the Journal Book.

See ref. 73 above.

See ref. 62 above: “Deinde quae his undique proxima sunt ob distantias duplo majores erunt quadruplo obscuriora et quadruplo plura, et tot circiter sunt stellae fixae magnitudinis secundae, nimirum sexaginta. Quae vero tertio loco circumponuntur ob triplam dist. erunt noncuplo obscuriora et noncuplo plura….”

On this see Jaki Stanley L. , The paradox of Olbers' Paradox (New York, 1969).

Much of the Preface to Gregory's Elementa is on this theme, and was actually written by Newton ( Cohen , op. cit. (ref. 72), pp. xiv–xvi). Newton writes of Lucretius: “His Argument runs thus; If the Nature of things were bounded any where, then the outmost Bodies, since they have no other beyond them towards which they may be made to tend by the force of Gravity, would not stand in an Equilibrio, but make towards the inner and lower Bodies, being necessarily inclin'd that way by their Gravity; and therefore having made towards one another, during an infinite space of time, would have long ago met, and lye in the middle of the whole as in the lowest Place” (2nd English edn, pp. viii–ix). On the subject of Newton's belief in an ancient wisdom, see McGuire J. E. and Rattansi P. M. , “Newton and the ‘pipes of Pan’” Notes and records of the Royal Society, xxi (1966), 108–43.

ULC Add. MS 3965, f. 278r: “…in materiam omnem circum circa positam et per gravitatem mundi infiniti in aequilibrio sustinentur ne se mutuo ruant.”

de Chéseaux J.-P. L. , Traité de la comète qui a paru en décembre 1743 et en janvier, février et mars 1744 (Lausanne, 1744), 223–9: Appendix, “Sur la force de la lumière, as propagation dans l'éther, et sur la distance des étoiles fixes”; reprinted in Jaki , op. cit. (ref. 91), 253–5. In his discussion (chap. 5) of Chéseaux, Jaki draws attention to infelicities in Chéseaux's exposition, but these are minor.

Chéseaux , Traité, 224.

Ibid., 225.

Ibid., 225–6.

On the later history of the Paradox, see Jaki , op. cit. (ref. 91), and Hoskin M. A. , “Dark skies and fixed stars”, Journal of the British Astronomical Association, lxxxiii (1973), 254–62.

Wright , An original theory (ref. 19), discussed in Hoskin , op. cit. (ref. 35). Whiston W. , Astronomical principles of religion, natural and reveal'd (2nd edn, London, 1725), 25, 131–2, 154 seq. Whiston holds that the evil will one day be transferred to a comet, there to be tormented in the sight of the Blessed.

Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, MS 615, XV, ff. 1–3, 5, 6.

Lambert , Cosmologische Briefe (ref. 19).

Lambert J. H. , Photometria (Augsburg, 1760), 505–6; idem, Cosmologische Briefe, discussed in Hoskin , “The cosmology of J. H. Lambert” (ref. 34). Lambert's conception of our star system is virtually the same as Stukeley's: “We find ourselves in one such system [of fixed stars] and I count into it all stars that are visible to us and lie outside the Milky Way as well as the larger ones that cover that arch of sky” (Letter 10, trans. Jaki (ref. 19), 111).

In the Surtees Society edition of Stukeley's Diary and other materials (ref. 81), Thomas Wright features three times: I, 433–4, where there is a letter dated 25 February 1742 from Wright to an unknown correspondent about the recent comet; iii, 442, Diary entry for 9 November 1758, “Mr Thomas Wright sent a letter with a description of a sepulchral monument at Morgan, in Wales…”; and iii, 443, Diary entry for 23 March 1748–9, “Mr Wright, the astronomer, tells me that in Ireland, near Dundalk, is a Druid temple…”. Though Thomas Wright was a common name, there is little doubt that the entries relate to Thomas Wright of Durham. He is known to have made a special study of the comet of 1742, submitting related material (now in Durham University Library) to the Royal Society, and publishing some of it in The gentleman's magazine (xii (1742), 106, 132, 183); and the 1742 letter is written from St James', London, whereas we know from Wright's Journal ( Hughes Edward , “The early journal of Thomas Wright of Durham”, Annals of science, vii (1851), 1–24, p. 16) that he was then in London and moving in high society. He also made an extensive study of antiquities, especially of Ireland; the results of his several months' study in 1746 of those of the county of Louth were published as Louthiana (London, 1748, 1758), and a sequel and a volume on the antiquities of England remain in manuscript. Indeed, the similarity between the interests of the two men is very remarkable. We know for certain that from Wright's point of view, Stukeley was not a principal correspondent, for in vol. vii of the Wright MSS in the Central Library, Newcastle upon Tyne there is a list drawn up by Wright in 1766 of some 1107 letters in his “Cabinet of letters” (the contents of which are no longer extant). Wright lists his principal correspondents with the number of letters from them, but Stukeley is not mentioned, and if Wright held any of his letters they were simply included under “Miscellanies”. (Mr F. W. Manders, the Local Studies Librarian, kindly made available a photocopy of this document.)

Hoskin , op. cit. (ref. 35).

This reference is obscure. It is simply omitted by the editor of the printed Memoirs.

Westfall Richard S. , Never at rest: A biography of Isaac Newton (Cambridge, 1980), 154. Westfall gives references to earlier treatments of the apple story. See also Christianson Gale E. , In the presence of the Creator: Isaac Newton and his times (New York and London, 1984), 77–78, 82–83.

The account in the printed Memoirs is essentially the same as in Version I, except that the sentence beginning “That there is a power…” is an interpolation in Version IV (RS MS, f. 14v).