Newton in France: A New View

An earlier version of this paper was read to the British Society for the History of Science on 8 July 1975.

Brunet Pierre , L'introduction des théories de Newton en France au XVIII^e siècle. Avant 1738 (Paris, 1931). No continuation was published.

While recognizing the inappropriateness of these sentences to define the attitudes of Leibniz and his associates during the latter part of Newton's life, I think they depict ones which were universal during his youth and still common among Europeans at the time of his death.

What of the Acta eruditorum? Not in its Latin language alone, but in its style, this journal seems to me very different from the Journal des sçavans, the Philosophical transactions, and the Mémoires of the Académie Royale des Sciences.

The plausible exception is Holland (see, for example, Colie Rosalie J. , “Spinoza and the early English Deists”, Journal of the history of ideas, xx (1959), 23–46; idem, “Spinoza in England, 1665–1730”, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, cvii (1963), 183–219).

See Hall A. Rupert Hall Marie Boas , “Philosophy and natural philosophy: Boyle and Spinoza”, in L'aventure de l'espirit: Mélanges Alexandre Koyré (Paris, 1964), ii, 241–56.

See Wallis John , Commercium epistolicum de quæstionibus quibusdam mathematicis nuper habitum (Oxford, 1658); and Opera mathematica (Oxford, 1693–99).

Vol. v (1709–13) is due to appear in the present month of August 1975; vol. vi (1713–18) is in proof, and vol. vii is well advanced in preparation.

See Cohen I. Bernard , “Isaac Newton, Hans Sloane and the Académie Royale des Sciences” in L'aventure de la science: Mélanges Alexandre Koyré (Paris, 1964), i, 61–116.

Newton , Correspondence (ref.8), vi, Letter 1004 (7 June 1713 n.s.).

Traité d'optique … par M. le Chevalier Newton. Traduit par M. Coste sur la seconde edition angloise … Second edition francoise, beaucoup plus correcte que la premiere (Paris, 1722), “Approbation”. The publication of this edition (based on the French translation first published at Amsterdam in 1720) figures largely in Newton, Correspondence, vi (ref. 8).

Newton , Correspondence (ref. 8), vii, Letter 1338 ([May], 1720).

Newton , Correspondence (ref. 8), vi, Letter 1024, 5 December 1713 n.s. My translation from Latin.

See de Beer G. R. , “The relations between Fellows of the Royal Society and French men of science when France and Britain were at war”, Notes and records of the Royal Society, ix (1952), 244–9; Jacquot Jean , “Sir Hans Sloane and French men of science”, ibid., x (1953), 85–98 and Le naturaliste Sir Hans Sloane (1660–1753) et les échanges scientifiques entre la France et l'Angleterre (Les conférences du Palais de la Découverte, série D, no. 25, 1954). Cohen, loc. cit. (ref. 9).

Newton , Correspondence, iv (Cambridge, 1967), 311; 29 May 1699.

See Newton to Flamsteed, 6 January 1699; Correspondence, iv (ref. 15), 296.

I do not quite follow I. Bernard Cohen's comment (loc. cit. (ref. 9), 102) that by comprehending Newton's (overt) use of the word ‘attraction’ Geoffroy “shows himself to have been a thorough-going Newtonian”. Geoffroy's own words are: “les experiences [de Hauksbee] nous ont paru fort curieuses, mais on a bien de la peine a s'accoutumer au terme d'attraction, qui semble nous ramener aux qualités occultes” (ibid., 100).

Rigaud P.S. Rigaud S. J. , Correspondence of scientific men in the seventeenth century (Oxford, 1841), i, 265; Newton , Correspondence (ref. 8), vi, Letter 1116; 23 November 1714 n.s. Reyneau's letter acknowledged the gift of Jones's Analysis per quantitatum series, fluxiones ac differentias (London, 1711).

Vol. xxxi, 35.

Newton , Correspondence (ref. 8), vi, Letter 1248.

Mémoires de l'Académie Royale des Sciences for 1720 (Paris, 1722), 35–84.

Ibid., 36.

Ibid., 36–7.

Ibid., 38.

Mémoires del'Académie Royale des Sciences for 1722 (Paris, 1724), 133. Newton(?) presented a copy of the Analysis to the Académie des Sciences through Louville in the spring of 1714 ( Newton , Correspondence, vi (ref. 8), Letter 1248).

Strictly, Coste wrote two prefaces, for that in the second, Paris, 1722, edition of Optiques (ref. 11) differs markedly from the preface to the Amsterdam, 1720 edition.

Lohne J. A. , “Experimentum crucis”, Notes and records of the Royal Society, xxiii (1968), 169–97.

Mariotte Edmé , “De la nature des couleurs”, in his Essays de physique (Paris, 1679–81). See Lohne J.A. , loc. cit. (ref. 27), 186 and Guerlac Henry , “Newton in France: The delayed acceptance of his theory of color” (typescript), 24–26. What seems to be the same account of Newton's theory appears in Mariotte's Traité des couleurs (Oeuvres (Leyden 1717), i, 226–7). Mariotte puts forward the evidence in favour of “l'hypothèse nouvelle et fort surprenante” of Newton, then that which is contrary, namely his own experiment in which the light at the extremity of the violet part of the spectrum of one prism was passed through a slit one-sixth of an inch in diameter; then the ray thus formed was shone through a second prism and displayed both yellow and red after refraction. Thus the second prism had modified the violet ray and so (Mariotte declared): “l'ingenieuse hypothèse de Monsieur Newton ne doit point être reçue”.

Guerlac , op. cit. (ref. 28), 41–42.

Op. cit. (ref. 28), 39–43.

Malebranche N. , De la recherche de la verité, ou l'on traitte de la nature de l'espirit de l'homme, et de l'usage qu'il en doit faire pour eviter l'erreur dans les sciences (sixth edition, Paris, 1712), 330.

Ibid. , 361, col. 1. It is the simple (and, as it happens, correct) assumption of Malebranche that “chaque rayon conserve ensuite la même promptitude dans ses vibrations”. That there is only a determined number of such rays (of constant frequency and constant angle of refraction) is certain from Newton's experiments. “Car de même que lorsqu'on devise harmoniquement une octave … il ne peut y en avoir qu'un nombre determiné de tons; il ne peut aussi y avoir qu'un nombre determiné de rayons simples. Aussi M. Newton … a trouvé que le rang des couleurs simples étoit harmoniquement divisé”. Malebranche thence concludes that the red rays, being refracted less, have a lower frequency of vibration, while the blue rays, more markedly refracted, have a higher frequency.

Ibid., 361–2. The passage continues: “que cette matière n'est composée que de petits tourbillons, qui par l'équilibre de leurs forces centrifuges, font la consistance de tous les corps; & par la rupture de leur équilibre qu'ils tendent sans cesse a rétablir, tous les changemens qui arrivent dans le monde”.

Ibid., 362.

Guerlac , op. cit. (ref. 28), 41. See Robinet André (ed.), Malebranche , tome xix: “Correspondance, actes et documents, 1690–1715” (Paris, 1961), 771–2; Malebranche to P. Berrand [1707]: “Quoique M. Newton ne soit point physicien, son livre est tres curieux et tres utile à ceux qui ont de bons principes de physique, il est d'ailleurs excellent geometre. Tout ce que je pense des proprietez de la lumiere s'ajuste à toutes ses experiences”.

On Dortous and Newton's optics see Guerlac , op. cit. (ref. 28), 29–36.

See Cohen I. Bernard , op. cit. (ref. 9), 98–102.

Desaguliers J. T. , “An account of some experiments of light and colours, formerly made by Sir Isaac Newton, and mention'd in his Opticks, lately repeated before the Royal Society”, Philosophical transactions, xxix, no. 348 (1715), 433–47; idem, “A plain and easy experiment to confirm Sir Isaac Newton's doctrine of the different refrangibility of the rays of light”, ibid. , 448–52. See Lohne , op. cit. (ref. 27), 189–90 and Guerlac , op. cit. (ref. 28), 47–58.

October 1713, 447, particularly mentioning the difficulty raised by “ingeniosissimo Mariotto, rerum naturalium scrutatore indefesso nec infelici”.

Philosophical transactions, xxix, no. 348 (1715), 435.

Ibid., 447.

This confirmation for the French delegation is mentioned in ibid., 435 and by Coste in his prefaces.

Op. cit. (ref. 28), 67.

Possibly the Chancellor's relative, the Abbé Daguesseau.

Newton , Correspondence (ref. 8), vii, Letter 1369.

de Mairan Dortous , Eloges des Académiciens de l'Académie Royale des Sciences morts dans les années 1741, 1742 & 1743 (Paris, 1747), 90.

Ibid., 79.

Newton , Correspondence (ref. 8), vii, Letter 1350.

Ibid. Letter 1402.