The Methodological Origins of Newtons Queries

8/3/2019 The Methodological Origins of Newtons Queries

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Stud. Hist. Phil. Sci. 35 (2004) 247269www.elsevier.com/locate/shpsa

The methodological origins of Newtonsqueries

Peter R. Anstey

Department of Philosophy, University of Sydney, Sydney NSW 2006, Australia

Received 6 August 2003; received in revised form 5 November 2003

Abstract

This paper analyses the different ways in which Isaac Newton employed queries in hiswritings on natural philosophy. It is argued that queries were used in three different ways byNewton and that each of these uses is best understood against the background of the rolethat queries played in the Baconian method that was adopted by the leading experimentersof the early Royal Society. After a discussion of the role of queries in Francis Bacons natu-ral historical method, Newtons queries in his Trinity Notebook are shown to reveal theinfluence of his early reading in the new experimental philosophy. Then after a discussion ofRobert Hookes view of the role of queries, the paper turns to an assessment of Newtonscorrespondence and Opticks. It is argued that the queries in his correspondence with Old-enburg on his early optical experiments are closely tied to an experimental program, whereasthe queries in the Opticks are more discursive and speculative, but that each of these uses ofqueries represents a significant Baconian legacy in his natural philosophical methodology.# 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Bacon; Experiment; Hypothesis; Method; Newton; Query

1. Introduction

Among the most famous passages in all of Isaac Newtons writings are the quer-ies appended to the Opticks. In fact, Query 31 from the second edition of theOpticks (1717) is one of the most widely quoted and discussed passages fromNewtons whole oeuvre. Yet if the contents of this and others of Newtons queries

E-mail address: [email protected] (P.R. Anstey).

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are well known and studied, their precise origins are rather less well understood.

This paper aims to shed new light upon the methodological origins of Newtons

queries; not simply the queries to the Opticks, but to all of his queries in natural

philosophy. Why did Newton write queries? And what can his adoption of thismethodological tool tell us about his connections with the natural philosophy of

his day and his own methodological views? We will explore these questions first, by

examining the function of queries in the emerging natural philosophical methodol-

ogies of the early Royal Society; second, by an examination of the role and func-

tion of queries in the methodology of Robert Hooke; and third, by an analysis

of Newtons own comments on the use of queries. Surprisingly, our analysis of

Newtons adoption and deployment of queries will take us to the very heart of his

methodological views about how one is to proceed in natural philosophy.

Questions played an important role in each of the three chief scholastic exercises(lectures, disputations, and declamations) that prevailed in the universities of

Cambridge and Oxford in the mid-seventeenth century.1 For example, in a typical

disputation a question would be stated and then the affirmative or negative answer

defended by the disputant. Furthermore, students frequently used queries or ques-

tions in common-placing to raise doubts or difficulties in relation to the material

under consideration or to introduce additional issues not addressed by the author

under review. John Lockes commonplace books from the late 1650s provide very

extensive examples of this use of queries. It is not surprising therefore, that a sec-

tion in the young Newtons Trinity Notebook entered in the mid-1660s is headed

Questiones qudem Philosoph[i]c (Certain Philosophical Questions)2 and con-

tains a series of questions by which discussions of natural philosophical topics are

introduced. These queries of the young Newton are indicative of the pedagogical

tradition in which he had trained. A nice example is the first entry which is entitled

Of the first matter. It begins Whether it be mathematical points, or mathematical

points and parts, or a simple entity before division indistinct, or individuals, i.e.,

atoms.3 Newton rejects the first three answers and in the second entry affirms that

first matter is comprised of atoms.4 However, the queries found later in the Note-

book and those in his published works, his correspondence and his manuscripts are

of a somewhat different form and were developed in the theoretical and polemical

context of the newly emerging experimental philosophy. In order to understand

1 For discussion of the scholastic exercises at Cambridge in the early seventeenth century see Costello(1958), pp. 1135. For further background on Restoration Cambridge see Gascoigne (1985), and onOxford see Feingold (1997) (who also provides a corrective to Costello (1958)) and Frank (1997),pp. 526527. For general background see Chapter X of Lawn (1993), and for the American GeorgeStarkeys use of the scholastic method see Newman and Principe (2002), pp. 164174.

2 Reproduced with an extensive introduction and commentary by McGuire & Tamny (1983). Alsoavailable online at The Newton Project, Imperial College London, at http://www.newtonproject.ic.

ac.uk/web_keynes/cul3996a_w.xml.3 McGuire & Tamny (1983), p. 336/337.4 Ibid., p. 340/341.

P.R. Anstey / Stud. Hist. Phil. Sci. 35 (2004) 247269248


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this context we need first to turn to the role of queries in the predominant naturalphilosophical method of the early Royal Society, the method of Francis Bacon.

2. Queries and the Baconian method of natural history

Francis Bacon proposed a systematic renovation of natural philosophy. Hisworks were widely read and his prescriptions adopted by many members of theearly Royal Society. Bacon proposed that natural philosophical knowledge couldonly be arrived at after the construction of natural histories. These natural histor-ies were to be vast collections of matters of fact pertaining to particular objects orqualities. Bacon stressed that the most profitable contributions to natural historieswill come from the manipulation of nature by the mechanical arts and this, accord-

ing to Bacon, will involve the speculative sciences of mathematics and mechanics.5

They were to be assembled not only by natural philosophers, but by travellers, bymerchants, and others, because the project of the construction of these historieswas too large for any one person. Once assembled, these histories were to be thefoundation of natural philosophy, the subject upon which Bacons inductivemethod was to be applied.6 Bacon also offered a severe critique of alternative tra-ditional approaches to natural philosophy, especially the idle speculations spun byphilosophers which were divorced from matters of fact or which only appealed tonatural histories or experiments when convenient or merely to bolster ones spec-ulations.

Now while there were important differences of emphasis among the Baconian-isms of the early Royal Society,7 the salient features of Bacons prescriptions werewidely adopted and put into practice. The method of natural history became aparticularly prominent part of the new experimental philosophy. This is illu-strated in Oldenburgs numerous statements of the Societys agenda as well as inthe research projects pursued by the Societys leading experimentalists such asBoyle and Hooke.8 It is also perhaps the most prominent methodological motif tobe found in the notes from the meetings of the Society, in its official publication,the Philosophical Transactions, and in the eyes of its propagandists such as JosephGlanvill and Thomas Sprat.9 This approach was even endorsed in Paris byHuygens in his recommendation for the newly created Academie royale des sci-ences that The principal work and most useful occupation of this Assembly should

5 See Parasceve, V & VII, Bacon (18571874), Vol. IV, pp. 257259, and De augmentis scientiarum,ibid., pp. 369371.

6 Descriptio globi intellectualis, Bacon (1996), p. 104/105.7 See Hunter & Wood (1989).8 See for example, Oldenburgs comment that A considerable piece of the grand Design of the

Modern ExperimentalPhilosophers being, to procure and accumulate Materials for a good Natural His-

tory, whence to raise in progress of time a solid Structure of Philosophy, Philosophical Transactions, 19,

19 November 1666, p. 344. See also Oldenburg (19651986), Vol. II, pp. 143144, Vol. III, p. 537, Vol.IV, p. 315.

9 Glanvill (1668), p. 9, and Sprat (1667), passim.

249P.R. Anstey / Stud. Hist. Phil. Sci. 35 (2004) 247269


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be, in my opinion, to work on the Natural History, somewhat according to the

plan of Verulam.10

Now the salient point of all this background discussion of the Royal Societys

commitment to Baconian natural history is that within it queries played a veryimportant role. When Bacon set out his various schemes for the prosecution of

natural philosophical knowledge in works such as the Descriptio globi intellectualisand the Parasceve (appended to the Novum organum), he advised the assembling ofqueries as a specific step and he appended lists of heads or queries that were to be

pursued.11 This method of listing queries pertaining to particular topics was adop-

ted and promoted with gusto by Boyle and others to such an extent that there was

in the 1660s and beyond, a proliferation of queries. There are literally scores of

lists of queries spread across the Philosophical Transactions, the published works of

the leading experimental natural philosophers, in the Royal Society archives and inother manuscript collections. Indeed, so many queries had appeared in the early

issues of the Philosophical Transactions that in October of 1667 Oldenburg clearlyfelt obliged to keep readers abreast of them and to provide answers to some of

them. To that end he tells his readers in issue 28:

That the Queries, scattered up and down in these Tracts, may not seem lost, orleft un-regarded, the Publisher intends to impart at convenient times such of theAnswers shall be sent in by observing men, as may be thought acceptable to the

Reader.12

There follows a list of answers to queries about the Mendip mines. These answersare in response to a list of over one hundred queries about mines by Robert Boyle

published in a previous issue.13 Interestingly, Boyles long list is a sequel to his

General heads for a natural history of a countrey14 which itself sets out the heads

for a kind of generic questionnaire of the kind frequently found in the Philosophi-cal Transactions for particular countries. The relevance of this use of queries toNewton will become apparent below.

Furthermore, it should be pointed out that Bacon maintained a tripartite

division of the subject matter of natural history comprising generations or natural

species, pretergenerations or aberrations such as monsters, and arts by which nat-ure is manipulated. The lists of queries mentioned above sit well with the method

of constructing natural histories for natural objects, that is, Bacons generations

and pretergenerations, and they find their most natural application there. Indica-

10 Quoted from Sabra (1967), p. 171.11 There are also some things which may be usefully added to the natural history . . . First, questions

. . . should be added, in order to provoke and stimulate further inquiry ( Parasceve, Bacon, 18571874,vol. IV, p. 261). For Descriptio globi intellectualis see Bacon (1996), pp. 114/115 ff.12 Philosophical Transactions, 28, 21 October 1667, p. 525.13 Ibid., 19, 19 November 1666, pp. 330343. These queries are followed by a list of queries chiefly

about cold (pp. 344346).14 Ibid., 11, 2 April 1666, pp. 186189.



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tive of this are the comments of the natural historian Martin Lister, who in 1670when listing a series of observations on colours says in passing:

It would have been a much safer way, to have put these Inferences in the fash-ion of Quris; but besides that I affirm no more but matter of fact, it is lawfulfor our encouragement (as my Lord Bacon advises) to set up rests by the way . . .[in the construction of natural histories].15

The naturalness of the reference to the fashion of Quris and the appeal toBacon are again illustrative of how widespread this use of queries was amongstmembers of the early Royal Society. But it is also important to note that themethod of queries is not the sole province of the promoters of natural histories ofnatural objects and qualities, but was also practised and applied in the domain ofarts or experiments. This is significant not only for our understanding of the prac-

tice of natural history in general, but more particularly for our analysis of New-tons queries. With one (slightly ambiguous) exception, Newton never appearsexplicitly to have endorsed the method of natural history and yet he clearlyemployed one of the central components of this method, the query.

The young Newton was aware of this natural historical programme for theadvancement of natural philosophy since he took notes, some very detailed, on anumber of the most important early productions of this approach to natural philo-sophy. These included Boyles Spring of the air (1660) and Colours (1664), andHookes Micrographia (1665). Boyles Spring of the air was the first instalment inan ongoing history of the air which continued unabated even beyond his death inthe capable hands of John Locke who saw his General history of the air throughthe press in 1692. His Colours, which was a stimulus to Newtons early opticalexperiments, was conceived as a Beginning to a History not hitherto, that I know,begun by any.16 Likewise, Hookes Micrographia was conceived in Baconian termsas contributing the meanest foundations whereon others may raise noblerSuperstructures.17 Newton also took notes on the first twenty-four issues of thePhilosophical Transactions which reveal an awareness of the role of queries in thenew natural philosophy.18

Further evidence of Newtons knowledge of the method of natural history is

found in his letter to Francis Aston of 18 May 1669.19

This letter has long been

15 Some observations, touching colours, ibid., 70, 17 April 1671, p. 2135.16 Boyle (19992000), Vol. IV, p. 7.17 Hooke (1665), Preface, sig. b1rb1v.18 Newtons Out of Philosophicall Transactions summarises the contents of the first twenty-four

issues. See Cambridge University Library, Additional Manuscript 3958, fols. 9r15r. Evidence ofNewtons awareness of the use of queries is seen in the following comments: Mr Boyls copious inquiriesabout Mines (fol. 13v); Num 22. Mr Boyles Querys about changes wrought by transfusion of blood . . .Num 23. Inquirys for Suralt & other parts of the East Indys . . . Others for Guaiana & Brasil . . . Some

enquirys about Magnetisme. Inquirys about seeds & plants growing in eahrith or water (fol. 14v). See

also Sprat (1667), pp. 155157, for a discussion of the use of queries. Newtons notes on Sprat are inAdditional Manuscript 3958, fols. 5r7v.19 Newton (19591977), Vol. I, pp. 911.



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thought to have been inspired by an abridgement of Robert Southwells Concern-ing travelling which gives advice to gentlemen for travelling abroad and which sur-vives among Newtons papers.20 Southwells advice contains a number of

suggestions as to inquires that might be made about foreign lands, but it does notbear a distinctively Baconian stamp. By contrast, Boyles more generic Generalheads for the natural history of a countrey which Newton would have read in theeleventh issue of the Philosophical Transactions of April 1666 is a classic statementof a natural historical approach to gleaning facts from overseas travel.21 The meth-odological background of this document is summed up in one of Oldenburgsnumerous statements of the aims of the Royal Society. He claims we shall evenappoint philosophical ambassadors to travel throughout the world to search andreport on the works and productions of nature and art, in order to compose intime a Natural and Artificial History which will be perfect, and which can providematerials sufficient to build an unshakeably firm system of philosophy.22 RobertSouthwells travel correspondence with Oldenburg shows not only that he followedhis own advice, but that he did so with Oldenburgs agenda in mind, for he sentback numerous natural historical observations.23 We should note in Newtons let-ter therefore, the repeated references to mines,24 the lists of generall heads forInquirys, the recommendation that the travellers discourse bee more in Qurys &doubtings . . . it being ye designe of Travellers to learne not teach and the wordplay, popular at the time, on Bacons luciferous experiments. Newton advises:

if you meet wth any transmutations out of one species into another [of metals or

salts]. . .

those above all others will bee worth your noting being ye most lucifer-ous & many times lucriferous experiments too in Philosophy.25

Whatever we are to make of the intent of this letter,26 it is clear from its contentsthat Newton was very familiar with some of the central elements of the Baconianmethod as practised by members of the early Royal Society.

This then is the natural philosophical context in which we should view many ofthe questions in Newtons Trinity Notebook and also the queries at the end of his

20

Kings College Library, Cambridge, Keynes MS 152. For verbal parallels see Newton (19591977),Vol. I, p. 12 n. 1.21 Philosophical Transactions, 11, 2 April 1666, pp. 186189. In Cambridge University Library,

Additional Manuscript 3958, fol. 11r Newton writes Boyls directions for the generall History of acountry.22 Oldenburg to Sorbiere, 3 January 1663/1664, Oldenburg (19651986), Vol. II, p. 142/144. See also

Hookes Preface to Knox (1681), sig. a2v-a3r.23 See Oldenburg (19651986), Vol. I, pp. 323325, 355356.24 For Newtons own notes on mines from this period see University Library, Cambridge Additional

Manuscript 3958, fols 25r26r.25 Newton (19591977), Vol. I, p. 10. Boyle used the word play in Forms and qualities (1666), Boyle

(19992000), Vol. V, p. 418, and William Petty in his The advice of W. P. to Mr. Samuel Hartlib (1647),

p. 20. The Baconian connection in Newtons use of the terms was noted by Blay (1985), p. 373 n. 66.26 Westfall finds the letter itself more ludicrous than eloquent (1980, p. 193).



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notes on Hookes Micrographia made in 1665.27 It was noted above that the Note-book begins with some instances of the scholastic disputational style. However, asthe notebook develops, the disputational format quickly drops away and the quer-

ies recorded begin to take the familiar form of the lists of queries found amongstthe natural philosophers of the early Royal Society. For example, the notes on Ofwater and salt are really a set of observations and queries arising from a closereading of Chapters I & III of Descartess Meteora. Here is an excerpt:

Why water is clearer than vapors?Whether burning waters and hot spirits be of small spherical or oval fig-ured parts, and have many such globuli as fire is of. . . .Why does hot water first contract itself (viz., in cooling), and then dilateitself before and as it freezes?

Why does salt and snow freeze other water? Why is heated water soonerfrozen than raw water?Whether there be more vapors when air is clearest? How salt hinders cor-ruption, but fresh water helps it. Why, though salt be heavier, yet it willmix with water and gather into grains at the top of it?28

If one compares this excerpt with a typical list of queries from, say, an excerptfrom Boyles lists of queries on elasticity from the 1660s, the parallels are striking.

What Bodys are Naturally endowd with elasticity.

What Bodys Naturally want Springs.What Bodys there are that have Springs under some Dimensions, & notunder others . . .What Bodys Naturally Elasticall may be deprivd of their Spring (to thisbelongs the Glasse of Lead & other Minerales per se, & the reductions ofthat Minerall.By what operations & meanes Elasticity may be introducd into Bodys, asfusion hammering, wire drawing &c.By what operations & meanes the Elasticity of a Body may be destroyd, asnealing, melting &c.

What are the cheif & most usual Concomitants of Elasticitie, & of theabsence or losse of it.29

Note the piling up of queries, the prominent position of the interrogative par-ticle, and the attempt more or less systematically to cover outstanding issues per-taining to the topic at hand. Clearly during his course of reading, Newton hadbegun to imbibe one of the prominent literary forms of the new philosophy.

27 Newton (1962), p. 413.28 McGuire & Tamny (1983), p. 374/375.29 Royal Society Boyle Papers, Vol. 10, fol. 132. The transcription is quoted from Michael Hunter

(forthcoming).



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What is interesting from such lists is that the queries are used as series ofpointers by which experimental programmes might be pursued or as checks tointerpretations of experimental results, and so on. Another Boyle list found among

Lockes manuscripts asks,

Whether there be flames that will really continue under water withoutbeing extinguishd by it & whether the same flames or some others wouldnot burn without aire.Whether Aire by any degree of agitation how high soever be capable ofbeing inflamd.Whether a great heat can be given by flame alone or by coles &c. withoutflame.How great a part of a Combustible body may be supposd to be burnt into

flame, exemplifyd in Alcole of wine.30

Thus the humble query served two functions. First, it delineated the domain orscope of a natural history that needed to be prosecuted, and second it also servedto direct experimental inquiry. This fitted well with the Baconian agenda for pursu-ing mechanical or experimental knowledge as a form of natural history and was anatural and easy application of the Baconian method.

3. Hooke on queries

This brings us to the case of Robert Hooke who is a nice example of a naturalphilosopher who was able to dovetail the two uses of queries in natural philo-sophy. He develops lists like those of Boyle, modelled on Bacon, which are for thedevelopment of natural histories and yet he also deploys queries about, say, thenature of earthquakes31 or comets32 which are directly related to experiments,observations and hypotheses. Now what is particularly useful for our purposes isthat Hooke did not merely practise the Baconian method of queries, he reflectedon the role of queries in his methodological lectures. And it will repay us to brieflyexamine Hookes prescriptions for the assembling and application of queries innatural philosophy. This is particularly relevant, because it is in the context ofNewtons conflict with Hooke on the nature of colour and light that Newton him-self first publicly deploys queries.

In his Method of improving natural philosophy, published posthumously butwritten around 1668, Hooke develops a neo-Baconian natural philosophical meth-odology in the spirit of the Parasceve, first expostulating upon the necessity of andstructure of natural histories and then providing a very elaborate reticulated

30 Bodleian Library, MS Locke c. 42, pp. 266267. I would like to thank Michael Hunter for the tran-

scription of these folios.31 A discourse of earthquakes, Hooke (1705), p. 345.32 Cometa and Hooke (1678), sig. A3r.



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schema of heads for the composition of natural histories.33 Hooke clearly regardsthis as a universally applicable method which can be used for any natural philo-sophical inquiry. He then introduces an extended discussion of the uses of queries.

First he tells us how we should go about setting down queries and then he exam-ines their function within the natural history itself:

And having set down these Queries, he ought in the next place to consider whatthings seem requisite to attain those ends; what means he can imagine may beconducive to the solving or answering those Questions, that is, what Observa-tions, Examinations, or Experiments would seem conducive thereunto, andaccordingly under every such Query or Question, he ought to set down thethings requisite to be known for the obtaining the full Knowledge of a compleatand full Answer to it; afterwards with Care and Diligence he ought to make

Examination and Tryal of what he has propounded, one thing after another,with much Circumspection . . . The Tryal of these Experiments, tis very likely,will much further his Knowledge, and shew him perhaps the Solution of some ofhis Queries, as well as the Error and Insignificancy of others . . . 34

Once the queries are set down the natural philosopher sets about contriving experi-ments and observations that will provide answers to them. Elsewhere Hookeemphasises that queries should only be set down if they are solvable and that it ispreferable that they be devised by those who are strangers to the phenomenonunder investigation, though not anyone is capable of devising them.35 Further-

more, once the project of prosecuting queries is undertaken with due thoroughness,the natural philosopher will find that it has a flow on effect for other inquiries:Thus the finding out the Cause of Fluidity, Heat, Gravity, Brittleness, &c. in oneBody, will much facilitate the Inquiry after the like Properties in any other Body. 36

It is important to stress here that queries for Hooke are to be differentiated fromhypotheses. Even as early as the Micrographia Hooke can be found to differentiatethe two. He claims in his dedicatory epistle to the Royal Society that with respectto the use of hypotheses in this work,

there may perhaps be some Expressions, which may seem more positive then

YOUR Prescriptions will permit: And though I desire to have them understoodonly as Conjectures and Quries (which YOUR Method does not altogether dis-allow) . . . 37

It is easy with the benefit of hindsight to see that in some cases the functionalrole of queries is equivalent to what we would call working hypotheses, but it

33 The method of improving natural philosophy, Hooke (1705), pp. 2226.34 Ibid., p. 28.35 A discourse of earthquakes, ibid., p. 429, and The method of improving natural philosophy, ibid.,

pp. 62, 27.36 Ibid., p. 29.37 Hooke (1665), To the Royal Society, sig. A2v.



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would be anachronistic to foist this equivalence upon the early moderns. Theformation and testing of queries in Hooke, Boyle, and others is a distinct step inthe neo-Baconian methodology of experimental natural philosophy. To be sure,

queries might explicitly be deployed in the testing of a theory, but this remains aclearly defined step in a well articulated process that originates from the method ofconstructing natural histories.

4. Newtons optical queries in 1672

Having examined Robert Hookes methodological reflections on the use of quer-ies, we now turn to Newtons first deployment of queries in relation to his opticalexperiments. They are found in his rejoinder of 11 June 1672 to Hookes Con-

siderations and in his letter to Henry Oldenburg of 6 July 1672. The broader con-text of these letters is perhaps worth briefly summarising. On 6 February 1672Newton sent to Henry Oldenburg, secretary of the Royal Society, his paper oncolours. It was read at the Societys next meeting and was soon published in thePhilosophical Transactions. Responses quickly came from Hooke, Pardies, andHuygens. Hooke penned a rather hurried report for the Royal Society, the Con-siderations, which Newton received by 20 February. It is in his rejoinder to thispaper by Hooke that we find Newtons first use of queries. The second use of quer-ies comes just four weeks later in Newtons reply to Oldenburgs question aboutrefractions and the properties of glass, though the theoretical and experimentalconsiderations of this letter are continuous with those of the rejoinder to Hooke.We will examine this second letter first.

Newtons letter of 6 July is, in fact, best seen as part of his ongoing correspon-dence with Hooke, Pardies, and Huygens and mediated by Oldenburg, over histheory of the nature of coloured light. It is important to get clear on the immediatemethodological issues that the letter addresses. These issues pick up points thatNewton has already made both to Hooke and to Pardies. Newton begins:

I cannot think it effectuall for determining truth to examin the severall ways bywch Phnomena may be explained, unlesse where there can be a perfect enu-meration of all those ways.38

Newtons point arises from the controversy with Hooke who claims his alternative,mechanical theory could equally explain the optical phenomena discovered byNewton in the experiments related to Oldenburg in his letter of 6 February 1672.Newton is addressing the problem of underdeterminationtoo many hypothesessave the same phenomenaand is claiming that it is only worth examining all ofthe alternative explanations together. Then Newton claims that his theory was notinferred as a possible explanation of the phenomena, but by deriving it fromExperiments concluding positively & directly. He clearly believes that the relation

38 Newton (19591977), Vol. I, p. 209.



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between his theory and the experiments that support it differentiates it from other

possible theories. He regards this epistemic relation between his theory and the

experiments as somehow unique and he suggests two methods for exploring this

further: first, by re-examining the relation between the original experiments and thetheory; and second, by proposing new experiments suggested by the theory itself.

This, he says, should be done in a due Method and he proceeds to spell this out:

It may not be amiss to proceed according to the series of these Queries:. He goes

on to list eight queries and concludes by claiming:

To determin by experiments these & such like Queries wch involve the pro-

pounded Theory seemes the most proper & direct way to a conclusion. And

therefore I could wish all objections were suspended, taken from Hypotheses or

any other Heads then these two; Of showing the insufficiency of experiments todetermin these Queries or prove any other parts of my Theory, by assigning the

flaws & defects in my Conclusions drawn from them; Or of producing other

Experiments wch directly contradict me, if any such may seem to occur.39

Newton is requesting that rather than focusing on other hypotheses, such as

Hookes, and how they save the phenomena, one should focus on the adequacy or

otherwise of experiments that are developed to pursue answers to his queries and

on finding experiments that might directly contradict his theory.Clearly Newton conceives the queries as comprising part of due or proper

method in resolving the problem at hand. Clearly too, Newton sees them as stand-ing in important evidential relations to both the experimental programme and to

the theory under examination. Note also that they are distinguished from hypoth-

eses like Hookes wave theory of light. Rather they are subsidiary propositions that

arise in the particular experimento-theoretical context. Thus for Newton, in the

context of an ongoing controversy over his optical experiments and his theory of

coloured lighta controversy that involved some of the leading purveyors of the

natural historical method and the deployment of queriesqueries have a central

role in his natural philosophical method. They are not hypotheses; they are not

part of the theory. Rather they are propositions that function as heuristic devices

that are derived in a specific experimental and theoretical context.Not surprisingly, the letter of 6 July was read to the Royal Society on the very

next day and it was recommended there to prosecute experiments such as might

determine the queries lately sent by Mr. NEWTON, which involve his theoryof light.40 That Newton regarded his methodological comments as significant

is evident from his opening comment in his letter to Oldenburg of 13 July 1672.

He says:

39 Ibid., p. 210.40 Birch (17561757), Vol. III, p. 57.



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I am glad you are pleased to accept my answer to your inquiry, together withthe following discourse about the properest Method of examining the truth ofmy proposalls; wch you may print when you think fit.41

Oldenburg must have concurred, because he excerpted the queries of the letter 6July and printed them in both English and Latin in the Philosophical Transactionsof 15 July.42 They were introduced under the heading A Series of Queres pro-pounded by Mr. Isaac Newton, to be determind by Experiments . . . and Old-enburg went on to speak of Newtons Method as appearing to be most genuineand proper to the purpose it is propounded for, and deserving therefore to be con-sidered and put to trial by Philosophers, abroad as well as at home.43

Let us now turn to Newtons use of queries in his rejoinder of 11 June 1672to Hookes Considerations. He begins the sixth section of his rejoinder with the

following claim:

You see therefore how much it is besides the buisinesse in hand to dispute aboutHypotheses. For wch reason I shall now in the last place proceed to abstract thedifficulties involved in Mr Hooks discourse, & without having regard to anyHypothesis consider them in generall termes. And they may be reduced to thesethree Queries. Whether . . .; Whether there be more then two sorts of colours; &whether . . .44

Note firstly the eschewing of hypotheses and the clear differentiation betweenqueries and hypotheses. Hypotheses in this context, such as Hookes, merely

muddy the waters. Throughout the exchanges Newton is adamant that his theory isnot an hypothesis in so far as it stands in a unique evidential relation to the experi-mental observations, a relation not shared by the hypothesis of Hooke. Newton isvery specific about this. Indeed, in the letter of 10 June 1672 (sent one day beforethis reply to Hooke) he takes umbrage at Pardiess calling his theory an hypothesis,afraid that it was being considered merely in a loose philosophical sense as any-thing expounded in philosophy [quicquid exponitur in Philosophia dicaturHypothesis].45

Secondly, Newtons use of queries here is exactly as prescribed in the subsequent

letter to Oldenburg which has already been discussed. Note thirdly that this use ofqueries is in reply to Hooke who we have also seen was committed to their deploy-ment in a proper method of natural philosophy. Finally, we need to note that inthe subsequent sections of his rejoinder to Hooke, Newton immediately applies hismethod by exploring the heuristic implications of each of the three queries he hasproposed.

41 Newton (19591977), Vol. I, p. 217.42 Philosophical Transactions, 85, 15 July 1672, p. 5004 (misprinted as 4004).43 Ibid., p. 5005. Elsewhere Oldenburg calls it ye genuine method of determining the truth of his

Doctrine of Light and Colours, Newton (19591977), Vol. I, p. 211 n. 7.44 Newton (19591977), Vol. I, pp. 177178.45 Newton to Oldenburg for Pardies, 10 June 1672, ibid., p. 168.



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But Newton does not leave the method of queries there; he apparently drew upa series of Expts for determining ye Qures wch yt Letter conteined46 and for-warded them via Oldenburg to Huygens. A correspondence then ensued which

revolved around the application of the second query concerning Whether there bemore then two sorts of colours. Thus on 19 January 1672/1673 Huygens (via Old-enburg) comments that Il me semble, que la plus importante objection, quon luyfait en forme de Qure, est celle. Sil y a plus de deux sortes de couleurs?47

Newton replies on 3 April 1673, again construing the problem at hand in terms ofqueries: As to the contents of his letter I conceive my former answer to theQure about the number of colours is sufficient, wch was to this effect . . ..48 Notsurprisingly, Newton concludes his letter for Huygens with a new set of queries.49

Queries here are clearly functioning not merely rhetorically as part of somenewly formed methodological discourse, but as an effective heuristic device guiding

the formation of new experiments and steering theoretical reflection and debate.These are just the sorts of functions that one would expect queries to have in abroadly Baconian experimental natural philosophy. That Hooke, Huygens, andOldenburg acquiesced in this heuristic method is entirely in keeping with what weknow independently about their own methodological views. The deployment ofqueries is not the only methodological element in Newtons correspondence. It isclear that he was formulating a mathematico-experimental method that involvedthe statement of axioms in a quasi-mathematical style50 and that this was related towhat he regarded as a demonstrative relation between experiment and theory.

These latter features may have been inspired by Isaac Barrow, as some havesuggested,51 and were to be articulated differently in the domain of celestial mech-anics. But the fundamentally Baconian strand in Newtons methodological thoughtis unambiguous. Or is it?

Many years ago A. I. Sabra noted that Newtons letter to Oldenburg of 6February 1672 had a Baconian ring to it and he implied that it had been tailoredto the methodological prescriptions of the Royal Society. After quoting the crucialparagraph in which Newton claims [a] naturalist would scearce expect to see yescience of those [colours] become mathematicall, Sabra says that Newton pro-ceeds in his paper as Bacon and members of the Royal Society would have

required him to do.52 Two decades later Michel Blay took a similar line, claimingthat once interpreted correctly, Newtons charade of Baconianism in this letter isevidence that in fact he was not a Baconian at all!53 More recently, Peter Dear has

46 Newton to Oldenburg, 21 September 1672, ibid., p. 237.47 Ibid., p. 255.48 Ibid., p. 264.49 Ibid., p. 266.50 Ibid., p. 237.51 See Dear (1995), pp. 222227, and Shapiro (1993), pp. 3140.52 Sabra (1967), pp. 248249.53 Blay (1985); les procedures du Novum Organum ne sont plus avec Newton que des figures de rhetor-

ique, p. 373.



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claimed that in this letter Newton presents his approach . . . as if it simply con-formed to the logic of the Royal Societys experimental philosophy.54 What are weto make of these claims?

There is no doubt that there is an element of rational reconstruction on New-tons part in his discussions of his optical experiments and the process by which hecame upon his theory of coloured light in the first of this sequence of letters.55 Itshould be pointed out, however, that the first letter, that of 6 February 1672, con-tains only a minimal amount of methodological content comprising two sentences.However, if we take the clutch of letters from this episode in Newtons exchangeswith Oldenburg, we can see that they are really part of the first phase of the publicpresentation of Newtons experimental and theoretical work and therefore itis only natural that its presentation should include methodological reflections.Furthermore, it must be stressed that Newton saw differences between himself and

the triad of Hooke, Pardies, and Huygensthe main theoretical antagonists in thecorrespondenceon matters of methodology. There is therefore no reason why weshould not regard Newton here as articulating his newly formed natural philo-sophical method, albeit with something of a public edge to it.56 Indeed, already inthe then unpublished Lectiones opticae, completed by October 1671, Newton hadexpressed similar sentiments.57 Moreover, the fact that Oldenburg excised the twoaforementioned sentences from the version published in the Philosophical Transac-tions suggests, if anything, that the letter did not conform to the Societys, or per-haps Oldenburgs, supposed methodological prescriptions, rather than that it was

tailored to do so.I suggest that we take Newtons methodological claims in all of these letters atface value. We have seen from Newtons letter of 13 July 1672 that he took hismethodological prescriptions seriously and the implication of his suggestion thatOldenburg might print them in the Philosophical Transactions is that he consideredthem both novel and important. It is clear therefore, particularly in the light of thecontinuity of the methodological claims in these letters with Newtons later writ-ings, that there is no evidence for the claim that the letter of 6 February has beentailored to the prescriptions of others and by implication does not representNewtons true methodological views. The letters of 11 June, 6 July, 21 September

1672, and 3 April 1673 which contain or discuss queries serve to reinforce the hon-est though muted Baconianism of the letter of 6 February 1672, and together theyshow that (at least) from early 1672 Newton was in the process of becoming aneo-Baconian experimental philosopher, albeit with a particularly mathematicalorientation.

54 Dear (1995), p. 235.55 Though Shapiro finds nothing historically inconsistent in Newtons account. See the Introduction by

A. E. Shapiro to Newton (1984), pp. 1015.56 Westfall says, the discussion of colors provided Newton with his first serious occasion to explore

questions of scientific method (1980, p. 243).57 Lectiones opticae, Lecture 3, x29, although colors may belong to physics, the science of them must

nevertheless be considered mathematical (Newton, 1984, p. 86/87).



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5. The queries of the Opticks

By now the reader may well be asking, Why does Newton distance himself from

hypotheses? Why this aversion to calling his theory of coloured light an hypoth-esis? What of Hookes apologetic tone with regard to hypotheses? Where do theseattitudes come from? Much has been written on Newtons attitude to hypotheses,but the majority of it has focussed internally on the expression and development ofhis antipathy to them.58 Yet there is a crucial broader context in which Newtonand Hooke were engaged and in which their methodological views developed. Andwhile only a brief sketch of this context can be given here, it should be seen ascentral to our understanding not simply of Newtons attitudes to hypotheses, butalso to his use of queries in the Opticks.

Arguably the dominant methodological distinction in England in the latter half

of the seventeenth century was that between experimental and speculative naturalphilosophy.59 Speculative natural philosophy proceeded by reason alone or withonly a perfunctory appeal to observation and experiment. Instead of experiment-ing, speculative philosophers developed systems of natural philosophy frommaxims and principles alone. The chief tool of the speculative or dogmatic philos-opher was the hypothesis. Experimental philosophers, by contrast, eschewedhypotheses, maxims, and principles and turned to observation and experiment forthe foundations of natural philosophy. And it was the experimental philosophy thatwas developed and promoted by the early members of the Royal Society. Thus wefind in Sprats History of the Royal Society (1667) the boast that:

Experimental Philosophy will prevent mens spending the strength of their

thoughts about Disputes, by turning them to Works . . . And indeed of the usualtitles by which men of business are wont to be distinguishd, the Crafty, the For-mal, and the Prudent; . . . The Formal man may be compard to the meerSpeculative Philosopher: For he vainly reduces every thing to grave and solemn

general Rules . . . the Prudent man is like him who proceeds on a constant andsolid cours of Experiments.60

Hooke likewise claims in the Preface to the Micrographia (1665):

the real, the mechanical, the experimental Philosophy, which has this advantageover the Philosophy of discourse and disputation, that whereas that chiefly aims

at the subtilty of its Deductions and Conclusions, without much regard to thefirst ground-work, which ought to be well laid on the Sense and Memory; so

58 The most important early studies include Cohen (1956), pp. 127145, & Appendix I, pp. 575589;Cohen (1966); Koyre (1965). See also Hanson (1970); Pampusch (1974); Shapiro (1989, 2002); Achin-stein (1990); McMullin (1990).59 For a more detailed discussion of this distinction see Anstey (forthcoming).60 Sprat (1667), p. 341, underlining added. See also p. 257 where Sprat claims the method of the mem-

bers of the Royal Society to be chiefly bent upon the Operative, rather than the TheoreticalPhilosophy.For Sprat on method see Wood (1980).



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this intends the right ordering of them all, and the making them serviceable to

each other.61

And John Lockes opponent John Sergeant, in his The method to science (1696),sets the problem of the method of science in what by the end of the century were

very familiar terms of reference:

The METHODS which I pitch upon to examine, shall be of two sorts, viz.that of Speculative, and that ofExperimental Philosophers; The Former of

which pretend to proceed by Reason and Principles; the Later by Induction; and

both of them aim at advancing Science.62

This is not to say that there were no methodological differences or tensions

within the experimental camp: far from it. Mordechai Feingold has documented

the political fallout within the Society over the status and efficacy of the appli-

cation of the natural historical method in natural philosophy. And in this dispute,

Newton appears to have been opposed to the promoters of natural history, or at

least the more descriptive and taxonomic histories of generations and pretergenera-

tions.63 Yet throughout, the main opponent of natural philosophical progress was

thought to be the speculative or dogmatic philosopher. As John Dunton put it in

his student manual of 1692:

We must consider, the distinction we have made of Speculative and Experi-

mental [natural philosophy], and, as much as possible, Exclude the first, for anindefatigable and laborious Search into Natural Experiments, they being onlythe Certain, Sure Method to gather a true Body of Philosophy, for the Antient

Way of clapping up an entire building of Sciences, upon pure Contemplation,

may make indeed an Admirable Fabrick, but the Materials are such as can

promise no lasting one.64

Newton was clearly conceiving of his natural philosophical method within these

terms of reference as early as 1671, for he says in his Lectiones opticae:

I therefore urge geometers to investigate nature more rigorously, and those

devoted to natural science to learn geometry first. Hence the former shall not

entirely spend their time in speculations of no value to human life, nor shall the

latter, while working assiduously with an absurd method, perpetually fail to

reach their goal. But truly with the help of philosophical geometers and geo-

metrical philosophers, instead of the conjectures and probabilities that are now

61 Hooke (1665), sig. a2r, underlining added.62 Sergeant (1696), Preface, sig. b6r-v, underlining added.63 See Feingold (2001).64 Dunton (1692), pp. vivii.



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being blazoned about everywhere, we shall finally achieve a natural science sup-ported by the greatest evidence.65

It appears that this opposition to speculative natural philosophy gatheredforce in the 1680s as Descartess vortex theory came to be seen as the paradigmspeculative system divorced from experiment and observation. Furthermore, asI. Bernard Cohen has documented, an increasing antipathy towards hypothesesdeveloped in Newtons thought in the last decade of the century.66 It is inconceiv-able that Newton could have expressed himself as he did in his 1675 Hypothesisof light by the end of the 1690s.67 Newtons antipathy was matched by that ofLocke and others within the ambit of the Royal Society at the end of the century,irrespective of whether they were promoters of the method of natural history.Experimental natural philosophy was the rallying point for the anti-hypothetical-

ists even if they could not fully agree as to precisely what the new philosophyentailed.It is also important to note, in the light of this polemical context, that hypoth-

eses of any kind came to be tainted by the dangers and indulgences of the speculat-ive methodology. This is especially important in the case of Newton who clearlyused the term hypothesis with a variety of different senses, some of which were, infact, immune from the charge of speculation. It is symptomatic of the, at times,crude methodological polarisation within which Newton pursued his natural philo-sophy that the multifaceted nature and roles of hypotheses in his actual sciencewere obscured by the predominant anti-hypothetical stance which he and the pro-

moters of the experimental philosophy embraced. Needless to say, this has provento be a major stumbling block for his later interpreters over the last five decades asthey have sought to reconcile the tensions within Newtons very numerous refer-ences to hypotheses.

Aware of this background then, we turn now to the most famous of Newtonsqueries, the queries to the Opticks. They were appended to the first edition of 1704and expanded in the subsequent Latin translation of this edition (1706), and fur-ther augmented in the second edition of 1717. Happily Newton tells us why heincluded the queries in his Opticks of 1704 and the revised Latin queries of 1706.In his anonymous An account of the book entituled Commercium epistolicum(1715) Newton claims:

The Philosophy which Mr. Newton in his Principles and Optiques has pursued isExperimental; and it is not the Business of Experimental Philosophy to teach theCauses of things any further than they can be proved by Experiments. We are not

65 Lectiones opticae, Lecture 3, x29, Newton (1984), pp. 86/8788/89. In his letter to Boyle of 28 Feb-ruary 1678/1679 Newton expresses that his reluctance to share his thoughts on certain physical qualitiesarose, in part, because in natural philosophy there is no end of fansying (Newton, 19591977, Vol. II,p. 288).66 Cohen (1966), p. 179.67 For Newtons An hypothesis explaining the properties of light discoursed of in my severall papers

see Newton (19591977), Vol. I, pp. 362386.



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to fill this Philosophy with Opinions which cannot be proved by Phnomena. Inthis Philosophy Hypotheses have no place, unless as Conjectures or Questionsproposed to be examined by Experiments. For this Reason Mr. Newton in his

Optiques distinguished those things which were made certain by Experimentsfrom those things which remained uncertain, and which he therefore proposed inthe End of his Optiques in the Form of Queries.68

One cannot help but be struck by Newtons emphasis on the experimental philo-sophy. He goes on to contrast it with what he elsewhere calls the Hypotheticalphilosophy69 of Descartes, More, and, in particular, Leibniz. It was Leibnizsexchange with Nicolaus Hartsoeker, with its implicit criticism of Newtons method,that provided the polemical context that gave rise to these comments.70 Note too,the continuity with the methodological claims made in his correspondence with

Oldenburg from the 1670s: the denial that he is seeking after causes;71

the claimthat hypotheses have no place in natural philosophy; the claim that questions orconjectures were proposed for experimental investigation; and most importantly,the claim that theories made certain by experiments should be distinguished fromthat which remains uncertain and that the latter are put forward in the form ofqueries. One cannot help but recall Hookes claim some fifty years earlier thatwhat appear to be hypotheses should be understood only as Conjectures andQuries. Those things which remain uncertain in Newtons mind are not to beproposed as hypotheses unless as Conjectures or Questions. Thus, queries func-tion in the Opticks as de facto hypotheses.

A number of points need to be stressed from this explanation by Newton ofhis use of queries in the Opticks. First, it appears that the queries in the Opticksperform a different function to those in the letter to Oldenburg of 6 July 1672and elsewhere. To be sure, when Newton introduces the queries in the Opticks(in the briefest of transitional sentences), he claims that they are proposed inorder to a further search to be made by others.72 But this merely serves tounderline their conjectural nature rather than to tie them to an experimental pro-gramme and to a particular theoretical discussion. Indeed, it is evident on even acursory perusal of the texts that some of the queries appended to the Opticks are

significantly longer than those deployed in the controversy over the natureof coloured light in the 1670s. In the Opticks Newton does not simply state hisqueries, but in many cases adds observational considerations and explores theirnatural philosophical and methodological implications. Queries here sometimesfunction as launching pads into extended discussions of phenomena, method, and

68 An account of the book entituled Commercium epistolicum, p. 222, facs. reproduction in Hall (1980),p. 312.69 See his letter to Roger Cotes of March 1713, in Newton (19591977), Vol. V, pp. 398390.70 For the immediate polemical background to these comments see Westfall (1980), pp. 730731, and

Newton (19591977), Vol. V, pp. 298301.71 See Newton (19591977), Vol. I, p. 418.72 Newton (1704), Book II, p. 132.



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natural philosophy in a manner that is unprecedented in their earlier uses. This isespecially the case in the second edition of 1717, as evidenced, for example, in thefamous thirty-first query.

Having said this however, it is important to stress that some of the early queriesto the Opticks do read like contributions to an experimental natural history withnew observations being added to the second edition as supplementary observa-tional evidence. For example, in the second edition, Newton adds a subsidiaryquery followed by a substantial number of examples of shining bodies to Query 8,a query which concerns bodies emitting light. Queries such as these are closer tothe use that Bacon himself advocated, where they are to stimulate the gathering ofobservational evidence. Furthermore, Query 28 of the second edition (which isQuery 20 of the 1706 Latin edition, but is absent from the first edition) ends with amethodological comment on feigning hypotheses followed by a list of a further

fourteen queries set out as desiderata for natural philosophical inquiry.73

This rein-forces the fact that in spite of the novel discursive nature of some of the queries tothe Opticks, Newton is still very much wedded to this facet of the Baconianmethod.

Finally, the passage from An account is of importance because it explicitly statesa methodological continuity between the Principia and the Opticks on the questionof the conjectural. Newton is at pains to point out those passages in the Principiawhich are analogous to the queries of the Opticks in so far as he is unable to giveexperimental support to various phenomena.74 The continuity here is not, ofcourse, in the deployment of queries, for queries are not used in the Principia.Rather the continuity lies in the manner in which in both works Newton is at painsto stress when he makes the transition from that which is certain or demonstratedfrom the phenomena of nature to that which is speculative. Thus, for example,Newton cites passages from the Preface and the General Scholium of the secondedition of the Principia in which he states his ignorance of the nature of the forcessuch as gravitational attraction.

6. Conclusion

From the foregoing discussion we are able to glean that Newton found three dif-ferent, though not entirely discrete, uses for his queries. First, he employed queriesas general questions arising from reflection on problems on natural philosophy.This use is evident in his early reading notes on the natural philosophy of Hookeand Descartes. The queries written out in response to his reading in turn becamethe stimulus for further reflection. That he continued to employ this use of queriesuntil late in his life, though not in natural philosophical inquiry, is evidenced, forexample, by a list of twenty-three queries on the word homoousios datable to

73 Newton (1717), pp. 344345 = Newton (1706), pp. 314315.74 For discussion of the place of the queries in the overall project of the Opticks and the reception of

the queries by Desaguliers and Hales, see Cohen (2001), pp. 2122.



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post-1715.75 Second, he employed queries as intermediate heuristic devices forsteering an established experimental programme. This is the function of the querieslisted in his letter to Oldenburg of 6 July 1672. Third, in the Opticks he used quer-

ies as de facto hypotheses on which he elaborated in a discursive, even speculativemanner. Thus for Newton the query proved to be a multi-purpose methodologicaltool. No longer do queries function merely as an issue or locus for debate andreflection as they did in the scholastic disputation. Rather, from the mid-1660s,queries for Newton increasingly became the stimulus for empirical inquiry. Yet,somewhat ironically, in the latter decades of his life when the experimental philo-sophy had become more firmly established, Newton appears to have widened thescope of his use of queries to include speculations. The discursive pursuit of natu-ral philosophical problems that we find in the final queries to the second edition ofthe Opticks is wholly absent in his use of queries in the 1670s. This is a really quiteradical change in Newtons use of queries76 and it may even represent a return to amore scholastic-like deployment of queries, albeit within the domain of the newnatural philosophy.

Of more importance, however, is what his use of queries reveals to us about hismethodological views and their context. Newtons use of queries represents a sig-nificant Baconian legacy in his scientific methodology. This is not simply a matterof continuity in the employment of a literary form, but rather it is indicative of adeeper methodological continuity with the Baconian programme for natural philo-sophy. The formulation of queries for Newton, as for Hooke, Boyle, and others,

comprised a discrete stage in a heuristic programme designed to explicate naturaland experimental phenomena.77 However tempting it may be rationally to recon-struct their role in specific contexts of deployment in terms of hypotheses, thisshould be resisted. For, in the case of Newton (and Hooke), queries were employedexplicitly as alternatives to hypotheses. Finally, even if as a result of a very fine-grained analysis of the actual methodology that Newton employed in the Principia(such as that recently provided by George Smith78) it can be shown that its meth-odology is different to that of the Opticks, this should not diminish their impor-

75

They are to be found in Kings College Library, Cambridge, Keynes MS 11, SL269 18. A transcrip-tion is available at The Newton Project, Imperial College London, http://www.newtonproject.ic.ac.uk/web_keynes/keynes011.xml. Another set of questions among Newtons theological papers is entitledParadoxical Questions concerning the morals & actions of Athanasius & his followers and is datable tothe early 1690s. It is Kings College, Cambridge, England, Keynes MS. 10 SL268 18 and a transcriptionis available at The Newton Project, Imperial College London, http://www.newtonproject.ic.ac.uk/web_keynes/keynes010w.xml. Rob Iliffe drew my attention to these questions.76 Michael Hunter stressed this point to me in a private communication.77 That Westfall completely missed the methodological origins of Newtons queries is summed up in his

comment on the Trinity Notebook that [p]erhaps it was not wholly coincidence that in his final formu-lation some fifty years later . . . the word Query echoed the earlier word Quaestio (Westfall, 1962,

p. 178).78 Smith (2002). There is some disagreement in the secondary literature over the relation between the

methodologies employed in the Principia (Newton, 1999) and the Opticks. See for example Cohen(1980); McGuire (1970), and Achinstein (1990), pp. 171172 n. 28.



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tance within the broader framework of Newtons methodological views and thecontext in which they arose. Nearly fifty years ago I. Bernard Cohen claimed that[t]he BaconBoyle approach to natural philosophy did influence Newtons specu-

lative experimental science.79

Apart from the expression speculative experimental,which to early modern ears would have been an oxymoron, Cohen was basicallyright. Newtons use of the method of queries is arguably the best proof ofCohens claim.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Mordechai Feingold, John Gascoigne, Michael Hunter,and Rob Iliffe for their constructive comments on this paper.

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Documents

The Methodological Origins of Newtons Queries