Newton’s Principia: Rules of Reasoning in Natural Philosophy
Trans. A. Motte, 1729
rule i
We are to admit no more causes of natural things than such as are both true and sufficient to
explain their appearances.
To this purpose the philosophers say that Nature does nothing in vain, and more is in vain when less will
serve; for Nature is pleased with simplicity, and affects not the pomp of superfluous causes.
rule ii
Therefore to the same natural effects we must, as far as possible, assign the same causes.
As to respiration in a man and in a beast; the descent of stones in Europe and in America; the light of
our culinary fire and of the sun; the reflection of light in the earth, and in the planets.
rule iii
The qualities of bodies, which admit neither intension nor remission of degrees, and which
are found to belong to all bodies within the reach of our experiments, are to be esteemed the
universal qualities of all bodies whatsoever.
For since the qualities of bodies are only known to us by experiments, we are to hold for universal all such
as universally agree with experiments; and such as are not liable to diminution can never be quite taken
away. We are certainly not to relinquish the evidence of experiments for the sake of dreams and vain
fictions of our own devising; nor are we to recede from the analogy of Nature, which uses to be simple,
and always consonant to itself. We no other way know the extension of bodies than by our senses, nor do
these reach it in all bodies; but because we perceive extension in all that are sensible, therefore we ascribe
it universally to all others also. That abundance of bodies are hard, we learn by experience; and because
the hardness of the whole arises from the hardness of the parts, we therefore justly infer the hardness of
the undivided particles not only of the bodies we feel but of all others. That all bodies are impenetrable,
we gather not from reason, but from sensation. The bodies which we handle we find impenetrable, and
thence conclude impenetrability to be an universal property of all bodies whatsoever. That all bodies
are moveable, and endowed with certain powers (which we call the vires inertiæ) of persevering in their
motion, or in their rest we only infer from the like properties observed in the bodies which we have
Newton’s Principia: Rules
seen. The extension, hardness, impenetrability, mobility, and vis inertiæ of the whole, result from the
extension hardness, impenetrability, mobility, and vires inertiæ of the parts; and thence we conclude
the least particles of all bodies to be also all extended, and hard and impenetrable, and moveable, and
endowed with their proper vires inertiæ. And this is the foundation of all philosophy. Moreover, that the
divided but contiguous particles of bodies may be separated from one another, is matter of observation;
and, in the particles that remain undivided, our minds are able to distinguish yet lesser parts, as is
mathematically demonstrated. But whether the parts so distinguished, and not yet divided, may, by the
powers of Nature, be actually divided and separated from one another, we cannot certainly determine.
Yet, had we the proof of but one experiment that any undivided particle, in breaking a hard and solid
body, offered a division, we might by virtue of this rule conclude that the undivided as well as the divided
particles may be divided and actually separated to infinity.
Lastly, if it universally appears, by experiments and astronomical observations, that all bodies about
the earth gravitate towards the earth, and that in proportion to the quantity of matter which they
severally contain, that the moon likewise, according to the quantity of its matter, gravitates towards the
earth; that, on the other hand, our sea gravitates towards the moon; and all the planets mutually one
towards another; and the comets in like manner towards the sun; we must, in consequence of this rule,
universally allow that all bodies whatsoever are endowed with a principle of mutual gravitation. For the
argument from the appearances concludes with more force for the universal gravitation of all bodies than
that for their impenetrability; of which, among those in the celestial regions, we have no experiments,
nor any manner of observation. Not that I affirm gravity to be essential to bodies: by their vis insita I
mean nothing but their vis inertiæ. This is immutable. Their gravity is diminished as they recede from
the earth.
rule iv
In experimental philosophy we are to look upon propositions collected by general induction
from phænomena as accurately or very nearly true, notwithstanding any contrary hypotheses
that may be imagined, till such time as other phænomena occur, by which they may either be
made more accurate, or liable to exceptions.
This rule we must follow, that the argument of induction may not be evaded by hypotheses.
