theological voluntarism and biological analogies

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Theological Voluntarism and Biological Analogies in Newton's Physical ThoughtAuthor(s): Henry GuerlacReviewed work(s):Source: Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 44, No. 2 (Apr. - Jun., 1983), pp. 219-229Published by: University of Pennsylvania Press

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THEOLOGICAL VOLUNTARISM AND

BIOLOGICAL ANALOGIES

IN NEWTON'S PHYSICAL THOUGHT

BY HENRY GUERLAC*

My title needs a word of explanation.We do not thinkfirst, if at

all, of biology, anatomicalknowledge, or vitalistic excursions whenwe hear the name of Sir Isaac Newton. Moreover, the word "biol-

ogy" is of course an anachronismsince it was coined long afterNewton's time, but for simpleconvenienceI shall use it. In any case,

the scholarshipof recent years-heavily indebted to the study ofmanuscriptsources-has moved us well beyond the old image ofNewton as the quintessential skeptical scientist, loath to "frame,"that is to conjureup, hypotheses.

The articlesof J. E. McGuire, ocussingless on Newton's physicsthanon what he calls Newton's "naturalPhilosophy," a much-cited

paperby DavidKubrin,and the pioneerstudies on Newton's alchemyby B. J. Dobbs, KarenFigala, and RichardWestfall have called our

attentionto less familiar raitsof Newton's thought:the privateandcovert speculationsto which there arecrypticallusionsandtantaliz-

ing hints in his publishedwritings.Newton's greatest work, the Principia of 1687, that foundation of

rational mechanics, offers hardly a hint of the speculative currents

running deep beneath the cool, mathematical surface of that greatbook. There is but a single passage suggesting concern for living

matter, and only a passing and ephemeral reference to divine guidance

in nature until the appearance of the second edition of the Principiain 1713.1But the Opticks,with which I shallbe mainlyconcerned, is quite

anothermatter.Firstpublished n 1704, ongafterhis classic paperon

light and color, and soon translatedinto Latin for Continentalcon-

sumption,it was destinedin the author's ateryears to appear n twolater English editions, a second Latin translation,and two French

* Read at a conference on "Science, Myth, and Knowledge" of the Northeastern

American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies held at M.I.T. in October 1981.

1The word "ephemeral" applies because Newton dropped this short passage

from later editions. See I. Bernard Cohen, Introduction to Newton's 'Principia'

(Cambridge, Mass., 1971), 154-156. Professor Cohen suggests that Newton elimi-

nated it because it was out of place, or because it was singled out by Leibniz in his

review of thePrincipia in theActa Eruditorum. I think itjust as likely that the addition

in 1713 of the General Scholium, with its elaborate theological treatment, rendered

the earlier passage superfluous.

219

Copyright April 1983 by JOURNALOFTHEHISTORYOFIDEAS,INC.







220 HENRY GUERLAC

editions. In this process it underwentsuccessive modificationsnota-

bly, but notexclusively, inthe so-calledQueriesappended o themainwork.TheQueriesare

deliberatelyset

apartrom the

bodyof the text,

andare cast in the interrogativevoice. They are franklyspeculative,butconstituteneverthelessanavowal of Newton's underlyingconvic-tions or at least his seriousconjectures.It is here, in the Queries,thatNewton "indulgedbold andexcentricthoughts," as Joseph Priestleyputit longafter,revealing hat"quickconceptionof distantanalogies,which is the greatkey to unlock the secrets of nature."2 These aresometimes stated clearly, more often they are cryptic and opaquepronouncements.Such mattersI shall touch upon later; but first, I

wish only to derive fromthe Optickssome notionof Newton's aware-ness and considerableknowledgeof living nature.

Since the Opticksdeals with lightandcolor, we are not surprisedto find in it severalpassagesrelating o humanvision. Here andthere,too, are referencesto colorphenomena rom the biologicalworld:theiridescence of a peacock's tail, color effects seen in the webs of

spiders, the changingcolors of dying flowers or of autumnfoliage.Vision, of course, receives the closest attention. Newton wonders

how we see, suggestingearlyin the book (inAxiom VII, which meanshe takes it as established)that images on the retina are "propagatedby Motionalong the Fibres of the OptickNerves into the Brain."3

In rough terms (by today's standards)Newton understood thechief anatomicalstructuresof the humaneye and how they perform.His knowledgewas doubtlessmainlyderivative.4Ever since Kepler,indeed earlier in a reference by the Swiss physician, Felix Platter

(1536-1614), cientistshadrecognizedthe crystallinehumor(the lens)

as the chief focussing element of the eye, andthe retinaas the screenon which the image appears, inverted as in the camera obscura.Newton remarks hatanatomists,afterremoving he toughoutercoat,what we call the sclera, have seen "the Pictures of Objects livelypainted"on the retina.5LikeDescartes, whoseDioptrique(1637)wasa chief source for Newton's knowledge of physiological optics, he

2Joseph Priestley: Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air

(London, 1774),249.3 Opticks(DoverPublications,New York, 1952)Ax. VII, 14-16.Thispaperback

is a photographic eprintof the editionpublishedby G. Bell (London,1931)basedon

the probably raudulent th edition of 1730.It is by no meansa reliabletext. I cite it

only because of its readyavailability,hopingthat a critical,annotatededition of the

Opticksmay soon become available.4 Yet amongNewton's manuscriptss a largedrawingof a sheep's eye, accom-

paniedby carefulmeasurementswhichare surely by Newton. This was reproduced

by David Brewster in his Memoirs of the Life, Writings, and Discoveries of Sir Isaac

Newton (2 vols, London, 1855)I, 20-421.5 Opticks, 15. Newton refers to removing"that outwardand most thick Coat

called the Dura Mater." This is clearlya mistake.







ANALOGIES IN NEWTON'S PHYSICAL THOUGHT 221

comparesthe functioningof the eye to this "vulgarexperiment"ofthe camera obscura, made popular by the Natural Magick ofG. B. Della Porta. He

goes on, perhapssurprisingly,o describe the

optic chiasma, where there is a 'decussation' or crossing over of the

opticnerves, nervesfromthe righteye passingto the occipitallobe onthe left side of the brain,andnerves fromthe left eye goingto the righthemisphere. Newton suggests that this is probablya feature found

only in higheranimalswith binocularvision.6Newton's understandableconcernfor color vision took some in-

terestingby-ways. He noted the apparentharmonyanddissonanceofdifferentpairsof colors, as well as thepersistenceof color sensations.And he reports his discovery that the maximumsensitivity of thehumaneye is to the yellow-orangeportionof the spectrum,a fact that

psycho-physiologistsand trafficexperts have amply confirmed.The Queries appendedto the Opticks, phrasedas questions, al-

lowed Newton greatfreedom to raise possible solutions to problemsand to suggest answers to be tested by later investigators.In one ofthe Queries of 1704(others were added later), Newton, elaboratingwhat he had announced n Axiom VII, suggests that the rays of light

excite vibrations n the retinaand thatthese "being propagatedalongthe solid Fibres of the optick Nerves into the Brain, cause the Senseof seeing."7 The very next Query, Query 13, asks whether the"several sorts of Rays make Vibrationsof several bignesses, which

according to their bignesses excite Sensations of several Colours,much after the mannerthat the Vibrations of the Air, accordingto

their severalbignesses excite Sensationsof several Sounds?"8When

later,for reasonsI shallnot explorehere, Newton introduced ntohis

Opticks,in 1717/18, the notion of a tenuousaether, he asks whethervision is performed,not (as he hadsuggestedearlier)by vibrations nthe solid substance of the nerve fibers but by the vibrations of thissubtle medium passing along the nerves.9 He takes matters a stepfurther,and asks whethermuscularcontractionmay not originate n"Vibrationsof this Medium,excited in the Brainby thepower of the

Will, and propagatedfrom thence through the solid, pellucid anduniformCapillamenta f the Nerves into the Muscles, for contracting

and dilatingthem?"10We may now inquirewhether there was a deeper sense in which

the world of living things helped shape Newton's philosophy of na-ture?Nature, which he describedas "very conformable o herself,"

6Opticks, Query 15, 346-347.For Newton's theoryof "semi-decussation,"see

Brewster,I, 226-229andAppendixIII. It was first set forthin MS. Add. 3975,fols.

17-18.In the PortsmouthPapersof the University Library,Cambridge.7Opticks, Query 12, p. 345. 8 Opticks, Query 13, ibid.

9Opticks, Query 23, p. 353.10 Opticks, Query, 24, 353-354. The italics are mine.







222 HENRY GUERLAC

is, despite her infinite variety, markedby an inner simplicity and

fitness, clearlythe result of Divine Wisdom.This appliesnot only tothe order of the

planetaryscheme,but

also,of course-as John

Rayhadshownin almost tiresomedetail-to the world of livingforms. So

Newton, playingthenatural heologian,argued,according o the rulesof what was later calledthe argument romdesignand the text of theBook of Nature, that just as the wonderfuluniformityof the solar

system must be the result of choice, so must be too the often similar

designin the bodies of higheranimals-their bilateralsymmetry,the

homologous structures n vertebrates,and the artfulcontrivances of

specializedorgans.A somewhatsurprising xampleof the latter n hislist of the "artificial"partsof creatures s the swimbladder,thevesica

natandi, an organ in bony fish that assists their vertical motion in

water. First described by GuillaumeRondelet in the sixteenth cen-

tury, mentionedby HenryMoreandalso by JohnRay in his Wisdom

of God manifested in the Worksof Creation (1691), the function of the

swim bladderwas first carefully analyzedby GiovanniBorelli in his

posthumousDe motu animalium(1680), where it is prefaced by an

elegant account of Archimedes on floatingbodies to make the func-

tioning of this interesting structure clear. Newton had both books(JohnRay's andBorelli's)in his library,so it is hardto say which washis source."

Newton's was no staticuniverse,andas we probemoredeeplywenote his interest in the transformationsthat are everywhere to be

seen, above all in the world of living things. Such changes, he re-

marks,are "very conformable o the Courseof Nature, which seems

delightedwith Transmutations."After giving examples of chemical

and physical change, he writes:

Eggs growfrominsensibleMagnitudes,and changeinto Animals;Tadpolesinto Frogs;and Wormsinto Flies,12

commentsthatsuggesthis awareness of the resultsobtainedby Fran-cesco Redi, Swammerdam,and Malpighi n their studies of animal

generationandinsect metamorphosis.The workof all these men wasaccessible to Newton from accountsintheRoyal Society'sPhilosoph-ical Transactions and from John Ray's Wisdom of God. But Newtoncontinues:

AllBirds,BeastsandFishes, Insects, Trees,andotherVegetables,withtheirseveral Parts, grow out of Water and watry tinctures and Salts, and byPutrefactionreturnagaininto watrySubstances.13

'1 John Harrison: The Library ofIsaac Newton (Cambridge, 1978), No. 245, p. 106

andNo. 1376,p. 224.Newton's copyof Ray'sWisdomof God was the secondedition

of 1692"very much enlarged."A passingreferenceto the swim bladderoccurs inHenry More's Antidote against Atheisme (1653), which Newton also had in his

library. 12 Opticks, Query 30, p. 375. 13 Ibid.








There are surely echoes here of Van Helmont's willow tree experi-ment, and the similarattempts of Robert Boyle to prove that onlywater is

requiredfor the

growthof

plants. Earlier,in the

Principia,Newton was even more specific, notingthat

the seas are absolutely necessary to the constitutionof our earth,that from

them,the sun, by its heat, mayexhalea sufficientquantityof vapors,which,being gathered ogether nto clouds, may dropdownin rain,forwatering heearth and for the productionand nourishment of vegetables . . . for all

vegetablesentirelyderive theirgrowthsfrom fluids.14

Newton's preoccupationwithtransmutationound

expressionin a

curiouspictureof agreat cycle of change n whichallaspects of nature

take part. The key to his imagined transformationwas Newton's

belief, set fortheven in thePrincipiaof 1687,that the tails of comets

consist of a very fine vaporwhich, continuouslyrarefiedand dilated

by the sun's heat, is scattered throughthe heavens where it is at-

tracted towards the planets by their gravitational orce, and mixed

withtheiratmospheres.In thisway the bulkof the earth s maintained

or increased,andits fluids "if they arenot suppliedfromwithout"in

thismanner"must be in a continualdecrease, andquitefailat last." 15

In mid-career,while immersed n his alchemicalstudies, Newton

concludedthat the processes of generationandgrowth,and the spec-tacle of so many diverse living forms, could not be explained (anymore than the orderly motion of the planets) by purely mechanical

agencies. Fromhis tirelessreading n the alchemical iteratureandhis

own alchemicalexperiments,he conceived of a process takingplaceon a level deeper than ordinaryphysical and chemical change, a

process he called "vegetation." Despite its name, "vegetation" un-

derlaychanges inall threekingdomsof nature: he mineralas well as

the animal or vegetable. Newton called its active agent the "vegeta-tive spirit."6 Fora timehe thought hat an aethermightplaythatrole,but later he wrotethatperhaps he aethermerelyservedas the vehicle

for "some more active spirit," andthis he identifiedwith the "bodyof light." He could never completely free himself from this alluring

14 Principia (1687), 506. For the English, see Sir Isaac Newton's Mathematical

Principles of Natural Philosophy. Trans. by Andrew Motte, ed. Florian Cajori

(Berkeley, 1934),529-30,to be cited as Motte-Cajori.5Principia(1687),506;Motte-Cajori,530.

16"Ofnature'sobviouslawsandprocessesinvegetation,"BurndyMS 16,Smith-

sonian Institution, Washington, D.C. This manuscriptwas first described byB. J. T. Dobbs, who generouslysuppliedme with a copy of herunpublishedpaper,

"Newton's AlchemyandHis Theoryof Matter."EllenB. Wells,Rare Book Librar-ian, SmithsoniannstitutionLibraries,kindlysentmea xeroxcopyof this interesting

manuscript.







224 HENRY GUERLAC

notion, andthereare traces of it in the earlyQueriesin the Opticksof1704.Nevertheless, althoughthe "vegetative spirit" is never men-

tioned,this

conceptionseems to have

preparedhis mindfor his treat-

ment of "active principles"as the cause of motion.For a very special reason, the problem of the cause of motion

deeply concerned Newton in his lateryears. Criticismof his doctrineof gravitationalattraction, which Leibniz and the Cartesians de-scribedas an occult quality, was bad enough. But in 1704,the yearthatsaw thepublicationof the Opticks,the radicaldeist, JohnToland,broughtout hisLettersto Serena. Inthis slimbook, Tolandraised the

ghostlydemon thatNewton, formany years, hadhopedto exorcise.17This was the idea that matter, far from being absolutely inert, as

Henry More and Newton too had insisted, was inherently active.Thus the gravitationof bodies resultedfrom an innate, or essential,

qualityof matter,the cause of motion. To makethingsworse, Toland

appearedto link his doctrine with Newton, on whom he lavishedfulsome praise. Yet all his professionallife, at least, we can be sure,fromthe time of his famousexchangeswith RichardBentley, Newtonwas firm in hisbelief that to conceive of matteras havingthe capacityfor motionas an essential, definingqualitywas a surepathto atheismsince it implied a materialuniverse totally self-sufficient, operatingwithoutthe intercession of a Deity.18

Newton's disciple, Samuel Clarke, defended Newton from this

imputationin his Boyle Lectures of 1705, specifically referringtoToland. And it was doubtless in reply to Tolandthat Newton addedto theLatin editionof hisOpticks n 1706 he flatstatementthatmatteris inertandendowedonly with a vis inertiae,a "passive principle"by

whichbodies remainat rest or in motion,butthis "passive principle"cannotgeneratemotion: "Some otherPrinciple s necessary for put-ting Bodies into Motion" and for conserving this motion once it is

produced.19 uch "active principles"hadfor some timeplayeda keyrole in Newton's imaginaryuniverse. Since, he wrote in the Opticks,the "variety of Motion we find in the Worldis always decreasing,

17 JohnToland:Letters to Serena (London, 1704).See esp. LetterV. A modern

facsimile,whichI have notseen, waspublished nStuttgartn 1964.Forotheraspectsof Toland's ife see MargaretC. Jacob,"ClandestineCulturen the EarlyEnlighten-ment," in HarryWoolfed., TheAnalyticSpirit(Ithaca,N.Y., 1981),122-45andherThe Radical Enlightenment: Pantheists, Freemasons and Republicans (London,1981),passim andbibliography.

18 See my Newton et Epicure (Paris, Palais de la Decouverte, 1963), reprinted in

my Essays and Papers in the History of Modern Science (Baltimore and London,

1977).The subject s treatedfroma differentpointof view by ErnanMcMullin n his

Newton on Matter and Activity (Notre Dame, Indiana, and London, 1978).19For the Latin original see Newton's Optice: sive de Reflexionibus, Refraction-ibus, Inflexionibus & Coloribus (London, 1706, 340-41.








there is a necessity of conservingand recruiting t by active Princi-

ples," such as are the cause of gravity and cohesion; by which"Bodies

acquiregreatMotionsin

falling;"and whichare the cause of

Fermentation,by which the "HeartandBlood of Animalsare keptin

perpetualMotion and Heat."20Indeed, he goes on, "we meet with

very little Motionin the World,besides whatis owingto these active

Principles."An interestingmodificationappears n the Latinof 1706:

"praeterquamquod vel ex his Principiis actuosis, vel ex imperioVoluntatis,manifesto oritur."21Thiswe may give as it appears n the

Englishversion of Quaestio23 where Newton wrote to be renderedinto Latin: "besides what is visibly owing to these active principlesand the power of the will." The "either ... or" construction that wefind inthe Latin(vel... vel) is significantlynotpresent.Thereferenceto will (voluntas) is droppedfromthe second Englishedition of 1717and the second Latin of 1719.

Thesubjectof active andpassive principleshasbeentakenupwith

typicalverve by my friendJ. E. McGuire n several articles, notably(frommy point of view) a paperof 1977presentedat a ClarkLibrarySeminarat U.C.L.A.22He will not protest, I hope, if I use certain of

his findingsand expand on them somewhat.The dualismbetween the activeprinciple, responsiblefor motion

andchange,andthepassive principleon whichthey act, goes back atleast to Aristotle with his activating 'form' and passive 'matter.'

Drawingupon the testimony of Seneca, Cicero, and Galen, Justus

Lipsius describes the Stoics as buildingtheir scheme of natureon asimilar duality. The Greek physicians, we know, divided the four

qualitiescharacterizinghe 'humours'of thehumanbodyintotwo that

are active (the hot andthe cold)andtwo thatarepassive (the dryandthe wet). Likewise the alchemists and some seventeenth-centurychemists divided their five 'elements' into two classes: three activechemicalprinciples('spirit', oil, andsalt) andtwo passive (waterand

earth). The doctrine is mentioned without enthusiasm in Robert

Boyle's Sceptical Chymist(1661)andin Nicolas Lemery's immenselypopular Cours de Chymie, a book that Newton knew well in the

Englishtranslationof 1698.Among theologiansandphilosophersthe

doctrine was familiarto Henry More and Ralph Cudworth,the twoCambridgePlatonists who influencedNewton, andto JohnLocke andJohnRay as well.

20Opticks, Query31, p. 399.

21 Optice (1706), 343. My italics except for the word 'Voluntatis.22 J. E.

McGuire,"NeoplatonismandActive

Principles:Newtonandthe CorpusHermeticum,"in Robert S. Westman and J. E. McGuire,Hermeticismand theScientific Revolution (Los Angeles, 1977), 95-133.







226 HENRY GUERLAC

MoreandCudworth, n whatMr.McGuirecallsa "spiritualizationof nature,"soughtto "restatethe programof the mechanicalphiloso-phy." They both believed that God must operate on the physicaluniverse through some inferior spiritual intelligences, beings thatalone can produce motion and change in inertpassive matter.Morecalled his the hylarchicspirit-the matter-ruling pirit-while Cud-worth speaks ofplastick natures as the agents that execute the lawsof nature. JohnRay, in his Wisdomof God, gave wide circulationtoCudworth'sdoctrine and asserted that God, to effect the generationandgrowthof plants, indeed their whole "Oeconomy," invokes "thesubordinateMinistry of some inferior Plastick Nature, as, in the

Works of Providence, he doth of Angels."Yet Ray points out that Robert Boyle in his ChristianVirtuoso

(1690)had no use for such entities mediatingbetween God and the

physicaluniverse. ForBoyle, Godacts, as Newton believed to be the

case, immediatelyand directly.In the later editions Newton repeats what he believes these "ac-

tive Principles"do, buthe does not even hintat whattheyare orhowthese arisein the firstplace. Theyarenot, he insists, occult qualities,

but must be deemed "general Laws of Nature, by which the Thingsthemselves are form'd;theirTruthappearing o us by Phaenomena,thoughtheir Cause be not yet discover'd."23This, of course, is the

familiar,quasi-positivistic tance Newton adoptsin defending hefactof universalgravitation.Althoughhe disclaimsany knowledgeof thecauseof gravity,he cannevertheless describeinprecisemathematical

languagehow it operates.There is little doubt Newton believed that God, directly or indi-

rectly, was the cause of motion, as of everything else. There arecertainpassages that suggest that "active principles"are the agentsor intermediariesof God's will, like More's hylarchicalprinciplesorCudworth's"plastick natures." But this may have been a passingaberration.24t seems to be widely accepted that for Newton, God'saction is direct. In a 1962paper by AlexandreKoyre and I. BernardCohen, "Newton andthe Leibniz-ClarkeCorrespondence,"we read

23 Opticks, p. 401.

24 In the 1670s there are at least two instances. In his "Hypothesis explaining the

Properties of Light" (1675) he wrote: "God, who gave animals self-motion beyondour understanding, is, without doubt, able to implant other principles of motion in

bodies, which we may understand as little." Thomas Birch, History of the Royal

Society, III, 255 and Newton, Correspondence I, 370. In the "De Aere et Aethere"

which the Halls date between 1673 and 1675, we read that "God may have created

a certain incorporeal nature which seeks to repel bodies and make them less packed

together." Much later, Samuel Clarke, the voice of Newton in his exchange of letters

with Leibniz, wrote: "In all void space, God is certainly present, and possibly manyother substances which are not

matter; beingneither

tangible,nor

objectsof our

senses." H. G. Alexander, ed. The Leibniz-Clarke Correspondence (Manchester,

1956), 47.








". .. in the Newtonian metaphysics there was really no place for the

'hylarchical principle,' an entity mediatingbetween God and theworld. The Newtonian God did not need such a mediator:he actedhimself."25 Thereis a famouspassagein the Opticks(Query31)whichfirst appeared n the Latin of 1706where Newton, in suggestingthat

space is, or is like, God's sensorium, writes as if God's action isimmediateand direct. "God, a powerful, ever-living Agent, who be-

ing in all places is more able by his Will to move bodies within his

boundless uniformSensorium, and thereby to form and reform thePartsof the Universe, than we by our Will to move the Partsof ourown Bodies.... He is a uniformBeing, void of... MembersorParts,andthey [livingformsandinertmatter]arehis Creatures ubordinateto him, and subservient to his will. .. ."26

The theological roots of this stress on the divine Will are clear

enoughand of great age, thoughto tracethemin detail would exceed

my capacity.27But I need hardlyremindyou that in Christian heol-

ogy, both Catholicand Protestant, God's perfection or his essencewas understoodto consist of three fundamentalattributes:His Wis-

dom, His Goodness, and His Power.

Medieval theologians of the Latin West, for the most part, fol-lowed St. ThomasAquinaswho heldwhat is called the intellectualist

position in which the Wisdomand Goodness of God's essence are

stressed at the expense of His Power. Later philosophers, notablyDuns Scotus and William of Ockham,insisted that God's Will was

subjectto no such limitations.With the Reformation, his voluntarist

position enjoyed great popularityamongProtestantthinkers.In En-

glandand Americathe CalvinistPuritansespeciallyexaltedthe Divine

Will over God's otherattributes.28Not all Protestantdivinestook thisposition, of course, and the voluntarismof Thomas Hobbes came

underattackfromthe CambridgePlatonists, Henry Moreand RalphCudworth,who in othermatters,as we know, exerted a stronginflu-

ence on Newton. More, for example, wrote in his Divine Dialogues

(1668)that rationalgoodness, ratherthanpower, is the true basis of

God's sovereignty.Here again Newton parted companywith these early influences

upon him. In Newton's religious manuscriptshoused in Jerusalem,and recently studiedby FrankManuel,we find a stronglyexpressed

25Alexandre Koyr6 and I. Bernard Cohen: "Newton and the Leibniz-Clarke

Correspondence," Archives Internationales d'Histoire des Sciences, 15 (1962), 58,

note 57.26 Opticks, 403. The italics are mine.27 A useful introduction to voluntarism is Vernon J. Bourke's Will in Western

Thought: An Historico-Critical Survey (New York, 1964).28Perry Miller, The New England Mind (reissue, Cambridge, Mass., 1954), espec.

101, 233-34. (First published in 1938.)







228 HENRY GUERLAC

voluntaristview of the Divinity. In one manuscriptNewton writesthatGod "requiredof us to be celebratednot so muchfor his essenceas forhis actions, the creating,preserving,andgoverningof all things

accordingto his good will and pleasure." And again:"For the wordGod relates not to the metaphysicalnature of God but to his domin-ion."29 These and other passages anticipate the famous GeneralScholiumwithwhichNewton in 1713concluded the second editionofhis Principia. Here stress on Divine Will and God's dominion is a

major heme. For those whohave not readit recently,a few sentencescan give the flavor of this extraordinary ndingto Newton's master-

piece on rationalmechanics: God "governsall things,not as the soul

of the world, but as Lordover all;andon account of his dominionheis wont to be called Lord God Pantokrator, or Universal Ruler; for

God is a relative word, and has a respect to servants." ... "a beinghowever perfect, without dominion, cannot be said to be LordGod ... We know him only by his most wise and excellent contriv-ances of things . . . but we reverenceand adorehim as his servants;anda god withoutdominion,providence,andfinalcauses, is nothingelse than Fate and Nature. ... All that diversity of natural things

which we find suited to differenttimes and places could arise fromnothingbut the ideas and will of a Being necessarily existing.30

As is well known, I trust, the most importantuse Newton makesof the concept of Divine Will in his science is when he calls uponGod's direct action to explain that the solar system is touched upwhen it "wants a reformation."Whathas interestedme most in this

paperis thatGod's active will was understoodby Newton throughan

analogywith humanwilland animalvolition. Thisis why I devoted so

much space to Newton's familiaritywith biological matters; butclearly he does not know how the will, divine or animal, actuallyoperates. This is explicit in Query28 of the Optickswhere he asks:"How do the Motionsof the [living]Body follow fromthe Will?"Ofcourse he can only guess, as he does in the puzzlinglast paragraph fthe GeneralScholium.But he is fullyawareof a powerwithin himselfwhichmen call "will." Locke hadalready expressed similarviews inthe Essay Concerning Human Understanding:

Anotherdeawe haveofbody, s thepowerof communicationf motionbyimpulse;and of our souls, the power of excitingmotionby thought. These

ideas, the one ofbody, the other of ourminds,every day's experienceclearlyfurnishesus with.

And in words reminiscent of Newton's, he adds:

29

Cited by Frank Manuelin his

The Religion ofIsaac Newton

(Oxford, 1974),21-22.30

Motte-Cajori (1934), 544-546. The italicized last word is my emphasis.








And if we considerthe activepowerof moving... it is much clearer n spiritthan body .... The mind every day affords us ideas of an active power of

moving our bodies; and thereforeit is worth our consideration,whether

active power be not the properattribute of spirits, and passive power ofmatter.31

Newton does not hesitate to include such a power, or "active

principle" in his view of the universe. It is a non-mechanical agency,as he makes clear, that can only be understood by analogy with theworld of living creatures. This is quite openly stated in manuscripts of

the last of the Queries. In an English draft, written about 1705 for

Samuel Clarke to render into Latin as Quaestio 23, Newton begins hislist of active principles with "the power of life and will by whichanimals move their bodies with great and lasting force."32 This, to be

sure, is crossed out, and does not appear in print. In a still earlier

English manuscript version, we catch a glimpse of how Newton's

mind is working behind the scenes:

Wefind in ourselvesa powerof movingour bodiesby ourthought.Life and

Will are active Principlesby which we move our bodies, and thence arise

otherlaws of motionunknown to us. And since the matterduly formedisattended by signs of life, and all things are with perfect art frames and

wisdom,and naturedoes nothing n vain;if there be an universal ife andall

space be the sensorium of a thinking being, . . . [then] the laws of motion

arising from life or will may be of universal extent.33

Newton's closest associates were quite aware of these ideas, that

in all nature there operate forces that transcend the merely mechan-

ical, but seem to resemble the mysterious volitional activity of men

and animals, and derive from God. As Newton's disciple and transla-

tor, Samuel Clarke, expressing these ideas to Leibniz in their famous

epistolary exchange, wrote in 1716

The means by which two bodies attract each other may be invisible and

intangible,and of a differentnaturefrommechanism;and yet, actingregu-

larlyand constantly,maywell be callednatural;beingmuchless wonderfulthananimalmotion, which yet is never calleda miracle.34

Cornell University.

31Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Book II, Chap. 23, par. 28.32

University Library Cambridge, MS. Add. 3970, fols. 248-256.33 University Library Cambridge, MS. Add. 3970, fol. 619. My italics.34 The Leibniz-Clarke Correspondence, ed. Alexander, 53.

theological voluntarism and biological analogies

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