Details
NEWTON, Sir Isaac (1642-1727). Optice: sive de reflexionibus, refractionibus, inflexionibus & coloribus lucis libri tres ... accedunt tractatus duo ejusdem authoris de speciebus & magnitudine figurarum curvilinearum, latine scripti. Translated by Samuel Clarke. London: Samuel Smith and Benjamin Walford, 1706.
4o (242 x 187 mm). 19 folding engraved plates. Contemporary calf (rebacked, corners repaired).
FIRST EDITION IN LATIN. This edition contains seven added quaestiones (nos. 17-23), which are partly devoted to Newton's support for the corpuscular (or emission) theory of light, and are not found in the English edition. It also includes the two mathematical works at end as in the English edition. As in most copies of the Optice, leaf Ss1 is a cancel, allegedly because Newton had second thoughts about calling universal space 'the sensorium of God' (sensorium Dei) in questio 20. Babson/Newton 137; Wallis 179; Norman 1589.
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FIRST EDITION IN LATIN. This edition contains seven added quaestiones (nos. 17-23), which are partly devoted to Newton's support for the corpuscular (or emission) theory of light, and are not found in the English edition. It also includes the two mathematical works at end as in the English edition. As in most copies of the Optice, leaf Ss1 is a cancel, allegedly because Newton had second thoughts about calling universal space 'the sensorium of God' (sensorium Dei) in questio 20. Babson/Newton 137; Wallis 179; Norman 1589.