Details
NEWTON, Isaac (1642-1727). An autograph fragment relating to Newton's Opticks, [late 1716], 59 x 188mm., 6½ lines with corrections (browned, affected by clear tear), in modern black cloth case with plush mount.
Newton's autograph revision of a query in Opticks begins with two words continued from a previous sentence, "are occult", and ends with an unfinished sentence, "To tell us". He writes that the "Aristotelians gave the name of Occult Qualities not to manifest qualities but to such Qualities only as they supposed to lye hid in the bodies & to be the unknown causes of manifest effects: such as would be the causes of gravity & of Magnetick & Electrick attractions of fermentations if we should suppose that these actions or forces arose from qualities unknown to us & incapable of being discovered & made manifest. Such occult Qualities put a stop to the improvement of natural Philosophy & therefore of late years have been rejected."
