When Everything hinges On Gravitation

Abstract

Newton's basic ideas developed and evolved throughout his career and changed in sometimes surprisingly profound ways. In this paper I propose an outline of the evolution of Newton's conceptual framework by following the development of his ideas throughout the early work preceding the first edition of the Principia, and thus to complete the work that has been done by Whiteside and Ruffner with respect to Newton's mechanics. I shall show that these evolutions - the mechanical and the metaphysical - are closely interrelated. My focus will be on a key text that marks a turning point both from the metaphysical and the methodological point of view: the "De gravitatione et aequipondio fluidorum". Rather than looking upon it as an isolated fact, I establish the connections of this text to other manuscripts from the same period, primarily the manuscript "Elements of Mechanicks" in the Hall & Hall edition, as well as the two variants of the "De Motu", to which it can be said to relate as to a "zero release".