The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1888-07-18
THE BIRTHDAY OF A BOOK.
The Two Hundredth Anniversary of Noted
Volume.

lAOuth . NOinpduiOhl
The 2OOth anniversary of the publication
OF a book was celebrated at Cambridge
university in England. The book, which
is written in Latin, is commonly called
Newton's Principal" though the full IL
tie is "Philosophie Natural Principal Math-
ematica," which means in English "The
Mathematical Principles of Natural Phil
osOphy."
1t was becoming in the university of
Cambridge to commemorate the publica-
ton of the Principal" The author of it
was Isaac Newton, professor of mathemat-
les in that institution, afterward Sir Isaac
Newton, master of the mint The rooms
which he inhabited when he wrote the
work still exist, and are visited every year
by many Americans. The manuscript OF
the volume belongs to the royal society, of
which Sir Isaac Newton was a member. to
which he sent the work for approval, and
under the auspices OF which it was pub
lished. The same society possesses also
the small telescope used by the great
astronomer, parts OF which were made by
his own hands.
Probably very few of our readers, young
or old, have ever seen a copy of this Illus
trious quarto There is something strange
in the fact that volume which has in
structed the educated mind of the whole
human race should be seldom met with
even in large libraries.
One gentleman, a manufacturer in
Rhode Island, who knows nothing OF Latin
and very little of mathematics, has copy
among his books, Just to look at and re-
we're. He takes it down from its shelf ten
derby, and shows it to his guests as the
greatest product of the mind of man.
Through other books and smaller men he
has learned the substance OF what the
''Principia" contains, and he loves to look
upon the very leather of the mighty vol
ume which he can not read.
Probably the whole of Europe and
America does not require fifty new copies
a year OF this work Nor did any one
ever make money by dealing with it, be-
yond modest booksellers profit on few
copies. Nevertheless, there it is, at the
summit of literature, among the greatest
of the triumphs of the human mind.
1t was 222 years ago this summer that
Isaac Newton sat in his garden and saw
some fruit fall from a tree, and fell to mus
ing upon the reason of its fall. Why did
it not fall up, or slanting, or sidewise
Why does everything fall toward the CEN
ter of the earth2
Nineteen years later he was able to dem
onstrate to the world that precisely the
same cause that made the fruit fall to the
earth holds the moon in her orbit and
keeps all the heavenly bodies in their
places. This principle, which he named
the attraction OF gravitation, retains the
revolving stars and prevents the universe
from rushing into chaos. This was not a
mere guess on the part of Prof Newton.
He proved it Fundamentally. He showed
that, the earth weighing so much and the
moon so much, the earth holds the moon
by the law that makes an apple fall from a
tree.
Other philosophers, from Aristotle to
Descartcs, had made ingenious guesses
concerning the principles, or the principle,
of the universe. Newton's merit was that
he substituted for all their theories one
great truth capable Of mathematical dem
onstration, leaving it to posterity to con-
tinue the work by discovering the momen-
tous consequences of the, truth.