Vortices

The hypothesis of vortices is problematic.

It says that:

• each planet by a radius drawn to the sun may describe areas proportional to the times of description
• the periodic times of the several parts of the vortices should observe the square of their distances from the sun
• the periodic times of the planets may obtain the 3/2th power of their distances from the sun
• the periodic times of the parts of the vortex should be as the 3/2th power of their distances

• the smaller vortices may maintain their lesser revolutions around Saturn, Jupiter, and other planets, and swim quietly and undisturbed in the greater vortex of the sun
• the periodic times of the parts of the sun’s vortex should be equal
• the rotation of the sun and planets around their axes should correspond with the motions of their vortices, but recede far from all these proportions.

I have explained that the motions of the comets are very regular*. These:

• are governed by the same laws with the motions of the planets
• cannot be accounted for by the hypothesis of vortices as axes because coments have very elliptical orbits
• have a freedom that is incompatible with the notion of a vortex

Bodies thrown in our air experience air resistance. Withdraw the air and the resistance ceases.

In a vacuum, a piece of tine and a piece of solid gold fall with equal speed.

The same thing happens in outer space* where:

• there is no air to resist their motions
• all bodies, planets, and comets will constantly pursue their revolutions in orbits according to the laws above

The 6 planets revolve around the sun:

• in concentric circles,
• with motions directed towards the same parts, and
• almost in the same plane

The moons revolve around their planets:

• in concentric circles
• with the same direction of motion nearly in the planes of the orbits of those planets

But mere mechanical causes cannot cause those regular motions, since comets travel in very eccentric orbits.

• Their eccentric orbits lets them pass through the orbits of the planets quickly
• They move slowest in their aphelions where they are least disturbed by the planets’ attractions

This most beautiful system can only come from an intelligent and powerful Being.

• The One also dominates over the fixed stars, especially since their starlight is of the same nature as sunlight and these lights pass into all the other systems
• The One separated those stars to prevent them from falling into each other

This Being governs all things, not as the soul of the universe, but as Lord overall.

• I call Him Lord God or Universal Ruler
• This is because God is a relative word, and has a respect to servants
• Deity is the dominion of God not over his own body, as those imagine who fancy God to be the soul of the universe, but over servants.

The Supreme God is a Being eternal, infinite, absolutely perfect.

• A Lord God is a perfect God with a dominion
• The word God usually signifies Lord, but every lord is not a God
• God means the dominion of a spiritual being
• Thus a dominion makes a God
• A true dominion means that the true God is living, intelligent, and powerful
• He is not eternity or infinity, but eternal and infinite
• He is not duration or space, but He endures and is present

Since every particle of space is always, and every indivisible moment of duration is every where, certainly the Maker and Lord of all things cannot be never and no where.

Every soul that has perception is still the same indivisible person.

• There are given successive parts in duration, co-existent parts in space, but neither the one nor the other in the person of a man, or his thinking principle and much less

Every man, so far as he is a thing that has perception, is one and the same man during his whole life.

God is the same God, always and every where.

He is omnipresent not virtually only, but also substantially, for virtue cannot exist without substance.

All things are contained and moved in Him, yet neither affects the other. God suffers nothing from the motion of bodies. Bodies find no resistance from the omnipresence of God.

We have no idea how God perceives things just as a blind man has no idea of colours.

He has no body or shape. He cannot be seen, heard, nor touched. He should not be worshipped represented by any physical thing. We have ideas of His attributes, but we know nothing of His real substance.

We see objects, but know nothing of their real inner substances. Thus we can have no knowledge of the substance of God.

We know Him only by his most wise and excellent contrivances of things, and final causes. We revere and adore him because of His dominion, as his servants.

Fate and Nature are God without His dominion. A blind metaphysical cause and effect is the same always and every where. But it cannot produce any variety. The diversity can only come from the ideas and will of a Being.

What is the cause of gravity?

It must:

• proceed from a cause that penetrates to the very centres of the sun and planets, without suffering the least diminution of its force.
• operate on the quantity of the solid matter which they contain, not according to the surface area as mechanical causes do
• it propagates its virtue on all sides to immense distances, decreasing always in the duplicate proportion of the distances.

Gravitation towards the sun is made up of the gravitations towards the particles of the sun.

But I have not been able to discover the cause of gravity from phenomena. I have no hypotheses because hypotheses have no place in experimental philosophy.

To me, it is enough that gravity exists and that it accounts for all the motions of the the celestial bodies, and of our sea.

A Spirit pervades and lies hidden in all gross bodies. Its action and force causes the particles of bodies to:

• mutually attract one another at near distances (electric bodies operate farther)
• cohere if contiguous
• emit light and heat bodies

All animal bodies move at the command of the will through the vibrations of this Spirit.

• these vibrations travel from our sense organs to the brain
• from the brain to the muscles

My work can lay the foundation to discover how this Spirit operates.