The Great Events by Famous Historians [Volumes 1-14]

In August, 1684, Dr. Halley went to Cambridge for the express purpose of consulting Newton on this interesting subject. Newton assured him that he had brought this demonstration to perfection, and promised him a copy of it. This copy was received in November by the doctor, who made a second visit to Cambridge, in order to induce its author to have it inserted in the register book of the society. On December 10th Dr. Halley announced to the society that he had seen at Cambridge Newton's treatise De Motu Corporum, which he had promised to send to the society to be entered upon their register, and Dr. Halley was desired to unite with Mr. Paget, master of the mathematical school in Christ's Hospital, in reminding Newton of his promise, "for securing the invention to himself till such time as he can be at leisure to publish it."

On February 25th Mr. Aston, the secretary, communicated a letter from Newton in which he expressed his willingness "to enter in the register his notions about motion, and his intentions to fit them suddenly for the press." The progress of his work was, however, interrupted by a visit of five or six weeks which he made in Lincolnshire; but he proceeded with such diligence on his return that he was able to transmit the manuscript to London before the end of April. This manuscript, entitled Philosophic Naturalis Principia Mathematics and dedicated to the society, was presented by Dr. Vincent on April 28, 1686, when Sir John Hoskins, the vice-president and the particular friend of Dr. Hooke, was in the chair.

Dr. Vincent passed a just encomium on the novelty and dignity of the subject; and another member added that "Mr. Newton had carried the thing so far that there was no more to be added." To these remarks the vice-president replied that the method "was so much the more to be prized as it was both invented and perfected at the same time." Dr. Hooke took offence at these remarks, and blamed Sir John for not having mentioned "what he had discovered to him"; but the vice-president did not seem to recollect any such communication, and the consequence of this discussion was that "these two, who till then were the most inseparable cronies, have since scarcely seen one another, and are utterly fallen out." After the breaking up of the meeting, the society adjourned to the coffee house, where Dr. Hooke stated that he not only had made the same discovery, but had given the first hint of it to Newton.

An account of these proceedings was communicated to Newton through two different channels. In a letter dated May 22d Dr. Halley wrote to him "that Mr. Hooke has some pretensions upon the invention of the rule of the decrease of gravity being reciprocally as the squares of the distances from the centre. He says you had the notion from him, though he owns the demonstration of the curves generated thereby to be wholly your own. How much of this is so you know best, as likewise what you have to do in this matter; only Mr. Hooke seems to expect you would make some mention of him in the preface, which it is possible you may see reason to prefix."

This communication from Dr. Halley induced the author, on June 20th, to address a long letter to him, in which he gives a minute and able refutation of Hooke's claims; but before this letter was despatched another correspondent, who had received his information from one of the members that were present, informed Newton "that Hooke made a great stir, pretending that he had all from him, and desiring they would see that he had justice done him." This fresh charge seems to have ruffled the tranquillity of Newton; and he accordingly added an angry and satirical postscript, in which he treats Hooke with little ceremony, and goes so far as to conjecture that Hooke might have acquired his knowledge of the law from a letter of his own to Huygens, directed to Oldenburg, and dated January 14,1672-1673. "My letter to Hugenius was directed to Mr. Oldenburg, who used to keep the originals. His papers came into Mr. Hooke's possession. Mr. Hooke, knowing my hand, might have the curiosity to look into that letter, and there take the notion of comparing the forces of the planets arising from their circular motion; and so what he wrote to me afterward about the rate of gravity might be nothing but the fruit of my own garden."

In replying to this letter Dr. Halley assured him that Hooke's "manner of claiming the discovery had been represented to him in worse colors than it ought, and that he neither made public application to the society for justice nor pretended that you had all from him." The effect of this assurance was to make Newton regret that he had written the angry postscript to his letter; and in replying to Halley on July 14, 1686, he not only expresses his regret, but recounts the different new ideas which he had acquired from Hooke's correspondence, and suggests it as the best method "of compromising the present dispute" to add a scholium in which Wren, Hooke, and Halley are acknowledged to have independently deduced the law of gravity from the second law of Kepler.