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1. Alchemy and the Electric Spirit in Isaac Newton's General Scholium.
Cesare Pastorino
(Technische Universität Berlin)
Forthcoming in
S. Ducheyne, S. Mandelbrote and S. Snobelen (eds.),
Newton's General Scholium After 300 Years.
DRAFT OF A FORTHCOMING ARTICLE
PLEASE DO NOT QUOTE WITHOUT PERMISSION
Abstract: The General Scholium is commonly associated with Newton’s theological
declarations and with his famed methodological principle, “hypotheses non fingo.”
However, only a few lines after his considerations on scientific method, Newton added a
puzzling reference to a “certain very subtle spirit” hidden inside gross bodies. The
operations of the spirit were responsible for a long list of phenomena, including the
action of electrical bodies, the interaction of light and matter, perception in living bodies
and transmission of nervous stimuli from the brain to the body parts. Nevertheless,
Newton concluded, “these things cannot be explained in a few words,” as the laws
describing the activity of the spirit are not well known. A strong body of literature has
now connected the spirit of the Scholium with Newton’s late reflections on an electric
spirit responsible for natural actions at a short distance. In the last paragraph of the
General Scholium and of Principia, Newton was alluding to a research program
complementing the one on gravity: the investigation of non-gravitational, short-range
forces operating between the small particles of bodies. This paper focuses on Newton’s
long-lasting interest for the investigation of interparticulate actions, strengthened, in the
first decade of the eighteenth century, by Francis Hauksbee’s experiments on electricity,
cohesion and capillarity. It considers Newton’s work on this subject, during the revision
proposition 42 of book 3 of Principia on comets; in fact, it shows that Newton’s
reflection on comets, vegetation and the electric spirit was closely intertwined with the
early development of the General Scholium itself. Finally, it focuses on the issue of the
alchemical features of the spirit. This notion perfectly integrated into what was
fundamentally a Helmontian theory of matter and vegetation, allowing the description of
a wide range of natural phenomena. Around the time of the composition of the General
Scholium, the electric spirit was then the key element of Newton’s novel attempt to build
a renewed, alchemically based “theory of everything.”

2. 2
Introduction
In January 1713, Isaac Newton was fully engaged in the final corrections and
modifications for the second edition of Principia. In a letter to his editor, the young
Cambridge astronomer Roger Cotes, Newton informed him that he was preparing and
going to send him in a few days a “Scholium of about a quarter of a sheet to be added to
the end of the book: & some are perswading me to add an Appendix concerning the
attraction of the small particles of bodies.” Newton informed Cotes that the Appendix
was going to “take up about three quarters of a sheet.” However, he also commented
that he was “not yet resolved” about this addition.1
On 2 March 1713, Newton wrote
again to Cotes, sending him the General Scholium to be added to the end of the book. In
his letter, he stated that he “intended to have said much more about the attraction of the
small parts of bodies, but upon second thoughts,” he chose “rather to add but a short
paragraph about that part of Philosophy.”2
The “short paragraph” Newton was referring to is in fact the one concluding the General
Scholium. As it is well known,3
the paragraph starts with a puzzling reference to a
“certain very subtle Spirit” hidden inside gross bodies. The operations of the spirit were
responsible for a very large class of phenomena. Because of this all-pervading spirit,
1 The Correspondence of Isaac Newton. Vol. 5, 1709-1713. Edited by A. Rupert Hall. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press for the Royal Society, 1975. 361.
2 Ibid., 384-5.
3 Literature on the last paragraph of the Scholium and on electric spirit is substantial. See: Hall, Marie
Boas, and A. Rupert Hall. "Newton's Electric Spirit: Four Oddities." Isis 50 (1959): 473-476.; Cohen, I. B.,
and Alexandre Koyré. “Newton’s Electric and Elastic Spirit.” Isis 51 (1960): 337; Hawes, Joan L. “Newton
and the ‘electrical Attraction Unexcited.’” Annals of Science 24, no. 2 (1968): 121-30; McGuire, James E.
“Force, Active Principles, and Newton’s Invisible Realm.” Ambix 15, no. 3 (1968): 154-208; Hawes, Joan
L. “Newton’s Two Electricities.” Annals of Science 27, no. 1 (1971): 95-103; Hawes, Joan L. “Newton’s
Revival of the Aether Hypothesis and the Explanation of Gravitational Attraction.” Notes and Records of the
Royal Society of London (1968): 200-212; Home, R. W. “Newton on Electricity and the Aether,” Bechler, Zev,
ed. Contemporary Newtonian Research. Vol. 9. Springer, 1982. 191-213; Home, R. W. “Force, Electricity,
and the Powers of Living Matter in Newton’s Mature Philosophy of Nature,” in M. J. Osler and Farber, P.
L. (eds) Religion, science, and worldview: Essays in honor of Richard S. Westfall. Cambridge University Press, 1985,
95-117; chapter 4 of Hylarie Kochiras, “Force, Matter, and Metaphysics in Newton’s Natural Philosophy,”
unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2008; Shapiro, Alan E.
“Newton’s Optical Theories and Vibrating Media: The Electrical Spirit of the General Scholium and the
Electrical Queries of the Opticks.” Archives Internationales d’Histoire Des Sciences 65, no. 174 (2015): 77–99.

3. 3
The particles of bodies mutually attract one another at near distances, and cohere, if
contiguous; and electric bodies operate to greater distances, as well repelling as
attracting the neighbouring corpuscles; and light is emitted, reflected, refracted,
inflected, and heats bodies; and all sensation is excited, and the members of animal
bodies move at the command of the will, namely, by the vibrations of this Spirit,
mutually propagated along the solid filaments of the nerves, from the outward organs
of sense to the brain, and from the brain into the muscles.4
Nevertheless, Newton concluded, “these things cannot be explained in a few
words,” nor we are “furnish'd with that sufficiency of experiments which is required to
an accurate determination and demonstration of the laws by which this spirit operates.”
If in this passage Newton did not explicitly declare the exact nature of the spirit, much
evidence–from the drafts of the General Scholium to Newton’s own annotated copy of
the second edition–clearly shows that he intended it as an electric one.
Newton presented the existence and activity of the spirit apodictically, as a clearly
established fact, not needing a particular justification. The rhetorical tone of the last
paragraph was fully tuned to that of the second-to-last. There, Newton summarized and
listed what was “certain” about the cause of the “power of Gravity,” and the properties
of gravitation; even though its cause had still to be identified, such power and force
“really exist, and act according to laws which we have explained, and abundantly serves
to account for all the motions of the celestial bodies, and of our sea.” In the same way,
we cannot doubt about the existence of a spirit operating among the small particles of
bodies, because phenomena confirm its existence; however, it would be unwise to frame
hypotheses about the specific laws governing its operations, given the paucity of
experiments we possess.
In the few lines of the last paragraph and in the last sentences of the Principia,
Newton was then alluding to a different research program, complementing the one on
gravity: the investigation of non-gravitational, short-range forces operating between the
4 Newton, Isaac. The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. Vol. 2. London, 1729. (Motte’s translation):
393.

4. 4
small particles of bodies. This parallel study identified, in the period of the composition
of the General Scholium, with the exploration of the properties of the electric spirit.
In the first half of this paper, I will first give a short description of Newton’s
constant interest for the investigation of interparticulate actions, strengthened, in the first
decade of the eighteenth century, by Francis Hauksbee’s experiments on electricity,
cohesion and capillarity. Examining various relevant manuscripts, I will also consider the
specific issue of the textual development and composition of the last paragraph of the
General Scholium. In the second half of the paper, I will focus on the issue of the
alchemical features of the electric spirit, suggesting that it is possible to find significant
and important connections between Helmontian-inspired chymistry and theory of
matter, the reflection on short-range forces and the properties of the electric spirit.
The Early Discussion of Short-range Actions
The questions about the “invisible realm of nature”–as J. E. McGuire labeled it in a
seminal article of 19685
–and the actions between the small particles of bodies were
always a central part of Isaac Newton’s philosophical preoccupations. Many passages in
Newton’s works could be found exemplifying such concerns; however, a text–quoted by
McGuire–from the mid-1690s, to be included in a projected fourth book of the
“Opticks,” is probably the most remarkable example of the scope and vastness of
Newton’s investigation:
As all the great motions in the world depend upon a certain kind of force (wch
in this
earth we call gravity) whereby great bodies attract one another at great distances: so
all the little motions in ye
world depend upon certain kinds of forces whereby minute
bodies attract or dispell one another at little distances […] The truth of this
Hypothesis I assert not, because I cannot prove it, but I think it very probable
because a great part of the phaenomena of nature do easily flow from it wch
seem
otherways inexplicable: such as are chymical solutions, precipitations, philtrations, ...
volatizations, fixations, rarefactions, condensations, unions, separations,
fermentations, the cohesion, texture, fluidity and porosity of bodies, the rarity &
5 McGuire. “Force, Active Principles, and Newton's Invisible Realm.”

5. 5
elasticity of air, the reflexions & refraction of light, the rarity of air in glass pipes, &
ascention of water therein, the permiscibility of some bodies & impermiscibility of
others, the conception & lastingnesse of heat, the emission & extinction of light, the
generation & destruction of air, the nature of fire & flame, ye
springinesse or elasticity
of hard bodies.6
As this passage well shows, this set of phenomena covered a vast part of Isaac
Newton’s scientific interests, spanning from the composition of matter, its interaction
with light, the phenomena of capillarity, cohesion and so on.
In particular, Newton’s experimentation on chemical attraction and repulsion of
substances gave a great impulse to the study of the invisible realm. For instance, the
discussion of the “secret principle of unsociableness,” appearing already in his
“Hypothesis explaining the properties of light” of 1675 and further developed in his
letter to Boyle of 28 February 1679, certainly originated from Newton’s reflections and
experimentations on acid and metallic menstrua of the same decade. In a different
context, “De aere et aethere” (1679) discussed attractions and repulsions of aerial
particles.
It is not surprising that many of Newton’s attempts at descriptions of phenomena
due to short-range forces can be found, as in the final paragraph of the General
Scholium, among materials intended for the final part of Principia, as a sort of anticipation
for research subjects that could not be included in the main text because still to be
developed. This is the case of the “Conclusio”, written about the time of the completion
of the first edition of Principia in 1687 and subsequently suppressed. In this text, Newton
described the wide array of phenomena still to be studied:
Hitherto I have explained the System of this visible world, as far as concerns the
greater motions which can easily be detected. There are however innumerable other
local motions which on account of the minuteness of the moving particles cannot be
6 CUL Add. Ms. 3970, fo1. 338r-v, “Newton Papers,” Cambridge Digital Library. Accessed January 16,
2015. http://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/MS-ADD-03970/689# ; cited in McGuire. “Force, Active
Principles, and Newton's Invisible Realm.” 165-6.

6. 6
detected, such as the motions of the particles in hot bodies, in growing bodies, in the
organs of sensation and so forth.7
As “greater motions” of large bodies were explained by the force of gravity, lesser
ones were likely due to “lesser forces, as yet unobserved, of insensible particles,” acting
on one another. As Westfall noted,8
the “Conclusio” developed in a form that anticipated
that of Query 31 of the “Opticks,” listing phenomena ranging from the action of acids
on metals, chemical menstrua, the examples of “sociableness/unsociableness” already
discussed in the letter to Boyle of 1679, to cohesion, capillarity and the formation of
crystals and regular structures. Also, “De natura acidorum,” Newton’s text composed
around the years 1691/2 and subsequently published in 1710 in Harris’s Lexicon Technicum
(1710), assumed that acid particles were endowed with strong attractive forces, by which
“they dissolve bodies and affect and stimulate the organs of the senses.”9
The General Scholium and Francis Hauksbee’s Experimental Program
In the first decade of the eighteenth century, and at least up to the time of the
composition of the General Scholium, Francis Hauksbee’s experimental program at the
Royal Society brought further impetus to the investigation of the invisible realm and of
short-range forces.10
Hauksbee’s experiments, conducted under Newton’s supervision,
especially focused on electricity and capillarity. As a matter of fact, Hauksbee’s results
constituted most of the experimental evidence on which Newton founded his suggestion
7 Unpublished scientific papers of Isaac Newton. Edited and translated by A. Rupert Hall and Marie Boas Hall,
Cambridge : University Press, 1962; p. 333 (original Latin, p. 321).
8 Westfall, Richard. Never at Rest. A Biography of Isaac Newton. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press ,
1980; 389.
9 The Correspondence of Isaac Newton Vol. 3, 1688-1694.Edited by Herbert W. Turnbull and Laura Tilling,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press for the Royal Society, 1977; p. 209.
10 On Francis Hauksbee’s experimentation, see Guerlac, Henry. “Francis Hauksbee: expérimentateur au
profit de Newton”, Archives internationales d’histoire des sciences 16 (1963): 113-128, Guerlac, Henry.
“Hauksbee, Francis,” Dictionary of Scientific Biography vol. 6. New York: Scribner, 1972: 169-175; Home,
Roderick W. “Francis Hauksbee’s Theory of Electricity.” Archive for History of Exact Sciences 4, no. 3 (1967):
203-17. 4, 1967, 203-217; Westfall, Never at Rest, 745-47; Pumfrey, Stephen. “Hauksbee, Francis,” Oxford
Dictionary of National Biography. 2004. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press., May 2009. [Accessed January 16, 2015,
http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/12618].

7. 7
of an electric spirit in the General Scholium and his notion that short-range forces
operating among the small particles of bodies were electrical.
This fact is most apparent in draft C of the General Scholium, the second of its five
extant drafts.11
In particular, after composing the main text, Newton added two groups
of Propositions–for a total of twelve–that match the content of the last paragraph and
seem to constitute a preparatory summary of the same. In the Propositions, Newton
introduced the notion that short-distance attractions between the small particles of
bodies were of an electrical nature. Attractions among particles were exceedingly strong
and able to explain the cohesion of bodies. Newton further suggested that, at larger
distances, forces became repulsive. The electric spirit, a very subtle medium permeating
solid bodies, was the cause of such attraction and repulsion. The spirit was “most active”
and able to emit light; reciprocally, light could put the spirit in a vibratory motion, which
was in fact heat. In the nerves, the electric spirit was also the medium of vision and more
generally of animal sensations and motions. Moreover, the presence of the electric spirit
explained the emission, refraction, reflection and inflection of light, the chemical
sociability or unsociability of bodies and the physiology of nutrition.
In the first group of seven Propositions, Newton added short references to nine
specific phenomena and experiments–references he finally dropped when he wrote the
last paragraph itself. Newton’s goal was clearly that of furnishing an experimental basis
for the content of the Propositions. Also, several of the experiments in the list had
already been discussed and mentioned in previous drafts of the General Scholium or of
the projected Appendix.
11 CUL Add. Ms. 3965, ff. 361-2. Accessed January 16, 2015,
http://www.newtonproject.sussex.ac.uk/view/texts/diplomatic/NATP00059. On the precise chronology
of the five drafts, see Steffen Ducheyne’s contribution to this book.

8. 8
Experiments on capillarity were particularly prominent, as Newton used them to
justify the notion of an electric attraction between the small particles of bodies. They
corresponded to the ones conducted and executed by Hauksbee in the period between
1706 and 1712. In particular, the experiments detailing the ascent of water in small tubes
and in sponges were published in the Philosophical Transactions in 1706 and 1709; the
experiments “touching the ascent of water between two glass planes” appeared in 1712;
and the discussion of the “Direction of a Drop of Oil of Oranges, between Two Glass
Planes, towards Any Side of Them That is Nearest Press’d” appeared in two versions in
the winter of 1711 and summer of 1712. This last experiment was particularly significant,
because Newton had used it in previous drafts of the Scholium to quantify the attractive
force between the drop and the glass planes.12
Further experiments and phenomena mentioned in the list regarded chemical
mixtures and the solution of metals and the permeability of glass. Finally, the list
included Hauksbee’s most celebrated experiment on electricity, the rotating globe of
glass producing light and electrical attraction when rubbed by the experimenter’s hand: in
the Propositions, this last phenomenon was taken as evidence that the electric spirit
could in fact emit light.
12 Guerlac. “Hauksbee, Francis:” 172. Hauksbee, Francis. “An Experiment Made at Gresham College,
Shewing That the Seemingly Spontaneous Ascention of Water in Small Tubes Open at Both Ends is the
Same in Vacuo as in the Open Air. By Mr Fr. Hauksbee, F. R. S.” Phil. Trans. vol. 25, 305 (1706): 223-4;
“Several Experiments Touching the Seeming Spontaneous Ascent of Water. By Mr. Fr. Hauksbee, F. R.
S”. Phil. Trans. vol. 26 n. 319 (1709): 258-266; “An Account of an Experiment Touching the Ascent of
Water between Two Glass Planes, in an Hyperbolick Figure. By Mr. Francis Hauksbee, F. R. S.” Phil.
Trans. vol. 27 n. 336 (1712): 539-540; “An Account of an Experiment Touching the Direction of a Drop of
Oil of Oranges, between Two Glass Planes, towards Any Side of Them That is Nearest Press'd Together.
By Mr. Fr. Hauksbee, F. R. S.” Phil. Trans. vol. 27 n. 332 (1711): 395-396; “An account of an experiment,
concerning the angle requir'd to suspend a drop of oyl of oranges, at certain stations, between two glass
planes, placed in the form of a wedge. By Mr. Fr. Hauksbee, F. R. S.” Phil. Trans. vol. 27 n. 334 (1712):
473-4.

9. 9
On the Appendix on Short-range Actions: An Editorial History
The time of the composition of draft C likely represented the moment in which
Newton’s thoughts on the content of the last paragraph finally coalesced and converged.
However, how did Newton elaborate and produce such content?
As mentioned at the beginning, in the letter to Cotes of January 1713, Newton
hinted at the possibility of adding an “Appendix concerning the attraction of the small
particles of bodies” to the second edition of the Principia. Soon after, he finally decided to
eliminate the Appendix and substitute it with the short final paragraph of the General
Scholium. It is then clear that the editorial history of the last paragraph must especially
reconstruct Newton’s work on his Appendix on short-range forces, as the last paragraph
likely represented a very short abridgment of that discussion. At the same time, no single
extant Newtonian manuscript can be easily and univocally identified as this Appendix.
Necessarily, the reconstruction of Newton’s work on this project can only be partial and
indirect.
The plan for a supplement on interparticulate forces is of course reminiscent of
Newton’s work on that subject for the unpublished “Conclusio” of the first edition of
Principia. Several manuscripts related to Newton’s revision of the concluding parts of
Principia are clearly belonging to this effort. These are especially the drafts supplementing
proposition 42 of book 3 on comets (the last section of Principia), which show heavy
editing. From an editorial point of view, they are very significant for two reasons: some
of these texts anticipate themes to be found in the theological and methodological
sections of the “General Scholium;” others include rough, preliminary analyses of
electrical phenomena, related to the discussion of the electric spirit.13
Parts of these
13 In the following paragraphs, I will mainly consider CUL Add. Ms. 3965, f. 152 (accessed March 19th,
2018, http://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/MS-ADD-03965/309 and following), ff. 348r-356r (accessed
February 28, 2018, http://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/MS-ADD-03965/709 and followings) and CUL Add.
Ms. 3970, ff. 602r-604r (accessed February 28, 2018, http://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/MS-ADD-
03970/1223 and followings).

10. 10
documents have been published and considered in the past; however, the proper context
of Newton’s complex efforts and revisions can only be captured considering them in
their entirety. In this section, I will try to reconstruct this work of revision in some detail,
as this analysis is crucial to understand the genesis and development of the General
Scholium and of the projected Appendix on short-range forces.
Revising proposition 42
Especially revealing are three folios of CUL Add. Ms. 3965 (ff. 349-351), containing
three consecutive revisions of the text that will occupy the fifth last paragraphs of
Principia in proposition 42 of book 3, together with additions, integrations and
corrections that Newton will in the end leave out.14
In these paragraphs, Newton makes
two major points: first, comets obey to the same theory governing the motion of planets
and move on very eccentric ellipses; second, certain comets can come very close to the
sun in their perihelion and, when that happens, fall into it. The same occurrence, in the
case of fixed stars, explains the phenomenon of novae.15
In the second, heavily marked
up revision (p. 350r), Newton integrates the discussion of novae hinting at the ensuing
destruction of the Earth in the fire produced by the fall of a comet, “Nam et Terram
nostram incendio tandem perituram esse vetus est opinio,” an anticipation of ideas
Newton will in fact confide to John Conduitt two years before his death. This
remarkable passage is evidence that Newton already contemplated this apocalyptic
scenario at the time of the revision of Principia of 1713.16
The following lines of Newton’s
14 These revisions are easily identifiable as they all start with the words “His exemplis abunde satis
manifestum est.” The published text occupies pp. 479-481 of the 2nd edition of 1713.
15 In fact, the deleted draft of page 349v shows that Newton even thought of introducing two new
propositions (43 and 44) and theorems (22 and 23), making exactly those two points (“Prop. XLIII. Theor.
XXII Cometas esse genus Planeturaum in Orbibus Ellipticis valde excentricis circa Solem revolventium.”
and “Prop. XLIV. Theor XXIII. Cometas aliquando in Solem incidere.”).
16 On this issue, compare with: Iliffe, Rob. Priest of Nature: The Religious Worlds of Isaac Newton. Oxford
University Press, 2017: 313-14; Snobelen, Stephen D.. “Cosmos and Apocalypse.” The New Atlantis, no. 44
(2015): 76–94, p. 92; Schaffer, Simon. “Newton’s Comets and the Transformation of Astrology.” In
Patrick Curry (ed) Astrology, Science, and Society: Historical Essays. Boydell Press, 1987: 219–43. Genuth, Sara

11. 11
integrations are also very important. Reflections about the perishability of the Earth
move Newton to contrast it with the immutability of the divine substance: “those things
that are perishable have an origin. The living substance […] has no weight, or a force of
inertia, nor reflect light, nor can be seen or heard or touched.” This substance, Newton
concludes, “is everywhere, and contains in itself and purposely guides all things
perishable, the only immutable thing from eternity to eternity.” This text is crucial, as
several of the attributes that Newton assigns in it to the divine substance will reappear
with almost identical wording in the central section of the General Scholium, with which
this passage has a clear relation.17
In the third revision of the fifth last paragraphs, at page 351r, for the most part the
text gets close to the wording and structure that will appear in the published version.18
However, after reaching the discussion of novae,19
the manuscript shows important edits
and insertions, evidence of a critical moment in the editorial history of the final part of
the Principia. Some of these texts develop the brief annotations of the second revision of
p. 350r and anticipate theological and also methodological themes that will be included in
the General Scholium, while others open up a discussion of interparticulate actions and
electrical phenomena. Altogether, these editorial interventions combine in a coherent
form and there is little doubt that Newton tried to organize them as a provisional
conclusion of his work.
Schechner. “Comets, Teleology, and the Relationship of Chemistry to Cosmology in Newton’s Thought.”
Annali Dell’Istituto e Museo Di Storia Della Scienza Di Firenze 10, no. 2 (1985): 31–65; Kubrin, David.
“Newton and the Cyclical Cosmos: Providence and the Mechanical Philosophy.” Journal of the History of
Ideas 28, no. 3 (1967): 325–46; Dobbs, Betty Jo Teeter. The Janus faces of genius: the role of alchemy in Newton's
thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991: 236-7.
17 “Quae vero caduca sunt originem habuere. Substantia quae viva nec gravis est nec vim habet inertiae nec
lucem reflectit nec videri potest nec audiri nec tangi sed insensibiliter ubique est & caduca omnia in se
continet & consilio regit, sola permanet immutabilis ab aeterno in aeternum.” f. 350r (my translation and
normalized transcription). Compare with the similar passages in the General Scholium, “Corpore omni &
figura corporea prorsus destituitur, ideoque videri non potest, nec audiri, nec tangi, nec sub specie rei
alicujus corporei coli debet,” and “[Deus] durat ab æterno in æternum & adest ab infinito in infinitum,
omnia regit & omnia cognoscit quæ fiunt aut sciri possunt.” Principia, 2nd ed. (1713): 483.
18 With the exception of the paragraph on Halley’s comet, starting as “Cometa retrogradus.”
19 At the sentence, “Sic etiam stellae fixae … pro stellis novis haberi.”

12. 12
For the sake of clarity, in the following sections I will consider two important edits
separately, namely: a) the inserted text starting as “Vapores Autem”; b) the insertion
referred to as “Ms. a.”
a) The Insertion “Vapores autem” and the “Variant of Conclusion” to Proposition 42
The internal structure of the text at page 351r shows that, after a first drafting, Newton
added a crucial passage as a supralinear insertion. This insertion reads:
Vapores autem qui ex sole et stellis fixis et caudis Cometarum oriuntur incidere
videntur per gravitatem suam in Planetas et ibi/ in Planetas condensari viden/tur &
converti primo in aquam et vapo humores, deinde in limum et lutum & sales et
arenam et substantias animalium vegetabilium et mineralium.20
This text, expanded and integrated, will eventually appear at the end of Principia.21
I will
discuss its important content more extensively below, in a section on comets, vegetation
and the electric spirit. In this context, I would like to show that this insertion is a clear
revision of text from a different draft, at f. 152 of Add. Ms. 3965. This remark is not
mere pedantry, because at p. 152v that sentence belongs to and introduces a longer text,
the so-called “Variant of Conclusion” to proposition 42, clearly anticipating the content
of the General Scholium.22
For one thing, this observation allow us to univocally date the
“Variant of Conclusion” to the time of Newton’s revisions for the edition of 1713.23
20 “Moreover, the vapors which arise from the sun, fixed stars and tails of Comets seem to fall by their
gravity in the Planets and there condense and be converted first into water and moistures, then into mud
and clay and salts and sand and the substance of animals vegetables and minerals.” Apart from a few
variations, my translation follows the one of the similar text in Add. Ms. 3965, f 152v, in Cohen, I.
Bernard. “Isaac Newton’s Principia, the Scriptures, and the Divine Providence.” In S. Morgenbesser,
Suppes P. and White M. (eds) Philosophy, Science, and Method: Essays in Honor of Ernest Nagel. St. Martin’s
Press, 1969: 523-48, p. 531.
21 In the last paragraph of Prop. 42 (p. 481).
22 This text has been recently transcribed by The Newton Project Canada., which designated it as the “Variant
of Conclusion to Book III, Proposition XLII (CUL).” For the sake of simplicity, in the following text I will
adopt the shorter designation “Variant of Conclusion.” See the diplomatic transcription by Stephen
Snobelen, Pablo Toribio and Remus Manoila in Drafts and draft fragments of Isaac Newton’s General Scholium.
The Newton Project Canada (2017): 10-12 (unpublished document). Previously, the same text was
transcribed in normalized form and translated by Cohen, “Isaac Newton’s Principia, the Scriptures, and the
Divine Providence,” pp. 531, 537.
23 As a further evidence, also note that other paragraphs at p. 152r (starting centrally on the page at
“excitandas”) contain text rewritten from material coeval to the revision of Prop. 42 in “Ms. a” (the first

13. 13
More importantly, however, it allows us to link the “Variant of Conclusion” with the
editorial history of proposition 42. In fact, the content of the “Variant of Conclusion”
bears a strong parallelism to the second revision of p. 350r on novae and the destruction
of the Earth; Once more, the mutability and “the perpetual interchange of all things” is
compared to the immutability of God: “the Lord of all alone remains immutable.”24
As
Cohen has perceptively suggested, this text “shows us how the very act of writing on
cosmological questions almost automatically was apt to lead Newton to questions about
God similar to those he would discuss in the General Scholium,” an observation
certainly also valid for the analogous text of the second revision.25
It is then evident that
the second revision of p. 350r and the “Variant of Conclusion” were developed in close
proximity and are crucial for understanding the passages that brought to the first
conceptualization of the General Scholium itself.
b) Toward the General Scholium: “Ms. a”
The third revision of page 351r presents a further, crucial editorial intervention, a
very substantial insertion of text that Newton developed on the previous and subsequent
versos, at pp. 350v and 351v. Richard Westfall, Maurizio Mamiani and Alan Shapiro are
the only authors who have considered this important section in the past.26
In his brief
account of this draft, Richard Westfall connected its contents on gravitation with the
similar formulations in the Scholium. In his further examination of 1991, Mamiani
concisely but correctly suggested that this draft, that he designated as “Ms. a,” was crucial
for the composition of both the General Scholium proper (through its Drafts A and C)
two lines correspond to an insertion at the top of p. 351v), or passages that will be inserted in “Ms. α” (the
remaining lines will be integrated at p. 603r-604r). On “Ms. a” and “Ms. α” see discussion below.
24 Cohens translation, quoted in Drafts and draft fragments: 10-11. Compare with the qualification about
divine substance in 350r, “ sola permanet immutabilis ab aeterno in aeternum” (see note 17).
25 Cohen, “Isaac Newton’s Principia, the Scriptures, and the Divine Providence,” p. 531; also quoted in
Drafts and draft fragments, pp. 11-12.
26 See Maurizio Mamiani’s introduction to Mamiani, Maurizio and Emanuela Trucco. “Newton e i
fenomeni della vita.” Nuncius 6, no. 1 (1991): 69-96; Westfall briefly but perceptively discussed it in his
Force in Newton's Physics: the Science of Dynamics in the Seventeenth Century. Macdonald , 1971, at pp. 392-393.

14. 14
and Newton’s discussion of electric phenomena.27
Recently, Alan Shapiro has suggested
that this draft is an earlier version of a text, designated by him as “Ms. α” and first
examined by I. Bernard Cohen.28
Both texts contain very important discussions of
magnetic and most of all electrical phenomena, including references to the role of the
electric spirit. In particular, Newton compares and distinguishes gravitational and electric
forces, then proceeds to discuss some of Hauksbee’s experiments – the rotating globe of
glass producing light and electrical attraction and the experiments on the phenomena of
capillarity in small tubes and between glass planes.29
Both Cohen and Shapiro have focused on this aspect; however, “Ms. a” contains
material, no further developed in “MS α,” that does not belong to this discussion. It is
then important to consider the development of these two drafts in their entirety and in
the context of Newton’s revisions of proposition 42, where they acquire their full
meaning and significance. For instance, Shapiro has suggested that, at the stage of writing
“Ms. α,” “Newton was far from the General Scholium. Other topics, like vortices, God,
and hypotheses, are not touched upon.”30
While it is true that “Ms. α” bears no
similarities with the General Scholium, it is important to notice that this is not the case
for its earlier version, “Ms a,” which instead shows parallelisms with it-something that
27 Mamiani erroneously indicated it as an addition to proposition 41. See Mamiani: 75.
28 “Ms. α” starts at ff. 353-6 of Add. Ms. 3965 and continues in ff. 602-4 of Add. Ms. 3970. I will discuss
the context of “Ms. α” more fully in the next section. The normalized version of this draft was first
translated by I. Bernard Cohen; see: “Draft Conclusion”, in Isaac Newton, The Principia: Mathematical
Principles of Natural Philosophy; a new translation by I. Bernard Cohen and Anne Whitman. Berkeley and
London: University of California Press, c1999: 287-292. Cohen was the first to recognize that the two
sections of folios in Add. Ms. 3965 and Add. Ms. 3970 were related. The text translated by Cohen covers f.
356r of CUL Add. Ms. 3965 (accessed January 16, 2015, http://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/MS-ADD-
03965/725 ) and ff. 602r-604r of CUL Add. Ms. 3970 (accessed January 16, 2015,
http://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/MS-ADD-03970/1223 ). Cohen dated this text sometime between 1704
and 1712. My discussion in this section should leave no doubt that the draft belongs to the stage of the
revision of the Principia for its second edition (see also the precise references in folio 602r to Hauksbee’s
experiments on capillarity of the summer of 1712).
29 These are experiments that will reappear in Draft A and in Propositions 1 and 6 of Draft C. See p. 7 of
this paper.
30 Shapiro. “Newton’s Optical Theories and Vibrating Media: The Electrical Spirit of the General Scholium
and the Electrical Queries of the Opticks.” p. 91.

15. 15
only Richard Westfall fully stated in the past.31
In fact, the initial part of “Ms a” (p. 350v)
contains a lengthy discussion on the properties of gravity and its possible cause. In
particular, Newton strongly opposes the notion that, when searching for such a cause,
Cartesian vortexes should be taken into consideration.32
These passages are obviously
related-sometimes down the very same wording-to those on the same subject in the first
and penultimate paragraphs of the General Scholium, and in Draft A of the General
Scholium.33
Moreover, in “Ms a” Newton asserts that he does not intend to give an
explanation for the cause of gravity, and that such cause and its properties can only be
derived from phenomena; instead, he contents himself with showing how the laws of its
action can perfectly explain celestial phenomena and tides.34
In the margin, he
summarizes this idea in two sentences: “Causam gravitas [sic] exponere non suscepi.
Sufficit quod detur et leges supra expositas observet.”35
This is of course the well-known
methodological point that Newton makes in the penultimate paragraph of the General
Scholium, and already anticipates in a paragraph of Draft A: there is little doubt that the
text in 350v is a previous version of those discussions.36
31 See Westfall. Force in Newton's Physics: the Science of Dynamics in the Seventeenth Century, pp. 392-3.
32
Here is a partial normalized transcription of this text: “Vortices nec gravitatem causantur nec Planetas
in Apsides summas et imas deferunt, nec Cometas deferunt in orbem, nec minores Lunarum vortices in se
(propter inaequalia partium suarum tempora periodica) deferre possunt, nec ulli sunt usui, nec esse per
phaemena [sic] demonstrantur, nec liberas corporum caelestium quaquaversum trajectiones permittunt.
Causa gravitatis, quaecunque tandem sit, agit in gravia non pro quantitate superficiei particularum sed pro
quantitate materiae solidae, penetrat quam liberrime ad usque centra Planetarum & eadem vi agit in partes
centrales atque superficiales pro quantitate materiae in singulis, aequaliter agit in gravia ad polos globorum
in quos gravitas tendit atque ad aequatorem, & recedendo ab his globis decrescit per omnes regiones in
duplicata ratione distantiarum inverse. Nam gravitas in Solem decrescit in hac ratione quam accuratissime
per omnes orbium caelestium regiones ut ex statione Apheliorum Planetarum manifestum est. Denique
gravitas mutua est inter corpora.” p. 350v (my normalized transcription).
33 Principia, 2nd ed. (1713): 481, 483-484; Draft A, Unpublished scientific papers of Isaac Newton: 350, paragraphs
(4) and (5).
34 “Quisquis igitur causam gravitatis exponere velit, is omnes ejus proprietates, hic enumeratas ab eadem
causa derivare debet & causam ipsam a Phaenomenis. Nos hanc Provinciam non suscepimus. Sufficit ex
phaenomenis ostendisse gravitatem dari et pro legibus hic expositis agere et omnia corporum caelestium et
maris nostri phaenomena ab ea sola quam accuratissime consequi.” p. 350v (my normalized transcription
and translation).
35 Ibid.
36 Especially, compare with the famous passages on the cause of gravity: “ Rationem vero harum Gravitatis
proprietatum ex Phænomenis nondum potui deducere, & Hypotheses non fingo […]In hac Philosophia
[Experimentalis] Propositiones deducuntur ex Phænomenis, & redduntur generales per Inductionem
[…]Et satis est quod Gravitas revera existat, & agat secundum leges a nobis expositas, & ad corporum

16. 16
These observations confirm Mamiani’s brief but correct suggestion that “Ms. a”
was indeed a crucial, initial stage of development of ideas later included in the General
Scholium. At the time of the composition of “Ms. a”–which, as shown before, was
contemporary or very proximate to the theological discussion of the aforementioned
“Variant of Conclusion” to proposition 42–Newton had started to delineate some of the
theological themes that he will develop in a more coherent form in the General
Scholium.
Separating the General Scholium from the Appendix
It is important to keep in mind that “Ms. a” is only one section of the already mentioned
third revision of the last five paragraphs of Principia (p. 351r). Together with the other
parts of it, the structure of this revision delineates a text shifting from the issue of
comets and novae, to a discussion and rebuttal of Cartesian vortexes, an analysis of the
properties of gravity and its unknown causes, followed by a treatment of magnetic and
electric phenomena, including an extensive examination of the latter. The text ends with
the important passage, clearly intended as the last paragraph of the Principia (in Richard
Westfall’s translation):
Whoever therefore will have undertaken to explain the phenomena of nature which
depend on the fermentation and the vegetation of bodies and on the other motions
and actions of the smallest particles among themselves will need especially to turn his
mind to the forces and actions of the electric spirit, which (if I am not mistaken)
pervades all bodies and to investigate the laws that this spirit observes in its
operations. Then magnetic attractions will also need to be considered since particles
of iron enter the composition of many bodies. These electric and magnetic forces
ought to be examined first in chemical operations and in the coagulation of salts,
snow, crystal, fluxes [fluorum], and other minerals in regular figures, and sometimes in
the figures of plants, and afterwards to be applied to the explanation of other
phenomena of nature.37
cælestium & maris nostri motus omnes sufficiat,” in Principia, 2nd ed. (1713): 484; and also Draft A,
Unpublished scientific papers of Isaac Newton: 350, paragraph (4).
37 p. 351r. Westfall. Force in Newton's Physics: the Science of Dynamics in the Seventeenth Century, p. 393.

17. 17
There is then little doubt that Newton tried to organize this set of texts and topics as a
provisional conclusion for his work. As shown before, some of the material from these
texts anticipated themes found in the General Scholium proper, while other included
extended discussions of electrical phenomena and interparticulate forces. At this stage,
these materials and contents were still intertwined: it makes then sense to assume that
this revision preceded or coincided with the letter to Cotes of January 1713, in which
Newton mentioned the imminent composition of the General Scholium and of a
possible Appendix on forces at short distance.
It also seems very likely that, as Mamiani has suggested, this revision marked the
moment in which the plan for the General Scholium and the Appendix on short-range
actions finally emerged.38
Other draft texts confirm this reconstruction. Soon after the
revisions of p. 351r, Newton embarked in a further, final integration and revision of
proposition 42. At pp. 353r-356r, after a reference to the last page of the first edition of
Principia (“Pag. 510, post finem adde”), in neat handwriting Newton inserted paragraphs
of text and tables on comet orbits and motions that are very close to, or the same as the
ones appearing in the published edition. After the discussion of novae, Newton inserted
the new version of “Ms. a,” Shapiro’s “Ms. α.” As already mentioned, “Ms. α” did not
contain material related to the General Scholium anymore, but only to electrical
phenomena. This is also the case for a further draft on the electric spirit, “De vi
electrica.”39
38 Mamiani and Trucco. “Newton e i fenomeni della vita,” p. 75. Mamiani focused on “Ms. a” and not
generally on the revision to which “Ms. a” belongs.
39 Newton, Correspondence, vol. 5: 362-9. “De vi electrica,” “Ms. a” and “Ms. α” dealt with many common
topics. All texts included similar passages on the role of the electric spirit in optical phenomena, the
production of heat in bodies and Hauksbee’s experiments on capillarity and glass planes. “Ms. a” and “De
vi electrica” developed a discussion of sensation and nerves, while “Ms. α” contained passages on the role
of the spirit in liquefaction, and in the attractions and repulsions responsible for fermentation, digestion
and nutrition. It is interesting to note that the results of Newton’s calculations on electric attraction
differed in the three texts. In “De vi electrica,” Newton approximately found that the attractive force
“appears by experiment to be reciprocally as the distance of the drop from the junction of the plates”
(“prodit per experimentum reciproce ut distantia guttae a concursu vitrorum quamproxime.” Newton,
Correspondence, vol. 5: 368. Latin original, 365). Instead, in “Ms. α” (but also in “Ms. a”) Newton showed

18. 18
It is then possible to reconstruct how all these various drafts fit together. At the
time of his last revision of proposition 42, Newton had developed two groups of texts:
one embracing the theological observations of p. 350r and of the “Variant of
Conclusion” of p. 152v, together with the discussion on vortices, gravitation and its
cause of “Ms. a” (including the methodological point against conjectures and
hypotheses); the other containing the discussion of electrical phenomena of “De vi
electrica,” “Ms. a” and “Ms. α.” It is from these two distinct sets of contents that the
proto-version of the General Scholium in the first part of Draft A separated from the
experimental material on electricity for the never composed Appendix on short-range
actions referred to in the letter of January 1713.
Comets, Vegetation and the Electric Spirit
As mentioned before for one of the preparatory drafts of the General Scholium, Cohen
convincingly suggested that “the very act of writing on cosmological questions”
inevitably brought Newton to address theological questions similar to the ones discussed
in the General Scholium proper.40
Remarkably, there is another issue that Newton
associated with a discussion of comets and cosmological considerations, that is to say,
vegetation. In fact, I would like to further suggest that, for Newton, the very act of
writing about comets also brought him to consider questions about vegetation and, as a
consequence, short-range interparticulate actions.
how, “in a latest experiment, the force of attraction came out very nearly as the inverse square of the
distance of the drop of oil of oranges from the concourse of the glasses” (“In experimento novissimo vis
attractionis prodijt reciproce in duplicata ratione distantiae guttae malorum citriorum a concursu vitrorum
quamproxime”. “Ms. α”: 289. Latin original, CUL Add. Ms. 3970, f. 602r; accessed July 28 2015,
http://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/MS-ADD-03970/1223). Moreover, in the quoted passage of “De vi
electrica”, the text “in duplicata” is deleted (see original manuscript, CUL Add. Ms. 3970, f. 428v; accessed
July 28 2015, http://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/MS-ADD-03970/874). This seems to indicate that, at the
moment of the composition of “De vi electrica,” Newton considered the possibility of an inverse square
relation for the force of electric attraction but became fully convinced of it only after the “latest
experiment” mentioned in “Ms. α.” This of course would imply that the composition of “De vi electrica”
preceded that of “Ms. α” and “Ms. a”.
40 Cohen, “Isaac Newton’s Principia, the Scriptures, and the Divine Providence,” p. 531.

19. 19
It is well known that in the Principia Newton assigned a crucial role to comets,
regarded as the source of vegetative processes.41
Newton’s ideas on this topic were
striking. Already in the first edition of the Principia, Newton explicitly suggested that
comets are responsible for the renewal of life on Earth. Because of their gravity, planets
attract vapors and exhalations from comets’ tails. Especially, on our planet,
from the condensation of their exhalations and vapors, there can be a continual
supply and renewal of whatever liquid is consumed by vegetation and putrefaction
and converted into dry earth. For all vegetables grow entirely from fluids and
afterward, in great part, change into dry earth by putrefaction, and slime is continually
deposited from putrefied liquids.
Comets furnish the essential source of fluid matter necessary for the continuous
replenishment of terrestrial life. Finally, Newton remarkably states, “I suspect that that
spirit which is the smallest but most subtle and most excellent part of our air, and which
is required for the life of all things, comes chiefly from comets.”42
In the second edition of the Principia, Newton extended a similar process to the sun
and the stars. As mentioned in a previous section, Newton believed that, when comets
fall into stars, they give rise to novae: “So also fixed stars, which are exhausted bit by
bit in the exhalation of light and vapors, can be renewed by comets falling into them
and then, kindled by their new nourishment, can be taken for new stars.” Toward the
very end of proposition 42 of book 3, Newton reiterated that
The vapors that arise from the sun and the fixed stars and the tails of comets can fall
by their gravity into the atmospheres of the planets and there be condensed and
converted into water and humid spirits, and then—by a slow heat—be transformed
gradually into salts, sulphurs, tinctures, slime, mud, clay, sand, stones, corals, and
other earthy substances.43
41 See especially: Schaffer. “Newton’s Comets and the Transformation of Astrology;” Genuth:
“Comets, Teleology, and the Relationship of Chemistry to Cosmology in Newton’s Thought;” Kubrin.
“Newton and the Cyclical Cosmos: Providence and the Mechanical Philosophy;” Dobbs. The Janus faces
of genius: the role of alchemy in Newton's thought.
42 In proposition 41 of book 3. Cohen’s translation in The Principia: Mathematical Principles of Natural
Philosophy, p. 926.
43 Ibid., p. 937-8. “Vapores autem, qui ex Sole & Stellis fixis & caudis Cometarum oriuntur, incidere
possunt per gravitatem suam in Atmosphaeras Planetarum, & ibi condensari & converti in aquam &
spiritus humidos, & subinde per lentum calorem in sales, & sulphura, & tincturas, & limum, & lutum, &

20. 20
As mentioned before, this particular sentence had an important editorial history, related
with the genesis of the General Scholium.44
In its last version before publication,
contemporary with the composition of “Ms. α” and immediately preceding it in the text,
it bears a remarkable reference to the role of electric spirit:45
And the vapors that arise from the sun and the fixed stars and the tails of comets
must fall by their gravity into the bodies of the planets and there be condensed and
converted in water and humors, and then, by the operations of the electric spirit, be digested
and coagulated gradually in slime, mud, salts, bones woods, corals, stones and
minerals.46
Then, this draft unquestionably shows that, in the last phases of his revision of Principia,
Newton considered the option that the chymical processes stirred by the vapors of stars
and comets–vegetation, and subsequent putrefaction and transformations in dry earths–
were caused by the operations of an electric spirit. In the published version, these
operations were replaced by the more anodyne effects of “slow heath.” As seen before,
in proposition 41 Newton had suspected that the vegetable spirit could come “chiefly
from comets.”47
It is not much of a stretch to assume that, while reasoning on these
matters, Newton entertained the possibility that comets and stars themselves could be
rich in that electric spirit responsible for the various chymical and vegetative operations
on Earth.
It is then not a mere coincidence that Newton’s discussions of short-range forces
ad electrical phenomena emerged at the end of sections of the Principia dealing with the
nature and activity of comets. Naturally, a reflection on comets brought Newton to
contemplate questions about vegetation and, as a consequence, electrical phenomena. In
argillam, & arenam, & lapides, & coralla, & substantias alias terrestres paulatim migrare.” Principia
(1713): 481.
44 See above, at section “The Insertion ‘Vapores autem’ and the ‘Variant of Conclusion’ to Proposition
42.”
45 CUL Add. Ms. 3965, p. 356r.
46 My translation and italics. “Vapores autem qui ex Sole et Stellis fixis et caudis Cometarum oriuntur
incidere debent per gravitatem suam in [illeg.] corpora Planetarum & ibi condensari et converti primò in
aquam et humores & subinde (per operationes spiritus Electrici)/ in limum, & lutum, & sales ossa &
ligna, & Coral Coralla,/ & arenam & substantias alias terrestres/ animaliū vegetabilium et mineralium,
lapides & substantias alias terrestres terram mineralia paulatim/ coagulari digeri & coagulari.” 356r.
47 Cohen’s translation, The Principia: Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, p. 926.

21. 21
the next section, I will consider the links between electrical ideas, vegetation, and
alchemy in more depth.
Alchemy, Vegetation and the Electric Spirit
Manuscript evidence shows that the electric spirit of the General Scholium and its drafts
was related to chymistry and theory of matter belonging to the Helmontian tradition.
The best way to address this issue is to consider the texts preserved among the drafts of
the optical Queries in CUL Add. Ms. 3970, focusing especially on the group between
folios 235r and 241v. This is a variegated and interesting set, never published in their
entirety until recently.48
It is worth giving more specific details of the various texts:
1. ff. 235r-v contain the drafts of Quaestiones 24 and 25 (in English);
2. f. 236r contains the Latin text “De Motu et Sensatione Animalium;”
3. ff. 237-8, 240 contain the Latin text “De vita & morte vegetabili;”
4. f. 239r contains a text in English titled “Various Conjectures,” clearly related
to Newton’s “De natura acidorum;”
5. ff. 241r-v contain an earlier draft of the same Quaestio 25 of 1. (in
English).49
As mentioned, f. 239r is very likely an English translation–with a few integrations
and omissions–of the first set of notes by Edinburgh physician Archibald Pitcairne to
“De natura acidorum” of 2 March 1692. However, it is remarkable that several passages
from folios 238r and 240v, while clearly belonging to the discussion of “De vita & morte
48 Newton, Isaac. " Draft Versions of 'The Queries' (MS Add. 3970.3, ff. 231r-301r, 359r, 477v-478r, 610r-
612r, 618r-623r, Cambridge University Library, Cambridge, UK)." The Newton Project (2008).
http://www.newtonproject.sussex.ac.uk/catalogue/record/NATP00055 (accessed July 9, 2014).
49 Folios 235 and 241, are in fact one sheet, folded to form a bifolio, in which the remaining sheets are
inserted like in a folder. I thank Alan Shapiro for pointing out this to me.

22. 22
vegetabili,” also correspond to Pitcairne’s notes of the 3 March 1692.50
In this case, the
Latin text of “De natura acidorum” is often strongly integrated through several
rewritings, like in the case of the sentence si aurum fermentescere posset in alius quodvis corpus
posset transformari,51
which is variously integrated and modified, and also for the discussion
of fluidity and viscosity.
There are two very remarkable aspects for these texts taken as a whole: first of all,
their common focus on matters of vegetation, and secondly, the way they bridge and
connect this theme with the discussion of electricity on one side, and the one of
chemistry and matter theory on the other. As already anticipated, the relationship
between these texts and “De vita & morte vegetabili” is a fascinating topic, which can
throw important light on the issue of the relationship between the electric spirit and
alchemical ideas.
The unpublished drafts of Quaestiones 24 and 25, in English, extended the content
of the concluding query of the 1706 Optice, Quaestio 23 (renumbered as Query 31 in the
subsequent editions).52
Quaestio 23 introduced the issue of short-range forces operating
inside bodies, among the smallest particles composing them:
Have not the small Particles of Bodies certain Powers, Virtues or Forces, by which
they act at a distance, not only upon the Rays of Light for reflecting, refracting, and
inflecting them, but also upon one another for producing a great part of the
Phænomena of Nature?53
Quaestio 23 did not specify further the type of interparticular attraction. “It is well
known,” Newton affirmed, “that
Bodies act one upon another by the Attractions of Gravity, Magnetism and
Electricity; and these Instances shew the Tenor and Course of Nature, and make it
50 See Newton, Correspondence, vol. 3: 206-9. On Pitcairne, Newton and “De natura acidorum” see for
instance Guerrini, Anita. "Archibald Pitcairne and Newtonian Medicine." Medical history 31, no. 1 (1987):
70-83.
51 “If gold could ferment, it could be transformed into any other substance.” Newton, Correspondence, vol. 3:
207; Engl. transl. 211.
52 As a matter of fact, Newton noted that the Quaestiones had to be inserted at “p. 340. lin. 27” of Optice.
53 “Annon exiguæ corporum particulæ certas habent virtutes, potentias, sive vires; quibus, per interjectum
aliquod intervallum, agant, non modo in radios Luminis, ad eos reflectendos, refringendos, & inflectendos;
verum etiam mutuo in se ipsæ, ad producenda pleraque Phænomena Naturæ?”;

23. 23
not improbable but that there may be more attractive Powers than these. For Nature
is very consonant and conformable to her self.54
Newton did “not consider” here how these attractions can operate, and uses the
term only to indicate “in general any Force by which Bodies tend towards one another.”
Now, gravity, magnetism and electricity act at “very sensible distances,” so their
operations have been widely observed. However, Newton adds, it could be that, apart
from these forces, “there may be others which reach to so small distances as hitherto
escape Observation.” This is the way the Latin edition of the introductory paragraph
ends.
In Quaestiones 24 and 25, Newton explored the possibility that short-range forces
among particles were of an electrical nature. So, for instance, Quaestio 24 asked:
May not the forces by which the small particles of bodies cohere & act upon one
another at small distances […] be electric? … For the particles of all bodies may
abound with an electric spirit … And if there be such an universal electric spirit in
body, certainly it must very much influence the motions & actions of the particles of
the bodies amongst one another. so that without considering it, philosophers will
never be able to give an account of the phænomena arising from those motions &
actions. And so far as these phænomena may be performed by the spirit which causes
electric attraction it is unphilosophical to look for any other cause.55
Also, the provisional Query 25 focused on the power of the “very subtle active
potent elastic spirit” to emit, refract and reflect light, perform “electric attractions &
fugations,” explain cohesion of bodies and regulate the motions of the small particles of
bodies. A reference56
to the experiments on electricity and luminescence performed by
Hauksbee in 1706 marks the terminus post quem for the text, which was clearly conceived
sometime between that date and the time of second English edition of the “Opticks.”
Hauksbee’s experiments showed to Newton that the electric spirit could emit light.
54 “Satis enim notum est, corpora in se invicem Agere per Attractiones gravitatis, virtutisq; magneticæ &
electricæ. Atq; hæc quidem exempla, Naturæ ordinem & rationem, quæ sit, ostendunt; ut adeo
verisimillimum sit, alias etiam adhuc esse posse vires Attrahentes. Etenim Natura valde consimilis &
consentanea est sibi.”;
55 CUL Add. Ms. 3970, http://www.newtonproject.sussex.ac.uk/view/texts/diplomatic/NATP00055, f.
235r, accessed 15 January 2015.
56 Ibid., f. 241v.

24. 24
Newton went on to imagine the possibility that the vibrations of that medium could
explain heat, human sensation and the action of soul on body:
The like vibrations may be excited in the bottom of the eye by light & propagated
thence through the solid capillamenta of the optick nerves into the sensorium for
causing vision & the like of other senses. The like vibrations may be also propagated
from the brain through the solid fibres of the spinal marrow & its branches into ye
muscles for agitating & expanding the liquors therein & thereby contracting the
muscles to cause the motions of animals. […]This spirit therefore may be the
medium of sense of animal motion & by consequence of uniting the thinking soul &
unthinking body.57
These statements are of course echoed in the last paragraph of the General
Scholium. Moreover, analogous ideas appear in drafts of the “Recensio Libri,” Newton’s
anonymous review of Commercium Epistolicum, datable around the year 1714/15; in such
draft, Newton stated that Hauksbee had
found by some experiments shewed before the R. Society that this Agent or spirit
when sufficiently agitated emits light & that light in passing by the edges of bodies at
small distances from them is inflected.
Writing about himself in the third person, he added that
[Newton] has represented in the end of his Principles that light & this spirit may act
mutually upon one another for causing heat reflexion refraction inflexion & vision, &
that if this spirit may receive impressions from light & convey them into the
sensiorium [sic] & there act upon that substance which sees & thinks, that substance
may mutually act upon this spirit for causing animal motion.58
Most interestingly, though, Quaestio 25 developed describing the actions of the
electric spirit even further, connecting its activity with the issue of vegetation: “this spirit
may be also of great use in vegetation, wherein three things are to be considered,
generation, nutrition & præparation of nourishment.”59
Newton assumed that vegetable
life might “also consist in the power of this [electric] spirit.”60
Such spirit would then
help life, nutrition and assimilation of nourishment:
57 Ibid., ff. 241v-r.
58 CUL Ms. 3968, sec. 41, “Unarranged fragments, mostly relating to the dispute with Leibniz,” f. 125r;
http://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/MS-ADD-03968/1431, accessed January 15 2015. See also Cohen,
Introduction: 281.
59 CUL Add. Ms. 3970, 235r.
60 Ibid. 241r.

25. 25
by being stronger in the particles of living substances then in others it may preserve
them from corruption, & [from the particles] act upon the nourishment to make it of
like form & vertue wth the living particles as a magnet turns iron to a magnet & fire
turns its nourishment to fire & leaven turns past to leaven. For the living particles
may propagate the vibrating motions of their spirit into the contiguous particles of
the nourishment & cause ye spirit in those particles to vibrate & act after ye same
manner & by that action to modify the nourishment after the same manner with the
living particles.61
However, the most important connections between electricity, the issue of
vegetation and Newton’s chymistry can be found in the scattered notes summarized
under the heading “De vita & morte vegetabili.” These notes have received little
attention, apart from an extensive examination by Mamiani and Emanuela Trucco.62
Mamiani dated them to a period between 1710 and the moment of the preparation of the
final paragraph of the General Scholium. Interestingly, Mamiani could calculate the
terminus a quo from an annotation by Newton on folio 240v, reporting a cumulative
account of the yearly balances of the Mint;63
however, using Mamiani’s own procedure, a
more appropriate terminus a quo would be the year 1709. Also, the terminus ad quem, if not
exactly the one indicated by Mamiani, is certainly not much further from it and surely not
further than the time of Newton’s afterthoughts on the electric spirit, that is to say the
time of the composition of the queries for the 1717 edition of the Opticks: so, “De vita &
morte vegetabili” can certainly be considered as a good source for the ideas that Newton
entertained while preparing the General Scholium, or shortly after that time.
In order to understand fully “De vita & morte vegetabili,” it is useful to consider
briefly Newton’s early reflections on the issue of vegetation. An especially important
61 Ibid.
62 Mamiani and Trucco (1991). Mamiani and Trucco’s article includes an accurate transcription of DVMV.
However, their logical reconstruction of the text is somewhat confusing and not necessarily conclusive.
The situation has improved after the publication of a diplomatic transcription of DVMV by the Newton
Project as part of the “Draft Queries,”
http://www.newtonproject.sussex.ac.uk/view/texts/diplomatic/NATP00055, ff. 237-8 and 240, accessed
January 15 2015.
63 See Mamiani and Trucco (1991) 74-5.

26. 26
source is the manuscript “Of Natures obvious laws & processes in vegetation.”64
In the
past, Betty Jo Teeter Dobbs, and more recently William Newman have emphasized the
importance of this text, datable in the early 1670s.65
In “Of Natures obvious laws,”
Newton distinguishes sharply between natural actions that are “vegetable” or “purely
mechanicall.” Purely mechanical actions are “ye
sensible changes” that take place “in ye
textures of ye
grosser matter.” This is the domain of “sophistical” or vulgar chymistry,
only based on the “mechanicall coalitions or separations of particles.”66
According to
Newton, vegetation operates at a different level:
There is therefore besides the sensible changes wrought in the textures of the grosser
matter a more subtile secret & noble way of working in all vegetation which makes its
products distinct from all others; & the immediate seate of these operations is not the
whole bulk of matter, but rather an exceeding subtile & inimaginably small portion of
matter diffused through the masse which if it were seperated there would remain but
a dead & inactive earth.67
Also, for Newton the difference between mechanical and vegetable actions is “vast
& fundamental because nothing could ever yet bee made without vegetation which
nature useth to produce by it.”68
Moreover, the operations of vulgar chymistry can always
be reversed and components entering processes recovered and returned to their original
state, just because all fully reducible to “mechanicall coalitions or seperations of
particles.” This is not the case for vegetation, where “wee must have recourse to som
further cause”: true vegetation implies a complete change of essence.69
Scholars of early modern alchemy have noticed that very similar views are present in
the chymistry of Joan Baptista Van Helmont.70
Again, Van Helmont identifies chemical
64 Dibner MS. 1031 B SCDIRB, The Chymistry of Isaac Newton. Ed. William R. Newman 2006. Accessed July
25, 2014 from: http://purl.dlib.indiana.edu/iudl/newton/ALCH00081
65 See Dobbs. The Janus faces of genius: the role of alchemy in Newton's thought; and Newman, William.
“Geochemical concepts in Isaac Newton’s early alchemy,” in Rosenberg, Gary D., ed. The Revolution in
Geology from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment. Vol. 203. Geological Society of America, 2009: 41-49.
66 Dibner MS. 1031 B SCDIRB , 5v.
67 Ibid., 5v-6r.
68 Ibid., 5v.
69 Ibid.
70 See Principe, Lawrence. “Reflections on Newton’s Alchemy in Light of the New Historiography of
Alchemy,” in Force, James E. and Sarah Hutton (eds.). Newton and Newtonianism: New Studies, Dordrecht:

27. 27
operations involving superficial changes, which he calls larvae, or masks. However, a
second type of material change happens when semina are involved. In Van Helmont,
semina operate through “odors” and “ferments.” Through such instruments, semina
produce thorough changes of essence. For instance, as Larry Principe reminds us, water–
Van Helmont’s basic substratum- can be transformed “into all other substances in the
world.”71
In “De vita & morte vegetabili,” about forty years after the initial formulations
in “Of Natures obvious laws & processes in vegetation,” similar Helmontian ideas
resurface again, in connection with electric forces.
“De vita” begins by stating the existence of an electric force between the small
particles of bodies, immediately followed by a discussion of acid solvents (menstrua) and
of solutions. Newton initially affirms that
1 All bodies have an electric force and that force is very strong in the surfaces of
particles but it is not stirred far without friction or some other action.
{Inserted from 237v} 2 It is evident through experiments that the bodies for the
most part attract and sometimes drive each other apart. Likewise, the particles of oil
drive apart the particles of water. {End of insertion}
3 Through the electric force, the particles of bodies unite and cohere in different
ways. And the smaller particles act more strongly and cohere more closely.72
The discussion on acid solvents in this text is quite close to the one developed in the
letter to Boyle of February 1679 and in “De natura acidorum” (1691/2), however
introducing ferments and electric forces as fundamental agents. The operations of such
solutions can be explained in terms of electrical attractions. For instance, Newton states,
an acid solvent can dissolve a dense body because, through electric attraction, the acid
particles permeate the interstices of the body, surrounding its particles of last
composition (Newton’s highest level of material structure) and making them precipitate.
Kluwer, 2004: 205-19, especially 215; Newman, William. “The background to Newton’s chymistry,” in
Cohen, I. Bernard, and George E. Smith (eds.). The Cambridge Companion to Newton. Cambridge University
Press, 2002: 358-369; and: Gehennical Fire: The Lives of George Starkey, An American Alchemist in the Scientific
Revolution, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003; first edition, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, 1994: esp. 141-146.
71 Principe (2004): 215.
72 CUL Add. Ms. 3970, 237r.

28. 28
This action produces an apparent dissolution of the body. However, the acid particles are
not small enough to enter the pores of the particles of last composition and dissolve
them further in their smallest parts. They remain in the solution with their nature
unchanged. In the case of a metal, after precipitation, the particles can be fused and the
original metallic body can be recovered.73
Here Newton is clearly describing the stage of
what he called “sophistical” or vulgar chymistry in his early alchemical work.
However, Newton continues, if “certain more subtle spirits” are excited during this
process, they can actually enter the pores of the particles of last composition, dissolving
and separating them in the smaller particles of penultimate composition. In this way, the
body finally loses its original form (corpus formam veterem jam amisit). Already at this stage,
Newton states, the particles of penultimate composition can change back to the stage of
ultimate composition only through a process of generation: changes at this level are not
longer those of vulgar chymistry but of vegetation proper.74
This process of dissolution is
what is usually called corruption of the body and putrefaction.75
These explanations are mostly recapitulating those present in the letter to Boyle of
February 1679 and in “De natura acidorum” (1691/2). However, Newton’s further point
is remarkable: in a truly Helmontian vein, Newton suggests that only ferments can
produce such operations. The ferment is a “vegetable body (corpus vegetabile) rich in spirits
able to penetrate the pores of the parts of ultimate composition, dissolve them, and
through this dissolution gradually produce new spirits of the same type, through which
putrefaction is fulfilled.”76
At the end of this process, the body is dissolved in his smallest
parts (partes minimas). At this stage, the original form and essence of the body is lost and,
“through generation” and fermental action, “countless new forms” can be achieved
73 Ibid. 237r.
74 Furthermore, the same process can dissolve the particles of penultimate composition in third to last
composition, etc..
75 CUL Add. Ms. 3970, 237r.
76 Ibid.

29. 29
(corpus ... formam veterem amisit & formarum innumerabilium novarum per generationem est capax).
In summary, putrefaction breaks a body in its smallest parts, while generation
recombines these smallest parts and restores them to a new order. Echoing the
discussion of Quaestio 25, Newton states that generation and life are possible trough the
actions and attractions of the electrical force: when this attraction is lost, life ends and
the processes of corruption and putrefaction start again.
In general, the ferment was the key element behind these operations. So, for
instance, as mentioned before, Newton particularly focused on revising and rewriting a
sentence already present as a comment by Pitcairne in “De natura acidorum” (si aurum
fermentescere posset).77
If ferment could act on gold, it could reduce it to fimus (excrement of
putrefaction) and then, through a generative process, transform it into any other body.
Also, the operations of acids were regulated by the activity of the ferment; as Quaestio 25
stated,
Now in all fermentation wch
generates spirits, the ferment abounds wth
a supprest acid
wch
being more attracted by the other body forsakes its own <235v> to rush upon &
dissolve ye
other & by the violence of the action breaks both its own particles & the
particles of ye
other body into smaller particles & these by their subtilty volatility &
continual digestion {illeg} resolve ye
whole mass into as subtile parts as it can be
resolved by putrefaction.
In general, the picture of vegetation emerging from “De vita & morte vegetabili”
and Quaestiones 24 and 25 is unmistakably Helmontian, through the action of ferments.
Remarkably, however, electric forces are at the core of the fermental activity and the
Helmontian spiritual ferment is endowed with an electric power of attraction. All
operations of the ferment can be explained by means of attractions, which are
undoubtedly electrical. Electrical attractions explain both the phenomena of vegetation
and those of ordinary chemistry. It is remarkable that, in these documents, Newton is
integrating several moments of his previous reflection on short-range attractive forces,
77 Newton, Correspondence, vol. 3: 207.

30. 30
the role and action of acids in chymistry and the issue of vegetation. “De vita & morte
vegetabili” builds on previous sources on all of these themes, starting from “Of Natures
obvious laws & processes in vegetation,” the letter to Boyle of 1679 and “De natura
acidorum” (1691/2) (as a matter of fact, several parts of “De vita & morte vegetabili” are
translations and revisions of sections of “De natura acidorum”). In “De vita & morte
vegetabili” Newton clearly builds a Helmontian view of chemical and vital processes, in
which the smallest particles of bodies bear a fermentative power acting on other particles
through a short-range electric force, responsible for putrefaction, the cohesion of bodies,
vegetation and the variety of phenomena for instance listed in the last paragraph of the
General Scholium.
In conclusion, the elliptical reference to the electric spirit in the Scholium–and, as a
matter of fact, at the very end of the whole Principia of 1713–was a prudent hint at the
existence of a wide and still largely unexplored territory, the borders of which were not
entirely traced or delimited. As the notes of “De vita & morte vegetabili” well show, the
electric spirit specifically integrated into what was fundamentally a Helmontian theory of
matter.78
Through its presence at the core of material activity, a vast field of phenomena–
ranging from vegetation, to chemical actions, the interaction of light and matter, and
animal sensation–could be described and modeled. About forty years after the efforts in
Of Natures obvious laws & processes in vegetation and for some time around the composition
of the General Scholium, the electric spirit was then the key element of a novel attempt
to build a renewed alchemically based “theory of everything.”79
78 On Newton’s Helmontian matter theory see W. Newman (2002). On the impact of the Helmontian
George Starkey on Newton’s chymistry and matter theory see W. Newman (1994).
79 On the notion of an alchemically based “theory of everyhing” in Of Natures obvious laws & processes in
vegetation see W. Newman (2009) and William Newman, “The Significance of Newton’s Alchemical
Research” at the entry “Newton, Isaac,” in Koertge, Noretta (ed.). New Dictionary of Scientific Biography.
Detroit: Charles Scribner's Sons/Thomson Gale. vol. V (2008): 273-277.