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Action and Reaction before Newton

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2009

John L. Russell
John L. Russell
Affiliation:
Heythrop College, University of London, 11–13 Cavendish Square, London W1M oAN.
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Extract

The concepts of action and reaction before Newton have received so little attention from historians that the unwary student might easily get the impression that Newton was the first to concern himself seriously with the problem. In fact, the subject had a long prehistory extending back to Aristotle and it was actively discussed by physicists during the half-century preceding the publication of Principia mathematica in 1687. Although there is no evidence that Newton himself was much influenced by the views of others on the subject, they formed a part of the intellectual background of the Principia which should not be ignored.

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal for the History of Science , Volume 9 , Issue 1 , March 1976 , pp. 25 - 38
Copyright
Copyright © British Society for the History of Science 1976

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References

NOTES

1 Aristotle, , Physics, iii. 2Google Scholar (202a. 2–8), English translation by Hardie, R. P. and Gaye, R. K., in The Works of Aristotle, vol. ii (Oxford, 1930).Google Scholar

2 Aristotle, , On generation and corruption, i. 6–10Google Scholar, English translation by Joachim, H. H., in Works, vol. ii (Oxford, 1930).Google Scholar

3 Ibid. i. 10 (328a. 18–22).

4 Ibid. i. 10 (328a. 24–32).

5 Ibid. i. 6–7.

6 Aristotle, , On the movement of animals, English translation by Forster, E. S. [Loeb, edn.] (London, 1955), c. 3.Google Scholar

7 Aristotle, , On the generation of animals, iv. 3 (768b. 15–20Google Scholar), English translation by Peck, A. L. [Loeb edn.] (London, 1953).Google Scholar

8 The interacting bodies are άλληλων και παθητικα ύπ' άλληλων; see On generation and corruption, i. 10 (328a. 20).Google Scholar

9 Clagett, Marshall, Giovanni Marliani and late medieval physics (New York, 1941), chapter 2.Google Scholar

10 Pomponazzi, Pietro, Tractatus acutissimi … de intensione et remissione formarum … de reaclione … (Venice, 1525).Google Scholar

11 Pernumia, Joannes Paulus, Philosophia naturalis (Padua, 1570), i. 4Google Scholar, fol. 9–11.

12 Valles, Francisco, Controversiarum medicarum et philosophicarum libri decem (Alcala, 1564), c. 5Google Scholar. There were many later editions. I have used the Frankfurt (1582) edition.

13 Valleriola, Francisco, Commentarii in sex Galeni libros de morbis et symptomatis (Venice, 1548)Google Scholar, lib. vi, De symptomatum causis, c. 2, 628–32Google Scholar. (This contains Latin text as well as commentary.)

14 Valles, , op. cit. (12), p. 12.Google Scholar

15 ‘De actione reciproca, quae vulgo reactio dicitur’ (p. 10).Google Scholar

16 Commentarii Collegii Conimbricensis Societatis Iesu in libros de generatione et corruptione Aristotelis Stagiritae (Coimbra, 1597).Google Scholar I have used the ‘third’ (actually sixth) edition (Mainz, 1615), pp. 324–33.Google Scholar

17 ‘Aduertendum est hoc esse discrimen inter resistentiam secundo et tertio mode acceptam [i.e. priuatiuam et contrariam], quod haec sit aequalis actiuitati, cum per cam tantum resistatur, quantum per actiuitatem de contrario expellitur: ilium vero interdum actiuitate maior fit, interdum minor …’ (pp. 327–8).Google Scholar

18 They were enunciated by Descartes in his Principia philosophiae (Amsterdam, 1644), ii. 44–52Google Scholar (Oeuvres, ed. C. Adam and P. Tannery, vol. viiiGoogle Scholar). They are discussed in Westfall, R. S., Force in Newton's physics (London and New York, 1971), pp. 83–4.Google Scholar

19 See, for instance, Descartes's letter to Mersenne, , 21 04, 1641Google Scholar, in Oeuvres, iii. 355Google Scholar, quoted in Westfall, , op. cit. (18), p. 67Google Scholar. Descartes's ‘motus’ was a scalar, not a vector quantity, and so unaltered by changes of direction.

20 Marci, Joannes Marcus, De proportione motus (Prague, 1639)Google Scholar, prop, xxxvi, xxxvii, sig. Liv-Miir.

21 Digby, Kenelm, Two treatises: in the one of which, the nature of bodies; in the other, the nature of mans soule is looked into … (Paris, 1644)Google Scholar. Later editions: London, 1645, 1658, 1665, 1669. Page references are to the 1645 edition.

22 Mersenne, Marin, Universae geometriae, mixtaeque mathematicae synopsis (Paris, 1644), p. 569.Google Scholar

23 Maignan, Emanuele, Perspectiva horaria (Rome, 1648).Google Scholar

24 Westfall, , op. cit. (18), p. 103.Google Scholar

25 Gassendi, , Syntagma philosophicum, in Opera omnia (6 vols., Lyons, 1658), i. 365.Google Scholar

26 Ibid., i. 358.

27 Charleton, Walter, Physiologia Epicuro-Gassendo-Charltoniana (London, 1654), p. 331.Google Scholar

28 Ibid. p. 455. The views of Gassendi and Charleton are discussed in more detail in Westfall, , op. cit. (18), pp. 99–109.Google Scholar

29 Hobbes, Thomas, Elementorum philosophiae: De corpore (London, 1655)Google Scholar. English translation in: The English works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury, ed. SirMolesworth, William (London, 1839–1845), i. 348.Google Scholar

30 Euclides physicus, sive de principiis naturae stoecheidea E. Authore Thoma Anglo … (London, 1657)Google Scholar. Most of White's scientific works were published under the pseudonym Thomas Anglus.

31 ‘Prop. XVII: Quotiescunque unum corpus contra aliud movetur, sive cedere sive non moveri videatur, pro suis circumstantiis aequa vi repellit corpus contra se motum.

Cum enim necesse sit Agens naturale operari quantum potest omnibus positis, palam est, effectum esse parem virtuti causae in positis circumstantiis. Effectus vero est superare resistentiam passi; resistentia itaque superata est aequalis virtuti causae in circumstantiis positis. Cum itaque resistentia, ut in natura consideratur, sit motus oppositus motui Agentis, undecunque enim sit non nisi per motum operatur, pala est, passum tanta vi moveri contra Agens, quanta Agens in ipsum agit, sive aequa vi repellere Agens.’ (p. 158).

31 White, , De mundo dialogi tres (Paris, 1642).Google Scholar

32 White, , Institutionum peripateticarum … (Lyons, 1646)Google Scholar. Later editions: London, 1647; Paris, 1655; Frankfurt, 1664. English translation: Peripateticall institutions … (London, 1656).Google Scholar

34 Wood, Anthony, Athenae oxonienses, ed. Bliss, Philip (London, 1817), iii. col. 1247–8.Google Scholar

35 I owe this information to Dr H. W. Jones of the University of Bradford.

36 Westfall, R. S., ‘The foundations of Newton's philosophy of nature’, The British Journal for the History of Science, i (1962–1963) 172–3.Google Scholar

37 Magirus, , Physiologiae peripateticae libri sex (Cambridge, 1642), i. 4Google Scholar; iii. 9. There were many earlier editions.