NEWTON, Isaac.

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Philosophiae naturalis principia mathematica. Editio Secunda Auctior et Emendatior. Second edition, extensively revised by Newton himself and including the first appearance of the General Scholium: among his last discussions of scientific enquiry, and the source of his famed principle "Hypotheses non fingo" ("I feign no hypotheses" - p. 484). "The Principia that has shaped Western scientific tracition is substantially the second edition" (ODNB). Together with Roger Cotes (1682-1716), Cambridge's Plumian Professor of Astronomy, Newton extensively overhauled the Principia over a period of four years: almost 400 of the first edition's 494 pages have been revised here. Alongside the Scholium, the pair made particularly extensive annotations to the sections on lunar theory, comets, and fluid dynamics. Cotes was a gifted mathematician in his own right: after his early death, Newton commented that "if he had lived, we might have learned something". Cotes's lengthy preface, together with Newton's Scholium and the revisions to the text itself, helped to fashion the second edition of the Principia into a key text in the lengthy debate between Newton and continental philosophy, most particularly that of Leibniz. The "Hypotheses non fingo" principle is directly framed to emphasize Newton's focus on descriptive analysis, in contrast to continental speculation over causes.This is one of 750 copies printed at the Cambridge university press under the supervision of Richard Bentley, the famed

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