London: Printed for F. Fayram, 1728. First English language edition. Octavo (190 x 113 mm), pp. xxiv, 154, [2]. Two engraved plates, wood-engraved diagrams throughout. Contemporary sprinkled calf, spine ruled in gilt and with blue paper label lettered in manuscript, covers ruled in gilt and bordered in blind, edges sprinkled red. Eighteenth-century ink signature of one Charles Garrett to front free endpaper. Light rubbing, joints and extremities neatly restored, minor foxing to contents. An attractive, Very Good copy.

First edition in English of Newton’s original draft of the final book of the Principia, the only portion of that draft to be published. The Treatise was consciously written “in a popular method” (p. iii) and reflects his early conceptions of the Newtonian universe. Newton’s original draft of the work that would become the Principia was completed in autumn 1685 and structured as a two-book text. Book I was more explicitly mathematical, while Book II was a more accessible prose analysis of the Newtonian universe under these new mathematical principles. While this version of the Principia was almost entirely focused on gravitation, Newton’s instincts quickly compelled him to rework the text into a complete system of classical mechanics. During this revision, Book II was comprehensively re-written to form what we now have as the final book of the published work. While Newton abandoned the accessible prose of the earlier rendition, the content “did not differ substantially” between the two versions (Westfall, p. 459). This posthumous edition publishes (and translates) Newton’s original Book II, which contains several prescient suggestions, pointing towards the possibility of terrestrial tidal effects (not discovered until 1919) and towards the existence of Uranus (first seen by Herschel in 1781).

The Treatise was first published the same year in Latin as De Mundi Systemate, as agreed by Newton when bequeathing his papers to his son in law John Conduitt. Based on textual similarities, Babson identifies the editor of this English translation as Andrew Motte (1696 - 1734), also responsible for the first translation of the published Principia into English. The original version of Book I is only partially preserved and, consequently, has never been published in full.

Babson 18; ESTC T14938; Gray 30; Norman 1593; Wallis 30. Richard S. Westfall, Never at Rest: A Biography of Isaac Newton, 1981. (Item #7701)