The Translator of Newton's “System of the World”

Abstract

NEWTON'S book, the “System of the World”, has laboured under two uncertainties, the first as to its authorship, the second as to the translator of it into English. The first uncertainty, raised by De Morgan in his “Budget of Paradoxes” (1872, p. 83), has been removed, but the second still prevails, according to G. J. Gray's “Bibliography of the Works of Sir Isaac Newton”, second edition, 1907, p. 20. I wish to prove that it was translated by Andrew Motte, the translator of the “Principia”. This follows conclusively from a comparison of the translation of a practically identical passage of about 850 words in the “Principia” and in the “System of the World”. No two independent translators could use language so very nearly identical. Consider, in particular, a critical phrase in that passage (“Principia”, Bk. 3 Prop. 41, Example; “System of the World”, Paragraph 67): “Nam quod dicitur Fixas ab Aegyptiis comatas nonnunquam visas fuisse”. The translation of “comatas” caused trouble and was rendered in both books by the use of three words, “coma or capillitium”, the whole phrase being translated, “For as to what is alleged that the fixed stars have been sometimes seen by the Egyptians, environed with a coma or capillitium”. Such singular coincidence in a free translation makes it certain that both books are rendered into English by the same translator.