Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica
General Scholium

The General Scholium is a concluding essay added to the second edition, 1713 (and amended in the third edition, 1726). It is not to be confused with the General Scholium at the end of Book 2, Section 6, which discusses his pendulum experiments and resistance due to air, water, and other fluids.

Here Newton used the expression hypotheses non fingo, "I formulate no hypotheses", in response to criticisms of the first edition of the Principia. ("Fingo" is sometimes nowadays translated "feign" rather than the traditional "frame," although "feign" does not properly translate "fingo"). Newton's gravitational attraction, an invisible force able to act over vast distances, had led to criticism that he had introduced " occult agencies" into science. Newton firmly rejected such criticisms and wrote that it was enough that the phenomena implied gravitational attraction, as they did; but the phenomena did not so far indicate the cause of this gravity, and it was both unnecessary and improper to frame hypotheses of things not implied by the phenomena: such hypotheses "have no place in experimental philosophy", in contrast to the proper way in which "particular propositions are inferr'd from the phenomena and afterwards rendered general by induction".

Newton also underlined his criticism of the vortex theory of planetary motions, of Descartes, pointing to its incompatibility with the highly eccentric orbits of comets, which carry them "through all parts of the heavens indifferently".

Newton also gave theological argument. From the system of the world, he inferred the existence of a god, along lines similar to what is sometimes called the argument from intelligent or purposive design. It has been suggested that Newton gave "an oblique argument for a unitarian conception of God and an implicit attack on the doctrine of the Trinity ". The General Scholium does not address or attempt to refute the church doctrine; it simply does not mention Jesus, the Holy Ghost, or the hypothesis of the Trinity.
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