Axiomata, sive Leges Motus

Edition

Excerpt: the whole section “Axiomata, sive Leges Motus” of the first edition (London, 1687), pp. 12-25, that is Lex I to III, Corollaries I to VI and the Scholium; the Definitiones before it and the books after it are left out. The text is the transcription of the 1687 edition by Jonathan Ingram, Keith Edkins and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team (Project Gutenberg ebook 28233, HTML version), checked word by word against the scan of the Smithsonian Libraries copy of the 1687 edition (Internet Archive, philosophiaenat00newt, leaves n25 to n38). Where the transcription departs from the print, the print is restored: “quomodocunq:” (p. 13), “horizentem” (p. 15, a misprint), “ad decem: ponantur” (p. 16), “ante reflexionem & partium octodecim” (p. 17), “movebunt per Legem 2.)” without an opening parenthesis and “D. Wallisius, dein” (p. 20), “occurrebant, quod”, “eandam” (a misprint) and “loca s, k notare” (p. 22), and “commissis” (p. 24); the sums “15+1 vel 16+0” and differences “17−1 & 18−2” are set as printed, with a minus sign. As in the transcription, the two corrections of the printed errata leaf of the book (“Errata sensum turbantia sic emenda”) are applied: p. 14 “ut OK ad OD seu OL” for the printed “ut DO (seu OL) ad OK”, and p. 18 “recta” for “arecta”; “contrario-” at the foot of p. 16, completed only by the catchword, is set as “contrariorum”. Running heads, page numbers, signatures and catchwords are dropped, words hyphenated at line ends are rejoined, the drop cap and the long s are set in modern type, and the ligatures æ and œ and the abbreviation “q;” are kept. The section title is the title of the poster. The three figures (Corollary I, Corollary II, Scholium) are cropped from the same scan (pp. 13, 14 and 21), in grayscale with the paper tone and the show-through removed; the Scholium figure, printed beside the text on p. 21 and again on p. 22, is set once, at the head of the Scholium.

Rights

Isaac Newton died in March 1727 (Wikidata, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q935): his works are in the public domain in France, where protection ends 70 years after the author’s death. The book was published in London in 1687, before 1 January 1931, so it is in the public domain in the United States. Newton was English and the country of origin is the United Kingdom, no longer in the EU; the term there has long expired as well.

Transcription: Project Gutenberg ebook 28233, a public domain work in the United States (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/28233); only the text, not the Project Gutenberg trademark or license, is reproduced. Scan and figures: Internet Archive https://archive.org/details/philosophiaenat00newt, Smithsonian Libraries copy of the 1687 edition, a public domain book.