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This fifth volume presents the surviving correspondence from the
period of almost four years which is, from a bibliographical point
of view, the most important time in Newton's life: with Roger
Cotes, Newton revised his Philosophise Naturalis Principia
Mathematics and saw it through the press. Considered as a single
group of letters, the Newton-Cotes correspondence is the largest
and most important section of Newton's scientific correspondence
that we have. Nowhere else can one witness Newton in a detailed
debate about scientific argument and scientific conclusions - a
debate from which he did not always emerge victorious. Nowhere else
does Newton write in detail about the text of the Principia. And
all scholars agree that this text which was hammered out between
Cotes and Newton was the most important of all versions, printed
and unprinted; this was (to all intents and purposes) the Principia
of subsequent history.
As Newton had by now entered his eighth decade, it can be no
surprise that the correspondence in this sixth volume shows a
marked decline in his activity and intellectual vigour. While the
number of extant letters written by him on other that Mint business
is relatively small, the majority of them are devoted to his
controversy with Leibniz - Newton's dominant interest during this
period. The correspondence of Newton shades gradually into the
correspondence of the Newtonians. Thus notably Keill, De Moivre,
Chamberlayne, Brook Taylor, the Abbe Conti and Des Maizeaux
interested themselves in the calculus dispute, all of them (except
the first) having frequent opportunities for personal conversation
with Newton.
In this seventh and final volume the letters are divided into two
quite distinct groups. The first group begins with the remaining
letters of the main chronological sequence written during the
closing years of Newton's life, and then proceeds to those few
letters to which there is no assignable date with any certainty.
The second group of letters, placed in Appendix I, contains
corrections and additions to the letters printed in the earlier
volumes of the Correspondence. A genealogical table is added to
Appendix II to help the reader through the intricacies of Newton's
family tree. Even after the creative power of his genius had
deserted him, Newton retained to the very end of his long life the
characteristic clarity of his thought. Few of Newton's letters in
this volume may justly be described as scientific. The relative
inactivity of the Mint meant that, although he apparently delegated
few of his responsibilities to others, Newton's concerns there were
no onerous. Thus it is not surprising that in the last nine years
of his life (the period covered in this volume), and particularly
from 1725 onwards, there was a decrease in Newton's output of
letters; but those which he did write remain as lucid as ever.
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