Newton on Action at a Distance

Abstract

Reasoning without experience is very slippery. A man may puzzle me by arguents [sic] . . . but I'le beleive my ey experience ↓my eyes.↓ (CUL Add. Ms. 3970, 619 r )1 .i n t r o d u c t i o n 1 ernan mcmullin once remarked that, although the "avowedly tentative form" of the Queries "marks them off from the rest of Newton's published work," they are "the most significant source, perhaps, for the most general categories of matter and action that informed his research."2 the Queries (or Quaestiones), which Newton inserted at the very end of the third book of the Opticks 3 or its Latin rendition, Optice, 4 constitute that part of his optical magnum opus which he reworked and augmented the most-especially between 1704 and 1717.While the main text of the Opticks itself underwent only minor changes and even fewer additions, 5 the

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