Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 17.djvu/477

Rh promoted to the more lucrative office of master of the mint he appointed Whiston his deputy with &quot;the full profits of the place.&quot; Whiston began his astronomical lectures as Newton s deputy in January 1701. On December 10, 1701, Newton resigned his professorship, thereby at the same time resigning his fellowship at Trinity, which he had held with the Lucasian professorship since 1675 by virtue of the royal mandate. Winston s claims to succeed Newton in the Lucasian chair were successfully supported by Newton himself. On November 26, 1701, Newton was again elected one of the representatives of the university in parliament, but he retained his seat only until the dissolution in the follow ing July. Newton does not seem to have been a candidate at this election, but at the next dissolution in 1705 he was again a candidate for the representation of the university. He was warmly supported by the residents, but being a Whig in politics he was opposed by the non-residents, and beaten by a large majority. In the autumn of 1703 Lord Somers retired from the post of president of the Royal Society, and Newton on November 30, 1703, was elected to succeed him. Newton was annually re-elected to this honourable post during the remainder of his life. He held the office in all twenty-five years, a period in which he has been exceeded by but one other president of the Royal Society, Sir Joseph Banks. As president Newton was brought into close connexion with Prince George of Denmark, the queen s husband, who had been elected a fellow of the Royal Society. The prince had offered, on Newton s recommendation, to be at the expense of printing Flamsteed s observations, and especially his catalogue of the stars. It was natural that the queen should form a high opinion of one whose merits had made such a deep impression on her husband, and she took an early opportunity of publicly showing the respect she had for his genius and character. In April 1705, when the queen, the prince, and the court were staying at the royal residence at Newmarket, they paid a visit to Cambridge, where they were the guests of Dr Bentley, the master of Trinity. Her Majesty went in state to the Regent House, where a congregation of the senate was held, and a number of honorary degrees conferred. After wards the queen held a court at Trinity Lodge, where (April 16, 1705) she conferred the order of knighthood upon the most distinguished of her subjects, the noblest knight who ever won his spurs in science, Sir Isaac Newton. As soon as the first edition of the Principia was pub lished Newton began to prepare for a second edition. He was anxious to improve the work by additions to the theory of the motion of the moon and the planets. Dr Edleston, in his preface to Newton s correspondence with Cotes, justly remarks : &quot;If Flamsteed the Astronomer-Royal had cordially cooperated with him in the humble capacity of an observer in the way that Newton pointed out and requested of him (and for his almost unpardonable omission to do so I know of no better apology that can be offered than that he did not understand the real nature and, consequently, the importance of the researches in which Newton was engaged, his purely empirical and tabular views never having been replaced in his mind by a clear conception of the Principle of Uni versal Gravitation), the lunar theory would, if its creator did not overrate his own powers, have been completely investigated, so far as he could do it, in the first few months of 1695, and a second edition of the Principia would probably have followed the execution of the task at no long interval.&quot; Newton, however, could not get the information he wanted from Flamsteed, and after the spring of 1696 his time was much occupied by his duties at the mint. Rumours, however, of his work, and of a new edition, were heard from time to time. In February 1700 Leibnitz writes of Newton, &quot; J ai appris aussi (je ne SQai ou) qu il donnera encore quelque chose sur le mouvement de la lune : et on m a dit aussi qu il y aura une nouvelle edition de ses principes de la nature.&quot; Dr Bentley, the master of Trinity College, had for a long time urged Newton to give his consent to the republica- tion of the Principia. In the middle of 1708 Newton s consent was obtained, but it was not till the spring of 1709 that he was prevailed upon to entrust the superintendence of it to a young mathematician of great promise, Roger Cotes, fellow of Trinity College, who had been recently appointed the first Plumian professor of astronomy and experimental philosophy. On May 21, 1709, after having been that day with Newton, Bentley announced this arrangement to Cotes ; &quot; Sir Isaac Newton,&quot; he said, &quot;will be glad to see you in June, and then put into your hands one part of his book corrected for the press. &quot; About the middle of July Cotes went to London, in the expecta tion doubtless to bring down with him to Cambridge the corrected portion of the Principia. Although Cotes was impatient to begin his work, it was nearly the end of September before the corrected copy was put into his hands. During the printing of this edition a correspondence went on continuously between Newton and Cotes. On March 31, 1713, when the edition was nearly ready for publication, Newton wrote to Cotes : &quot; I heare that Mr Bernoulli has sent a Paper of 40 pages to be published in the Acta Leipsica relating to what I have written upon the curve Lines described by Projectiles in resisting Mediums. And therein he partly makes Observations upon what I have written & partly improves it. To prevent being blamed by him or others for any disingenuity in not acknowledging my oversights or slips in the first edition, I believe it will not be amiss to print next after the old Praefatio ad Lectorem, the following account of this new Edition. &quot; In hac secunda Principiorum Editione, multa sparsim emen- dantur & nonnulla adjiciuntur. In Libri primi Sect. ii. Inventio virium quibus corpora in Orbibus datis revolvi possint, facilior redditur et amplior. In Libri secundi Sect. vii. Theoria resisten- tite fluidorum accuratius investigatur & novis experiments confir- matur. In Libro tertio Theoria Lunaj & Pnecessio JEquinoctiorum ex Principiis suis plenius deducuntur, et Theoria Cometarum pluribus et accuratius computatis Orbium exemplis confirmatur. &quot;28 Mar. 1713. I. N. &quot; If you write any further Preface, I must not see it, for I find that I shall be examined about it. The cuts for y e Comet of 1680 & 1681 are printed off and will be sent to Dr Bently this week by the Carrier.&quot; Newton s desire to have no hand in writing the preface seems to have proceeded from a knowledge that Cotes was proposing to allude to the dispute about the invention of fluxions. 1 At last, about midsummer 1713, was published the long and impatiently expected second edition of the Principia, and on July 27 Newton waited on the queen to present her with a copy of the new edition. In 1714 the question of finding the longitude at sea, which had been looked upon as an important one for several years, was brought into prominence by a petition presented to the House of Commons by a number of captains of Her Majesty s ships and merchant ships and of London merchants. This petition set forth &quot; that the discovery of longitude is of such consequence to Great Britain, for safety of the navy, for merchant ships, as well as of improvement of trade, that for want thereof many ships had been retarded in their voyages, and many lost ; but if due encouragement were proposed by the public for such as shall discover the same, some persons would offer themselves to prove the same before the most proper judges.&quot; The petition was referred to a committee of the House, who called witnesses. Newton appeared before 1 For an account of the dispute concerning the rival claims ol Newton and Leibnitz to be considered the inventor of the method &amp;lt;&amp;gt;! fluxions or the differential calculus, and an account of the case n drawn up by a committee of the Royal Society in the Gammer civ n Epistolicum, see INFINITESIMAL CALCULUS, vol. xiii. pp. 8-10.