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 The entire work bears the general title of. It consists of three books: the first two, entitled,, are occupied with the laws and conditions of motions and forces, and are illustrated with many scholia treating of some of the most general and best established points in philosophy, such as the density and resistance of bodies, spaces void of matter, and the motion of sound and light. From these principles, there is deduced, in the third book, drawn up in as popular a style as possible and entitled,, the constitution of the system of the world. In regard to this book, the author says—"I had, indeed, composed the third Book in a popular method, that it might be read by many; but afterwards, considering that such as had not sufficently entered into the principles could not easily discover the strength of the consequences, nor lay aside the prejudices to which they had been many years accustomed, therefore, to prevent disputes which might be raised upon such accounts, I chose to reduce the substance of this Book into the form of Propositions (in the mathematical way), which should be read by those only who had first made themselves masters of the principles established in the preceding Books: not that I would advise any one to the previous study of every Proposition of those Books."—"It is enough it one carefully reads the Definitions, the Laws of Motion, and the three first Sections of the first Book. He may then pass on to this Book, and consult such of the remaining Propositions of the first two Books, as the references in this, and his occasions shall require." So that "The System of the World" is composed both "in a popular method," and in the form of mathematical Propositions.

The principle of Universal Gravitation, namely, that every particle of matter is attracted by, or gravitates to, every other particle of matter, with a force inversely proportional to the squares of their distances—is the discovery which characterizes The. This principle the author deduced from the motion of the moon, and the three laws of Kepler—laws, which Newton, in turn, by his greater law, demonstrated to be true.

From the first law of Kepler, namely, the proportionality of