“ONE OF THE SUPREME PRODUCTIONS OF THE HUMAN MIND”:1721 THIRD EDITION OF NEWTON’S OPTICKS

NEWTON, Isaac. Opticks: Or, A Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections and Colours of Light. London: William and John Innys, 1721. Octavo, early full paneled brown calf, raised bands, modern red and blue morocco spine labels. $8000.

Third edition of Newton’s famous treatise on light, the last edition published in his lifetime, containing Newton’s final revisions, including the addition of Queries 17-31 with his announcement of the discovery of the polarization of light, his famous Query 28 on the nature of light and his important Query 31 on gravity, with 12 copper-engraved folding plates.

As his Principia was the epitome of theoretical physics, Newton's Opticks demonstrates his mastery of the experimental method. "All previous philosophers had been sure that white light is pure and simple, regarding colours as modifications or qualifications of the white. Newton showed experimentally that the opposite is true… Natural white light, far from being simple, is a compound of many pure elementary colors which can be separated and recompounded at will" (PMM 172). "Unlike most of Newton's works, Opticks was originally published in English… The work summarized [33 years of] Newton's discoveries and theories concerning light and color: the spectrum of sunlight, the degrees of refraction associated with different colors, the color circle (the first in the history of color theory), the invention of the reflecting telescope; the first workable theory of the rainbow, and experiments on what would later be called 'interference effects' in conjunction with Newton's rings" (Norman 1588). "Nor would the author be confined to subjects related only to the behavior and analysis of light. The range of topics touched upon by Newton included questions of gravitation, metabolism and digestion, sensation, the circulation of blood, The Creation and the Great Flood, moral philosophy, the inductive method, and the vivid images haunting the dreams of madmen" (Christianson, In the Presence of the Creator, 445). This third edition, the last published before his death in 1727, is essentially a reprinting of the second edition, and contains Newton's final revisions to the work, wherein he expanded the initial 16 "queries" with an additional Queries 17-31, including his announcement of the discovery of the polarization of light. "This brilliant observation was the discovery of the polarization of light—the name being taken from Newton's reference to the two poles of a magnet in Query 29" (Sir Edward Whittaker). Newton notes that he "omitted the Mathematical Tracts published at the End of the former Edition [that is, the first edition]… And to shew that I do not take Gravity for an essential Property of Bodies, I have added one Question [Query 31] concerning its Cause" (Advertisement II). Preceded by the 1704 edition, and the 1717/1718 second edition, this third edition differs from the second only by a few minor corrections and "the addition of one passage in the last sentence referring to Noah and his sons" (Babson 135). With rear advertisement leaf, engraved ornamental initials and head- and tailpieces, and 12 copper-engraved folding plates. Gray 177. Wallis 177. See Horblit 79b. Contemporary owner signatures, one on the title page of "Tho. Cattell." Small cloth sachet sewn to front blank leaf.

Text and plates in excellent condition, minor expert restoration to joints, spine ends and corners. A handsome copy.