& Francisci Jacquier, ex Gallicanâ Minimorum Familiâ, Matheseos Professorum. Editio altera longè accuratior & emendatior. Tomus primus.
Coloniæ Allobrogum: sumptibus
Cl. & Ant. Philibert bibliop.,
mdcclx
. [1760.]
QA803 .A2 1760
3 vol. 4to., general title printed in red and black, numerous mathematical diagrams.
Lowndes III, 1672.
Gray, page 11, no. 4.
Houzeau, page 251, no. 1393.
Jefferson bought a copy of Newton’s
Principia from
N. G. Dufief of Philadelphia, billed to him on April 14, 1814, price $
18, the edition not specified. This may be the copy about which Jefferson had written to Dufief on April 3, stating that he had seen advertised in the
Aurora
of March 23 a copy of the
Principia for sale by Mr. McClure, and may have been for his own library or as a replacement copy to be sent to the Library of Congress.
Jefferson mentioned Newton’s philosophy in his discussion of Bécourt’s
La Création du Monde
, in a letter to Dufief dated from Monticello April 19, 1814: “
. . . I know little of it’s [i.e. Bécourt’s work’s]
contents, having barely glanced over here and there a passage, and over the table of contents. from this the Newtonian philosophy
seemed the chief object of attack, the issue of which might be trusted to the strength of the two combatants; Newton certainly
not needing the auxiliary arm of the government, and still less the holy author of our religion as to what in it concerns
him . . .
”
Sir Isaac Newton, 1642-1727. The first edition of the
Principia was printed in Cambridge in 1687. Jefferson considered Newton one of the three greatest men that ever lived, the other two
being Sir Francis Bacon and John Locke.
“
Bacon, Locke and Newton” he wrote to John Trumbull on February 15, 1789, “
I consider . . . as the three greatest men that have ever lived, without any exception . . .”
Thomas Le Seur, 1703-1770, and
François Jacquier, 1711-1788, were both professors of mathematics and both entered the Minim order at an early age and became lifelong friends.
Their first edition of Newton’s
Principia was published in 1739-42.
For Bécourt’s work see no. 4930.
[3720]
3
Not in the Manuscript Catalogue.
1815 Catalogue, page 114, no. 2, Newton’s Principia, translated by Motte, with notes by Emerson and Machin, 3 v 8vo.
NEWTON,
Sir Isaac.
The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. By Sir Isaac Newton. Translated into
English by Andrew Motte. To which are added, Newton’s System of the World; a short comment on, and defence of, the Principia, by W. Emerson. With the laws of the Moon’s Motion according to Gravity. By John Machlin, Astron., prof. at Gresh., and Sec. to the Roy. Soc. A New Edition, (with the life of the author; and a portrait, taken from
the bust in the Royal Observatory at Greenwich) carefully revised and corrected by W. Davis . . . In
Three Volumes. Vol. I [-III].
London: printed for
H. D. Symonds, printed by
Knight & Compton,
1803.
QA803 .A45 1803
3 vol. 8vo., engraved portrait frontispiece in vol. I by E. Scriven after I. Allen, folded engraved plates of diagrams in all volumes.
Lowndes III, 1672.
Gray, page 16, no. 24.
Houzeau, page 251, no. 1393.
Jefferson ordered a copy of this work (in the 1729 or later edition) from
Lackington’s catalogue for 1792, in a letter to A. Donald written on November 23, 1791. Lackington’s bill for other books ordered at the same time, dated December 31, 1791, does not include a copy of any book by Sir Isaac Newton.
This is the first complete translation of the
Principia into
English, and the first translation of
De Mundi Systemate.
