Quote#World
My design in publishing this Book, was, that the Celestial Physics,…
Quote byDavid Gregory · 1659–1708
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: The Author's Preface.
English (original)
My design in publishing this Book, was, that the Celestial Physics, which the most sagacious Kepler had got the scent of, but the Prince of Geometers Sir Isaac Newton, brought to such a pitch as surprises all the World, might, by my... illustrating, become easier to such as are desirous of being acquainted with Philosophy and Astronomy.
— David Gregory
More from David Gregory
Although in every age there have been those who cultivated astronomy, either by... observations... or by theories and systems made up according to the state of understanding of any period, or by a talent for exposition, yet the …
[I]f we look back to the first Rise of Astronomy... we shall find nothing better approv'd of, nothing more universally entertained among the several Sects of Philosophers, than this notion of the Gravity of the Celestial Bodies.
[W]e do still tread in the steps of the Ancients in this Physical Astronomy; inasmuch as they knew that the Celestial Bodies gravitated towards each other, and were retain'd in their Orbits by the force of Gravity; and were also apprized …
It is... most gratifying to my soul that, after spending a large part of my life in other universities, I can be linked in the University of Oxford with the prince of geometers Dr John Wallis as colleague and the most scholarly Dr as …
[T]he easier, simpler and less composite these theories are, the more they will be consonant not only with what has already been observed... but with what is yet to be observed, and with the very machine of the world which was constructed …
[I]t is by the help of geometry that all the arts necessary for improving life,.. as geography,.. rules of navigation,.. determining of times... [etc.], have been carried to such an incredible pinnacle of distinction.