Department of
History and Philosophy of Science
Newton's Regulae Philosophandi
Introduction
Regulae Structural Changes
Rule I
Rule II
Rule III
Rule IV
Latin
Both the content and structure of the Rules changed across edition of Newton's Principia. The revisions to the structure are detailed in this page, while the content is detailed in the remaining pages of this section of our website.
In the first edition of the Principia, there were no Rules. The work contained only 10 "Hypotheses", the first 4 of which correspond to the later "Rules". The remaining 6 hypotheses were relabeled either "Phenomena" or "Hypotheses" in later editions. In the table below, columns correspond to editions of the Principia, and rows correspond to each of the original 10 hypotheses, as well as two new "rules" added in the 1712 and 1726 editions. You can follow the relabeling of the original 10 hypotheses by moving from left to right through a single row.
1687 |
1712 |
1726 |
Hypoth. 1 |
Reg. 1 |
Reg. 1 |
Hypoth. 2 |
Reg. 2 |
Reg. 2 |
Hypoth .3 |
(ommitted) |
(ommitted) |
|
Reg. 3 (added) |
Reg. 3 |
|
|
Reg. 4 (added) |
Hypoth. 4 |
Hypoth. 1 (changed location, with final sentence added "quiescere contendant. Videamus quid inde sequatur") |
Hypoth. 1 |
Hypoth. 5 |
Phaenom. 1 |
Phaenom. 1 |
|
Phaenom. 1 |
Phaenom. 1 |
Hypoth. 6 |
Phaenom. 2 |
Phaenom. 2 |
Hypoth. 7 |
Phaenom. 3 |
Phaenom. 3 |
Hypoth. 8 |
Phaenom. 4 |
Phaenom. 4 |
Hypoth. 9 |
Phaenom. 5 |
Phaenom. 5 |
