THOMAS P. WALSH,
Madam, - Dr William Reville is indeed to be thanked for his clear and interesting account of Sir Isaac Newton's laws of Motion and Law of Universal Gravitation (October 10th). Might I , as a scientific layperson, be so bold as to add an observation?
As is well known, the followers of Newton went on to develop his insights so as to formulate a scientific system that purported to explain reality comprehensively and exhaustively. The universe was seen by them, in effect, as a closed system - as a "Universal Machine" that seemed to require no other external explanatory support. Ultimately this view led to difficulties with the theologian's account of reality as it seemed to throw cold water on religious belief in a transcendent God.
Now, all this is a familiar story. However, what may not be so fully appreciated is that Newton himself was never a dogmatic "Newtonian" in the above sense. It is indeed true that he defined force with reference to positive events and empirical observations that were capable of being measured and expressed in mathematical terms. And in this sense he was "modern". Yet he himself never seems to have ruled out that ultimately force in its intrinsic nature might well be thought of as a metaphysical entity, if not even a theological entity. Might it not be, he seems to have speculated, an epiphany of the potency of God himself?
In so far as Newton's mind was not closed but open to this possible explanation of natural phenomena, he belonged to that ancient world of devout, meditative speculation that stretched back to Plato. "Ancients" of this cast of mind postulated no real distinction or opposition between the sacral and the natural. - Yours, etc.,
THOMAS P. WALSH, Faussagh Road, Dublin 7.