Are not gross bodies and light convertible into one another; and may not bodies receive much of their activity from the particles of light which enter into their composition? The changing of bodies into light, and light into bodies, is very conformable to the course of Nature, which seems delighted with transmutations.
Isaac NewtonIs not Fire a Body heated so hot as to emit Light copiously? For what else is a red hot Iron than Fire? And what else is a burning Coal than red hot Wood?
Isaac NewtonPhilosophy is such an impertinently litigious lady that a man had as good be engaged in lawsuits as have to do with her.
Isaac Newton. . . Newton was an unquestioning believer in an all-wise creator of the universe, and in his own inability - like the boy on the seashore - to fathom the entire ocean in all its depths. He therefore believed that there were not only many things in heaven beyond his philosophy, but plenty on earth as well, and he made it his business to understand for himself what the majority of intelligent men of his time accepted without dispute (to them it was as natural as common sense) - the traditional account of the creation.
Isaac NewtonThe qualities of bodies, which admit neither intension nor remission of degrees, and which are found to belong to fill bodies within the reach of our experiments, are to be esteemed the universal qualities of all bodies whatsoever.
Isaac NewtonDo not Bodies and Light act mutually upon one another; that is to say, Bodies upon Light in emitting, reflecting, refracting and inflecting it, and Light upon Bodies for heating them, and putting their parts into a vibrating motion wherein heat consists?
Isaac NewtonAs I am writing, another illustration of ye generation of hills proposed above comes into my mind. Milk is as uniform a liquor as ye chaos was. If beer be poured into it & ye mixture let stand till it be dry, the surface of ye curdled substance will appear as rugged & mountanous as the Earth in any place.
Isaac Newton