Studies in History

and Philosophy
of Science
Stud. Hist. Phil. Sci. 36 (2005) 4360
www.elsevier.com/locate/shpsa

The third law in Newtons Waste book

(or, the road less taken to the second law)
Doreen L. Fraser
Department of History and Philosophy of Science, 1017 Cathedral of Learning,
University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15260, USA
Received 2 April 2004

Abstract
On the basis of evidence drawn from the Waste book, Westfall and Nicholas have argued
that Newton arrived at his second law of motion by reecting on the implications of the rst
law. I analyze another argument in the Waste book which reveals that Newton also arrived at
the second law by another very dierent route. On this route, it is the consideration of the third
law and the principle of conservation of motionand not the rst lawthat prompts Newton
to formulate the second law. The existence of these two routes is signicant because each
employs a distinct kind of reasoning about forces. Whereas the NicholasWestfall route via
the principle of inertia bears the mark of Descartess inuence, the alternative route proceeds
from the actionreaction principle, which is widely regarded as an original Newtonian contribution to mechanics. In the course of exploring this alternate route to the second law, the origins and justication of the third law are examined.
2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Issac Newton; Waste book; Third law of motion; Second law of motion; Richard Westfall; John
Nicholas.

E-mail address: dof2@pitt.edu (D.L. Fraser).

0039-3681/$ - see front matter 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.shpsa.2004.12.003

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D.L. Fraser / Stud. Hist. Phil. Sci. 36 (2005) 4360

1. Introduction
As a historical document, the Waste book is of special interest because it contains
some of Newtons earliest thoughts on dynamics. The earliest dynamical entry is dated 20 January 1665, when Newton was still an undergraduate at Cambridge. As the
title of this entryOf Reectionsindicates, Newtons primary objective in the
Waste book was to develop a theory of collision. Newtons contemporaries also recognized the need for an adequate collision theory. In 1668 the Royal Society invited
submissions on impact and Wren, Huygens, and Wallis responded (Westfall, 1971,
p. 203). In the course of formulating his own collision theory, Newton presented versions of all three of the laws of motion that were later to appear in the Principia.
Consequently, the Waste book aords an opportunity to probe the origins of the
laws, the relationships between them, and their development at the earliest stages
of Newtons thinking on the matter.
At the heart of Newtons new collision theory is a novel concept of force. This
concept of force has a fundamental characteristic that he would subsequently describe in the second law of the Principia:
The change of motion is proportional to the motive force impressed; and is
made in the direction of the right line in which the force is impressed. (Newton,
1962, p. 13)
The novel characteristic of the second law concept of force that is already contained in the Waste book is that force is proportional to the change in quantity
of motion that it causes. This characteristic of the Principia concept of force was,
of course, instrumental in the formulation of the gravitational theory set out in
the Principia.
The pressing historical question is what prompted Newton to formulate the concept of force expressed in the second law. The Waste book contains ample evidence
that Newton took as the starting point for developing his own theory the theory of
collisions that Descartes presented in his Principia philosophiae (see Herivel, 1965,
pp. 4253). It would have thus been natural for Newton to have adopted Descartess concept of force as a prototype. Descartes employed the concept of the
force that a body has for continuing to move in a straight line or for continuing
to be at rest (Descartes, 1984, p. 242; Gabbey, 1971, p. 20). This force of motion
is proportional to the quantity of motion of the body rather than the change in
quantity of motion. Alan Gabbey has dubbed the Cartesian force of motion concept the contestant view of force because [i]nteractions between bodies were
seen as contests between opposing forces, the larger forces being the winners,
the smaller forces being the losers (Gabbey, 1971, pp. 20, 16). For example, Descartess second rule for collisions dictates that if a larger body B collides with a
smaller body C travelling at the same speed in the opposite direction, then after
the collision body B will continue travelling in the same direction and body C will
be compelled to reverse its direction (Descartes, 1963, p. 197; Gabbey, 1971, p. 23).
Body B wins this contestit persists in its motion in a straight linebecause its
quantity of motion, and hence its force of motion, is greater. The second law con-

D.L. Fraser / Stud. Hist. Phil. Sci. 36 (2005) 4360

45

cept of force, in contrast, does not lend itself to this contest model of collision because the strength of a second law force is dependent on the nal motion as well as
the initial motion. That is, the force of motion concept is well-suited to functioning
as a determinant of the outcome of a collision (that is, the nal motions) because
it is dependent only on the initial quantity of motion; the second law concept of
force is ill-suited to performing this function because the outcome of the collision
(that is, the nal motion) is contained in the concept of the force as the cause of
changes of motion. This is an illustration of how closely a concept of force is
bound up with a particular theory of collision.
Richard Westfall and John Nicholas have charted paths from the force of
motion concept to the second law force concept. Although their accounts dier
in many respects, both argue that the key consideration that induced Newton to
modify the force of motion concept was the principle of inertia. For example,
Westfall asserts:
The unique position of the Waste book in the history of dynamics derives
from its recognition that a dynamics built upon the principle of inertia
demands a concept of force dierent from the prevailing one. (Westfall,
1971, p. 344)
The more he worked on impact, however, the more the incompatibility of internal force [that is, force of motion] and the principle of inertia revealed itself.
(Westfall, 1980, p. 146)
One statement of the principle of inertia in the Waste book is the following: Ax:
100. [e]very thing doth naturally persevere in that state in which it is unlesse it
bee interrupted by some externall cause (Herivel, 1965, p. 153). This statement
of the principle of inertia closely resembles that set out by Descartes in the rst
and second laws in Principia philosophiae. In broad outline, the idea propounded
by Westfall and Nicholas is that Newton was prompted to modify the force of motion concept by the recognition that in a collision the force of a bodys motion
functions in relation to the second body as the external cause mentioned in
[the statement of the principle of inertia] as the sole means that can alter its state
of motion or rest (Westfall, 1971, p. 344). The underlying abstract conception that
causes applied to changes of state goes back at least as far as Aristotle (Nicholas,
1978, p. 108). The Cartesian and Newtonian principles of inertia establish the
dynamical parity of states of rest and uniform rectilinear motion (ibid.,
p. 108)1; put another way, a change from rest to uniform rectilinear motion, from
uniform rectilinear motion to rest, or from one uniform rectilinear motion to another constitutes a change of state. It follows from the recognition that forces are
the external causes of such changes of state[i]n a context set by the introductory

1
While this is certainly true of Newton, note that for Descartes there is a signicant sense in which
states of rest and motion are not on par because Descartes maintains that rest is the opposite of motion,
and nothing can by its nature tend towards its opposite, or towards its own destruction (Descartes, 1984,
p. 241). See Gabbey (1971, pp. 5961) for further discussion of this point.

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D.L. Fraser / Stud. Hist. Phil. Sci. 36 (2005) 4360

assertion of the principle of inertia and by the problem of impactthat there was
apparently only one quantity that could be the measure of forcechange in [quantity of] motion (Westfall, 1971, p. 345). Implicit in this reasoning is the principle
that the strength of a cause (that is, the force of the second body) is to be measured by the strength of its eect (that is, the change in quantity of motion of
the rst body).
Nicholas concurs with this general account and adds an additional detail: that
Newton did not leap directly from the force of motion concept to the full second
law concept, but rather that there was an important intermediary that acted as a
bridge between these two concepts. This intermediate concept is captured in what
Nicholas dubs the extremal second law: the principle . . . which equates the force
of motion of a body and the force which sets that body from rest into that motion
or, for that matter, reduces the body from that motion to rest (Nicholas, 1978,
p. 119). This limited extremal force concept bridges the gap between the force of
motion and second law concepts of force by being compatible with both. Nicholas
argues that the transition . . . from force as quantity of motion to force as change
in quantity of motion, had motivating it not simply a recognition of the consequences of the principle of inertia as such, but very specically, a very singular Cartesian way of representing . . . the dynamical parity of rest and motion (ibid.,
p. 110). The relevant peculiarity was Descartess insistence that for example, the
action needed to move a boat which is at rest in still water is no greater than that
needed to stop it suddenly when it is moving (Descartes, 1984, p. 234). In addition,
as we shall see, Newtons attention was trained on extremal cases in which bodies are
brought to rest or moved from rest by his treatment of elastic collisions. The full
second law concept of force emerged as a generalization of this extremal concept
(Nicholas, 1978, p. 121).
As Nicholas points out, this account of the development of the second law concept of force is a widely held historical generalization (ibid., pp. 108109). It is a natural account of how Newtons concept evolved from its antecedents that seems
plausible independent of any documentary evidence. As it happens, support for this
account can be found in a section of the Waste book. However, this section contains
only one of the strands of argument in the Waste book that bear on the development
of Newtons concept of force.
One of the other strands of argument reveals that Newton also forged another
very dierent path to the second law. In this case, the catalyst was not the
principle of inertiathe rst law in the Principiabut the actionreaction principlethe third law. In the Waste book, the actionreaction principle is that at the
moment that a body (a) collides with a body (b), (a), presses [(b) as much] as (b)
presses (a) (Herivel, 1965, p. 142) and these pressures are exerted in opposite
directions. Newton arrives at the second law concept of force by juxtaposing this
actionreaction principle with his principle of conservation of motion. The principle of conservation of motion implies that the quantity of motion gained (or
lost) by (a) in the collision between (a) and (b) is equal to the quantity of motion
lost (or gained) by (b). That is, neglecting the directions of these quantities for the
moment, these two principles imply that the change in quantity of motion of (a)

D.L. Fraser / Stud. Hist. Phil. Sci. 36 (2005) 4360

47

equals the change in quantity of motion of (b) and that the magnitude of the
pressure or force on (a) equals the magnitude of the pressure or force on (b).
It then seems natural to identify the forces as the equal causes and the equal
changes in quantity of motion as the equal eects generated. This step yields
the second law concept of force: force is proportional to the change of motion
that it causes. The Waste book provides evidence that Newton actually followed
this chain of reasoning to arrive at the second law concept of force.
This route to the second law via the third law and conservation of motion is
of particular interest because it seems to reect a distinctively Newtonian way of
thinking about dynamics. It is widely agreed that the third law is one of Newtons
original contributions to dynamics.2 On the inertial route to the second law, Descartess inuence is instrumental. The principle of inertia and the peculiar presentation of the dynamical parity of rest of motion in terms of the activity required
to generate these states are not Descartess only contribution. In the Cartesian
contest model of collisions, forces are relevant to the analysis of collisions only
insofar as they function as the agents that cause the post-collision motions. This
is because the ultimate aim of Cartesian collision theory is not to investigate the
underlying forces, but only to determine the resultant states of motion of the
bodies. Forces perform a similar function on the inertial route to the second
law: forces are linked to changes of motion by the abstract principle that external
causes occasion changes of state; the focus of the investigation of collision is not
the forcesthe changers of motionbut the changes of motion. In contrast, as
we shall see, on the actionreaction route forces are not conceived as abstract
causal agents, but as concrete physical entities and the primary focus is on understanding the forces rather than deriving the changes of motion. To this end, Newton introduced several physical models of the forces, including one based on
springs.
The evidence that Newton travelled the actionreaction path to the second law is
found in one argument in one section of the Waste book. However, to fully understand Newtons reasoning it is necessary to set this argument in context. The relevant
broader context is the development of a theory of collision. More narrowly, an investigation of the origins of the third law and the status which Newton accorded it in the
Waste book is also relevant. Finally, the other arguments that pertain to the evolution of the second law concept of force are relevant. These arguments will give us a
sense of the kind of collision theory that Newton sought. They will also shed light on
Newtons views regarding the relationship between the inertial and actionreaction
routes to the second law.

While the notions of action and reaction were employed and analyzed by Newtons predecessors and
contemporaries, it is widely agreed that Newton was the rst to formulate a complete version of the third
law (Dugas, 1958, p. 350; Home, 1968, pp. 42, 5051; Westfall, 1971, pp. 348, 106, 113).

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D.L. Fraser / Stud. Hist. Phil. Sci. 36 (2005) 4360

2. The development of a collision theory

Throughout the Waste book, Newton demonstrates his desire to obtain a completely general theory of collisions, one that could treat elastic as well as inelastic
bodies and oblique as well as collinear paths. He takes the rst3 steps to this general theory in the section that Herivel labels IIb. In this section, he considers the
special case of perfectly inelastic collisions between bodies that have noe vis elastica to reect the one from the other4 and thus doe not reect one another but
conjoyne at their meeting (Herivel, 1965, p. 133).5 Following Descartes, Newton
solves this collision problem by applying a principle of conservation of motion.
However, his treatment diverges from Descartess in a signicant respect: Newton
treats the quantity of motion as a directional quantity that is governed by the
principle of conservation of motion. This is indicated by the employment of a
minus sign in the statement of conservation of motion in Section 5. While Descartes does deal with directions of motions, his remarks suggest that the quantity
of motion is not a directed quantity, and that, consequently, the directions of motions are not governed by his principle of conservation of motion, but treated
separately (Descartes, 1984, pp. 242243; Garber, 1992, pp. 208, 188193). Newtons modication served to rectify well known problems in Descartess collision
theory.
It appears that Newtons strategy in Section IIb is to tackle the simplest case
of collision rst. Perfectly inelastic collisions are the simplest case in which to
apply the principle of conservation of motion because the two bodies travel with
the same velocity after the collision, decreasing the number of variables. This
would have been helpful if, as Herivel suggests (Herivel, 1965, p. 135 n. 7),
Newton intended to use these calculations in an experimental test of the principle
of conservation of motion. More signicantly, perfectly inelastic collisions are
particularly simple on Newtons approach to collision problems because elastic
forces are not involved and therefore a treatment of these is not required; put
another way, since the bodies do not separate after the collision, the process
of separation need not be studied. Westfall characterizes the cancelled and
retained passages in IIb as false starts in which Newton had tried to come
directly to grips with [the problem of impact] before setting himself on the right

3
Here and elsewhere I follow Herivels dating of passages from the Waste book. His temporal ordering
of the passages discussed in this paper coincides with the order in which they appear in the Waste book
(Herivel, 1965, p. 128). A date entered in the margin indicates that the rst of these entries was made in
January 1665 (in the modern calendar) (ibid., p. 129). These entries appear to be nal drafts; less rened
versions may have been composed slightly earlier (ibid.).
4
This quotation was taken from a passage that Newton cancelled.
5
Unless otherwise noted, all quotations are taken from the reproduction of the Waste book printed in
Herivel (1965).

D.L. Fraser / Stud. Hist. Phil. Sci. 36 (2005) 4360

49

course and laying down his denitions (Westfall, 1971, p. 343). But Section IIb
should not be regarded as merely a failed attempt. It does not contain the more
sophisticated dynamical analysis found in subsequent passages because it treats
the special case which is so simple that this is not required. Westfall also overlooks the achievement of Section IIb: the correction of Descartess principle of
conservation of motion by treating motion as a directed quantity. This is an
important prerequisite for the development of the collision theory presented in
later sections.
In the next sectionSection IIc, entitled DenitionsNewton commences a
more general treatment of collisions that covers all cases, including elastic collisions
in which bodies separate after impact. In Denition 5 he denes reection as follows:
[a] quantity is reected when meeting with another quantity it looseth the determination of its motion by rebounding from it (p. 138). He goes on to analyze the
dynamical process underlying rebounding:
As if the bodys a, b meete one another in the point c they are parted either
by some springing motion in themselves or in the matter crouded betwixt
them. and as the spring is more dull or vigorous/quick soe the bodys will
bee reected with with [sic] more or lesse force: as if it endeavour to get liberty to inlarge itself with as greate strength and vigor as the bodys a, b,
pressed it together, then the motion of the body a from b will bee as greate
after as before that reection, but if the spring have but halfe that vigor,
then the distance twixt a and b, at the minute after the reection shall
bee halfe as much as it was at the minute before the reection. (Pp. 137
138)
The hypothetical as if indicates that, for dynamical purposes, rebounding can be
modelled by a spring, but that a springing motion may not be the true cause of
rebounding. At the time Newton composed the Waste book, the modelling of phenomena using springs was in vogue. A prominent example is Boyles theory of gases,
which uses springs to model the behaviour of gases. Because Newton recorded notes
on Boyles New experiments physico-mechanicall, touching the spring of the air in the
Trinity Notebook and refers to this work in the Questiones quaedam philosophicae
(McGuire & Tamny, 1983, p. 24), we know that Newton was familiar with Boyles
spring model when he wrote this passage.
In Denition 9 Newton formalizes this informal discussion of force by explicitly dening force as the pressure or crouding of one body upon another (p.
138). This denition is not abstract, but concrete and physical. In fact, Newton
is so far from abstractly conceiving of forces as merely causes of changes of state
that he does not even mention the eects of forces. However, the context of elastic collisions in which this denition is employed does furnish some insight into
Newtons conception of the causal function of forces. On Newtons conception,
the change of state caused by a force is not a change in motion directly; rather,
crouding or pressure causes the compression of elastic bodies. Again, this reects the employment of a concrete, physical conception rather than an abstract,
metaphysical one.

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D.L. Fraser / Stud. Hist. Phil. Sci. 36 (2005) 4360

3. The origins and justication of the third law

Section IId, entitled Axiomes and Propositions,6 contains more comprehensive
dynamical analyses of collisions. In Axiom 7 Newton again begins with the simplest
case, that in which the bodies do not rebound after impact:
If two bodies [a and b moving?] against one another the same way towards O,
(a) overtaking (b) none of their motion shall be lost, for (a), presses [(b) as
much] as (b) presses (a) and therefore the motion of (b) shall increase [as much]
as that of (a) decreaseth. (P. 142)
Since force has been dened as pressure, the statement that (a) presses [(b) as
much] as (b) presses (a) is an instance of the actionreaction principle for forces.
This is the rst appearance of the actionreaction principle in the Waste book.
This passage is also noteworthy because this argument employs the second law
concept of force, that forces cause changes in motion. This is also the rst appearance of the second law concept of force in the Waste book. To understand properly the relationship between the second and third laws in this argument it is
therefore necessary to investigate the origins and the status of the third law in
the Waste book.
While Newton does justify his inference that the motion of (b) shall increase [as
much] as that of (a) decreaseth in the above passage by appealing to Axiom 4,7 he
does not justify his assertion that (a), presses [(b) as much] as (b) presses (a). The
instances and versions of the actionreaction principle that appear in subsequent
passages are not accompanied by any explicit statements about its origin or justication either. In Axiom 8 Newton again states without explanation or justication
that at their occursion two bodies moving towards one another presse equally uppon one another (p. 142). In the context of another analysis of the reection of soft
bodies in Axiom 9, he refers to theire pression one upon the other (ibid.). In the
same axiom he justies his conclusion about the motions of hard bodies with the
assertion that there cannot bee/succeede diverse degrees of pressure twixt two bodies
in one moment (p. 143).
A version of the third law is again baldly stated in Axiom 121 of Section IIe: [i]f 2
bodys p and r meet the one the other, the resistance in both is the same for soe much
as p presseth upon r so much r presseth on p (p. 159). In the order in which they were
entered in the Waste book, this axiom is followed by Axiom 119:
If r [Fig. 5] presse p towards w then p presseth r towards v. Tis evident without
explication. (Ibid.)
In the diagram, points w and v and the centres of bodies p and r are collinear and w
and v are on opposite sides of the bodies. Home has interpreted these axioms as indicating that when Newton composed the Waste book he believed that the third law is
true a priori (p. 49). However, there are good reasons to doubt this interpretation.
6
7

For the sake of brevity, I will refer to the Axiomes and Propositions as simply Axioms.
This appeal is contained in a footnote in Herivels reproduction.

D.L. Fraser / Stud. Hist. Phil. Sci. 36 (2005) 4360

51

First, considering these two axioms in isolation, the only aspect of the third law that
Newton characterizes as evident without explication is that the pressures are in
opposite directions; when two bodies are pressing against one another this does seem
intuitively obvious. What is less obvious, and is essential content of the third law, is
that these pressures are of equal magnitude. Second, in the context of the Waste book
as a whole, the version of the third law stated in axioms 121 and 119 is part of the
analysis of collision that is gradually developed in Sections IIb through IIe. Therefore, it seems more likely that the justication for the third law is in some way related
to this analysis.
In all these cases, Newton appeals to the actionreaction principle as an
unjustied premise to support his dynamical analysis of collisions. This context
contains some clues that point to the origins and justication of the action
reaction principle. Denition 5, which is prior to all these appeals to the actionreaction principle, stipulates that reectionscollisions in which the bodies
reboundare to be modelled by springs. Taking this suggestion literally, we
can imagine that there is a spring between the colliding bodies that gets compressed as the bodies approach one another. At the moment at which the bodies
collide the spring is fully compressed. When the spring endeavours to get liberty
to inlarge it selfe (p. 138), it presses against the bodies equally and in opposite
directions. Thus, on the spring model of collisions the actionreaction principle
is true. Given that the actionreaction principle rst appears in the context of
a dynamical analysis of collisions, it seems reasonable to speculate that the principle originated in the spring model and that Newton took the spring model to be
the justication for the principle.
Questiones quaedam philosophicae, a series of entries contained in another notebook that Newton kept before and during the period in which he entered Of
Reections into the Waste book, lends some support to this hypothesis. In a section entitled Of Rarity and Density. Rarefaction and Condensation Newton describes an experiment designed to determine which of two bodies is more dense.
McGuire and Tamny date this section to early 1664, prior to the composition of
On Reections in the Waste book (McGuire & Tamny, 1983, p. 12).8 The experiment involves suspending two bodies (d and e) from strings and separating them
by a compressed spring. When the spring is allowed to expand it shall cast both
ye body d and e from it and they receve alike swiftnes from ye spring if there be
ye same quantity of body in both (ibid., p. 358). That is, applying Axioms 3 and
4 of the Waste book, in this case the spring presses on the bodies equally because
the pressures generate equal motions. When the quantities of the bodies dier, ye
body bo (being fastened to ye spring) will move towards ye body wch has less
body in it (ibid.). Newton gives no further explanation, but this result is consistent with the spring exerting equal forces on the two bodies and thus, by Axioms
3 and 4 of the Waste book, imparting a greater speed to the lesser body and
causing the spring to move in that direction as it expands. This section of the

See n. 3 above.

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D.L. Fraser / Stud. Hist. Phil. Sci. 36 (2005) 4360

Questiones makes it seem plausible that at the time Newton wrote the Waste book
he knew that a decompressing spring exerts equal pressures on adjacent bodies. In
addition, Newton was familiar with Boyles New experiments physico-mechanicall,
touching the spring of the air (McGuire & Tamny, 1983, p. 24). Boyle does not
state that both sides of a spring exert equal pressures here, but this work would
have provided Newton with some background on the pressures associated with
springs (see, for example, Boyle, 1965, pp. 1112).
Some support for the hypothesis that the consideration of elasticity led Newton to
his third law can also be found in a preliminary draft of the denitions and laws of
the lectures De motu (Herivel, 1965, MS Xa). According to Herivel, this is the rst
appearance of the third law after the Waste book (ibid., p. 31):
Law 3. As much as any body acts on another so much does it experience in
reaction. Whatever presses or pulls another thing by this equally is pressed
or pulled. If a bladder full of air presses another equal to itself both yield
equally inwards. (Ibid., pp. 312313)
Like springs, air bladders are elastic. A collision between air bladders would be
an elastic collision between soft bodies. This case of collisions is special because
springinessthe springiness of the bodiesis genuinely the cause of the rebounding of the bodies after impact. Newton describes this case in the rst part of Axiom 9 in the Waste book: suppose the bodies to have a springing or elastic force
soe that meeting one another they will relent and be pressed into a sphaeroidicall
gure, and in that moment in which there is a period put to theire motion
towards one another theire gure will be most sphaeroidall and their pression
towards one another is at the greatest (p. 142). That the air bladders are deformed by equal amounts indicates that they exert equal pressures upon one
another. Strictly, deformations can only be observed in deformable bodies, so this
conclusion only applies to deformable bodies. An assumption like that of the
spring modelthat the dynamics of all collisions are as if they had been caused
by elastic forcesis needed to extend this conclusion to perfectly hard bodies.
The fact that the De motu version of the third law ts so seamlessly with the
Waste book analysis of elasticity and forces as pressures or croudings suggests
that this later evidence is indeed relevant to the origin and status of the action
reaction principle in the Waste book.
The passage from the lectures De motu is also interesting because it suggests
that empirical factors may have played a direct role in the discovery of the third
law: depressions in bladders of air are observable. Because the degree of elasticity9 of the bladder is a factor in how much it depressesas Newton notes, the
bladders must be equal to yield equally inwardsit would be dicult to test
the third law by measuring depressions in air bladders. However, the observation
that approximately equal bladders yield approximately equally inwards could

9
In modern terms, the degree of elasticity corresponds to the spring constant, k, that appears in
Hookes Law, F =
kx.

D.L. Fraser / Stud. Hist. Phil. Sci. 36 (2005) 4360

53

have set Newton on the track to the third law. In any case, the evidence suggests
that the third law originated in the empirical or theoretical investigation of elasticity and that, for Newton, its justication lay in his application of an elastic
model of collisions.
Westfall advances a dierent hypothesis about the origin of the third law:
Except for the special case in which p and r have equal motions, the conclusion
that they press each other equally had seemed obviously false to the great
majority of those who before 1665 had attempted to analyze the force of percussion. The Waste book suggests that Newton came to deny the intuitively
obvious by recognising that for every impact there is a frame of reference, that
of the common centre of gravity, in which the two bodies do have equal forces.
That is, his treatment of impact depended on his accepting a relativity of
motion in terms of which the idea of an absolute force of a bodys motion is
meaningless. (Westfall, 1971, p. 348)
On my reading of the Waste book, the genesis of the third law is entirely independent of the centre of motion analysis. That this analysis occurs after the introduction of the third law suggests that this analysis was not instrumental in the
formulation of the third law. However, since there are indications that the Waste
book was not composed extemporaneously (Herivel, 1965, p. 141), this is merely
suggested. Another shortcoming of Westfalls interpretation is that there is no evidence that Newton is employing the force of motion concept in the passages in
which he presents the third law. In fact, he seems to be using either the concrete
conception of force set out in Denition 9 or the second law concept of force.
Westfalls account is, of course, inapplicable to the second law concept of force
because force in this sense is not relative to frames of reference. Similarly, Westfalls account is not applicable to the concrete conception of force dened in Definition 9 because, presumably, Newton does not take the magnitudes of the
physical pressures or croudings in collisions to be relative to any frame of reference. For these reasons, Westfalls explanation of the genesis of the third law
seems inadequate. In fact, as we shall see, the third law inuences Newtons views
on the concept of force, and not the other way round.

4. The actionreaction route to the second law

As we have seen, in the Waste book the third law of motion is an unjustied premise in arguments that pertain to the relationship between the forces that act in collisions and the resultant motions of the bodies. These arguments shed light on the
evolution of the second law concept of force.
Again, a preliminary analysis of the relationship between forces and motions
can be found in Denition 5, which was quoted above. The upshot of the reasoning in this passage is that force is proportional to the motion generated in a body
set into motion from rest or the motion destroyed in a body brought to rest. This
is part way to what Nicholas calls the extremal second law: the principle . . .

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D.L. Fraser / Stud. Hist. Phil. Sci. 36 (2005) 4360

which equates the force of motion of a body and the force which sets that body
from rest into that motion or, for that matter, reduces the body from that motion
to rest (Nicholas, 1978, p. 119). In Denition 5 the extremal force concept is only
partially realized because Newton has not introduced the force of motion concept. At this point, he is working with the physical denition of force as pressure
or crouding. It is force in this sense that is held to be proportional to the motion destroyed or generated.
The rst application of the full second law concept of force occurs in Axioms
7 and 8, axioms that were examined in the previous section because they also
contain the rst instances of the third law. In Axiom 8 Newton argues that
[i]f two quantities (a and b) move towards one another and meete in O, [t]hen
the dierence of theire motion shall not bee lost nor loose its determination
(p. 142). Since the bodies move in opposite directions, the addition of the vector
motions is equivalent to the dierence of the scalar motions; hence, Newton is
arguing that the total motion is conserved in this special case. His argument
for this conclusion is that at their occursion they presse equally uppon one another and therefore one must loose noe more motion than the other doth (ibid.).
That is, each body loses the same quantity of motion because the forces that
cause this loss of motion are of equal magnitude. This reasoning can be reconstructed algebraically as follows:
paf
pbf paf pbf pai Dp pbi
Dp
pai pbi
pbi
pai ;
where there is a minus sign in front of the second Dp term because the forces, and
therefore the changes in motion, are in opposite directions, that is, Fba =
Fab implies Dpa =
Dpb.
This argument clearly relies on the full second law concept of force, according
to which force is proportional to change in quantity of motion. The force exerted
on each of the bodies is proportional to the dierence in each bodys initial and
nal quantities of motion. Since both of these quantities of motion are non-zero
(that is, the body is not at rest), this is not merely the extremal second law force
concept, but the full second law concept. Put another way, it is obvious that Newton is not employing the extremal force concept here because only one force aects
the motion of body a; on an extremal analysis, there would be two forcesone
that destroys the initial motion of a and another that generates the resultant
motion of a.
The argument presented in Axioms 7 and 8 also reveals a path that lead Newton
to the second law concept of force. The argument has the following simple structure:
the third law in combination with the second law concept of force yields the conservation of motion. This is a case in which Newton certainly would have known the
correct conclusion of the argumentthat motion is conservedbefore he formulated it. Newton was familiar with Descartess account of collisions in Principia philosophiae, in which a principle of conservation of motion played a prominent role. As

D.L. Fraser / Stud. Hist. Phil. Sci. 36 (2005) 4360

55

we noted, Newton had corrected Descartess conservation principle in an earlier section of the Waste book. We have also seen that he regarded the third law as an established fact. Consequently, it seems likely that he tinkered with the force concept to
obtain the desired conclusion that motion is conserved from the premise of the third
law.10 It is not a large leap to the second law from this starting point. Consideration
of the conservation of motion would have trained his attention on the dierences between the total initial and nal quantities of motion. When the fact that the forces
are of equal magnitude and in opposite directions is added, it is a small step to force
being proportional to change in motion via the principle that equal changes of motion in opposite directions cancel, conserving the total quantity of motion. The result
must be the full second law concept of motion; the extremal second law will not do
because the quantities of signicance for the conservation of motion are the (in general) non-zero initial and nal motions.
There is some evidence for this interpretation in a marginal note inscribed next to
Denition 5:
noe motion is lost in reection. For then circular motion being made by continuall reection would decay. (P. 139 n. f)
This note accompanies the discussion of the forces that act in collisions and the resultant motions of bodies. The implication is not only that Newton knew that motion
had to be conserved, but that he sought to reconcile this principle with this dynamical analysis of reections.
On this path to the second law, there is no transition from the force of motion
concept to the second law concept; rather, Newton starts out with the concrete, physical conception of force set out in Denition 9 and then imbues it with an additional
abstract signicance to arrive at the second law concept of force. Indeed, it is critical
that Newton start out with a concrete physical concept of force rather than the force
of motion concept. The third law governs force or pressure, so some concept of force
or pressure is required. Of course, the physical conception of force as pressure is sufcient for this purpose. However, the force of motion concept could not serve this
purpose because the only case in which it would be true that the forces of motion
of bodies are of equal magnitude upon impact is when the bodies have equal motions; in all other cases the third law would be false. Put another way, had Newton
started with the force of motion concept, he would have landed himself in Westfalls
dilemma about how the forces of motion in a collision could be considered equal;
Westfalls dilemma never arises for Newton because he starts out with a concrete,
physical conception of force.

10

The use of the actionreaction principle embodied in the third law originates with Newton, but others
had appealed to conservation of motion to dene force. Gabbey maintains that Descartes quanties the
resisting force [of a body at rest] by setting it equal to the total change in motion which it would receive if the
collision were seen simply as an occasion for a redistribution of motion according to the conservation law,
without recognizing in addition that a contest of forces is involved (Gabbey, 1971, p. 25).

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D.L. Fraser / Stud. Hist. Phil. Sci. 36 (2005) 4360

5. Another argument for the conservation of motion

Axioms 7 and 8 are followed by a much dierent argument for the conservation of
motion in Axioms 9 and 10. This argument is only applicable to perfectly hard and
perfectly elastic bodies. Prima facie, it seems a bit surprising that, after presenting a
completely general demonstration of the conservation of motion in Axioms 7 and 8,
Newton would proceed to introduce a dierent argument that only applies to certain
types of bodies.
In Axiom 9, Newton considers the special case of two equall and equally swift
bodys (p. 142). In this special case, the conservation of motion implies that the
bodies move as swiftly frome one another after the reection as they did to one another before it (ibid.). He considers two types of bodies: sphaericall bodys that
have a springing or elastic force and sphaericall and absolutely sollid bodies (pp.
142143). In the former case, the argument begins with the assertion that in the moment in which there is a period put to theire motion towards one another theire gure will be most sphaeroidical and theire pression one upon the other is at the
greatest (p. 142). Newton then further restricts his attention to the perfectly elastic
case in which the endeavour to restore theire sphaericall gure bee as much vigorous
and forcible as theire pressure upon one another was to destroy it (ibid.). The conclusion drawn is that the bodies will gaine as much motion from one another after
their parting as they had towards one another before theire reection (ibid.). Newton is implicitly employing the (partial) extremal concept of force here: the conclusion follows from the premises in virtue of the fact that each of the extremal
forces that reduces the bodies to rest is equal in magnitude to the extremal force that
generated the motion from rest. The argument for the second casethat of sphaericall and absolutely sollid bodiesparallels the argument for the rst case, with a
small twist. In this case he appeals to the actionreaction principlethere cannot
bee/succeede divers degrees of pressure twixt two bodies in one moment (p. 143).
However, unlike in Axioms 7 and 8, Newton does not move from this premise directly to the conclusion that motion is conserved. Instead, he uses it to justify a minor assumption and arrives at his ultimate conclusion via the (partial) extremal
concept of force: soe much force as deprived the bodys of theire motion towards
one another soe much doth now urge them from one another and therefore they
shall move from one another as much as they did towards one another before theire
reection (ibid.).
Although, prima facie, it does seem a bit surprising that Newton would introduce
this restricted argument for conservation of motion at this point in the Waste book,
the passage suggests his motivation: he was seeking a deeper understanding of the
forces acting in collisions. Axioms 7 and 8 do not provide a detailed description
of the particular forces that oppose one another at each stage of the collision process.
Axiom 9 appears to be an attempt to ll in these details. There is further evidence
that Newton desires a deeper account of the forces acting in collisions in Section
IIe, discussed below.
At the same time, it would certainly not have escaped Newton that the argument in Axioms 9 and 10 is not entirely successful because it is restricted to the

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57

case of perfectly elastic collisions. For one thing, he explicitly limits his discussion
to this case in Axiom 9 and he is certainly aware of the existence of inelastic collisions because he considers them in Denition 5. Also, his marginal note to Definition 5, quoted above, reads like a worry that motion is not conserved in the
inelastic collisions that he describes. It is also telling that the argument for the
conservation of motion given in Axioms 7 and 8 resurfaces in Section IIe, but
the argument in Axiom 9 does not. However, Newton certainly does not draw
the moral that the (partial) extremal concept of force employed in Axiom 9 is
awed: the extremal concept of force, as well as the force of motion concept, continues to be employed in Section IIe.
Axiom 10 extends the argument given in Axiom 9 to the more general case of
unequall and unequally moved bodies that are perfectly hard and elastic. The
claim defended in Axiom 10 is that [t]here is the same reason when unequall
and unequally moved bodys reect, they should separate from one another with
as much motion as they came together (p. 143). Herivel nds this axiom
problematic:
The result given in this number is true for a perfectly elastic collision, as follows, for example, either from Newtons law of relative velocities with e = 1,
or by simultaneous application of conservation of momentum and conservation of energy. But it is not clear how Newton supposed that the general result
followed from the very special case considered in the previous number . . . .
Notice that the term motion is here employed in the sense of movement rather
than in the usual sense of quantity of motion (=momentum). (Ibid., p. 151
n. 5)
There is a problem with this axiom, but it lies elsewhere. Newtons phrase there is
the same reason has the eect of restricting this axiom to perfectly elastic collisions
because these are the only cases treated in the argument in Axiom 9. Also, motion
should be interpreted in the technical sense of quantity of motion here. This is a
charitable reading because it makes better sense of the application of the argument
in Axiom 9 to the more general case treated in Axiom 10. It is also a reasonable interpretation because in the axioms preceding Axiom 9 Newton argues for the conservation of motion; because in the special case in which the bodies are equal and have
equal speeds the principle of conservation of motion dictates that their resultant
speeds will be equal, this seems to be a continuation of that discussion.
The problem arises when the argument for hard bodies is applied to the case of
equal and unequally moved bodies. In the course of this argument Newton appeals
to the principle that there cannot bee/succeede divers degrees of pressure twixt two
bodies in one moment (p. 143). If this is interpreted as an expression of the third law
principle that the pressures that the bodies exert upon one another are equal, then
there is a problem reconciling this principle with the extremal forces of the bodies.
In the case of equal and unequally moved bodies, the magnitudes of the initial motions of the bodies are not necessarily equal; consequently, in general unequal degrees of pressure are required to destroy the motions of the bodies. Since the total
motion is non-zero, and equal forces acting in opposite directions would generate

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D.L. Fraser / Stud. Hist. Phil. Sci. 36 (2005) 4360

zero total motion, the conservation of motion is strictly inconsistent with the action
reaction principle on the extremal analysis of force.
Several conclusions could be drawn from this contradiction. A possible explanation is that Newton did not regard the statement in Axiom 9 as a complete version of
the third law. It is possible that in Axiom 9 he is using pressure in the sense that
there exists a single pressure between two bodies rather than the distinct pressures
that each exerts on the other (for a total of two pressures), which would dissolve
the problem. However, this would be inconsistent with the principle to which he appeals in Axioms 7 and 8 and with his use of the term pressure elsewhere in the Waste
book. It is more likely, however, that since he did not apply the argument from Axiom 9 to the case in Axiom 10 in detail, he was unaware of this problem. As a consequence, he missed an opportunity to discover that the extremal concept of force is
incompatible with the third law and the principle of conservation of motion.

6. Conclusion
In the passages that have been examined to this point, no direct appeal has been
made to the principle of inertia. The principle is stated in Axioms 1 and 2 of
Section IId, but it is not cited in either Denition 5 or Axioms 710. In Section
IIe Newton returns to the principle of inertia: the section begins with a recapitulation of Axioms 1 and 2 and continues with an investigation of their implications
for collision theory. This is the section that Westfall and Nicholas focus on when
arguing that the principle of inertia played a pivotal role in the genesis of the
second law concept of force.
In the very rst axiom of Section IIe Newton introduces a contest model of collisions in which the advantage that one body has over another is a function of their
respective powers to persevere in their states and in which the bodies mutually hinder their perseverance in their states (pp. 153154). The force of motion enters as the
power of a body to persevere in its state. However, there is a crucial dierence between Newtons use of the contest model and Descartess. While Descartes employs
the contest model to determine the outcomes of collisions, Newton only considers
whether or not the collision of two bodies will reduce both to rest. This is because
Newton has already developed a theory of collisions that governs the resultant motions of bodies: the theory adumbrated in Axioms 7 and 8 of IId. Newton demonstrates his condence in this account by proceeding to analyze more complex
collision scenarios in the latter part of Section IId.
But if Newton does not employ the contest model to derive the resultant motions
of colliding bodies, then why does he introduce the contest model? Newtons aim in
Section IIe seems to be the attainment of a deeper understanding of the forces exerted in collisions. As we have seen, the presence of Axioms 9 and 10 signals a similar
desire, but the argument contained in these axioms is not entirely satisfactory because it is restricted to the special case of perfectly elastic collisions. Because the
spring model is only hypotheticalthe forces behave as if they were due to
springsthe true source of the forces remains a mystery. By employing the contest

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59

model and applying the associated principle of inertia, Newton can ll this lacuna: in
Axiom 106, he identies the source of the pressure on a body a in a collision between bodies a and b as the power which b hath to persever in its velocity or state,
which is usually called the force of the body b (p. 156). The implication is that, on
the inertial route, the Cartesian principle of inertia, the Cartesian representation of
the dynamical parity of rest and motion, and an abstract conception of forces as causal agents were not the only factors that pushed Newton to the second law. Newtons
interest in the forces themselves was also an important factor. Perhaps Nicholas is
recognizing the importance of this same factor but describing it in a slightly dierent
way when he says that Newtons defection from Mechanical Philosophy strictly conceived in his non-Mechanical commitment to elastic forces in matter is one of the
pressures that forced him towards an enlarged force theory from the Inertial Contest View (Nicholas, 1978, pp. 127128).
There is an inconsistency in Section IIe. In Axiom 105 Newton considers the case
of equal and equivelox bodies and remarks that since these bodys have noe advantage the one over the other the hindrance on both parts will be equall (p. 156). The
implication is that if the bodies had unequal motionsand therefore unequal forces
of motionthen the hindrances on both parts would not be equal. This contradicts
Axiom 121, which states that [i]f 2 bodies p and r meet the one the other, the resistance in both is the same (p. 159). This is the same contradiction entailed by the
force of motion concept and the actionreaction principle that Westfall raised (see
my Section 3 above). Section IIe does not contain any indication that Newton convinced himself that this contradiction is merely apparent by appealing to the relativity of motion. The more probable explanation of the presence of this inconsistency in
IIe is that Newton was simply not aware of it.
Throughout the Waste book, Newton keeps the analysis of collisions based on the
principle of inertia separate from that based on the actionreaction principle. In
the sections prior to Section IIe, the principle of inertia is stated, but not invoked
in the analysis of collision. In Section IIe, Newton employs an inertial analysis up
to and including Axiom 118. The actionreaction principle does not appear in any
of these axioms. In the nal four axioms of Section IIe he recapitulates the essence
of the argument for the conservation of motion given in Axioms 7 and 8 and then
continues in this vein. The one exception to this pattern of dissociation is Axioms
9 and 10, where Newton combines the extremal concept of force and the actionreaction principle. However, he does not discover the inconsistency lurking in these
axioms because he does not delve into the details of the problematic case in which
the colliding bodies have unequal motions. The fact that the principle of inertia
and the actionreaction principle are for the most part treated separately makes it
seem plausible that Newton was unaware of the inconsistency in IIe.
Newtons compartmentalization of the two aspects of his collision theory has several further implications. In Westfalls view, [t]he Waste book suggests that rather
than seeing the one concept of force [that is, the force of motion concept] as the denial of the other [that is, the second law force concept], Newton sought to reconcile
them in a unitary dynamics (Westfall, 1971, pp. 346347). The inconsistency in IIe
suggests that, on the contrary, Newton was far from integrating the components of

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D.L. Fraser / Stud. Hist. Phil. Sci. 36 (2005) 4360

his theory connected with the principle of inertia and those connected with the third
law. As a result, Newton does not attain a unitary dynamics in the Waste book.
Since Newton considered the implications of the principle of inertia in isolation
from the analysis of collision involving the actionreaction principle and the conservation of motion, it is plausible that he did in fact arrive at the second law by two
dierent routes. In Sections IIc and IId, the second law concept of force evolves
out of the physical conception of force as pressure or crouding. The second law
force concept is the bridge in the argument from the premise of the actionreaction
principle to the conclusion that motion is conserved. In Section IIe, the second law
concept of force emerges from an inertial analysis of collisions. Although Newton
treated these two routes to the second law separately, they are in fact united by a
common thread in Newtons thought: both are products of his desire for a more fundamental dynamical understanding of the process of collision.

Acknowledgements
For helpful discussions and comments, I thank John Nicholas, Peter Machamer,
participants in the Newton seminar lead by Ted McGuire and Bernard Goldstein at
the University of Pittsburgh in Spring 2002, and especially Ted McGuire.

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