Cadwallader Colden (8 page)

I had pleased myself with the conceit of my being able to explain the Cause of Gravitation a point which has hitherto puzzled the ablest of Philosophers. My speculations have so far pleas'd my self & appear to me to be founded upon such evident principles that I have adventur'd to put them to the press in order to have a sufficient number of copies to submit it to the examination of the Learned…. As a meer point of Speculation I think it will be acceptable to the curious if it in any manner approach to the opinion I have of it…. [I]t opens a Method for improvement in Astronomy & all the Sciences which depend on it as Navigation & Geography which exceeds anything done hitherto…. I propose to give an entire Theory of the Earth's motion from the Principles in this treatise which I have now published which in several parts will be entirely new. I propose to explain the Phenomena from those principles & some of which tho principal Phenomena in the earths motion not so much as attempted by S
^r
Isa. New
^t
….
^”
61

Colden considered himself qualified to disagree with some of Newton's postulates. He wrote to Samuel Johnson requesting an opinion of his treatise: “You will find by some parts of that piece that tho' I have the greatest esteem of S
^r
Isaac Newtons knowledge & performances I take the liberty to differ from him in some points That man never existed that never err'd.”
⁶²

Newton had formulated laws by which the effects of gravitation could be predicted, but he specifically indicated that he could not define the cause. He wrote, “I have not been able to discover the cause of the properties of gravity from [the observation of] phenomena and I frame no hypotheses.”
⁶³

Unlike Newton, who specifically based his analyses on observations and experimentations, Colden eschewed inductive reasoning and based his conclusions on unsubstantiated hypotheses.
Colden's hypotheses were mainly in keeping with the sections entitled “General Scholium” at the end of Newton's
Principia
and “Queries” at the end of
Optics
, in which Newton indulged himself in speculation. These sections were in distinct variance with Newton's expression of his theses, which were based on reasoning, careful experimentation, and mathematical calculations. Colden had failed to comprehend Newton's concept of inertia, his laws of motion, or the balances of forces exerted upon the planets.
⁶⁴
As a result, a historical assessment has declared: “No more audacious claim to intellectual eminence was ever made in colonial America than Cadwallader Colden's assertion, in the middle of the eighteenth century, that he had discovered the cause of gravitation.”
⁶⁵

Colden's explanation of gravity had as its basis the division of the material of the world into three distinct substances:
ether, resisting matter
, and
moving matter.
Colden followed the concept of Newton by invoking
ether
as the medium that was responsible for pushing bodies together and accounting for gravity. Colden also defined
ether
as “a subtile elastic fluid exceedingly more subtile and elastic than common air,”
⁶⁶
Colden's
ether
“fills every space, not occupied by resisting matter, and so, consequently, permeates all the interstices between the parts or particles, which compose bodies of inert or resisting matter.”
⁶⁷

As an explanation for gravitation, Newton proposed that the ether had a varied density, which was increased as the distance from a body increased. Attraction was a result the movement of a body from denser parts to rarer parts of the medium. Newton admitted uncertainty of this hypothesis and stated that he did not know what ether was. Colden's
ether
was a distinctly different entity, which he defined without hesitation. His
ether
possessed a constant density, without any distance between points within it, and it did not extend throughout space. Most irreconcilable was the hypothesis that two bodies in
ether
encountered less force on the sides facing each other than on all other sides because there was less ether between them than surrounding
them. The resultant force brought the bodies together. Thus, Colden concluded that gravitation was caused by the “reaction” of ether on bodies of matter.
⁶⁸

Colden borrowed the term “matter” from Newton and referred to bodies having mass and occupying space as
resisting matter.
He followed Newton in asserting that the innate force in matter is the power to resist, equating resistance with inertia. A body at rest continues at rest, while a body in motion continues moving uniformly unless a force is applied. Resistance, according to Colden, was active rather than passive, as was the case for Newton. Colden's third form of matter was termed
moving matter
, which was essentially Newton's corpuscular light, namely, light made up of small discrete particles called “corpuscles,” which travel in a straight line with a finite velocity and possess kinetic energy. To light Colden ascribed the sole power of movement in the universe. Bodies in motion must continually receive new energy from light or motion would decrease and cease.

In Colden's universe, gravity was the force exerted by
ether
upon the planets and stars. There were fewer ether particles between the sun and each of the planets than between planets. This resulted in a force that would cause each planet to move toward the sun. Counteracting that force were light particles emanating from the sun. Light constituted the sole power of movement in the universe. It was responsible for the planets' orbits, their orbital velocities, and also the rotations of planets on their axes.

The earliest evidence of Colden's attention to the extension of Newton's work is the manuscript
An Introduction to the Doctrine of Fluxions
(calculus), which Colden disseminated to several of his correspondents, including John Rutherfurd,
⁶⁹
Alexander, Franklin, and Logan in 1743. Colden wrote to Collinson that he was directing his attention away from botany to a subject “so bold that I dare not trouble you with it or even to mention the subject till it has undergone the examination of some Friends here.”
⁷⁰

As mentioned previously, Franklin was one of the recipients of Colden's manuscript, which he shared with Logan. Franklin responded:

I communicated your Piece of Fluxions to M
^r
Logan, and being in his House a few Days after, he told me, he had read it cursorily, that he thought you had not fully hit the Matter, and (
I think
) that Berkeley's Objections were well founded; but said he would read it over more attentively. Since that, he tells me there are several Mistakes in it, two of which he mark'd on Page 10. He says X X is by no Means = X + X nor is the square of 10 + 1 + 10:2:01 but = 100 + 20 + 1 and that the Method of Shewing what Fluxions are, by squaring them is entirely wrong. I suppose the 3 Mistakes he mention'd if they are such, may have been Slips of the Pen in transcribing. The other Piece, of the Several Species of Matter, he gave me his Opinion in these words, “It must necessarily have some further Meaning than the Language itself imports, otherwise I can by no means conceive the Service of it.” —At the same time he express'd a high regard for you, as the ablest Thinker (so he express'd it) in the part of the World.
⁷¹

John Rutherfurd, who was stationed in Albany at the time, was qualified to provide Colden with a critique of the work. Rutherfurd, the eldest son of Sir John Rutherfurd of Edgerton, Scotland, who was a friend of Colden's father, arrived in Albany to command an independent company in early 1742. Rutherfurd's position was that of a captain in charge of a military unit in Albany directed at limiting French-Canadian encroachments in the region. Within months of his arrival, he initiated correspondence with Colden indicating that: “I find my retirement here perfectly agreeable & for this reason, that ‘tis compleat, dividing my time equally for Mathematicks, Philosphy, Politicks, &c without being interrupted in any Shape by Family cares of publick affairs as hitherto I have always been….”
⁷²

Rutherfurd conveyed that he was knowledgeable about matters in physics, light and optics, mathematics, Cartesian and
Newtonian science, and the contributions of Boerhave in addition to appreciating the critical issues related to the Indians and the French.
⁷³
All of their correspondence during Rutherfurd's presence in New York prior to his temporary return to Great Britain in 1748 pertained to military and Indian affairs, and Colden apparently did not share his treatise on gravitation with him. Rutherfurd resumed his command in New York, was promoted to major, and was killed in battle leading troops during a battle at Ticonderoga on July 8, 1758.

Colden did share his writings with Samuel Johnson (1696–1772). A more scientific and philosophical tone characterized their correspondence. Johnson was a native of Connecticut who was notable as a clergyman, educator, and philosopher. A graduate of the Collegiate School, which became Yale College and University, he initially became a Congregationalist minister but subsequently joined the Anglican Church. He was selected as the first president of King's College (the future Columbia University) in 1754. He was the chief proponent of the Irish philosopher George Berkeley in the colonies. As an “immaterialist” he argued against the absolute existence of matter and affirmed the merely relative existence of sensible things. The collegial epistolary dialogue between Colden, who has been regarded as the first of the American Materialists,
⁷⁴
provides an early chapter in the history of American philosophy and establishes Colden as a notable metaphysician.

In 1745 Colden's
An Explication of the First Causes of Action in Matter; and of the Cause of Gravitation
(
fig. 6
) was published by James Parker in New York under the direction of James Alexander, whose proximity allowed him to oversee the project.
⁷⁵
The forty-eight-page document was the first scientific treatise published in the colonies. About three hundred copies were printed, nine of which were sent to Peter Collinson in London to be distributed to knowledgeable individuals for their critiques.
⁷⁶
One of these went to the Royal Society where “it is well Esteem'd & admir'd.”
⁷⁷
One of the recipients thought that the work was so sophisticated that it could not have come from America and that the shipwrecked papers of a European had fallen into Colden's possession.
⁷⁸

Figure 6. Title page. Cadwallader Colden,
An Explication of the First Causes of Action in Matter, and the Cause of Gravitation
, printed by James Parker, New York, 1745. Quarto, 38 pages. The first scientific book printed in the British colonies in America.

J. Brindley pirated the New York edition and published the work in London in 1746. A German translation appeared two years later. Almost immediately criticisms appeared. Samuel Johnson wrote from Stratford, Connecticut, that the rector of Yale said “he can't understand your Solution of Gravity; for two Balls in your
OEther
, will certainly be press'd as much by it on the Sides between them, as on the opposite Side, unless it has some Laws of Motion that we have never yet been acquainted with.”
⁷⁹
Collinson conveyed two criticisms from Britain including the statement, “M
^r
Colden is Mistaken in every part of his Conjectures.”
⁸⁰

The designation of Colden as an “Early American Philosopher” is a byproduct of his attempt to expand Newtonian science. Much of Colden's philosophic thought appears in his correspondence with Samuel Johnson, which began in November 1743 with evidence that Johnson was supplying Colden with the complete works of Bishop Berkeley.
⁸¹
Colden's initial writing to Johnson concerned his own work on Fluxions. Johnson argued against Colden's supposition that there were an infinite number of parts in a finite quantity and Johnson indicated that they should be substituted for by small finite quantities.
⁸²
Colden countered with an argument for his concept of infinite parts.
⁸³

In response to Johnson's indication that he was not qualified to understand Colden's mathematics, Colden wrote that, despite objections that had been made, he was as convinced of “it [his treatise] as if day light after sun is up & that it is more than an Hypothesis.” He also expressed concern with being considered an atheist and dispelled that notion. In the same letter, the elements of Colden's personality that engendered many to dislike him are manifest in his criticism of Bishop Berkeley. He wrote of Berkeley that “he has made the greatest Collection in this & his other writings of
both the Ancients and moderns that I have ever met with in anyone mans performance that he has the art of puzzling & confounding his readers in an elegant stile not common to such kind of writers & that he is a great abuser of the use of words as anyone of those that he blames most for that fault.”
⁸⁴