To Tell Us That Every Species Of Thing Is Endowed With An Occult
Specific Quality By Which It Acts And Produces Manifest Effects, Is To
Tell Us Nothing
To tell us that every species of thing is endowed with an occult
specific quality by which it acts and produces manifest effects, is to
tell us nothing; but to derive two or three general principles of motion
from phenomena, and afterwards to tell us how the properties and actions
of all corporeal things follow from those manifest principles, would be
a very great step.
-- Isaac Newton
