Originally Posted by
DaveReidUK
Newton has a lot to answer for ...
"Give me leave, Sir, to insinuate that I cannot think it effectual for determining truth to examine the several ways by which phaenomena may be explained, unless where there can be a perfect enumeration of all those ways. You know that the proper method for inquiring after the property of things is to deduce them from experiments. And I told you that the theory that I proposed wa[s] evinced to me, not by inferring it is thus because not otherwise, that is, not by deducing it only from confutation of contrary suppositions, but by deriving it from experiments concluding positively and directly. The way therefore to examine it is by considering, whether the experiments which I proposed do prove those parts of the theory to which they are applied; or by prosecuting other experiments that the theory may suggest for its examination. And this I would have done in a due method...."
in "A Series of Quaeries Proposed by Mr. Isaac Newton to be determined by Experiments, positively and directly concluding his new Theory of Light and Colours, imparted to the Editor in a Letter of the said Mr. NEWTON'S, of July 8, 1672. No. 85 p. 5004. In
The Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, London, from their commencement in 1665 to the year 1800 (abridged) Vol 1 p. 734
English was a second language to the pommies in 1672 apparently...