Writing in the General Scholium, the epilogue to the Principia, Newton suggested that the stability of the planetary system depended not only upon the regular action of universal gravitation, but also upon the precise initial positioning of the planets and comets in relation to the sun. As he explained: “though these bodies may indeed persevere in their orbits by the mere laws of gravity, yet they could by no means have at first deriv’d the regular position of the orbits themselves from those laws.” Thus, “this most beautiful System of the Sun, Planets, and Comets, could only proceed from the
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