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=== Newton on Methodology ===
Prior to the publication of The ''Principia'', the philosophy of motion and change in the universe was largely a theoretical and non-mathematical enterprise. The dominating methodological approach both in the Aristotelian-scholastic and Cartesian natural philosophy, was one in which truths about the natural world were proposed as conjectural hypotheses. Cartesian '''rationalism'''sought deduce such hypotheses from fundamental metaphysical principles that were deemed evidently true by human reason . [[CiteRef::Janiak (2016)]][[CiteRef::Lennon and Dea (2014)]]. Influenced by the more experimental and mathematically oriented methodologies of Bacon, Galileo, and Boyle, Newton drew a distinction between a conclusion drawn from observation or experimental evidence and one that was merely a speculative 'hypothesis'. He explicitly rejected the method of hypotheses, and instead demanded that all propositions be deduced from the observed phenomena and then converted into general principles via '''induction''' . [[CiteRef::McMullin (2001)]][[CiteRef::Janiak (2016)]][[CiteRef::Smith (2002)]]. In the second edition of the ''Principia'', Newton states:
<blockquote>I have not as yet been able to deduce from phenomena the reason for these properties of gravity, and I do not feign hypotheses. For whatever is not deduced from the phenomena must be called a hypothesis; and hypotheses, whether metaphysical or physical, or based on occult qualities, or mechanical, have no place in experimental philosophy. In this experimental philosophy, propositions are deduced from the phenomena and are made general by induction. The impenetrability, mobility, and impetus of bodies and the laws of motion and law of gravity have been found by this method. And it is enough that gravity should really exist and should act according to the laws that we have set forth and should suffice for all the motions of the heavenly bodies and of our sea.[[CiteRef::Newton (1999)| p. 276]]</blockquote>
The generality of Newton's rejection of hypotheses in natural philosophy is unclear since, in the ''Opticks'' he did discuss hypotheses about light, and did raise the possibility of an invisible aether responsible for gravitational attraction. [[CiteRef::Janiak (2016)|pp. 25-26]] His epistemological beliefs were similar to those of his contemporary and friend, [[John Locke ]] (1632-1704) who maintained that all knowledge came from experience. [[CiteRef::Rogers (1982)]] Newton called his methodology the '''experimental philosophy''', because theories about the behavior of empirical objects can only be refuted via experimental procedures.[[CiteRef::Smith (2002)]]
He expressed its core beliefs in a set of four “rules for the study of natural philosophy,” which he stated in book III of The ''Principia'' as follows:
