QUOTE – NEWTON on the absurdity of gravity


“It is inconceivable, that inanimate brute matter should, without the mediation of something else, which is not material, operate upon and affect other matter without mutual contact…That gravity should be innate, inherent, and essential to matter, so that one body may act upon another at a distance, through a vacuum, without the mediation of anything else, by and through which their action and force may be conveyed from one to another, is to me so great an absurdity, that I believe no man who has in philosophical matters a competent faculty of thinking, can ever fall into it. Gravity must be caused by an agent, acting constantly according to certain laws; but whether this agent be material or immaterial, I have left to the consideration of my readers.”

— Sir Isaac Newton (Third letter to Bentley, 25 Feb 1693. Quoted in The Works of Richard Bentley, D. D. (1838), Vol. 3, 212-3.)