deferred that publication till I had made a search into those matters, and could put forth the whole together. What relates to the lunar motions (being imperfect), I have put all together in the corollaries of Prop. 66, to avoid being obliged to propose and distinctly demonstrate the several things there contained in a method more prolix than the subject deserved, and interrupt the series of the several propositions. Some things, found out after the rest, I chose to insert in places less suitable, rather than change the number of the propositions and the citations. I heartily beg that what I have here done may be read with candour; and that the defects in a subject so difficult be not so much reprehended as kindly supplied, and investigated by new endeavours of my readers.
Cambridge. Trinity College May 8, 1686
In the second edition the second section of the first book was enlarged. In the seventh section of the second book the theory of the resistances of fluids was more accurately investigated, and confirmed by new experiments. In the third book the moon's theory and the praecession of the equinoxes were more fully deduced from their principles; and the theory of the comets was confirmed by more examples of the calculation of their orbits, done also with greater accuracy.
In this third edition the resistance of mediums is somewhat more largely handled than before; and new experiments of the resistance of heavy bodies falling in air are added. In the third book, the argument to prove that the moon is retained in its orbit by the force of gravity is enlarged on; and there are added new observations of Mr. Pound's of the proportion of the diameters of Jupiter to each other: there are, besides, added Mr. Kirk's observations of the comet in 1680; the orbit of that comet computed in an ellipsis by Dr. Halley; and the orbit of the comet in 1723, computed by Mr. Bradley.
