ABSTRACT
Nollet's skeptical view of Newton's theory of gravity does not fit the classical historiography of the Enlightenment. The standard story of the scientific revolution as told in general histories and by the traditional history of ideas skips rather hastily from the mathematical triumphs of the seventeenth century to the complete description of the solar system achieved by what is generally known as classical physics. The French Enlightenment was a sufficiently diffuse movement that it is often characterized through the examination of a single individual rather than through the statement of generalities. Mme du Chatelet began her studies with Maupertuis at precisely the time he prepared this first book of French Newtonianism. Voltaire, in short, found in the Newtonian world technical accomplishments that were linked broadly to a Lockean philosophical stance. The style of Newtonianism adopted at Cirey, with this additional philosophical burden, was significantly different from what Mme du Chatelet had studied with Maupertuis and Clairaut.
