Work Classification Layer
Compare Works
Pick two or more works to set their attribute fingerprints, dimension-by-dimension passages, and shared school embodiments side by side. Especially useful for author-stage comparisons (Wittgenstein early vs late) and for setting a single tradition's foundational texts against each other.
General Scholium
Newton's 1713 General Scholium — 'Hypotheses non fingo' and the natural-theological framing of the Principia
Attribute Fingerprint
Rows where works disagree are highlighted in gold. The full ontology grid is shown.
| Attribute | General Scholium (Late) |
|---|---|
| Time · Extent | Infinite |
| Time · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Time · Grain | Continuous |
| Time · Freedom | Deterministic |
| Time · Traversability | Linear |
| Time · Dimensionality | One |
| Time · Direction | Uni-directional |
| Space · Extent | Infinite |
| Space · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Space · Curvature | Flat |
| Space · Dimensionality | Three |
| Space · Locality | Local |
| Matter · Extent | Finite |
| Matter · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Matter · Conservation | Conserved |
| Matter · Dimensionality | Three |
| Matter · Locality | Local |
| Observer · Time Instance | Single |
| Observer · Space Instance | Single |
| Observer · Knowledge Extent | Immediate |
| Observer · Knowledge Retainment | Total |
| Observer · Physicality | Embodied |
| Observer · Agency | Active |
| Observer · Number | Plural |
| Observer · Metaphysical Agency | Personal |
| Observer · Moral Authority | Revelation |
| Observer · Theological Method | — |
| Energy · Extent | Finite |
| Energy · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Energy · Conservation | Conserved |
| Energy · Dispersibility | Irreversible |
| Information · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Information · Cosmic Conservation | Conserved |
| Information · Personal Conservation | Conserved |
| Information · Granularity | Continuous |
Dimension-by-Dimension Evidence
What each work's passages reveal about its stance on each of the six dimensions.
Time
General Scholium
1713 (2nd ed.) and 1726 (3rd ed.). Newton's late period; the Scholium frames the Principia's mathematical content theologically.
Space
General Scholium
Cambridge — Trinity College, Newton's mature years. The Scholium claims absolute space as a real dimension of God's existence ('He endures forever, and is everywhere present, and by existing always and everywhere, he constitutes duration and space').
Matter
General Scholium
Scholium appended to the Principia, treating the mathematical-physical content of the Principia within a natural-theological frame.
Observer
General Scholium
Late Newton. The observer is the philosophical natural philosopher, deducing from phenomena and refusing to feign hypotheses about underlying causes.
Energy
General Scholium
Natural-theological-methodological energies. The Scholium is the most concentrated statement of Newtonian philosophy outside the Principia's mathematical body.
Information
General Scholium
Single scholium of c. 1200 words bearing the entire weight of Newtonian methodology and natural theology.
Internal Tensions
Where each work's argument pulls against itself.
The single most-quoted Newton text outside the Principia proper — locus classicus of 'hypotheses non fingo' and Newtonian natural theology. The Scholium's theology has been variously read: as orthodox (Maclaurin, Voltaire), as Arian (Newton's private papers since the 1930s reveal), as Stoic (Force), as Boyle-Lecture-conformist (Westfall, Snobelen). Its methodological maxim 'hypotheses non fingo' has been taken as the founding charter of empirical-mathematical natural science.