De l'existence de Dieu

Chapter 2 of the Institutions de physique went online today! You can now read it on our Webpage.

This chapter is amazing and required a lot of work:

With regard to the handwritten draws of the second chapter, the revisions made by Du Châtelet were remarkable. The two manuscript drafts of the second chapter were revised thoroughly by Du Châtelet, both separately and in relation to each other. We can count up to six revision stages of the first draft and four revision stages of the second draft.

While there are only a few changes between the last handwritten version and the printed edition from 1740, we find significant revisions of the 1740 edition in the printed edition from 1742, mainly from § 25 onwards. In the second chapter of the 1742 edition, Du Châtelet also began to insert references to other paragraphs in the same chapter, which she did neither in the 1740 edition nor in the Avant-Propos and Chapter One of the 1742 edition.

As you can see, there is a lot to be discovered and interpreted.