Little is known about Robert Young, including his dates, except that he was a social reformer and founder of the Philanthropic Society in 1788. The present work is one of two treatises that Young wrote on Newtonian philosophy, including An Examination of the Third and Fourth Definitions of the First Book of Sir Isaac Newton's Principia and of the Three Axioms or Laws of Motion (1787). In his preface, he writes, "...the following essay is intended to support, extend, and improve the Newtonian system. On the contrary, improvements imply imperfection, and imperfection error. The physical parts of the Newtonian system are allowed, by its most learned and judicious friends, to want those traces of the great matter that distinguish the mathematical principles... Babson 129. ESTC lists seven copies only.