The American botanist and politician Cadwallader Colden, a diverse thinker whose scholarship encompassed natural history, the nature of the universe, and medicine, was also lieutenant governor of New York.

Cadwallader Colden was born on Feb. 7, 1688, in Ireland of Scottish parents; his father was a minister. He received a degree from the University of Edinburgh and then studied medicine in London. He emigrated to Philadelphia in 1710 and went to New York in 1718 at the request of Governor Robert Hunter, who made Colden surveyor general of the colony in 1720. This sinecure allowed him the leisure for a scientific career, although he remained interested in politics, serving as a member of the Governor's Council.

In 1739 Colden left New York City to live at his farm, Coldengham, where he spent much of his time in scientific study. He began corresponding with Peter Collinson, the London botanist, who brought Colden into the international natural history circle. Colden became one of the first men in Europe or America to completely master the new Linnaean system of plant classification, which he rigorously applied to the flora surrounding his farm. These descriptions, which he circulated in Europe, drew praise even from Linnaeus himself. Colden criticized the Linnaean reliance on sexual characteristics and suggested a more natural system.

Being located in America had been an advantage for his botanical work, but when Colden turned from natural history to speculations on the nature of the universe, even his finely honed, highly rational mind could not make up for his geographical isolation. An Explication of the First Causes of Action in Matter (1745) was his attempt to discover the cause of gravity, postulating a division of the material world into matter, light, and ether. Although it is possible to read an equation of energy with matter in the work, it was in general a rationally deduced system in no way based on the observations of scientists in Europe