A dark star is a theoretical object compatible with Newtonian mechanics that, due to its large mass, has a surface escape velocity that equals or exceeds the speed of light.
During 1783 geologist John Michell wrote a letter to Henry Cavendish outlining the expected properties of dark stars, published by The Royal Society in their 1784 volume.
If the semi-diameter of a sphere of the same density as the Sun were to exceed that of the Sun in the proportion of 500 to 1, a body falling from an infinite height towards it would have acquired at its surface greater velocity than that of light, and consequently supposing light to be attracted by the same force in proportion to its vis inertiae, with other bodies, all light emitted from such a body would be made to return towards it by its own proper gravity.
This would then provide a statistical baseline for calculating the amount of other unseen stellar matter that might exist in addition to the visible stars.
Because of the development of the wave theory of light, Laplace may have removed it from later editions as light came to be thought of as a massless wave, and therefore not influenced by gravity and as a group, physicists dropped the idea although the German physicist, mathematician, and astronomer Johann Georg von Soldner continued with Newton's corpuscular theory of light as late as 1804.