Political Arithmetic and Sacred History: Population Thought in the English Enlightenment, 1660–1750

2013 ◽  
Vol 52 (4) ◽  
pp. 829-857 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ted McCormick
Keyword(s):  
Population Growth ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Natural Theology ◽  
The State ◽  
Scientific Content ◽  
History Of ◽  
Social Scientific ◽  
Modern Population ◽  
Empirical Methodology

AbstractCurrent approaches to the history of early modern population thought focus on the state and secular governance, while standard treatments of Restoration and Augustan “political arithmetic” emphasize its economic or social-scientific content. This article recovers nonsecular uses of demographic quantification, excavating the use of political arithmetic in religious polemic between ca. 1660 and ca. 1750. As a form of empirical natural philosophy, political arithmetic suited the polemical needs of latitudinarian Anglicans and others combating deism, atheism, and preadamism; the demographic regularities it revealed furnished evidence of providential solicitude, while the history of population growth was a potential prop for scriptural chronologies. A strand of “sacred” political arithmetic thus contributed to natural theology while modeling—albeit inconsistently—new historical applications for empirical methodology. The article concludes by considering possible causes for the decline of this “sacred” strand of demographic quantification, while suggesting connections between it and better-known secular forms of Enlightenment-era population thought.

Statistics as Social Science

2020 ◽  
pp. 17-40
Author(s):  
Theodore M. Porter
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Great Britain ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Systematic Study ◽  
State Policy ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
The State ◽  
Statistical Thinking ◽  
History Of

This chapter discusses statistics as social science. The systematic study of social numbers in the spirit of natural philosophy was pioneered during the 1660s, and was known for about a century and a half as political arithmetic. Its purpose, when not confined to the calculation of insurance or annuity rates, was the promotion of sound, well-informed state policy. Political arithmetic was, according to William Petty, the application of Baconian principles to the art of government. Implicit in the use by political arithmeticians of social numbers was the belief that the wealth and strength of the state depended strongly on the number and character of its subjects. Political arithmetic was supplanted by statistics in France and Great Britain around the beginning of the nineteenth century. The shift in terminology was accompanied by a subtle mutation of concepts that can be seen as one of the most important in the history of statistical thinking.

Introduction

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-15
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Methodological Approach ◽  
New Materials ◽  
History Of ◽  
General Topic ◽  
History Of Universities

This monographic issue of History of Universities presents new materials and case studies in order to deepen our understanding of the role of the academic milieu in the early modern reshaping of natural philosophy. The contributions included in this volume aim to pursue two main axes of research: (1) the reconstruction and exploration of the dialectics between tradition and innovation in the reshaping of natural philosophy; (2) the attempt to constitute and consolidate new traditions in natural philosophy. This introduction presents the general topic of the volume, the methodological approach developed by the contributors and the contents of each contribution.

Introduction

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
J. V. Fesko
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
The State ◽  
Early Church ◽  
Secondary Literature ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
History Of

This chapter introduces the topic of the history of the early modern Reformed doctrine of the covenant of works. It first defines the doctrine and then provides a state of the question through a survey of relevant secondary literature. After the state of the question, the chapter states the book’s main aim, which is to present an overview of the origins, development, and reception of the covenant of works. In contrast to critics of the doctrine, this book stands within another strand of historiography that sees the covenant of works as a legitimate development of ideas present in the early church, middle ages, and Reformation periods. The chapter then lays out the topics of each of following chapters: the Reformation, Robert Rollock, Jacob Arminius, James Ussher, John Cameron and Edward Leigh, The Westminster Standards, the Formula Consensus Helvetica, Thomas Boston, and the Twentieth Century.

Early Modern Theology and Science

2014 ◽  
pp. 607-624
Author(s):  
John Henry
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Natural Theology ◽  
Laws Of Nature ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Mechanical Philosophy ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Theology And Science ◽  
Natural Philosophers

This chapter surveys prominent aspects of historical relations between theology and science in the early modern period. It argues that the medieval “handmaiden tradition,” in which natural philosophy was seen as a support to theology, continued throughout the period but with apologetic complications caused by the fragmentation of religious authority, and the proliferation of alternative new philosophies. It considers the mechanical philosophy and the concomitant concept of laws of nature, and their impact on mind-body dualism, and the development of natural theology. It also considers the role of natural philosophy in the rise of atheism, arguing that it did not create atheists, but was appropriated by them. Devout natural philosophers played into the hands of atheists by arguing among themselves as to the best way to combat atheism, and by taking a naturalistic line in their arguments, relegating God to the role of a remote primary cause and increasingly denying Providence. Finally, it considers persistent suggestions that Protestantism played a greater role in the promotion of the natural sciences than Catholicism. We consider here claims about millennialism as a stimulus to science; the effect of Protestant attitudes to the Bible and how it should be read,; and the role of Augustinian post-lapsarian anthropology.

ARISTOTELIANISM, DESCARTES, AND HOBBES

2007 ◽  
Vol 50 (2) ◽  
pp. 449-464 ◽  
Author(s):  
MICHAEL EDWARDS
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Recent Work ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
History Of ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

The historiography of early modern Aristotelian philosophy and its relationship with its seventeenth-century critics, such as Hobbes and Descartes, has expanded in recent years. This article explores the dynamics of this project, focusing on a tendency to complicate and divide up the category of Aristotelianism into multiple ‘Aristotelianisms’, and the significance of this move for attempts to write a contextual history of the relationship of Hobbes and Descartes to their Aristotelian contemporaries and predecessors. In particular, it considers recent work on Cartesian and Hobbesian natural philosophy, and the ways in which historians have related the different forms of early modern Aristotelianism to the projects of the novatores.

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