Martin Folkes, Antiquary

2021 ◽  
pp. 183-236
Author(s):  
Anna Marie Roos
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Material Culture ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Discursive Practice ◽  
Religious Practices ◽  
The Past

Chapter six continues the intellectual connections between Folkes’s and his contemporaries’ work in natural philosophy, natural history and antiquarianism via two case studies involving Folkes’s work in numismatics and in the Egyptian Society. Just as Folkes promoted Newtonianism, his writing of his Table of Gold and Silver Coins reflected his allegiance to his mentor Newton, Master of the Royal Mint, as his editing did of Newton’s biblical chronologies. Royal Society Fellows were also deriving metrological standards and tables of specific gravities of metals, so these concerns dovetailed in Folkes’s work on the English coinage. Use of material culture to reconstruct the past was inherent to antiquarianism and to natural philosophy at the Royal Society. Fellows attended experimental demonstrations from which axiomatic principles were formulated via discursive practice; members could also access this material by the reading of reports of experiments. The Egyptian Society to which Folkes belonged (1741–3) had the same methodology, to discover principles of sociocultural and religious practices in Egypt, as well as to provide ‘object biographies’ of artefacts that belonged to members that they examined with speculations on their manufacture and use, for instance of ancient enamels and pigments, as well as the practice of mummification.

Syncretisms

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philippa Adrych ◽  
Robert Bracey ◽  
Dominic Dalglish ◽  
Stefanie Lenk ◽  
Rachel Wood
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Religious Practices ◽  
Main Theme ◽  
Ancient Religion

The Conclusion to this volume returns to the three main questions posed in the Introduction, examining how a shared name, alongside material culture, can affect our understanding of ancient religious practices. The first section explores the benefits of a collaborative and comparative endeavour, drawing out examples from the earlier chapters and showing how they informed our perceptions of what a name can mean. The second and third parts ask more theoretical questions about how we can use our case studies to explore broader problems of interpreting ancient religious practices, and the role of objects within them. Finally, we return to the main theme of the volume: the name Mithra, and the ideas, expectations, and traditions that have been attached to it in antiquity and in modern scholarship. We suggest a new way of approaching the phenomenon of the shared name, and what that can entail for those interested in ancient religion.

Self-Scrutiny and the Study of Nature: Robert Hooke's Diary as Natural History

1996 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 311-342 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lotte Mulligan
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Daily Life ◽  
Intellectual Life ◽  
History Of ◽  
After Hours ◽  
College Now ◽  
City Of London ◽  
The City

Robert Hooke's intellectual life was steadfastly dedicated to the pursuit of natural philosophy and the formulation of an appropriate method for studying nature, His daily life, however, was seemingly fragmented—an energetic rush in and around the city of London, with him acting now as curator (and later secretary) of the Royal Society, now as Cutlerian Lecturer in the History of Nature and Art, now as Geometry Professor at Gresham College, now as architect and surveyor of postfire London, and forever as a member of a number of intersecting social, intellectual, and professional circles that made up London's coffeehouse culture. Such a range of activities was perhaps wider than that of many of his contemporaries, though other diarists, most notably Samuel Pepys, recorded similarly crammed lives. Yet despite the apparently unsystematic nature of his daily round he was, also like Pepys, a methodical man who hated to waste time, and for long periods he kept a diary that helped him account for how he spent it.I argue here that his diary keeping was an integral part of his scientific vision reflecting the epistemological and methodological practices that guided him as a student of nature. The diary should be read, I propose, not as an “after-hours” incidental activity removed from his professional and intellectual life; both its form and its content suggest that he chose to record a self that was as subject to scientific scrutiny as the rest of nature and that he thought that such a record could be applied to producing, in the end, a fully objective “history” with himself as the datum.

Divergent Ways of Relating to the Past in the Viking Age

2016 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 415-438 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julie Lund ◽  
Elisabeth Arwill-Nordbladh
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Tenth Century ◽  
Viking Age ◽  
The Past ◽  
Dynamic Part ◽  
Ancient Monuments

The flexibility of material culture encourages material phenomena to take a dynamic part in social life. An example of this is material citation, which can provide society with links to both the past and connections to contemporary features. In this article, we look at the diverging ways of relating to and reinventing the past in the Viking Age, exploring citations to ancient monuments in the landscape of Gammel Lejre on Zealand, Denmark. Complementing the placement of landscape monuments, attention is also brought to examples of mortuary citations related to bodily practices in Viking-age mortuary dramas, such as those visible at the mound of Skopintull on the island of Adelsö in Lake Mälaren, Sweden. Through these case studies, we explore the variability in citational strategies found across tenth-century Scandinavia.

scholarly journals XXXIV.—A Biographical Notice of the late Thomas Chalmers, D.D. & LL.D.

1849 ◽  
Vol 16 (5) ◽  
pp. 497-518
Author(s):  
E.B. Ramsay
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Adam Smith ◽  
Vice President ◽  
Pure Mathematics

Mr President,—It has been a practice from the foundation of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, to commemorate its deceased distinguished members by memoirs or biographical notices, read at the ordinary meetings of the Society. Some of these have been printed in the Transactions; and our published volumes are enriched by papers of Dugald Stewart, Professor Playfair, Sir John MacNeil, and Dr Traill, on the characters and writings of Adam Smith, Dr Hutton, Professor Robison, Sir Charles Bell, and Dr Hope. A biographical notice is now due to the memory of a distinguished countryman, late Vice-President of the Royal Society; and the following remarks will, in attempting that object, make a deviation from those more severe discussions with which the time of the Society is usually occupied, in connection either with pure mathematics, natural philosophy, or natural history.

‘Charting’ a Personal and Institutional Life

2021 ◽  
pp. 333-352
Author(s):  
Anna Marie Roos
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Good Reason ◽  
Disciplinary Boundaries ◽  
New Science

In 1750, Folkes became president of the Society of Antiquaries, in addition to that of the Royal Society and contributed to efforts to unite both organisations. Although he failed, illness forcing him to resign both offices, chapter nine analyses the ensuing disciplinary boundaries between the two organisations in the early Georgian era. While natural philosophy and antiquarianism were disciplines that we normally assume were fast becoming disconnected in this period, our work will reconsider these assumptions. The Royal Society and the Society of Antiquaries were nearly reunited for good reason. Both societies incorporated techniques and affinities from antiquarianism—natural history and landscape—and the ‘new science’—engineering principles, measurement, and empiricism. We will conclude with Folkes’s final years, the circumstances of his memorial at Westminster Abbey, and an assessment of his life and letters, particularly with regard to his relationship with Voltaire.

Locke and the Methodology of Newton’s Principia

2018 ◽  
Vol 100 (3) ◽  
pp. 311-335
Author(s):  
Patrick J. Connolly
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Mathematical Physics ◽  
Two Stage ◽  
Synoptic View

Abstract A number of commentators have recently suggested that there is a puzzle surrounding Locke’s acceptance of Newton’s Principia. On their view, Locke understood natural history as the primary methodology for natural philosophy and this commitment was at odds with an embrace of mathematical physics. This article considers various attempts to address this puzzle and finds them wanting. It then proposes a more synoptic view of Locke’s attitude towards natural philosophy. Features of Locke’s biography show that he was deeply interested in mathematical physics long before the publication of the Principia. This interest was in line with important developments in the Royal Society. It is argued that Locke endorsed a two-stage approach to natural philosophy which was consistent with an embrace of both natural history and mathematical physics. The Principia can be understood as consistent with this approach.

scholarly journals IV. An account of the late eruption of Mount Vesuvius

1795 ◽  
Vol 85 ◽  
pp. 73-116 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Almost All ◽  
The University

Sir, Every day produces some new publication relative to the late tremendous eruption of mount Vesuvius, so that the various phaenomena that attended it will be found on record in either one or other of these publications, and are not in that danger of being passed over and forgotten, as they were formerly, when the study of natural history was either totally neglected, or treated of in a manner very unworthy of the great Author of nature. I am sorry to say, that even so late as in the accounts of the earthquakes in Calabria in 1783, printed at Naples, nature is taxed with being malevolent, and bent upon destruction. In a printed account of another great eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 1631, by Antonio Santorelli, doctor of medicine, and professor of natural philosophy in the university of Naples, and at the head of the fourth chapter of his book, are these words: Se questo incendio sia opera de' demonii? Whether this eruption be the work of devils? The account of an eruption of Vesuvius in 1737, published at Naples by Doctor Serao, is of a very different cast, and does great honour to his memory. All great eruptions of volcanoes must naturally produce nearly the same phenomena, and in Serao's book almost all the phenomena we have been witness to during the late eruption of Vesuvius, are there admirably described, and well accounted for. The classical accounts of the eruption of Vesuvius, which destroyed the towns of Herculaneum and Pompeii, and many of the existing printed accounts of its great eruption in 1631 (although the latter are mixed with puerilities) might pass for an account of the late eruption by only changing the date, and omitting that circumstance of the retreat of the sea from the coast, which happened in both those great eruptions, and not in this; and I might content myself by referring to those accounts, and assuring you at the same time, that the late eruption, after those two, appears to have been the most violent recorded by history, and infinitely more alarming than either the eruption of 1767, or that of 1779, of both of which I had the honour of giving a particular account to the Royal Society. However, I think it my duty rather to hazard being guilty of repetition than to neglect the giving you every satisfaction in my power, relative to the late formidable operation of nature.

The President gave a short Review of the Session

1884 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
pp. 937-940
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Natural History ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Short Review

The President said—This session of the Royal Society, not the least interesting or remarkable of the series, is now about to close. I have been furnished with a statement of the papers which have been read, which exhibits a creditable amount of industry as well as of ability among its members. It seems that of these 16 were in Natural Philosophy, 15 in Mathematics, 6 in Geology, 2 in Chemistry, 6 in Mineralogy, 6 on Meteorology, 2 in Spectroscopic Astronomy, 4 in Natural History, 5 on Botany, 5 in Physiology, 1 on Language, 2 on History and Antiquities, 2 on Anthropology, and 5 on Political Economy.

Francis Bacon and the Classification of Natural History

2012 ◽  
Vol 17 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 11-31 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Anstey
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Francis Bacon ◽  
Speculative Philosophy

AbstractThis paper analyses the place of natural history within Bacon's divisions of the sciences in The Advancement of Learning (1605) and the later De dignitate et augmentis scientiarum (1623). It is shown that at various points in Bacon's divisions, natural history converges or overlaps with natural philosophy, and that, for Bacon, natural history and natural philosophy are not discrete disciplines. Furthermore, it is argued that Bacon's distinction between operative and speculative natural philosophy and the place of natural history within this distinction, are discontinuous with the later distinction between experimental and speculative philosophy that emerged in the methodology of the Fellows of the early Royal Society.

scholarly journals Report of the proceedings of the council for the past Year

1843 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 21-32
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Public Interest ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Physical Science ◽  
Object A ◽  
The Past ◽  
The World ◽  
Meteorological Observations ◽  
Different Parts

The principal business of public interest which has occupied the attention of the Council relates to the extension of accurate magnetical and meteorological observations in different parts of the world. A communication having been made by Lieut. William Denison, of the Royal Engineers, of a proposal from General Mulcaster, In­spector-General of Fortifications, that the officers of engineers ge­nerally should be employed, under the direction of the Royal Society, in promoting the advancement of science, by carrying on connected series of observations relating to Natural History, Meteorology, Magnetism, and other branches of physical science, and suggesting an application to Government for a grant of funds necessary for ef­fecting so desirable an object; a Committee was appointed to con­sider of the proposed measure, and of the means of carrying into effect the recommendations contained in the letter of Baron Von Humboldt, addressed in April last to His Royal Highness the Pre­sident.

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