Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, F. R. S

1984 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-49 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
General Nature ◽  
Comprehensive Overview ◽  
Prime Concern ◽  
The World ◽  
Special Concern ◽  
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, Professor of Physics, Mathematics, Astronomy and Natural Philosophy at Göttingen University, was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1793. At his death, on 24 February 1799, he left numerous writings of scientific and general nature, as well as many letters and, most important of all, copious personal notes. It is for these that he is mainly remembered. They include reflections on practically all the topics which were of special concern in the Age of Enlightenment. Due to their diversity it is not easy to obtain a comprehensive overview of his ideas and opinions, especially as they are often contained or developed in articles on assorted matters. Many of his themes lost their topicality, though by no means their relevance to Lichtenberg’s prime concern, to understand the world and in particular the human mind, in order to achieve realistic improvements. He jotted down his notes from 1764 until he died, in what he called his ‘waste books’, a term he borrowed from English tradesmen (1). Many of his notes are pointed, witty and unusually candid. Thus they allow remarkable insights into the trends of the last decades of the eighteenth century. They also demonstrate the importance of the Royal Society in establishing Göttingen as the leading scientific university in Germany and spreading English philosophical, literary and cultural influence.

Martin Folkes

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Anna Marie Roos
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Good Reason ◽  
Research Programme ◽  
Francis Bacon ◽  
Two Cultures ◽  
Disciplinary Boundaries ◽  
New Science ◽  
Definition Of

In 1750, Martin Folkes became the only individual who was President of both the Royal Society and the Society of Antiquaries of London, and he contributed to efforts to unite both organizations. Although he failed, illness forcing him to resign both offices, this chapter outlines the book’s analysis of the ensuing disciplinary boundaries between the two organizations in the early Georgian era in the context of Folkes’s life and letters. While it is normally assumed that natural philosophy and antiquarianism are disciplines that were fast becoming disconnected in this period, this 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. Using Folkes’s life and letters, this biography will examine the disciplinary boundaries between the humanities and sciences in early Georgian Britain and reassess the extent to which the separation of these ‘two cultures’ developed in this era. It will also consider to what extent Folkes continued the Newtonian programme in mathematics, optics, and astronomy on the Continent. In this manner, the work will refine its definition of Newtonianism and its scope in the early eighteenth century, elucidating and reclaiming the vibrant research programme that Folkes promoted in the period of English science least well understood between the age of Francis Bacon and the present.

Halley’s Atheism and the end of the world

1977 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-40 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Royal Society ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Exact Nature ◽  
The Public ◽  
Earth History ◽  
Ecclesiastical Authority ◽  
The World ◽  
Consistent Picture ◽  
End Of The World ◽  
New Evidence

Edmond Halley’s views on theology and natural philosophy have often drawn puzzled attention both from his contemporaries and from subsequent scholars. There has seemed to be a contrast between some public statements he made when under pressure from ecclesiastical authority, and his continued, and privately-held, faith in the over-arching relevance of science (1). However, it now emerges from some unpublished papers which Halley read to the Royal Society in the 1690s that he made public his own debate over such issues as the eternity of the world. This new evidence gives us a much more consistent picture of Halley’s work, and it refutes the view that there were two Halleys—the public orthodox face and the private heterodox one. It is true that the work of Edmond Halley presents us with a picture of considerable diversity. Nevertheless, throughout the 1690s he was primarily concerned with an investigation of Earth history independently of scriptural authority, and this gave some unity to his varied researches. However, there were both ideological and institutional problems with such a programme. The Anglican establishment of the period after 1688 was filled with a sense of threat. This led to a series of statements antipathetic to Halley’s attitude, including a devaluation of the power of unaided reason and an emphasis on the power of God’s Providence. Halley’s failure to obtain the Savilian Chair of Astronomy in 1691/2 was due in part, perhaps, to this antipathy. Yet this failure was also precipitated by the personal antagonism aroused by Halley’s jocular style, and the innate irascibility of Flamsteed. Because of these other sources of controversy the exact nature of Halley’s atheism remains confused. Even his identification with the ‘infidel mathematician’ of Berkeley’s Analyst is problematic. Yet the fact is that Halley took these charges seriously enough to spend several years working to show that one of them was unjustified. He had been accused of believing that the world would continue for eternity, and he was to try and show that it must, in the end, come to a halt.

scholarly journals Halley and the eternity of the world revisited

2013 ◽  
Vol 67 (4) ◽  
pp. 315-329 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dmitri Levitin
Keyword(s):  
Royal Society ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Unsuccessful Attempt ◽  
The World ◽  
Key Players ◽  
New Evidence ◽  
The Relationship

Since the publication in Notes and Records of the Royal Society of an article by Simon Schaffer in 1977, it has been a historiographical commonplace that there was an ‘underlying unity’ to the religio-philosophical opinions of Edmond Halley, specifically on issues concerning the age of the world. This article (i) argues that the evidence adduced for this claim—specifically the account of a lecture given by Halley to the Royal Society in 1693—has been misinterpreted, and (ii) brings forward some new evidence concerning the mysterious events surrounding Halley's unsuccessful attempt to secure the Savilian Professorship in Astronomy in 1691 and the nature of his religious heterodoxy, both as it was developed by himself and as it was perceived by contemporaries. It thus functions as a full revisionist account of one of the key players in the destabilization of the relationship between natural philosophy and Genesis in the first decades of the Royal Society.

On the Genius and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton

2018 ◽  
pp. 73-86
Keyword(s):  
Royal Society ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Universal Gravitation ◽  
Sir Isaac Newton ◽  
Isaac Newton ◽  
The World ◽  
The Law

This chapter presents George Boole's lecture on the discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton. The first subject of importance that engaged Newton's attention was the phenomena of prismatic colors. The results of his inquiries were communicated to the Royal Society in the year 1675, and afterwards published with most important additions in 1704. The production was entitled “Optics; or, a Treatise on the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections, and Colours of Light.” It is considered one of the most elaborate and original of his works, and carries on every page the traces of a powerful and comprehensive mind. Newton also discovered universal gravitation, which was announced to the world in 1687 through the publication of the “Principia, or Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy.” The object of the “Principia” is twofold: to demonstrate the law of planetary influence, and to apply that law to the purposes of calculation.

Review of Locke's Essay and the Rhetoric of Science by Peter Walmsley

Locke Studies ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 225-230
Author(s):  
G. A. J. Rogers
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Modern Philosophy ◽  
Literary Criticism ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
John Locke ◽  
English Literature ◽  
Rhetoric Of Science ◽  
The World ◽  
The Subject

From at least Kenneth MacLean’s John Locke and English Literature of the Eighteenth Century (1936) Locke’s Essay has been the subject of a large number of works that are classified as contributions to literary criticism. Indeed, it is doubtful if any other work of philosophy in English has attracted such attention. The reasons for this are undoubtedly overdetermined. No other work of modern philosophy, and perhaps no other work of any kind, had such an impact as did Locke’s on the eighteenth century. But Walmsley’s is not an attempt to chart that impact. Rather, it sets out to examine Locke’s language and relate it to his contemporaries, especially those who would now be regarded as scientists, even though the term in Locke’s day did not exist. It was Locke’s fellow members of the Royal Society, the virtuosi of Oxford and London and their fellow-travellers, to whom the Essay was addressed, and his language shared their common assumptions about the world at large and our place in it. It was Locke’s task in part to provide argument for those assumptions and to provide a grounding for a view of the world that was to hold sway—indeed, perhaps it still does—for at least a century.

John Birchensha and the Early Royal Society: Grand Scales and Scientific Composition

1990 ◽  
Vol 115 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-79 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leta E. Miller
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Vital Part ◽  
String Vibrations ◽  
Early Eighteenth Century

The concept of music as science, still a vital part of the natural philosophy of the seventeenth century, found a strong advocate in the early Royal Society, whose agenda frequently embraced musical topics. From the organization's inception in 1660 to the early eighteenth century the Society's minutes recount acoustical experiments performed at meetings and describe papers on topics ranging from string vibrations to music's medicinal powers.

“A Dissertation on Swallows” with comments on their migration by the eighteenth-century Maryland naturalist, Henry Callister

2014 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 280-293
Author(s):  
Ellen M. Lawler ◽  
Sarah A. Rubin
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Tachycineta Bicolor ◽  
Tree Swallow ◽  
Similar Species ◽  
Human Species ◽  
The World ◽  
Chaetura Pelagica ◽  
Intended Destination ◽  
Royal Society Of London

In 1761, Maryland merchant and amateur naturalist, Henry Callister wrote “A Dissertation on Swallows” in response to five questions posed by a Dr Chandler. His accounts of eight Maryland species include accurate descriptions of behaviour as well as external anatomy. His brief description of the tree swallow (Tachycineta bicolor) may be one of the earliest accounts of this species. On the disappearance of swallows in winter, a topic of debate in the eighteenth century, Callister cited a number of reasons why he concluded that migration rather than hibernation was the explanation for this phenomenon. He noted differences in the habits of similar species in America and Europe and commented on the use of chimneys for nesting by chimney swifts (Chaetura pelagica), and the fact that some birds incorporated human-made fibres in their nests. These observations led him to conclude that, similar to humans, non-human species are capable of adapting to their environment, an idea remarkably advanced for his time. There is no evidence that Callister's dissertation reached its intended destination which may have been Reverend Dr Samuel Chandler, a Fellow of the Royal Society of London at that time. But this document demonstrates that Henry Callister was an enthusiastic and perceptive observer of nature and that he had the ability to use his observations to develop general concepts and a deeper understanding of the world around him.

Quakers in The Royal Society, 1660–1750

1997 ◽  
Vol 51 (2) ◽  
pp. 175-193 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. Cantor
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Small Proportion ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
Religious Community ◽  
The World ◽  
Business Connections

It has often been claimed that Quakers have been vastly over–represented among Fellows of the Royal Society, when compared with their small proportion in the British population. This claim does not, however, stand up to historical analysis; indeed, the first handful of Quakers was only elected in the 1720s. In the present paper I analyse the activities within the Royal Society of those birthright Quakers elected prior to the middle of the eighteenth century. Through the Royal Society these Quakers were able to relate to the world of London science outside their small and rather insular religious community. Thus Thomas Birch, who was disowned by the Quakers, pursued a career closely connected with the Royal Society. Others, such as Peter Collinson, who was the key figure in importing exotics from America, remained in the Quaker fold. Those who remained Quakers were affluent and respectable London–based merchants involved in trading with America. They developed business connections through the Royal Society and found it congenial because it did not discriminate against dissenters. Moreover, they approved of science not only for its utility but because it enabled them to appreciate God's handiwork.

scholarly journals Francis Hauksbee and his air pump

2012 ◽  
Vol 66 (3) ◽  
pp. 253-272 ◽  
Author(s):  
Terje Brundtland
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
State Of The Art ◽  
The State ◽  
Scientific Instruments ◽  
Vacuum Technology ◽  
Museums And Collections

Francis Hauksbee was active in London between 1699 and 1713. During those years he built scientific instruments, gave public lectures on natural philosophy and worked as a curator of experiments for the Royal Society. His most celebrated instrument is the double-barrelled air pump, which represents the ‘state of the art’ of eighteenth-century vacuum technology in Britain. Based on original texts and an examination of extant pumps of this design, this article offers a description of the air pump and an account of some of the experiments performed with it. In addition, notes on existing Hauksbee pumps to be found in modern museums and collections are provided.

The ‘school of true, useful and universal science’? Freemasonry, natural philosophy and scientific culture in eighteenth-century England

2006 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 207-229 ◽  
Author(s):  
PAUL Elliott ◽  
STEPHEN Daniels
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Scientific Culture ◽  
Scientific Education ◽  
The Arts ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Music And The Arts

Freemasonry was the most widespread form of secular association in eighteenth-century England, providing a model for other forms of urban sociability and a stimulus to music and the arts. Many members of the Royal Society and the Society of Antiquaries, for instance, were Freemasons, while historians such as Margaret Jacob have argued that Freemasonry was inspired by Whig Newtonianism and played an important role in European Enlightenment scientific education. This paper illustrates the importance of natural philosophy in Masonic rhetoric and utilizes material from Masonic histories, lodge records and secondary works to demonstrate that scientific lectures were indeed given in some lodges. It contends, however, that there were other sources of inspiration for Freemasonry besides Newtonianism, such as antiquarianism, and that many other factors as well as the prevalence of Masonic lodges determined the geography of English scientific culture. Although the subject of Freemasonry and natural philosophy has great potential, as Jacob has demonstrated so well, much further work, especially in the form of prosopographical studies of provincial lodges, is required before the nature of the relationship between the two can be fully appreciated.

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