An Introduction to the History of ScienceLibby, Walter
History
An Introduction to the History of Science
Libby, Walter
Science -- History
Later (1816-1819) Smith published four volumes, _Strata Identified by
Organized Fossils_, which put on record some of his extensive
observations. His mind was practical and little given to speculation. It
does not lie in our province here to trace his influence on Cuvier and
other scientists, but to add his name as a surveyor and engineer to the
representatives of mineralogy, chemistry, physics, mathematics,
philosophy, and various industries and vocations, which contributed to
the early development of modern geology.
REFERENCES
Sir A. Geikie, _Founders of Geology_.
James Hutton, _Theory of the Earth_.
Sir Charles Lyell, _Principles of Geology_.
John Playfair, _Illustrations of the Huttonian Theory_.
K. A. v. Zittel, _History of Geology and Palæontology_.
CHAPTER XI
SCIENCE AND RELIGION--KANT, LAMBERT, LAPLACE, SIR WILLIAM HERSCHEL
Hutton had advanced the study of geology by concentrating attention on
the observable phenomena of the earth's crust, and turning away from
speculations about the origin of the world and the relation of this
sphere to other units of the cosmos. In the same century, however, other
scientists and philosophers were attracted by these very problems which
seemed not to promise immediate or demonstrative solution, and through
their studies they arrived at conclusions which profoundly affected the
science, the ethics, and the religion of the civilized world.
Whether religion be defined as a complex feeling of elation and
humility--a sacred fear--akin to the æsthetic sense of the sublime; or,
as an intellectual recognition of some high powers which govern us
below--of some author of all things, of some force social or cosmic
which tends to righteousness; or, as the outcrop of the moral life
touched with light and radiant with enthusiasm; or, as partaking of the
nature of all these: it cannot be denied that the eighteenth century
contributed to its clarification and formulation, especially through the
efforts of the German philosopher, Immanuel Kant (1724-1804). Yet it is
not difficult to show that the philosophy of Kant and of those
associated with him was greatly influenced by the science of the time,
and that, in fact, in his early life he was a scientist rather than a
philosopher in the stricter sense. His _General Natural History and
Theory of the Heavens_, written at the age of thirty-one, enables us to
follow his transition from science to philosophy, and, more especially,
to trace the influence of his theory of the origin of the heavenly
bodies on his religious conceptions.
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