Astronomy and general physics considered with reference to natural theology, by William Whewell.

Abstract

IX. Mechanical Laws 210 X. The Law of Gravitation 214 XI. The Laws of Motion 231 XII. Friction 238 BOOK III. Religious Views 251 Chap. I. The Creator of the Physical World is the Governor of the Moral World 254 II. On the Vastness of the Universe 268 III. On Man's Place in the Universe 279 IV. On the Impression produced by the Contemplation of Laws of Nature ; or on the Conviction that Law Implies Mind .... 293 V. On Inductive Habits; or, on the Impression produced on Men's Minds by discovering Laws of Nature 303 twenty-four hours, thus producing the succession of appearances and effects which constitute sea-DIVISION OF THE SUBJECT. 1.5 sons and climates, day and night;-that this globe has its surface furrowed and ridged with various inequalities, the waters of the ocean occupying the depressed parts :-that it is surrounded by an atmosphere, or spherical covering of air; and that various other physical agents, moisture, electricity, magnetism, light, operate at the surface of the earth, according to their peculiar laws. This surface is, as we know, clothed with a covering of plants, and inhabited by the various tribes of animals, with all their variety of sensations, wants, and enjoyments. The relations and connexions of the larger portions of the world, the sun, the planets, and the stars, the cosmical arrangements of the system, as they are sometimes called, de-' * Rapports du Physique et du Moral de l'Homme, II. 37J.

Habitable Zones in the Universe

“…The evidence from chemistry, however, lends support to the view that liquid water is essential for life. Whewell (1833) already linked the habitability of the environment to the anomalous expansion of water on freezing.…”

Charles Babbage and the Emergence of Automated Reason

“…In it, the author, Reverend William Whewell, denied ''the mechanical philosophers and mathematicians of recent times any authority with regard to their views of the administration of the universe'' (Whewell 1834, p. 334, cited in Schaffer 1994. In reply, Babbage demonstrated a role for computing machinery in the attempt to understand the universe and our relationship to it, presenting the first published example of a simulation model.…”

The intellectual standing of Charles Darwin, and the legacy of the “Scottish Enlightenment” in biological thought

“…This then came to be regarded as the accepted way of doing things during the time when the practice of science took on a life of its own in the Enlightenment and subsequently. Compatible with the tradi-tions of Enlightenment-style ''natural theology,'' Darwin included quotes from both Sir Francis Bacon and from Whewell's Bridgewater Treatise as epigraphs facing the title page of his Origin (the latter being from Whewell, 1833). Later, in the Autobiography posthumously included in his Life and Letters, he asserted that he had always ''worked on true Baconian principles, and without any theory collected facts on a wholesale scale'' (quoted in Ghiselin, 1969:4;and in Beer, 1983:82).…”