Curiosity: How Science Became Interested in Everything by Philip Ball

Author:Philip Ball [Ball, Philip]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Published: 2012-05-02T04:00:00+00:00

9

Nature Free and Bound

Reason is not to be much trusted when she wanders far from Experiments.

Robert Boyle, ‘Of Naturall Philosophie’ (early 1650s)

In my judgement the use of mechanical history is, of all others, the most fundamental towards such a natural philosophy as shall not vanish in the fume of subtile, sublime, or pleasing speculations.

Francis Bacon, Advancement of Learning

The frontispiece of Thomas Sprat’s History of the Royal Society lays out the society’s wares with artful attention to detail. It was designed by John Beale and John Evelyn*1 and engraved by the Bohemian artist Wenceslaus Hollar, who had been plucked from the wreckage of the Thirty Years War and brought to England by the Earl of Arundel. In central position is a bust of Charles II, the ‘author and patron’ of the society, and dutifully drawing attention to this fact is the first president, Lord Brouncker. On the other side of the pedestal sits the man who is hereby credited with the society’s founding philosophy, Francis Bacon. Arrayed around them in the background is the evidence of the society’s commitment to experimentation, measurement and practical application: there are clocks, dividers, some species of rotary instrument. Prominent among these ingenious devices is one that would have baffled anyone but the cognoscenti. It looks like a globe resting on a stand, attached to a box that is equipped with a crank handle: an impressive machine with an opaque function. As such, it delivers a grave message: this new philosophy depends on technics that are far beyond both the means and the ken of the ordinary person.

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