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In this major re-evaluation of Isaac Newton's intellectual life,
Betty Jo Teeter Dobbs shows how his pioneering work in mathematics,
physics, and cosmology was intertwined with his study of alchemy.
Directing attention to the religious ambience of the alchemical
enterprise of early modern Europe, Dobbs argues that Newton
understood alchemy - and the divine activity in micromatter to
which it spoke - to be a much needed corrective to the overly
mechanized system of Descartes. The same religious basis underlay
the rest of his work. To Newton it seemed possible to obtain
partial truths from many different approaches to knowledge, be it
textual work aimed at the interpretation of prophecy, the study of
ancient theology and philosophy, creative mathematics, or
experiments with prisms, pendulums, vegetating minerals, light, or
electricity. Newton's work was a constant attempt to bring these
partial truths together, with the larger goal of restoring true
natural philosophy and true religion.
This insightful work examines what happened to Newton's science as
it was interpreted by his major followers. The authors also look at
the scientific culture that Newton helped to create and the impact
that his ideas had on the rapidly developing technology that led to
the Industrial Revolution.
In this major reevaluation of Isaac Newton's intellectual life, Betty Jo Teeter Dobbs shows how his pioneering work in mathematics, physics, and cosmology was intertwined with his study of alchemy. Professor Dobbs argues that to Newton those several intellectual pursuits were all ways of approaching Truth, and that Newton's primary goal was not the study of nature for its own sake but rather an attempt to establish a unified system that would have included both natural and divine principles. She also argues that Newton's methodology was much broader than modern scholars have previously supposed, and she traces the evolution of his thought on the intertwined problems of the microcosmic "vegetable spirit" of alchemy and the "cause" of the cosmic principle of gravitation.
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