3 - The two reformations
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 November 2009
Summary
That which was our Philosophy is made Philologie, from whence we teach to dispute, not to live.
John Webster, Academiarum ExamenSo in natural history, we see there hath not been that choice and judgement used as ought to have been; as may appear in the writings of Plinius, Cardanus, Albertus, and divers of the Arabians, being fraught with much fabulous matter, a great part not only untried, but notoriously untrue, to the great derogation of the credity of natural philosophy with the grave and sober kind of wits.
Francis Bacon, Of the Advancement of Learning… the Church of England will not only be safe amidst the consequences of a Rational Age, but amidst all the improvements of Knowledge, and the subversion of old Opinions about Nature, and introduction of new ways of Reasoning thereon. This will be evident, when we behold the agreement that is between the present Design of the Royal Society, and that of our Church in its beginning. They both may lay equal claim to the word Reformation, the one having compass'd it in Religion, the other purposing it in Philosophy. They both have taken a like cours [sic] to bring this about; each of them passing by the corrupt Copies, and referring themselves to the perfect Originals for their instruction; the one to the Scripture, the other to the large volume of the Creatures.
Thomas Sprat, History of the Royal SocietyAristotle And The Encyclopaedias
‘These are the effects – as observed in natural science [experimenta physica] and tested by great men’, wrote Albertus Magnus in his Book of Minerals: ‘and I would have set forth the Lapidary of Aristotle’, he continues, ‘except that the whole book had not come down to me, but only some excerpts from it.’
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- The Bible, Protestantism, and the Rise of Natural Science , pp. 64 - 120Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1998
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