Hooke's Cyclic Theory of the Earth in the Context of Seventeenth Century England

Abstract

In his discussion of Robert Hooke's geological ideas, David R. Oldroyd has suggested that ‘Hooke's daring cyclic earth theory may have seemed absurd to his contemporaries’. Following Oldroyd's suggestion, A. J. Turner has claimed that it is entirely understandable that Hooke's geological theories had no followers, ‘for, however plausible in themselves, they were quite implausible in the context of seventeenth century knowledge’. Gordon L. Davies has asserted that Hooke was too advanced for his time and that his geological ‘ideas made no impact on his contemporaries’, and Rhoda Rappaport has said that ‘Hooke's geological work made virtually no impression on the writings of his British contemporaries’.