Abstract
Historians of natural history often point to the emergence of mathematical and mechanical reasoning in the early-modern period as a pivotal episode in scientifi c understanding of the organic world. This paper visits the natural philosophy of one of the chief supporters of this view of nature, the first curator of plants at The Royal Society, Nehemiah Grew. It sets his work within the material world of patronage, medical and mathematical tools, laboratory life, and his views on human virtues, health and the role of women. The view taken is of Grew as a religiously informed natural philosopher whose understanding of the economy of nature acknowledges the wisdom of the Creator and the possibility of gaining spiritual and bodily health from studying the language of the book of nature. The quest to understand nature's language consisted in tempering human will and arrogance so that one could appreciate the Lord's creative power in the world. As representative of The Royal Society's promotion of empirical and mechanical research, Grew mobilized excitement for natural history and botany with an ethos of showing respect to nature's economy.
Publisher
Edinburgh University Press
Subject
Agricultural and Biological Sciences (miscellaneous),History,Anthropology
Reference81 articles.
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