Public-domain ebook
by Robert Hunt
Language: en1,038 downloads on Project Gutenberg
Subjects
In: Science - Physics·Philosophy & Ethics
Public-domain ebook sourced from Project Gutenberg #51897.
Robert Hunt’s “The Poetry of Science” is a sweeping survey of mid‑nineteenth‑century natural philosophy, organized into a series of systematic chapters that move from the fundamentals of matter to the intricate workings of light, electricity, magnetism and the chemistry of living organisms. The opening pages explain that, after two exhausted editions since its first 1848 appearance, this third edition extends the work to include discoveries up to the end of 1853, and it is offered in a cheaper format to reach a broader audience. The contents list reveals a methodical treatment of topics such as the grain of dust, gravitation, molecular forces, crystallography, solar and terrestrial heat, and the phenomena of vegetable and animal life, each presented with a blend of experimental description and philosophical reflection.
The voice is that of a Victorian scholar‑poet, combining earnest scientific exposition with lyrical admiration for the underlying order of nature. Its style is dense, formal, and richly metaphorical, reflecting the era’s confidence in progress and the unity of truth, beauty, and utility. Readers who relish historic scientific literature, enjoy detailed yet philosophically framed explanations of physics and chemistry, or appreciate the literary ambition of turning scientific discourse into a form of poetry will find this work rewarding.
The opening · free to read
Coleridge.
LONDON: WILSON and OGILVY, 57, Skinner Street.
PREFACE.
Since 1848, when the “Poetry of Science” was first submitted to the public, two editions have been exhausted. This, were proofs required, would of itself show that there is a large circle of readers to whom the deductions of science have an unfailing interest. Beyond this, it conveys an assurance that every truth, however abstract it may appear, has a large popular value if studied in its relations to those generalities which embrace great natural phenomena. With this persuasion the third edition of the “Poetry of Science” has been extended so as to include all the important discoveries which have been made in Natural Philosophy to the end of the year 1853. It is now presented to the world in a new and cheaper form, in the hope, that, with the extension of its circulation, there may be awakened, in still larger circles, a deep and healthful interest in the sciences of which the volume treats.
R. H.
Edinburgh, March 7, 1854.
CONTENTS.
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