ABSTRACT
This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on the concepts covered in the preceding chapters of this book. The book suggests that Newton makes an excellent case study in the respect – that he was seeking to meet an Aristotelian requirement, tacitly acknowledging that his mathematical principles of natural philosophy were themselves in need of underpinning. It shows how natural history was itself transformed into an orderly discipline. The book examines the virtue of curiosity and an understanding of the utility of science that emphasised aesthetic appreciation. It provides fresh insight into the complicated relations between medicine, botany, chemistry, mineralogy and the nascent science of geology in this period: ‘the professors of the Medical School were transferring chemical language into geology via mineralogy’. The book explores how widespread was the concern in the 1850s that religious unbelief was increasing, deriving in part from damaging science but transmitted by affordable periodicals often silent on religious matters or, worse, anti-Christian in tone.
