Jesuit Science and the End of Nature’s Secrets - download pdf or read online

Jesuit technological know-how and the tip of Nature’s secrets and techniques explores how numerous renowned Jesuit naturalists - together with Niccolò Cabeo, Athanasius Kircher, and Gaspar Schott - tackled the matter of occult or insensible causation within the 17th century. the quest for hidden explanations lay on the middle of the early glossy learn of nature, and incorporated phenomena comparable to the task of the magnet, the remarkable powers ascribed to sure animals and vegetation, and the hidden, harmful forces churning within the depths of the Earth. whereas this was once a venture embraced through so much early smooth naturalists, even though, the publication demonstrates that the Jesuits have been uniquely fitted to the examine of nature’s hidden secrets and techniques as a result of complicated equipment of contemplation and meditation enshrined on the middle in their spirituality. Divided into six chapters, the paintings records how specific Jesuits sought to bare and divulge nature’s myriad secrets and techniques via an leading edge mixing of expertise, imagery, and test. relocating past the traditional Aristotelianism mandated by means of the Society of Jesus, they set forth a imaginative and prescient of the realm that made happen the works of God as author, regardless of how deeply hidden these works have been. The booklet therefore not just offers a story that demanding situations present-day assumptions in regards to the function performed by way of Catholic non secular groups within the formation of recent technology, but in addition captures the exuberance and inventiveness of the early smooth learn of nature.