Article ID: CBB000550674

Isaac Frost's Two Systems of Astronomy (1846): Plebeian Resistance and Scriptural Astronomy (2005)

unapi

In early nineteenth-century London audiences flocked to a variety of lectures and shows on astronomical topics. While the religious and social positions of the lecturers and showmen varied significantly, the vast majority adopted a Newtonian cosmology incorporating a belief in the plurality of worlds. This paper focuses on Isaac Frost's 1846 book Two Systems of Astronomy in an attempt to gain a fuller understanding of how some thinkers in plebeian London responded to and resisted this emergent astronomical orthodoxy. Central to this analysis is research that reveals how changes in the intellectual world of Frost and his Muggletonian co-religionists prompted this formerly non-proselytizing Protestant sect to become increasingly vocal during the nineteenth century. This research is based upon a thorough examination of the Muggletonian archive in the British Library together with a collection of approximately thirty Muggletonian letters deposited in the Oxfordshire Records Office in 1993 and not examined by previous historians. It is concluded that the unorthodox or anti-Newtonian cosmologies advanced by several early nineteenth-century thinkers were often intellectually coherent and embodied in receptive social contexts.

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Authors & Contributors
Stenico, Mauro
Macuglia, Daniele
Fages, Volny
Martin Bush
Santoro, Lily A.
Vakoch, Douglas A.
Concepts
Astronomy
Cosmology
Science and religion
Newtonianism
Popularization
Physics
Time Periods
19th century
18th century
17th century
20th century
21st century
20th century, late
Places
Europe
Great Britain
England
United States
Japan
Italy
Institutions
Royal Society of London
Jesuits (Society of Jesus)
Hubble Space Telescope
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