Article ID: CBB001320588

Halley and the Eternity of the World Revisited (2013)

unapi

Since the publication in Notes and Records of the Royal Society of an article by Simon Schaffer in 1977, it has been a historiographical commonplace that there was an `underlying unity' to the religio-philosophical opinions of Edmond Halley, specifically on issues concerning the age of the world. This article (i) argues that the evidence adduced for this claim---specifically the account of a lecture given by Halley to the Royal Society in 1693---has been misinterpreted, and (ii) brings forward some new evidence concerning the mysterious events surrounding Halley's unsuccessful attempt to secure the Savilian Professorship in Astronomy in 1691 and the nature of his religious heterodoxy, both as it was developed by himself and as it was perceived by contemporaries. It thus functions as a full revisionist account of one of the key players in the destabilization of the relationship between natural philosophy and Genesis in the first decades of the Royal Society.

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Authors & Contributors
John Gribbin
Sinnema, Peter W.
Wragge-Morley, Alexander
Winterbottom, Anna
Williams, R. J. P.
Turney, Jon
Concepts
Astronomy
Societies; institutions; academies
Natural history
Great Britain, colonies
Science and society
Experiments and experimentation
Time Periods
17th century
18th century
19th century
20th century
21st century
16th century
Places
Great Britain
London (England)
England
West Africa
Institutions
Royal Society of London
East India Company (English)
Royal Observatory Greenwich
Oxford University
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