Scientific Backgrounds

Abstract

WITH the increasing specialisation of scientific study, men of science are feeling the need of providing their own particular field with some more general background. Hence an increasing interest in the history and philosophy of science. Dr. Singer's small yet admirable book in Messrs. Benn's series (1) is not a history of the development of science, but a sketch of the relations in the past between the scientific and the religious interests. The author does not confine himself to modern developments, but goes back to the Ionian Greeks of the sixth century B.C., and carries us through the ancient and medieval periods to the modern. One notes with interest that he does not attribute the decline of the science of antiquity to the rise of Christianity.

(1) Religion and Science: considered in their Historical Relations.

Charles Singer. (Benn's Sixpenny Library, No. 144.) Pp. 79. (London: Ernest Benn, Ltd., 1928.)6d.

(2) Kant's Critique of Teleological Judgement: Translated, with an Introduction, Notes and Analytical Index.

Dr. James Creed Meredith. Pp. xcvii + 208. (Oxford: Clarendon Press; London: Oxford University Press, 1928.) 12s. 6d. net.

(3) The Unique Status of Man.

Dr. Herbert Wildon Carr. Pp. 216. (London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1928.) 7s. 6d. net.

(4) Nature and God: an introduction to Theistic Studies, with special reference to the Relations of Science and Religion.

Prof. William Fulton. Pp. xvi + 294. (Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark, 1927.) 9s.

(5) Naturalism and Religion.

Prof. Dr. Rudolf Otto. Translated by Prof. J. Arthur Thomson and Margaret R. Thomson. Edited with an Introduction by the Rev. W. D. Morrison. Reissue. Pp. xi + 374. (London: Williams and Norgate, Ltd., 1928.) 6s. net.