Website by Mike Hardcastle
Kircherian Encyclopedism, Pre-Darwinian Biology, and a Harmonic Philosophy of Species and the Cosmos.
Kircherian Encyclopedism, Pre-Darwinian Biology, and a Harmonic Philosophy of Species and the Cosmos.
"The actual state of our knowledge is always provisional and... there must be, beyond what is actually known, immense new regions to discover." - Louis de Broglie
Kircherian Encyclopedism, The Universe In A Cup Of Tea
Perhaps one of the most wondrous and extrordinary polymaths was the great 17th century thinker and tinkerer, German Jesuit, Athanasius Kircher, a priest/scientist and the ultimate mad professor of the enlightenment. Kircher was an ingenious man from a bygone age, who believed in mermaids, giants, dragons and was described as a "Master of a Hundred Arts". He was also considered to be the last true “Renaissance” man. Kircher’s century, much like the Victorian era, was certainly an “age of wonders” as far as scientific investigation goes, presenting an almost inexhaustible range of phenomena, for those with a scientific bent such as Athanasius Kircher.
Athanasius Kircher was caricatured in Umberto Eco's brilliant Kircherian fantasy "The Island of the Day Before" as Father Caspar Wanderdrossel, a mad old Jesuit polymath . The story is set against a backdrop of Baroque-era science, metaphysics, and cosmology. The novel describing the Kircher character as quote, - " a most amazing old Jesuit who, with his clocks and maps, has plumbed the secrets of longitudes, the four moons of Jupiter, and the Flood."
During his lifetime, the 17th century Jesuit priest and scholar, was known for his vast range of interests as well as his proficiency in many different fields of study which covered everything from ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics to sunflower clocks, 17th century robot hacking, taxidermy and machines that mirrored the celestial motions of the planets or Orrrys, which have always been a favourite with old world scientists and were often used as a teaching aid for both 17th and 18th century lectures on natural philosophy.
He was an avid inventor, building many unusual devices in order to test his scientific theories, including magnetic clocks, robotic automata, aeolian harps, hydraulic machines, a two-headed imperial eagle that vomitted water, a large number of mechanical clocks, celestial and terrestrial globes, the Delphic Oracle or speaking statue, a prototype of the magic lantern and pioneered the use of the microscope. All this eclectic and intense study contributed to his growing body of encyclopaedic knowledge about life the universe and everything.
During his lifetime, the 17th century Jesuit priest and scholar, was known for his vast range of interests as well as his proficiency in many different fields of study which covered everything from ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics to sunflower clocks, 17th century robot hacking, taxidermy and machines that mirrored the celestial motions of the planets or Orrrys, which have always been a favourite with old world scientists and were often used as a teaching aid for both 17th and 18th century lectures on natural philosophy.
He was an avid inventor, building many unusual devices in order to test his scientific theories, including magnetic clocks, robotic automata, aeolian harps, hydraulic machines, a two-headed imperial eagle that vomitted water, a large number of mechanical clocks, celestial and terrestrial globes, the Delphic Oracle or speaking statue, a prototype of the magic lantern and pioneered the use of the microscope. All this eclectic and intense study contributed to his growing body of encyclopaedic knowledge about life the universe and everything.
“All of nature in its awful vastness and incomprehensible complexity is in the end interrelated - worlds within worlds within worlds: the seen and the unseen - the physical and the immaterial are all connected - each exerting influence on the next - bound, as it were, by chains of analogy - magnetic chains. Every decision, every action mirrors, ripples, reflects and echoes throughout the whole of creation. The world is indeed bound with secret knots." - Athanasius Kircher
The German priest/scientist’s most notable contributions revolved around medicine, geology, and cultural studies, publishing around 40 major scientific books written in Latin, including two enormous encyclopedias - one called “Oedipus Aegyptiacus”, which was a massive study on ancient Egyptian civilisation and the other was about China {Sinology}. Of great interest are the aesthetic qualities of his books with their fabulous and stunning old world engravings, depicting every phenomena that Kircher thought worthy of investigation, which was just about everything! The images offer a feast of curiosities from his mechanical wonders to biblical events, such as research on the Ark of Noah, architecture, mermaids and many studies of natural history.The magnificent illustrations also offer a window into the mind of Kircher himself, as they reflect his many extraordinary postulations on the nature of the cosmos, so that he might aspire to understand the nature of God through his creations.
Kircher’s never-ending spirit of inquiry, much of it in the style of Leonardo Da Vinci, was a hallmark of the Enlightenment and Renaissance mindset, which is sadly lacking in today's world of scientific boxed-in specialism. After studying Kircher’s endless scientific inquiry and inventive spirit, it leaves one feeling inspired to get out your own notebook, magnifying glass and Renaissance insight and undertake some Nobel discoveries or ingenious pursuit.
Kircher was also an avid researcher and collector of archaeological relics. He eventually established a museum that showcased his finds while he was at the Collegio Romana. Called the Museum Kircherianum in Kircher’s native German tongue, the museum was the first of its kind, pioneering the practice of putting both archaeological finds and ground breaking scientific discoveries and inventions on display for the benefit of the public. There were also obelisk models that were built and scattered throughout the exhibit (as homage to Kircher’s fascination with Egyptology).
Arriving visitors eager to see the museum were often surprised by Kircher’s voice announcing their arrival through a “long bass-trumpet embedded in the wall,” a very basic intercom speaker or megaphone invented by the Jesuit priest so he could address visitors from his study above the museum. There were various stuffed and preserved animals, and their distinctive parts (e.g., horns, tusks or skeletons), along with a wide collection of rocks and minerals, animal fossils encased in amber a well as the dubious (a dried-up mermaid’s tail and the alleged bones of a giant). Casual visitors to Kircher’s museum compared it to a cabinet of curiosities, which was a term used to describe a vast collection of artifacts that the Renaissance world did not have categories for. The many machines of wonder that he built were also on display. It was said that Kircher could think only in images. If that was so, then his mind must have been a universe of endless wonder as his copious encyclopaedic volumes show.
It’s little wonder then, that even though the Museum Kircherianum no longer exists today, there is now a rapidly-growing new found curiosity about it's founder as well as a movement to preserve his memory and his accomplishments. He undoubtedly deserved the title “Master of a Hundred Arts”! Athanasius Kircher truly lived a life less ordinary, and to quote Kircherian scholar and author Joscelyn Godwin - “All his researches, even when they led him astray, were conducted " Sub specie aeternitatis "- Latin for 'under the aspect of eternity”, and for this reason he towers over our present scholars and scientists like a spiritual colossus.”
Kircher was also an avid researcher and collector of archaeological relics. He eventually established a museum that showcased his finds while he was at the Collegio Romana. Called the Museum Kircherianum in Kircher’s native German tongue, the museum was the first of its kind, pioneering the practice of putting both archaeological finds and ground breaking scientific discoveries and inventions on display for the benefit of the public. There were also obelisk models that were built and scattered throughout the exhibit (as homage to Kircher’s fascination with Egyptology).
Arriving visitors eager to see the museum were often surprised by Kircher’s voice announcing their arrival through a “long bass-trumpet embedded in the wall,” a very basic intercom speaker or megaphone invented by the Jesuit priest so he could address visitors from his study above the museum. There were various stuffed and preserved animals, and their distinctive parts (e.g., horns, tusks or skeletons), along with a wide collection of rocks and minerals, animal fossils encased in amber a well as the dubious (a dried-up mermaid’s tail and the alleged bones of a giant). Casual visitors to Kircher’s museum compared it to a cabinet of curiosities, which was a term used to describe a vast collection of artifacts that the Renaissance world did not have categories for. The many machines of wonder that he built were also on display. It was said that Kircher could think only in images. If that was so, then his mind must have been a universe of endless wonder as his copious encyclopaedic volumes show.
It’s little wonder then, that even though the Museum Kircherianum no longer exists today, there is now a rapidly-growing new found curiosity about it's founder as well as a movement to preserve his memory and his accomplishments. He undoubtedly deserved the title “Master of a Hundred Arts”! Athanasius Kircher truly lived a life less ordinary, and to quote Kircherian scholar and author Joscelyn Godwin - “All his researches, even when they led him astray, were conducted " Sub specie aeternitatis "- Latin for 'under the aspect of eternity”, and for this reason he towers over our present scholars and scientists like a spiritual colossus.”
Scientists And Explorers Of The Enlightenment
From clockwork to anatomy and esoteric investigations into Solomon’s Temple, seventeenth-century encyclopaedism was at the scientific heart of the Royal Society, a fellowship for the 'Improvement of Natural Knowledge' and the oldest scientific organisation in the world. It was the modus operandi of the natural philosophers of Newtonian England for cultivating the tree of knowledge. The experimental atmosphere of 'Restoration London' in the scientific revolution was represented by the multifaceted natural philosophers, Isaac Newton, Robert Boyle, Christopher Wren and the man who is often cited as "England's Leonardo", the polymath Robert Hooke as well as the great collector scientist and antiquary Sir Hans Sloan. All were true universal or Renaissance Men, “ homo universalis,” men who were distinguished experamentalisers in the Da Vincian tradition, with their comprehensive genius reaching into many fields. Much like the Victorian era, London in the age of the Enlightenment, was full of scientific societies and clubs and 17th and 18th century learning involved comprehension and insight into many subjects, a time of seeing knowledge as something holistic. The men of the Royal Society were the hack-a-thons of the enlightenment, trying to document the workings of the cosmos.
Among the pantheon of philosophers, scientists and explorers in the Age of Reason or the scientiic revolution, Captian James Cook stands out as a true explorer of the enlightenment and was hailed as the greatest navagator and discoverer of his age. Cook, being a fellow of the Royal Sociey had great curiosity and was a scrupulously meticulous observer. He was given command of the british royal navy research vessel HMS Endeavour for a scientific mission, and commissioned to sail the southen seas, plot the transit of Venus and solve the mystery of Terra Australis Incognita ("unknown southern land"). As a man of science, Cook had at his disposal new techniques of way-finding and navigation based on a new understanding of time and space and in his later voyages utilized John Harrison’s famous time keepers or sea chronometers as a means of determining longitude.
As an enlightenment scientist, Captian Cook had interest and respect for multiple scientific disciplines and his ship’s crew consisted of numerous gentleman scientists and artists who were on board to observe, record and collect undescribed flora and fauna as well as anthropological specimens. Among these were Swedish naturalist Daniel Solander, an apostle of Carl Linnaeus and promotor of the Linnean system of classification, the Scottish natural history artist and botanical illustrator Sydney Parkinson and Sir Joseph Banks, the famous English naturalist and botanist.
As an enlightenment scientist, Captian Cook had interest and respect for multiple scientific disciplines and his ship’s crew consisted of numerous gentleman scientists and artists who were on board to observe, record and collect undescribed flora and fauna as well as anthropological specimens. Among these were Swedish naturalist Daniel Solander, an apostle of Carl Linnaeus and promotor of the Linnean system of classification, the Scottish natural history artist and botanical illustrator Sydney Parkinson and Sir Joseph Banks, the famous English naturalist and botanist.
As a young naturalist on Cook’s voyage around the world, Banks collected exotic flora from many islands and lands, including Java, New Zealand and Australia and brought back to England over 1300 new botanical species that had never been studied by European scientists. Banks went on to commission over 700 exquisite botanical illustrations which where later turned into engravings of this new Pacific flora, called collectively Banks' Florilegium, but this was not published during Banks' lifetime. The component of the massive Florilegium devoted to the Australian flora was Parts 1 - 15 and featured 337 copperplate engravings representing Australian’s rich botanical heritage. It included a number of iconic Australian plants such as the Banksia Serrata or red honeysuckle, also called the old man banksia, which was to be made famous in the gumnut babies comics of Australian children's author May Gibbs.
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The seventeenth century was truly the height of the age of discovery and exploration and gave birth to the golden age of botanical illustration and Sir Joseph Banks’ huge Florilegium would have been the most magnificent example of this scientific art form had it been published in this period.
Other brilliant enlightenment explorers who made contributions to the discovery of Australian natural history and exploration were William Dampier, the pirate scientist, who has been descibed as the greatest explorer in the age of observation and was the first Englishman to visit Australian shores.
Also the botanical draughtsman Ferdinand Bauer, who was described by the Australian art historian Bernard Smith as “the Leonardo of natural history illustration". Bauer made meticulously detailed watercolour studies of the Australian flora and fauna and along with botanist, microscopist and plant taxonomist Robert Brown, one of the great scientists of the 19th century, travelled with the English navigator and cartographer Matthew Flinders in his circumnavigation of Australia.
Also the botanical draughtsman Ferdinand Bauer, who was described by the Australian art historian Bernard Smith as “the Leonardo of natural history illustration". Bauer made meticulously detailed watercolour studies of the Australian flora and fauna and along with botanist, microscopist and plant taxonomist Robert Brown, one of the great scientists of the 19th century, travelled with the English navigator and cartographer Matthew Flinders in his circumnavigation of Australia.
In the case of the enlightenment’s most famous scientist, Sir Isaac Newton, the exploration and unlocking of mysteries of the spiritual and physical kind, was aided through his scientific research into the comos and his indepth Hebraic approach to the study of the Holy scriptures. This was in combination with his natural philosophy. Newton believed that in unlocking the secrets of the functioning of the cosmos, a scientist was worshipping God.
“There was scriptural sanction for reading nature like a book, for the Psalmist sang of unfolding the scroll of the heavens.
" The metaphor of the two books was common to the new philosophy Bacon and Campanella and to the embattled geniuses Kepler ans Galileo.” - The Religion of Isaac Newton
Newton’s approach to study and research is described in the following quote by author Gale E. Christianson, quote - “Whatever the subject under study, Newton would not rest until the tracks of erudition were spread across an endless succession of pages. He sought a depth of understanding rarely dreamed of by others.”
“There was scriptural sanction for reading nature like a book, for the Psalmist sang of unfolding the scroll of the heavens.
" The metaphor of the two books was common to the new philosophy Bacon and Campanella and to the embattled geniuses Kepler ans Galileo.” - The Religion of Isaac Newton
Newton’s approach to study and research is described in the following quote by author Gale E. Christianson, quote - “Whatever the subject under study, Newton would not rest until the tracks of erudition were spread across an endless succession of pages. He sought a depth of understanding rarely dreamed of by others.”
Newton was searching for the Prisca Sapientia and the Prisca Theolgia, the ancient geometry and the single true theology. He has been descibed as a “3rd-order Christian Hebraist and had an extensive library relating to Judaism, including Hebrew and arabic bible translations, a Targum Onkelos, and multiple works by Maimonides. In his rejection of the pagen trinity doctrine, Newton was rediscovering the true Hebraic conception of God as a single deity, which represented the true 1st century Judeo-Christian faith and the true biblical Monotheism of the Hebrew bible as exemplified in the great Jewish creed of the immutable Shema of Deuteronomy 6:4. “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.”
“He belonged to a group of 17th century thinkers dubbed the Hebraists, who studied the Old Testament, as well as Talmud and Kabbalah. He could write Hebrew and read enough to understand it, with the help of language guides,” - times of israel
“He belonged to a group of 17th century thinkers dubbed the Hebraists, who studied the Old Testament, as well as Talmud and Kabbalah. He could write Hebrew and read enough to understand it, with the help of language guides,” - times of israel
Victorian Scientific Romance
"MY hero is Man the Discoverer." - Daniel J. Boorstin, "The Discoverers"
For many Steampunk enthusiasts the Victorian Era is inspiring because it harks back to the incredible ornate craftmanship of the Victorians, when every apparatus was made to look like a masterpiece and last forever and the natural world held an endless fascination.
The Victorians had a love affair with the natural world. From carnivorous pitcher plants to the Victorian hobby of butterfly collecting and exploring far flung corners of the earth to catalogue and bring back new species, they were trailblazers in their field. In contrast, the modern world is based on mass production and throw away junk, where most people, as a result of their environment, are alienated from the natural world and have little interest in the study of nature. Indeed many can not even understand how it is possible to be interested in it. On a whole the 21st century world has lost the curiosity and wonder that captivated the Victorian scientists and explorers. Victorian scientists where well known for their work in natural history and exploration. While the current scientific community encourages specialization, the hallmark of the Victorian “Ethos was generalization.
The Victorians had a love affair with the natural world. From carnivorous pitcher plants to the Victorian hobby of butterfly collecting and exploring far flung corners of the earth to catalogue and bring back new species, they were trailblazers in their field. In contrast, the modern world is based on mass production and throw away junk, where most people, as a result of their environment, are alienated from the natural world and have little interest in the study of nature. Indeed many can not even understand how it is possible to be interested in it. On a whole the 21st century world has lost the curiosity and wonder that captivated the Victorian scientists and explorers. Victorian scientists where well known for their work in natural history and exploration. While the current scientific community encourages specialization, the hallmark of the Victorian “Ethos was generalization.
Below "Nature Study" by Goleman, 1860
A time when maverick scientists, naturalists and explorers held a romantic view of science and nature. Many of them being self - taught gentleman naturalists, such as Charles Waterton, Phillip Henry Gosse and Joseph Leidy, who was a pioneer in microscopy. His autobiography "Joseph Leidy The Last Man Who Knew Everything” by Leonard Warren is a tour de force into the life and mind of a Victorian polymath.
It showcases the vast range of fields he studied, from dinosaurs to parasites and everything in between; he was an encyclopaedist of the natural world. Another polymath who excelled in the study of Natural history and natural form was D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson, a Scottish mathematical biologist whose major work called “On Growth and Form”, is a classic in biological literature. Much like the great artist and inventor Leonardo DaVinci, many of the Victorian Era scientists where generalists and excelled in many fields.They studied many seemingly unrelated subjects.
Another example of a generalist scientist was Victorian naturalist and Amazon explorer, Henry Walter Bates, who specialized in Entomology, but also studied and catalogued everything from butterflies, mammals, reptiles, birds and the many native tribes of the Amazon.
It showcases the vast range of fields he studied, from dinosaurs to parasites and everything in between; he was an encyclopaedist of the natural world. Another polymath who excelled in the study of Natural history and natural form was D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson, a Scottish mathematical biologist whose major work called “On Growth and Form”, is a classic in biological literature. Much like the great artist and inventor Leonardo DaVinci, many of the Victorian Era scientists where generalists and excelled in many fields.They studied many seemingly unrelated subjects.
Another example of a generalist scientist was Victorian naturalist and Amazon explorer, Henry Walter Bates, who specialized in Entomology, but also studied and catalogued everything from butterflies, mammals, reptiles, birds and the many native tribes of the Amazon.
Victorian era wall charts of the anatomy of the snail and the centipede circa 1902
“The harmony of the world is made manifest in Form and Number, and the heart and soul and all the poetry of Natural Philosophy are embodied in the concept of mathematical beauty.”- D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson
The Vanishing Enlightenment Style
Edward Drinker Cope and his mentor professor Joseph Leidy where among the last of the late 19th century scientific discoverers and natural philosophers who embraced the old polymathic or encyclopaedic approach to the study and collection of natural history. The vanishing “Enlightenment” style of the Victorian gentleman naturalists. This Renaissance encyclopaedic style of discovery and learning has its genesis in the 16th and 17th century, back in the days of Leonardo Da Vinci and the other great universalist Athanasius Kircher. These were men who spread their net of interests over the whole cosmos and all its phenomena.
Cope and Leidy similarly took this approach to the gathering of knowledge, both men excelling in the collection and taxonomic description of modern and prehistoric mammals, reptiles, amphibians, insects and dinosaurs. Cope and Leidy's scientific papers where often accompanied by brilliant taxonomic drawings executed by the scientists themselves, such as Joseph Leidy's meticulous renderings of dissected snails, drawn by hand for his book -” The Terrestrial Air-Breathing Molluscs of the United States “.
Professor Joseph Leidy, once described as a “high priest of nature” was of the old school of eighteenth and nineteenth century naturalists – a taxonomist who loved nothing more than to collect, dissect, classify, describe and draw any specimen he was studying and was always actively adding plant specimens to his herbarium collection. He was the founder of vertebrate palaeontology in America, utilising his vast knowledge of living and fossil forms from protozoa, dinosaurs, and everything in between, including human fossils and native artefacts. Leidy had great artistic talent and rendered the organisms he studied with exquisite scientific detail, without a background setting, in his attempt to accurately describe nature. From the sculptural forms of fossils to specimens such as Rhizopods, Leidy loved nothing better than to observe his fascinating “finds” under his beloved microscope. Indeed he described the microscope as his first love and utilised it to pioneer the field of biology, especially parasitology - the describing of new species of parasites living within the bodies of snails, millipedes, fish, toads, mammals and reptiles to name but a few. Professor Leidy's fascination with even the smallest aspect of the natural world can be seen in the following quote. -
Cope and Leidy similarly took this approach to the gathering of knowledge, both men excelling in the collection and taxonomic description of modern and prehistoric mammals, reptiles, amphibians, insects and dinosaurs. Cope and Leidy's scientific papers where often accompanied by brilliant taxonomic drawings executed by the scientists themselves, such as Joseph Leidy's meticulous renderings of dissected snails, drawn by hand for his book -” The Terrestrial Air-Breathing Molluscs of the United States “.
Professor Joseph Leidy, once described as a “high priest of nature” was of the old school of eighteenth and nineteenth century naturalists – a taxonomist who loved nothing more than to collect, dissect, classify, describe and draw any specimen he was studying and was always actively adding plant specimens to his herbarium collection. He was the founder of vertebrate palaeontology in America, utilising his vast knowledge of living and fossil forms from protozoa, dinosaurs, and everything in between, including human fossils and native artefacts. Leidy had great artistic talent and rendered the organisms he studied with exquisite scientific detail, without a background setting, in his attempt to accurately describe nature. From the sculptural forms of fossils to specimens such as Rhizopods, Leidy loved nothing better than to observe his fascinating “finds” under his beloved microscope. Indeed he described the microscope as his first love and utilised it to pioneer the field of biology, especially parasitology - the describing of new species of parasites living within the bodies of snails, millipedes, fish, toads, mammals and reptiles to name but a few. Professor Leidy's fascination with even the smallest aspect of the natural world can be seen in the following quote. -
"I noticed a Julus [millipede] crossing the road, when it occurred to me that it would afford me an opportunity of comparing one of its parasitic plants with one occurring in the Termite, and I took possession of the truant. On examination, sure enough, there were all the parasites which I had observed ..... three distinct species of nematoid worms, the infusorian Nyctotherus, the beautiful entophyte, Enterobryus elegans, Arthromitus cristatus etc.”...‘‘ What an idea this gives of the immensity of life when we reflect upon the probable fact that each and every individual of the already innumerable Termites of the tropics are equally peopled ..... Here also is a world to be explored.”- Joseph Leidy
“ How can life be tiresome so long as there is a new rhizopod undescribed ? ” - Joseph Leidy
Professor Joseph Leidy's list of accomplishments and his range of studies are far too vast for this short article, but if you'd like to know more about this extraordinary man, please see the great biography called 'Joseph Leidy: The Last Man Who Knew Everything' by Leonard Warren. Edward Drinker Cope was no less comprehensive in his study of natural phenomena. Cope was schooled in the “Vanishing Enlightenment” style of Victorian gentleman naturalists, much like his mentor Joseph Leidy, and was described as a master naturalist by the president of the American Museum of Natural History, Henry Fairfield Osborn. Cope recorded his detailed natural history observations in journals and drawings from his childhood onward. He went on to publish his first scientific paper at the age of nineteen, on salamanders. Edwards education was truly Victorian in its lack of specialisation, although he concentrated on vertebrates i.e.- reptiles both modern and prehistoric. He also studied living and fossil organisms of countless species, with his early scientific education consisting of him studying museum collections and eventually becoming professor of zoology at Haverford College in 1864. In his quest for scientific knowledge, Cope also became a gentleman explorer, mounting fossil-hunting expeditions into the Judith River badlands of north Montana, were Colonel Custer and his army had just been wiped out by 2,000 Native American warriors under the leadership of Sitting Bull.
‘‘Under his expert guidance I felt that I had stepped back into an ancient world - filled with all sorts of bizarre and curious things ’’- Charles R Knight
‘‘Under his expert guidance I felt that I had stepped back into an ancient world - filled with all sorts of bizarre and curious things ’’- Charles R Knight
The professor’s fossil hunting field work took him to many unexplored regions of north America in his quest for new and exciting undescribed species. Professor Cope's explorations eventually yielded a treasure trove of natural history. He discovered, described, and named more than 1,000 vertebrate species, including hundreds of fish and dozens of dinosaurs, and in the process published more than 1200 scientific papers. Cope's encyclopaedic mind and his Victorian collecting tradition can be seen in a brilliant description of the master naturalist's house, by the legendary paleo-artist Charles R Knight. The description of professor copes house reminds one of the splendour of a Gothic museum. Cope had converted it into part natural history museum and part living area, with fascinating artefacts everywhere -‘‘ Never have I seen such a place - just like the kind that Dickens would have loved. Piles of pamphlets rose from floor to ceiling in every narrow hallway, leaving just enough room to squeeze by them and no more. At the right as I entered, I looked into the front parlour. Shuttered with inside blinds, the floor was completely hidden by the massive bones of some vast creature, probably a dinosaur. Dust lay thick here as elsewhere, and the place was absolutely bare of furniture and hangings. No pictures, no curtains, nothing but the petrified skeletons of extinct monsters more or less carefully disposed in every available open space. This in itself was peculiar but it merely introduced one to the strange sights to be encountered in this almost sinister domicile. The second floor, to which I was promptly conducted, was reached by a narrow stair, the wall side of which carried small shelves holding pickled snakes and other reptiles in bottles.’’ ---- ‘‘A human skull grinned at me from the mantle, and a large bronze vulture spread its menacing pinions above a cage containing a live Gila monster. Bones, recent and fossil, were everywhere, all dusty, and all in apparently inextricable confusion. But Cope himself, the presiding genius among all this scientific chaos,’’
Leidy and Cope's encyclopaedic exploration of the natural world made them true romantic scientists in the Victorian tradition, in which no field of study was off limits, a tradition that has since been ceding to modern specialisation in which the fragmentation of knowledge has occurred and the interdisciplinary approach of Victorian renaissance men the likes of Leidy and Cope has faded. Their's was a time when a PHD wasn't a requirement for you to be considered an expert in your field. It was a time when so-called amateur naturalists and scientists where able to contribute as much if not more so then the academic. With the passing of professor Joseph Leidy and Edward Drinker Cope, the romantic age of American natural history had come to an end. an age of the vanishing enlightenment style of encyclopaedic exploration and deep knowledge, in the tradition of the great universalists, Da Vinci and Athanasius Kircher, when all research was conducted with a “ Sub Species Aeternitatis ’’ - Universal Perspective
Polymaths of the past where a testament to the unlimited capacity and creativity of the human mind, with their old school mastery of multidisciplinary fields and encyclopaedic knowledge,
Anyone can be a polymath, it’s just a matter of exploring.
Polymaths of the past where a testament to the unlimited capacity and creativity of the human mind, with their old school mastery of multidisciplinary fields and encyclopaedic knowledge,
Anyone can be a polymath, it’s just a matter of exploring.
"MY hero is Man the Discoverer. The world we now view from the literate West - the vistas of time, the land and the seas, the heavenly bodies and our own bodies, the plants and animals, history and human societies past and present—had to be opened for us by countless Columbuses." - Daniel J. Boorstin, The Discoverers
Promoting The Polymathic Outlook And The Victorian Ethos Of Discovery
