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

Jesuit technology and the tip of Nature’s secrets and techniques explores how a number of favourite Jesuit naturalists - together with Niccolò Cabeo, Athanasius Kircher, and Gaspar Schott - tackled the matter of occult or insensible causation within the 17th century. the hunt for hidden explanations lay on the middle of the early smooth examine of nature, and integrated phenomena corresponding to the task of the magnet, the superb powers ascribed to definite animals and vegetation, and the hidden, damaging forces churning within the depths of the Earth. whereas this used to be a venture embraced via so much early smooth naturalists, although, the publication demonstrates that the Jesuits have been uniquely suited for the examine of nature’s hidden secrets and techniques as a result of the complicated tools of contemplation and meditation enshrined on the center in their spirituality. Divided into six chapters, the paintings files how specific Jesuits sought to bare and reveal nature’s myriad secrets and techniques via an leading edge mixing of expertise, imagery, and scan. relocating past the traditional Aristotelianism mandated by way of the Society of Jesus, they set forth a imaginative and prescient of the area that made occur the works of God as author, irrespective of how deeply hidden these works have been. The publication therefore not just provides a story that demanding situations present-day assumptions concerning the position performed by means of Catholic non secular groups within the formation of contemporary technology, but additionally captures the exuberance and inventiveness of the early smooth research of nature.