Earth science in the scientific revolution 1600-1728

Although recent historians of Earth science have attempted to show that the geological achievements of the seventeenth century provided the basis for the nineteenth-century development of geology, they have tended to regard seventeenth-century Ideas mainly as constructive elements in the preparation of the nineteenth century's approach to the Earth and have failed to treat them as being legitimate in their own right. My approach here is different from my predecessors not only in that I end my arguments by the mid-eighteenth century but also in that I attempt to illuminate the development of Earth science in seventeenth-century England as an integral part of the Scientific Revolution. Standard textbooks on the Scientific Revolution have discussed the development of physics, chemistry and biology, but not Earth science. This thesis discusses an aspect of the Scientific Revolution which has not previously been fully recognised. In the early seventeenth century the study of the Earth was not a distinctive discipline, but the formation of the Royal Society of London later in the century provided a forum where different approaches to the Earth could come into contact. The Society's plan for natural history facilitated the introduction of each programme, and eventually, by the mid-eighteenth century, created a basis for geology. I suggest here that the "internal" development of Earth science was conditioned by "external" factors such as the formation of the Royal Society and the ensuing interaction between scientists. I challenge the internalist historian's conviction that the "internal" development of science is autonomous and absolute. I even claim that the large-scale pursuit of Earth science was stimulated and motivated by "cultural values". Unlike the externalists, however, I do not intend to show any relation between the science and the value orientation of a society as a whole, because such an approach does not explain why conflicts at various levels occurred within a scientific community and eventually created a basis for geology. Therefore, this thesis is an attempt to synthesize the "internal" and "external" approaches to the history of science