Follies Of Science

The Seven Follies of Science [2Nd Ed.]

"In the following pages I have endeavored to give a simple account of problems which have occupied the attention of the human mind ever since the dawn of civilization, and which can never lose their interest until time shall be no more. While to most persons these subjects will have but an historical interest, yet even from this point of view they are of more value than the history of empires, for they are the intellectual battlefields upon which much of our progress in science has been won. To a few, however, some of them may be of actual practical importance, for although the schoolmaster has been abroad for these many years, it is an unfortunate fact that the circle-squarer and the perpetual-motion-seeker have not ceased out of the land." -Preface

The Seven Follies of Science: a Popular Account of the Most Famous Scientific Impossibilities and the Attempts which Have Been Made to Solve Them ...

The Follies of Science at the Court of Rudolph Ii; 1576-1612

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1904 edition. Excerpt: ... Chapter XIX. DECLINE OF THE FOLLIES OF SCIENCE. "Ye Rosicrucian schools, Ye number-prickers, ye physiognomists, Ye dream-expounding, treasure-seeking fools, Alchemists, magnetizers, kabbalists! Ye 're wrong!" Hellgren. HE QUADRATURE of the circle, the multiplication of the cube, perpetual motion, judicial astrology, alchemy and magic have been characterized as the "Six Follies of Science." While a great deal of time and energy were wasted by intellectual men in these studies and chimerical pursuits, it must be admitted that these follies gave great impetus to the progress of true learning. The study of abstruse problems in pure mathematics even though non-solvable, attempts to construct mechanical devices on principles opposed to a fundamental law of nature, erroneous conceptions of the relation of celestial phenomena to mundane affairs, the vain quest for the Philosophers' Stone, the Elixir of Life and the riches and bodily vigor they would ensure, even the painful degradations of a false philosophy exhibited in magic and sorcery, each contributed its quota to the advancement of human knowledge on rational lines. The period of tutelage has its drawbacks, and these sophistries during their sway fostered superstitions that inflicted much misery on mankind, which was gradually being prepared for the appreciation of a rational philosophy and the benefits flowing from its practical applications. The decline of the follies which had attached themselves to the sciences like barnacles to a ship's bottom, progressed in the ratio in which truths were revealed by experimenters in the several fields; workers with telescopes, microscopes, dissecting knives, retorts, balances, thermometers, barometers, and somewhat later, with air-pumps and...