The Discovery of Time"A discussion of the historical development of our ideas of time as they relate to nature, human nature and society. . . . The excellence of The Discovery of Time is unquestionable."—Martin Lebowitz, The Kenyon Review |
Contents
MEMORIES AND MYTHS | 23 |
Chronicles and Genealogies | 24 |
Myths and Legend | 29 |
SCIENCE WITHOUT HISTORY | 33 |
The Divorce of History from Philosophy | 38 |
Platos CreatorCraftsman | 42 |
Aristotles Eternal Universe | 44 |
Stoics and Epicureans | 46 |
THE EARTH ACQUIRES A HISTORY | 141 |
The Epochs of Nature | 142 |
The Fact of Geological Change | 150 |
The Agents of Geological Change | 152 |
The Perspective of Indefinite Time | 155 |
The Historical TimeBarrier is Broken | 159 |
THE BACKGROUND TO DARWIN | 171 |
Are There Fixed Species in Nature? | 172 |
The Limits of the Classical WorldPicture | 49 |
The Beginnings of Natural History | 50 |
THE AUTHORITY OF THE SCRIPTURES | 55 |
Fundamentalism and Allegory | 57 |
The New Chronology | 59 |
The Mediaeval WorldAllegory | 65 |
The Dream of the Millennium | 70 |
THE REVIVAL OF NATURAL PHILOSOPHY | 74 |
The Fall of the World | 75 |
Descartes Mathematical Philosophy | 77 |
The Theological Consequences of Cartesianism | 83 |
The Blueprints of Creation | 87 |
The Great Chain of Being | 96 |
The EighteenthCentury Commonplaces | 101 |
THE REVIVAL OF CIVIL HISTORY | 103 |
Decay or Progress? | 106 |
The Customs of the Ages | 110 |
Human Nature and Social Change | 113 |
The Myth of the Social Contract | 118 |
Intimations of Progress | 121 |
TIMES CREATIVE HAND | 125 |
Kant and Cosmic Evolution | 129 |
Herder and the Development of Nature | 135 |
The Temporal Sequence of Forms | 177 |
The Problem of Inheritance | 184 |
The Final Impasse | 189 |
LIFE ACQUIRES A GENEALOGY | 197 |
Darwin Recognizes His Problem | 199 |
The Creation of the Origin | 204 |
The Structure of the Origin | 206 |
The Scientific Objections | 212 |
Darwinism and Natural Theology | 224 |
HISTORY AND THE HUMAN SCIENCES | 232 |
The Recognition of Progressive Change | 233 |
Critical History and its Implications | 235 |
The Evolution of Humanity | 238 |
The Flux of Nature | 244 |
TIME AND THE PHYSICAL WORLD | 247 |
The Evolution of Stars and Chemical Elements | 250 |
Astronomy and the Problem of Creation | 254 |
Truth Hypothesis or Myth? | 257 |
Are the Laws of Nature Changing? | 263 |
NATURE AND HISTORY | 266 |
The Evolution of Ideas | 269 |
273 | |
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Common terms and phrases
Anaximander ancient animals antiquity argued argument Aristotle Aristotle's astronomical beginning belief Biblical Buffon catastrophist century Charles Darwin Christian continuing cosmic history cosmology cosmos created Creation creatures Cuvier Darwin Descartes discoveries divine doctrine earlier Earth eighteenth-century epoch established eternal evidence evolution evolutionary existence explain fact forms fossil fundamental galaxies geologists Greek Heavens historians History of Nature human history Hutton ideas inheritance intellectual interpretation James Hutton Kant Lamarck laws of nature living Lucretius Lyell mathematical mediaeval men's Miletos natural philosophy natural selection natural world Newton once Order of Nature organic species Origin of Species past pattern period philosophers physical physical cosmology plants Plato political present principles problem question R. G. Collingwood reason recognized scientific scientists sequence social society speculations stars stellar evolution strata succession theology theory things thought Thucydides Timaeus time-scale tion tradition uniformitarian universe variations Vico whole zoology