Religion, Magic, and the Origins of Science in Early Modern England (Hardcover)

Contents: Preface; Animism and empiricism: Copernican physics and the origin of William Gilbert's experimental method; Atomism and eschatology: Catholicism and natural philosophy in the Interregnum; Occult qualities and the experimental philosophy: active principles in pre-Newtonian matter theory; Medicine and pneumatology: Henry More, Richard Baxter and Francis Glisson's Treatise on the Energetic Nature of Substance; The matter of souls: medical theory and theology in 17th-century England; Henry More versus Robert Boyle: the spirit of nature and the nature of providence; Boyle and cosmical qualities; Robert Hooke, the incongruous mechanist; 'Pray do not ascribe that notion to me': God and Newton's gravity; The fragmentation of Renaissance occultism and the decline of magic; Index.