The Bridgewater Treatises

Die Bridgewater Treatises sind eine Reihe naturtheologischer Schriften des 19. Jahrhunderts, die von Francis Egerton, 8. Earl of Bridgewater, herausgegeben wurden (posthum erschienen 1833–1840).

Reaktionen

Einige Werke nahmen forthin einen hohen Stellenwert in der apologetischen Literatur ein. Eine erwähnenswerte Kritik stammt von Edgar Allan Poe. Der Anatom Robert Knox verulkte die Reihe als Bilgewater Treatises (Bilgewasser-Traktat), was als Juxbegriff unter anderem in Briefen Charles Darwins vorzufinden ist. Als Trittbrettfahrer der Reihe veröffentlichte Charles Babbage einen von ihm als The Ninth Bridgewater Treatise, A Fragment. bezeichneten Text.

Literatur

• A Bridgewater Treatise for the 21st Century. In: Science. Vol 301, 22. August 2003, S. 1051.
• C. Babbage: The Ninth Bridgewater Treatise. Murray, 1837. (wiederveröffentlicht bei Cambridge University Press, 2009, ISBN 978-1-108-00000-0)
• T. Chalmers: On the Power Wisdom and Goodness of God. As Manifested in the Adaptation of External Nature to the Moral and Intellectual Constitution of Man. (= Bridgewater Treatises). W. Pickering, 1834. (wiederveröffentlicht bei Cambridge University Press, 2009, ISBN 978-1-108-00072-7)
• W. Kirby: On the Power Wisdom and Goodness of God. As Manifested in the Creation of Animals and in Their History, Habits and Instincts. (= Bridgewater Treatises). W. Pickering, 1835 (wiederveröffentlicht bei Cambridge University Press, 2009, ISBN 978-1-108-00073-4)
• W. Paley: Natural Theology. Or, Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity, Collected from the Appearances of Nature. (= Bridgewater Treatises). Faulder, 1803 (wiederveröffentlicht bei Cambridge University Press, 2009, ISBN 978-1-108-00355-1)
• W. Prout: Chemistry, Meteorology, and the Function of Digestion Considered with Reference to Natural Theology. (= Bridgewater Treatises). W. Pickering, 1834 (wiederveröffentlicht bei Cambridge University Press, 2009, ISBN 978-1-108-00066-6)
• John Robson: The Fiat and Finger of God: The Bridgewater Treatises. In: Bernard Lightmand, Frank Turner: Victorian Faith in Crisis: Essays on Continuity and Change in Nineteenth-Century Religious Belief. 1990, ISBN 0-333-49660-4.
• P. M. Roget: Animal and Vegetable Physiology. Considered with Reference to Natural Theology. (= Bridgewater Treatises). W. Pickering, 1834 (wiederveröffentlicht bei Cambridge University Press, 2009, ISBN 978-1-108-00008-6)
• W. Whewell: Astronomy and General Physics Considered with Reference to Natural Theology. (= Bridgewater Treatises). W. Pickering, 1833 (wiederveröffentlicht bei Cambridge University Press, 2009, ISBN 978-1-108-00012-3)
• Topham, Jonathan R. (1992). "Science and Popular Education in the 1830s: The Role of the "Bridgewater Treatises"". The British Journal for the History of Science. 25 (4): 397–430. ISSN 0007-0874.
• Topham, Jonathan R. (1993). 'An infinite variety of arguments': the Bridgewater Treatises and British natural theology in the 1830s (Ph.D. thesis). University of Lancaster.
• Topham, Jonathan R. (1998). "Beyond the "Common Context": The Production and Reading of the Bridgewater Treatises". Isis. 89 (2): 233–262. ISSN 0021-1753.
• Topham, Jonathan R. (2022). Reading the Book of Nature: How Eight Bestsellers Reconnected Christianity and the Sciences on the Eve of the Victorian Age, University of Chicago Press; Vorlage:ISBN

Weblinks

• Charles Babbage: The Ninth Bridgewater Treatise. 2. Auflage. John Murray, London 1838.

Die einzelnen Bridgewater Treatises

1. The Adaptation of External Nature to the Moral and Intellectual Condition of Man, Autor: Thomas Chalmers
2. On The Adaptation of External Nature to the Physical Condition of Man, Autor: John Kidd
3. Astronomy and General Physics considered with reference to Natural Theology. Autor: William Whewell
4. The hand, its Mechanism and Vital Endowments as evincing Design, Autor: Sir Charles Bell
5. Animal and Vegetable Physiology considered with reference to Natural Theology, Autor: Peter Mark Roget
6. Geology and Mineralogy considered with reference to Natural Theology, Autor: William Buckland
7. The Habits and Instincts of Animals with reference to Natural Theology, Vol. 2, Autor: William Kirby
8. Chemistry, Meteorology, and the Function of Digestion, considered with reference to Natural Theology, Autor: William Prout