In existographies, William Derham (1657-1735) (CR:3) was an English clergyman, natural theologian philosopher, and scientist, noted for []
Overview
Derham’s primary fields were: natural philosophy, meteorology, and natural history, and his secondary fields were: astronomy, entomology, and physics. [2]
Derham made one of the best measurements of sound, which was accepted and used by Newton in his Principia.
In 1715, Derham, in his Astro-Theology, stated support for what he called the "New System", namely a Copernican universe, wherein the outer boundary of stars were solar systems like our own, each with its own inhabitable planets. [3]
Boyle
Derham was the editor of the Posthumous Works of Robert Boyle (1705) and his Philosophical Experiments (1726).
Quotes | On
The following are quotes on Derham:
“I designedly made Principia abstruse to avoid being baited by little smatterers in mathematics.”
— Isaac Newton (c.1687), “Comment to William Derham” [1]
“We agree with Derham that atheists are rare; superstition has so disfigured nature, and its rights; enthusiasm has so dazzled the human mind; terror has so disturbed the hearts of men; imposture and tyranny have so enslaved thought; in fine, error, ignorance, and delirium, have so perplexed and entangled the clearest ideas, that nothing is more uncommon, than to find men who have sufficient courage to undeceive themselves of notions, which every thing conspires to identify with their existence.”
— Baron d’Holbach (1770), The System of Nature (pg. 303)
Quotes | By
The following are quotes by Derham:
“We have a right to look upon an atheist as a monster amongst rational beings, as one of those extraordinary productions which we hardly ever meet with in the whole human species, and who opposing himself to all other men, revolts not only against reason and human nature, but against the divinity himself.”
— William Derham (c.1714), Publication (Ѻ)(Ѻ); cited by Baron d’Holbach (1770) in The System of Nature (pg. 303)
References
1. (a) Westfall, R.S. (1980). Never at Rest (pg. 459). Cambridge.
(b) Inwood, Stephen. (2003). The Man Who Knew Too Much: the Strange and Inventive Life of Robert Hooke 1653-1703 (pg. 379). Pan MacMillan.
(c) Fara, Patricia. (2002). Newton: the Making of a Genius (pg. 18). Columbia University Press.
(d) Stokes, Mitch. (2010). Isaac Newton (pg. 122). Thomas Nelson.
2. William Derham – Galileo Project.
3. Lovejoy, Arthur. (1933). The Great Chain of Being: a Study of the History of an Idea (pgs. 133-34). Transaction Publishers, 2011.
External links
● William Derham – Wikipedia.
