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By Alphabetical Order:
By Historical Subject Area
Empiricists
and PositivistsRobert Malthus
David Ricardo
James Mill
Auguste Comte
John Stuart Mill
C.S. Peirce
William James
RomanticismJohann Wolfgang von Goethe
Friedrich von Schiller
Vicomte François René de Chateaubriande
Aleksandr Pushkin
Feodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky
Leo Tolstoy
William Blake
William Wordsworth
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
George Byron
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Thomas Carlyle
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Robert Browning
Charles Dickens
John Ruskin
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Henry David Thoreau
Walt Whitman
IdealismJohann Gottlieb Fichte
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Friedrich Schelling
Heinrich von Treitschke
Wilhelm Dilthey
Thomas Hill Green
Josiah Royce
EvolutionismJean-Baptiste de Lamarck
Charles Lyell
Charles Darwin
Herbert Spencer
T. H. Huxley
Biology/PhysiologyGregor Mendel
Ivan Petrovich Pavlov
Socialism/MarxismCount Henri de Saint-Simon
Charles Fourier
Ludwig Feuerbach
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon
Karl Marx
Friedrich Engels
Sidney Webb
Archeology,
Cultural History, Anthropology and SociologyJean François Champollion
Jakob Christoph Burckhart
Heinrich Schliemann
E. B. Taylor
William Robertson Smith
Arthur Evans
Flinders Petrie
Emile Durkheim
Max Weber
Theosophy
and Religious SyncretismHelena Petrova Blavatsky
ElitismArthur Schopenhauer
Friedrich Nietzsche
ExistentialismSøren Kierkegaard
Christianity
on the Defensive1. CATHOLIC/ANGLICAN CONSERVATISM
Joseph de Maistre
John Henry Newman
Edward Bouverie Pusey
Henry Edward Manning
Pope Pius IX
Pope Leo XIII2. PROTESTANT LIBERALISM AND BIBLICAL CRITICISM
Friedrich Schleiermacher
Ferdinand Christian Bauer
David Friedrich Strauss
Albrecht B. Ritschl
Ernst Renan
Julius Wellhausen
Adolph von Harnack
Charles A. Briggs
Hermann Gunkel
Wilhelm Bousset
Wilhelm Wrede
Alfred Loisy3. PROTESTANT CONSERVATISM
Archibald Alexander
Charles Hodge
A. A. Hodge
Benjamin B. Warfield
Johannes Weiss4. EVANGELICALISM
William Wilberforce
William Carey
Charles Finney
William and Catherine Booth
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Dwight L. Moody
Peter Forsyth
R.A. Torrey
William Ashley "Billy" Sunday5. THE SOCIAL GOSPEL
Washington Gladden
Walter Rauschenbusch6. MILLENIALISM AND THE "NEW REVELATION" RELIGIONS
William Miller
Ellen White
Joseph Smith
Brigham Young
Mary Baker Eddy
Charles Taze Russell
Science
Looks Further Outward into SpaceFriedrich Wilhelm Bessel
Joseph von Fraunhofer
Gustav Robert Kirchoff
Annie J. Cannon
Science
Investigates the Substance of Matter and LightJohn Dalton
Thomas Young
Hans Christian Ørsted
André-Marie Ampère
Michael Faraday
Dmitry Ivanovich Mendeleyev
James Clerk Maxwell
Albert Michelson and Edward Morley
George Fitzgerald
Hendrik Lorentz
Heinrich Hertz
Henri Poincaré
Antoine Henri Becquerel
The
Science of Human PerceptionErnst Mach
Gottlob Frege
Edmund Husserl
Henri Bergson
Cultivators
of the New TechnologyAlexander Graham Bell
Thomas Alva Edison
General
Sources on History of the 19th Century
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English economist and demographer. Took the pessimistic view that all industrial growth would be more than offset by an even faster rate of growth in the number of the poor.
Robert Malthus (1766-1834)
Malthus' major works or writings:
Essay on Population(1797)Links to other information on Malthus:
Thomas Robert Malthus (Victoria Web: Yousuf Dhamee)
David Ricardo (1772-1823)
Principles of Political Economy (1817)David Ricardo (Victoria Web: Yousuf Dhamee)James Mill (1773-1836)
Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind (1829)
Essay on GovernmentComte reacted to the sometimes wild speculation of French rationalists, who during the previous century had built their philosophical theories on "reasonable" propositions--rather than on the observation of actual phenomenon. In short, he introduced British empiricism to French or continental philosophy, terming his approach "positivism."
Auguste Comte (1798-1857)
He was particularly interested in seeing social philosophy built on very careful observation of actual social behavior rather than mere rationalist speculation (such as Rousseau's social theories a half-century earlier). Thus he laid the groundwork for the field of modern sociology with its demand for "factual" foundations for all assertions of truth.
But interestingly, in laying out his arguments, he himself employed a very rationalistic or speculative theoretical foundation for his assertions. In his major six-volume work, Course of Positive Philosophy, he posits an evolutionary development of human knowledge over the aeons--a developmental picture that was entirely speculative--and related more to a simplistic reading of the events surrounding Revolutionary France over the course of the past century.
He stated that human knowledge began in its primitive stages as theology, or laying all events at the feet of divine forces or God (related to the Divine rights claims of monarchical authority). The next stage, the rationalist or philosophical stage was once characterized by broad abstract principles as the foundation of truth or knowledge (he had in mind the rhetoric of Revolutionary France). But the evolved state of knowledge (a pragmatic, bureaucratic post-Revolutionary France) would be built on the works of scientific scholars who would direct society through their knowledge of science.
None of this was itself based on the empirical methods he called for in his study--but was itself a continuation of the French rationalist approach to knowledge.
Nonetheless his ideas would catch the imagination of 19th century Europe and help move it toward the notion that all truth is built on fact and fact alone.
Systeme de politique positive (1823) and (1851-1854)
Cours de philosophie positive (Course of Positive Philosophy)(1830-1842)
A General View of Positivism (Chapter I: Its Intellectual Character) (1856)Auguste Comte in a Nutshell (Emmanuel Lazinier)
Auguste Comte and Positivism
The Philosophy of Positivism (Radical Academy)J.S. Mill was carefully pruned and protected in his infancy and youth by his father, James Mill, in order that the son would grow into such a bright light of Utilitarian philosophy that might light the world. In part the father succeeded, though at a deeply heavy emotional and spiritual cost to the son.
John Stuart Mill (1806-1873)
System of Logic (1843)
Principles of Political Economy (1848)
On Liberty (1859) (Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: html) On Liberty (Wiretap: gopher)
Representative Government (1861) (VaTech)
Utilitarianism (1863) (VaTech)
Subjection of Women (1869) (Wiretap)
Three Essays on Religion (1874) Religion is the highly laudable ability of human thought to rise above the merely physical or natural condition of life to contemplate and be moved by ideals of excellence. But whether there is a supreme Deity or consciousness to which human thought draws itself or which energizes the forces of life as Creator--was a most uncertain proposition for Mill.John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) (Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy) --excellent!
John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) (UToronto: Centre for Instructional Technology Development)
John Stuart Mill 1806-1873 (Island of Freedom)coiner of the term "pragmatist"
C.S. Peirce (1839-1914)
American pragmatist
William James (1842-1910)
Radical Empiricism (Wiretap)
The Will To Believe (1897) (Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
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Goethe was an individual of wide tastes and talents, being a poet, dramatist and scientist all in one. He was early influenced by Herder, who inspired in him a deep appreciation of German folk culture and consequently a spirit of German nationalism.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)
But Goethe was also a profound individualist, intrigued by the power and depth of personal experience and emotion. In his first play, Götz von Berlichingen (1773), Goethe explored the depths of individual human sentiments--and laid the foundation for the Sturm und Drang movement--which advocated personal freedom in the face of oppressive, medieval attitudes in Germany concerning the role of the individual in society. This movement would later blossom into German Romanticism.
In the 1780s Goethe went to Rome to study classic art, architecture and literature and for a while came under the more formalistic style of the neo-classicist movement. But on his return to Germany he found little appreciation for his new views. He then turned to science for a while. But his longer-standing romantic inclinations reasserted themselves and his independent individualist style returned to the fore. This culminated in his all-time great work, Faust which was an epic tale of the search of the individual for that which is of a lasting or transcending value in the face of freedom's great opportunities--and uncertainties.
Götz von Berlichingen (1773)
The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774)
Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship (1796)
Faust (1808) (VaTech)
Wilhelm Meister's Travels (1821)Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (Brown: U. Wash)
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (Katharena Eiermann)Schiller was a German dramatist and poet who contributed heavily to the Sturm und Drang movement. His own arrest in 1782 by the Duke of Württemberg for leaving Württemberg without ducal permission to attend the performance of his first play, Robbers, in another German state no doubt played an important role in shaping his views on this matter. His close friendship with Goethe was also an important source of inspiration for his politically charged dramatic works, which dignified the instincts of the sensitive, heroic individual over the heavy-handedness of traditional authority and social tradition.
Friedrich von Schiller (1759-1805)
The Robbers (1781)
Don Carlos (1787)
Wallenstein (1799)
The Maid of Orleans (1801)
William Tell (1804).
Vicomte François René de Chateaubriande (1768-1848)
The Genius of Christianity (1802)
Memoirs from Beyond the Tomb (1849-1850)Considered the father of modern Russian literature--for it was he who dared to write in Russian, the language of the commoner, rather than, say in French, which was considered the language of the upper classes or aristocracy. His thinking was considered very revolutionary and he was dismissed from governmental service and banished to his family's rural estate (he was rehabilitated two years later).
Aleksandr Pushkin (1799-1837)
Eugene Onegin (1823)
Boris Godunov (1825)
Eugene Onegin (1823-1831)
Poltava (1828)
The Bronze Horseman (1833)
The Captain's Daughter (1836).
Feodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky (1821-1881)
Notes from Underground (1864)
Crime and Punishment (1866)
The Brothers Karamazov(1879-1880)The World of Dostoevsky
Long live Dostoevsky!
Dostoyevsky and Existentialism SitesRussian Christian
Count Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910)
War and Peace (1869) (VaTech)
Anna Karenina (Bibliomania)
The Death of Ivan Ilych (1886)Tolstoy on Christianity (Letters Magazine)
William Blake (1757-1827)
The William Blake Archive (poetry and paintings)
The William Blake Page (poetry and paintings)
Collected Works (Bibliomania)
Selected Poems (UToronto)As with many English intellectuals, Wordsworth as a young man was enthusiastic about the French Revolution (1789) at least in its early stages. In 1791 he journeyed to France to witness this grand event. But as time passed, and as the Revolution turned bloodier and more vindictive and aggressive, he became distrustful of the Revolution.
William Wordsworth (1770-1850)
As a Romantic, he became more enamored with the pathos of individual human life, especially the nobility of the deeper human emotions--and less sure about the utility of the rationally ordered society.
Lyrical Ballads (1798)
Written in cooperation with Coleridge--and considered the beginning of the Romanticist movement in England.
The Excursion (1814)
The White Doe of Rylstone (1815)
Ecclesiastical Sonnets (1822)
The Prelude (1850)
An autobiography started a half-century earlier--though not published as a completed work until after his death.
Complete Poetical Works by William Wordsworth (Project Bartleby: Columbia U)
Selected Poetry and Prose of William Wordsworth (U. Toronto)
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834)
Biographia Literaria (1817)
Selected Poetry and Prose of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (U. Toronto)A profoundly moody English Romantic writer, he was considered by many of his English contemporaries to be almost insane. He finally left England in 1816 to live on the European continent as an English expatriate (he never returned). He wrote of individuals who suffered deeply from the cruelties of society, heroizing the individual who dared to stand on his own.
George Gordon Noel, Lord Byron (1788-1824)
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (1812)
The Prisoner of Chillon(1816)
Don Juan (1821) (VaTech)
Selected Poetry and Prose of George Gordon, Lord Byron (UToronto)
Selected Poems of Lord Byron (D.R. Gabriel)A Romantic "non-conformist" with a disdain for the conventional social mores of his times (he was expelled from Oxford University for publishing a work, "The Necessity of Atheism"). A very productive poet who authored numerous odes from the time he was 26 until just before his 30th birthday when he drowned in sailing accident during a storm.
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)
"The Necessity Of Atheism" (1811/1813) (Secular Web)
Prometheus Unbound(1820)
In Defence of Poetry (1822)
Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley (Bartleby Archive)
Selected Writings (gopher)Biographical Sketch (Bartleby Archive)
Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881)
Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861)
An Essay on Mind (1826)
Prometheus Bound (1833)
The Seraphim and Other Poems (1838)
The Cry of the Children (1842)
Sonnets from the Portuguese (1845-1850)
Aurora Leigh (1857)
Poems Before Congress (1860)The Life of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (Victorian Web: Glenn Everett)English Poet Laureate, 1850-1892.
Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892)
Poems, by Two Brothers (1827)
Poems, Chiefly Lyrical (1830)
Poems (1833)
Poems (2 vols 1842)
The Princess, a Medley (1847)
In Memoriam (1850)
Maud (1855)
The Idylls of the King (a continually expanding collection: 1859-1885)
Tithonus (1860)
Enoch Arden (1864)
Lucretius (1868)
Queen Mary (1875)
Harold (1876)
The Falcon (1879)
Ballads and Other Poems (1880)
The Cup (1881)
The Promise of May (1882)
Becket (1884)
Tiresias, and Other Poems (1885)
Locksley Hall, sixty years after (1886)
Demeter, and other poems (1889)
The Death of Înone, and other Poems (1892)
The Foresters (1892)Alfred Lord Tennyson: A Brief Biography (Victorian Web: Glenn Everett)
Alfred Lord Tennyson Chronology (Victorian Web: Glenn Everett)
Alfred, "Eccentric" Lord Tennyson (1809-1892) (Incompetech: Laura MacLeod)
Robert Browning (1812-1889)
Paracelsus (1835)
Sordello (1840)
Dramatic Lyrics (1842)
Dramatic Romances and Lyrics (1845)
A Soul's Tragedy (1846)
Christmas Eve and Easter Day (1850)
Men and Women (2 vol. collection of poems, 1855)
Dramatis Personae (1864)
The Ring and the Book (1868)
Dramatic Idyls
Asolando (1889)Robert Browning - Biography (Victorian Web: Glenn Everett)
Robert Browning Chronology (Victorian Web)English novelist.
Charles Dickens (1812-1870)
Sketches by Boz (1836)
The Pickwick Papers (1837)
Oliver Twist (1837-1839)
Nicholas Nickleby (1838-1839)
The Old Curiosity Shop (1840-1841)
Barnaby Rudge (1841)
American Notes (1842)
Martin Chuzzlewit (1843-1844)
A Christmas Carol (1844)
The Chimes (1844)
The Cricket and the Hearth (1845)
Pictures From Italy (1846)
Dombey and Son (1847-1848)
Battle of Life (1848)
The Haunted Man (1848)
David Copperfield (1849-1850)
Bleak House (1852-1853)
Hard Times (1854)
Little Dorrit (1855-1857)
The Frozen Deep (with Wilkie Collins, 1856)
A Tale of Two Cities (1859)
Great Expectations (1860-1861)
Our Mutual Friend (1864-1865)
The Mystery of Edwin Drood (1869-1870)Charles Dickens
Dickens on the Web
Charles Dickens -- Biographical InformationAn English philosopher in search of an uncerstanding and definition of beauty (aesthetics).
John Ruskin (1819-1900)
The Seven Lamps of ArchitectureJohn Ruskin: A Chronology (Victorian Web: George Landow)Emerson is best known as leader of the "transcendentalist" movement in America.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)
He was born into a prominent Boston family, one characterized by generations of service to the church (his father, William, was the minister of the venerable First Church of Boston). He attended Harvard College and Divinity School and eventually became pastor of the 2nd church of Boston--where he soon achieved recognition as an excellent preacher.
But like his father before him, he found himself being drawn into new realms of thought that challenged his orthodox Christian beliefs. The writings of the English romantics, Carlyle and Coleridge, the philosophy of Swedenborg, the new biblical text-criticism coming out of Germany, plus his own cool intellectual rather than warm pastoral nature began to distance him emotionally from his work.
Soon after his wife died in 1831, he stepped down from the ministry (1832)--to freely pursue the question of the nature and purpose of human life--and its relation to the larger natural world around man. He traveled to Europe, visiting Coleridge, Wordsworth and Carlyle in the process. When he returned to the States in 1833, he began work on his small, but revolutionary book, Nature--which he published anonymously three years later. In this book he outlined the basic ideas that underpinned his Transcendalist philosophy.
Basically he took the ancient Idealist position of Plato--in strict opposition to the mechanistic-materialist philosophy of Newton and Locke which he saw as undergirding modern life (including the Unitarian theology that was so prevalent around him). He was in part a mystic (in keeping somewhat with the older Puritan tradition!)--seeking direct knowledge of God through divine revelation, rather than through systematic theology or rational philosophy.
He felt that Newton had imprisoned the human spirit within his model of life as a machine made up of bits of matter in motion in accordance to a fixed system of natural laws. Further, he felt that Locke had only added to this error by depicting the human mind as a similar machine, linked only to the outside world through the the bombardment of external sensations upon the receptors of the mind. This mechanistic-materialistic philosophy was all lacking the force of spirit, a transcending spirit--which was to Emerson the substance that gives rise to all life, human and otherwise. To Emerson, this transcending spirit unites all life into a single harmony which flows from God--and at the same time is God.
The moral implications of Emerson's philosophy were in the vast freedoms this spirit seemed to give man--freedoms to make choices about his own life. To Emerson man was not a machine, but part of the great flow of the power of God--and capable of fulfilling the most noble visions endowed by God to the active human mind/spirit. Indeed, the human spirit was potentially so powerful that it had a proper place in the on-going unfolding of all creation. The human mind was thus not the victim of a supposedly machine-like environment around it--but was instead its natural master, inasmuch as man acted in harmony with that environment.
The Unitarians responded with denunciations--especially when he brought his ideas before the Harvard Divinty School in an address to that body in 1838.
Emerson had built up such a faith in the natural attraction of the human mind to high-minded ideas that he was a bit taken aback when his ideas failed to persuade--but only stirred animosity. He learned the hard lesson that reform of human life was not going to take place just in the presenting of ideas. There was going to have to be concerted action that accompanied these ideas. Though Emerson himself would not become an activist-reformer, many of his close associates in the Transcendalist movement would--especially those closely involved in the Abolitionist movement (to end slavery in the United States).
He spent the rest of his life serving as a lecturer, philosopher and poet--in wide demand on the lecture circuit, even being called to Harvard to present his ideas. He was definitely a man of the times, philosopher of the young, optimistic American Republic which felt that it had a mandate to show the rest of the world the higher, more humane way to live.
Nature (1836) (gopher: VaTech)
Essays: First Series (1841) (gopher: VaTech)
["History," "Self-Reliance," "Compensation," "Spiritual Laws," "Love," "Friendship,"
"Prudence," "Heroism," "The Over-Soul," "Circles," "Intellect," and "Art."]
"The Transcendentalist" (gopher: VaTech)
Essays: Second Series (1844) (gopher: VaTech)
["The Poet," "Manners," and "Character."] (gopher: VaTech)
Poems (1846)
Representative Men (1850) [lectures] (gopher: VaTech)
The Conduct of Life (1860) ["Power," "Wealth," "Fate," "Culture"]
May Day and Other Pieces (1867).Ralph Waldo Emerson (Jone Johnson)
Ralph Waldo Emerson: A Guide to Resources
Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)
Civil Disobedience (1849) (IndianaU)
Walden: Life in the Woods (1854) (VaTech)
Walt Whitman (1819-1892)
Leaves of Grass (Bibliomania)
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Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762-1814)
Versuch einer Kritik aller Offenbarung (1702)
Grundlage der gesammten Wissenschaftslehre (1794 )
Die Bestimmung des Gelehrten (1794)
Grundlage des Alaturrechts (The Science of Ethics) (1796)
Die Bestimmung des Menschen (1800)
Grundzuege des gegenweirtigen Zeitalters (1806)
Ueber das Wesen des Gelehrten (1806)
Reden an die deutsche Nation (Advice to the German Nation) (1808)
Die Wissenschaftslehre in ihrem allgemeinen Umrisse (The Science of Knowledge) (1810)Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762-1814) (Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831)
A General Overview While the English were pushing ahead an empirical doctrine of evolution through accidental natural causes, the Germans were developing, through the primary inspiration of Hegel, an "idealist" doctrine of evolution through the will of some great transcendent will (the world Spirit). Hegel was clearly a Platonist--seeing all history, all human events as "guided" by this powerful spirit. This task of learning or of science was to Hegel (and the Hegelians after him) therefore not just to collect facts, but to discern the particular movement of this guiding hand in the midst of such facts.
His Life and Works
Hegel was born and educated in Stuttgart in the classics and attended the University of Tübingen in preparation for the ministry. During the course of his university studies he befriended Schelling--and decided against the ministry. He found work tutoring, first in Switzerland then in Frankfurt. In 1801 he returned to his studies, this time at the University of Jena--where he eventually became a lecturer, then department head. Here he completed his first work, Phenomenology of the Mind--just in time to flee Jena from the approaching French armies (1806).
He briefly turned to journalism and then became director of a gymnasium in Nuremberg. During his Nuremberg years (1808-1816) he compiled his Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences, incorporating his earlier Science of Logic (1812), and Philosophy of Nature and Philosophy of Spirit.
In 1816 he became a professor at the University of Heidelberg; moving two years later to become a professor at the University of Berlin, where he remained until his death in 1831. In Berlin he published his Philosophy of Right (1821). After his death his lecture notes were compiled into a number of publications: Philosophy of Fine Art (1835-38), History of Philosophy (1833-36), Philosophy of Religion (1832), and Philosophy of History (1837).
Hegel's Great Influence on European Philosophy
German scholarship (indeed much of all European scholarship) after Hegel was fairly single-minded in this quest of an all-determining transcendent world Spirit. Things were studied in order to draw out the hidden pattern of this Spirit--so as to enable man to work in cooperation with such divine destiny. This was a powerful idea, affecting the new sciences of anthropology (F.M. Müller, E.B. Taylor) and sociology (E. Durkheim, M. Weber).
But it also touched on group pride, as nations or classes came to see themselves as being under the special anointing of the world Spirit to take the lead to direct history into the next era. This fed powerfully into German nationalism, with its sense of special German historical destiny. This also fed powerfully into the working class movement which came to view the workers of the world as the true moral underpinning of the world to come.
The Phenomenology of Mind (or Spirit) (1807)
The Objective Logic (1812-13)
The Subjective Logic (1816)
Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciencies (1817, republished and expanded many times thereafter)
Science of Logic
Philosophy of Spirit
Philosophy of Nature
Philosophy of Right(1821)
Philosophy of Religion (1832)
History of Philosophy (1833-36)
Philosophy of Fine Art (1835-38)
Philosophy of History (1837).Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Introduction to Hegel (UCDavis)
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (Encarta 1993)
Friedrich Schelling (1775-1854)
System of Transcendental Idealism (1800)Von Treitschke was a professor of history and politics in a number of German universities: Leipzig, Freiburg, Kiel, Heidelberg and Berlin. He was an ardent German nationalist who glorified war as the process by which the spirit of a people works itself forward in unity and strength. He looked to the German State, headed by the autocratic Prussian King, as the leading instrument for the outworking of the German national will.
Heinrich von Treitschke (1834-1896)
He was a member of the German Reichstag (the popular Assembly) 1871-1884.
History of Germany in the Nineteenth Century (7 vols)Nationalism, Racism, and Militarism (Sara Watts)German neo-Hegelian philosopher
Wilhelm Dilthey (1833-1911)
Introduction to the Human SciencesOxford Idealist Thomas Hill Green (1836-1882)
Lectures on the Principles of Political ObligationThomas Hill Green: PhilosophyAmer. idealist Josiah Royce (1855-1916)
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Lamarck took the logic of selective breeding of animals and hybridization of plants practiced by "enlightened" European farmers--and surmised that in the long-term this process of passing on a species' particular strengths to new generations would produce evolutionary development within the species--and ultimately the creation of new species themselves.
Jean-Baptiste de Lamarck (1744-1829)
Zoological Philosophy (1809)Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1744-1829)He believed that natural (not divine) forces and processes went into shaping the various features of the earth (mountains, valleys, islands, deserts, etc.). He studied these features directly, climbing, digging, exploring--to observe such things as the impact of erosion, the action of volcanos. From these observations he deduced various processes by which mountains were built up by convulsions in the earth's surface, valleys were cut through the land, and plains were fashioned from eroded hills and mountains.
Charles Lyell (1797-1875)
He viewed the earth as a living organism, in a constant state of growth and decay, birth and death. He extended this vision to the inhabitants of the earth--plants and animals--and saw such dynamics (growth and decline, birth and death) typical not just of individuals but of whole species of biological life--of whole families of plants and animals.
He also estimated that the earth was possibly millions of years old.
Principles of Geology (1830-33)
The Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man (1863)There is no question that the greatest impact on 19th century thought came from Charles Darwin. Darwin was a naturalist, a "fact" gatherer, who not only contributed to our understanding many new details about natural life--but also developed a hypothesis about why nature seemed to take the shape she did. His facts seemed to point to the evolution of all living species through a process of competition for survival which led, by accidental causes, to "natural selection" or "survival of the fittest." The impact of his hypothesis on the Western intellect cannot be overestimated--for his theory still underpins most modern thinking about life today!
Charles Darwin (1809-1882)
But note: Darwin did not invent the idea of evolution--for it had been a very big element of Western thought since the on-set of the Enlightenment. The French Revolution for instance was quite certain that it was about not only social justice, but also progressive development--growth of human society and the human intellect.
The Origin of the Species (1859)
The Descent of Man (1871) (Freethought)
The Voyage of the Beagle (Wiretap)A popularizer of Darwinian thinking, in particular with sociological applications in the concept of social evolution. He was the originator of the term "survival of the fittest."
Herbert Spencer (1820-1903)
Social Statics (1850)
Principles of Biology (1864)T.H. (Thomas Henry) Huxley was a major developer of the the "agnostic" position with respect to the existence of God, seeing only "natural" processes in the evolution of biological life.
T. H. Huxley (1825-1895)
Man's Place In Nature (1863)
Practical Biology (1875)
Agnosticism (A Reply to Henry Wace) (1889) (Secular Web)
Ethics and Evolution (Romanes Lecture) (1893) Huxley distances himself from the position that human morality must mirror the doctrine of "survival of the fittest," claiming that there is no serious connection between the violence of biological or physical evolution over the aeons and the universality of moral principle.Thomas Henry Huxley (1825-1895) (Lefalophodon)
Thomas Henry Huxley (1825-1895) (Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
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An Augustinian monk/teacher in Austria. Mendel studied plants, in particular the ordinary pea, in order to detect the ways in which traits of parents are passed on to their offspring through principles of heredity. In 1865 he presented his findings--only to discover that his biological theories ran counter to the environmental theories of natural selection of the rising group of Darwinists. It was not until after his death that his theories came to light again--and eventually he became recognized as the founder of the science of genetics.
Gregor Mendel (1822-1884)
Treatises on Plant Hybrids (1865)Reflections on Gregor Mendel (Austrian Press Service)Pavlov is famous for his explanation of the "conditioned response," worked out in his experiements (late 1800s) with dogs--but extended in theory also to human behavior. By associating the ringing of a bell with the presenting of food to a dog, the dog came eventually to salivate not just in the presenting of food but eventually, as a result of "conditioning" even to the sound of the bell in itself--even without food being present. Ivan Petrovich Pavlov (1849-1936)
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Henri de Saint-Simon (1760-1825)
Lettres d'un habitant de Genève à ses contemporains (Letters of an Inhabitant of Geneva to His Contemporaries) (1803)
De la réorganisation de la société européenne (On the Reorganization of European Society) (1814)
L'industrie (Industry) (1816-1818, with Auguste Comte)
Nouveau Christianisme (The New Christianity) (1825)
Charles François-Marie Fourier (1772-1837)
Théorie des quatre mouvements et des destinées générales (The Social Destiny of Man; or, Theory of the Four Movements) (1808)
Traité de l'association agricole domestique (Treatise on Domestic Agricultural Association) (1822)
Le Nouveau Monde industriel (The New Industrial World) (1829-1830)German materialist; claimed that religion was merely a projection of the human ego to give hope to human dreams.
Ludwig Feuerbach (1804-1872)
The Essence of Christianity (1841)
The Philosophy of the Future (1843)
The Essence of Religion (1853)
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809-1865)
In typical German fashion, the sociologist Karl Marx picked up on Hegelian Idealism to project a special destiny for the European working classes.
Karl Marx (1818-1883)
But Marx moved more to the middle ground between Hegel and Darwin in projecting how the working classes would come to power. Not by accident (as per Darwin) nor by some unseen spirit (as per Hegel) but through the necessary logic of the forces of production: the world belonged to those who owned the material forces of production (factories, mines, etc.). The industrial workers would inevitably wield the power of their vastly greater numbers, to seize the forces of production from the liberal entrepreneurs and institute a new society based on worker values--where all would live voluntarily and communally (owning no property but sharing everything in common) according to a high spirit of brotherly love. Thus communism or Marxism was born.
Communist Manifesto (1848) (VaTech)
Capital
Vol. 1 (1867) (Colorado)
Vol. 2 (Colorado: forthcoming)
Vol. 3 (1894) (Colorado)Marx/Engels Internet Archive
Friedrich Engels (1820-1895)
Principles of Communism (Colorado)
The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State (Colorado)
Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy (Colorado)
On the History of Early Christianity (Colorado)
Anti-Dühring (Colorado)Marx/Engels Internet Archive (Colorado)Sidney Webb (1859-1947)
Fabian Essays (1889)
ARCHEOLOGY, CULTURAL HISTORY,
ANTHROPOLOGY AND SOCIOLOGY
The French archeologist who translated the Rosetta stone found in Rashid (Rosetta) Egypt (publishing his work in 1822)--and was thus able to provide a system for translating ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics, which since ancient times had remained largely a mystery. Jean François Champollion (1790-1832)
On the stone itself was a priestly decree written around 196 BC--in three parallel scripts: ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic, Egyptian demotic (language of the common Egyptian around 196 BC) and Greek (language of the Ptolemaic dynasty ruling Egypt at that time). By first detecting royal names he was able to identify a dozen of the hieroglypic symbols--and then slowly begin to work from there in identifying yet other ancient Egyptian names and titles. Eventually this opened up understanding to even more of the hieroglypics until the full hieroglyphic text could be read.
A Swiss historian who, in his study of Renaissance Italy, established many of the cannons of modern cultural history.
Jakob Christoph Burckhart (1818-1897)
Though he was the son of a Protestant pastor and was sent off to school to become a pastor himself (though receiving much education in the classics along the way) he eventually abandoned these plans--and took up the pantheistic vision of life characteristic of many of the members of the romantic movement.
A love for classic art and architecture eventually translated itself into a fascination for the Italian Renaissance, which he studied up close through regular travels to Italy. Over time he withdrew himself from the political romanticism of his colleagues, becoming less and less confident that modernism was going to produce a civilization as high as that of the classic and renaissance past. His life as a teacher at the University of Basle was quiet and unexceptional. It was, instead, the publication in 1860 of his study of Renaissance Italy that brought his name to public notice. This study of Renaissance art and culture was unparalleled--and long remained (even well into the 20th century) the standard study on the subject.
Die Zeit Konstantins des Grossen (The Age of Constantine the Great) (1853)
Die Kultur der Renaissance in Italien (The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy) (1860)
Griechische Kulturgeschichte (History of Greek Culture) (edited posthumously: 1898-1902)German archeologist who discovered the locations of ancient Troy and Mycenae, the main settings for the ancient Homeric epic, the Iliad.
Heinrich Schliemann (1822-1890)
As a youth he was fascinated with the Homeric legends and wanted to go to these places to see them for himself. But he was told that the places were entirely mythical, the product of ancient imaginations. Nonetheless he remained committed to his hope.
He proved to be very able in both languages (he mastered over ten languages) and commerce (he worked his way up from errand boy to a master speculator in the movement of industrial and military materials). Once he had established himself in the world of wealth (he was nearly 50 at that time) he then devoted himself to following his youthful dream.
In 1871, using Homer's descriptions of Troy and the area around the ancient city, he decided that the description fit a hill in northwestern Turkey at Hissarlik. There indeed he uncovered the ancient city of Troy (though the treasures he brought out as "Priam's treasures" actually belonged to a Trojan culture many centuries older than Priam's).
He then in 1874 turned his attentions to Greece, to Mycenae, the supposed site of the ancient palace of Agamemnon, the leader of the Greek expeditionary army during the times of the war with Troy. Here too he uncovered graves and considerable wealth which he supposed to be Agamemnon's (actually it too belonged to an older culture).
Overall, he convinced the world to pay closer attention to ancient mythology--to understand that though the accounts themselves seemed entirely fantastic by our standards, nonetheless they were stories that ultimately had their basis in some kind of "historical fact."
E.B. (Edward Burnett) Taylor was the coiner of the term "animism" (belief in individual souls or anima in all things, even trees and mountains), which he posited as the first stage of religious evolution. E. B. Taylor (1832-1917)
Anahuac (1861)
Researches into the Early History of Mankind (1865)
Primitive Culture (1871)Cultural evolutionist: studied the historical stages of development of the belief system of a people. William Robertson Smith (1846-1894)
Lectures on the Religion of the Semites (1889)English excavator of the ancient bronze age culture of Crete--which he named "Minoan" after the ancient myth about King Minos of Crete and his fabulous bull held deep within the labyrinth of his underground palace. At Knossos, the ancient capital of this culture, Evans reconstructed the palace to look closely like the original. Purists later would criticize his tampering with the archeological evidence with his reconstructions. But at the time this was quite a novel approach to archeology--and was viewed as quite helpful in bringing the past to life again.
Arthur Evans (1850-1941)
English archeologist--considered the "father" of modern Egyptology. His focus was on gathering information about the past, not its material riches or treasures, or even museum-worthy show items (which had been pretty much the goal of archeology until his time).
Flinders Petrie (1853-1942)
He began as a surveyor of the pyramids and then progressed to excavator--working to uncover various layers of ancient Egyptian history. He kept careful records of all his diggings, and considered all finds, no matter how small, to be of important historical significance. He developed a system of typologies for pottery, arranging them according to the time periods in which they typically appeared across the ancient Egyptian cultural landscape, which could then help to identify the different historical layers as they were exposed in his diggings.
Durkheim was the first Chair of Sociology, at the Sorbonne in Paris. Indeed, he is considered the father of modern sociology.
Émile Durkheim (1858-1917)
He studied societies not from the point of view of their relative development in comparison with other societies--but from the point of view of their own functionality: how well they worked as societies. In particular, he was interested in how each society, through the working of its various social "organs," met the tasks of socializing its own members. His approach laid out the groundwork for the functionalist school of sociology or anthropology.
Durkheim put forth the view that individual humans are strongly influenced by the collective conscience of the society they grow up in. This collective conscience is more than merely the sum of all the individual members making up society--but has its own existence which provides continuity and cohesiveness for society. Suicide results when individual members are not able to integrate successfully with that collective conscience--when they suffer "anomie."
De la division du travail social (The Division of Labor) (1893)
Les règles de la méthode sociologique (Rules of Sociological Method) (1895)
Le suicide (Suicide: A Study in Sociology) (1897)
Les formes élémentaires de la vie religieuse (Elementary Forms of Religious Life) (1915)
"Pragmatism and the Question of Truth" (fromPragmatism and Sociology) (1914)Emile Durkheim 1858 - 1917 (Esso Lawrence)
The Durkheim Page
Durkheim's Anomie ("Dr.Deviant")
Max Weber (1864-1920)
The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism
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Helena Petrova Blavatsky (1831-1891)
Isis Unveiled: A Master-Key to the Mysteries of Ancient and Modern Science and Theology. (2 vols.: 1877)
The Secret Doctrine: The Synthesis of Science, Religion, and Philosophy. (2 vols.: 1888)
The Key to Theosophy (1889)H. P. Blavatsky: Theosophical Topics in Depth (Theosophy Northwest)
Helena Petrova Blavatsky (White Mountain)
Theosophy and Madame Blavatsky (Victorian Web: Matthew Mulligan Goldstein)
HPB: Catalyst for Self-Discovery (Jim Belderis)
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Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860)
The Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason
The World as Will and Idea
The World as Will and Representation
On the Basis of Morality
Essay on the Freedom of the Will
Parerga and Paralipomena: Short Philosophical Essays
The Pessimist's Handbook: a Collection of Popular EssaysArthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) (Bluepete Biographies)
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)
The Anti-Christ
Thus Spake Zarathustra (1891) (UMich: Bokov: html) Thus Spake Zarathustra (VaTech: gopher)
Beyond Good and EvilThe Nietzsche Page (USC: Douglas Thomas)
Nietzsche, Friedrich (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
The perspectives of Nietzsche (UPitt: Bill Curry)
Nietzsche Chronicle (Dartmouth: Malcolm Brown)
Friedrich Nietzsche (Katharena Eiermann)
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Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855)
Though Kierkegaard was most definitely a 19th century individual, his work and legacy had to wait well into the twentieth century until it had its great impact within philosophical circles.
Either/Or
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PART ONE: CATHOLIC/ANGLICAN CONSERVATISM
ultramontanist Joseph de Maistre (1754-1821)
Essai sur le principe generateur des constitutions politiques et de autres institiutions humaines (Essay Concerning the General Principle of Political Constitutions and of Other Human Institutions)(1803-1817)
Lettres sur l'Inquisition (1815) (en français)
Du pape (On the Pope) (1819)
Les Soirees de Saint-Petersbourg (Evening Parties of Saint Petersburg) (1821)Joseph-Marie, Comte de Maistre (Catholic Encyclopedia)
Joseph de Maistre: Philosophy
Featured Thinker: Joseph de Maistre (1753-1821) (Alan Gordon)
Co-founder (with Richard Hurrell Froude and John Keble) of the Oxford Movement and publisher of Tracts for the Times (1833 and after). But he came to question the true catholicity of the Church of England (announced in Tract 90) and converted to Catholicism in 1845. He became cardinal in 1879
Cardinal John Henry Newman (1801-1890)
Apologia pro Vita Sua (autobiography) (1864)
Tracts for the Times, No. 1 (UPenn)
Tracts for the Times, No. 2 (UPenn)
Tracts for the Times, No. 3 (UPenn)
Tract Ninety (1841)
Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine (1845)John Henry Newman (Catholic Encyclopedia)
Venerable John Henry Cardinal Newman Mega-Links Page (Dave Armstrong)
A Short Biography of Cardinal John Henry Newman
John Henry Newman: A Brief Biography (Victorian Web: Robert H. Ellison)
John Henry Newman: His Developing Faith, His Life as a Catholic (Victorian Web: E. L. Core)
John Henry Newman: A Chronology (Victorian Web: Robert H. Ellison)
Biographical Note (Pitts Theol. Library)
An Analysis of the Preaching of John Henry Cardinal Newman (Br. Thomas Blau OP)Pusey took over leadership of the Anglo-Catholic movement (in 1845 after Newman's defection). He claimed that the movement involved the restoration of true "primitive Christianity." Edward Bouverie Pusey (1800-1882)
On Pusey (Victorian Web: George P. Landow)Converted to Catholicism in 1851; an extreme ultra-montanist; became cardinal in 1875 Henry Edward Manning (1808-1892)
Pope Pius IX (Giovanni Maria Mastai-Ferretti) (b. 1792; pope: 1846-1878)
Ineffabilis Deus (1854) [the immaculate conception of the virgin]
Syllabus of Errors (1864)
Vatican I (1869-1870)
Papal infallibility (1870)Pope Leo XIII
Encyclical(1891) [Mary as the mediator between the Christian and Christ]PART TWO: PROTESTANT LIBERALISM AND BIBLICAL CRITICISM
In his early years he stressed the importance of faith as being the inner work of the spirit of Christ--a spirit which when formalized into the fixed dimensions of scripture was crippled. However, his Leben Jesu (published posthumously in 1864) attempted to distill the essential or "historical" Jesus from the Scriptural record--resulting in itself a formalized (Liberal) picture of Jesus.
Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834)
Reden über die Religion (1799)
Religion: Speeches to Its Cultured Despisers (1799)
The Christian Faith (1821-22)
Leben Jesu (1864)German Idealist. Used the Hegelian dialectic to describe the development of 1st century theology and writings (the NT): 1) the Jewish Christian "thesis" confronts 2) a Gentile or pagan Christian "antithesis" to 3) produce a second-generation Catholic Christian "synthesis." He concluded (wrongly) that this permitted him to date NT writings according to where they fit into this "development." Ferdinand Christian Bauer (1792-1860)
Paulus der Apostel Jesu Christi (1845)Strauss took Schleiermacher's quest for the historical Jesus forward--employing rationalistic criteria for distilling such a Jesus from the agendas of the first- century Church; the result was a largely secular-liberal image of Jesus as the wise teacher David Friedrich Strauss (1808-1874)
Leben Jesu (1835-1836)Albrecht B. Ritschl (1822-1889)
The Christian Doctrine of Justification and Reconciliation (3 vols.: 1870-1874)
History of Pietism (3 vols.: 1880-1886) [a disapproving account of pietism]Ernst Renan (1823-92)
La vie de Jesus (1863)Julius Wellhausen
Die Composition des Hexateuchs (1885; from essays: 1876-1877) In this work, he carried forward the work of Jean Astruc (previous century) in clearly laying out the evidence of multiple authorship of the 1st six books of the Jewish Scriptures or Old Testament: the "documentary hypothesis."
Israelitische und Jüdische Geschichte In this work, he posited the religious development of Israel (in a Hegelian evolution) from primitive Yahwism of the people, through a refinement by the prophets, to a codification by post-exilic priests of a monotheistic system. Also, the Psalms and wisdom literature he dated from post-exilic times--possibly even the Maccabean period.Adolph von Harnack (1851-1930)
Das Wesen des Christentums (1899-1900) In this work he removed the eschatological aspects of the coming Kingdom--at least from the Last Days with its awful judgment of angels and demons, of principalities and powers--to an already-present spiritual rule of God within the human soul--focusing the kingdom on the present (not future) possibilities offered in this earthly existence.
History of Dogma (3 vols.: 1886-1889)
What is Christianity? (from lectures: 1899-1900)A Union Seminary Professor who in 1893 was dismissed from the Presbyterian ministry as a result of a heresy trial relating to his biblical scholarship. Charles A. Briggs (1841-1913)
He looked beyond the literary structure of Scripture itself to the contemporary cultural milieu of the times in which they were composed--discovering that though the texts may show a late editing, they reflect cultural practices of much greater antiquity, evidence that the material is much older than merely the last editing. Also, he discovered different literary forms or genres which arose out of different social contexts (Sitz im Leben)--which were formalized over time into very precise literary formulae. Many of these same forms are found in the literature of surrounding cultures--giving us an ability to date their origins more precisely. Hermann Gunkel (1862-1932)
Schöpfung and Chaos in Urzeit and Endzeit (1895)
Genesis übersetzt und erklärt (1901)Jewish apocalyptic was not a monolithic affair in Christ's times--but was widely variant; Jesus felt that the coming of the Kingdom (which was immanent) was not of the order of the particular horror which John the Baptist preached--because of the very manner in which Jesus delighted in the things of the present age and the possibilities of harmonious life now among the people; reportings of Jesus' words to the contrary were so out of character with him that they more likely reflect the viewpoint of the first century church than Christ himself. Wilhelm Bousset
Jesu Predigt in ihrem Gegensatz zum Judentum (1892)Claimed that Jesus became "Messiah" only in the minds of his disciples after his death. Wilhelm Wrede
Historical criticism and form criticism seem to imply that Christianity was really only just one of many competing mystery religions of its times: Jesus who died on the cross was only another Adonis or Osiris who, having suffered a violent death, returned to life--to incorporate his mystical devotees into the saving work (immortality or life eternal) of his own resurrection; indeed, the Christ of Christianity is essentially the work of the early church. No understanding of the "historical" Jesus can be drawn from Scripture--as Jesus is lost within the eyewitness of his early followers. Alfred Loisy (1857-1940)
PART THREE: PROTESTANT CONSERVATISM
all Scripture is infallible Archibald Alexander (1772-1851)
Evidences of Christianity (1825 and 1836)
A Brief Compend of Bible TruthCharles Hodge was born in Philadelphia, the last of five children. His father died when Charles was only 6 months old and he was raised by his mother (along with another brother who with Charles were the only children to survive infancy). He attended the College of New Jersey (Princeton), graduating in 1815. He then went on in 1816 to attend Princeton Theological Seminary, studying under Archibald Alexander. He graduated in 1819 and was licensed that fall to preach in the Philadelphia Presbytery. He briefly served as Presbyterian pulpit supply before returning the following year at Alexander's invitation to Princeton to teach biblical languages to seminary students.
Charles Hodge (1797-1878)
He was ordained a Presbyterian minister in 1821 and in 1822 he came on board the Princeton Seminary faculty as Professor of Oriental and Biblical Literature. In 1825 he founded the journal, The Biblical Repertory (later: The Princeton Review) which he would in time use to propound his theology and his views on Scripure. From 1826 to 1828 he studied in France and Germany--and then returned to Princeton to resume his teaching duties.
In 1840 he was moved from the teaching of biblical languages to the teaching of systematic theology--particularly as his long-term mentor Alexander began to step down a bit from his heavy teaching duties. Then in 1851 when Alexander died, Hodge was moved into place as the full heir-apparent of Alexander. From this position as chair of systematic theology at Princeton Seminary he waged a strong defense on behalf of the inerrancy of Scripture against the against the "low" view of Scripture of Liberal biblical critics and against the assault on Biblical faith by the Darwinists.
In his long tenure at Princeton Seminary, he taught more than 2000 seminary students and was instrumental in shaping the theology of much of 19th century Presbyterian and Reformed America (which was a quite significant portion of the Christian scene in the 1800s)
Systematic Theology (1872-1873)A Short Biography of Charles Hodge (Robert Anderson)
A Kneeling Theologian
Charles Hodge and His Objection to Darwinism (Matthew Ropp)A.A. Hodge took the position in the debate on Scripture--that though errors may occur in translation, absolute infallibility (inerrancy) exists within the original autograph of Scripture A. A. Hodge (1823-1886)
Outlines in Theology (1860, 1879)Benjamin B. Warfield (1851-1921)
Inspiration and Authority of the BibleWeiss was critical of the sweeping assertions of Biblical criticism. He emphasized that the very nature of the Kingdom of God as preached by Jesus was such that its transcendental character, born out of the Jewish tradition, made it very difficult to scrutinize by humanist or rationalist logic Johannes Weiss (1863-1914)
Die Predigt Jesu vom Reiche Gottes (1892)PART FOUR: EVANGELICALISM
While theologians debated the finer points of scripture others of the faith went about their business of being Christian. Christian welfare was still the primary source beyond the family of care for the sick and the poor.
To some, the evangelicals, that meant in particular care for the souls of the sick and the poor. Evangelicals believed that people could be reformed or brought out of their poverty of body and mind only through the hearing of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Efforts to reform people through any other means than the power of the gospel were destined to failure--for the heart had to be converted before the rest of the person could be brought to health, strength and wisdom.
That meant that their "call" was to go into the hurting places overseas or in the newly emerging urban order in the West itself and seek out the poor and sick--to bring them into their shelters, to be fed and cared for and--most importantly--be presented with the gospel message of hope.
The Doctrines of Evangelical Protestantism (Victorian Web: George Landow)personal religious conversion (1784); dedicated himself to "real Christianity" as opposed to formal Christianity; Member of British Parliament and leader of the "Clapham Sect" of parliamentary reformers; fierce opponent of the slave trade; supported missionary work in India; social reformer of "morals" of the working poor in England.
William Wilberforce (1759-1833)
A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians(1797)Founder of the Baptist Missionary Society (1792); Baptist missionary to India (1793-1834); translator of the Bible into various Indian languages; founded schools and agricultural colleges; opposed widow-burning (sati) William Carey (1761-1834)
An Enquiry into the Obligation of Christians (1792)Stressed the freedom and power of the human will to make right or wrong choices--denying the doctrine of original sin (though in essence he supported the doctrine with the idea that we are born with "physical" depravity, that is, a tendency to self-gratification)
Charles Grandison Finney (1792-1875)
Lectures on Systematic Theology (1846-1847) (Clark)
Systematic Theology (1878) (Carroll)
Sermons and Articles (Fires of Revival)
Charles G. Finney: An Autobiography (Fires of Revival)Charles Grandison Finney (G. Frederick Wright, 1891)
Charles G. Finney - (1792-1875)
The Legacy of Charles Finney (Michael S. Horton)
Charles Finney's Assault Upon Biblical Preaching (Don Strickland)Scottish explorer and missionary to Africa: criss-crossed the continent in a series of exploration ventures 1851-1856; 1858-1863; 1866-1873. Advocated commercial and agricultural development--along with spread of the Gospel--as the Godly obligation of England to Africa. David Livingstone (1813-1873)
Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa (1857)David Livingstone 1813-1873Co-founders of the Salvation Army out of their tent mission in working class London (1865); severely criticized for unorthodox methods imitating military discipline as a means of rehabilitating down-and-outers, morally and physically. William and Catherine Booth
Victorian and Calvinist Baptist preacher in London.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-1892)
All of Grace (Wheaton: ccel)
"Morning and Evening": Daily Readings (Wheaton: ccel)
"Till He Come": Communion Meditations And Adrresses by C.H. Spurgeon, 1896 (Wheaton: ccel)
C.H. Spurgeon: Grace Online Library (many of his sermons in PDF format)An Introduction to Charles Haddon Spurgeon (Victorian Web)
The C. H. Spurgeon Collection (Bible Bulletin Board)
The Charles Haddon Spurgeon Collection TourA shoe-salesman turned evangelist, Moody moved from Boston to Chicago to spread the gospel to the poor in Chicago's "Little Hell." He was instrumental in setting up the YMCA (Young Men's Christian Association) in the United States as a means of offering poor working class youth hope for a way out of their poverty--and then later the YWCA (Young Women's Christian Association). He also was active in the Sunday School movement.
Dwight L. Moody (1837-1899)
When the Civil War started up in 1861, Moody, an ardent abolitionist (but also something of a pacifist), enlisted as a Union chaplain. But with Union victory he then returned to Chicago to build support for a large Christian tabernacle that could gather large numbers of Christians together (Moody himself served only as a deacon to this independent church).
The Chicago fire of 1871 destroyed his several mission homes and chapels. But he responded by building the Northside Tabernacle--to help others whose lives had been crippled by the fire.
Then Moody joined the musician Ira Shankey to form an evangelical team which took off for England, Scotland and Ireland on an evangelistic crusade, 1873-1875. The campaign succeeded in drawing out huge crowds (several million total). (The two would return to Britain in 1881-1884)
From Britain he and Sankey returned to the States with the hope of stirring the same kind of revival fires in this country. As in England, the politically powerful were glad to join Moody on his platform (President Grant among them). Here too his campaign was a huge success as he moved from American city to city--these two great celebrities, drawing huge crowds, touching the lives of millions of people.
The Story Of Dwight L. Moody
Dwight Lyman Moody 1837-1899
E.M. (Edward) Bounds (1835-1913)
Power through Prayer (Wheaton: ccel)
Purpose In Prayer
The Essentials Of Prayer
The Necessity Of Prayer
Unction: Heaven's Knighthood (Watchword)
Devotion: The Heart of Prayer (Watchword)E.M. Bounds: Prayer Makes History (David Smithers)Plymouth Bretheren (Dispensationalist Pre-millennialism)
R.A. (Reuben Archer) Torrey (1856-1928)
The Great Attraction: The Uplifted Christ
The Power of Prayer
How to Be Inexpressibly Happy
The Day of Golden Opportunity
How to Deal with Those Who Have Little or No Concern about Their Souls
Keep Praying Until God Answers
Reuben Archer Torrey
R.A. Torrey: The Pointed Personal Worker
Reuben Archer Torrey 1856-1928
William Ashley "Billy" Sunday (1862-1935)
When My People No Longer Fear MeWilliam Ashley (Billy) Sunday (1862-1935)PART FIVE: THE SOCIAL GOSPEL
To others, the Christian "call" was to dispense mercy and justice on behalf of the poor--pushing for education, housing and labor reform. Theirs was a "social gospel" which tended to emphasize the responsibility of the Christian to follow the example of Jesus in working with the poor in improving their economic and social conditions. The social gospel tended to work more effectively in inspiring the Christian worker in his or her charity--than in inspiring the recipient of that charity. The poor supposedly could not take hold of the gospel until the economic and social conditions holding them in poverty had been eliminated. This was in keeping with the Liberal view of environmental--rather than personal--factors being the source of the human "problem."
Washington Gladden (1836-1918)
Walter Rauschenbusch (1861-1918)
PART SIX: MILLENIALISM AND THE "NEW REVELATION" RELIGIONS
The difference between the evangelical Christian and the social gospel or "liberal" Christian was closely related to a theological difference that held the 19th century in fascination: millennialism. Millennialism pointed to the Return of Jesus--as he had promised almost 2000 years earlier. But there were strong divisions within millennialism as to exactly how that was to happen.
The pre-millennialists (evangelicals) felt that Jesus was coming according to God's timing and only after he came would the millennium arrive in which the world be delivered from sin and sickness. The task of the Christian was to prepare the world spiritually (through the propagation of the gospel) for his coming.
The post-millennialists (social gospel and liberals) believed quite the opposite: that the return of Christ would come only after the millennium was ushered in--requiring the faithful to work to rid the world of sin and sickness (build the millennium) so that the Lord might come.
There were others who felt that they were living in "prophetic" times. Voices were being heard and new revelations were being issued from God--which were having the effect of creating new Christian (or quasi-Christian) movments: 7th Day Adventists and Mormons in the early part of the century; Christian Scientists and Jehovah's Witness in the later part of the century.
He was the founder of the "Millerite" Adventist movement--from which the Seventh-Day Adventists eventually emerged.
William Miller (1782-1849)
William Miller (Cedar Rapids Seventh-day Adventist Church)
Adventist Family
Adventism (M E Dieter)Founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints (Mormons)
Joseph Smith (1805-1844)
gold tablets (1827)
first church (1830)
The Prophet Joseph Smith (Official Mormon: general intro)
The Prophet Joseph Smith (Official Mormon: biography)
Joseph Smith as a Prophet (Richard Packham: critical essay)Carried Mormonism to Salt Lake City
Brigham Young (1801-1877)
Brigham Young (Official Mormon)founder of Christian Science
Mary Baker Eddy (1821-1910)
Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures (1875)Mary Baker Eddy
Mary Baker Eddy (The First Church of Christ, Scientist in Boston)
Mary Baker Eddy: An Introduction (Christian Science Endtime Center)
Mary Baker Eddy 1821-1910 (National Women's Hall of Fame)Founder of the Jehovah's Witnesses (late 1870s)
Charles Taze Russell (1852-1916)
A New Wine Bottle
Bible Students/Jehovah's Witnesses (Gary Busselman)
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Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel (1784-1846)
Joseph von Fraunhofer (1787-1887)
Gustav Robert Kirchoff (1824-1887)
Annie J. Cannon (1863-1941)
OF MATTER AND LIGHT
An English scientist with a wide range of interests: meterology (especially the aurora), color blindness (he himself was color blind) and chemistry (the study of gasses). But unquestionably his greatest contribution is in his development of the atomic theory of matter. He discovered the atomic weight of various elements and the way the elements neatly arranged themselves in order by atomic weight--to form in 1803 the beginnings of the periodic table. He speculated that the neatly progressive difference in atomic weight of the elements was not because that constituent atoms were of different weight--but of different number (on the supposition that the atoms for all elements were uniform in weight and size). John Dalton (1766-1844)
Meteorological Observations and Essays (1793)
New System of Chemical Philosophy (2 vols: 1808 and 1810)Thomas Young (1773-1829)
Young performed a "double-slit" experiment with light--projecting light through two small holes onto a screen. The resultant light patterns on the screen revealed not two concentrations of light on the screen as one might expect if light were particles, but an array of concentrations (interference patterns) that indicated the dynamics of waves.
"Experiments on Sound and Light" (Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, 1800)
"On the Theory of Light and Colors" (Bakerian Lecture 1801)
"Experiments and Calculations Relative to Physical Optics" (Bakerian Lecture 1803)
A Brief Biography of Thomas Young
Thomas Young (1773-1829)A Danish physicist who discovered in 1820 that when an electrical current in a wire is varied, it acts to deflect a magnetic needle placed nearby--indicating a relationship between electricity and magnetism. Hans Christian Ørsted
A French mathematician, physicist and chemist. He was a professor at Bourg in 1801-1809 and afterwards at the École Polytechnique in Paris. He took up on Ørsted's work on the relationship between electricity and magnetism in 1820 by giving mathematical demonstration of this relationship (by 1827 refined into Ampère's Law). André-Marie Ampère (1775-1836)
Ampère was also a laboratory experimenter who invented a mechanism for measuring the flow of electricity and discovered or predicted the existence of a number of different types of electromagnetic waves.
Memoir on the Mathematical Theory of Electrodynamic Phenomena, Uniquely Deduced from Experience (1827)An original thinker whose curiosity was such that he was not held in check by conventional scientific wisdom was Michael Faraday (1791-1867). Faraday began his work simply as a person who loved to probe the working of things, without much concern as to the larger theoretical or cosmological implications of his research. No grand intellectual loyalties predetermined his approach to his studies. As a result, he was to lay many original foundation stones for a newly emerging, post-Newtonian intellectual edifice.
Michael Faraday (1791-1867)
From his early mentor, Sir Humphry Davy, Michael Faraday conceived the view (actually formulated in the previous century by Ruggero Giuseppe Boscovich) that the foundational nature of elements were not hard substances, but mathematical points surrounded by fields of positive/negative or attracting/repulsing forces acting alternatively to produce each element's distinct structural pattern.
It was Faraday's study of sound that gave rise to his thinking about how these field forces worked as waves or symetrically vibrating lines. When powder was placed on an iron plate which then was vibrated by a violin bow, it formed a regular wave pattern. He was even more startled to discover that the same wave pattern could be produced by the powder when the violin bow was drawn across a neighboring iron plate! These wave patterns could be effected across a distance.
This led him to thinking that electrical currents might work in a similar fashion--producing the "wave" configuration resulting from attractive forces of an on and off stage of electrical flow. Experiments with magnets and iron filings suggested that this might be the case. Faraday was surprised in his experimentation to discover that ending an electrical charge did not merely produce a return to rest of a galvanometer needle, but produced a negative reading in the same measure as the positive reading when a wire was charged with electricity. There seemed to be a natural balance in the rise and fall of the "wave" of energy set off by an electrical charge.
He drew from his experiments the conclusion that electricity was caused by tensions created in matter when such tensions were rapidly built up and then relieved in a rapidly repetitive fashion, in a wavelike fashion, within a substance. Each substance had its own level of tolerance for such electromagnetic action. Some substances, such as copper, were easily impacted by this process--and were thus good "conductors" of electrical energy. Others were very resistant to this process--and could even be used as insulators to restrict or control the flow of electricity.
From this observation Faraday began to believe that possibly all of the forces of nature were fields. He dismissed the Newtonian view of all matter as being like atomic billiard balls knocking into each other to produce motion or life. Instead he saw "substance" as operating something in the manner of energized fields--acting not only through substances but also even infinitely across open space (though with rapidly diminishing impact over any distance).
In an experiment with polarized light projected through optical glass, he observed that a parallel electromagnetic field produced in the light a turning or rotation, indicating that light was affected by the electromagnetic field. But he was startled to discover that in reversing the direction of the ray of light, the rotation remained in the same direction with respect to the parallel electromagnetic field. This pointed to the conclusion that the action on the light was produced by the field force of the electricity and not by the molecular structure of the glass. The action had nothing to do with molecules in the "conductors" (the glass as a conductor of light rays) but with the nearby electromagnetic fields operating on the light rays.
As he had noticed that magnetism and electricity--and possible even light--though seemingly different forces, had the same basic attributes, it was easy for him to speculate that there was much more of matter that would operate in this fashion. Perhaps even all matter worked in acordance with this field-force-as-wave process.
Michael Faraday (1791 - 1867)Mendeleyev was a Russian chemist who attempted to derive the original elements of all substances--that is the substances that themselves could not be separated further into constituent components. Then he attempted to classify these elements into an orderly array. He noticed how the elements arranged themselves in a natural array according to particular chemical and structural properties--ones repeated over and over again to reveal an underlying periodic structure. Dmitry Ivanovich Mendeleyev (1834-1907)
Using the ideas of John Dalton concerning atomic weights of the elements, Mendeleyev presented this progressive, periodic array of the elements in accordance with each element's particular atomic weight, weight based on the particular number of atoms contained in each of the separate elements.
There were gaps in his system--but he predicted (correctly) that these gaps would eventually be filled as more of the elements were discovered. The system also gave explanation to various chemical relations in a more comprehensive or systematic fashion--and was an important step in the direction of explaining (a generation later) the natural transformation of one element into another through the process of radioactive decay (the loss of constituent atoms).
The Principles of Chemistry (1868-1870)It was James Clerk Maxwell that in 1873 would give definite proof to Faraday's idea that magnetism, electricity and light were structured very much alike. Through experimentation he was able to demonstrate that an electric current moved in a wave pattern through a wire at the same rate as the known speed of light through space (186,000 miles per second). This gave powerful evidence that light and electricity were closely related. Indeed, he claimed that there were probably all kinds of electomagnetic waves--operating at different frequencies, well beyond the ones the one that human eye was able to pick up. Even the waves the eye sees are of slightly different frequency--giving rise to their color variation. White light was the sum of all light falling within the frequency range the human eye could detect.
James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879)
Maxwell's experiments left questions about how it was that light moved through space. Though Faraday's work had demonstrated that it was not through molecular action that light (or electricity) moved, it still seemed to Maxwell to require some carrying substance, some material "medium" to move light. Maxwell thus took up the ether theory and tried to erect an explanation of the movement of light across space, using ether as the medium of light.
Theory of Heat (1871)
Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism(1873)
Matter and Motion (1876)
Albert Michelson (1852-1931) and Edward Morley
Velocity of Light (1902)
Light Waves and their Uses (1899-1903)
Studies in Optics (1927)Albert Abraham Michelson (the Nobel Foundation)George Fitzgerald
Hendrik Lorentz (1853-1928)
Hendrik Antoon Lorentz (the Nobel Foundation)A German professor of physics at the Karlsruhe Polytechnic who in the second half of the 1880s was able to reproduce electromagnetic waves--and study their particular nature and action as waves. His work with radio waves was his greatest contribution. He noted that radio waves travelled at the same speed as light (186,000 miles per second), linking them to the growing family of electromagnetism/light. He demonstrated that radio waves, like light, could be reflected, refracted and diffracted. He then applied this knowledge in transmitting and receiving radio waves, thus founding radio technology. Heinrich Hertz (1857-1894)
He studied the dynamics of complex systems, lines of motion across irregular topographies (such as mountains and valleys). He suggested that there would always be elements of unpredictability about such motion. Henri Poincaré
The Relativity of Space (from Science and Method)
Becquerel is credited with discovering radioactivity.
Antoine Henri Becquerel (1852-1908)
Antoine Henri Becquerel (the Nobel Foundation)
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Empiricist/Positivist
Ernst Mach (1838-1916)
The Analysis of Sensations
Gottlob Frege (1848-1925)
Frege was a mathematician and philosopher at the University of Jena in Germany. He attempted to reduce the language of logic to mathematic formulation to give it a precision and clarity.
Begriffsschrift (Concept Notation) (1879)
Die Grundlagen der Arithmetik: (The Foundations of Arithmetic) (1891)
Über Sinn und Bedeutung (On Sense and Denotation) (1892)
Grundgesetze der Arithmetik (Basic Laws of Arithmetic) (1893 & 1903)
Der Gedanke. Eine logische Untersuchung (Thought: A Logical Enquiry) (1918)Gottlob Frege (1848-1925) (Brian W. Carver)
Frege, Gottlob (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Friedrich Ludwig Gottlob Frege1848-1925 (Björn)German phenomenologist: classifier of elements of reality (phenomena) and analysis of the essence of each phenomenon
Edmund Husserl (1859-1938)
Early influenced by his teacher at the University of Vienna, Franz Brentano--who focused philosophical enquiry into how the
mind experiences an object (not the truth or falseness of the object itself). Husserl promoted the idea of a phenomenological
reduction of things, so that what we are actually studying is our experience of something, apart from what the thing might actually be apart from our own particular experience.The goal was to reach a sense of the transcending ego--a self-awareness or self-conciousness of such purity of refinement that it attains the "Archimedian point." To Husserl this Archimedian point was far from being merely some kind of subjectivistic
reality--but was a distinct phenomenon that could be analyzed mathematically, even though it was founded on the inner
experience of a person and not on the things "out there" which we think of as standing on their own apart from whether they are
ever observed or not.
Philosophy of Arithmetic (1891) An early work in which Husserl described mathematics as the product of the logical ordering (producing generalizations from specifics) of empirical data. Mathematics is thus the by-product of the human mind: it is a psychological science. It has subjective reality only in that it is a system of symbols useful in ordering empirical data into comprehensible units of thought.Logical Investigations (1900-1901) Marks a radical shift in Husserl's thinking: phenomenology is a "non-empirical" science. It focuses on pure phenomena, that is, pure "essences" of various things and events that we observe. The human powers of observation focus us on a particular thing or an event out of the mass of information that our minds could be aware of at any one moment: there is an intentionality about human consciousness. What directs that focus is a sense of recognizing a particular pattern or "essence" which sets a thing or an event apart from the surrounding data. But likewise, that particular thing or event comes into "being" or achieves its "essence" only in its being drawn out from among all the data through the very act of being observed. Thus both the observer and the thing observed are interdependent parts of the essence of things.
Henri Bergson (1859-1941)
Time and Free Will (1889)
Matter and Memory (1896)
Laughter (1900)
Creative Evolution (1907)
An Introduction to Metaphysics (1913)
The Two Sources of Morality and Religion (1932)
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Alexander Graham Bell (1847-1922)
An American inventor of wide interests and abilities--who patented over 1000 processes and instruments during his lifetime.
Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931)
Edison was born in Milan, Ohio and raised with virtually no formal education. At age 12 he began selling newspapers at a train station--and in a few years had succeeded in moving himself into the station's telegraph office as operator, in turn taking him to a number of cities as telegraphist. From this occupation emerged his interest in technological development--especially with respect to the sending of messages across electrical lines. But he also applied himself to study and experimentation in a number of other related areas. In 1868 he took out his first patent--a machine for recording and counting votes. This was followed by work on a number of other machines--to improve the telegraph, the typewriter, stock ticker tapes, copying devices.
In the mid 1870s his experiments led to the development of the carbon transmitter, very important in regulating the electrical current send across wire. At about the same time (1877) he patented a simple phonograph of a cylinder covered by tin foil and turned by hand. Within ten years he had vastly improved the machine by placing his recordings on a wax cylinder and turning it by an electrical motor.
In 1879 he patented the design of the first light bulb--an electrified carbon thread glowing in a glass vacuum. Efforts to improve this important invention led him further into work on electrical generators and transmitters for heat, light and power.
He extended his work in the 1880s into design of an electrical railway, a prototype of the first radio tube, and an electric transmitter which could send signals through the air between ships and trains. In the 1890s he worked at a way of using electricity to produce iron ore concentrations (1890s). In the early 1900s he developed an improved electrical storage battery.
In 1891 he patented a camera which was able to take pictures in rapid success onto a film strip when then could be run through an illuminated box to produce motion pictures. Later he was to develop the projector--by which the images were thrown on a screen by a bright light.
During America's involvement in World War One (1917-1918) Edison extended his realm of experimental interests to include chemicals used in warfare.
A Birthday Salute to Thomas Edison: The Wizard of Menlo Park (Nelson & Wolfe)
Thomas Edison's Invention Web
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The 19th Century: The West Ascendent (Spiritual Pilgrim)
Movements and Currents in Nineteenth-Century British Thought (Victorian Web: George Landow) Other Sources:
An Overview of Religion in Great Britain (Victorian Web)
The Tractarian Movement (Victorian Web: Herbert Schlossberg)
