History Of The Inductive Sciences - Volume 3

This is a three-volume history of the physical sciences written by William Whewell. The first volume covers the history of the Greek philosophers and their theories of the physical world. The second volume covers the history of the mechanico-chemical sciences, which include studies of electricity, magnetism, and thermodynamics. The third volume covers the history of the physical sciences up to the present day, including the history of mineralogy, botany, zoology, and anatomy.

A central figure in Victorian science, William Whewell (1794-1866) held professorships in Mineralogy and Moral Philosophy at Trinity College, Cambridge, before becoming Master of the college in 1841. His mathematical textbooks, such as A Treatise on Dynamics (1823), were instrumental in bringing French analytical methods into British science. This three-volume history, first published in 1837, is one of Whewell's most famous works. Taking the 'acute, but fruitless, essays of Greek philosophy' as a starting point, it provides a history of the physical sciences that culminates with the mechanics, astronomy, and chemistry of 'modern times'. Volume 3 first covers the mechanico-chemical sciences, emphasizing the convergence of mechanical and chemical theories in discoveries pertaining to electricity, magnetism and thermodynamics. A section on chemistry surveys Becher and Stahl's phlogiston theory, Lavoisier's theory of oxygen, and Faraday's laws of electromagnetic induction. The volume also covers mineralogy, botany, zoology, and anatomy.