ENGLISH

Of the Plurality of Worlds: An Essay

By William Whewell

Book information

Publisher
Cambridge University Press
Year
2009
ISBN
1108000185, 9781108000185
Google Books ID
GrHBPwAACAAJ
Language
english
Format
PDF
Filesize
21 MB (21699905 bytes)
Series
Cambridge Library Collection - Religion
Edition
Reissue
Pages
294\294
Orientation
yes
Scanned
yes
Time added
2011-08-31 04:54:40

Description

This controversial essay, first published in 1853, addresses the question of the existence of intelligent life on other planets. It was first published anonymously, owing to the ferocity of the ongoing debates between the religious and scientific scholarly communities. Its author, William Whewell (1794-1866) was a leading intellectual of the Victorian period, and a notable polymath. A contemporary and adviser of Herschel, Darwin and Faraday, he wrote extensively on subjects ranging from astronomy and mineralogy to moral philosophy, educational reform and architecture, and engaged with John Stuart Mill in a lively debate about inductive reasoning. In Of The Plurality of Worlds, Whewell denied the probability of life elsewhere in the universe, afraid that the concept of extraterrestrial life would encourage the theory of evolution and put at risk mankind's connection to God.

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