Science, Religion, and the Motion of the Earth

We may distinguish the progress of each science as it is in itself, which has no other limit than the number of truths it includes within its sphere, and the progress of a nation in each science, a progress which is regulated first by the number of men who are acquainted with its leading and most important truths, and next by the number and nature of the truths so known. In fine, we are now come to that point of civilization, at which the people derive a profit from intellectual knowledge, n...

 Progress of Science in the Eighth Epoch

The march of the sciences is rapid and brilliant. The Algebraic language becomes generalized, simplified and perfected, or rather it is now only that it was truly formed. The first foundations of the general theory of equations are laid, the nature of the solutions which they give is ascertained, and those of the third and fourth degree are resolved. The ingenious invention of logarithms, as abridging the operations of arithmetic, facilitates the application of calculation to the various obj...

 Davy Poem Using Laws of Conservation and Thermodynamics

In a thoughtful mood Davy wrote a new kind of metaphysical poem, ‘The Massy Pillars of the Earth. It reflects on the human condition, and suggests that since nothing is ever destroyed in the physical universe, only transformed (the First Law of Thermodynamics), then man himself must be immortal in some spiritual sense. It also returns in a new way to Davy’s early Cornish beliefs about starlight as the source of all energy in the universe: Nothing is lost; the ethereal fire, Which from the fa...