The Spirit of Inquiry

February 28, 2019 By John E. Riutta in Newly Noted Books Tags: book, cambridge, gibson, history, inquiry, News, philosophical, society, spirit

As my dear friend Mr. Grey is fond of saying at the beginning of sentences, “If I’m honest…” I’m not all that familiar with the Cambridge Philosophical Society. However as 2019 marks the bicentennial of its founding “by Adam Sedgwick and John Stevens Henslow as a place where university graduates could meet to discuss current scientific ideas and present new research” it seems a particularly appropriate time to correct this deficiency in my understanding of the history of science.

Which is why I shall be soon be beginning my reading of the advance reading copy of Dr. Susannah Gibson’s forthcoming The Spirit of Inquiry; How One Extraordinary Society Shaped Modern Science, taking copious notes and hoping to find in its pages a number of other things about which I am yet ignorant so that I may correct them as well.

John E. Riutta

Founder and publisher of The Well-read Naturalist. Inveterate autodidact. Has repeatedly been found out standing in many fields. Plays well with otters.

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