In Mary Somerville’s exploration of
The Connexion of The Physical Sciences she
makes repeated references to the use of one means of study as a scale for
studying another science. She initiates
her argument by discussing how man is raised from “the lowly objects” by
studying earth in relation to the heavens, while at the same time studying the
heavens reminds humans about their insignificance in the universe. As she continues to discuss the connection
between the sciences Sommerville raises an interesting point about
relationships and their uses in science.
She argues that true beauty comes through comparisons such as these that
“maintain the harmony and stability of the whole.” She makes similar claims at the end of her
essay when she describes how “a knowledge of the action of matter upon light is
requisite for tracing the curved path of its rays through the atmosphere.” She argues that beauty and understanding in
science comes from its connectedness.
At other
points in her essay Somerville writes about how scientific pursuits bring
“delight through discovery.” She says
that it is by reaching successful scientific conclusions that true joy in
science is revealed. I believe that
Somerville is raising an interesting point about where the true merit of
science comes from. Somerville supports
both responses, but the question still remains “Is it the connection between
the sciences that makes them beautiful, or is it the understanding that is
achieved through studying them that truly makes them worthwhile.”
I find it really interesting that Somerville was able to make connections between religion, aestheticism, and science. We began the course by discussing how today we force science and humanities into boxes. Somerville, however, draws the connections and even calls science "sublime".
ReplyDeleteI would expect that Somerville would reply that the understanding achieved is the ability to see the connections, and that in seeing the beauty of the connections the pursuit of science is made worth while. She does mention in the text that it is persons who are practiced astronomy and higher mathematics who "alone can appreciate the extreme beauty of the results, and of the means by which theses results are obtained"(115). Which I think is of importance to her point. Somerville is not speaking lightly of the connections, but of the fact that through painstaking observation and computation results appear as if by magic. This moment of discovery, which demonstrates how all the sciences percolate through each other and and at the same time support each other is, I think, unrivaled in its elegance.
ReplyDeleteI agree with what Todd says about the wonder of the results and the ability to see the connections. For Somerville, both are sublime and science is the pursuit of the sublime, of understanding it but also marveling at the infinitude of sublime subjects to study. Once humans discover the connections between certain scientific phenomena and get the results of an experiment, they are only faced with more connections, which to Somerville shows the infinitude of divine creation. She sees the human capacity to try to understand the divine as itself sublime, because humans have a seemingly infinite ability to learn and, to her, God has an even greater capacity for creating things for humans to learn.
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