William Harvey is most famous for discovering the circulation of blood, but just as important was his work on reproduction.  He opposed earlier theorists who believed human life began with a seed produced by the male.  Harvey himself theorized that all life came from eggs: not only for birds, but also for mammals.  Because the microscope had not yet been invented, he had no way to prove his theory, but he became famous for the dictum omne vivum ex ovo or “all life from eggs.”  The engraved frontispiece of his treatise on the subject depicts Jove opening an egg and releasing all forms of life into the world.

Gift of the University of Delaware Library Associates

Robert Boyle. Some Considerations Touching the Usefulnesse of Experimental Natural Philosophy.  Propos’d in a Familiar Discourse to a Friend, by Way of Invitation to the Study of It. Oxford: Printed by Henry Hall for Richard Davis, 1664-1671.

Robert Boyle (1627-1691) is known as one of the fathers of modern chemistry.  He was an important proponent of the experimental methods devised by Francis Bacon, which were the forerunners of the modern scientific method.  In his most famous work, The Sceptical Chemist (1661) Boyle argued against Aristotle’s view that the four elements (earth, air, fire, and water) were the basis of all material things.  He advocated a science based on experimentation and observation rather than on a priori assumptions.  In Some Considerations Touching the Usefulnesse of Experimental Natural Philosophy (first published in 1663), Boyle argued for teaching experimental science in schools.

Gift of the University of Delaware Library Associates

Johann Nikolaus Martius. Unterricht in der natürlichen Magie, oder, Zu allerhand belustigenden und nützlichen Kunststücken. Berlin und Stettin: Bey Friedrich Nicolai, 1786-1807.

This dictionary of experiments, demonstrations, and tricks in the fields of electricity, magnetism, optics, chemistry, mechanics, numbers, and cards was first issued in 1739. Early volumes focus more on magic, but later expanded and enlarged editions of the book developed into a very useful and instructive record of the latest discoveries in physics and chemistry. The experiments in this twenty-volume work range from card tricks and producing charm mirrors to recipes for preserving sour cherries and removing ink spots. Johann Christian Wiegleb (1732-1800), who edited this expanded version of Martius' work, was one of a growing group of apothecaries in the eighteenth century that played an increasingly active role in scientific research, especially in chemistry.

Gift of the University of Delaware Library Associates

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) is best known as a celebrated literary figure of the German Romantic period.  While most critics would point to Faust as his most important work, Goethe himself considered his greatest achievement his Farbenlehre, or his science of color.  This work, published in 1810, disputes Newton’s theory that white light is made up of a spectrum of colors.  Goethe argued instead that colors resulted from a mixture of dark and light, an idea demonstrated in the color plate shown here.  Despite Goethe’s confidence in his theory, it was based on a misunderstanding of Newtonian optics and has long been considered a failure.

Sir Charles Eastlake translated and published Goethe’s Farbenlehre, not because he agreed with Goethe’s attack on Newton, but because Goethe’s ideas about color closely mirrored those of the Renaissance and so were useful for the practice of painting.  Eastlake’s translation made Goethe’s ideas very influential in England, especially for the Pre-Raphaelites and for J.M.W. Turner, who made a careful study of the book and applied its ideas to his own unique approach to color.

Lammot du Pont Memorial Book Fund 

Like Goethe, Louis-Bertrand Castel (1688-1751) opposed Newtonian color theory.  However, unlike Goethe, who had thought that Newton’s experiments were flawed, Castel rejected experimental science altogether.  Castel supported the views of René Descartes, a French philosopher who distrusted sense perception and advocated science based on logical thought rather than on empirical observation.  “Newton,” Castel complained, “reduced man to using only his eyes.”

Castel himself theorized that vibrations produced color, just as they produced sounds.  He concluded, therefore, that colors and sounds were analogous, which led him to attempt to develop the “ocular harpsichord” described in this book.  The harpsichord was supposed to display colors in correspondence with particular notes.  He had originally meant for the harpsichord to remain theoretical, but the skepticism of his critics caused him to spend thirty years trying to construct such an instrument.

Melva B. Guthrie Fund

With Versuch eines farbensystems, Ignaz Schiffermüller attempts to show the practical uses of Castel’s ideas on color.  On the frontispiece, he presents a very ornamental illustration highlighting Castel’s color wheel.  Much of the rest of the book deals with dyeing techniques and materials.

Melva B. Guthrie Fund, D.L. Hawkins Memorial Library Fund, and Frank W. Tober Memorial Fund