Sir Charles Bell and the Bridgewater Treatises / by Benjamin Spector.
- Spector, Benjamin, 1893-1976
- Date:
- 1942
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Sir Charles Bell and the Bridgewater Treatises / by Benjamin Spector. Source: Wellcome Collection.
4/14 page 314
![[Reprinted from Bulletin of the History of Medicine, Vol. XII, No. 2, July, 1942.] SIR CHARLES BELL AND THE BRIDGEWATER TREATISES BENJAMIN SPECTOR It seems to me that there are three reasons why the subject of this paper merits consideration. First, we properly take note of the death of Sir Charles Bell, an eminent anatomist, who died in Worcester, England on April 27th, 1842. He was a scientist who forged an enduring link in the chain of knowledge comparable, as has been frequently pointed out, to the work of William Harvey. Second, the Bridgewater Treatises, with which the name of Sir Charles Bell is indelibly associated, occupies an important place in the cumulative argument of design. Inasmuch as the causes of adaptations with which the Treatises concerned themselves are even now not ade- quately explained, it appears inevitable that the philosophical implica- tions of the argument of design will come up from time to time as a vital issue, as indeed it has arisen in recent years. Third, our present political, social and economic plight shows us that the world is not quite sure whether Plato or Aristotle was right—whether man is Spirit or Machine. This controversy also occupied the mind of Sir Charles Bell. Philosophers, Historians, Theologians and Scien- tists continually return to a consideration of the argument of design albeit in the more inclusive and expansive sense of an Immanent controlling principle, as witness the writings of Tennant,* Haldane,’ Whitehead,*? Osborn,* Eddington,° Pupin,® Becker,’ and Einstein.® To come back to Charles Bell himself, the first consideration that I would bring to your notice is that if we would grasp the full signifi- cance of the man, we must regard him as the meeting point of two Tennant, F. R., Philosophical Theology, Vol. 2, p. 84, 1930. ? Haldane, J. S., Mechanism, Life and Personality, pp. 67, 125, 133, 1923. 5 Whitehead, A. N., Adventure of Ideas, 1933, p. 251. “Osborn, H. F., Evolution and Religion in Education, 1926, p. 62. 5 Eddington, A. S., The Nature of the Physical World, p. 328, 330, 1928. * Pupin, M., Has Science Discovered God? A symposium of Modern Scientific Opinion—Edward H. Cotton, Ed., 1931, p. 183. 7 Becker, C. L., Progress and Power, pp. 78, 80, 101, 1935. ® Einstein, A., See reference under 6, p. 97, 101. Read at the Eighteenth Annual Meeting of the American Association of the History of Medicine, Atlantic City, N. J., May 3-5, 1942.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b33631608_0004.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
