THE NINTH BRIDGEWATER TREATISE. A FRAGMENT — By Charles Babbage — 2nd Edition, 1838 — NATURAL THEOLOGY, Inventor of the Calculating Machine, Inventor of Punch Card System For Computers, Mathematics, Physics, Cryptology, Astronomy, Engineering Publisher: John Murray and Co., London (1838)
The Ninth Bridgewater Treatise. A Fragment, by
The Inventor of A Primitive Prototype of the Digital Programmable Computer, Charles Babbage, in well preserved condition. The full calf leather boards and binding are solid and tight, with light shelfwear. Raised gilt bands on spine; marbled endpapers. The pages are crisp and clean save for remains of an ex-libris label and name on the first blank page, and some spots of very light foxing on the end pages and the title page. "
This was an
unsolicited addition to the original eight treatises on natural religion that
were published under the terms of the will of the Earl of Bridgewater. Babbage
felt, with justification, that these (especially the work of Chalmers, the
first treatise) contained a strong anti-scientific bias, one that he did not
want to allow to go unaddressed. The work makes frequent reference to
calculating machines and details the construction of his own calculating
machine, and is justly famous for the demonstration that is is possible to
program a hypothetical calculating machine to produce "miracles." Proponents
of his work conclude that he created the concept of the programmable digital
computer. It is not a huge jump from some of Babbage's positions to those
posited by digital philosophy in modern cosmology and physics. As an aside, in
one appendix Babbage proposes a system of tree-ring dating of strata, quite
possibly the first time that this method had been proposed for archaeological
dating." [Wikipedia] Please see below for more information on Charles Babbage.
Natural Theology and The Ninth Bridgewater Treatise
In 1837,
responding to the series of eight Bridgewater Treatises, Babbage published his
Ninth Bridgewater Treatise, under the title On the Power, Wisdom and Goodness
of God, as manifested in the Creation. In this work Babbage weighed in on the
side of uniformitarianism in a current debate. He preferred the conception of
creation in which a God-given natural law dominated, removing the need for
continuous "contrivance". The book is a
work of natural theology, and incorporates extracts from related correspondence
of Herschel with Charles Lyell. Babbage put forward the thesis that God had the
omnipotence and foresight to create as a divine legislator. In this book,
Babbage dealt with relating interpretations between science and religion; on
the one hand, he insisted that "there exists no fatal collision between
the words of Scripture and the facts of nature;" on the one hand, he wrote
the Book of Genesis was not meant to be read literally in relation to
scientific terms. Against those who said these were in conflict, he wrote
"that the contradiction they have imagined can have no real existence, and
that whilst the testimony of Moses remains unimpeached, we may also be
permitted to confide in the testimony of our senses." The Ninth
Bridgewater Treatise was quoted extensively in Vestiges of the Natural History
of Creation. The parallel with Babbage's computing machines is made explicit,
as allowing plausibility to the theory that transmutation of species could be
pre-programmed.
Astronomical
Society
Babbage was
instrumental in founding the Astronomical Society in 1820. Its initial aims
were to reduce astronomical calculations to a more standard form, and to
circulate data. These directions were closely connected with Babbage's ideas on
computation, and in 1824 he won its Gold Medal, cited "for his invention
of an engine for calculating mathematical and astronomical tables". Babbage's
motivation to overcome errors in tables by mechanization. This was in 1821 or
1822, and was the occasion on which Babbage formulated his idea for mechanical
computation. A portion of the
difference engine. Babbage studied the requirements to establish a
modern postal system. -Wikipedia
