Astronomy and General Physics; Considered with Reference to Natural Theology
William Whewell
Abstract
William Whewell boasted few scientific “discoveries” and yet was one of the most influential figures in nineteenth-century British science. Whewell fit the description of a true polymath. Whewell employed Herschel’s cornfield analogy to explain the movement of sound as an impulse through particles, as in the fashion of wind blowing through ears of corn. Besides the function which air discharges as the great agent in the changes of meteorology and vegetation, it has another office, also of great and extensive importance, as the vehicle of sound. If the atmosphere be considered as a vast machine, it is difficult to form any just conception of the profound skill and comprehensiveness of design which it displays. The loudness of sound is such as is convenient for common purposes. The lowest stage of vitality and irritability appears to carry the reader beyond mechanism, beyond affinity.