The Discovery of Time

Front Cover......Page 1
Title Page......Page 5
Contents......Page 7
Acknowledgements......Page 11
Authors’ Foreword......Page 17
INTRODUCTION The Problem of Historical Inference......Page 19
1. Memories and Myths......Page 25
Chronicles and Genealogies......Page 26
Myths and Legend......Page 31
Historical Cosmology in Miletos......Page 35
The Divorce o f History from Philosophy......Page 40
Plato\'s Creator-Craftsman......Page 44
Aristotle\'s Eternal Universe......Page 46
Stoics and Epicureans......Page 48
The Limits of the Classical World-Picture......Page 51
The Beginnings of Natural History......Page 52
Christianity and History......Page 57
Fundamentalism and Allegory......Page 59
The New Chronology......Page 61
The Mediaeval World-Allegory......Page 67
The Dream o f the Millennium......Page 72
4. The Revival of Natural Philosophy......Page 76
The Fall of the World......Page 77
Descartes\' Mathematical Philosophy......Page 79
The Theological Consequences of Cartesianism......Page 85
The Blueprints of Creation......Page 89
The Great Chain o f Being......Page 98
The Eighteenth-Century Commonplaces......Page 103
The Birth of Historical Criticism......Page 105
Decay or Progress?......Page 108
The Customs of the Ages......Page 112
Human Nature and Social Change......Page 115
The Myth of the Social Contract......Page 120
Intimations of Progress......Page 123
Vico: the Mendel o f History......Page 127
Kant and Cosmic Evolution......Page 131
Herder and the Development of Nature......Page 137
7. The Earth Acquires a History......Page 143
The Epochs  of Nature......Page 144
The Fact of Geological Change......Page 160
The Agents o f Geological Change......Page 162
The Perspective of Indefinite Time......Page 165
The Historical Time-Barrier is Broken......Page 169
8. The Background to Darwin......Page 181
Are There Fixed Species in Nature?......Page 182
The Temporal Sequence o f Forms......Page 187
The Problem o f Inheritance......Page 194
The Final Impasse......Page 199
9. Life Acquires a Genealogy......Page 207
Darwin Recognizes His Problem......Page 209
The Creation o f the \'Origin\'......Page 214
The Structure o f the \'Origin\'......Page 216
The Scientific Objections......Page 222
Darwinism and Natural Theology......Page 234
10. History and the Human Sciences......Page 242
The Recognition of Progressive Change......Page 243
Critical History and its Implications......Page 245
The Evolution o f Humanity......Page 248
The Flux o f Nature......Page 254
11. Time and the Physical World......Page 257
The Evolution o f Stars and Chemical Elements......Page 260
Astronomy and the Problem o f Creation......Page 264
Truth, Hypothesis or Myth?......Page 267
Are the Laws of Nature Changing?......Page 273
EPILOGUE Nature and History......Page 276
The Evolution o f Ideas......Page 279
Index......Page 283
Back Cover......Page 292