Robert Boyle, “The Sceptical Chymist”, 1661 was the topic of an earlier blog post.
Carl Darling Buck,“Dictionary of Selected Synonyms in the Principal Indo-European Languages”, 1949 also was the topic of an earlier blog post.
Here I present: Philip Wiener, “Dictionary of the History of Ideas: Studies of Selected Pivotal Ideas”, 1973.
COMMENT.
This book is a dictionary of terms that are beyond the definition used in everyday speech. All of the terms in this dictionary are of philosophical content that are of historical importance. The term elements’ is one such word in the history of ideas.
Aristotle’s (384-322 BC) usage of the term elements’ was of five (5) things: ether, air, water, land and fire (shown ABOVE). This Greek philosophy of the elements’ was the objection of Robert Boyle’s, “The Sceptical Chymist”, 1661. After 1661 the Aristotelian term elements’ ceased being philosophical and became physical. Robert Boyle’s definition of molecular element’ in 1661 was pivotal in the history of ideas. Molecules were combinations of elements’ in the definition of Robert Boyle’ concept of mass. Robert Boyle put forth the “conservation of mass” that was pivotal in the history of ideas.
Here I presented: Philip Wiener, “Dictionary of the History of Ideas: Studies of Selected Pivotal Ideas”, 1973. This dictionary consists of terms of philosophical definitions that were pivotal in the history of ideas.
This blog post focused on one term elements’ to show the history of the idea.
The table BELOW is four (4) sections of the elements’:
4. Frederick Soddy 1922.
The middle tabulation is first list of periodic elements’ by Antoine Lavoisier in 1789. The last tabulation is from Dmitri Mendeleev in 1868 of the native elements’ he knew. Elements’ was term in the history of ideas in the Age of Gravity of Robert Boyle and Isaac Newton. The past century has been the Frederick Soddy definition for native elements’.
