by F. C.
About this book
De Harmonie van het Dierlijke Leven: De Openbaring van Wetten by F. C. arrives as a stirring 1848 inaugural lecture that confronts the role of purpose in the study of living beings. In this classic piece of 19th-century scientific rhetoric, the author critiques teleological reasoning in physiology and pathology—arguing that treating presumed purposes as explanations undermines rigorous inquiry—and urges the search for lawful, mechanistic accounts of animal life. Drawing on contemporary debates and figures such as Henle, and delivered at the Utrecht high school on 28 January 1848, the lecture situates itself at the turning point when biology moved from purpose-driven narratives toward law-centered science. Themes of anthropomorphism, methodological clarity, and the apparent harmony of organismal functions recur as the author disentangles explanatory habits from empirical demands. Clear, polemical, and historically revealing, this Science work illuminates how foundational disputes shaped modern physiology and the philosophy of biology. Ideal for historians of science, students of physiology and philosophy, and curious listeners who want to trace the intellectual shift from teleology to natural law, this audiobook offers a concise, argument-driven window into the emergence of scientific explanation.
