Dialogues on the beauty of nature and Moral reflections on certain topics of natural historyUniversity Press of America, 2005 - 123 pages Swiss critic Johann Georg Sulzer's Dialogues on the Beauty of Nature (1750) and Reflections on Certain Topics of Natural History (1745) are exemplary specimens of eighteenth-century European theology, philosophy, natural history, and aesthetics. Sulzer's contemporaries-notably Goethe-read him with attention. Eric Miller's elegant translation comes with a vivid, informative, and strongly contextualizing introduction. Sulzer's early works are a curio cabinet of the philosophical and theological arguments that exercised and enticed the intelligentsia of his period. These topics and arguments have by no means forfeited pertinence today. |
Common terms and phrases
according admire agreeable Alexander Pope animalcules arranged astonishment Badroulbadour beasts beauty of nature bees birds bliss body bring chance Charites Christensen consummate contemplation of nature contrived countless creation creator delight derive dialogue discover earth Emilia entire Eukrates Eukrates's everything exist experience feel flowers Génie du Christianisme Goethe grotto harmony heavens Heinrich Christoph Koch highest imagine inconceivable infinite innumerable insects invention Johann Georg Sulzer judge kind Leibniz live look lowliest manifest matter mind Moral reflections mutants natural history nature's nourishment objects observation order of nature ourselves Pangloss perceive perfect person Pietism plants pleasure Polypus Pope quadrupeds reason rejoined remarkable rules single soul species spirit structure sublime Sulzer's note surpasses things Thomas Christensen thou thoughts thousands tion topic triangle truth tubes universe vegetable kingdom volcano lover Wallace Stevens Werther whole wisdom witness wonder worm