4 - The Earth, the Sea, the Air, and Their Inhabitants: Physical Geography (1848) and On Molecular and Microscopic Science (1869)

Summary

The deeper the research, the more does the inexpressible perfection of God's works appear, whether in the majesty of the heavens, or in the infinitesimal beings of the earth.

–Mary Somerville, On Molecular and Microscopic Science

As in a theater,

The lights are extinguished, for the scene to be changed

–T. S. Eliot, “East Coker”

As previous chapters have demonstrated, one of the hallmarks of Somerville's rhetoric of science was a theme she borrowed from the eighteenth-century scientific poets – the idea that science was a pathway to God, a form of elevated meditation, and that detailed examination of nature revealed the intricacy, drama, harmony, and beauty that God had incorporated into the design of universe. In this view, the capacity for exact calculation and for in-depth and precise understanding of phenomena was an aid rather than a hindrance to appreciating the wonders of the creation. She pursued the creative possibilities of this idea in new settings in Physical Geography and On Molecular and Microscopic Science. In Mechanism and Connexion, Somerville had provided her readers with an expanded conception of the universe and surveyed the celestial and some aspects of the terrestrial spheres. In Physical Geography and On Molecular and Microscopic Science, she turned her attention to the remainder of God's handiwork – the earth, the sea, the air, and their many animal and vegetable inhabitants. As she explored and presented detailed scientific accounts of these subjects, Somerville took up another theme borrowed from the scientific poets: the analogy between the worlds revealed by the telescope and microscope.