The contents of Scala Graduum Caloris are described, supplemented by unpublished material. Both temperature measurements by his linseed oil thermometer and those based upon his law of cooling are shown to be reasonably accurate to 300°C, but above that value they are much too low. The apparent agreement and the deviation are explained by the differences between the assumptions that Newton made in deriving his law of cooling and the conditions in which he used it. Newton's attempts to link terrestrial (...) and celestial science in applications in the Principia are shown to fail from his confounding the concepts of temperature, heat and radiant intensity and his ignorance of most factors affecting the temperature rise of irradiated materials. Other comments on varied aspects of heat, mainly published in the Queries, are set out and analysed. His originality is assessed. (shrink)

Interpretation of this ode has not been very happy in spite of the care lavished upon it by editors obviously determined to extract some sort of consistent sense. That Horace started from Pindar's Olymp. II. is evident enough; when and why, under what stimulus, or for what occasion he wrote is not so clear. The older commentators do not give much help. I believe, however, that in attending to the list of gods, demi-gods, and Roman heroes given in the ode (...) we have a chance of coming somewhere near to an adequate understanding of the poem. (shrink)

The role of scientific theories in classifying plants and animals is traced from Hennig's phylogenetics and the evolutionary taxonomy of Simpson and Mayr, through numerical phenetics, to present-day cladistics. Hennig limited biological classification to sister groups so that this one relation can be expressed unambiguously in classifications. Simpson and Mayr were willing to sacrifice precision in representation in order to include additional features of evolution in the construction of classifications. In order to make classifications more objective, precise and quantitative, numerical (...) pheneticists limited themselves to representing degrees of phenetic similarity. Finally, present-day cladists can be separated into phylogenetic cladists, who retain much of Hennig's theory of classification, and pattern cladists, who have stripped Hennig's system down to its bare essentials. (shrink)

The works of Mary Wollstonecraft ranged from the early _Thoughts on the Education of Daughters_ to _The Female Reader_, a selection of texts for girls, and included two novels. But her reputation is founded on _A Vindication of the Rights of Woman_ of 1792. This treatise is the first great document of feminism—and is now accepted as a core text in western tradition. It is not widely known that the germ of Wollstonecraft’s great work came out of an earlier and (...) much shorter vindication—A Vindication of the Rights of Men, written in the context of the issues raised by the French Revolution. This edition, which follows the model of other Broadview Editions in including a range of materials that help the reader to see the work in the context of its era out of which it emerged, is arranged chronologically, opening with Wollstonecraft’s “other vindication.” It also includes a wide range of other documents in appendices, as well as a comprehensive and authoritative introduction, chronology, and full index. (shrink)