Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Joseph Glanvill and Psychical Research in the Seventeenth Century

1922; Nature Portfolio; Volume: 110; Issue: 2749 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1038/110036d0

1476-4687

H. STANLEY REDGROVE,

Religious Studies and Spiritual Practices

JOSEPH GLANVILL is no doubt best known to the modern reader as the source of inspiration of Matthew Arnold's well-known poem, and secondly as author of a treatise on witchcraft which W. E. H. Lecky described as “probably the ablest book ever published in defence of the superstition.” It is not so generally known that Glanvill was an ardent advocate of the experimental method and a sturdy opponent of dogmatism. He was not only a Fellow of the Royal Society, being elected in 1664, and a friend and admirer of Robert Boyle, but in addition to making three communications to the society which appeared in the Transactions, he was the author of an account of the advances in the various departments of scientific knowledge since the time of the ancients. Incidentally in this work he suggested that the Torricellian vacuum was not an absolute void. In the short account of Glanvill under notice his various activities are noted and his views set forth, for the most part, in his own words. The authors are, however, chiefly interested in his psychic investigations, on account of which he may be considered, legitimately, to be the founder of modern psychical research.