Work
In 1696, he published his Artificial Clockmaker, which went through several editions. The best known of his subsequent works are Physico-Theology, published in 1713; Astro-Theology, 1714; and Christo-Theology, 1730. All three of these books are teleological arguments for the being and attributes of God, and were used by William Paley nearly a century later. However, these books also include quantities of original scientific observations. For example, Physico-Theology contains his recognition of natural variation within species and that he knew that Didelphis virginialis (the Virginia opossum) was the only marsupial in North America. Similarly, Astro-Theology includes several newly identified nebulae (this was the name used at the time for all extended astronomical objects: some of his nebulae are what we would now call star clusters). His 16-feet long telescope (also used when measuring the velocity of sound) was at the top of the tower of St Laurence's Church, where the necessary doors are still in place.
On 3 February 1703, Derham was elected Fellow of the Royal Society. He was Boyle lecturer in 1711–1712. His last known work, entitled A Defence of the Church's Right in Leasehold Estates, appeared as early as 1731. But besides the works published in his own name, Derham contributed a variety of papers to the Transactions of the Royal Society, revised the Miscellanea Curiosa, edited the correspondence, and wrote a biography, of John Ray and Eleazar Albin's Natural History, and published some of the manuscripts of Robert Hooke, the natural philosopher. His meteorological observations Upminster (in the Transactions of the Royal Society) are amongst the earliest series in England.
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Famous quotes containing the word work:
“What you would work me to, I have some aim.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“If work is part of your identity, think very carefully before you give it up. Giving it up won’t make you a better mother; it will make you less of the person you are; and that will make you less of a mother.”
—Jean Marzollo (20th century)
“Poetry, whose material is language, is perhaps the most human and least worldly of the arts, the one in which the end product remains closest to the thought that inspired it.... Of all things of thought, poetry is the closest to thought, and a poem is less a thing than any other work of art ...”
—Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)