Introduction
Setting the scene: natural philosophy in ancient Greece
Plato and Aristotle
From the Roman Empire to the Empire of Islam
The Western Middle Ages
The Renaissance
Nicholas Copernicus and a new world
New Methods of science
Bringing mathematics and natural philosophy together: Johannes Kepler
Mathematics and mechanics: Galileo Galilei
Practice and theory in Renaissance medicine: William Harvey and the circulation of the blood
The spirit of system: René Descartes and the mechanical philosophy
The Royal Society and experimental philosophy
Experiment, mathematics, and magic: Isaac Newton
The Newtonian enlightenment
The chemical revolution: Priestly and Lavoisier; John Dalton and beyond
Newtonian optimism: natural theology and natural order
The making of geology: from James Hutton to Charles Lyell
The history of plants and animals: successive emergence or evolution?
Religion and progress in Victorian Britain: Robert Chambers versus Hugh Miller
Bringing it all together?: Charles Darwin's evolution
Darwinian aftermaths: religion; social science; biology
Beyond Newton: energy and thermodynamics
Newton deposed: Einstein and relativity theory
Mathematics instead of a world picture: from atomism to quantum theory.