John Herschel’s Preliminary Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy (1830) taught the nineteenth century what science is for and how it works: observation, induction, the vera causa, and the moral dignity of natural knowledge. The undergraduate Charles Darwin read it and burned, he said, with zeal to add ‘even the most humble stone’ to the edifice.
Few books have recruited more scientists. Download the free EPUB and read the discourse that lit the fuse of the Beagle.