 First edition | |
| Author | Iain Pears |
|---|---|
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Historical, Mystery |
| Publisher | Jonathan Cape |
Publication date | September 1997 |
| Media type | Print (hardback & paperback) |
| Pages | 692 pp |
| ISBN | 0-224-04466-4 |
| OCLC | 37781458 |
An Instance of the Fingerpost is a 1997 historical mystery novel by Iain Pears.
A murder in 17th-century Oxford is related from the contradictory points of view of four of the characters, all of them unreliable narrators. The setting of the novel is 1663, just after the restoration of the monarchy following the English Civil War, when the authority of King Charles II is not yet settled, and conspiracies abound.
Most of the characters are historical figures. Two of the narrators are the mathematician John Wallis and the historian Anthony Wood. Other characters include the philosopher John Locke, the scientists Robert Boyle and Richard Lower, spymaster John Thurloe, inventor Samuel Morland and the Anglican cleric Thomas Ken, who was later Bishop of Bath and Wells. The plot is at first centred on the death of Robert Grove but later takes in the conspiracies of John Mordaunt and William Compton (of Compton Wynyates), and the politics of Henry Bennet and Lord Clarendon. Furthermore, the characters that are fictional are nonetheless drawn from real events. The story of Sarah Blundy incorporates that of Anne Greene, [1] while Jack Prestcott is involved in events based on the life of Richard Willis (of the Sealed Knot).
The accounts are written in the form of memoirs by each narrator many years after the events they describe, after Thomas Ken gained his Bishopric but before the death of Henry Bennet. This dates them to 1685, the last year of Charles' reign.
A contrast portrayed in the novel is, on one hand, a philosophy based on ancient and medieval learning, and, on the other, the scientific method that was beginning to be applied in physics, chemistry and medicine.
While much of the plot is laid in a concrete, historically accurate 17th century background, the book has a considerable fantasy element – based on the assumption that in every generation Jesus Christ is born again, and in each incarnation is doomed to be martyred again and then again come back to life, and soon disappear – to be reborn again in the next generation. In the 17th century depicted in the book, Jesus is reincarnated as a woman; this character has an important role in the plot from the start, but only gradually is the reader made aware of her being the reincarnated Jesus.
The four parts of the novel are preceded by Epigraphs taken from Francis Bacon's Novum Organum . The first three quotations describe three of Bacon's four Idols of the mind. The fourth quotation is the source of the title. The quotation is much abbreviated, with no ellipses showing the omissions. The full text (using a slightly different translation of the book) is as follows:
The term "fingerpost" is also an obscure synonym for prelate or priest, foreshadowing one of the book's main plot points. [2]
In the original Latin, the term "fingerpost" is simply "cross" (crucis), echoing the decisive "crucifixion" revealed in the story:
Francis Bacon, Novum Organum , Book Two, "Aphorisms", Section XXXVI.
Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Alban PC, known as Lord Verulam between 1618 and 1621, was an English philosopher and statesman who served as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England under King James I. Bacon led the advancement of both natural philosophy and the scientific method, and his works remained influential even in the late stages of the Scientific Revolution.
The Baconian method is the investigative method developed by Francis Bacon, one of the founders of modern science, and thus a first formulation of a modern scientific method. The method was put forward in Bacon's book Novum Organum (1620), or 'New Method', and was supposed to replace the methods put forward in Aristotle's Organon. This method was influential upon the development of the scientific method in modern science; but also more generally in the early modern rejection of medieval Aristotelianism.
Foucault's Pendulum is a novel by Italian writer and philosopher Umberto Eco. It was first published in 1988, with an English translation by William Weaver being published a year later.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to the scientific method:
In science, an experimentum crucis is an experiment capable of decisively determining whether or not a particular hypothesis or theory is superior to all other hypotheses or theories whose acceptance is currently widespread in the scientific community. In particular, such an experiment must typically be able to produce a result that rules out all other hypotheses or theories if true, thereby demonstrating that under the conditions of the experiment, those hypotheses and theories are proven false but the experimenter's hypothesis is not ruled out.
A plot twist is a literary technique that introduces a radical change in the direction or expected outcome of the plot in a work of fiction. When it happens near the end of a story, it is known as a twist or surprise ending. It may change the audience's perception of the preceding events, or introduce a new conflict that places it in a different context. A plot twist may be foreshadowed, to prepare the audience to accept it, but it usually comes with some element of surprise. There are various methods used to execute a plot twist, such as withholding information from the audience, or misleading them with ambiguous or false information. Not every plot has a twist, but some have multiple lesser ones, and some are defined by a single major twist.
The Novum Organum, fully Novum Organum, sive Indicia Vera de Interpretatione Naturae or Instaurationis Magnae, Pars II, is a philosophical work by Francis Bacon, written in Latin and published in 1620. The title is a reference to Aristotle's work Organon, which was his treatise on logic and syllogism. In Novum Organum, Bacon details a new system of logic he believes to be superior to the old ways of syllogism. This is now known as the Baconian method.
New Atlantis is an incomplete utopian novel by Sir Francis Bacon, published posthumously in 1626. It appeared unheralded and tucked into the back of a longer work of natural history, Sylva Sylvarum. In New Atlantis, Bacon portrayed a vision of the future of human discovery and knowledge, expressing his aspirations and ideals for humankind. The novel depicts the creation of a utopian land where "generosity and enlightenment, dignity and splendour, piety and public spirit" are the commonly held qualities of the inhabitants of the mythical Bensalem. The plan and organisation of his ideal college, Salomon's House, envisioned the modern research university in both applied and pure sciences.
In statistics, latent variables are variables that can only be inferred indirectly through a mathematical model from other observable variables that can be directly observed or measured. Such latent variable models are used in many disciplines, including political science, demography, engineering, medicine, ecology, physics, machine learning/artificial intelligence, bioinformatics, chemometrics, natural language processing, management, psychology and the social sciences.
The phrase "scientia potentia est" is a Latin aphorism meaning "knowledge is power", commonly attributed to Sir Francis Bacon. The expression "ipsa scientia potestas est" occurs in Bacon's Meditationes Sacrae (1597). The exact phrase "scientia potentia est" was written for the first time in the 1668 version of Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes, who was a secretary to Bacon as a young man. The related phrase "sapientia est potentia" is often translated as "wisdom is power".
John 18:38 is the 38th verse in chapter 18 of the Gospel of John in the New Testament of Christian Bible. It is often referred to as "jesting Pilate". In it, Pontius Pilate questions Jesus' claim that he is "witness to the truth".
Hypnosurgery is surgery where the patient is sedated using hypnotherapy rather than traditional anaesthetics. It is claimed that hypnosis for anaesthesia has been used since the 1840s where it was pioneered by the surgeon James Braid. There are occasional media reports of surgery being conducted under hypnosis, but since these are not carried out under controlled conditions, nothing can be concluded from them.
A fingerpost is a type of sign post consisting of a post with one or more arms, known as fingers, pointing in the direction of travel to places named on the fingers, often including distance information.
Idola tribus is a category of logical fallacy, normally translated as "Idols of the Tribe", which refers to a tendency of human nature to prefer certain types of incorrect conclusions. It is a Latin term, coined by Sir Francis Bacon and used in his Novum Organum, one of the earliest treatises arguing the case for the methodical approach of modern science.
Idola fori, sometimes translated as "Idols of the Market Place" or "Idols of the Forum", are a category of logical fallacy which results from the imperfect correspondences between the word definitions in human languages, and the real things in nature which these words represent. The term was coined in Latin by Sir Francis Bacon and used in his Novum Organum, one of the earliest treatises arguing the case for the logic and method of modern science.
Idola specus, normally translated as "Idols of the Cave", is a type of logical fallacy whereby the peculiar biases of individuals lead them to errors. This Latin term was coined by Sir Francis Bacon and used in his Novum Organum, one of the earliest treatises arguing the case for the logic and method of modern science. He described them as deriving from "the peculiar constitution, mental or bodily, of each individual; and also in education, habit, and accident".
Idola theatri is a type of tendency towards logical fallacy or error, normally translated as "idols of the theatre". The Latin was coined by Sir Francis Bacon in his Novum Organum—one of the earliest treatises arguing the case for the logic and method of modern science. Bacon described them as "Idols which have immigrated into men's minds from the various dogmas of philosophies, and also from wrong laws of demonstration." He named them Idols of the Theater "because in my judgment all the received systems are but so many stage plays, representing worlds of their own creation after an unreal and scenic fashion."
Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Alban, KC was an English philosopher, statesman, scientist, lawyer, jurist, author, and pioneer of the scientific method. He served both as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England. Although his political career ended in disgrace, he remained extremely influential through his works, especially as philosophical advocate and practitioner of the scientific method during the scientific revolution.
The Romantics, in seeking to understand nature in her living essence, studied the 'father of science', Sir Francis Bacon. The view of Bacon and the 'inductive method' that emerges is quite a different one from that tended to prevail both before and then after, here mainly due to John Stuart Mill's interpretation later in the 1800s. For the Romantics, induction as generally interpreted 'was not enough to produce correct understanding in Bacon's terms.' They saw another side of Bacon, generally not developed, one in which nature was a labyrinth not open to "excellence of wit" nor "chance experiments": "Our steps must be guided by a clue, and see what way from the first perception of the sense must be laid out upon a sure plan."
Unconscious inference, also referred to as unconscious conclusion, is a term of perceptual psychology coined in 1867 by the German physicist and polymath Hermann von Helmholtz to describe an involuntary, pre-rational and reflex-like mechanism which is part of the formation of visual impressions. While precursory notions have been identified in the writings of Thomas Hobbes, Robert Hooke, and Francis North as well as in Francis Bacon's Novum Organum, Helmholtz's theory was long ignored or even dismissed by philosophy and psychology. It has since received new attention from modern research, and the work of recent scholars has approached Helmholtz's view.
