It’s interesting to compare the lens of 1731 and 2014 and how one influences the other; Why has mathematics risen to the top in terms of Truth? I believe that it was this very definition, which itself is a glance into the minds of not just Nathan Bailey but the many people who used this very definition as a basis for their understanding of the Universe, by the thousands and thousands of people who used it directly, and the many dictionaries that followed it, that shaped the course of history to follow up through today.
It’s a marvelous definition. “Searching into the fundamental nature and frame of the thing; which to that end is as it were resolved into parts, or taken all to pieces, and then put together again”.
It helps explain the strong marriage of mathematics and physics to me through the centuries quite well and how, eventually, gained dominance over other forms of truth-seeking. I’m sure the point of divergence can be placed elsewhere as well.. but I’m enjoying pondering this one. Thoughts?
For my #mathematical #friends I came across a Dictionary from 1731 – one of the earliest modern English Dictionaries in fact. I was browsing though it and came across this. Thought you might get a kick out of it. Nathan Bailey put it together. Not the best scanning job but heck, it’s a 283 year old book.
https://archive.org/details/universaletymol00unkngoog
is where you can find the whole thing if you want to get a peek the minds of the educated of 1731 era