enlightenment science did not immediately discard earlier "magical" world view

The publishers are the Cambridge University Press. The books is a copy of lectures called The Eddington Lectureship. Different authors of different lecture series. The Trustees of the Eddington Trust say that the scope of the lectureship is: "Man's rapidly increasing control over natural forces holds out preospects of material achievements that are dazzling; but unless this increased control of material power can be matched by a great moral and spiritual advance, it threatens the catastrophic breakdown of human civilisation. Consequetnly, the need was never so urgent as now for a synthesis of the kind of understanding to be gained through various ways - scieintfic, philosphical and religious - of seeking truth. Trustees of Eddington Trust, 1947.

The lecturees deal with contemporary scientific thought and its bearing on philosophy of religion or ethics.

This is the first in a series of books I want to read on the history of science. Paracelsus and Newton and their contemporaries are discussed.