This lecture establishes a conceptual framework for the rest of the series by examining early modern assumptions about motion and emotion. It demonstrates their close interconnection in the spheres of religion, medicine, and natural philosophy. It begins by analysing contemporary thinking about earthquakes, which were interpreted as both eschatological signs and events whose secondary causes could be discerned by empirical means. It then turns to reconstruct prevailing assumptions about the operation of the affections and passions in the body and soul. It culminates by considering the shifting ways in which a providential God was understood to be at work in the created world, casting light upon the genesis of the field of natural theology itself. A recording of Lecture One - Upheavals This article was published on 2025-07-09
