Charles Morton (15 February 1627 – 11 April 1698) was a British nonconformist minister and founder of an early dissenting academy, later in life associated in New England with Harvard College. Morton was raised with strong Puritan influences in England and attended Oxford (1649-1652). As a result of the English Revolution, he was arrested and excommunicated for promoting progressive education (he was the teacher of Daniel Defoe), forcing his immigration to relative safety in Massachusetts Bay Colony (1685-1686), although he was soon arrested for sedition (and then acquitted) in Boston.[1]
His system of vernacular teaching at Harvard was basically Scholastic/Aristotelian with modern flavors of John Wallis, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, and even René Descartes. His works include discussions of astrology and alchemy, and (as a minister) he was known to have some interest in witchcraft.[2][3][4][5] As a result, Compendium Physicae is now considered to be semi-scientific, and although the work contains then-modern references to Galileo, Torricelli, and gravity, his ancient/medieval Aristotelian approach was eventually replaced by Newtonian mechanics (Principia was also published in 1687).[6]
- ^ "Natural Philosophy and Early Physics in the American Philosophical Society Library". Archived from the original on 4 October 2012. Retrieved 8 October 2012.
- ^ Godbeer, R. The Devil's Dominion: Magic and Religion in Early New England. Cambridge University Press, 1992.
- ^ Stavish, M. The History of Alchemy in America. Alchemy Journal, Vol 3, No 3, May/June 2002.
- ^ Bostridge, I. Witchcraft and Its Transformations c.1650 - c.1750. Oxford University Press, 1997.
- ^ Elliott, C.A. & M.W. Rossiter. Science at Harvard University: Historical Perspectives. Associated University Press, 1992.
- ^ Robbins, A.B. History of Physics and Astronomy at Rutgers. Gateway Press, 2001.