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Rev. Thomas Dick | |
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| Born | 24 November 1774 Hilltown, Dundee |
| Died | 29 July 1857 (age 82) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Astronomy, Christian ministry |
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ReverendThomas Dick (24 November 1774 – 29 July 1857), was a Britishchurch minister, science teacher and writer, known for his works onastronomy and practical philosophy, combining science and Christianity, and arguing for a harmony between the two.
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Thomas was brought up in the strict tenets of the PresbyterianUnited Secession Church of Scotland. His father, Mungo Dick, was a smalllinen manufacturer, and he raised Thomas to work in this trade. When he was nine years old, he saw a brilliant meteor and this sparked a passion for astronomy. He read, sometimes even when seated at the loom, every book on the subject within his reach. He acquired an old pair of spectacles, contrived a machine for grinding the lenses to the proper shape, mounted them in pasteboard tubes, and began celestial observations. His parents, at first afflicted by his eccentricities, let him choose his own lifestyle when he was sixteen years old.
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Dick became assistant at a school in Dundee, and in 1794 entered theUniversity of Edinburgh, supporting himself by private tuition. His philosophical and theological studies terminated, he set up a school at Dundee, took out a licence to preach in 1801, and officiated as probationer during some years atStirling and elsewhere. After about fifteen months, he was excommunicated and lost his job there due to an affair with his servant.[1] An invitation from the patrons to act as teacher in the Secession School atMethven resulted in a ten years' residence there, distinguished by efforts on his part towards popular improvement, including a zealous promotion of the study of science, the foundation of apeople's library, and what was substantially a mechanic's institute. Under the nameLiterary and Philosophical Societies, adapted to the middling and lower ranks of the community, the extension of such establishments was recommended by him in five papers published in theMonthly Magazine in 1814; and, a year or two later, a society was organised near London on the principles there laid down, of which he was elected an honorary member.
As an undergraduate, Dick had several noteworthy classmates at theUniversity of Edinburgh includingRobert Brown,Joseph Black andRobert Jameson.
On leaving Methven, Dick spent another decade as a teacher inPerth. During this interval he made his first independent appearance as an author.The Christian Philosopher, or the Connexion of Science and Philosophy with Religion, was published first during 1823. Several new editions were published during the next few years, the eighth edition being published inGlasgow during 1842. Its success determined the author's vocation to literature. He finally gave up school teaching in 1827, and built himself a small cottage- Forthill, later Herschel House- fitted up with an observatory and library, on a hill overlooking the Tay atBroughty Ferry, near Dundee. Here he wrote a number of works, scientific, philosophical, and religious, which acquired prompt and wide popularity both in the United Kingdom and the United States, and which are available on the internet and in print.[2][3]
Dick believed in the plurality of worlds orcosmic pluralism, that every planet in the Solar System was inhabited. In his bookCelestial scenery, or, The Wonders of the planetary system displayed, among many other topics, including the earliest known proposal of the earth's movements that later became known as continental drift and plate tectonics,[4] he computed that the Solar System contained 21,894,974,404,480 (21+ trillion) inhabitants. This was done using the surface area of each planet and the population density of England.[5] One of his articles that speculated about the possibility of communication with lunar inhabitants inspired theGreat Moon Hoax.
Author William N. Griggs, in his 1852 bookletThe Celebrated Moon Story: its Origins and Incidents, credits Dick's 1837Celestial Scenery, collected in an anthology of Dick's works in 1851, as being an inspiration for Richard Adams Locke's moon hoax.[6][page needed] It is worth noting that the earliest appearance of Locke's so-called Moon Hoax was a serialization of the story in August 1835 in a New York newspaperTheSun under the title of "Great Astronomical Discoveries Lately Made by Sir John Herschel, LL.D, F.R.S., &c at the Cape of Good Hope".[citation needed] Following publication in theSun, the five part series was collected in a pamphlet of the same year which is said to have sold more than 20,000 copies almost instantly.[citation needed] It would seem that Griggs would be in error in attributing Dick's 1837 "Celestial Scenery" as an inspiration for Locke's 1835 serialization,[original research?] particularly since Dick condemns Locke's hoax.[citation needed] The hoax was republished in 1859 by New York publisher William Gowans asThe Moon Hoax: Or a Discovery That The Moon Has A Vast Population of Human Beings.[7][page needed]
Dick worked with the Religious Tract Society to publish three of his books on science and religion, including one of his most successful books,The Telescope and Microscope.
An honorary degree of LL.D. was conferred upon him early in his literary career byUnion College, New York, and he was admitted to theRoyal Astronomical Society on 14 January 1853. A paper onCelestial Day Observations, giving the results of a series of observations on stars and planets in the daytime with a small equatorial at Methven in 1812–1813, was communicated by him in 1855 to theMonthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (xv. 222). He had written on the same subject forty-two years previously inWilliam Nicholson'sJournal of Natural Philosophy (xxxvi. 109).
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Despite the success of his books, however, Dick made such loose bargains with his publishers, that he derived little profits from them, and his poverty was relieved in 1847 by a pension of 50 pounds a year, and by a local subscription of 20 or 30 pounds. He died at the age of eighty-two, on 29 July 1857, and was buried atBroughty Ferry.
Thomas Dick's books enabled the advances made by theScottish Enlightenment in the previous century to flourish alongsideVictorian moral and religious thinking. They influenced many scientists, engineers, politicians, writers and thinkers. For instanceDavid Livingstone, who inspired health care, education and the end of slavery in central Africa, regarded Dick'sPhilosophy of a Future State as his most important influence afterthe Bible.[8][page needed]
In 1851, Mr. Thomas metWilliam Wells Brown, who later would describe Dick as "an abolitionist... who is willing that the world should know that he hates the "peculiar institution" [of slavery]".[9]
Asteroid (9855)Thomasdick is named after Thomas Dick.
Among his works may be mentioned:
Media related toThomas Dick (scientist) at Wikimedia Commons
