“BABBAGE SAW GOD AS A BEING OF SCIENCE AND PROGRAMMER”: FIRST EDITION OF BABBAGE’S NINTH BRIDGEWATER TREATISE

BABBAGE, Charles. The Ninth Bridgewater Treatise. A Fragment. London: John Murray, 1837. Octavo, contemporary full tan calf, elaborately gilt-decorated spine, raised bands, tan and green morocco spine labels.

First edition of computer pioneer Charles Babbage’s famous case for “the serviceableness of mathematics to religion,” sponsored by the estate of the Earl of Bridgewater, asserting that God built the universe by writing an infinite set of program-like laws at the time of Creation.

Upon his death in 1829, the eccentric Francis Henry Egerton, eighth Earl of Bridgewater, bequeathed £8,000 for the best works on “the Power, Wisdom, and Goodness of God as manifested in the Creation.” The disposal of this money was left to the president of the Royal Society. For the ninth and final essay, computer pioneer Charles Babbage was selected.

A British philosopher, mathematician, and mechanical engineer, Babbage developed the idea for the first programmable computer. Upon his death, he left behind a number of incomplete mechanisms as well as a set of plans. In 1991, his plans were used to construct a difference engine, which proved completely functional under 19th-century conditions. Accordingly, Babbage is considered the inventor of the first mechanical computer, a more than respectable ancestor of the exceptionally complex machines descended from it.

Though many of the other Bridgewater Treatises have come to be regarded as highly significant in the history of science and expressed important viewpoints about “natural theology” (a cornerstone of intelligent design), Babbage’s essay with uniquely and vibrantly modern. In his treatise, Babbage bluntly put forth the idea of God as programmer of the universe. God, he argued, was a divine legislator, the writer of a number of laws— or code— that was designed to execute at appropriate times, creating new species when necessary. In that way, God was relieved of the burden of constantly performing miracles each time a new type of tree or insect was needed. Babbage’s essay is “remarkable as one of the earliest attempts to reconcile breaches of continuity with the government of the universe by law, and vindicated the serviceableness of mathematics to religion” (DNB).

“‘Babbage saw God as a being of science and programmer who defined the entire future of the universe at the time of the Creation as a sort of infinite set of programs… Drawing on his experience with calculating engines Babbage succeeded in devising a novel picture of God whose undeviating law would be consistent both with successive special creations [of natural species] and with miracles’ (Hyman, 137-38). Both the theology and the science of the treatise foreshadowed the controversy over evolution that followed the publication of Darwin’s theory two decades later” (Norman 94).

As Babbage’s only philosophical work, the Ninth Bridgewater Treatise caught the interest and imagination of the scientific community. Scientists such as Charles Darwin owned copies of it. While many scientists found themselves at odds with Church teachings after their research and discoveries failed to square with literal Creationism, Babbage offered an appealing alternative that incorporated God, Creation, and the underpinnings of what would later come to be known as evolution. His work fully bridged the gap between science and religion and created, in effect, a scientific God, one that would understand and adapt to the inevitability of progress—a God that had, in fact, already coded for it. Accordingly, Babbage’s treatise is not only among the most central works in the history of science and computer science, but also in the history of evolution and its conflict with Creationism. Lowndes, Appendix, 281.

A beautiful about-fine copy.