As Stuart Peterfreund notes in the preface to Turning Points in Natural Theology from Bacon to Darwin, there are no comprehensive histories of natural theology, and thus his book is an attempt to provide the beginning, at least, of such an account. And an impressive piece of work it is. Peterfreund’s book, though only 133 pages plus notes, is a sophisticated history of natural theology and divine design that combines standard intellectual historical analysis with other modes of analysis including the rhetorical and iconographical. It is an excellent contribution to the existing literature, and, indeed, helps organize and make sense of much of that work.

Peterfreund focuses his efforts on understanding and charting the conceptual developments and changes in how natural philosophers and theologians understood the meaning of design in the context of nature, concentrating primarily on British authors and their contexts. Peterfreund argues that, while the argument from design remained a standard rhetorical trope from Bacon to Darwin, “the nature and locus of the design proposed as offering the potential to provide conclusive evidence of divine design shifted over time” (xi). This simple statement of the thesis does not, however, do justice to Peterfreund’s detailed and erudite analysis, conveyed in five chapters covering the period from Bacon to Darwin, with an introduction examining the history of divine design before Bacon, and an epilogue discussing the period after Darwin with special reference to intelligent design. While the introduction is quite excellent, one wishes the author had spent more time connecting the themes found throughout the work to the topic of intelligent design in the epilogue, which, at less than three pages, is not terribly informative, and does little to bring together and complete the concerns of the book.

Each chapter deals with a wide array of primary and secondary sources, and Peterfreund seems to have quite a handle on the relevant literature. One of Peterfreund’s most interesting suggestions is that there is an ambiguity in discussing natural theology based upon whether the argument for design is based upon the design of a mechanism (such as an animal’s eye in Bacon or the spring of the air in Boyle) versus an argument based upon the design of a system (the solar system in Newton or the tree of life in Darwin). Throughout the book there are interesting discussions of many standard issues in the histories of philosophy and science, among which the author’s discussions of teleology and mechanism are the most valuable: topics that have rightly been receiving increasing scrutiny from historians of philosophy, science, religion, and medicine.

While overall the book is well written, it is a very slim volume and is thus often dense and brief to the point of obtuseness. While the constant use of long quotations from primary sources is much appreciated and helps evidence Peterfreund’s claims, one wishes that some more space was devoted to unpacking and interpreting some of these quotations, many of which are quite obscure to those not well versed in Renaissance and early modern theological and philosophical debates. For this reason, this reviewer was at times not fully convinced by Peterfreund’s interpretations and arguments. Further, the use of endnotes is (to this reviewer’s mind at any rate) quite irritating, and often it is difficult to tell who, exactly, is being quoted, and whether they are historians or actors from the periods under consideration. Finally, it would be helpful if the author had spent some time discussing the British context directly, especially in connection with the relationship between this context and others on the Continent, as this would help those whose interests lie outside the British Isles connect this book with their own work.

This book will be of most use to scholars of early modern Europe, especially those interested in the varying and shifting relationships between natural philosophy and religion. Due to its generous and detailed citations, this work can also serve as a handy reference to those interested in natural theology, and thus Peterfreund’s Turning Points in Natural Theology will serve as an excellent resource for future scholarship.