The Man Who Found Time

Book excerpt: There are four men whose life's work helped free science from the straitjacket of religion. Three of the four - Nicolaus Copernicus, Galileo Galilei, and Charles Darwin - are widely heralded for their breakthroughs. The fourth, James Hutton, is comparatively unknown. A Scottish gentleman farmer, Hutton's observations on his small tract of land led him to a theory that directly contradicted biblical claims that the Earth was only 6,000 years old. Telling the story not only of Hutton, but of the rich intellectual milieu of the Scottish Enlightenment, which brought together some of the greatest thinkers of the age - from David Hume and Adam Smith to James Watt and Erasmus Darwin - The Man Who Found Time is an enlightening, engaging narrative about a little-known man and the science he established.