''Meaning and Purpose'', written by

Kenneth Walker __NOTOC__ Kenneth, Ken or Kenny Walker may refer to: Sports American football * Kenny Walker (American football) (born 1967), American football defensive lineman * Kenneth Walker III (wide receiver) (born 1994), American football wide receiver * K ...

, was first published in September 1944 by

Jonathan Cape Jonathan Cape is a London publishing firm founded in 1921 by Herbert Jonathan Cape, who was head of the firm until his death in 1960. Cape and his business partner Wren Howard set up the publishing house in 1921. They established a reputation ...

, London, and republished by

Pelican Books Pelican Books is a non-fiction imprint of Penguin Books"About Penguin - Compa ...

in 1950. The purpose of the book, as stated in the preface, was "... to examine critically those scientific theories of the last hundred years which have exerted a strong influence on our thinking, not so much for the purpose of assessing their worth as for that of discovering the effect which they have had on our philosophy of life." The book detailed an alternative perception of life and reality. It offered arguments proposing that neither

Charles Darwin Charles Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English natural history#Before 1900, naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all speci ...

nor religious

creationism Creationism is the religious belief that nature, and aspects such as the universe, Earth, life, and humans, originated with supernatural acts of divine creation. Gunn 2004, p. 9, "The ''Concise Oxford Dictionary'' says that creationism ...

adequately described the event of life, intellect, consciousness and various other concepts. The first chapter opened with a discussion of a passage quoted from

Goethe Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre director, and critic. His works include plays, poetry, literature, and aesthetic criticism, as well as t ...

, there described as a poet, philosopher and scientist. Others whose writings as prominent scientists were listed in the book's bibliography were Sir

Arthur Eddington Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington (28 December 1882 – 22 November 1944) was an English astronomer, physicist, and mathematician. He was also a philosopher of science and a populariser of science. The Eddington limit, the natural limit to the lum ...

Ernst Haeckel Ernst Heinrich Philipp August Haeckel (; 16 February 1834 – 9 August 1919) was a German zoologist, naturalist, eugenicist, philosopher, physician, professor, marine biologist and artist. He discovered, described and named thousands of new s ...

, Sir

Julian Huxley Sir Julian Sorell Huxley (22 June 1887 – 14 February 1975) was an English evolutionary biologist, eugenicist, and internationalist. He was a proponent of natural selection, and a leading figure in the mid-twentieth century modern synthes ...

, Sir

James Jeans Sir James Hopwood Jeans (11 September 187716 September 1946) was an English physicist, astronomer and mathematician. Early life Born in Ormskirk, Lancashire, the son of William Tulloch Jeans, a parliamentary correspondent and author. Jeans w ...

and

A. N. Whitehead Alfred North Whitehead (15 February 1861 – 30 December 1947) was an English mathematician and philosopher. He is best known as the defining figure of the philosophical school known as process philosophy, which today has found applica ...

. A hostile review in 1949, mentioned that the book referred unfavourably to Karl Marx as never to be regarded as having been a profound thinker and concluded that it was "by a superficial man serving reactionary purposes".

References

1944 non-fiction books Jonathan Cape books Books about creationism {{reli-book-stub