D.G Charlton, despite being a historian of the history of French art was invited to give a series of Gifford Lectures at St Andrews, 1982-83. Despite initially admitting that as a historian, his lectures are something of an anomaly when compared to the philosophers and theologians before him, Charlton’s lectures, collected here into a single volume, are an invaluable resource into the intellectual development of the modern age. The natural is an area of thought whose depth and significance may well have been underappreciated before the arrival of this text.