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Section 2 Curious to Discover
The eighteenth century saw the development of a philosophical movement subsequently known as the Enlightenment. Accepting reason as the supreme authority in matters of opinion, belief and conduct, the Enlightenment rejected the legends and revealed truths of earlier sources of authority-the Scriptures and the classics-valuing knowledge based on evidence, logic and probability. The voyages of discovery made at this time sought to describe and document accurately the new world of the Pacific using astronomical and navigational calculations to produce reliable maps. Detailed journals and logbooks were kept and images of new lands and their inhabitants, plants and animals were recorded. Documentary evidence from these voyages underpinned both the expanding intellectual horizons of eighteenth-century Europe and the parallel territorial expansion into the Pacific. This region provided challenging new experiences of the world that placed unprecedented pressure on the biblical creation theory, while providing a wealth of information from which to fashion alternative hypotheses-such as those expounded by Charles Darwin in his Origin of Species.
1. William Charles Thomas Dobson, 1817-1898 2. Samuel Wallis, 1728-1795 3. Unknown 4. Sir William Beechey, 1753-1839 5. Sydney Parkinson, 1745?-1771 6. After Philippe Jacques de Loutherbourge
(1740-1812) and John Webber (1752-1793) 7. George Carter, fl.1769-1784 8. John Webber, 1752-1793 9. Arthur William Devis, 1763-1822 10. Conrad Martens, 1801-1878
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A selection of images from the Paradise Possessed exhibition. National Library of Australia. Click here to find out more about NLA exhibitions. Copyright: ©1998, National Library of Australia
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