Hill, Nicholas

He was educated at a school for boys in London and then at Oxford University ( St. Johns College). For some time he worked as secretary of Edward de Vera, Earl of Oxford ^[1] . Subsequently, he entered the famous scientific circle, which Henry Percy gathered around him , the 9th Earl of Northumberland ^{[2] [3] [4] [5]} (an outstanding scientist Thomas Herriot was also a member of this circle). Perhaps because of his sympathies for Catholicism, he was forced to leave England, and moved to Rotterdam . He died around 1610 (he may have committed suicide due to the premature death of his beloved son) ^[6] .

The main scientific (or rather, natural philosophical ) work of Nicholas Hill was the treatise "Epicurean, Democritian and Theophrastian Philosophy" ( Philosophia epicurea, democritiana, theophrastica ), published in Paris in 1601 and in Geneva in 1619. The treatise is one of the first in England to expound the ideas of ancient atomists ( Democritus and Epicurus ). However, unlike some other representatives of early atomism (including Harriot , Galileo and Gassendi ), Hill was not a supporter of mechanistic philosophy , since in his version atomism was combined with the mystical ideas of Neoplatonists , Hermetists, and Paracelsus ^[7] . Contrary to Aristotle’s teachings still widespread at that time, Hill acknowledges the existence of emptiness ^[8] . In the field of cosmology , Hill proves himself to be a supporter of the heliocentric system of the world and the teachings of J. Bruno on the infinite homogeneous Universe (see Cosmology of Giordano Bruno ) ^{[2] [9]} . Denying the Aristotelian division of the Universe into the sublunar and supralunar worlds, and following Bruno, Hill claims that all celestial bodies are in principle the same nature as the Earth and inhabited ^{[10] [11]} .

• Philosophia epicurea, democritiana, theophrastica (google book)

• Clericuzio A. Elements, Principles and Corpuscles. A Study of Atomism and Chemistry in the Seventeenth Century . - Springer, 2000.
• Clucas S. The Infinite Variety of Formes and Magnitudes: 16th- and 17th-Century English Corpuscular Philosophy and Aristotelian Theories of Matter and Form // Early Science and Medicine. - 1997. - Vol. 2, No. 3 . - P. 251-271.
• Clucas S. Corpuscular Matter Theory in the Northumberland Circl // in: Late Medieval and Early Modern Corpuscular Matter Theories. - Brill, 2001. - P. 197–99.
• Gatti H. Giordano Bruno: The Texts in the Library of the Ninth Earl of Northumberland // Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes. - 1983. - Vol. 46. ​​- P. 63-77.
• Gatti H. Minimum and Maximum, Finite and Infinite Bruno and the Northumberland Circle // Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes. - 1985. - Vol. 48. - P. 144-163.
• Gaukroger S. Francis Bacon and the Transformation of Early-modern Philosophy. - Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
• Jacquot J. Harriot, Hill, Warner and the new philosophy // in: Thomas Harriot: Renaissance Scientist. - Oxford: John W. Shirley, 1974. - Vol. 1. - P. 107–28.
• Massa D. Giordano Bruno's Ideas in Seventeenth-Century England // Journal of the History of Ideas. - 1977. - Vol. 38, No. 2 . - P. 227-242.
• McColley G. Nicholas Hill and the Philosophia Epicurea // Annals of Science. - 1939. - Vol. 4, No. 1 . - P. 390-405.
• Plastina S. Nicholas Hill and Giordano Bruno: the new cosmology in the Philosophia Epicurea // Physis. - 2001. - Vol. 38. - P. 415-432.
• Plastina S. Nicholas Hill: Philosophia Epicuraea Democritiana Theophrastica. - Rome: Serra, 2007.