THE RISE OF SCIENTIFIC EUROPE
EUROPE’S AWAKENING
1.1 PROBLEMS & APPROACHES.
Democracy, capitalism & science. Science & revolution. Comparison of differences.
1.2 THE GREEK MIRACLE, 600 - 200 BC.
The laws of nature create order (cosmos) which is discoverable by rational investigation. The Greeks
invented theory. They produced ideas to explain evidence. Causes not myths.
Greece was not like the vast, centralised, monarchies of the Near East. Babylon, Mesopotamia & Egypt,
were theocratic, unknowns were the work of the Gods, to be revered not investigated. They observed but didn’t
develop any complementary theory. Their observations & buildings were for religious ceremonies, not discovery &
trade. Pyramids not navigation.
The Greeks did have Gods but they were not overwhelming. Activities were focused in rival democratic ‘city
states’, encouraging debate (& altercation), there was no restriction on ideas. ‘Rhetorical’ persuasion, was confined
to ‘logical’ reasoning & ‘scientific’ method. There developed a competitive why?? There must be a reason, it was not
simply - ‘the Gods at work’.
Collaborative scientific research was done in Institutions - Plato’s Academy, Aristotle’s Lyceum,
Alexandria’s Museum & Great Library.
Pythagoras 500 BC, harmony of simple ratios. The laws of nature were based on maths & atoms & could be
discovered by reason. This was the breakthrough into theory.
Hippocrates 400 BC, observation of chicken embryos.
Herophilus 300 BC, dissecting criminals.
Euclid 300 BC, geometry, deductions from axioms. Truth of theory depends on truth of axioms.
Archimedes 287 - 212 BC, statics & the lever, ‘reductio ad absurdum’.
Ptolemy 100 -178 AD, in Alexandria, astronomy. Geometry & observation. The geocentric system, well developed
theory but errant observations were simply ignored.
Galen 129 - 200 AD, medicine.
Ideas & theories for Africa, particularly the idea of proof from basic axioms but seldom checked for validity
by experiment. Lack of instruments?
Plato 427 - 347 BC.
Plato stressed mathematics & theory of perfect circular motions. Some magic. The mind man. He insisted
‘deeper knowledge’ comes from reason & finding pattern. There was rationale to the universe & it should be found.
The world was an imperfect reflection of underlying reality.
Aristotle 384 - 322 BC.
Stressed classification, observation & reason in physics. An empiricism that led to a coherent picture of the
world. Cause & effect. Logical proof.
Induction - from observations to explanatory principles. From particular to general.
Deduction - from principles to predicted observations. From general to particular.
Induction can be simply enumerative - 100 swans are white, therefore all swans are white. Or intuitive,
where experience helps the observers to know what to look for. The taxonomist knows all reptiles are cold blooded.
Syllogism. Generalisations from induction are used as premises for deductions about the initial
observations. Premises must be ‘generally acceptable’. Self evident like the proven laws of nature. First principles
which are incapable of being false.
Deductive systematisation:1
axioms are self evident.
2
theorems are deductively related.
3
theorems agree with observations.
Scientific explanations state causal relationships. Aristotle desperately struggled with establishing
undisputed cause. Formal, material, efficient & final causes.
Aristotle deduced conclusions from self evident axioms, Ptolemy ‘saved the appearance’ by mathematically
describing observed phenomena. The elements were fire, water, earth and air.
The atomists believed observation could be explained by reference to processes occurring at a more
elementary level. But red colour was not caused by red atoms. Red was an emergent property of the primary atoms,
as size, shape & velocity changed. But theories couldn’t be tested!
BUT - science & culture are not necessarily cause & effect but parallel manifestations. The chronology goes
wrong, there was no sequence. Alexandria was a centre of excellence, sponsored by the vanity of Princes & Crown
patronage, in autocratic Greek / Egypt!!
Greek science did not last; there were very few elitist scientists, poor communications, duplication &
ignorance of advances. Music, art & sports were more popular.
Europe declined into the Dark Ages? Islam expanded?
1.3 THE STIMULUS OF CHINESE SCIENCE. Needham.
China had no city states. In 221 BC warring feudal dynasties were unified. Then cycles of disintegration into
huge regional states followed by unification right up to today. Science was a result of Emperors & patronage.
Some trade, Greeks, Muslims, Marco Polo & silk in 1200 but generally China was isolated & self sufficient
under an autocratic ‘Confucian’ bureaucracy which didn’t want or need a God or new ideas.
A philosophical period coinciding with Greek pre-eminence 600 - 200 BC & a peak of scientific
achievement around 1000 - 1200, when Western Europe was in the Dark Ages.
Paper & printing 500, gunpowder 800, magnetic compass 1000, cast iron, stern post rudders, wrought iron,
mechanical clock, all centuries before Europe. Highly advanced at an early stage.
Magnetism & astronomy developed from an interest in magic & mystery not laws. Astronomical observation
& instruments but no underpinning geometry, continuities not discontinuities, wave fields not atoms, algebra,
inoculation, mineral remedies, acupuncture, sympathetic material responses & organisms not a giant mechanical
machine of colliding particles. Law was based on custom not Greek logic, there were no Laws of Nature.
Taoists, meditators & alchemists seeking gold & immortality. Harmonious co-operation was not the work of
a superior authority but the mystical pattern emerging from a hierarchical system of wholes & Yin Yang opposites.
Crucially funds were from patronage not trade. Science was part of the feudal bureaucratic culture which
stopped both the development of science & capitalism. The government controlled science & trade.
All governments must have ‘legitimacy’, usually from myth & religion, but capitalism gives the merchant
class wealth & power which produces rivalry. Independent scientists & traders would become rivals for power. The
merchant class were taxed & disparaged.
Chinese science did not influence Europe. Even though Islam was a conduit.
Why no revolution? Technology without theory?
Essentially because of a different world view, nature was inscrutable, mysterious & irrational. Confucian /
Taoist v. Christian / Islamic? There was no creator therefore no universal laws of nature. No idea of proof, no
merchant class, no competitive striving to discover the truth, no diversity, no independent rival city or nation states.
Everybody wanted to pass their long tradition of examinations & become a mandarin!!
Conquerors were absorbed into the bureaucracy, there was a sort of homeostasis.
However, both Christianity & Islam had a creator & therefore laws of nature, so how did Islamic science
fare?
1.4 THE SPREAD OF ARABIC SCIENCE.
Vast territorial conquests. Alexandria taken in 642. Constantinople in 1453. Scholarly & tolerant. Islam
inherited the Greek science. They were custodians of original texts & translated them avidly. They were in contact
with great civilisations - Syria, Byzantine, Egypt, Persia, India, & Spain! & Christian Nestorians in their translation
centre, Baghdad.
Logic & reasoning were essential tools in defending the Koran & understanding parts of it. Science was
important in navigating the way to Mecca, determining when Ramadan starts & the time for prayer. Libraries,
hospitals & translation centres were everywhere. They built on the Greek foundation, there was some criticism but
there was no real revolution. The ancient texts were not overturned.
Scientific revolutions depend on close associations of manual skills of the craftsman & the intellectual
theorising of the scholar? Did Arab science redress the balance from Greek theory to Muslim crafts? Merchants
were certainly respected.
BUT the thirst for knowledge revolved around the Koran. They had no need for innovation it was all in the
Koran. Many ‘Arab’ scientists were minority Christians, Jews or Persians.
The end came with the invading Mongols & competing Emirates. Islams turned inwards to the Koran not
outwards to discovery, all that mattered was already written in the Koran.
The big contribution of Islam was the conservation & transmission of Greek science. There was no
revolution.
1.5 THE REVIVAL OF THE LATIN WEST.
Constantine split the Roman Empire into Latin West & Greek East in the 4th century. The West over run by
barbarians in the 5th century. The East retained the Greek tradition & the Patriarch was dominated by the Emperor.
In the West with no barbarian Emperor, the Pope was king, a rivalry emerged encouraging argument. Final schism
in 1054. Constantinople fell to the Venetians in 1204 & the Turks in 1453. This was a source of Greek manuscripts.
But the important Western Greek - Arabic - Latin translations were from Toledo in 1085. A translation
industry! Spain, Central Italy, Sicily. The scholars became ‘dwarfs on the shoulders of giants’.
Education moved from monastery to cathedral schools to Universities. Northern Italy, France, Spain,
England & one in Prague ... still dominated by theology, plus law & medicine. 30 in 1350. Aristotle’s Scholasticism,
logical argument, was accepted fitfully, at one time banned in Paris but freely read in Oxford? It was an issue in
Christendom but not for Islam?
The faith v. reason tension originated & was crucial for science.
Thomas Aquinas 1225 - 1274, 1266 ‘Summa Theologica’.
Greek reason & Christian faith must be pursued if we are to understand the natural world & human
salvation. The synthesis, the embrace of Christianity & Greek logic, resulted in Aristotle being ‘the king’ in the
Universities. The seedbed of discovery, no equivalent elsewhere, God’s laws of nature were discoverable through
reason.
The ancient authority & independent observation tension originated & was crucial for science.
Renaissance in Italy from 1400. ‘Humanist’ aim to emulate the classic texts & improved the individual in
society. Ptolemaic astronomy, Aristotelian physics & Galenic anatomy were up for grabs.
Marsilio Ficino 1433 - 99, did for Plato what Aquinas did for Aristotle. Plato was rediscovered & published in 1484.
Medici patronage in Florence. Did this thinking, perfectionist, even though magical, approach to nature help
science??
Leonardo da Vinci 1452 -1519, artist, anatomist, inventor, engineer. Brilliant non communicator.
Andreas Vesalius 1514 - 64, goes from Galen to modern anatomy with ‘De Humani Corporis’, observation from
human dissection in student theatres at Bologna not Galen’s text books. A hit with his students, a brilliant dissector.
‘Galen was deluded by his apes’, but he also taught empirical method which had become lost as blind followers
ruled. Typical Renaissance pattern - back to the Ancients but believe only what you see.
Gutenburg impetus. Printing followed wealth. New contradictions were available but also the Greek originals
were perpetuated. Robust theory triumphed through comparisons of Ancient & Modern.
The new renaissance towns were very different from the old Royal capitals, Athens, Baghdad, ... they were
trade centres, where science & scholarship were needed to service trade & commercial transactions.
Science was developing internal traditions but it was also influenced by the outside environment. Content &
context!!
1.6 CONCLUSION. TOWN LIFE.
Out of medieval Europe came independent, autonomous, competing towns & nation states in a constant
furore of turmoil & war. A seething cauldron of change. Europe was buzzing!
NICHOLAS COPERNICUS & HIS REVOLUTION 1473 - 1543.
Paracelsus writes medical chemistry. Andreas Vesalius writes anatomy. Leonado Da Vinci brings
engineering & scientific instruments. Columbus & Magellan voyage for discovery.
2.1 THE SCHOLAR FROM TORUN.
Copernicus was born in Torun, studied Aristotle at Cracow, Bologna, Plato at Padua, Allenstein & finally
Frauenburg.
Cracow was a major trade route along river Vistula to Gdansk & East / West paths. Frauenburg had a
turbulent history, a hot bed of wars with the Teutonic Knights. Things were happening, people were talking.
Under the patronage of, a Bishop his uncle, he became a doctor & a medieval canon. All intelligent men
from traditional backgrounds went into the church. He studied law & medicine in Renaissance Italy & met humanism
& Platonic influences of aesthetic elegance. Learned Greek & read the originals. But maths & a fascination of
astronomy dominated his life. He was conventional not a trail blazer.
An enterprising individual in a social mix of family circumstances, education, vocation & friendships. Why
the fuss? He produced a new mathematical astronomy that led to a change of ‘picture’ which led to a change of
‘view’ or Weltanschauung.
2.2 THE HERITAGE OF ANCIENT ASTRONOMY.
Aristotle’s astronomy, developed from the ‘2 sphere universe’, it had everything in its proper place, with movement
due to continual application of contact force. Terrestrial movement was in straight lines but celestial movement was
in circles, all by contact. Above the moon was the aether & below the 4 elements earth, water, air & fire.
Eudoxus, tried to explain the exasperating movement of the planets by complex spheres & axis of rotation. But
changes in the appearance of the planets were always a problem.
Ptolemy 100 - 178, ‘the Almagest’, produced the best bet with eccentrics, epicycles & equants. The first satisfactory
account of the movement of planets. But it was full of contrived ruses.
2.3 THE ACHIEVEMENT OF COPERNICUS.
Copernicus gave us a new picture of the universe with the Sun at the centre! He was dissatisfied with the
ruses of Ptolemy’s explanations. The planets were the real problem, the loop of retrogression, near & far, fast &
slow, bright & dim. He stuck with Ptolemy, simply changed the co-ordinates & produced a simple more elegant
solution. Annual motion. daily rotation & precession. But it was old data reinterpreted. Maths & astronomy. No
massive revolution just another way of looking at things. He kept perfect circles & epicycles it wasn’t very different &
no single observation nor experiment confirmed the doctrine for a long time after his death. He started simply but
ended with ruses just the same & it was almost as complicated! But it was radically new! The earth was not central!
After 1000 years came the new ‘De Revolutionibus’, then only 100 years later - Kepler replaced it!
The shackles of the past were gone. Innovation triumphed over tradition. The human spirit was liberated.
We were released from medieval bondage. Why did it happen?
2.4 THE ROOTS OF THE COPERNICAN REVOLUTION.
1 criticism, open discussion & debate, the Ancients could be wrong, Vesalius & the voyages of discovery
proved that. Ptolemy was ravaged.
2 observation & evidence, the weight of evidence accumulates, astronomy can be confirmed by
demonstration, astrology cannot. But Copernicus himself was not a great observer.
3 classics rediscovered, the renaissance, a moving earth was not new. Philolaus, Heraclides, Aristarchus &
a moving earth! Also Plato & perfect circles.
4 aesthetic economy, the human desire to simplify. Ockham’s razor.
‘The revolution seems to owe as much to cultural influences remote from traditional science as to specific
astronomical discoveries’. There were two revolutions starting; the Copernican revolution & the Protestant
Reformation.
2.5 COPERNICUS & THE REFORMATION. Dillenberger & the Reformation.
As with the Renaissance, the Reformation was a reversion to ideals of the distant past. A criticism of old
authority & a tolerance of new ideas. Catholics & Protestants were not in conflict until the Counter Reformation.
But there were some contradictions with the Bible? with common sense? & with Christian anti materialism
philosophy?
Peer influence:-
Dantiscus. Catholic Bishop at Frauenburg. Humanist believing in human endeavour & ingenuity. With Erasmus
supported toleration & reform from within the Catholic church.
Tiedemann Giese. Succeeded Dantiscus as bishop. A close friend, confidant & big supporter.
Rheticus. Protestant. Mathematical disciple at Wittenberg. Published ‘Narratio Prima’ in 1540. Argued that science
& the bible were separate books.
Osiander. Protestant theologian. Apologist preface - ‘It’s only a hypothesis’.
* Did the changing religious climate effect the conception & publication??
* Did the reformation help or hinder the spread??
Luther & Calvin believed the bible was only a background to the understanding of Christ. The key was
Christian interpretation & intention not literal truth. BUT meaning could not be stretched beyond what was actually
said as in the allegories from Rome. Science has a role in explaining why the sun shines, but the sun’s warmth &
brilliance are God’s work. Science was useful but not necessarily true. It should not obscure the awe & wonder of
God’s works. As Augustine knew, the trick was to be flexible enough to let science rip without tying religious beliefs
to it.
THE SPREAD OF COPERNICANISM IN NORTHERN EUROPE.
3.1 THE PARADOX OF THE COPERNICAN REVOLUTION.
Aristotle’s was a unified world view, it held up, why change? Science & the universities were religious
institutions. Immensely slow rate of acceptance. A diffusion not a bush fire. Citations? 2nd & 3rd editions? Prized
possessions & annotated.
Copernicus put rationality back into science as he searched for the truth, Reformation theology! But the
revolution needed Kepler, but Kepler was obscure non one understood his maths, the new ideas did not become
well known until Galileo, and even then the revolution needed Newton’s unifying theory for completion.
3.2 SCIENTIFIC OBJECTIONS TO COPERNICANISM.
Common sense insists the sun moves across the sky - ‘I can see it’. The earth is at rest - ‘it feels like it’. I
don’t feel giddy! Stones come straight down vertically.
What is moving the earth? Action at a distance was unknown, it was the sphere that moved the sun. Lack
of parallax implied vast distances, which were difficult to imagine.
3.3 RELIGIOUS ATTITUDES TO COPERNICANISM.
Aristotle was entrenched in the universities & Catholic opposition did not occur until 1633.
Martin Luther 1483 - 1546, indeterminate attitude. No great shakes.
Philip Melanchthon 1497 - 1560. Protestant professor at Wittenberg, Rheticus’ teacher, definite views & still
supported the old philosophies. Wittenberg interpretation accepted Copernicus as a hypothesis. This was
tolerance, Christian humanism, Copernicus was a moderate & this was a return to the classics not a revolution, it
was a question not the truth. No great shakes, no need for quick acceptance.
John Calvin 1509 - 64. Geneva. The doctrine of accommodation, suggests the Bible is not literal truth but the
usage of the day. Thus the argument was not against scripture but against common sense. Theology was a
promoter of science. They are not mutually exclusive, don’t look in the Bible for knowledge on physics. As Galileo
said ‘the bible tells how to go to heaven not how heaven goes’! Calvin’s successor, Beza, was still an Aristotelian,
with an anti Copernican inertia. No great shakes.
3.4 EUROPEAN COPERNICANISM TO 1600.
Reinhold a Prof. at Wittenberg, published Copernican tables. More influential than Rheticus? Ramus in
France encouraged Rheticus to abandon all hypotheses. Rothman, an early convert at Wilhelm & corespondent of
Tycho & Maestlin at Tubingen, who had a student, Kepler!
Digges in England discovered a new star in ‘infinite space’. Gilbert’s magnetism of a globe in space. In Italy,
Galileo & Bruno. But really a diversity of opinion but also a network of contacts, a pattern.
Puritanism had a particular effect in England. From 1560, the express teaching of the New Testament, was
preaching, not ritual ceremony & episcopacy. Radical, fresh, audacious, sceptical of tradition & fashionable Calvin.
Disobedience to church, state & science was its manifestation.
3.5 NEW ELEMENTS IN THE CLIMATE OF ASTRONOMICAL THOUGHT.
Earthly signs. The Portuguese voyages of discovery & the new geography lent weight to the errors of
Ptolemy. Habitable tropics & portable evidence of new flora & pepper!!
Heavenly signs. A supernova! Comets appeared to go through the spheres! Questions for Aristotle’s
‘incorruptible heavens’ & ‘crystalline spheres’.
But 3 reasons for the Tycho compromise :- lack of parallax & a moving earth implied a universe of immense unbelievable size
- the earth doesn’t feel in motion
- scripture says the earth is stationary.
Tycho Brahe 1546 - 1601, Danish. Ptolemy & Copernicus compromise. Too big a change to accept in one go. A
useful stepping stone. Tycho accepted some of Copernicus but he never accepted a moving earth. Importantly he
helped to remove the Aristotle spheres. Good accurate data, from his great quadrant.
Johannes Kepler 1571 - 1630. A Protestant. At Tubingen under Maestlin. Kepler was not well known, his ‘good’
work was counterbalanced by mysticism..
He produced an empirical description of the heavens starting from spirits & maths : - sun, earth & planets are closest when in a straight line therefore he accepted a heliocentric system
- Tycho Brahe was impressed & he inherited his massive observational data
- his own concept of 5 regular solids & celestial harmony!!??
- Platonic harmony of simple ratios. Preoccupied with Pythagorean mathematics.
- logical creation.
Laws 1 The planets move in ellipses, the sun not the ‘centre’ of the earth’s orbit.
2 The radius vector sweeps equal areas in the same time. Equal areas law.
3 The ratio of the planet periods is proportional to the cubes of their distance from the sun.
He thought the ‘force’ of motion was magnetic. Don’t forget Aristotle thought circular motion was natural.
Kepler employed no Copernican devices - perfect circles, eccentrics, epicycles .... & none of his own earlier ‘regular
solids’ ..... paving the way for Newton.
Once the telescope arrived Copernicus received a real boost. But there were very few Copernicans before
1600.
3.6 LATER CENTRES OF COPERNICANISM IN NORTHERN EUROPE. Hooykaas & Puritanism.
English support was increasing because of - the Puritans & the infant Gresham College, & the voyages of
discovery & the compass. William Gilbert & magnetic globes, John Wallis & the Royal Society, & Oliver Cromwell’s
bother in law, the Bishop of Chester.
The Netherlands was supportive but preoccupied with trade & expelling the Spanish. Galileo believed all
Calvinist were Copernicans. But this is not quite true, Copernican belief requires a mechanistic view of the world &
a commitment to observation & experiment.
3.7 CONCLUSION: WHERE RESISTANCE LINGERED.
Belgium. Still under Spanish catholic rule. Copernicus was in the air but inhibited.
France. 1633 decree against Galileo sent Copernicans scurrying for cover. Descartes was prohibited & he
fled to the Netherlands! Cartesianism was inhibited, mainly because his vortices undermined the Eucharist, not
because of heliocentralism. But Cartesianism eventually paved the way for acceptance.
Germany. Protestant universities flourished but they did not necessarily support!
Scotland. Calvinist tradition but slow progress compared to England..
Sweden. Protestant tradition but still opposition. Descartes was opposed because he was irreconcilable with
Aristotle, not because of the Eucharist!
Avoid feeding prejudices. Was it Calvin & Puritan theology that broke the grip of Aristotle Scholasticism &
led to the scientific revolution? There was immense diversity. In Catholic Italy the Inquisition was strong but Venice
was independent. There was prohibition but ‘they’ were prepared to accept Copernicus if ‘sufficiently strong
evidence were to be produced’. Such evidence was not available until Newton’s testable theory of gravity.
CRISIS IN ITALY.
4.1 THE ITALIAN ENVIRONMENT.
Northern Italy, was of special importance - urban, prosperous, trading & banking city states. Much diversity.
Princely patronage encouraged science, trade & the arts. Rich merchants, libraries, many Universities, particularly
Bologna & Padua, & Renaissance humanism everything looked good ... a focus of attention & visiting students.
Massive diversity & military rivalry but an emerging common language.
Florence. Originated the Renaissance. The ruling Medici family were bankers & sponsored by Charles V, the
Habsburgs & the Pope. From Duke of Florence to Grand Dukes of Tuscany. Supported Ficino & employed Galileo
as a tutor.
Rome. Governed by priests. Patronage of science & the arts was practised. However they were not all liberal
minded humanists, the big problem became the German Reformation which threatened the unity of the church. The
Jesuits in 1540 formed a European network of teaching institutions to help the Pope fight heresy. The famous
Collegio Romano & Bellarmino. The Inquisition 1542 & Council of Trent 1545 -63, were followed by an index of
prohibited books & ‘collaborative detection of heretical views in printed books’. The atmosphere changed.
Venice. Books, merchants & pepper. Fiercely independent of Rome. The only concerns were commerce & the
Levant. Very stable constitution & no wars which interfered with trade. Priests were barred from holding any state
office. A retreat for Lutherans, orthodox Greeks & Jews. 1605 Venice was excommunicated but the Pope retreated.
A bastion of freedom.
Naples. Spanish rule. Uprisings, poverty & bandits. Much occult & magic. Platonic philosophers.
Giordani Bruno 1548 - 1600. Platonism was supported as Ficino waxed, until, a century later Bruno was executed
for magical wisdom, shopped by Venice!
4.2 FREEDOM TO THEORISE LOST; THE SANCTIONS OF1576 - 1633.
The Society Of Jesus 1540. Roman Inquisition 1542. The Council Of Trent 1545 - 63. The Counter
Reformation started, & religious wars lasted until 1618 - 48, the Catholic church felt under threat. Bellarmino
advised the Pope that Platonism, Hermes, Ficino, Patrizi, Bruno, Campanella & all sorcerers were dangerous &
Neapolitan philosophy should be suppressed. Bruno was executed.
Galileo 1564 - 1642. Pisa, his home town & at the university there he objected to the unquestioned acceptance of
Aristotle & Galen. Then he went to independent Venice & the Chair of Maths at Padua. Back to Tuscany & Medici,
mathematician & philosopher to the Grand Duke.
1610 ‘Starry Messenger’, his telescope reveals mountains on the moon, satellites of Jupiter & phases of
Venus. Galileo had evidence to support his Copernican belief. But he had no proof. Unlike Copernicus & Kepler he
was an enthusiastic publisher.
He was aggressively proud of & excited by his science, insensitive to the changing mood, didn’t want any
compromise, he made enemies with his fellow academics & with the Jesuits.
Academic rivalry, set the hounds of the church in him! Cosimo Boscaglia was the Aristotelian professor at
Pisa, & a friend of the Grand Duchess! & a rival! To avoid misrepresentation Galileo wrote :1615 The letter to The Grande Duchess Christina - the Bible is concerned with religion not science.
God’s has endowed us with senses, reason & intellect, the Bible does not forbid their use. The bible & science are
independent sources of truth, but both derived from God. The Bible does not descend to lower & humbler
speculations of the scientific tit bits.
We must not deny what we see, there are doctrines subject to proof & those subject to opinion. Those who
judge propositions to be false must rigorously demonstrate them to be false. They cannot demonstrate them to be
false if they have never studied them. Stock arguments:1 Denying obvious truths can destroy confidence in the spiritually important Biblical messages. Separate
them. There are 2 books. There is no conflict. Augustine’s warning to avoid firm statements on little understood
matters, which might come to haunt in the future.
2 Truths must be pursued without interference otherwise science cannot proceed.
1615 Cardinal Bellarmino’s reply - don’t pursue physical truth be hypothetical. Your hypothesis ‘saves the
appearances’ well, but if it is presented as truth it irritates scholars & injures the faith. The mass of informed opinion
of the Holy Fathers & expositors disbelieve Copernicus, so it is not just against the Bible but against all who have
spoken. Saving the appearances is not the same as demonstrating the scriptures are false. The beach doesn’t
move when a ship sails away. Don’t push it, be careful!
No punishment. No recantation. A signed minute to that effect! Copernicus was not banned but ‘corrected’.
Galileo believed the Church had made a dreadful mistake in wanting people to deny their senses. He
moved on to his theory of tides & a new Pope, Urban 8, raised his spirits.
1623 ‘Assayer’, was a direct ridicule of Jesuit Aristotelianism & developed an alternative atomist or
corpuscular physics. But above all it was a plea for unfettered investigation.
1632 ‘Dialogue Concerning the Two Principle systems of the World’, a moving earth was the ‘alleged’
cause of the tides. But Simplicio’s statement that God could have used numerous methods to produce tides was an
obvious sop to the Pope, Galileo hadn’t kept the bargain, the Pope felt he had been tricked.
In 1633 he was tried & convicted on ‘false’ evidence, after a humiliating retraction. Remember in the Pope
did have a point, Galileo offered no ‘proof’ of heliocentralism. The unified beliefs were in danger from the ‘domino’
effect. Hindsight is wonderful. Perversely banning the book publicised it more!
Redondi suggests that the conflict was not really over Copernicanism but the much more critical issue of
transubstantiation. Aristotelian Scholasticism taught that the ‘substance’ of bread & water was lost but the
‘accidents’ remained. ‘Atomism’ suggested that atoms generated the sensations in the mouth through shape, size &
velocity? If taste & smell are secondary effects of substantial atoms, then if it still tastes & smells like bread & wine it
must be bread & wine. This is not compatible with the Eucharist & the Pope’s official scientist is a heretic! The
Copernican question by comparison was merely a misunderstanding.
But Redondi’s peers insisted transubstantiation was NOT central. Why invent a conspiracy theory when all
the evidence points to the alternative? Nevertheless historians must continually guard against ‘political’
manipulation.
1638 ‘Discourse Concerning Two New Sciences’ was published in the Netherlands, written during ‘house
arrest’ was the foundation of modern kinematics. Falling bodies & projectiles. ‘Discourse’ was a new physics not a
new astronomy. Galileo was an experimenter. Tower of Pisa drops & inclined planes. He investigated movement,
he started to describe local motions in mathematical terms. Why does a stone fall? The old answer was ‘Gods will’
or moving to its proper place. Aristotle asked what made things move, Galileo asked why they stopped. He asked
different questions. If you asked how it fell, with what characteristics, you could discover God’s laws. But his idea
that things moved when pushed by a ‘force’ was counter intuitive. A new physics with the stone possessing the
earth’s motion, inertia. Acceleration was constant, as spheres roll & canon balls move in parabolas, & 45 degrees
gives maximum range.
Galileo produced evidence to suggest mankind might discover God’s laws. While Kepler was in the mystical
clouds, Galileo was on solid ground, but crucially he didn’t see local & celestial motion as subject to a universal law!
Galileo’s theory of the tides was wrong, tides are not a local terrestrial phenomena.
What was at stake for Galileo was the right of natural philosophers to pursue scientific research
independent of authority. But for the Jesuits, Aristotle & Christ were inextricably linked, if one collapsed, what would
become of the other?
Galileo should have stayed in Venice, his trial was the culmination of a Counter Reformation trend which
resulted in a restriction of intellectual freedom. Copernicus was reprieved in 1616, ‘Dialogue’ in 1831, but Galileo
himself not until 1990?
IBERIAN SCIENCE: NAVIGATION, EMPIRE & COUNTER REFORMATION.
5.1 PORTUGAL.
Portuguese navigation. What motivation? What tools? Enormous consequences! Expansion, trade &
influence, but also a different world view. The ‘Modern’ view overtook the ‘Ancient’.
Seafaring & fishing were traditional. In 1415 the Lagos Armada captured Ceuta & the caravel exploration of
the African coast began. The caravels carried no cannons! Booty, slaves, gold & the conversion of infidel Muslims
were the aims. Coast hugging, dead reckoning, the compass & hour glass. Pole star & quadrant. Storms were a
problem. 1420 Madeira, 1427 Azores, 1473 the equator. The Pole star disappears! The sun & astrolabe took over.
1484, the complicated movement of the sun was tabulated.
Prince Henry the navigator 1394 - 1460, a humanist & with his Christian knights, trade not canon, forcing the
science of observation & experiment to deliver navigational benefits. Establishing the Sagres academy of
navigational science & cartography & unwittingly starting the scientific revolution? An historical myth?
Private profit was the motor? The Jews, were expelled from Spain in 1492, for not converting to
Catholicism, pushed science for medicine & the calendar, & pushed arithmetic to calculate profit! But in 1497
Portugal also expelled them (to tolerant Damascus)?
Bartolomeu Dias 1487. Cape of Good Hope.
Vasco da Gama 1498. Sea route to India & spices. Bigger square riggers. 1510 Goa, 1511 Malacca,1515 Hormuz,
1517 Colombo, Eventually to Macao in 1557. A chain of strategic outposts tapping the most profitable commerce in
the world. Westward also, 1500, Brazil & sugar by accident.
The crown regulated the teaching pilots, map makers & instruments, all were of strategic importance.
Patronage as scientists were employed at court.
The frontiers of scientific knowledge were undoubtedly pushed by navigational needs. Magnetic &
geographical maps. 1502 Cantino’s planisphere. New constellations. Spain became a rival & the rise of Seville for
maps & instruments benefited from a ‘brain drain’ from Portugal & produced the first navigation manual in 1535. But
the big contribution to science came from the discoveries.
The firsts sense of surpassing the Ancients who suggested that the tropics were uninhabitable & some
plants were described incorrectly. The fallibility of ancient authority was demonstrated by sense experience. The
first empirical falsification encouraged the search for truth & the confidence to challenge authority.
The spirit of discovery & the spirit of enquiry are the same!
Empire was the stimulus for science - direct experience with observation & precise recording!
Garcia d’Orta 1501 - 68, 1563 ‘Coloquis’. Exiled Spanish Jew, never to withdraw from his beliefs even though a
‘converso’ & the target of the 1480 Inquisition. Fled the inquisition to Goa where he wrote about exotic flora & fauna
& remedies. The inquisition eventually reached Goa & his remains were exhumed & publicly burned. He believed
the Greeks, particularly Dioscorides & his medicinal plants were not at fault as they studied at a great distance &
could not navigate the intervening seas. But today’s writers were at fault because theycould go & see for
themselves.
The place of origin of species can be indicated by price, the further away the higher the price. Spices were
not only for cooking & preservation but also for medicine.
Inevitably some travellers did not describe science they only robbed the Indians.
17th Century stagnation. The blossoming didn’t last. Why? Expulsion of the Jews? Persecution of the new
Christians? Atmosphere of fear from the 1536 Portuguese Inquisition? Jesuit control of education? Decline of
navigation? The Counter Reformation beat the humanist Renaissance?
But, also, they over stretched themselves, equipping ships for long voyages & protecting cargoes &
colonies was expensive.
5.2 SPAIN.
Very similar to Portugal. Monarchs patronising science for prestige & benefit. Ferdinand & Isabella, at war
with the Moors. Charles V 1520 - 55, at war with Islam & Protestants. Philip II 1556 - 98, went bankrupt. Philip III.
Science & minorities - Jews, Muslims & Christians. Co-habitation until final Moorish defeat in Grenada in
1492 & Jewish expulsions in 1492.
The Muslim ‘Alfonsine Tables’, were used by Copernicus. By the 16th Century Arabic science was faltering
because of the spread of ‘humanism’ from Italy, favouring the original Greek texts, & Arab science was associated
with Islam which was the enemy.
The Spanish Inquisition of 1480 was a reaction to the secret loyalties of forcibly ‘converted’ Jews to
Christianity. ‘Conversos’ were discriminated against but enacting legislation is not the same as enforcing it. The
Jews were wanted because of their medicinal talent. In the same way the rich money lenders were needed during
the usury debate in England.
The stagnation of science in Spain could have been due to the expulsion of the Jews, resulting in few
merchants & little finance for science?
Navigation & science. Competition for territory was a spur.
Columbus, 1492 a Catholic from Genoa. Persistence, confidence & seamanship. Not science?
1494 Tordesillas demarcation line, longitude was needed for political reasons as well as navigation! But it
required an accurate clock. 1598 Philip III offered a big prise. But the solution had to wait for Harrison & 1737.
The Casa (house of trade) in 1503, became a centre for navigation training in Seville. the world centre.
The stimulus of Empire again. By 1530 Spain had acquired massively more empire than Portugal, &
needed information about these new territories in order to control them. Amazement at what the new world
contained led to an open-mindedness & challenge that helped science. The urge for accurate recording of
observation & sense experience & the realisation that the Ancients did not know it all & did make mistakes.
Philip II’s Royal Council controlled all empire matters except finance & Catholic orthodoxy!! In 1571 Juan
Lopez de Velasco, a cosmographer chronicler, collected data - astronomical, flora & fauna for navigation, medice,
cures for syphilis, & exotic animals! In 1570 Fransisco Hernades, one of Philip’s physicians went on a fact finding
trip looking for medicinal plants. Dioscorides was surpassed! ‘Nothing could live in the scorching heat of the tropics’,
‘The pepper plant climbs up other trees, & fruit grows in bunches’ .... ‘Abolish all the writers, ancient & modern ....
who have not the testimony of their own eyes’ ....
Nicholas Monardes, ‘Historia Medicinal’, a Seville physician. Reliance on the Ancients was replaced by a confidence
in science; observation & experiment. Even Jesuits questioned their ingrained trust! How could such diversity be
explained by Noah’s ark? Jose de Acousta, a Jesuit missionary, mocked the Ancients belief in scorching heat as he
was cold in the Andes.
Above all - silver & gold! Mercury amalgam lowers refining temperatures & saves heating fuel.
Monarch, cities, church & science. Jealously guarded regional liberties curtailed the King’s power. City
states were quite independent, & sponsored universities. Patronage of scientific institutions. The motivational
search for medicine. Paracelsus was an influence. Aranjuez had a herb garden.
Philip, not the Pope, was the effective head of the church. Military campaigns, against diabolical Islam &
heretical Protestants, were expensive.
Spain led the Counter Reformation which couldn’t have helped science? It was not abolished until 1834! No
doubt innovative ideas were inhibited. Ideological isolation was imposed. But there were positives - the church was
reformed. Spain didn’t move against Copernicus until 1633. Paracelsus was tolerated with minor religious
expurgations, & others acknowledging him as an expert. There was confusion. Science was feared as a
contradiction to free will & allied with the Lutheran devil but wanted because of navigation & medicine.
The Counter Reformation killed Spanish science & ideas. Isolation, forbidden books & forbidden study
abroad, expulsion of Jews & inquisition of ‘conversos’, all conspired against science. The trend was similar to Italy from freedom & independence to fear & oppression.
Spain gathered its taxes from a far flung empire not internally as in France. Spain spent all its taxes on
keeping its far flung empire under control. Taxes, seizure, confiscation & unilateral alteration of contracts. Science
had no chance.
SCIENCE FROM THE EARTH IN CENTRAL EUROPE.
The Holy Roman Empire originated with Charlemagne in 800. Seven ‘electors’, Palatine, Brandenburg,
Saxony, Bohemia, Mainz, Trier & Cologne. Habsburg Maximilian 1493 - 1520, failed to establish any common
institutions. Charles V 1520 -55, included Aragon, Castile & Burgundy, Netherlands, North Africa, Americas & areas
of Northern Italy . Ravaged by Ferdinand of Austria, his brother, the Ottomans & the Reformation in 1517, led to
abdication. Diet of Augsburg 1555, each prince to have his own way, no unified faith. Council of Trent 1545 - 63,
reaffirmed Catholic dogma. Thirty Years War 1618 - 48, confirmed diversity, 300 independent states!
6.1 MINING IN CENTRAL EUROPE.
THE HARTZ - THE ERZGEBIRGE - THE TYROL
Silver output peaked in 1530 & was then overtaken by riches from the ‘New World’. Technology of silver
extraction from copper ores with lead and machine driven drainage systems were developing. The technology was
based on craft skills. The Princes were co-ordinating individual enterprise as greater capital was needed, but the
financier merchants of the great German commercial towns were in control. The Fuggers of Augsburg. It wasn’t fire,
air, water & earth but one particular earth that was valuable, silver!! Practical money not philosophers stones nor
elixirs of life! Financial control & assaying were the drivers of a developing practical science!!
Nevertheless the craft was still based on an animistic belief that ores grew in the ‘womb’ of mother earth
and the divining rod could seek out the veins.
6.2 GEORGIUS AGRICOLA 1494 - 1555.
Traditional education. University of Leipzig. Philosophy & philology. Humanism & Wittenberg were close. A
2nd degree at Leipzig led him to medicine & von Calw ( a useful little book on mines), & 3 years at Bologna &
Venice, & Hippocrates & Galen. Including the use of minerals as medicine? Return to Saxony in 1527 & post of
‘Physician & apothecary of Joachimstal’. The Erzgebirge peak.
He accumulated knowledge from all people, from all classical texts, from all observations.
1st publication in 1530, ‘Bermannus’. Erasmus wrote an enthusiastic letter of recommendation.
Demystification of the secret knowledge of mining, to uncover the laws of mining.
In 1546 the Chemnitz publications under Elector Maurice’s patronage; a systematic series of enquiries into geology, mineralogy, mining, metallurgy.
1556 ‘De Re Metallica’, covers mining, metallurgy & assaying, bringing together all previous publications.
Truth from dedicated recording of observation & sense experience. The essential scheme - comparison of
the ancient texts & contemporary views with direct observation & experience in the Erzgebirge mines. ‘Those things
which we see with our eyes & understand by means of our senses are more clearly to be demonstrated than if
learned by means of reasoning’. The foundation of the English industrial revolution??
6.3 PARACELSUS 1493 -1541.
Self taught by his Dad. Medical degree in Ferrara Italy? Travelled widely. A wanderer. Military surgeon in
Venice? In the Fugger mines near Villach? 1527 Basle town physician. But he soon antagonised the local
academics. A destroyer of myths, the conventional wisdom was scorned & chemistry was bought to bear on
medicine. At the same time he knew magic. Cures from the mutual sympathies of people & nature, not from
books....
Paracelsus’ strange idea - man at the centre of creation, the animal body, composed of the same
substances, what is outside is inside. Man can be understood only as a microcosm of the world. Remedies from
‘essences’ from the outside cosmos. From the sympathy between man & nature. Truth came from these shared
virtues discovered in trance not books or reason.
A move to scepticism & empiricism so important for modern science.
For medicine this meant. Specific disease, specific cause, specific treatments. Not the classical Aristotle,
Galen & Avicenna, a where a healthy individual had a balance of ‘four humours’ related to the four elements, the
balance determined one nature & health. Out of balance led to disease.
Paracelsus added salt, sulphur & mercury to the ancient elements. These were the basics from which
nature produced individual substances as matter develops. ‘Essences’ & ‘principles’ could be extracted. The idea
of activity of substances had been established. These substances were Paracelsus’ specific causes which
produced disease & remedies, they came from all parts of the cosmos.
Thus, a new approach. Experiment..... ‘the laboratory is the true home of the doctor’. See what works in
reality not from erudite books. Not Galen’s compounding of medicines but isolation of the active ingredient. Or
specific minerals! Practical essences were prepared for treatments, Aristotle’s four elements were added to & built
upon as nature produced new substances from ‘seeds’........this obscure & complex system was important for the
development of chemistry & the reactivity of substances. Alchemy was important for techniques for the preparation
of medicines & chemicals.
Truth from mystical occult trances not reason. Some of his crazy ideas worked. Tiny amounts of distilled
essences cured, homeopathy! Paracelsus combined chemistry & medicine, an ‘iatrochemist’.
A contrariness of character resulted in new fruitful thinking. ...& a following.
6.4 THE EMERGENCE OF CHEMISTRY.
Separation, identification & assaying of minerals & chemicals. Via mining & medicine. Technology route &
alchemy route. The idea of specific chemicals & their reactivity. From assaying & medicine there was a chemical
understanding of nature emerging as well as a physical one?
Andreas Libavius 1560 - 1616, 1597 ‘Alchemia’, the 1st chemical textbook. Metallurgy & pharmacy. Operations &
preparations. Simple & complex. Extracts & ‘magisteries’. Aristotelian & Paracelsian.
6.5 SCIENCE AT THE COURT IN CENTRAL EUROPE.
The princely courts in Germany provided :1 an alternative institutional environment for science, a cultural lead, both patronage & practitioners. Tycho
& Kepler were alchemists at Rudolph’s court
2 new projects reflecting alternative values, driven by rivalry & economics & the need to unify world views &
theologies of their territories. Knowledge provided power as well as understanding
3 informal networks of communication.
The scientific potential in Germany succumbed to the turmoil of the 30 Years War 1618 - 48. The last
religious war, as the Habsburgs tried to reverse the effects of the Reformation. Commercial interests triumph over
religion.
FRENCH SCIENCE IN THE 17TH CENTURY.
In 1500 after the 100 years war, France moved towards a bureaucratic, autocratic, absolute monarchy. The
English, the Huguenots & the Estates Generale were banished. All rivals were eliminated & the Royal power to tax &
regulate for wars, court luxuries & the arts, was established. The crown bureaucracy moved to control everything. A
big diverse country did not need to trade much, France was largely self sufficient, space & climate yielded enough
food without enclosures & innovation.
Mobility of labour (the guilds) & mobility of capital (the fiscal bureaucracy) were limited, & innovation
consequently inhibited. Guild monopolies were enforced in return for license revenues. ‘State regulation evolved to
a point where it often covered every detail of the production process in an industry’. Every price of every type of
cloth was fixed. Science had no chance apart from imitation? ‘Catch up’ science was a recurring feature of progress
in Europe & should be distinguished from the innovation of inspired individuals who, although prisoners of their
times, often had one or two good ideas that were genuinely new & correct!
7.1 SCIENCE & RELIGIOUS AUTHORITY.
After the Peace of Westphalia 1648, secular rulers throughout Europe gained in authority & further
undermined the authority of the Pope who was under pressure in any case from with the shift from ‘revealed
knowledge’ to discovered science through ‘observations of nature & the exercise of reason’. Cardinal Richelieu
emerged in France & ‘le Fronde’ 1648 - 1659, & the resulting chaos was the rule until Louis XIV 1638 - 1715, &
Colbert established a strict absolute monarchy which lasted until the Bastille in 1789.
The folly of censorship & control. Controls led to martyrdom & exposure of the critical arguments. The
books were printed in the Netherlands!
The church & the Jesuits still exerted a powerful pressure, but there were many factions. The Jansenists
were against the Jesuit attempts to ‘popularise’ the church through indulgences, & sought the purification &
simplification of the Catholic church. To the Gallicans unquestioned obedience to the Pope was anathema. Church
& crown came under pressure & from 1650 Cartesianism took hold but as late as 1680 the Jesuits still enforced
Aristotle & the reaction was censure & tighter control.
Renaudot 1586 - 1653, a Protestant, 1633 he established a Baconian Bureau in Paris with Richelieu’s support &
with science for everyone, it was a labour exchange, a dispensary & a source of general advice & information. A
populariser of science.
7.2 CHEMISTRY & BOTANY AT THE JARDIN DU ROI. 1626.
The value of science was recognised & Davisson, Lemery & Glaser, at the Jardin du Roi, argued that
chemistry & Paracelsus were useful in medicine. De Tournefort’s plant classification held until Linnaeus.
Lemery, 1675 ‘Cours de chemie’, the French chemistry textbook until Lavoisier.
7.3 THE ACADEMIE ROYALE DES SCIENCES. 1666.
After the precedent of Royal patronage at the Jardin du Roi, Colbert established the Academie modelled on
the Royal Society & Baconianism. Not typical of French Cartesianism.
Christian Huygens 1629 - 95. Dutch. Pendulum clock. Pumping engine with gun powder! Denis Papin, continued the
work with steam. It didn’t work but the idea was sown for Newcomen. Just as the pump idea came from Boyle &
stressed the value of the international community.
Force = mass * acceleration = m*v2 / r.
Royal support & patronage was everywhere & produced an informed clique of intellectuals, writers & artist
capable of supporting cultural activity independent of the court. French ascendancy from Colbert’s taxes?
7.4 GASSENDI’S REVIVAL OF EPICUREAN ATOMISM PHILOSOPHY.
Pierre Gassendi 1592 - 1655. A Catholic priest who tried to rid ‘atomism’ of atheistic associations, by holding that
atoms were created by God. Atoms joined to form corpuscles which were the ‘seeds’ of things & the theory helped
the 17th century ‘mechanical philosophy’. A familiar theme of rejecting Aristotle but looking to other Ancients for
interesting ideas. He revived the rival atomism of Epicurus as a whole. The ties with classical learning which so
inspired the humanists were going out of fashion, so his efforts at reviving continuity were not necessary, & he lost
favour.
Nothing new & no experiments. The atomic theory with motion & mutual attraction was helpful for the
‘mechanical philosophy’. But essentially a backward looking humanist, cultural continuity with the Ancients.
He became a rival to Descartes who started afresh without the Ancients & split philosophy into component
parts, branches of science became separate; paving the way for reductionism?
7.5 DESCARTES IDEA OF COMPLETED SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE. 1596 - 1650. DEDUCTION
A man of private means who moved to the Netherlands for greater intellectual freedom. & to Sweden’s
Queen Christina.
Descartes, was a systems builder, the universe was a corpuscular machine, a complete system. Aristotle’s
comprehensive unified world view was for the first time challenged by a ‘complete’ theory, everything was
questioned. Pure reason from axioms, irrefutable truths, everything explained mechanically. No religious or occult
explanations, no God interfering to make things work. But he did justify God because as all ideas are imperfect, a
perfect being must have given him the power of thought. Although he tried to rid himself of preconceived ideas he
failed. The weakness of induction is that the senses can be wrong but the problem for deduction is that the starting
axioms can be wrong. How do you rid the mind of prejudice?
1637 ‘Discours de la Methode’
- develop a complete system
- challenge the truth of all tenets.
The physical causes of what was observed were explained by applying logic to what was already known.
Experiment was absent, he was a philosopher.
1. Accept as true only those things felt to be certain. Undeniable facts.
2. Resolve problems into small parts. Reductionism.
3. Investigate each separately, beginning with the simplest & moving to the most complex. Reason step by step.
4. Review regularly to ensure consistency.
1644 ‘Principles of Philosophy’ - Vortex theory - Presented as a ‘hypothesis’. Physical explanations based
on ‘corpuscular’ theory & mechanical hypothesis. The motion & interaction of corpuscles was the cause of all
natural phenomena. Corpuscles changed shape & size resulting in changed properties, atoms were immutable. No
vacuum, no action at a distance (occult!), just particles bumping into one another. To avoid the ‘atomists’ vacuum
Descartes needed the ‘aether’, if corpuscles moved so did the whole system. But it was only descriptive & vortices
couldn’t be seen or mathematically modelled.
He applied his mechanical philosophy to the human body & distinguished between active mind & inert
matter. Mind & matter interacted but how became a major issue.
Step by logical step, ‘there is nothing so hidden that it cannot be discovered’ by long chains of reason.
Linear! The method works with all disciplines. It was an immense theory of everything. He didn’t need co-operation!
His co-ordinate geometry / algebra was needed to progress from Galileo. He was a rival to Newton.
Descartes was new, he connected maths & science, & confirmed the mechanical philosophy.
In spite of his method Descartes didn’t use his maths rigorously, he resorted to speculation & fancy
vortices, .... he banished ‘attraction & vacuum’ & was shamed by Newton!!
The desire for certainty led to his ideas being popular. But popular analogies often led him astray. He had
no evidence! He was prejudiced towards mechanical explanations. Also there was no utility!
7.6 DESCARTES & CIRCULATION OF THE BLOOD.
The circulation of blood by a pumping heart exposed Descartes, he stuck to the twin errors of
Scholasticism, invoking common sense & traditional opinion (conventional wisdom). Upheld even when disproved
by experiment. He insisted the heart expanded by force of vaporisation of blood. It was ‘blown up’. The opposite of
the truth, it filled when expanded & emptied when contracted!
He arrogantly suggested if he was wrong about this he was wrong about everything! The prejudices he sort
to banish were waxing in spite of experiments to the contrary.
7.7 SCIENCE & CHRISTIAN BELIEF.
By 1660 Cartesianism based on mathematical reasoning & corpuscular philosophy, provided a mechanical
world view (no occult magic, no teleology) & was more fashionable than Aristotelianism in France. 17th century
English science with its practical emphasis on experiment, invention & utility contrasts sharply with the philosophical
& mathematical system building of French science.
The big Christian problem was the ‘machine’ viewpoint’ & separation of mind & body. The mind was totally
separate from the body & therefore not mechanical, but he could not explain how mind & body interacted, sense
perception in the mind was a problem.
Nicholas Malebranche 1638 - 1715, suggested God is involved in all sense perceptions, God puts the image
there!!!!! ‘Occasionalism’.
Marin Mersenne 1588 - 1648, a friar, a Baconite & different - precision in observation. He criticised Descartes’
method as incapable of proof. He disliked Gassendi as atoms & chance movements were atheistic. Knowledge
could be built up not by reason but by experiment. Only God knows the truth, no axioms, no machines. & no
Hermes or occultists! He tried to help Galileo’s work as a supreme example of the rationality of nature governed by
laws.
An experimenter in light & sound.
Also he instigated a scientific network of communications, around 1623. He sponsored publications & an
elite international ‘salon’. A forerunner of the Academies! Built on the Baconian idea of co-operation!
Blaise Pascal 1623 - 62, another Baconite & pro Jansenist. A mathematical prodigy with a typical desire to reconcile
faith & science. He started with a theory not observation, but then followed the Bacon method of experiment & data
to validate the theory. The problem was that if the theory is in your mind the data will be made to fit.
He produced a mechanical calculating machine. He laid the foundation for the modern theory of
probabilities. He experimented with the weight of air & Torricelli’s work on barometers at the top & bottom of
mountains.
7.8 BACONIANISM IN THE ACADEMIE ROYALE DES SCIENCES.
Maths & physics. Modelled on the London Society! Repeated many experiments. With Colbert’s
enthusiastic support, when he died in 1683 fortunes declined until reorganisation in 1699.
7.9 CONCLUSION.
The church remained strong & limited intellectual freedom & censored strictly to maintain Aristotelianism.
Descartes escaped to Netherlands!! Royal patronage was vital.
Descartes & Galileo tended to work mathematically towards philosophical deduction. A mechanical
philosophy emerged this was important for science because a machine could be understood & investigated.
Mersenne & Pascal were more empirical & experimented.
Societies, communication, co-operation & an international scientific community started to take off!!
But France didn’t take off. French science got bogged down in inhibition, regulation & the arrogance of
‘reason’ & theory over bog standard sense evidence!!
SCIENCE IN 17TH CENTURY ENGLAND.
Henry VII 1485 - 1509. Henry VIII 1509 - 1547. Edward VI 1547 - 53. Mary 1553 - 58. Fall of Calais 1558.
Elizabeth 1558 - 1603. Armada 1588. James 1 1603 - 1625. Charles 1 1625 - 49. Civil War 1642. Charles II 1660 85. James II 1685 - 88. Glorious revolution 1688.
England did not have the advantage of France’s size & self sufficiency, Spain’s empire nor the Netherlands’
institutional efficiency.
The Netherlands, a small country with few resources but discovered prosperity through trade. Trade made
money & ‘purchased’ deregulation as rich merchants placated the desire of the Burgundian Dukes for wealth &
influence. Foreign merchants were welcomed in the Netherlands, as were spices & cloth. Transaction costs were
reduced by institutions originally discovered by the Italians in Venice. Search, negotiation & enforcement costs were
all reduced through urban markets. ‘Standard’ quality & procedures, including an ‘Amsterdam price’ were
established. Debt could be pursued through the courts. Private property was protected. Custom & practice were
supported by the legal system. A mercantile law became a post rationalisation of efficient practice.
In England the House of Commons was able to influence the Stuarts & then after the revolution the Crown
was circumscribed by Common Law. The Netherlands became an important model. The collapse of the 1571 Act of
Usury was due to Amsterdam interest rates & Protestant William of Orange sealed English freedom!
8.1 ENGLAND AT THE BEGINNING OF THE 17TH CENTURY.
From 1550 increasing prosperity from exploration, commerce & knowledge. William Cecil’s economic
policies of ‘support’ through selling licenses & monopolies to great companies like the Merchant Adventurers
(operating in Netherlands & Germany). Merchants were encouraged to venture further afield, Muscovy, Persia, the
Levant, the Baltic, Africa & the West Indies ...... Better maps & navigation were needed. At home industrial
development was also supported by patents as coal mining led expansion.
Also there was an influx of minorities fleeing from persecution abroad.
Religious attitudes were important, Presbyterians were limiting Catholic influence but the power of the
Episcopal courts broke the Presbyterian movement but, perhaps, launched the age of Puritanism (1560), with their
closely regulated habits & desire for reform. The arrival of the Jesuits in 1580 led to anti Catholic legislation, which
led to the aim of putting Mary, Queen of Scots, on the throne, but this was finally squashed by her execution in 1587
& the defeat of the supporting Armada in 1588. The war with Spain was a drain on resources, both labour & money.
Taxes were up & overseas trade down. There was crowd trouble around as the 17th century opened. Trade was
being adversely affected by the Monarch’s wars. A factor in the English, American & French revolutions?
The Puritans did OK under James but Charles was antagonistic, leading to a Puritan / Parliament alliance
against him, leading to the dissolution. The Scots were restless & Charles without money was forced to recall
Parliament in 1640. But no taxes were forthcoming & worse a bill to abolish episcopacy was enacted. An alliance of
pro Catholic, pro monarchy noblemen led to the Civil War.
8.2 GILBERT’S EXPERIMENTS ON MAGNETISM.
Meanwhile Digges was suggesting God did not limit the sphere of the stars & Tycho Brae saw comets
destroying the idea of crystalline spheres. But what held the stars up!!! Magnetism?
The Chinese knew of Magnesia & north south orientation. The compass was in use in the 10th Century.
William Gilbert 1544 - 1603. 1600 ‘De Magnete’. Concentrated on navigation & angle of dip. But his lasting
contribution was of the Earth as a big magnet & careful experimental work on the orientation of loadstone.
Inclination & declination.
Magnetism could not explain the rotation of the earth & Gilbert remained in magic & the occult. A creature
of his time!
8.3 WILLIAM HARVEY & THE CIRCULATION OF THE BLOOD.
William Harvey 1578 - 1657. 1628 ‘De Motu Cordis’. Following Vesalius, & study at Padua. Through experiment &
dissection, calculation (2 ounces per heart beat) & reasoning, too much to be produced by the liver, it must
circulate? He saw the heart had a mechanical function of transmitting blood via arteries & veins to the body but why
are the lungs such a big player? But he still framed his ideas in the language of Plato & circles & warm suns, he was
embedded in the mysticism typical of the times.
Nevertheless Harvey’s empiricism was an important step from Aristotelianism to experimental science. He
asked questions! If the questions are right the answers will be right!
8.4 FRANCIS BACON’S SCIENTIFIC METHOD. INDUCTION.
Francis Bacon 1561 - 1626. The need to reform knowledge was reminiscent of Descartes, but he was not a
mathematician. Descartes had axioms & logic, Bacon was empirical & experimental. Both wanted to start again
from scratch. Bacon’s new information came, not from books or reason, but from direct observation of nature.
Scholasticism was concerned with arguments unconnected with observations of the real world.
1620 ‘Novum Organum’. An advocate of inductive method, but the senses can be unreliable, & the insidious
influence of prejudice is everywhere. Knowledge does not lead to a disbelief in God. Knowledge is useful & glorifies
God! But he was no ‘mere empiricist’ Bacon developed theories from his experiments which could be verified by
further experimentation.
His belief that knowledge grows by increments, & the Moderns can advance beyond the Ancients, helped to
make possible a theory of progress. Co-operation was necessary as opposed to Descartes view that all could be
done in his own head, a ‘dogmatic theorist’. ‘My way of discovering science depends on the co-operative activity of
many researchers’. NB. Descartes didn’t publish until 1637.
Utility & manufacturing techniques could be improved by science & the Puritans were enthusiastic. But even
so Bacon was too simplistic, he neglected the spark of creativity.
8.5 PRECURSORS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY.
Gresham College, London, 1598.
Puritans & practical applications with an eye to utility. Not like theoretical Aristotle!
Samuel Hartlib, son of a Polish merchant, his wish was to set up a Government sponsored institution for science &
communication. Similar to the ideas of his friend Mersenne, but it never materialised.
Wadham College, Oxford.
John Wilkins 1614 - 72 was also prominent in forming a scientific community. Beehives & plants, & farm machinery!
Meeting regularly from 1640 both the London & Oxford groups were noted for their tolerance, anti authority
& Puritan inclinations.
8.6 PURITANISM & SCIENCE. Max Weber & Robert Merton.
The reformed church was fragmented & less able than Rome to control ideas & printing. Positively
Protestantism produced :- the Wittenberg interpretation.
- the doctrine of accommodation.
- a stress on utility.
The Puritans welcomed Baconianism because anyone, artisans without university education, could
experiment & promote science, utility & manufacturing techniques.
From 1649 Puritans were in the vanguard, tolerance, liberty, denunciation of arbitrary power, independence
of mind, self reliance, self restraint, orderliness, simplicity, attention to detail, single-mindedness, & anti authority.
Experimenting to demonstrate the attributes of God, extending knowledge of God’s creation. The new science was
not erudite study of ancient books but open to all who could experiment, without the need to practice erudite
theoretical philosophising.
8.7 EARLY SCIENTIFIC WORK OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY. 1660
The Royal Society grew out of Gresham, experiments & international co-operation.
Robert Hooke 1635 - 1703, Curator. With John Flamsteed of the Royal Observatory, the only two full time paid
scientists. Famous for microscopy. 1665 ‘Micrographia’. Not only describing what was seen but also explaining
physical phenomena. But the revelations under the microscope were almost as disturbing as Galileo’s through the
telescope!
Robert Boyle 1627 - 91. A transitional man, he accepted the mechanical view but not the aether, there was no
evidence. An experimenter & gentleman. Air pumps & vacuum, alternative to the ‘space’ above mercury columns.
He embraced the mechanical corpuscular philosophy. The Greek ‘atomists’ & Epicureans proposed that all
particles bumped & ground. Basic Aristotle had cause & effect & prime movers & God. The ‘spring’ of air due to the
motion of particles moving at random in vacuous space. Descartes’ corpuscular theories allowed the possibility of
mathematics. Chemical & physical secondary effects like taste & smell, were products of the primary motions. But
they were all the same basic matter, they could be modified, & differences between substances were due to shape
& size. It was all to do with position, matter & motion in a giant machine.
Descartes’ vortices were a continuum, no action at a distance, no God. Boyle failed to find Descartes
‘aether’.
Boyle’s Law came from carefully planned experiments. Pascal was a mathematician, his experiments
were often unrepeatable.
Chemical properties of air were investigated. In a vacuum bells don’t sound. Feathers fall as fast as
stones. Barometers don’t work. Things don’t burn. Animals die. Air had a vital quintessence! ‘Celestial effluvia’!
Boyle investigations exposed the problem of chemistry which was defining what was being talked about,
what is fire? Has it weight? Fired (oxidised) material gains weight! Priestley looked but Lavoisier weighed the flask &
got a different answer, he asked a different question!
Nevertheless Boyle did define an element, although not in terms of identical corpuscles as elements had
many properties all caused by different shapes & sizes of corpuscles! He could be considered the father of
modern chemistry in terms of rigorous experimental methods, criticising Aristotle’s 4 elements & Paracelsus’ 3
principles. He looked at phosphorous from urine & investigated mineral waters & developed various chemical tests.
Boyle missed the point of ‘air’ that Lavoisier grasped. An alchemist?!
8.8 LIMITATIONS OF THE MECHANICAL PHILOSOPHY.
17th century science was dominated by the mechanical philosophy, linked with experiments. If the world
was a machine it could be understood. Driven by navigation, instrument manufacture & medicine. The Royal
Observatory, the Royal Society & the Chelsea Physic (medicine) Garden.
Thomas Hobbes 1588 - 1670. 1651 ‘Leviathan’. The state as a machine, extended the mechanical view to ethics &
politics. This was a characteristic interconnection between science & politics. No room for God, miracles, alchemy &
cures or any occult proposition. This went down better in France where experiment, spectacular events & real
anomalies were irrelevant to a ‘nice’ theory, but even so there was no mechanical justification for the aristocratic
code. Similarly Marx’s plausibility went down well in France.
There were many dissenters, mechanics couldn’t explain the strange results from some experiments, nor
magic & the occult, but real opposition had to wait until the quantum theory? Was the main mechanical protagonist
Isaac????..... BUT.... the was no ‘mechanical’ explanation for gravity......was God a divine mechanic??? Newton &
Boyle worked extensively in alchemy!
8.9 SIR ISAAC NEWTON 1642 - 1727.
The explanation & prediction of phenomena. A grumpy mathematician. A reluctant publisher?
Method of analysis & synthesis, from observation / experiment. Axiomatic method, from creative
imagination BUT validated by observation/ experiment. The axiom is ‘ideal’ & not to be confused with ‘empirical
application’. All subject to revision in the light of further evidence!
Differential calculus, integral calculus, compound nature of white light, reflecting telescope, force of gravity,
universal gravitation theory.
1687 - Principia. 1. Dynamics principles. 2. Fluids. 3. Applied to the universe.
Hook. Halley. Wren. Why ellipses? From Kepler’s equal area law & distance cube law. The sun must be
involved.....? Halley proposed an inverse square law but could not, of course, prove it.
Galileo was an experimental physicist who could still imagine natural circular motion, Kepler a mystic,
Descartes was relatively devoid of maths but Newton could think abstractly and knew his maths, he produced the
unified theory of motion. For Newton there must be two forces, inertia & gravity, otherwise the planets would either
crash into the sun or career off into space.
Newton’s maths was a separate abstract world compared to the world of physics or natural philosophy.
Newton explained Kepler’s Laws mathematically, he extended Galileo’s local motion to universal motion & he
destroyed Descartes.
Laws of motion, axioms or mathematical principles:1 bodies continue in a straight line unless - inertia
2 any change proportional to the applied force - mass * velocity
3 every action has an equal & opposite reaction.
The same force has 5 actions. 1. Keeps planets. 2. Keeps satellites. 3. Makes bodies fall to earth. 4. Holds
bodies on earth. 5. causes the tides.
Newton saw mass as a resistance to acceleration or inertia. Mass was also a measure of a body’s
response to gravity. Newton could not explain the connection, that had to wait for Einstein. But from Newton maths
and science were inseparable.
There was no physical explanation of gravity, so was Newton the arch mechanic? Was it neo-Platonic
magic, under the control of an ‘intelligent being’? God created & continued to manipulate. He was immersed in
alchemy!! The 1st modern scientist or the last magician??
Aristotelians & Cartesians dismissed such ‘action at a distance’ as absurd; it was not mechanical, there was
no physical explanation for gravity!! For others Newton’s scientific method was based on the mechanical theory.
The whole universe was a giant machine that would respond to investigation & maths.
1704 ‘Opticks’ & composition of white light. Chromatic aberration led him to a reflecting telescope.
The Method of analysis & synthesis. Deduce consequences which go beyond the original inductive
evidence, validation by prediction.
The Axiomatic method. Original input could be sense experience from experiments OR a reasonable
thought.
Until Newton science thrived on experimental facts & explanatory hypotheses.
After Newton, theory was established & confirmed & validated by experiment.
Newton had big battles with Flamsteed over access to astronomical data & Leibniz over who was 1st with
calculus.... & the role of God in the universe ...... a difficult man? But he had intellectual & social stature.
Pope:Nature & nature’s laws lay hid in night,
God said let Newton be & all was light.
SCIENTIFIC ACADEMIES ACROSS EUROPE.
9.1 THE ORGANISATION OF SCIENCE IN THE 17TH CENTURY.
The Academy emerged as a new institution for scientific progress. By 1800, 70 ‘Academies’ were
flourishing in Italy, England, France & Prussia. Their distinguishing feature was experimental knowledge.
The traditional Universities were bogged down in conservative scholasticism based on ecclesiastical
authority & law, theology & medicine. There purpose was to educate clerics & future members of society & not to
push the frontiers of knowledge! Science was ‘extra curricular’. Thus, voluntary associations experimenting &
debating beyond church control. Most often patronised by the Princes, but diverse & depended on communication
with others who were in a position to judge scientific value. Immune from internal treachery. Starting in the coffee
houses (or the Goshawk!)?
Princely patronage helped (funding), as did writing in the vernacular & dissemination by printing &
correspondence circles. Community for sharing instrument costs, as well as review?
Also anatomy theatres, observatories & botanical gardens.
9.2 LINCEI, ROME. 1603. & CIMENTO, FLORENCE. 1657.
Renaissance academies outside of the universities, attached to the Renaissance Courts, had been
established in the 15th century. There was a long tradition in the Italian States. Once again the origins of new
innovative institutions are to be found in Italy during the humanist Renaissance.
Galileo joined the Lincei, which was typical, with a library at its heart & an important centre of traditional
culture as well as a focus of rivalry between Jesuits & anti Aristotelians. Cimento was founded by the Medicis.
Cimento meant experiment. Publishing was also important, ‘Saggi’ was essential to share ‘facts’ from God with
others. ‘Saggi’s’ motto was ‘proceeding by trial & error’, but God was the source of all knowledge.
9.3 THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF LONDON. 1660.
The reform of knowledge & Baconian methods for the benefit of mankind. A spontaneous co-operative
community evolving from origins in Gresham & Oxford. Research rather than teaching.
Religiously, internationally & scientifically diverse & independent of Princely patronage & interference? No
fixed membership, no proscribed topics. Funded by its membership! Laborious, co-operative inductive methods &
private experiments. Diversity of views made unanimity difficult but brought a balance of view & avoided pissing into
the tent. Club like atmosphere encouraged social as well as intellectual participation. International esteem but no
coherent plan & co-operative efforts were difficult to organise with voluntary efforts. Finance was a problem.
Sprat’s history of the Society was for publicity; soliciting support, satisfying curiosity & outlining objectives
committing members to deliver benefits for mankind.
The Restoration climate of reform & nautical imperialism made England ideal for science take off.
Christopher Wren, Robert Boyle, William Halley were ‘virtuosi’, Gentlemen who ‘dabbled’ in science. Often
like, Elias Ashmole & John Evelyn, interested in curiosities & monstrosities. Evelyn also published ‘Sylva’ a
discourse on trees. Gerrard & John Ray published a plant book used by Linneaus. Was there a ‘tension’ with the
Baconian systematic approach?
The work was not ‘sterile scholastic philosophy’ but utility. Science but also technical processes,
agriculture, mining, forestry, inventions, machines & gadgets :- published ‘Philosophical Transactions’
- clearing house for experiments
- international communications.
What was its fortune? Was it elitist? Was secrecy a problem? Was there a gap between ambition &
achievement?
There was an inevitable slippage & a preference for theoretical over practical pursuits because of the
difficulties of application. The ‘reward system’ ended up based on ‘esteem’ not practical benefit. Thus we start with
high ambition of benefits to mankind only to find the ignorant artisans don’t want uneconomic theorising!
The Royal Society was a symbol but science was going on in two forums outside the Universities :1 the academies & the courts - theory, elitist maths & abstract philosophers, with Newton supreme
2 the coffee houses & independent societies - Joe’s practical theatre.
Others:- 1673 The Chelsea Physic Garden, & medicine, the apothecaries & Sir Hans Sloane.
- 1675 The Royal Observatory, Greenwich & longitude 7 accurate star maps. Successor to Sir John Moore
at the Tower was John Flamsteed, the 1st ‘Astronomer Royal’.
- The Repository or Museum, ex curio collections. Ashmolian at Oxford, plus the Royal Society’s own in
London.
- Numerous provincial societies.
9.4 THE ACADEMIE ROYALE DES SCIENCES, PARIS. 1666.
An instrument of the state, of Colbert, a monopoly, justified on the grounds of cost of instruments & that
science was too important to be left to amateurs. The Paris Observatory was the headquarters. Typical French ‘top
down’ which risks prejudiced curricula? Typical privilege, centralised power & hierarchical stratification.
Early years the focus was on glorification of the King with maps, medicine & military equipment.
Inadequate funding & narrow focus undermined morale. Elitist appointments. It moved away from collective
experiments to collective review of individual work. But it was modelled on Baconian empiricism.
In the 18th century reforms of 1699 broadened the membership, religion was excluded & the collective
judgement of peers stressed. An institution for separating sound knowledge from conjecture. Closed in 1793 as it
was associated with the Acien Regime, its functions were taken over by alternative voluntary institutions &
universities.
The question of whether utility is better supported by Royal patronage or by underfunded voluntary societies
remains moot! The private societies predate the ‘official’ academies.
9.5 THE BERLIN ACADEMY. 1700.
Gottfried Leibniz 1646 - 1716. Founder of the Academy along French lines. Metaphysical principles govern physics.
‘Evolution’ has produced the best holistic system. He believed science to be broadly based.
Wolff took Leibniz further into ‘natural theology’.
Leibniz produced a better calculus than Newton’s ‘fluxions’, & differed on God the as perfect designer, not
an ongoing meddler. He differed on conservation of 1/2mv2 , not Newton’s conservation of mv.
Science was not spontaneous as in Italy, France & England; the objective was reconciliation of Catholicism
& Protestantism, reform of education & regeneration of the economy!! The ravages of the 30 years war?? Disunited
states?
Reconstituted in 1746 under Frederick II. Importation of foreign expertise. A matter of state policy!
9.6 THE SPREAD OF THE ACADEMIES IN THE 18TH CENTURY.
Alternatives
- the academies & Courts
elitist intellectuals
- the coffee house & societies
commercial exploitation.
An aspect of the Enlightenment from 1750. Public lectures. Books. But the warrens & allies around the
Royal Exchange proved the most fertile ground. Project spate - raising water, supplying water, patents for Africa....
Nature could be manipulated, a dynamic community emerged, the 1720 South Sea Bubble was only a slight
hesitation..... but many, as now, thought it reprehensible & corrupt, but resources were being mobilised, landowners
were digging for profit, natural philosophers were in demand for a foundation of knowledge.
Russia,1725 St. Petersburg, Peter The Great. Science to bring a backward country up to date. No educated middle
class, everything had to be imported.
Sweden, good contacts with London & Paris. The opposite to Russia, this was ‘bottom’ up from interested scientists
- the (academic) Royal Society, Uppsala and a group of interested citizens through government - the (utilitarian)
Swedish Academy Stockholm. Finance from publishing ‘almanacs’.
Italy, Bologna, 1714. Goals in common with others, responding to specific local circumstances. Some official
funding & Inquisition approval was required prior to publication. Turin in 1759 was typical.
France, extraordinary growth of institutions. Much spontaneous association, just as in London. Complementing the
Academie Royale these provincial societies tended towards applications & teaching.
Elsewhere, many highly varied societies grew up throughout Europe, conspicuously not Vienna & the Netherlands.
Jesuit opposition was universal.
9.7 THE ROLE OF THE ACADEMIES..
Vital, extensive & varied manifestations of the Enlightenment. Co-operative encouragement, peer review, &
popularisation. Publication in a Society journal for communication & the way to progress in science. Prize
competitions. Standards. Validation of the particular & consolidation of the revolution. Career opportunities?
THE RECEPTION OF NEWTONIANISM IN EUROPE.
10.1 THE COMPLEX LEGACY OF ISAAC NEWTON.
The central figure in the rise of scientific Europe! But Hutchinsonianism & Cartesianism were rivals, &
acceptance of Newton was patchy.
A cluster of ideas...... nature & God..... no compartments or Enlightenment ‘two-decker’ mind-set.....
deceptively simple, 3 general laws, 1 specific all celestial motion now explained in mathematical terms. With a world
view and scientific methodology.
1 gravity
2 laws of motion
3 inverse square law
4 experimental method 5 uniformity of nature 6 universal laws of nature created & upheld by God.
10.2 NEWTONIANISM IN THE LAND OF ITS BIRTH.
Two opposed traditions in England
- the mathematical
- ‘Principia’.
1687.
- the experimental
- ‘Opticks’.
1704.
The maths needed for Principia was not readily available. Only the dissenting academies provided the
grounding. Perhaps maths in England was backward because experiment was forward!
The experiments of Opticks was more acceptable in the coffee houses.
Little electricity, but much English ‘pneumatic’ chemistry & a search for attractive forces keeping atoms
together. But chemistry owed just as much to soap boilers, dyers & brewers. Explosion of specimen collecting.
From ‘hypothesis’ to ‘theory’.
Natural theology & the ‘argument from design’. Newton, William Paley & John Ray. Gravity & the laws of
nature ‘impressed into matter by God’. Science glorified Gid.
Even politics was touched as Newtonianism could be a means of social control? There was order in the
natural world, don’t upset the status quo.
Commercial interest exploited science for profit.
Popularised by massive theatre & experimentation & the Boyle lectures.
However there were challenges & hindrances - High church Anglicans. Hutchinsonianism. Avoided non
mechanical forces, God was immanent in an ‘ethereal fluid’, not an absentee watchmaker, not a mere designer.
Be careful a mechanical God is not a good idea! As a mechanical world is not a good idea??
10.3 Newton in the Low Countries.
A distinctly English phenomenon, cold admiration? Inquisitive nature, tolerance at the Universities,
instrument makers (microscopes & bacteria), imbued with Baconianism, voyages of navigation, Calvinism & links
with England through William & Mary all helped the ready acceptance of Newtonianism.
Herman Boerhaave 1668 - 1738. Great Leiden medicine teacher. ‘sGravesande’s teacher. Strong Scottish links. A
great communicator, lectures & books.
‘sGravesande 1688 - 1742, at Leiden, was the conduit into the Netherlands.
Rules of science
- sufficient & simplest explanation are the true ones
- mathematics proves by the impossibility of the contrary proposition
- it must be true if to deny it would destroy the world as we know it, e.g. an
aeroplane which flies today if unchanged will fly tomorrow.
Pieter van Musschenbroek 1692 - 1761. Friend of ‘sGravesande’s. Maths at Leiden. The Leiden jar!
10.4 Newtonianism in France.
Descartes & Newton both ‘mechanical’ men but otherwise poles apart. Newton was not popular in France!
Battles with the French. Cartesianism :Gravity
v. Vortices.
Action at a distance
v. Corpuscular contact.
Empiricism
v. Rational theory.
Creator & maintainer
v. Creator.
National rivalry also from the War Of Spanish Succession, but opposition was eroded from 1720 by :Voltaire 1694 - 1778, a supporter of the alternative Newtonianism. He was anti government & pro England,
particularly pluralism. Newton was an example of man’s power if he was set free!!
Mauperituis 1698 - 1759, also supported attractive & repulsive forces of matter, and measured the earth’s arc in
Lapland & Peru, which proved Newton’s prediction.
Clairaut 1713 - 65, wobbles, comets & wrestled with the 3 body problem .....
Pierre Laplace 1749 - 1827 crowned France’s acceptance of Newton. Newtonian science was then spread by
France throughout the word, & became ‘the Enlightenment’!
Denis Diderot 1713 - 84, ‘Encyclopaedia’ was instrumental. D’Alembert’s care over Bacon, Newton & Loche
empiricism & French rationalism.
Newton eventually won because of good predictions of the shape of the earth, comets & earth wobbles.
Electricity in France was behind the Netherlands & Germany. But Coulomb 1736 - 1806, became the
‘French electrical Newton’ by introducing mathematics into electricity in 1760.
Newton’s quantified chemistry, the quantified science of affinities, is seen in Geoffroy & Macquer who
preceded Lavoisier, who himself owed little to Newton?
10.5 Conclusion: Webs of Resistance.
Newtonianism made heavy weather; the Netherlands, Scotland & France accepted some but Spain & Italy
were reluctant & less tolerant of Protestant ideas. But Protestant Sweden, Switzerland & Germany were only
lukewarm. The alternatives Cartesianism & Leibnizianism & Stahlianism were the main source of resistance. A
nationalistic divide!
Gottfried Leibniz 1646 - 1716. Differed with Newton, in calculus v. fluxions. In conservation of kinetic energy v.
momentum. But the crucial debate was about force. Newton didn’t speculate ‘I offer no hypothesis’. Descartes
clearly believed in force of contact & corpuscles. Leibniz saw this as extraordinary & a return to Aristotle’s occult
cause. He avoided vacuum & atoms, & placed God as the perfect designer who didn’t need to meddle in the
universe. The role of God was crucial. Newton invoked his ongoing intervention.
George Stahl 1660 - 1734. Royal physician in Berlin, at Halle, founder of phlogiston, chemistry was independent.
No mechanics, no atoms .... a practical Libavius tradition not reductionist.
As with Copernicus some support from individual disciples, some exploitation by different groups.
Hindrance from National rivalry and predetermined positions! But eventually Newton’s predictive power won the day
over technical difficulties and doubters.
SCIENCE IN THE SCOTTISH ENLIGHTENMENT.
11.1 The Enlightenment in Scotland.
Why in a small marginal country in the shadow of a great one?? Such a galaxy of starts. Why?
18th Century intellectuals, no 1543 Copernicus, 1687 Newton or 1857 Darwin but a program for the
extension of knowledge aspiring to the English urban commercial & scientific empirical inductive tradition.
Nevertheless the Enlightenment was a flush of arrogance after Newton, the clockwork universe, we now
know it all & can apply it throughout physical & human activity. There is nothing which won’t respond, even the
human mind. As with the groundnut scheme, poverty will be abolished, law-like regularities extend everywhere,
there is no mystery ... the programme was rational, improving human welfare based on the development of science
not religion. Science was given impetus from such confidence? But it was a shallow & pretentious intellectualism.
The ‘auld alliance’ with France? A contempt for authority?
Origins? Was the 1707 Act of Union a spur from trauma or was it a copy of the urban English society?
They were not Jacobites.
Church? The Calvinist tradition was not what it appeared, conformist & intolerant, but was simply critical of
Catholic tradition :-
- be critical & seek truth through reason.
- pursue education. The Presbyterian system required an educated laity.
- self discipline & self improvement.
- strong community & links with Herman Boerhaave, Leiden & the Netherlands, also a small
Calvinist nation like Scotland but far more successful!
Calvin tended to teach that human nature was depraved, but Enlightenment thinking stressed fundamental
sociability.
Reverend William Wallace, & the Moderate party of the General Assembly, influentially sought the truth
impartially.
Universities? 5 universities in 4 cities stressed the need for education not cleric training. England had only
2! A strong Edinburgh / Leiden link.
Economy? Merchant class establishing an environment of change & innovation for profit.
Clubs & societies? Conviviality? 1731 The Medical Society privately organised by Munro, becomes the
Philosophical Society then the Royal Medical Society. Medicine was a good route to science.
Publishing? To codify & publish knowledge widely. Encyclopaedia Britannica 1760. Followed Diderot’s
‘Encyclopedie’, a French classic.
Architecture? Robert Adam & Charlotte Square.
Edinburgh Town Council? Status. Stop the brain drain! Recruited McLaurin (maths). Economic utility?
Education?
Leading figures? Adam Smith (economics), Alexander Munro (Medical School), William Buchan (domestic
medicine), William Cullen (skilled lecturer, attracting students & patronage through utility of chemistry), John Hume (
the original doubting Thomas), Robert Adam (architecture), James Watt (engineering) .......
11.2 JAMES HUTTON 1726 - 97.
Early career? Medicine at Leiden. Then chemistry & ‘sal ammoniac’ production for profit , then farming,
then geology.
Background to the Theory Of The Earth,1795. A Deist who set aside the literal Bible & believed God just
set the universe in motion. No Genesis but a purpose to support human life. Perfectly designed, teleology.
Consolidation, elevation & erosion.
The geology was based on natural destruction & renewal. Steady state & directionless, not evolution?. Soil
from erosion. Rock from fossils, consolidated remains of countless generations, under the sea. Pressure, fusion &
then elevation from the expansive power of heat manifested in volcanoes. Immeasurably long times.
The unconformity at Jedburgh. Horizontal on vertical strata. Sediment on upheaval.
11.3 JOSEPH BLACK 1728 - 99.
Not robust & disorganised like Hutton but pallid & precise. An academic, from medicine to chemistry. Under
Cullen’s tutelage at Glasgow. Early research at Edinburgh on ‘causicity’, magnesia alba & ‘fixed air’.
Great confusion over nomenclature & salts & earths.
Black weighed & found that air released by acids or driven off by heating from magnesium carbonate were
the same & could be ‘reabsorbed’. Collecting gases was not fully developed so Black did it by reactions.
alba heated
= usta + weight loss. A new air?
usta + acid
= epsoms salts + water
epsoms salts + pearl ashes
= alba precipitate. The same weight as the original alba!
Ordinary air was not involved, the new air must be ‘fixed air’ from ‘pearl ashes’ or potassium carbonate.
Common air was not involved. Airs are different with individual properties, discovered by weighing. Cavendish
(hydrogen), Rutherford (nitrogen), Priestley (oxygen) & Lavoisier soon followed!
Heat research followed. There was a similar confusion, was heat a substance like chemicals? Black asked,
was heat fixed as air was? He examined facts & quantities of latent heat, heat of vaporisation & specific heat. Was
water ‘reacting’ with heat?
An Edinburgh Prof. & adviser to industry - science, utility & technology. The chemical ‘industry’ was
underway & James Watt was condensing. A bridge between Newton & Lavoisier leading to thermodynamics. But
his health failed and his legacy did not fulfil early promise.
11.4 CONCLUSION.
Rational optimists looking for the chains of cause & effect to explain surprising phenomena so to restore
tranquillity.
A chance to control their own destiny, rather than be controlled by the forces of nature. Importance of
reason, goodness of mankind & serenity of nature.
A zeal for commercial & agricultural improvement, underpinning the Industrial Revolution.
SCIENCE ON THE FRINGE OF EUROPE: 18TH CENTURY SWEDEN.
12.1 ON THE MARGINS OF EUROPE?
Big advances in science under unusual conditions!
1st indissolubly linked to the church. Subjugated under the Danes until 1471 Battle of Brunkeberg.
2nd inseparable from the growth of the nation. From 1523 the Gustavus Vasa dynasty until 1720 Sweden
became a great power, taking on Pope & Emperor, in the 30 Years War. Driven by securing control over the Baltic
borders & the personal ambitions of the monarchs. Unity of religion, under Luther Protestants from 1593, was seen
as a prerequisite of national stability.
1721 Treaty of Nystadt ended Sweden as a great power, defeated by the Russian army & winter, & in
economic ruins. But then science blossomed as King & politicians were humiliated & there was some democracy.
The age of freedom was born, & mercantile expansion replaced military ambition.
12.2 THE UNIVERSITY OF UPPSALA. 1477.
Emerged as a national institution in the ecclesiastical capital. No longer reliant on the German
universities. Relaunched as a Lutheran bastion in 1593. Augmented by spoils from conquered libraries.
Good reputation but racked by dissension in the 17th century. The Ramists v. Aristotelians. Aristotelians
survived much longer in Sweden than elsewhere. A perverse alliance with Luther? King was head of the church and
insisted it must be rock steady thus old traditions survived, but in a Protestant bastion. A new scholasticism!
Progress was inhibited. Descartes arrived late but with him a questioning of Aristotle, Copernicus must be right.
Olof Rudbeck 1630 - 1702. A Cartesian, the first scientist, broke Aristotle. By 1680 most of Sweden followed him.
He established an anatomical theatre
Uppsala in the age of freedom experienced unprecedented prosperity but the university was inhibited by
the rivalry between the Hats & the Caps. The Hats dominated & supported utilitarian philosophy & mercantilism, but
their support of industry & agriculture was through subsidies. The university was narrowly defined for teaching not
research, & had little freedom. ‘Popular political’ replaced ‘Absolutist Royalist’!!
Secondly the church, fearing a Counter Reformation or heretical Lutherans, still inhibited activities through a
very narrow definition of orthodoxy.
Uppsala survived the ‘squeeze’ of state & church & even benefited, buildings, apparatus & libraries as
Celsius swapped Latin for physics & obtained a chair. With Klingenstierna (optics) , Wallerius (mineralogy) &
Linnaeus they helped to make Swedish science great.
Uninhibited by delusions of grandeur, Sweden had lost its territorial & military ambitions but was still not
competing economically or militarily with England, France, the Netherlands & Iberia. Science was pursued for its
own sake?
12.3 OTHER CENTRES OF SWEDISH SCIENCE.
Two academies. Royal Society of Science at Uppsala, 1710. Formed when the university’ lectures were
suspended due to plague.
Royal Swedish Academy of Science, 1739. In Stockholm. Quite typical of the establishments throughout
Europe. ‘Authority’ sponsored, utilitarian, prestige, international co-operation, library, experiments, publishing, peer
review centre. Awards the Nobel prizes. Practical utilitarianism, technology, & plugged Sweden into the international
scene. Supported travel with the East India Co. China & ship born research & specimen collection were specialities.
Publications were details of basic science & ‘reports to London from a small nation’.
Wilhelm Wargentin 1717 - 83. Built an observatory & worked hard to establish the society as the main centre of
scientific excellence.
The Academy was essential for organising collective effort.
Industrial innovation. Board of Mines, 1637, assaying, chemical lab, mechanical lab.
Royal Chamber of Models, 1756. Teaching about mechanisation, fuel conservation & efficiency.
The Stockholm Mint, the Swedish Ironmasters Association.
12.4 SOME IMPORTANT SWEDISH ACHIEVEMENTS IN 18TH CENTURY SCIENCE.
A political atmosphere of utilitarian advance.
Carl Linnaeus 1707 - 78. Order out of chaos with genus & species & the number of sex organs. Specimen collection
& voyages of discovery.
A child of his times
- utilitarian, a standardiser.
- order & system
- but static, how they appeared not what they did.
Science has inspired individuals but progress has a multiplicity of causes.
Chemistry. Characteristically Swedish? Many elements discovered. Mineralogy driven. Quantitative
approach stressed. Blowpipe ubiquitous. Utilitarian motives.
Johan Wallerius 1709 - 85, 1747 ‘Mineralogia’. 1759 ‘Chemia Physica’. The same systematic ‘Linnaeus’ basis. 1749
Chair at Uppsala. Pure & Applied distinction established.
Torbern Bergman 1735 - 84, pure reagents. Quantifying the ‘affinity’ of one chemical for another. The greatest
analyst of the century.
Carl Scheele 1742 - 86. Apothecary, friend of Bergman, extremely important for chemistry, discovered chlorine,
isolated oxygen - within the tradition of pharmacy & pneumatic chemistry...... when Scheel & Bergman died,
Swedish chemistry died also. Later Berzelius gave chemistry a nomenclature.
Plus also utilitarian approach & many elements discovered.
Physical Science.
Andres Celsius 1701 -44. Astronomer at Uppsala. His assistant was Wargentin, secretary to the Royal Society.
Lapland expedition, thermometers.
Carl Wilcke 1732 - 96 . Electrical experiments, statics & 2 kinds of electricity. Latent (1772) & specific heat (1781).
Klingenstierna, the first a chromatic telescope.
12.5 SCIENCE & RELIGION.
Lutheran scholasticism controlled Uppsala in the 17th century. But in the18th century ‘natural theology’ was
dominant.
Christian Wolff 1679 - 1754. A German influence. Natural theology was the big link between religion & Newton.
Supporter of Leibniz. Human reason & the study of nature inexorably lead to evidence of God & design. Science
must disprove atheism. Propagated to retain stability in the church.
Anders Celsius & Nils Wallerius were supporters. Linnaeus also believed the 2 books, of nature & scripture,
could never be in conflict. But the university was riven with argument & dissent, was there a diversionary effect?
The mandate for Swedish scientists to pursue science was for the glorification of God. They avoided the
philosophical arguments of their colleagues.
A national trend. Three themes - Christian piety, love of nature, Linnaean orderliness.
12.6 THE END OF THE CENTURY & DECLINE.
From 1770’s. isolation during the Napoleonic wars? The enlightenment? Not Locke & his rationality &
empiricism but French theory (again). Queen Ulrika’s academy was set up to teach French philosophy! The
economy didn’t recover, utility didn’t work???
Kellgren - ‘about the only thing that mattered - society & human nature - the scientists taught nothing; for
such teaching one had to go to Voltaire, Hume, Rousseau & other heroes of the new age’ - so much more
interesting than cold physical science. Wolff and discovering God’s laws went & French theories came!
Science is forever, philosophers come & go!!
If Uppsala declined, The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences kept up the good work, the infrastructure
was still in place.
SCIENCE IN ORTHODOX EUROPE.
13.1 INTRODUCTION.
The development of ideas is inextricably linked to cultural, social & economic change.
- Constantine 4th century split. Collapse of the West in the 5th century.
- The Christian church schism 1054 AD. Latin West v. Greek East. The Pope v. the Patriarchs.
- The revelation, God’s laws were discoverable v. human ignorance in the face of God’s omniscience.
- Aquinas synthesis v. continuity without Greek science.
- Renaissance v access to the Ancients was never denied, but not understood.
- Small city states v. the massive empires of Russia & Ottoman.
- Feudalism reigned longer. There was no middle class. No urban centres. Capitals but not trade centres.
After 1453 Constantinople fell & leadership of the East went to Russia, ‘the 3rd Rome’.
The Mongol Tartars were ousted in 1480.
Western ideas were heretical. But ...... trade ...... raw materials were exchanged for manufactures &
technical expertise ........
13.2 THE ROOTS OF RUSSIAN SCIENCE.
Ivan The Great 1462 - 1505. The Muscovite principality starts to expands into Russia. Ivan The Terrible
1533 - 84, zealously orthodox xenophobia. The ‘time of trouble’ brought the Romanov dynasty, 1613 - 1917.
Early contacts. Some assistance from Protestant Europe - military, medical, commercial, industrial,
exploration, teaching. Everything depended on imports. Some Tsars were amenable to Western ideas - Michael,
Alexis & Peter ...... this continued until the French revolution scare!
Peter The Great 1682 - 1725. Great Embassy 1697 - 8. The Netherlands & England tour, did he meet
Newton & Flamsteed? His masters certificate. Dress, calendar, tax on beards ....
Mathematics & Navigation School, Moscow 1702. Imported teachers. But education attempts largely failed
due to lack of teachers & students.
St. Petersburg Academy 1725. Peter’s enthusiasm eventually rewarded. Patronage of science massive
state funding. Advice from Leibniz & Wolff. Sustained by imported academics. 1st maths, 2nd physics, 3rd
humanities. An academy, a university & a gymnasium. Students did research and taught.
It was ‘Government science’ not utilitarian but to bring honour & respect in Europe. Government definition of
utility was broad!
A political & economic imperative v. a cultural & theological resistance.
Moscow University 1750. As England were in the middle of the industrial revolution!
13.3 THE RISE OF RUSSIAN SCIENCE.
Less enthusiastic successors? Poor administration? The state bureaucracy demanded educated
administrators which decimated the academy? Autocratic political system, serfdom, aggressive foreign policy,
ritualised religion ..... ?
Catherine The Great 1762 - 96. A German Lutheran, she secularised & was an advocate of the French
Enlightenment.
Blumentrost, a German import. Schumacher, from Alsace. Influential in the Academy administration.
Research in maths & exploration.
Leonard Euler 1707 - 83, the ‘ether’ must exist for the propagation of light, hostility to Newton’s (self contradictory)
vacuum & action at a distance. He developed calculus & the concept of a function. A Calvinist believing God’s
magnificent design. Mere mortals know so little. Pious.
Mikhail Lomonosov 1711 - 65. A tribute to the Petrine reforms? Chemistry but massive breadth.
Stephan Krasheninnikov 1713 - 55. Expedition into the hinterland. No truck with uneducated serfs & scripture
quoting clerics who oppose change. Irreverent.
Pallas 1741 - 1811, a German, dominating naturalist, the equal of Linnaeus.
Beavering away within existing paradigms. Relying on foreign expertise but the Russian winter didn’t help.
Good publications. But just one of international stature :13.4 SCIENCE IN THE BALKANS.
Grudging acceptance of the superiority of Western techniques in the military! & ship building & navigation,
& cures for syphilis!
Sultan Selim 1718 - 1807, was committed to Western education, & Orthodox serfs & Jews were imbibing
Western ideas through trade.
But ....
Islam’s arrogant presumption of superiority of their beliefs over those of the infidel. They had a massive
empire to prove it? Muslim tradition assumed innovation was bad unless proved good; by definition, it is a departure
from the Koran.
The Western traditions of progress of research & ideas, postulating & abandoning ideas were alien to the
Muslim code of a ‘corpus of verities’.
‘Ijtihad’, a tradition of theological judgement was closed, all had been agreed; the law was fixed!
Islam education was rigorous but tended to reinforce theological positions.
The massive humbling of Islam in the face of obvious Western superiority can be imagined!? But the
reaction was backwards faster to fundamentalism! Progress is very difficult for closed minds.
Islam was tolerant to conquered peoples, they were protected by law but always second class. Orthodoxy
remained ‘officially’ opposed to Western ideas, but they proved less resistant. ‘Devshirme’, brightest & best
Orthodox boys were converted.
13.5 ORTHODOXY & SCIENCE.
Church schools carried the load as Peter’s secular effort failed through lack of teachers. Western ideas
were largely heresy. The church also controlled printing & censorship was rife. Petrine modernisation did not take
root. Ritual liturgy was not conducive to change. The mysteries of the universe were God’s, don’t meddle. For
science to prosper the grip of Orthodoxy had to be broken. Did the Orthodox Patriarch become subservient to the
state? Open conflict?
There was no Aquinas synthesis but Archbishop Prokopovich was an enthusiastic Westerner.
‘The political subservience of the Orthodox church permitted imperial patrons of science to surmount its
traditional antirationalism’. Orthodoxy, however, never had the millstone of Aristotle & Catholic Scholasticism. But
there was no positive impetus of the Reformation. Orthodoxy is maybe midway between Catholics & Protestants,
13.6 CONCLUSION.
Science in Russia was a balance between church & Prince. A revolution from above but the necessary free
institutions never got off the ground as feudalism persisted. There were institutional innovations and there were
achievements in the 19th century, Mendeleyev, Pavlov.
With Islam there was basic hostility to the infidel & innovation. They turned back to the Koran.
ESTABLISHING SCIENCE IN 18TH CENTURY CENTRAL EUROPE.
14.1 INTRODUCTION.
In 1700 alchemy & the occult, based on metallurgy & medicine, dominated science in the 16th century
princely Courts. A cultural phenomena of the time, turning knowledge into power & the search for health & wealth
through regeneration of the spirit, with the elixir of life & gold from the philosophers stone. Tycho Brae called
chemical remedies ‘terrestrial astronomy’! Kepler was also a mystic in the Prague court.
1 Material things ‘developed’ & changed, iron rusted. Substances could not be pinned down, elements,
compounds were observed to change, sodium & chlorine were not known & they were nothing like salt. There was
confusion about salts & earths. ‘Principles’, ‘essences’ & strange ‘effluvia’. Deep in the ground mineral developed
like man in the womb. Base metals slowly turned into gold. Alchemists were trying to reproduce the deep earth
process in the lab. All they developed was apparatus & techniques. No quantification, pure observation. No theory
of matter to distinguish between matter & energy. Just Aristotle’s 4 elements & Paracelsus’ 3 ‘principles’.
2 The composition of ‘air’ was unknown. Boyle & the ‘pneumatic’ chemists were still in the dark.
3 The atomic / corpuscular theory of Descartes could not be experimentally substantiated. Newton
suggested chemistry should pursue indivisible atoms held together by microscopic ‘gravity like ’forces’, hooks &
velcro. It could not be seen, there was no theory as in physics.
4 There was no agreed nomenclature so communication was difficult. No agreed experimental method.
In central Europe after the 30 Years War (1618 - 48) there were 300 independent autonomous competitive
states. Economic regeneration after the war was now in the hands of the Princes & state sponsored educational
institutions were an important part of interstate rivalry.
14.2 THE GERMAN UNIVERSITIES.
Secular & theological training. 1609 the Marburg chair in chemistry was established. There were 26
universities plus 11 more during the 17th century plus 4 in the 18th century. Each Prince wanted his own university!
The 4 faculty medieval tradition - theology, law, medicine & philosophy. At the end of the 17th century 23 of the
universities were Protestant.
But, despite these efforts, by the end of the 17th century these universities were disreputable. Students
were not around, curricula did not adapt, academics were too powerful, sterile theological medieval traditions
remained. The fashion in the Princely courts stressed character not science. Music & the arts not chemistry.
When Leibniz tried to reform learning his attention was on an Academy not the universities where stifling
prejudice persisted.
There were some pockets of reform. At Halle 1694, (by accident of individuals), Gottingen (Prussian /
Hanoverian rivalry) & Erlangen were reformed exceptions. ‘Guild’ type restrictions on appointments were
consciously removed to woo back the noble classes.
Christian Wolff 1679 - 1754, was at Halle. He developed Leibniz’s philosophy into a view of nature controlled by
reason, a natural theology, although he was unseated as an atheist!
Science in the universities was dominated by chemistry, traditionally taught through medicine but
Enlightenment thinking broke this dependence. An independent discipline emerged from the mists of alchemical
obscurity. Chemistry was in the lab not at the rostrum. The old distinction between theoretical & practical chemistry
was redefined into pure & applied both feeding off a base of practical theory. But medicine still had more status.
The dynamics of the emergence of chemistry ...........
Johann Becher 1635 - 1682, a Paracelsus follower, father of phlogiston, who helped develop cameralism, the
welfare of the state, self sufficiency, limit imports encourage trade, & exploit territorial natural resources.
Economically orientated chemistry.
George Ernst Stahl 1660 - 1734, a disciple of Becher at Halle, Stahl developed phlogiston & separated chemistry &
medicine, he did not approve of corpuscular chemistry, he pursued metallurgy, assaying, dyeing, brewing &
saltpetre, all economically important. Chemistry prepared pharmaceuticals apothecaries compounded them.
Chemistry was promoted explicitly as serving the economic interests of territorial states. It was an Enlightenment
science.
Johan Wallerius 1709 - 85, at Uppsala, redefined chemistry fitting it to Enlightenment utility, with Pure & Applied.
Cameral chairs of chemistry established more Enlightenment utility, ‘direct benefits’.
By the end of the 18th century a self conscious chemistry community had been established in Germany,
leading to the later 19th century research ideal stressing the prestige of the advancement of knowledge in
specialisms as judged by peers. Chemistry was promoted as serving the economic interests of states not as the
later ideal of prestige from the advancement of knowledge. Responsible academics taught rather than researched.
The universities were to teach not to push knowledge. Maybe some research for publications, for prestige &
income. Publish for fame & competitiveness.
‘The gifts of nature were easier to use for human benefit’. Better than corpuscularian physiology or
Paracelsus. The change of orientation was a necessary prerequisite for the chemical revolution. From ‘uncouth,
repulsive & tiring’ to ‘the key to many of the secrets of nature which promise reinstatement of finances & health’.
Leibniz not Newton was the model.
Chemistry was established by a separation from medicine but physics involved the merging of three
traditions - book based Aristotle’s natural philosophy, natural magic, applied maths. It became experimental &
quantified.
Protestant universities charged fees, so their lectures had to be useful to attract pupils. They had to be
responsive. Catholics were funded centrally & there was no incentive for innovation, but possibly more funds for
apparatus?
14.3 THE MINING ACADEMIES.
An example of cameralism, the Enlightenment emphasis on improvement through the application of
knowledge as a duty of the STATE. From 1542 & the mining civil service Otto stimulated silver production.
Education & drainage schemes required co-ordination. Prince Otto’s ‘free mines’, anyone could buy a license to
mine.
But there were private initiatives as well. By definition state innovations were always catch up imitations of
private innovations!!
Freiberg Mining Academy, Saxony. 1765.
Technology & education in Saxony were formalised in 1702 with an annual scholarship fund for students,
the 1st explicit state funding of for technical education. A high level of technical knowledge was needed for good
management of the mines. Chemistry & assaying. Mechanics, engines & drainage solutions.
Seven Years War 1756 - 63, between Habsburg & Prussia over territory in Silesia, bankrupted Saxony &
the academy was established as part of the reconstruction.
Abraham Werner 1749 -1817, was a Prof. during the early years of the Academy & he developed a theory of the
earth’s crust & established geology as a subject. A Neptunists, & a believer in the universal ocean, not a vulcanists.
He was influenced by, & a victim of the geology of Saxony & little travelled. The Saxony side of the Erzgebirge was
shallow sloping thus mines were vertical & deep. He was practical, where to dig? & what to learn from the miners
themselves. Theory & practice. A complete geologist - the causal, the historical & the practical.
Werner collected avidly & was nearly practical. The key to geology was prospecting. Sequence of strata
was important. The divining rod & veins, nothing better. Enormous breadth of study. Causal rocks settled out in
sequence, from the universal ocean. The historical contribution became central as ‘sequence’. Theory & practicality,
practical because of the mines.
Werner v. Hutton!
Hutton was not concerned with mining but farming & the origin of soil from rock fragmentation. The contact
between igneous & sedimentary. Much work in the field. A theorist, the earth as a dynamic machine, elevation &
upheaval. Wind, water erosion & heat. Vast periods of time. Causal geology. Cycles, uncomformities. 3 dimensions
including underground. He knew about practicalities from the Scottish Enlightenment. In Edinburgh, there was open
debate & discussion of Werner & Hutton.
The differences were :Mechanical deposits & recycling v. new rocks from the universal sea.
No primitive rocks ‘cos of recycling, therefore no fossil in heat & pressure cycled rocks v. fossils were
ordered in Werner’s sequence.
The presence of fossils was crucial to the dispute. Fossils could not be found in Werner’s ‘trap’ rocks.
Although Werner’s theory was wrong he had a massive impact on practical mining, on the idea of sequence
& of theory development, & produced a revolution.
Hutton’s contribution was in causal only, hot rocks producing metamorphic rocks & impinging on other
rocks & his insistence that there were no primitive rocks.
Royal Hungarian Mining Academy, Schemnitz, Hungary 1770.
An example of many academies, Prague 1770, Berlin 1770, Siberia 1763, St. Petersburg 1773, Paris 1783.
Set up by royal patronage.
Education in Habsburg lands was based on mining technology, the main income. The mines were all
Crown property, unlike Saxony where individuals could own, although the state administered. Remote from
supportive intellectual centres.
The academies developed science through technology in the mines and training.
Ignaz Born 1742 -91.The Born Amalgamation Process. From Spanish America to arrest declining production.
Traditionally ores move ex veins, to dressing, to crushing, to grading, to smelting plus cupellation with lead. The
new process used less fuel & heat an amalgam with mercury then distillation. NB. pure & applied science were
studied & Born developed his process using Stalh’s phlogiston theory.
Sklenco conference introduced peer judgement as a real test of viability. It introduced a systematic
approach to technological innovation.
Enlightenment values of sharing rational knowledge v. industrial values of competitiveness & secrecy!
The technological context of science was science ex Academy & technology ex Saxon Mining Service.
Prince Otto controlled all mining through exclusive licenses to individuals to mine regardless of surface
ownership. An infra structure, a network of lake & drainage channels were built by the authorities for everyone.
THE CHEMICAL REVOLUTION.
15.1 EARLY 18TH CENTURY CHEMISTRY IN INDUSTRY & MEDICINE.
The science of matter, increasingly important for growing industry & medicine.
In England, in particular, where free men could make big money through innovation, better methods were
developed which often involved chemicals.
Cloth first, cleaning, dyeing, painting, bleaching ... brewing ... medicine .. ancient law & Paracelsus, plus
esoteric alchemy .... all helped with techniques although the theories were wrong.
Industry traditionally was craft based, although scientific help was well established through the academies,
age old methods were the rule until the 18th century. Knowledge was empirically applied. But once science went to
atoms, visual cause & effect which had dominated technology became impossible, theory was needed.
A better understanding because of cost of waste in silver mining & poisons in medicine. The problem was
nomenclature & communication. Blends, superficial properties & spirits. The fire, earth, water & air of the ancients
or the mercury, sulphur & salt of Paracelsus gave way to new theories.
18th century conceptual revolution - new gases & new ideas about combustion, calcination & respiration.
Lavoisier & publication of journals were key.
15.2 CHEMISTRY IN GERMANY: THE PHLOGISTON THEORY.
Becher extended Paracelsus’ to include ‘oily earth’ which is in all combustible material & is released during
combustion.
George Stahl 1660 - 1743 named ‘oily earth’ phlogiston.
The matter of heat & fire, very important in change processes, a fluid, but like magnetism or gravity you
can’t grab handfuls of it. A constituent of many substances & an agent of change.
1
Wood burns & loses its ‘principle’ & leaves ash.
Thus combustion was about fuel in the substance not oxygen in the air. Phlogiston was given up to the air
which when saturated combustion stopped. Similarly :2
Metal when heated produces calx (oxide) as its ‘principle’ is released.
The same substance was lost, phlogiston. A strange reversal of the truth!
Known gases were thought to be ‘air’ with different amounts of phlogiston.
3
Gases which burnt were ‘Inflammable air’ - (hydrogen & carbon monoxide were rich in phlogiston).
Gases were all ‘types’ of air, common air absorbed phlogiston during combustion until saturated..
4
Gases which did not burn were ‘phlogisticated air’ - (nitrogen & carbon dioxide).
Good explanatory power, particularly extraction of metal from ores.
Charcoal , rich in phlogiston, was typically used in Germany in smelting & left little ash.
5
Ore plus ‘phlogiston’ given up by charcoal produced the metal.
Thus, some metals & elements were thought to contain phlogiston & therefore be more complex than their
products of combustion. An inversion of the chemical nature of elements & their oxides which was to become a
problem. When metals were calcined they gained weight!
On pure observation phlogiston explained many common phenomena it was coherent but :- It could never be isolated, it remained ethereal, you couldn’t bottle it!
- It was changed to suit circumstances.
- There was the weight gain problem.
- Elements were more complex than their products of combustion thus inhibiting development of theory.
- It was qualitative.
France eventually followed German mining & phlogiston. Why did no one question the evidence??????
15.3 CHEMISTRY IN ENGLAND.
Medicine provided some impetus, dissolving of bladder stones with alkali, for example, & many, including
Bergman, worked on analysis of mineral waters.
English chemists were manipulating gases in bladders & collecting under water in their ‘pneumatic’
chemistry investigations. They were suggesting the weight gain was due to ‘fixation of particles from the air’.
Robert Boyle 1627 - 91, investigated gases & different properties were known. Air contained ‘celestial effluvia’ but
Boyle missed the point of air that Lavoisier grasped. An alchemist?!
Boyle’s investigations exposed the problem of chemistry which was defining what was being talked about,
what is fire? Has it weight? Fired (oxidised) material gains weight! But Lavoisier weighed the flask & got a different
answer, he asked a different question! & the questions asked depend on the theory believed!
Stephen Hales 1677 - 1761, Vicar of Teddington, investigated various kinds of ‘air’, from heating dense materials &
from fermentation. He collected over water. He was a meticulous recorder but he was not particularly original. He
was Lavoisier’s inspiration!
Joseph Black 1728 - 99, extended knowledge about properties of ‘fixed air’, carbon dioxide. Black weighed & found
that the ‘air’ released by acids or driven off by heating from magnesium carbonate were the same & could be
‘reabsorbed’. Collecting gases was difficult so Black did it by reactions. Ordinary air was not involved so the new air
must be ‘fixed air’. Airs were different with individual properties, discovered by weighing.
Joseph Priestley 1733 - 1804, Unitarian minister & amateur chemist, discovered ‘dephlogisticated air’, oxygen. He
set out to discover the nature of all ‘airs’ & collect them over water in a pneumatic trough but he did little weighing.
He discovered ‘fixed air’ above fermentation vats & made artificial mineral water or soda water. Burning things in air
reduced the quantity & the remaining air was heavy & precipitated limewater. Plants regenerated the vitiated air by
imbibing phlogiston. He developed an air standard based in the amount of air absorbed in water. In 1774 he
discovered ‘dephlogisticated air’ from heating mercuric oxide.
calx
+ air
= mercury + dephlogisticated air
calx
+ phlogiston
= mercury
thus
air
- phlogiston
= dephlogisticated air.
He also knew air became phlogisticated during respiration, phlogiston escaping from the blood.
Henry Cavendish 1731 - 1810, a retiring noble man, discovered ‘inflammable air’, hydrogen.
(calx + phlogiston) mercury + acid
= (calx + acid) salt + (phlogiston) ‘inflammable air’ .
Whatever acid he used he got the same quantity of hydrogen! It must come from the metal! Phlogiston
exists!!
Both Priestley & Cavendish knew water was produced when ‘inflammable air’ & ‘dephlogisticated air’ were
exploded. Cavendish even knew the weight was the same as the weight of the gases, but they didn’t put 2 & 2
together!
James Keir 1735 - 1820, Chemical & glass manufacturer. Importantly he made soda ash for glass & soap making.
15.4 CHEMISTRY IN SWEDEN.
Spurred by the practical arts of mining & farming, also pharmacy & medicine, science could be useful.
Torbern Bergman 1735 - 84, chemical analysis by formation of precipitates, & composition of mineral water. His
quantification, using the balance like Black, led Richter’s law of equivalent proportions. He followed Geoffroy & the
causes of chemical affinity (gravity?) was between microscopic atoms that could not be seen. Empirical support that
something LEFT a substance during combustion. Akin to Lavoisier in seeking quantification & theory? He agreed
with Newton’s experimental physics route to God’s Laws & not Descartes theorising philosophy. Truth was about
causal relationships in God’s Laws.
Scheele 1742 -86, an apothecary’s assistant in Uppsala who impressed Bergman. He discovered oxygen or ‘fire air’
in 1773, before Priestley’s ‘dephlogisticated air’? But explained it in terms of phlogiston!!
(calx + phlogiston) metal + (‘fire air’) oxygen = (calx) metal oxide + (phlogiston + ‘fire air’) heat
He also discovered chlorine, dephlogisticated acid of salt! & carbon dioxide ‘foul air’. Like Cavendish
hydrogen & phlogiston were the same! No theorist but pursued practical utility through observation.
Scheele produced the facts, a utilitarian. Bergman produced the theories, a University Prof. pursuing
knowledge.
15.5 FRENCH CHEMISTRY BEFORE LAVOISIER.
Followed German leads although phlogiston arrived late in mid century. Lemery & Boerhaave didn’t mention
phlogiston. French chemistry was more empirical than other sciences.
Francois Geoffroy 1672 - 1731, at Jardin du Roi & Academie Royale teaching phlogiston. Calx of metals were like
dead bodies having given up phlogiston. A table of affinities, different degrees of rapport between substances.
Pierre Maquer 1718 - 84, the leader before Lavoisier, he systematised chemistry replacing Lemery’s ‘course de
chemie’. But he couldn’t explain why there was a weight increase as phlogiston left metals as they became calx.
Heat was not a substance but a state of existence. Light was the material form of fire.
Antoine Baume 1728 - 1804, pupil of Geoffroy & assistant to Maquer. A manufacturing chemist, an empiricist. He
saw no need for the pneumatic or phlogiston theories in everyday applications.
Germany, England, Scotland, Sweden all had beavering chemists doing work which Lavoisier built on........
he had a host of predecessors.
15.6 THE CHEMICAL REVOLUTION BEGINS IN FRANCE.
Development of theory in several countries, comprising :-
- oxygen replaces phlogiston
- quantitative accuracy
- empirical definition of a chemical element
- nature of air as a mixture of gases
- theories of chemical affinities
- new nomenclature without phlogistic terms.
- improved analytical methods based on elements & oxydation.
The result of the dynamic interaction of two competing theories. Lavoisier v. Stahl. A revolution completed
by general communal acceptance.
Prerequisites of the revolution - conservation of matter, that which could be observed & measured & the
idea of an element which could not be further subdivided.
Antoine Lavoisier 1743 - 94, a tax collector, guillotined during the revolution!
Composition of air 1777. Air that elastic fluid that is coaxed from many substances by fermentation,
distillation & reactions. Air can also be fixed by respiration, vegetation, combustion, calcination & reactions. He used
a ‘balance sheet’ approach of weight & volume changes to trace the meandering of air.
He was worried about phlogiston 1 calx could be reduced to metal without the addition of phlogiston (charcoal). By a burning lens in a closed
vessel.
2 air was the source of fire in combustion.
Experiment 1. Oxygen was absorbed from air during combustion, calcination & respiration. He repeated
Priestley’s experiments with a more quantitative approach producing dephlogisticated air from heating mercuric
oxide in a closed flask. Air volume decreased when calx was formed & vice versa. The air before & after was
indistinguishable. Air became a reservoir for chemical reagents. Air was two substances.
Lavoisier located the heat of combustion in ‘caloric’, his term for the matter of heat, in oxygen whereas
Stahl located the phlogiston in the combustible material. Opposite truth although he still needed ‘caloric’.
mercury + oxygen + caloric
= mercuric oxide
mercuric oxide
= mercury + oxygen + caloric
not
mercury
= calx + phlogiston
calx + air
= mercury + dephlogisticated air.
The main problem for the phlogiston theory now was how calx changed into mercury when heated in a
closed vessel in the absence of phlogiston when the air before & after was indistinguisable!!!!
But the remaining problem for Lavoisier was ......
metal + acid
= salt (calx ?+ acid)
+ inflammable air? ?????
Couldn’t be explained, whereas Cavendish had no problem with phlogiston theory :(calx + phlogiston)mercury + acid
= salt (calx + acid)
+ inflammable air (phlogiston).
The composition of water 1784. Water always seemed to be involved. But often went unnoticed. Priestly
thought it irrelevant, to Lavoisier it was vital.
Experiment 2. Steam over hot iron gave inflammable air & iron calx. The product of combustion (he
exploded them) of ‘inflammable air’ or hydrogen with oxygen was water. Water must be a compound therefore it
could be decomposed. This composition of water now explained better than phlogiston the reaction of metals with
acids. The final piece of the jigsaw.
metal + acid + hydrogen oxide (water) = salt (metal oxide + acid)
+ hydrogen
not
(calx + phlogiston) + acid
= salt (calx + acid)
+ phlogiston
Organic analysis was now possible. Plants decompose water by taking up hydrogen & releasing oxygen.
Oxidation analysis made quantified determinations of the carbon, hydrogen, & oxygen possible. The method was
based on the oxygen theory. The chemical element being the final stage of analysis. An enormous advance over
distillation analysis.
A new nomenclature was based on names for elements & compound names for compounds.
The conservation of matter & the chemical balance.
Phlogiston gone. Generic ‘principles’ gone, only substances combining to form different substances. Four
elements gone. Qualitative methods gone. The chemical role of air was established.
Oxygen was essential for combustion, respiration & the principle of acidity ...........
Lavoisier contributed to more areas of chemistry than anyone else in the 18th century.
But he did make errors. Breathing is not oxygen giving up ‘caloric’ in the lungs to warm the blood. Caloric
the imponderable matter of heat. All acids do not contain oxygen & combustion can occur without oxygen.
Nevertheless the anti phlogiston theory moved chemistry from ‘matter of heat, light & fire’ & ‘the four elements’ to
caloric & elements.
15.7 THE RECEPTION OF ANTI PHLOGISTIC CHEMISTRY.
National rivalry. ‘Useful’ phlogiston theory. Texts were all published in phlogistic terms. Caloric was still
needed so it wasn’t very different? Metal & acid were not explained until the composition of water was determined.
France as expected oxygen was welcomed & accepted. Many converts.
Scotland & Black followed quickly -1784.
England, Hales, Priestley, Cavendish eschewed it, phlogiston worked, but generally there was more
concern debating the relative merits of the rival systems.
Sweden, isolated from the mainstream did not pay much attention.
Germany the home of chemistry & phlogiston dismissed it as a foreign fad until 1792. ‘It seems incredible
that experience chemists could not find oxygen when heating mercuric oxide when everywhere else they did it with
ease’. Orchestrated journalistic opinion forming by Lorenz Crell (1744 - 1816) Controller of Mines & professor of
chemistry at Helmstadt sustained phlogiston. Girtanner & the anti phlogistonists failed to argue their case in the
scientific journals where scientific disputes are won & lost.
The answers you get depend on the questions you ask & the questions you ask depend on where you are
coming from. Lavoisier was a doubter, pursuing air. Priestley was a phlogistonist investigating gases. The Germans
were metal refiners. Different mind set different conclusions from the same evidence!
15.8 THE LEGACY OF THE CHEMICAL REVOLUTION.
By 1800 relatively quickly the oxygen theory had been established. Oxygen was a unifying theory, oxygen
was an element itself not some ‘occult’ matter of heat or light. It was a constituent of air, experimentally
demonstrable & quantifiable.
Accuracy, repetition, quantification, chemical balance, impossible to observe everything so theory has a
role. Boyle & Scheele didn’t quantify.
A new way of looking at chemical affinities.
Chemical analysis depended on the definition of an element.
Communication was now possible on an agreed basis, publishing with agreed definitions.
Thus, chemistry emerged from tradition & national prejudice to a science, fundamental principles which
could be verified by experiment.
Lavoisier’s definition & quantification of a chemical element laid the foundations for Dalton’s atomic theory
& the laws of constant composition & multiple proportions. It was a spring board to 19th century atomic theory,
electricity and evolution.
WHY DID THE SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION OCCUR WHERE IT DID & WHEN IT DID?
WHY IN PARTS OF WESTERN EUROPE? WHY 1500 - 1800 AD?
The scientific revolution in Europe from 1500 to 1800 involved the overthrow of an old
entrenched orthodoxy & its replacement with a new coherent stable, alternative.
During this period science in Europe emerged in its modern form as the systematic,
predominantly mathematical, description & explanation of natural phenomena. It employed a
methodology based on accurate observation, logical reasoning & quantified experiment to develop
theories which produced falsifiable predictions or repeatable validations. Characteristically science
accepted no prior authority; rejecting prejudice & focusing on the evidence of cumulative co-operative
effort which was reviewed by peers.
1. Breaking the grip of established power.
Before the old orthodoxy could be questioned & challenged the grip of established power had to
be broken. Historically such power had been imposed by various agents employing their monopoly of
violence; the Church with ‘Catholic Scholasticism’, Princes seeking arbitrary grandeur, the Generals &
their military dictatorships or ‘democratic’ majorities with ‘popular political’ interference; all had identical
inhibiting effects on science & innovation. These agents of violence almost invariably employed two
incapacitating instruments, proscribed beliefs & oppressive taxation. The problem was the power to
impose prejudiced curricula & taxes.
From 1500 monolithic territorial & populous massifs were seldom established in Western Europe
& power centres tended to be broken up by a mixture of luck, the Reformation, war, revolution &
printing.
A lucky unintended consequence of the Constantine split of the Roman Empire was the
disintegration of the Western part. While the Eastern Emperors & Patriarchs maintained their
demobilising grip, the Western empire crumbled into the dark ages. Charlemagne’s attempt at
unification in 800 lasted in name for 1000 years, but in reality it was neither Holy, Roman nor an Empire.
Boundaries were not defined by central authority but by the sea & encroaching Islam & barbarians!
Luckily Garibaldi & Bismarck had yet to unify their countries.
Northern Italy, the focus of the Renaissance from 1400 & the birth place of the scientific
revolution, was a bastion against central power. City states flourished with long traditions of
independence & fierce competition. The merchant Medici family ruled Florence & although the Priests
ruled in Rome, the Venetian tradition of Papal rivalry & the Neapolitan flirtation with Spain secured the
dispersion of power. Genoa had long been a republic & the Duchies of Milan, Savoy & Tuscany were
natural rivals keeping Italy without central control.
The absence of a Western Emperor did give the Pope a free run but the Reformation kept
England, Scotland, Sweden, Central Europe & parts of the Low Countries free from Catholic
Scholasticism.
When Charles V lost the 30 Years War in 1648 & failed to hold the Habsburg Holy Roman
Empire together, Spanish domination of the low countries collapsed. Rivalry amongst the German
Princes kept 300 states independently competing in Central Europe & political control in France was
secularised.
In England the triumph of common law over the debilitating effects of Royal taxes & catechisms,
together with the euphoria of the1688 revolution gave added impetus to tolerance & freedom of thought
established during the Reformation. This at a critical time for the development of science.
Even the more centralised Catholic states of France & Spain found censorship difficult as
printing, minorities & neighbouring safe havens kept free thought alive. However, without doubt, the
Counter Reformation & burdensome taxes inhibited the development of science in these countries.
2. Opening up of diversity & choice.
Once the grip of established power had been broken, different choices were available & diverse
spontaneous activity followed.
A sequence of scientific activity can be traced from the Aquinas synthesis, the Renaissance, the
Gutenburg press, the voyages of discovery, to the Reformation & the blossoming of science during the
Enlightenment. The common characteristic was the questioning of conventional wisdom & the opening
up of diverse choice.
Symbolically these activities started with the fall of Toledo in 1085, which sparked the
rediscovery of the Greek miracle of ancient science & emergence from the dark ages. This led to the
embracing of Greek reason by Aquinas & the new thrust of the humanist Renaissance. Christianity,
culture & the Laws of Nature were opened up for investigation. The debates revolved round two tensions
:1
faith
or
reason
2
ancients
or
moderns.
Once mass communication through printing was available & the stories told of new &
unimaginable lands across the seas, the ground was fertile for new knowledge & science. The
Reformation confirmed the idea of tolerance & the questioning of authority, it also added significantly to
diversity.
More generally, all over Western Europe, towns had been established by new free men fleeing
from feudal oppression. This triggered the rise of a merchant class as independent trade developed &
wealth accumulated. Significantly the towns were able to ‘purchase’ from the authorities, by means of
charters & licenses, an important degree of independence. Rich merchants swapped gold for freedom!
Immunity from taxation was the deal the authorities offered in return for immediate revenue.
These dynamic autonomous towns, with population concentrations & good communications,
formed a network of competing units without imposed authority & debilitating taxes.
The towns became centres for expansive trade & quite distinct from backward rural self sufficient
agriculture centres & very different from the old capital cities of the Royal courts.
Such diversity was a consequence of the particular history of Western Europe, it did not happen
in China, the Islamic lands nor the Orthodox East, they remained largely monolithic.
3. Establishing co-operative social institutions in urban communities.
Of course, diversity & freedom of association in the towns produced the bad as well as the good.
In the same way as the church sold indulgences, the Princes, gambling to retain some control & tax
revenues, sold Guild licenses & charters to compliant traders who hoped to benefit from monopoly
profits. But money was made from innovation not restrictive practices. From 1600 diversity & competition
led to the emergence of more efficient forms of association, the independent joint stock companies, &
the eventual collapse of the Guilds system & charters. Only the efficient survived in such free competitive
conditions.
In these urban communities rival scientific academies & universities were debating & seeking
new knowledge. The academies were independent of the universities, many of the latter were still in the
grip of central control & Aristotelian Scholasticism & only training grounds for clerics. But, others were
innovative & sponsored by rival municipalities, merchants & Princes. Even the London coffee houses
became a focus for discussion & exchange. Through meetings & printed publications these scientific
communities developed communication, co-operation & peer review; they also championed a new
scientific method.
4. Establishing scientific method.
Importantly the new knowledge was systematically acquired. It was new, there was no
requirement for the Ancients. The start was not books or philosophy but observation of reality, this was
followed by the formulation of mathematical theory, & consequential falsifiable predictions, validate by
experiment & controlled by peer review. Science was reducible, refutable & reproducible, & publicised
through lectures & experiment theatres it was pushing into every nook & cranny of urban life.
5. Rewards from innovation flowing directly to the innovators.
The thirst for knowledge was slaked by the hope for health & wealth. The search for the elixir of
life & the philosophers stone were the motivations of early science.
But there was another more subtle driving force - private property. From Royal confiscation to
Magna Carta, from serfdom to free men, from church land & Royal estate to private landowner, from
arbitrary statute to protective common law; private property emerged as a moral right in law. It was
private property which ensured that the rewards for innovation flowed directly to the innovators,
undermining oppressive taxes & instigating a surge of activity. Significantly it was not Royal feudal
estates nor church land but enclosed private property that enabled Europe to feed it’s growing urban
populations.
Did military ambitions spur science? The evidence tends to point the other way. War invariably
meant higher taxes with a consequential denuding of innovative options. Furthermore military
aggression and defence tended to follow wealth, science and economic growth. Poor countries can’t
make war?
6. Stabilised by economic growth from trade & technology.
The preconditions necessary for scientific progress were exactly the same as those for economic
growth. The economics of the scientific revolution leads from trade to technology to self sustaining
growth. The virtuous circle of competitive capitalism was emerging in Western Europe from 1500 - a
rising urban merchant class, experimenting with social institutions, seeking the benefits of trade &
technology & investing profits in innovation. Printing was an innovative activity in wealthy merchant
towns.
Trade, navigation & comparative advantage.
Trade, voyages & the search for new wealth initially drove the scientific revolution. Those who
ventured to the towns or to the oceans took risks & made money, those who stayed on the land or at
home remained the rural dormant poor. Trade was initially driven by mercantilism but was transformed
by Richardo’s theory of comparative advantage. Traders discovered how to make money.
Astronomical measurement, magnetism, time keeping & maps were essential innovations for
navigation. The realisation that the old authority was incomplete & erroneous followed from the ‘shock’
of the discovery of new flora & fauna & the new stars in the heavens! It was not elitist reasoning but the
experience of his own eyes that made ‘uneducated sailor Joe’ question the philosophising of the
Ancients. Not armchair physics now but experiment, discovery & experience; a new method. Opening up
the geographical & celestial globes caused the opening of a new intellectual globe. A new empirical
conversion.
Cloth, pepper, silver, manufactures ..... the trade web flowed from Venice & Genoa, to Bruges &
Lubeck, to Antwerp, to Amsterdam, to London, to New York .....
Technology, investment & endogenous growth.
At the same time as the burgher was actively trading, practical problems were being solved with
technology without recourse to philosophy. Mechanistic explanations were proving more useful than
teleology.
Trade made big money, & big money was subsequently invested in science & technology which
fed economic endogenous growth in a virtuous circle of innovative utility which led to the Industrial
Revolution.
Navigation, mining, medicine, machines ...... compasses, astrolabes, balances, telescopes,
microscopes, barometers, air pumps, pendulums, thermometers ........ the technology web encompassed
Seville, Cracow, Augsburg, Padua, Oxford, London .......
7. Underpinned by appropriate policies & culture.
There had been a scientific miracle in Greece from 500 BC to 200 AD, but it did not last.
Confined to an elite & without the help of printing nor widespread community, it withered when Greek
fashion turned to art & indulging.
China fared little better. Remarkable inventive achievements of paper, printing, gunpowder & the
magnetic compass were established centuries before there use in the West. But in China there were no
explanatory theories, nature was inscrutable, there was no ‘creator’, no Laws of Nature to discover. The
bureaucracy became the pinnacle of ambition, there was no merchant class, no capitalism.
Knowledge was important for Islam but only knowledge in the Koran, the ‘vision’ was already
known, the only obstacles were emotions & temptations.
Many Far Eastern cultures were mystical & religion focused on life after death. Meditation of the
next life deflected effort from the reality of today.
Many communities in the interior of Asia, Africa, South America & the sub continent remain, even
today, essentially rural agrarian economies & a self sustaining scientific revolution a pipe dream.
Even in parts of Europe it was all too easy for the progress of science to falter.
In Italy the trial of Galileo suppressed the freedom to theorise.
In Portugal the expulsion of the Jews & the Jesuits control of education conspired to squeeze
science from the curricula & undermine early promise.
In Spain, after a auspicious start, the Counter Reformation led to the demise of science.
In France the mirage of the philosophising & theorising of Descartes was counterproductive. A
problem which also caused set backs in Sweden.
Even Germany became preoccupied with the 30 years war at a critical time.
The progress of science was fickle.
8. Christianity.
Did Christianity play a role? Certainly post Reformation Christianity was not a codified set of rules
proscribing innovation. Christians believed that, although veiled in mystery, whatever the problem, love
will find a way. A God who, through the Incarnation, lived amongst people in the real world, giving,
through the Crucifixion, freedom from fear, freedom to experiment, & through the Resurrection gave
hope, a belief in progress. A God who taught, via Aquinas, that the way to understanding was through
reason; God’s universe was discoverable, there was one God & universal laws.
In the Orthodox East, Christianity remained ritualistic, magical & unreasonable, there was no
Renaissance, no necessity for Aquinas, no Reformation; new ideas were heresy. Christianity became
twisted the wrong way.
The tension between faith & reason was a constant stimulus for science. Newton was typical of
many scientists who were inspired by faith in a rational creation, constructed by Laws of Nature,
discoverable by the human intellect.
9. Conclusion.
Broad historical generalisations are a trap and easily countered by particular events in particular
places at particular times. However, events are not random. As the Greek philosopher scientists
believed, there is an underlying order in the universe. The task of historians is to uncover the patterns of
the past, to seek the statistical uniformities, a process of gradual illumination not discovery of ‘the truth’.
Historical analysis is most productive when detecting differences rather than similarities, and
locating context and not simply content. One difference between parts of scientific Europe & the rest of
the world was that the scientific revolution in Europe was sustained & stabilised by useful innovations
which produced a context of self sustaining economic growth. These innovations resulted from the
application of science as technology, within co-operative urban communities. This characteristic was
peculiar to scientific Europe.
Europe was different & something new did happen from 1500, science & capitalism together,
inextricably linked, not cause & effect but parallel manifestations of a particular cultural mix.
Thus, the necessary causes of the scientific revolution can be listed
 the break up of central power
 a diversity of competing units
 appropriate social institutions
 a particular systematic methodology
 utilitarian goals & direct rewards for innovation
 self sustaining economic growth from trade & technology.
Without these elements there would have been no scientific revolution in Europe. However, in
themselves they are not sufficient causes; they were all present and necessary but not a sufficient
explanation.
Sufficient causes are much more difficult to find, they remain hidden in the underpinning beliefs &
culture of particular communities in parts of Europe in 1500 - 1800.
Such prerequisites are not easily assembled & science & prosperity remain the privileged
possession of the few as the list of Nobel laureates perhaps indicates :Physics 1901 - 1987
USA
48
Russia
England
20
Netherlands
Germany
18
Sweden
France
8
Switzerland
7
6
4
4
Italy
Austria
Japan
China
3
3
3
2
India
Pakistan
Denmark
Ireland
1
1
1
1
Spain 0
HISTORY OF SCIENCE.
Initially capricious nature was thought to be God’s whim. Investigation was pointless, only God brings order out of chaos. But some
regularities can be identified. Some patterns, some statistical uniformities. Calendars, eclipses ....
Fall of Toledo - 1085.
Roger Bacon 1214 - 1292 study via experiments.
Ockham’s razor - The simpler the better.
Thomas Aquinas 1225 - 74 - tension between faith & reason.
Voyages of discovery
- tension between ancient authority v. independent observation.
Renaissance 1400
Henry the Navigator 1394 -1460
Bartolomeu Dias
Spanish Inquisition 1480
Printing 1450
- 1487 Cape of Good Hope.
Anti ‘conversos’
Columbus
Jews expelled Vasco da Gama
- America 1492
Spain 1492
Marsilo Ficino 1433 - 99
-1498 India
Brazil 1500
Tordesillas 1494
Portugal 1497.
Copernicus 1473 - 1543
Leonardo da Vinci 1452 - 1519
Paracelsus 1494 - 1541
Martin Luther 1483 -1546
- De Revolutionibus 1543
Andeas Vesalius 1514 -64
Reformation 1517 Philip Melanchthon 1497 - 1560
- Humani Corporis 1543
Augsburg 1555
- Wittenberg Interpretation
Garcia d’Orta 1501 - 68
Georgius Agricola 1494 - 1555
John Calvin 1509 - 64
- Coloquios 1563
- De re Metallica 1556
- Accommodation
Tycho Brae 1546 - 1601
Nicholas Monardes
Andreas Libavius 1560 - 1616
Jesuits 1540
- Medicinal History 1565
- Alchemia 1597
Trent 1563
Italian Inquisition 1542
Johannes Kepler 1571- 1630
William Gilbert 1544 - 1603
Gresham 1598
- Astronomia Nova 1609
Giordani Bruno 1548 - 1600
- De Magnete 1600
- Samuel Hartlib
Galileo 1564 - 1642
Francis Bacon 1561 -1626
Lincei, Rome 1603
- Starry 1610
- Novum Organum 1620
William Harvey 1578 - 1657
- Assayer 1623
- De Motu Cordis 1628
Merssenne’s ‘Salon’ 1623
- Dialogue 1632 Trial 1633
Pierre Gassendi 1592 - 1655
Renaudot 1586 - 1653
Jardin du Roi 1626
- Discourse 1638
- Epicurean atomism
- Paris bureau
Wadham
René Descartes 1596 - 1650.
Marin Mersenne 1588 - 1648
- John Wilkins 1614 -72
- Discours 1637
Blaise Pascal 1623 - 62
Westphalia 1648. - ‘virtuosi’ from 1640
- Principles 1644
Nicholas Malebranche 1638 - 1715
John Evelyn
Cimento, Florence 1657
- Occasionalism
- Sylva 1664.
The Royal Society 1660
Christian Huygens 1629 - 95 Robert Boyle 1627 - 91
The Academie Royale 1666
Isaac Newton 1642 - 1727
Nicholas Lemery
Robert Hooke 1635 - 1703
Thomas Hobbes 1588 - 1670
- Principia 1687
- Cours de Chemie 1697
- Microgaphia 1665
- Leviathan 1651
Chelsea Physic Garden 1673
- Opticks 1704
Gottfried Leibniz 1646 - 1716
Royal Observatory 1675
- The Berlin Academy 1700 Christian Wolff 1679 - 1754
St Petersburg Academy 1725
- Natural theology
Olof Rudbeck 1630- 1702
Herman Boerhaave 1668 - 1738
Nystadt 1721
Anders Celsius 1701 - 44
Geoffroy 1672- 1731
‘sGravasande 1688 -1742
Enlightenment 1725
Carl Linnaeus 1707 - 78
Pieter van Musschenbroek 1692 - 1761
- Systema Naturae 1735.
Voltaire 1694 - 1778
Euler 1707 - 83
James Hutton 1726 - 97
Johan Wallerius 1709 - 85
Mauperitus 1698 - 1759
Lomonosov 1711 - 65
- Theory of the Earth 1795
- Minerologia 1747
Pure/Applied
Clairot 1713 - 65
Krasheninnikov 1713 - 55
Abraham Werner 1749 -1817
Wargentin 1717 - 83
Diderot 1713 - 84
Pallas 1741 - 1811
Royal Swedish Academy 1739.
Laplace 1749 - 1827
Ignaz Born 1742 - 91
Wilke 1732 - 96.
Maquer 1718 - 84 Adam Smith 1723 - 90
Joseph Black 1728 - 99
Torbern Bergman 1735 - 84
Baume 1728 - 1804 James Watt 1736 - 1819
James Keir 1735 - 1820
Richard Kirwan
Carl Scheele 1742 - 86
Paracelsus1493 - 1541
- started preparations, sulphur, mercury & salt, and ‘principles’.
Robert Boyle 1627 - 91
- ‘pneumatic air’ manipulation, air had ‘celestial effluvia’.
Johann Becher 1635 - 1682
- father of phlogiston & cameralism
George Stahl 1660 - 1734
- searched for elements & compounds & unified them with Becher’s oily earth. ‘phlogiston’.
1
wood burns & loses its ‘principle’ & leaves ash.
2
metal when heated produces calx (oxide) as its ‘principle’ is released.
3
gases which burnt were ‘Inflammable air’ - (hydrogen & carbon monoxide were rich in phlogiston).
4
gases which did not burn were ‘phlogisticated air’ - (nitrogen & carbon dioxide).
5
ore plus ‘Phlogiston’ given up by charcoal produced the metal.
Stephen Hales 1677 - 1761
- methodical investigation of various types of ‘air’. Collected under water.
Joseph Black 1728 - 99
- air has more than one component. ‘fixed air’ is different. Weighing.
alba heated
= usta + weight loss. A new air?
usta + acid
= epsoms salts + water
epsoms salts + pearl ashes = alba precipitate. The same weight as the original alba!
Joseph Priestley 1733 - 1804
- different gases could be prepared experimentally. ‘dephlogisticated air’.
calx
+ air
= mercury + dephlogisticated air
calx
+ phlogiston
= mercury
thus
air
- phlogiston
= dephlogisticated air.
Henry Cavendish
- ‘inflammable air’’, all acids produce the same result. Phlogiston must come the metal, it exists!
(calx + phlogiston) metal + acid
= (calx + acid) salt + (phlogiston) ‘inflammable air’ .
Torbern Bergman 1735 - 84
- a theoretical academic, analysis from precipitates , weighing & affinities.
Carl Scheele 1742 - 86
- a practical discoverer, ‘fire air’.
(calx + phlogiston) metal + (‘fire air’) oxygen
= calx + (phlogiston + ‘fire air’) heat
Antoine Lavoisier 1743 - 94
- chemical combination without phlogiston.
mercury + oxygen + caloric = mercuric oxide
mercuric oxide
= mercury + oxygen + caloric
not
mercury
= calx + phlogiston
calx + air
= mercury + dephlogisticated air.
metal + acid
= salt (calx ?+ acid) + inflammable air? ?????
metal + acid + hydrogen oxide (water) = salt (metal oxide + acid)
+ hydrogen
not
(calx + phlogiston) + acid
= salt (calx + acid)
+ phlogiston
1798 Count Rumford & mechanical heat.
1800 Volta & galvanic cells. Electricity & chemical combination.
1802 Dalton & atomic theory. Reaction between atom & forces of attraction.
1807 Davy & the electric arc light. New metals from electrolysis.
1807 1811 Gay Lussac & Avogadro. Gases volumes & diatomic molecules.
1813 Berzelius & charged combination of electro chemical theory.
1821 Faraday & motors & dynamos.
1843 Joule & mechanical heat & work.
1855 Maxwell & electro magnetic waves.
1858 Darwin & evolution.
1860 Pasteur & germs.
1865 Kekule & the benzene ring & organic chemistry.
1869 Mendeleev & the periodic table.
1886 Hertz & radio waves.
1895 Rontgen & X-rays.
1897 Thomson & the electron.
1898 Curie & radio activity.
1899 Rutherford & alpha & beta particles.
1900 Plank & quantum mechanics.
1905 Einstein & the special theory.
1915 Einstein & the general theory.
1927 Heisenberg & the uncertainty principle.
1928 Fleming & penicillin.
1953 Crick & Watson & DNA.
Copernicus simplified the solar system.
Galileo’s experiments found the first solid evidence that mankind might read God’s laws.
Newton found God’s laws. Calculus opened up maths.
1727 the laws were ‘known’ - the clockwork universe trap of the Enlightenment.
Differential equations modelled more & more of the universe. But only a few of them could be solved. The path of
science followed only those that could be solved.
But Newton couldn’t predict the behaviour of 3 colliding balls & Marx couldn’t predict the behaviour of 2 people. It
was all statistics.
Two paradigms, differential equations & statistical averages.
Relativity & quantum mechanics explode the myth - cosmic lottery.
But until mid 20th century scientists were in a linear trap.
Mathematics is unreasonably effective. Nature has laws & we can find them. The new laws were nonlinear.
The study of history teaches that strongly held beliefs by devout & intelligent men were invariably wrong.
Truth can be suppressed for many centuries.
Be sceptical & gather evidence. ...... & so to science ......