A History of Magic and Experimental Science. Volumes VII and VIII: The Seventeenth Centuryby Lynn ThorndikeReview by: I. Bernard CohenIsis, Vol. 49, No. 4 (Dec., 1958), pp. 453-455Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of The History of Science SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/227295 .

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BOOK REVIEWS 453 portant studies of alchemy, Hermetism and the pre-modem philosophy of Nature.

Harvard University SEWED HOSSEIN NASR

LrNN THORNDIKE. A History of Magic and Experimental Science. Volumes VII and VIII: The seventeenth century. x + 695 pp., viii + 8o8 pp. New York: Co- lumbia University Press, I958. $Io.oo per volume.

The completion of this history, which has occupied the author for more than So years, is an event of major importance. All too many long-term projects in the history of science remain incomplete. One thinks of such examples as Sigerist's single volume of his projected History of Medicine, of the two volumes of Sarton's History of Science and the three volumes of his Introduction, and of the Systame du Monde which Duhem left 6/ioths complete in print and which is only now - some thirty years later - be- ing published in its entirety. Professor Thorndike's magnum opus is all the more remarkable in that it represents the work of a single man, who is not the director of a "research team" (as is the case with the Singer and Holmyard History of Tech- nology). In his eight volumes he presents the results of his personal research and reading and he illuminates every topic from his own personal point of view, his own characteristic enthusiasms, prejudices and limitations.

Since it may be presumed that all scholars are familiar with one or more of the earlier volumes,* no detailed description of the general plan is needed here. It is interesting to note in this regard that Thorndike him- self takes it for granted that no explanatory preface is necessary now and so limits him- self in the front matter only to listing his articles in which further material or cor- rections have been published, and the usual acknowledgments. In reviews of previous volumes in Isis the strengths and weaknesses of Thorndike's methods have been discussed at such length that the present review may confine itself to three major aspects of the books under review: (i) their special virtues and excellences; (2) the use they may serve for those teaching, studying, or doing re- search in the history of science; and (3) some of the limitations that result from the nature of the method used by Thorndike.

No one who is in any way concerned with the science or thought of the I7th century can afford to ignore these two volumes.

They are rich in historical insights, they contain much information about obscure figures in the science of the day, they pre- sent interesting and challenging opinions concerning the well established great men of the century and -as always in Thorn- dike's writings -much new information based largely on manuscript sources. Above all, these volumes may serve as a corrective to the unfortunate tendency to distort the I7th century by ignoring the "magical" and "unreasonable" tendencies, the apparently "unscientific" aspects of the science of that time. While one may argue for the existence of a steady progress in the x7th century toward reason in all things, there is the ever- present current of magic, witchcraft, as- trology, belief in omens of all sorts con- nected with scientific phenomena (as new stars, conjunctions, eclipses, etc.). While almost everyone is aware of the existence of some of these beliefs, scholars nevertheless often fail to be cognizant of their extent. Thorndike not only emphasizes the degree to which the century cannot be understood with- out its "magic," and the degree to which "magic" is apt to be linked to "experiment"; he also shows the continuity between the "magic" of the 17th century and the irra- tional elements associated with "scientific" thought in the preceding centuries. In fact, one of the special virtues of these volumes derives from the circumstance that Thorn- dike has studied for So years or more the background of experimental science and of "magic," and can show the continuity that exists on the irrational edges of science just as it exists in its rational heart or center. Thus although Kepler held "the erroneous view, but one all too common then and since, that the world had been asleep for a thousand years after the fall of Rome," Thorndike points out "that the slur on the period before I450 came with especially bad grace from Kepler, since he had made the thirteenth-century work of Witelo on optics the foundation and starting point for his own Ad Vitellionem paralipomena quibus astronomiae pars optica traditur." Further- more, "if Kepler had turned to the com- mentary on the Sphere of Sacrobosco . . . which was printed in . . . I53I. . . , he could have read that Campanus of Novara in the thirteenth century . . . told that cer- tain disciples of Plato said that the sky or the whole mass of the heavens and each of the elements was angular and not spherical, and that the number of essences correspond- ed to the number of regular solids: the pyramid to fire, hexahedron or cube to earth, icosahedron to water, octahedron to air, and

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454 BOOK REVIEWS

duodecahedron to the fifth essence. The conclusion may well be quoted as an epitome to the views of a medievalist on the I7th century. Says Thorndike: "Perhaps Kepler had read the passage and it sub- consciously suggested his own theory to him. In any case, he had no license to scorn medieval science before I450 or before Copernicus. And let us not do so in our survey of the seventeenth century."

Readers should be warned that Thorn- dike's approach to the I7th century is on occasion weak in the matter of technical detail. He succeeds in proving how deeply Kepler was attached to a belief in omens and in astrology, but he does so by quota- tion of Kepler's point of view rather than by analysis of Kepler's astrological studies. For instance, nothing is said of how Kepler resolved the earth-centred aspect of astrology with his own advocacy of the Copernican system. Nor is information given of Kepler's actual studies in the field of optics (which were of considerable importance), nor of their relation-save in the title of one book-to medieval optics. And it is surely both unhistorical and scientifically inac- curate to say that Kepler "correctly de- scribed gravity" and approached "a correct theory of gravitation," as Thorndike does, when I suppose he means by "correct" only "Newtonian" and does not prove even this. Although he gives much space to descrip- tions and summaries of Galileo's books, when Thorndike comes to the experiment proposed by Galileo to ascertain the speed of light, we are told only that it is "rather crude" and that "it was a first step towards the Morley-Michelson experiment." Rather than being told it was "crude," the reader would -I dare say -much prefer to learn how the experiment was to be performed; and it is hard to see any connection between the method or purpose of this experiment and the Michelson-Morley experiment. It did, however, lead in the 17th century to an actual experiment performed by the Ac- cademia del Cimento. At one point, Thorn- dike states, "Experiments are made with a ball rolling in a channel down inclined planes and the time measured by a water clock." Again no details are given, nor is any discussion presented of the purpose of these "experiments" or of the plausibility of the results. Actually, the most disappoint- ing part of the presentation of Galileo is that no attempt whatever is made to show the relation of Galileo's mechanics to the medie- val tradition save to quote one proposition which is said to bring "to mind" the "Cal- culationes of Richard Suiseth." It is not

even remarked that the diagram presented by Galileo is similar to that found in Oresme and no illumination is given as to whether Galileo might actually have encountered these medieval authors.

A second feature concerning which the reader may be warned: despite the size of these volumes, the coverage is far from the completeness one might have expected. Hooke is conspicuous because he appears only en passant, as does Hobbes (circle-squaring is not treated at all). Although references abound to "Torricelli's experiment" as it was discussed throughout the I7th century, no account whatever is given of Torricelli, his experiment, and how he came to make it (or, to put it differently, no mention is made of Berti and the pre-Torricellian Torricellian experiments, for which see Van Wijk's monograph lexpdrience baromdtrique). Al- though much is said of the telescope, not a word is said concerning the circumstances of its having been invented. Blaise Pascal does not appear in these I500 pages under the category of "magic" or "experimental science"; he is mentioned once in the text in a list of authorities and a second time in a footnote as a member of the category, "Some works by others for or against a vacuum were . . ." (but without information as to whether he was "for or against"). These examples make it abundantly clear that the chief value of Thorndike's two volumes will be to gain insight into a school or author who happens to be treated by him, rather than to gain an over-all view of the century's work.

The penultimate chapter, on Newton, will certainly appear to be among the least satis- fying in the book. Here it would seem that Thorndike has denied to us the chief merits of his own method, namely, the comments that arise from his careful reading of original texts (that suggest their connection with writings of earlier centuries) and the observations that he provides as to the "magical" aspects of works not usually treated as such. In this chapter Thorndike does not even give any evidence that he has examined at first hand the actual originals of either Newton's Principia or his Opticks. He relies extensively on More's biography, even a quotation from the final General Scholium of the Princip&a being quoted from More's book rather than from the original.

We are told, "In his Optics [Thorndike means Opticks, but has followed Horsley's and More's erroneous method of referring to this work] he pictures Nature as delighted with the transmutation of metals... ." The

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BOOK REVIEWS 455 reference here is to Query 30, as cited by More. But the transmutation that Newton discusses in Query 30 is that of "gross bodies" into "light" and of "light" into "gross bodies." Such convertibility is said to be "very conformable to the Course of Nature, which seems delighted with Trans- mutations." As examples, Newton refers to "Water" being changed into "Vapour, which is a sort of Air" or into "Ice, which is a . . . Stone," and vice versa. Other examples are "Earth" to "Fire" and "Fire" to "Earth," "dense Bodies" by "Fermenta- tion" becoming a kind of "Air," and vice versa; "Mercury" which may appear as a liquid, a hard metal, as a "corrosive pellucid Salt called Sublimate," a "white Earth," a "red Earth," etc.; eggs which "grow from insensible Magnitudes and change into Ani- mals"; "Tadpoles" which become "Frogs" and "Worms" which turn into "Flies." All vegetable and animal life "grow out of Water and watry Tinctures and Salts" and by putrefaction again return to these sub- stances. Finally, water standing in open air yields a "Tincture" and later a "Sediment." But in this catalogue of "various and strange Transmutations" which was designed to show that "Nature" might very well "change Bodies into Light, and Light into Bodies," one searches in vain for a reference to an alchemical transmutation of metals.

Yet there is much of value even in this chapter, chiefly certain splendid insights. Among these is the remark on the fact that Newton seldom indicated "the previous literature and experimentation on the subject in hand, and those from whom he may have received suggestion." "This, if true," says Thorndike, "is probably another magical trait in him, continuing the method of secrecy and exaggeration of one's own feats and per- formances." By contrast, consider the state- ment that the seventeenth-century "tendency to personify or idealize nature" was so strong with Newton that he "normally spelled the word, Nature, with a capi- tal. . . ." There follow several quotations from Query 3I of the Opticks to illustrate the capital N, with reference to More's bi- ography and Horsley's i8th-century edition of Newton's Opera (IV, 242, 258, 260). Had Thorndike ever examined any of the editions of the Opticks that appeared in Newton's day, or even the 20th-century reprint, he would rapidly have discovered that Newton used capitals for almost all nouns! It just happens that Horsley, with the i8th-century editor's disregard of the original texts, took liberties with the capital- ization (the word Nature remained capital-

ized and not Metal, Stone, Water, Lead, Ray, Heat, Body, Particle, etc.) and that More did the same.

To conclude: Professor Thorndike is cer- tainly to be congratulated on bringing to a termination this heroic enterprise. From now on, there is no subject in some i6oo years of science - save possibly pure mathe- matics or medical practise - on which one would consider acceptable a student's paper that had not made use of Thorndike's work. If only for the extraordinary amount of in- formation on manuscripts, this work must be on every scholar's shelf when he studies almost every aspect of the history of science. These eight volumes will stand for centuries as a monument to one man's consecrated devotion to learning. In a day when historical writing tends to become - like scientific writing - more and more depersonalized, it is a real pleasure to encounter a serious scholarly work like this in which the author has allowed his personality to exude from every page and almost from every para- graph. As with all historical enterprises con- ceived in the heroic mold - Sarton's Intro- duction and Duhem's Systgme du monde- it is easier to find points at which to launch criticism of Thorndike's great work than it is to produce something of comparable majesty and value. The generations of future scholars who will use Thorndike's volumes as the platform on which to erect their own research will provide a continuous expression of gratitude for his labors. Of such works as his, well may we echo the poet: Monu- mentum aere perennius!

Harvard University I. BERNARD COHEN

*The publication of Volumes V and VI in 1941 (1287 pages on the period from i5oo to I630) was the occasion for an article by D. B. Durand, "Magic and experimental science: the achievement of Lynn Thorndike," Isis, 1942, 33: 691-712. Volumes III and IV (1478 pages de- voted to the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries) appeared in 1934, and were reviewed by George Sarton, Isis, 23: 471-475. Volumes I and II (743 pages on the second to eleventh centuries, inclusively, and 965 pages on the twelfth and thirteenth centuries) were published in 1923, sec- ond corrected printing in 1929, and were re- viewed by George Sarton in Isis, 6: 74-89.

0. NEUGEBAUER: The Exact Sciences in Antiquity. 2nd edn. xvi + 240 PP., front., 14 pl. (I in color). Providence, R. I.: Brown University Press, 1957. $6.oo.

Ever since this work first appeared (re- viewed by George Sarton and Francis J. Carmody in Isis, I952, 43: 69-73) it has

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