A History of Science, Technology, and Philosophy in the 16th &17th Centuries by A. Wolf; F.Dannemann; A. ArmitageReview by: George SartonIsis, Vol. 24, No. 1 (Dec., 1935), pp. 164-167Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of The History of Science SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/224853 .

Accessed: 14/06/2014 18:54

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

.

The University of Chicago Press and The History of Science Society are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize,preserve and extend access to Isis.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 195.78.108.37 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 18:54:03 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

164 ISIS, XXIV, I

A. Wolf.-A history of science, technology, and philosophy in the i6th & I 7th centuries. With the co-operation of F. DANNEMANN, and A. ARMITAGE. XXVII+692 P., 3i6 illus. London, ALLEN & UNWIN, 1935- (25 s.).

I have seldom looked forward to the publication of a book with keener anticipation than in the case of this one. I knew that Professor WOLF was preparing it and had been working at it for many years, and my interest in the XVIIth century was gradually deepening as I was beginning to consider it a kind of Promised Land which I would not be privileged to explore. I consoled myself with the thought that I would soon be able to enjoy Professor WOLF'S investigations. Alas ! I am bitterly disappointed.

Following WHEWELT.'S nefarious tradition, WOLF does not try to explain the progress of science as a whole, but considers separately each branch of science astronomy, mathematics, mechanics, light, sound, etc., the final chapter bleing devoted to philosophy. There are only three chapters devoted to single individuals: COPERNICUS, GALILEO, NEWTON, and the GALILEO chapter is followed by two more general ones on scientific academies and scientific instruments. As a result the natural sequences of events are so often interrupted or even reversed, that there is no chronological continuity and that the very pattern of history is gratuitously destroyed.

To illustrate, the Copernican chapter deals of course with the sixteenth century, but soon after this that century is abandoned (though the book is entitled " A history of science, technology, and philosophy in the i6th & i7th centuries "). The best work of GALILEO belongs of course to the seventeenith century, and the history of scientific academies takes us into the second half of that century and even into the beginning of the eighteenth. For the rest of the sixteenth century the reader has to consult almost every part of the book. BRAHE'S astronomical work anterior to GALILEO'S is dealt with a hundred pages lower, STEVIN'S

mechanical work anterior to GALILEO'S is dealt with two hundred pages lower, and so forth. In short, though seventeenth century science is very different from sixteenth century science, it would require considerable study to extract a general view of the sixteenth century from this book, and that view would be very incomplete and imperfect. This is annoying enough for the scholar, but for the young student it is simply disastrous.

Let us conisider, e.g., STEVIN's case. The author tells us (p. 219,

GALILEO having been dealt with at the beginning of the book) " STEVIN and GALILEI were almost contemporaries, but they carried their researches independently." That is a very akward and misleading statement. It suggests that they are chronologically on the same level, which is very

This content downloaded from 195.78.108.37 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 18:54:03 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

REVIEWS i65

far from the truth. STEVIN'S mechanical writings appeared in 1586 and if he had died before the end of the sixteenth century his fame would hardly have suffered; if GALILEO had died before i6oo he would have remained almost unknown; his main mechanical work appeared only in I638 more than half a century after STEVIN'S and eighteen years after STEVIN's death. WOLF repeats the story of the experiments made by GALILEO from the top of the leaning tower of Pisa and publishes even a beautiful photograph of that tower (as if that accredited the story !). In fact the reality of those experiments cannot be proved at all, and they are more probably legendary than not. See LANE COOPER's recent study ARISTOTLE, GALILEO, and the tower of Pisa (Ithaca, N. Y., 1935 ; ISiS, 24,2I8). Strangely enough such experimnents were actually made by STEVIN and J. H. DE GROOT in Delft c. I59o,t hat is at the very time when GALILEO was supposed to have made his in Pisa (x). It is the duty of historians, as opposed to mythologists, to state such facts correctly. STEVIN'S work published in 1586 could not have been influenc-d by GALILEO'S. On the other hand the latter had plenty of time to know of STEVIN's work. STEVIN was quoted in CHRISTOPHER SCHEINER'S De maculis solaribus et stellis circa Iouem errantibus accuratior disquisitio (Augsburg, I612)-a book known to GALILEO, and how could the latter not hear, within more than half a century, of the great mathematician of the Prince of Orange? He must have had correspondents in Holland inasmuch as his great mechanical treatise, the Discorsi e dimostrazioni matematiche, was published in Leiden (ELZEVIERS, I638). The fact remains that GALILEO has never mentioned STEVIN.

However this is not the issue. I reproach the author for treating as contemporaries two authors whose main works were published at a distance of half a century and to deal with the older work almost 200 pages after the newer one ! Think again of how niisleading this must be to the younger student for whom this book is meant.

It is bad enough to separate each branch of science from the others, and to begin a new story for each of them. One may claim that one has to choose between scientific continuity and chronological continuity, and that it is perhaps better in a book of this kind to sacrifice the latter to the former than the opposite. That is a specious argument. When facts are quoted in the natural, that is, the chronological order, most of them are ipso facto in the logical order, and for those which are not or are separated by too long intervals, it is easy enough to introduce a connecting summary as the author did himself very well at the beginning of his chapter on the Newtonian synthesis. But I have already shown that the author's offense is considerably worse, for he is not even able

(I) (". SARTON: STEVIN (Isis 21, 241-303, I 934; see p. 244). See also Isis 24, 124.

This content downloaded from 195.78.108.37 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 18:54:03 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

i66 ISIS, XXIV, I

to keep in order the history of each branch. His account of mechanics is thoroughly vitiated by his permutation of STEVIN and GALILEO. The latter's immortal achievements were the culmination of a long series of mediaeval and sixteenth century efforts. WOLF'S account of sixteenth century mechanics is very insufficient: he does not even mention GIAMBATTISTA BENEDETTI and GUIDOBALDO DEL MONTE, and the fundamental Galilean studies of EMIL WOHLWILL and PIERRE DUHEM are apparently unknown to him!

To take another example, the history of mathematics is painfully garbled. Can there be any excuse for a historian of algebra who deals first with VIErA (p. I89) and only then with CARDANO and TARTAGLIA (P. 190-I)? VIETA was an algebraist of genius, but part of his success was certainly due to the fact that he was standing on the shoulders of his Italian predecessors. He represents just as decidedly the second half of the sixteenth century as CARDANO and TARTAGLIA its first half. One would he scandalized if PLUCKER were dealt with after POINCARI; such a permuta- tion or perversion may be less obvious in the sixteenth century than in the nineteenth or it may be obvious to fewer people, but as soon as it is realized it is just as shocking. In the past as well as in the present, scientists could only influence their followers, not their predecessors.

To return to STEVIN, WOLF says of him (p. 193), that he " suggested in 1585 a notation for decimal fractions." That is very badly put. STEVIN's Thiende of 1585 was the first treatise devoted to decimal fractions; he was the first man to prove the essential value of decimal fractions and decimal standards, and he showed that by such means only could one get rid of fractions and deal with all numbers almost as if they were integers; his notation was the poorest feature of his achievement. (2) This mathematical chapter of WoLF's book is even below the level of the rest. On the other hand the best parts of the book are his analyses of the individual discoveries, or of the treatises wherein those discoveries were set forth. It is clear that the author has taken special pains to account for the development of ideas in the inventor's mind. That is generally very good. Otherwise there is little evidence of original research and thought for a book of such size and covering so large a field. The author is not even aware of the historical investigations made by his own con- temporaries: I have already proved it with regard to GALILEO and STEVIN. With regard to MAYOW, he does mention T. S. PATTERSON'S memoir (p. 345), but that mention has the appearance of being a late interpolation pro forma.

(2) G. SARTON : The first explanation of decimal fractions and measures (I 585). Together with a history of the decimal idea and a facsimile of STEVIN'S Disme (Isis 23, 153-244, 1935).

This content downloaded from 195.78.108.37 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 18:54:03 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

REVIEWS I67

The book is adorned with an abundance of illustrations (3 i6), a great many of which cover the whole page. All of these illustrations are interesting, some are splendid. Their value would have been greater still if the author had taken the trouble of explaining them and indicating their sources.

The " jacket " bears endorsements signed by Lord RUTHERFORD, Sir WILLIAM BRAGG, etc. To be sure these are illustrious scientists, but they are not historians and their opinion of a historical work is of little account. This is but another proof of the general unpopularity of our studies in the world of today. Indeed would anybody dare to indulge in a similar practice in a purely scientific field? Imagine the " jacket " of a physical treatise bearing endorsements by botanists,-even if these were the leading botanists of the day !-The use of such " poudre aux yeux " would probably be disappointing, for it might blind the eyes of physicists to the very qualities of the book instead of blinding them to its defects.

To sum up, Professor WOLF'S book is very badly arranged and very deficient from the purely historical point of view. It will give students a distorted notion of seventeenth century science, and one even more distorted of sixteenth century science. In general it will be better to use it for reference (with due caution) than for continuous reading. The magnificent series of illustrations will educate many readers and perhaps awaken the vocation of new historians of science.

GEORGE SARTON.

Katherine Brownell Collier.-Cosmogonies of our Fathers. 500 pp. New York, Columbia University Press, 1934. ($5.00).

Many substantial advances in science have challenged and modified deep-rooted traditional beliefs. It is with such developments, especially as expressed in efforts from i6oo to i8oo to reconcile the new scientific theories with Biblical statements concerning the nature of the universe, that Dr. COLLIER is concerned.

Dr. COLLIER'S researches depict the persistent efforts of scientist, theologian and litterateur to harmonize the heliocentric doctrine with Genesis, to establish the Deluge as the cause of the wide dispersion of fossils, to render accordant Mosaic narrative and accredited scientific conceptions. Such exegesis finds LEIBNITZ and the truculent FLUDD

cheek by jowl in cosmogonal phantasy. NEHEMIAH GREW, the founder of vegetable physiology, announces that the longevity of Adam and his descendants (till the flood) was due to a vegetarian diet. WOODWARD,

the geologist, gravely deduces from the .condition of plant fossils then diffused, that the Deluge occurred at the end of May. With such

This content downloaded from 195.78.108.37 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 18:54:03 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions