Introduction to the History of Science. Vol. II, from Rabbi Ben Ezra to Roger Bacon byGeorge SartonReview by: Pierce ButlerThe Library Quarterly, Vol. 3, No. 1 (Jan., 1933), pp. 123-124Published by: The University of Chicago PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4301961 .

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REVIEWS 123

Introduction to the history of science. Vol. II, From Rabbi Ben Ezra to Roger Bacon. By GEORGE SARTON. Washington: Carnegie Insti- tution, I93I. PP. xxxv+1251. Two parts, paged continuously. $10.00.

Sappho has spoken of Eros as 7yXvxdruKpos, "sweetly-bitter." This term has long since been tarnished through its abuse in the hands of confectioners and florists, yet it is too precious a conception to be lost completely. It does de- scribe accurately that complex of contradictory emotions that is often felt in the human heart.

And so we may boldly declare that librarians will be joyously sad as they examine these massive volumes. They will be happy because the work does so much more than its title would indicate. It is called an "Introduction," but it is really a treatise and a repertory of almost encyclopedic magnitude. It is called a "History of science," but is rather a history of the whole range of learning.

In the literature of scholarship a definite type has been evolved so that now any book labeled as a history of science is presumably of a definite pat- tern: a documented and critical record of the progress of discovery in the particular field of phenomena that is under examination. The literature of this type is already extensive. For nearly every department of modern scientific studies we have one or more books which tell us how we have come to be in possession of our present knowledge. But almost invariably these books are written from what is recognized in literary history proper as the classical point of view, that is, all of the works discussed are projected on a single plane, and there they are compared as though they were contemporaneous. In literary history the sole standard is aesthetic accomplishment, in scientific history it is the attainment of ultimate truth. So far as the present reviewer is aware, it is only in the field of mathematics that we have to stand beside a David Eugene Smith's History of the classical type, such another work as G. A. Miller's Historical introduction to mathematical literature. One might liken the first to a description of the building of an edifice, and the second to a record of the people who have lived and worked in it.

While there can be no doubt that the librarian must know a great deal of the history of science of the first type, it is equally certain that in his rou- tine he will be vastly more concerned with matters that fall under the second category. For one occasion when he must handle the works of the founders of science there will be many times when he must deal with digestors, the elaborators, and the expounders of the principles that these great men have established. With such writers, whom he deems of secondary magnitude, the classical historian of science must, of necessity, have but little concern. Thus the librarian is left to win for himself whatever knowledge he shall ever obtain of the work-day literature of ordinary scholarship. But now a pioneer has penetrated the jungle. For the first time, in English, at least, the whole range

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124 THE LIBRARY QUARTERLY

of learning is surveyed as a single historical field. We are given a competent record, not merely of the minting of ideas, but of their currency in intellectual life. Or to change the figure a third time, we now have an account of common men where before we had only that of kings and conquerors.

For all this the librarian will be deeply grateful and come to regard this book as one of the indispensable technical tools of his profession. And yet, for all his gratitude, there are two reasons why he can never fail to be un- happy when he handles these volumes. The first reason of his sadness will be their chronological limitations; Volume I, published in 1927, covered in 839 pages the two thousand years ending with Omar Khayyam; Volume II, pub- lished in 1931, covers in I25I pages, approximately two centuries and closes with the death of Roger Bacon (A.D. 1292). When one contemplates the steady increase of extant literature from the six hundred and forty years that follow, a completion of the work on the same generous scale seems beyond the scope of practicability. Yet it is for precisely these later centuries that the working librarian has the most need of Dr. Sarton's talent in detail and genius in generalization. Now and again it may be necessary for us to locate a lesser medieval writer on the historical chart of scholarship, but we have constant need for similar orientations of later minor writers who are not mentioned in the literary histories because their works were intellectual and not imagina- tive. The librarian must therefore regret deeply that Dr. Sarton did not, somehow, find a way for beginning his record with modern times and so work backward. Our hope must be that he will inspire a group of followers to adopt his method for more recent and more limited periods.

The second cause for sadness to a library practitioner is Dr. Sarton's utter frankness when he mentions the bibliographies and catalogues that are the pride of our profession. He speaks calmly and dispassionately of our efforts, and yet he does not soften the sentence: he finds enumerative and descriptive lists in any subject area of no value unless they have been prepared by experts in that subject; bibliographical skill can never, in his opinion, take the place of specialized knowledge. Exhaustiveness, he points out, is a vice rather than a virtue. Some of his harder sayings might well be pondered by those of us who rush in light-heartedly where bibliographical angels move with caution.

PIERCE BUTLER GRADUATE LIBRARY SCHOOL

UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO

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