Book Reviews 389

the West. But for this reviewer the most fascinating and valuable paper was that on ‘Invented Italians in the Courtois Charters’ by D. Abulafia. For not only does he recount in an exemplary way the story of the making and then exposure of these very influential early-nineteenth-century forgeries which often deceived even the most earnest of scholars and still have a disconcerting way of turning up in unexpected places and trapping the unwary, but he also provides diplomatic guidance on how to recognise them. I have already been able to confirm the value of this contribution by applying its criteria to transcripts of certain Breton charters about which I had already entertained suspicions (Nantes. Bibliothkque municipale, MS. 1069). These are now fully confirmed. Dr Edbury is thus to be congratulated on bringing together a collection of papers which is helpful even to those whose interest in crusading is peripheral. All it lacks is an Index.

L’niVYsir,V of Norringhonl Michael Jones

Religion, Science and Worldview: essays in honor of Richard S. Westfall, ed. M.J. Osler and P.L. Farber (Cambridge: C.U.P., 1985). xv C 350 pp.. S32.50, $49.50.

This book honours one of the foremost intellectual historians of the seventeenth century. Professor Richard Westfall has produced, not only numerous articles. but a clutch of books of major importance-the first, Science and Religion in Sevenreenrh Cenlury England (which I still unapologetically include in undergraduate reading-lists), dating back to 1958, the most recent being the formidable biography of Newton. I have never personally met Professor Westfall, but can add my own tribute by noting that his books are actually used with prolit by my students-a point that may have something to do with his concern to communicate, as described in a short laudatory preface.

Those of Westfall’s collaborators and students who have contributed to this volume have shared that concern, and the papers, in many respects diverse, are almost without exception admirably lucid. They have been arranged under three broad headings: ‘Newtonian Studies’, ‘Science and Religion’ and ‘Historiography and the Social Context of Science’ -each of these representing an important area of Westfall’s own work.

The opening section includes five essays, ranging from a detailed study of a defective diagram in the Principia, to philosophical discussions of problems related to Newton’s concept of ‘force’. Some of the methodological problems confronted by Newton in his early chemical work are expounded, and it is argued that later the Principio contained an inbuilt challenge to the .classical empiricist tradition-a challenge of which Newton himself was unaware, and an understanding of which became possible only after the twentieth-century revolution in physics. The way in which these Newtonian studies inter- relate with the other sections of the book, is brought out particularly clearly in R.W. Home’s essay, which argues that Newton, even late in life, continued to hope for some nzechanicol explanation of such problematic areas as electricity, magnetism and organic growth, but that he nevertheless might have conceded that-as with gravity-we may ultimately be driven back to an irreducibly non-mechanical explanation, prompting thoughts of God.

Such connections between science and religion form the common thread running through the papers in Part II. A piece on ‘celestial perfection’ exemplifies the complexity of the issues relating to the replacement of Aristotelian cosmology by Copernicanism; ‘occult qualities’ are claimed, curiously, to form the foundation of modern science; and a discussion of Swammerdam’s motives for rejecting Harvey’s account of metamorphosis and spontaneous generation demonstrates the way in which scientific theories may be partially derived from theological and ethical presuppositions (in this case, a requirement

Book Reviews

to avoid the possibility of ‘chance’ in creation). .A particularly interesting essay in this section has been contributed by co-editor ,Margaret Osler. on Gassendi’s ‘baptising’ of Epicurean atomism. Her treatment of Gassendi’s attempts to establish. within an otherwise mechanical framework, the immortalit> of human souls, serves to teach some general historiographical lessons: that we should avoid any facile ‘ancients’/‘modems’ distinction, and beware of na’ive expectations of intellectual ‘consistency’; and that, while we should refrain from imposin, 0 our own attitudes on historical figures, we might nevertheless share with them some fundamental human concerns.

The wider dimensions of intellectual history are further considered in Part III. This includes an account of Tycho Brahe ‘as thedean oia Renaissance research tnscitute’,and studies of Agricola and ofornithology. Most impressive, however, is Stephen !vI. Straker’s paper on the histop of theories of perception. This takes as a starting point E..-+v. Burtt‘s insight that we hav,e. since thescientific revolution. in some sensechosen the modern world in which we live. Galileo’s advocacy of a stark ‘mathematical’ world as replacement for the comiorting cosmology oi ;\ristotelianism is one that may still need questioning. The Newtonian synthesis and the ‘mechanisarion of the world-picture’ had implications not only for our understanding of external nature, but also, and not least. for our understanding of ourselves; and it may yet be salutary to consider some alternatives. At all events, to understand nature-which is necessarily perceived and interpreted by us in terms of historically mediated categories-vve need to understand ourselves; and a prerequisite for meaningfully undertaking any study of history of science therefore becomes a study of the history of theories of perception. Straker’s academic paper, which ranges widely both historically and philosophically, has an ultimately high moral purpose; and it explicitly highlights one of Richard Westfall’s ovvn concerns-that the point of our studying history is to contribute towards an understanding of our own contemporary situation.

In a volume of this kind, it is invidious to single out specific papers, ifonly because no one reviewer is equally competent in evec area cov,ered. But Straker’s essay alonejustifies the recommendation of this/rsrsc/triji as something more than a mere private indulgence, and the book as a whole-particularly vvell-produced by Cambridge University Press-does credit to the scholar who served as its inspiration.

The Har/irld Polytechnit

B.C. Southgate

Philosophies of History. A Critical Essay, Rolf Gruner, Avebury Series in Philosophy (Aldershot, Hampshire, U.K. and Brooktield, Vermont, U.S.A.: Cower, 19Sj), 122 pp., E16.00.

This sharp little book ought to be required reading for every English-speaking undergraduate studying history or social sciences and for some, if not all, of their professors. It attacks the assumption of ‘progress’ and does so with elegance, precision and wit. It made me very uncomfortable, for I had to confess that Mr Gruner’s strictures fitted most of my assumptions: that history is linear and not repeatable, that, on the whole, things (whatever that may mean) are getting better and will continue to do so; in short, that I had what he calls a ‘modem’ mind.

The attack proceeds directly by systematic criticism of such assumptions and attempts to demonstrate that they are untenable. In this Mr Gruner, like all powerful sceptics, has a relatively easy time. Next he illustrates the sources and evolution of such assumptions in Christian eschatology and in the writings of characteristic ‘modem’ thinkers, such as Turgot, Condorcet, Hegel and Marx. In this section, he takes a line not unlike that chosen