Six Wings: Men of Science in the Renaissance by George SartonReview by: C. Doris HellmanIsis, Vol. 48, No. 3, The George Sarton Memorial Issue (Sep., 1957), pp. 375-377Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of The History of Science SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/226493 .

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BOOK REVIEWS 375 the Christian West through the Arabic de- tour. The Renaissance broke that coopera- tion and put an end to it; "in the fifteenth century, East and West were finally di- vorced, and, from then on, proceeded each along its own way - the West exploiting the experimental method and making possible the gigantic advance of modem science which would occur in the seventeenth cen- tury, the East refusing to follow the new roads of discovery and shutting itself up in a cocoon of orthodoxy and scholasticism. The West lost religious unity and peace but gained more knowledge; the East stiffened its thought and manner and resigned it- self to its fate. As the West was going ahead with the seven-league boots of ex- perimental science while the East stood still, the distance between them increased stead- ily." The invention of printing provides the best symbol of this increasing separation. The Muslim East spumed this invention, whereas the Christian nations developed it as much as they could and made it the main instrument of Western progress.

S. Each of these opposite tendencies can be and has been carried too far. The "imain peculiarity of the Renaissance was its negative orientation; its creative activities concerned the past. The true scientific spirit on the contrary is focused upon the future; it is not interested in things that have already been published, but rather in those which are as yet unknown."

The lectures reveal Dr. Sarton's awareness of the many complexities and conflicts of opposing tendencies that are present in the history of science during the period he leaves for his successors to explore in detail. As a preliminary survey this book is a most use- ful guide. The reader should keep in mind that, fascinated by the rhetorical virtues of sharp contrasts, Dr. Sarton has been occa- sionally tempted to over-state some points in a way that might be misleading if the qualifications implied in the full contexts were overlooked because of their less em- phatic position. Often he seems to do less than justice to the scholars of the Renais- sance by neglecting to state with equal em- phasis that their interest in the writings of the past frequently had ample scien- tific justification, and by sharing a too common tendency to equate "humanism" with the contemporary pedagogical and

philological phenomenon of Renaissance "Ciceronianism," whose pedantic excesses called forth the well-deserved satire of Erasmus and other great humanistic schol- ars of the age. The last sentence of a sum- mary quoted in the preceding paragraph provides an illustration. Dr. Sarton, I am sure, would have wished to qualify his statement that "the scientific spirit is not in- terested in things 'that have already been published," for, taken by itself, it attacks imputing any scientific value to the study to which he has devoted a lifetime of ef- fort. No doubt he would prefer, on second thought, to add a qualifying clause such as this, "except in so far as what has been published provides a useful basis for the future discovery of things as yet unknown."

Stanford University FRANcis R. JOHNSON

GEORGE SARTON: Six Wings: Men of Sci- ence in the Renaissance, illustrated with contemporary portraits. xiv+ 3I8 pp. 30 ill. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, I957. $6.75.

In I929 Dr. Sarton wrote, "If one excepts the extraordinary climax which occurred to- ward the end of that period, in I 543, the Renaissance was less a genuine revival than a halfway rest between two revivals," 1 the first from the second half of the eleventh century to the thirteenth, when Greco-Arabic knowledge was being received in Western Europe, the second beginning in the seven- teenth century with the development of the experimental method. Just before his death, Dr. Sarton wrote, "My statement of I929 has been somewhat toned down in my Apprecia- tion (Philadelphia I955) and will be further corrected in Six Wings, which the University of Indiana is printing."2 Thus Six Wings brings us the reconsidered judgment of the dean of historians of science, spreading be- fore us the panorama of Renaissance science in all its glory and in its pettiness, seen through the eyes of a great modern humanist.

The title, Six Wings, continues a tradition

'James Westfall Thompson and others, The Civilization of the Renaissance (University of Chicago Press, 1929), p. 75. ' Letter dated "5603.21" (21 March I956) and postmarked 22 March I956, the day Dr. Sarton died.

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376 BOOK REVIEWS

which can be traced back to the Old Testa- ment and was remembered in the fourteenth century by Immanuel Bonfils, whose astro- nomical tables were entitled Kanfe nesharim (wings of eagles). Divided into six parts, the tables were generally called Shesh kenafayim, an allusion to the six wings of the seraphim.

Six Wings supplements and expands the author's Appreciation of Ancient and Me- dieval Science during the Renaissance; it ap- proaches the subject from the point of view of the men whose science it was, rather than from that of the retention, reintroduction, or even reinterpretation of past science in the period I450 to i6oo. It was typical of Dr. Sarton's mind that he should consider men and their works. In this way Renaissance science is shown as a part of Renaissance liv- ing and thinking. The book has achieved more than a summation -it is an integration. The dates are an arbitrary and convenient definition of Renaissance science, and Dr. Sarton has never hesitated to examine earlier or later thinking along the lines he discussed.

The book is the outgrowth of the Patten Lectures delivered in I955, but the sixth wing, Leonardo da Vinci: Art and Science, is a free translation of a lecture Dr. Sarton gave in French in Paris in I952, and substantially the same as the one this reviewer had the privi- lege of hearing that same year at the Morgan Library.

The first wing, The Frame of the Renais- sance: Exploration and Education, acts as an introduction to the other wings, which are devoted to Mathematics and Astronomy (sec- ond wing), Physics, Chemistry, Technology (third), Natural History (fourth), Anatomy and Medicine (fifth), and that eloquent sixth wing, on Leonardo, which was the fruit of four decades of research and philosophical thought, of which the famous Introduction might almost be considered a by-product. Within the wings, the history of Renaissance science is portrayed through the men who made it.

Many passages in Six Wings make the read- er hear Dr. Sarton's voice, see his smile, and appreciate his interpretation of human frail- ties. He has shown others how to compile information concerning Renaissance science which can be much more thorough than his own broad synthesis.3 But there have been

3 For example, on p. 84 Dr. Sarton mentions the optics of Maurolycus and the history of the

few people who could have given us such a human view of science in that period, ac- companied by so much specific detail. No one without a knowledge of both science be- fore the Renaissance and science after it could have placed the proper emphasis as Dr. Sarton has done. Nor could anyone with- out a deep interest in human beings have so well evaluated men's achievements in the light of their psychological environment. Tol- erance or understanding and an historical sense appear on almost every page, as a few examples will suffice to show. Copernicus is wel placed historically by the statement: "New cosmological ideas were nursed by phi- losophers, . .. , but the main sources of his [Copernicus'] theory were the early Greek writings and the observations made by him- self and by many other astronomers of his own age.74 When speaking of astrology and alchemy Dr. Sarton says, "To appreciate cor- rectly the scientific spirit of any period it is necessary to have some knowledge not only of its positive achievements but also of its adulterations and deviations."5 Praising the work of Simon Stevin did not mean attribut- ing thoughts to him for which he was not ready, for "Archimedes and Stevin dealt only with statics. This is typical of their genius. Dynamics was not unknown; it was at least as old as Aristotle, but it implied so many assumptions that it was very speculative." 6 Apropos of Della Porta's Magia naturalis be- ing put on the Index, we read, "The Index was used to condemn not only heretical books but also many that propagated magic and occultism; one must give credit to the Catho- lic Church for its incessant fight against superstitious tendencies." 7

Because of the structure of the book, there must be both some repetition and a division of topics which might well have been han- dled as a unit. Different facets of one man should be considered together; Dr. Sarton does this by cross references. This reviewer always finds the separation of text and notes awkward, but especially so in a work of this kind where there is so much meat in the notes beyond the bibliographical references neces-

rainbow. Currently, Dr. Edward Rosen is study- ing Maurolycus and Dr. Carl B. Boyer has a history of the rainbow in the press.

PP. 54-55. 'P. 72. "P. 8i. "P. 86.

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BOOK REVIEWS 377 sary to further research. Moreover, the notes are not indexed, presumably because Dr. Sarton did not live to make the index himself, and there are some errors, or at least points in which the reviewer differs, such as one entry for Leonardo Fibonacci and another for Leonardo da Pisa, and "Ghiselin de Busbecq, Ogier" as the main entry, although there is a cross reference from Busbecq. A few mis- prints in the text might have caught Dr. Sarton's practised eye, but are so obvious as not to be annoying.8

Rather than complain that the author did not live to see the book through the press, we should rejoice that he lived to write it. It is one to which many will frequently turn.

Pratt Institute C. DoRis HELLMAN

I An example is the date I543 on the top line of p. I07, where I453 must have been intended.

*

E. G. R. TAYLOR: The Mathematical Practitioners of Tudor & Stuart Eng- land. xi + 443 PP., 14 Pl. Cambridge: at the University Press, for the Institute of Navigation, I954. $9.50.

Over two decades ago Professor Taylor published two books -Tudor Geography (I930), and Late Tudor and Early Stuart Geography (I934) -which marked a sig- nificant change in the approach of modem scholarship to the study of the history of science in the Renaissance; her studies were based on a new and comprehensive survey of all the sixteenth- and seventeenth-cen- tury writings relating to her subject. The material for the present volume resulted from the inevitable expansion of her earlier studies, which led her to the mathematical sciences upon which the books on navigation and geography were based. As in her earlier books, the most valuable features of the present volume are the bibliographical and biographical appendices, which succinctly record the varied information she has gleaned about the books and writers she discusses.

However, by failing to cite the sources of her information, the author greatly de- tracts from the value to other scholars of her compilations. To illustrate the point, I would pose these questions concerning the

mathematician and astronomer Thomas Digges and his father Leonard Digges.

i. Professor Taylor states with positive assurance (page 26) that [when Elizabeth became queen (i558)] "Leonard Digges had died." In her biographical note (page i66) she confidently lists, without any question mark, Leonard Digges's dates as i5io-i558. Having spent several days in I950 in an unsuccessful endeavor to ascertain the pre- cise date of Leonard Digges's death, only to discover in the parish register of Wootton (Kent) that should have recorded his burial, that the first page of the burials recorded had been accidentally cut out more than a century ago by some unknown vandal in- tending to remove the preceding five sheets of clean vellum, I would like to know the authority for the assertion that Leonard Digges died before Elizabeth came to the throne on I7 November I558. By cor- relating inferences drawn from various sur- viving documents [e.g.; MS Lansdown 67., and the dates in the Wootton Parish Regis- ter for the marriage of Thomas Digges's sister Anne to his cousin William Digges], one can work out the probable date of Leon- ard Digges's death as some time during the year I559-i560. If Professor Taylor has come across records giving more exact and specific information, I am eager to know where they are to be found.

2. Moreover, with regard to Thomas Digges, I wonder why his dates are listed (page I75) as "(circ. I543-95)." Circum- stantial evidence attested by several docu- ments indicates that Thomas Digges was born circ. I546 [see Francis R. Johnson, London Times Literary Supplement, 5 April I934, p. 244]. What is the source and na- ture of the new evidence for placing the date of Thomas Digges's birth three years earlier?

3. Again, does the author know anything of the present whereabouts of the manu- script treatise by Thomas Hariot, A Book Called Arcticon, which she mentions on page 326? If she has any clues to the fate of this treatise, other scholars would like to know them, or at least to have the clear statement of her unsuccessful efforts to find them.

The queries raised in the preceding para- graphs illustrate that, in spite of the value of the new information tabulated by the

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