THE SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION

From Modern Philosophy: Essential Selections, by James Fieser

© 2008, updated 1/1/2026, CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

 

CONTENTS

Introduction

Nicholas Copernicus

Francis Bacon

Galileo Galilei

Robert Boyle

Margaret Cavendish

Isaac Newton

Study Questions

 

INTRODUCTION

During the Scientific Revolution there were two distinct types of contributions. First and most obvious were the particular discoveries made in the fields of astronomy, chemistry, biology and other branches of science. Second and less obvious were the general methods of scientific investigation which aimed to advance knowledge in any field of science. This chapter explores the philosophical aspects of both contributions.

          The first selection below is from Nicholas Copernicus (1473-1543) who rejected the ancient and medieval earth-centered system of the cosmos and proposed instead the sun-centered system. He was born in Torun, Poland, into a wealthy merchant family, attended the University of Bologna in Italy, and worked in the church as a cleric although never ordained as a priest. At age 30 he returned to Poland where he remained, working in various capacities in the church and government. Beginning in his university days, he developed an interest in astronomy, and by 1514 developed the idea of a sun-centered system. It was not until the end of his life, though, that he presented his full system in his book On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres (1543), from which the passages below are taken. In the Preface he explains his reluctance to write on the topic, his reasons for adopting the new theory, and he appeals to the Pope to accept the theory.

          The second set of selections are by Francis Bacon (1561-1626), who was born in London into an aristocratic family. He became a member of Parliament and an advisor to Queen Elizabeth, but was frustrated by his failure to acquire a political position of substantial influence. In 1621 he was accused of bribery and corruption, upon which he signed a confession of guilt and was thereby unable to return to politics. He spent the remaining five years of his life writing histories and refining his overhaul of the sciences. He died from bronchitis which he contracted while conducting a winter experiment to see if stuffing a dead fowl with snow would inhibit the rotting process. The selections below are from three of Bacon's publications. First is his Essays (1597-1625), which brought him literary fame during his life. In "On Boldness", he describes how bold people attract attention, but also mislead others with quack medical remedies when scientific tests are not done properly. In "On Atheism" he discusses the impossibility of truly doubting God's existence.

          In The New Organon (1620) Bacon proposes a scientific method of induction to replace the deductive logic of Aristotle. The traditional title of Aristotle's works on Logic was "Organon" (or "instrument"), and so the very title of Bacon's book announces his intention to replace Aristotle's system. As an approach to scientific investigation, he rejects deductive logic (which moves from general claims to particular instances of it), and instead advocates induction (which begins with particular observations and moves to a general knowledge about the thing's nature). He describes four sources of bias that inhibit scientific progress, which he calls idols of the tribe (from human nature), idols of the cave (from individual dispositions), idols of the marketplace (biases from poorly formed words), and idols of the theater (biases from philosophical and scientific theories). The goal of science, he argues, is to discover the "forms" of things, that is, the basic hidden structure of a thing that gives it its specific character, which we uncover through true induction. The main example that he gives is the form of heat, which he concludes is the violent, irregular motion of particles, and we find this underlying form in all hot things.

          The inductive process of discovering the forms of things involves three tables of comparison. First is the "Table of Presence" (agreement) whereby we examine instances in which the same phenomenon is present, and note what other circumstances are in common. For example, to understand the forms involved with heat, we examine all hot things and see what circumstance is in common (for example motion). Second is the "Table of Absence," which involves examining instances in which a phenomenon is absent, and noting what circumstances are in common. To understand heat, for example, we must examine a list of cold things too, and see what features are irrelevant to the production of heat (for example, density). Third, the "Table of Degrees" involves examining instances in which a phenomenon is present in varying degrees, noting what circumstances also vary. For example, to understand heat, we look at things which are at different temperatures and note what circumstances are present in varying degrees (for example, slow to rapid irregular motion of particles). By constructing all three Tables of Instances, we thereby eliminate irrelevant properties (such as density) and pinpoint the essential properties (such as irregular motion of particles). This, for Bacon, is true induction.

          The final selection by Bacon is from an unfinished utopian novel that he wrote near the end of his life titled "The New Atlantis," which was published posthumously in 1627. It describes a fictitious island off the coast of Peru called Bensalem, which contains a sophisticated institution of learning where scientists perform experiments and make discoveries that are unknown to the Europeans.

          The third set of selections are from Galileo Galilei (1564-1642). He was born near Florence, Italy, son to a musician, and he studied medicine and mathematics at the University of Pisa. For 18 years he taught at the University of Padua, where he did his most important work. The passages below are from several of his writings. The first ones describe his work with the telescope, how he made one and how he used it to discover the moon's mountainous surface. Through his astronomical observations he accumulated evidence supporting Copernicus's sun-centered system, and, because of this, came into conflict with the Catholic Church. In two published letters he argues that the domain of Scripture and religious authority does not cross over into areas of scientific study. He eventually laid out his full argument for the sun-centered system in Dialogues on the Two Chief Systems of the World (1632). The passages below from the Preface to that work reflect his belief that he received Church approval for its publication. However, the Church disagreed and brought him before an Inquisition, convicted him of heresy, and had him sign a statement of retraction, included below.

          Fourth is a selection by Robert Boyle (1627-1691), who was born in Ireland, son of a wealthy politician. After completing his education in England and abroad, he devoted himself to scientific research and associated with fellow scientists who would later found the Royal Society of London, the world's first national scientific institution. He and Robert Hooke built an air pump which they used for experiments with gasses, leading to the discovery of what is known as Boyle's Law. Boyle was a prolific writer in science, philosophy, and theology. He is one of many seventeenth-century scientists who embraced "mechanical philosophy", which is the view that natural phenomena should be explained in terms of matter in motion, where all objects are made of tiny particles, or "corpuscles" that impact each other through fixed natural laws. Mechanical philosophers like Boyle were reacting against Aristotle's view that objects behave as they do because of built in purposes that do not physically touch the object. In Aristotelean terminology, an object like a tree takes its shape because the tree's invisible "substantial form" attracts matter into a tree-like configuration, without ever physically contacting those particles of matter. This is similar to how a magnet can attract metal filings into particular arrangements without ever touching the filings themselves. Mechanical philosophy rejected this Aristotelean account and held that all changes to the tree result from physical contact. Mechanical philosophy was also "experimental" in the sense that it investigated phenomena specifically using scientific instruments. In the selection below, Boyle defends mechanical philosophy. All scientific inquiry, he argues, should be simply an investigation of matter in motion, and he lists five features which distinguish this methodology from other approaches, especially Aristotelianism. The underlying difference is that his materialist approach examines only physical changes, not invisible causal agents. For example, even if the Aristotelians are correct that the planets are moved by angels, we still must investigate the material and mechanical aspects of the planets to explain how they behave. The immaterial aspects are irrelevant.

          The fifth selection is by Margaret Cavendish (1624-1674). She was born into a wealthy family in Essex England, and moved to Paris at age 21 where she met and married William Cavendish. With little formal education, she became an influential writer and an eccentric social celebrity of her day. While excluded from the formal scientific community, she wrote several works in natural philosophy, critiquing her contemporaries and proposing theories that she herself held to be thoroughly original. While she shares Boyle's view that nature is matter in motion, she differs considerably from him about the nature of matter and how to investigate it. Unlike Boyle and other advocates of experimental philosophy, Cavendish argued that science is best investigated through rational insight, just as past philosophers such as Aristotle had done, rather than through experimentation and the use of scientific instruments. She argues that the microscope only distorts objects and leaves us with an image that is an inferior copy of a copy. Further, nature itself, she argues, does not consist of atoms in a vacuum as Boyle held, but instead it is an infinite plenum that is infinitely divisible. All of matter, she believes, is embedded with components of self-moving reason, including its smallest particles, a view that today is called panpsychism. Accordingly, she argues that the human mind is made entirely of matter, and is not incorporeal, and animal minds are also rational.

          Last are selections from Isaac Newton (1642-1727). He was born in the English county of Lincolnshire, three months after his father's death, and was raised by his grandmother when his mother remarried. He attended Trinity College at the University of Cambridge, and later obtained a teaching position there which he held until 1701. During his early years, Newton made his three chief scientific discoveries which he refined and published later. The first was the development of calculus, published posthumously in Method of Fluxions (1736). The second was his experiments with prisms which showed how white light is composed of colored light, published in Opticks (1704). The third was the idea of universal gravitation which explained the orbits of the moon and planets, published in Principia Mathematica (1687). With the appearance of Principia, he achieved international fame. He was briefly a member of Parliament, appointed master of the British mint and elected president of the Royal Society of London. In the passages below Newton describes his inductive method of scientific investigation, the broad implications of his theory of gravity, and evidence of God in the creation and sustaining of the universe.

COPERNICUS (from On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres, 1543, Preface)

Initial Reluctance to Write on this Controversial Subject

In this book, which I have written concerning the revolutions of the heavenly bodies, I ascribe certain motions to the Earth. I can easily conceive, most Holy Father [i.e., the Pope], that as soon as some people learn about this, they will immediately cry out that I and my theory should be rejected. For I am not so much in love with my conclusions that I will not weigh what others will think about them. I know that the meditations of a philosopher are far removed from the judgment of the laity, because his job is to seek out the truth in all things, so far as this is permitted by God to the human reason. Nevertheless, I still believe that one must avoid theories altogether foreign to orthodoxy. I consider in my own mind how absurd a performance it must seem to those who know that the judgment of many centuries has approved the view that the Earth remains fixed as center in the midst of the heavens. This has me consider if I should, to the contrary, assert that the Earth moves. I was for a long time at a loss to know whether I should publish the commentaries which I have written in proof of its motion. It may be better to follow the example of the Pythagoreans and of some others, who were accustomed to test the secrets of Philosophy not in writing but orally, and only to their relatives and friends, as the letter from Lysis to Hipparchus bears witness. They did this, it seems to me, not because of a certain selfish reluctance to give out their views to the world, as some think. Instead it was so that the noblest truths, worked out by the careful study of great people, should not be rejected by those who are disturbed at the idea of taking great pains with any forms of literature except such as would be profitable. Other people might also reject it who are driven to the study of philosophy for its own sake (by the admonitions and the example of others) but, on account of their stupidity, hold a place among philosophers similar to that of drones among bees. Therefore, when I considered this carefully, the contempt which I had to fear because of the novelty and apparent absurdity of my view, nearly induced me to abandon utterly the work I had began.

          My friends, however, in spite of long delay and even resistance on my part, withheld me from this decision. First among these was Nicolaus Schonberg, Cardinal of Capua, distinguished in all branches of learning. Next to him comes my very dear friend, Tidemann Giese, Bishop of Culm, a most earnest student, as he is, of sacred and, indeed, of all good learning. The latter has often urged me, at times even spurring me on with reproaches, to publish and at last bring to the light the book which had lain in my study not nine years merely, but already going on four times nine. Several other very eminent and scholarly people made the same request, urging that I should no longer through fear refuse to give out my work for the common benefit of students of mathematics. They said I should find that the more absurd most people currently thought this theory of mine concerning the motion of the earth [prior to publication], the more admiration and gratitude it would command after they saw in the publication of my commentaries the mist of absurdity cleared away by most transparent proofs. I was influenced by these advisors and this hope, and I have finally allowed my friends to publish the work, as they had long encouraged to do.

Problems with Traditional Theories of Celestial Motion

But perhaps Your Holiness will see better why I published these studies after seeing the pains I've taken in elaborating them, and have not hesitated to commit my views of the motion of the earth to writing. You may similarly be curious to hear how it occurred to me to form a conception of any terrestrial motion in the first place – contrary to both the accepted view of mathematicians and common sense. Therefore I will have it known to Your Holiness that the only thing that persuaded me to look for another way of accounting for the movements of the heavenly bodies, was that I knew that mathematicians do not at all agree in their investigations of this subject. For, in the first place, they are so much in doubt concerning the motion of the sun and the moon, that they cannot even demonstrate and prove by observation the constant length of a complete year. In the second place, in determining the motions both of these and of the five other planets, they fail to employ consistently one set of first principles and hypotheses; instead, they use methods of proof based only on the apparent revolutions and motions. For some employ concentric circles only [with many epicycles]. Others use eccentric circles and [a single] epicycles. Even by these means they do not completely attain the desired end. For, although those who have depended upon concentric circles [and many epicycles] have shown that certain diverse motions can be deduced from these. Yet they have not succeeded thereby in laying down any sure principle, corresponding indisputably to the phenomena.

          Those, on the other hand, who have devised systems of eccentric circles, seem in great part to have solved the apparent movements by calculations which by these eccentrics are made to fit. However, they have nevertheless introduced many things which seem to contradict the first principles of the uniformity of motion. Nor have they been able to discover or calculate from these the main points, which is the shape of the world and the fixed symmetry of its parts. Their procedure has been as if someone were to collect hands, feet, a head, and other members from various places, all very fine in themselves, but not proportionate to one body, and no single one corresponding in its turn to the others. From these, then, a monster rather than a man would be formed. Thus in their process of demonstration which they term a "method," they are found to have omitted something essential, or to have included something foreign and not pertaining to the matter in hand. This certainly would never have happened to them if they had followed fixed principles. For if the hypotheses they assumed were not false, all that resulted therefrom would be verified indubitably. Those things which I am saying now may be obscure, yet they will be made clearer in their proper place.

Advantages of the Sun-Centered System

I turned over in my mind for a long time this uncertainty of the traditional mathematical methods of calculating the motions of the celestial bodies. I began to grow disgusted that no more consistent scheme of the movements of the mechanism of the universe (set up for our benefit by that best and most law abiding Architect of all things) was agreed upon by philosophers who otherwise investigate so carefully the minutest details of this world. Thus, I undertook the task of re-reading the books of all the philosophers I could get access to, to see whether anyone ever was of the opinion that the motions of the celestial bodies were other than those postulated by the people who taught mathematics in the schools. I found first, indeed, in Cicero, that Niceta perceived that the Earth moved. After that, in Plutarch, I found that some others were of this opinion, whose words I have seen fit to quote here, that they may be accessible to all:

Some maintain that the Earth is stationary, but Philolaus the Pythagorean says that it revolves in a circle about the fire of the ecliptic, like the sun and moon. Heraklides of Pontus and Ekphantus the Pythagorean make the Earth move, not changing its position, however, confined in its falling and rising around its own center in the manner of a wheel.

Taking this as a starting point, I began to consider the mobility of the Earth. Although the idea seemed absurd, yet because I knew that the liberty had been granted to others before me to postulate all sorts of little circles for explaining the phenomena of the stars, I thought I also might easily be permitted to try whether by postulating some motions of the Earth, more reliable conclusions could be reached regarding the revolution of the heavenly bodies, than those of my predecessors.

          So, I postulated movements which (further on in the book) I ascribe to the Earth, and though many and long observations I discovered the following. I assumed that the movements of the other planets are applied also to the circular motion of the Earth, and are also substituted for the revolution of each star. From this, not only do their phenomena follow logically, but the relative positions and magnitudes both of the stars and all their orbits, and of the heavens themselves, become closely related. So closely related are they that nothing can be changed in any of its parts without causing confusion in the other parts and in the whole universe. Therefore, in the course of the work I have followed this plan: I describe in the first book all the positions of the orbits together with the movements which I ascribe to the Earth, in order that this book might contain, as it were, the general scheme of the universe. In the remaining books, I establish the motions of the other stars and of all their orbits together with the movement of the Earth. This is done so that one may see from this to what extent the movements and appearances of the other stars and their orbits can be saved, if they are transferred to the movement of the Earth.

Appeal to the Pope to Support the Theory

I do not doubt that inventive and educated mathematicians will support me, so long as they are willing to recognize and weigh those matters which have been adduced by me in this work to demonstrate these theories. They must not do this superficially, though, but with that thoroughness which Philosophy demands above everything. In order, however, that both the learned and the unlearned equally may see that I do not avoid anyone's judgment, I have preferred to dedicate these studies of mine to your Holiness rather than to any other, because, even in this remote corner of the world where I live, you are considered to be the most eminent man in dignity of rank and in love of all learning and even of mathematics. Thus, by your authority and judgment you can easily suppress the bites of slanderers, even though the proverb states that there is no remedy for the bite of a flatterer. I care not at all if there happen to be idle talkers, who, though they are ignorant of all mathematical sciences, nevertheless assume the right to pass judgment on these things, and if they should dare to criticize and attack this theory of mine because of some passage of scripture which they have falsely distorted for their own purpose. I will even despise their judgment as foolish. For it is not unknown that Lactantius, otherwise a famous writer but a poor mathematician, speaks most childishly of the shape of the Earth when he makes fun of those who said that the Earth has the form of a sphere.

          It should not seem strange then to zealous students, if some such people shall ridicule us also. Mathematics are written for mathematicians, to whom, if my opinion does not deceive me, our labors will seem to contribute something to the ecclesiastical state whose chief office Your Holiness now occupies; for when not so very long ago, under Leo X, in the Lateran Council the question of revising the ecclesiastical calendar was discussed, it then remained unsettled, simply because the length of the years and months, and the motions of the sun and moon were held to have been not yet sufficiently determined. Since that time, I have given my attention to observing these more accurately, urged on by a very distinguished man, Paul, Bishop of Fossombrone, who at that time had charge of the matter. But what I may have accomplished herein I leave to the judgment of Your Holiness in particular, and to that of all other learned mathematicians; and lest I seem to Your Holiness to promise more regarding the usefulness of the work than I can perform, I now pass to the work itself.

FRANCIS BACON

Boldness: Persuasive but Misleading in Science (From "Of Boldness", Essays, 1625)

It is a trivial grammar-school text, but yet worthy [of] a wise man's consideration. [The] question was asked of Demosthenes, what was the chief part of an orator? He answered, action; what next? action; what next again? action. He said it, that knew it best, and had, by nature, himself no advantage in that he commended. [It is] a strange thing that that part of an orator [i.e., action], which is but superficial and rather the virtue of a player, should be placed so high above those other noble parts of invention, elocution, and the rest, nay, almost alone as if it were all in all. But the reason is plain. There is in human nature generally, more of the fool than of the wise. And therefore those faculties, by which the foolish part of men's minds is taken, are most potent. Wonderful like is the case of boldness in civil business: what [is] first? boldness; what second and third? boldness. And yet boldness is a child of ignorance and baseness, far inferior to other parts. But nevertheless it does fascinate, and bind hand and foot, those that are either shallow in judgment, or weak in courage, which are the greatest part; yea and prevails with wise men at weak times. Therefore we see it has done wonders in popular states [i.e., democratic governments], but with senates, and princes less [so]. And more ever [it is effective] upon the first entrance of bold persons into action, than soon after, for boldness is an ill keeper of promise. Surely, as there are mountebanks [i.e., people who sell quack medicines from a platform] for the natural body, so are there mountebanks for the politic body. [These are] men that undertake great cures, and perhaps have been lucky in two or three experiments, but want [i.e., lack] the grounds of science, and therefore cannot hold out. Nay, you shall see a bold fellow many times do Mahomet's miracle. Mahomet made the people believe that he would call a hill to him, and from the top of it offer up his prayers, for the observers of his law. The people assembled; Mahomet called the hill to come to him, again and again; and when the hill stood still, he was never a whit abashed, but said, "If the hill will not come to Mahomet, Mahomet will go to the hill". So these men, when they have promised great matters, and failed most shamefully, yet (if they have the perfection of boldness) they will but slight it over, and make a turn, and no more ado. Certainly to men of great judgment, bold persons are a sport to behold; nay, and to the vulgar also, boldness has somewhat of the ridiculous. For if absurdity be the subject of laughter, doubt you not but great boldness is seldom without some absurdity. Especially it is a sport to see, when a bold fellow is out of countenance [i.e., facial expression]; for that puts his face into a most shrunken, and wooden posture; as needs it must; for in bashfulness, the spirits do a little go and come; but with bold men, upon like occasion, they stand at a stay; like a stale at chess, where it is no mate, but yet the game cannot stir. But this last were fitter for a satire than for a serious observation. This is well to be weighed; that boldness is ever blind, for it sees not danger, and inconveniences. Therefore it is ill in counsel, good in execution; so that the right use of bold persons is, that they never command in chief, but be seconds, and under the direction of others. For in counsel, it is good to see dangers; and in execution, not to see them, except they be very great.

The Impossibility of truly Denying God (from "Of Atheism" 1612)

I had rather believe all the fables in the Legend [i.e., "The Golden Legend" of saints' lives], and the Talmud, and the Koran, than that this universal frame is without a mind. And therefore, God never wrought [a] miracle to convince atheism, because his ordinary works convince it. It is true that a little philosophy inclines man's mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy brings men's minds about to religion. For while the mind of man looks upon second causes scattered, it may sometimes rest in them and go no further; but when it beholds the chain of them, confederate and linked together, it must needs fly to Providence and Deity. Nay, even that school which is most accused of atheism does most demonstrate religion; that is, the [atomist] school of Leucippus and Democritus and Epicurus. For it is a thousand times more credible, that four mutable elements, and one immutable fifth essence, duly and eternally placed, need no God [a theory attributed to Aristotle], than that an army of infinite small portions, or seeds unplaced [i.e., atoms], should have produced this order and beauty without a divine marshal. The Scripture says, "The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God"; it is not said, "The fool hath thought in his heart"—so as he rather says it by rote to himself, as that he would have, than that he can thoroughly believe it or be persuaded of it. For none deny there is a God but those for whom it makes [i.e., it is useful] that there were no God. It appears in nothing more—that atheism is rather in the lip, than in the heart of man—than by this: that atheists will ever be talking of that their opinion, as if they fainted in it, within themselves, and would be glad to be strengthened by the consent of others. Nay more, you shall have atheists strive to get disciples, as it fares with [i.e., as compared with] other sects. And, which is most of all, you shall have of them that will suffer for atheism, and not recant; whereas if they did truly think, that there were no such thing as God, why should they trouble themselves? . . .

Deduction Bad, Induction Good (from New Organon, 1620)

          1.1. Man, who is the servant and interpreter of nature, can act and understand no further than he has observed in either the operation or the contemplation of the method and order of nature.

          1.12. The [deductive] logic now in use serves to fix and give stability to the errors which have their foundation in commonly received notions, rather than to help the search after truth. So it does more harm than good.

          1.13. The syllogism is no match for the subtlety of nature. Thus, it is not applied to the first principles of sciences, and is applied in vain to intermediate axioms. It commands assent therefore to the [concluding] proposition, but does not take hold of the thing [in nature].

          1.18. The discoveries which have previously been made in the sciences are such as lie close to common notions, scarcely beneath the surfaces. In order to penetrate into the inner and further recesses of nature, it is necessary that both notions and axioms be derived from things by a more sure and guarded way. It is necessary that a better and more certain method of intellectual operation be introduced altogether.

          1.19. There are and can be only two ways of searching into and discovering truth. The one flies away from the senses and particulars, and instead starts with the most general principles. It simply assumes that the truth of these is settled and immovable. From these general principles it proceeds to judgment and to the discovery of middle principles. And this way is now in fashion. The other way derives general principles from the senses and particulars, rising gradually and continually, so that it arrives at the most general principles last of all. This is the true way, but as yet untried.

          1.20. The understanding left to itself follows the first way, which proceeds according to logical order. For the mind longs to spring up to positions of higher generality so that it may find rest there. After a little while it wearies of experiment. But this evil is increased by [deductive] logic, because of the order and solemnity of its disputations.

          1.21. The understanding left to itself in a sober, patient, and, grave mind, especially if it is not hindered by received doctrines, tries a little that other way [through induction], which is the right one. However, it has little progress since the understanding is uneven and quite unfit to contend with the obscurity of things – unless it is directed and assisted.

          1.22. Both ways set out from the senses and particulars, and rest in the highest generalities. But the difference between them is infinite. For, the first way just glances at experiment and particulars in passing. The second way dwells duly and orderly among them. The first way, again, begins at once by establishing certain abstract and useless generalities. The second way rises by gradual steps to that which is prior and better known in the order of nature. . . .

Rejection of Simple Enumerative Induction

          1.105. In forming axioms, we must invent a different form of induction from that previously in use; not only for the proof and discovery of principles (as they are called), but also of minor, intermediate, and, in short, every kind of axioms. The induction which proceeds by simple enumeration is childish, leads to uncertain conclusions, and is exposed to danger from one contradictory instance, deciding generally from too small a number of facts, and those only the most obvious. But a really useful induction for the discovery and demonstration of the arts and sciences, should separate nature by proper rejections and exclusions, and then conclude for the affirmative, after collecting a sufficient number of negatives. Now this has not been done, nor even attempted, except perhaps by Plato, who certainly uses this form of induction in some measure, to sift definitions and ideas. But much of what has never yet entered the thoughts of man must necessarily be employed, in order to exhibit a good and legitimate mode of induction or demonstration, so as even to render it essential for us to bestow more pains upon it than have hitherto been bestowed on syllogisms. The assistance of induction is to serve us not only in the discovery of axioms, but also in defining our notions. Much indeed is to be hoped from such an induction as has been described.

          1.106. In forming our axioms from induction, we must examine and try whether the axiom we derive are only fitted and calculated for the particular instances from which it is deduced, or whether it be more extensive and general. If it be the latter, we must observe, whether it confirm its own extent and generality by giving surety, as it were, in pointing out new particulars, so that we may neither stop at actual discoveries, nor with a careless grasp catch at shadows and abstract forms, instead of substances of a determinate nature: and as soon as we act thus, well authorized hope may with reason be said to beam upon us.

Four Idols that Cause Bias: Tribe, Cave, Marketplace, Theater (from New Organon)

          1.39. There are four classes of Idols which invade people's minds. To these for distinction's sake I have assigned names, calling the first class Idols of the Tribe, the second, Idols of the Cave, the third, Idols of the Marketplace, the fourth, Idols of the Theater.

          1.40. The formation of ideas and axioms by true induction is no doubt the proper remedy to be applied for the keeping off and clearing away of idols. To point them out, however, is of great use. For the doctrine of Idols is to the Interpretation of Nature what the doctrine of the refutation of sophisms is to common logic.

          1.41. The Idols of the Tribe have their foundation in human nature itself, and in the tribe or race of people. For it is a false assertion that man's sense is the measure of things. On the contrary, all perceptions, of both the senses and the mind, have reference to man and not to the universe. The human mind is like those uneven mirrors which impose their own properties on different objects, from which rays are emitted and distort and disfigure them.

          1.42. The Idols of the Cave are the idols of the individual person. For everyone (besides the errors common to human nature in general) has a cave or den of his own, which refracts and discolors the light of nature. This owes either to his own proper and unique nature, or to his education and conversation with others, or to the reading of books, and the authority of those whom he esteems and admires, or to the differences of impressions, accordingly as they take place in a mind preoccupied and predisposed or in a mind indifferent and settled, or the like. So that the spirit of humanity (according as it is limited to different individuals) is in fact a variable thing and full of perturbation, and governed as it were by chance. For this reason, it was well observed by Heraclitus that people look for sciences in their own lesser worlds, and not in the greater or common world.

          1.43. There are also Idols formed by the communication and association of people with each other. I call these Idols of the Marketplace because of the commerce and association of people there. For it is by discourse that people associate. And words are imposed according to the understanding of the common people. And therefore the ill and unfit choice of words wonderfully obstructs the understanding. The matter is not set right by the definitions or explanations of some things which educated people use to guard and defend themselves. But words plainly force and overrule the understanding, and throw all into confusion, and lead men away into numberless empty controversies and idle fancies.

          1.44. Lastly, there are Idols which have immigrated into people's minds from the various dogmas of philosophies, and also from wrong laws of demonstration. These I call Idols of the Theater, because in my judgment all the received systems are but so many stage-plays, representing worlds of their own creation after an unreal and scenic fashion. Nor is it only of the systems now in vogue, or only of the ancient sects and philosophies, that I speak. For many more plays of the same kind may yet be composed and in like artificial manner set forth; since errors which are most widely different have nevertheless causes for the most part alike. Neither again do I mean this only of entire systems, but also of many principles and axioms in science, which by tradition, credulity, and negligence have come to be received.

Four Rules for a Devising a Good Theory to Discover the Forms (from New Organon)

          2.3. If a person is acquainted with the [specific] cause of any nature in certain subjects (such as whiteness or heat) his knowledge is imperfect. And if he is able to bring about an effect on certain substances only (of those susceptible of such an effect), then his power is similarly imperfect. Now, if a person's knowledge is confined to the efficient and material causes (which are unstable causes, and merely vehicles, or causes which convey the form in certain cases) he may arrive at new discoveries in reference to substances in some degree similar to each other, and selected beforehand. But he does not touch the deeper boundaries of things. But whoever is acquainted with [hidden general] forms, embraces the unity of nature in the most dissimilar substances. He is able therefore to detect and bring to light things never yet done. This could not be accomplished by innovation of nature, nor industry in experimenting, nor accident itself, and would never have occurred to the thought of man. Thus, truth in speculation and freedom in operation result from the discovery of forms.

          2.4. The two roads to human practice and to human knowledge lie close together, and are nearly the same. Nevertheless, because of the dangerous and ingrained habit of dwelling on abstractions, it is safer to begin with practice and raise the sciences from those foundations which have relation to practice. We should let our active part itself be the seal which prints and determines our contemplative counterpart. Suppose a person wanted to generate and impose a nature on a given object. We must consider what kind of rule or direction or guidance he would most wish for, and express this rule in the simplest and least intricate language. Suppose, for example, that a person wanted to impose the yellow color of gold upon a silver object, or an increase in weight (observing the laws of matter), or impose transparency on an opaque stone, or tenacity on glass, or vegetation on some substance that is not vegetable. We must therefore consider what kind of rule or guidance he would most desire. First, he will undoubtedly wish to be directed to something which will not deceive him in the result nor fail him in the experiment. Secondly, he will wish for a rule which will not tie him down to specific means and particular modes of operation. For it is possible that he might not have those means available, nor be able to conveniently procure them. And if there are other means and other methods for producing the required nature (besides the one recommended) these may perhaps be within his reach. And yet he will be excluded by the narrowness of the rule, and get no good from them. Thirdly, he will desire something to be shown him, which is not as difficult as the thing proposed to be done, but comes nearer to practice.

          Thus a true and perfect rule of operation and direction will be that it is certain, free, and leads to action. And this is the same thing with the discovery of the true form. For the form of a nature [e.g., violent, irregular motion] is such that, given the form, the nature necessarily follows [e.g., heat]. Therefore it is always present when the nature is present, and universally applies it, and is consistently inherent in it. Again, the form is such that if it is taken away, then the nature necessarily disappears. Therefore it is always absent when the nature is absent, and implies its absence, and inheres in nothing else. A final feature [of a good rule for discovering forms] is that the true form deduces the given nature from some source of being which is inherent in more natures, and which is better known in the natural order of things than the form itself [i.e., violent, irregular motion of particles are necessary and sufficient conditions for heat]. For a true and perfect axiom of knowledge and direction will be that another nature will be discovered which is convertible with the given nature, and yet is a limitation of a more general nature, as of a true and real genus.

Tables of Comparative Instances: Presence, Absence, Comparison (from New Organon)

          2.11. The investigation of forms proceeds as follows. A nature is given [e.g., heat], and we must first of all collect and present to our understanding all known instances which have this particular nature [e.g. all hot things], even in substances which are dissimilar. And such a collection must be made in the manner of a history, without premature speculation, or any great amount of subtlety. For example let the investigation be into the form of heat.

          Instances agreeing in the nature of heat:

1. The rays of the sun, especially in summer and at noon.

2. The rays of the sun reflected and condensed, as between mountains, or on walls, and most of all in burning-glasses and mirrors.

3. Fiery meteors.

4. Burning thunderbolts.

5 Eruptions of flame from the cavities of mountains.

...

27. Even keen and intense cold produces a kind of sensation of burning.

28. Other instances.

This table I call the "Table of Essence and Presence."

          2.12. Secondly, we must present to the understanding those instances in which a given nature [i.e., heat] is wanting. This is because, as stated above, the form should no less be absent when the given nature is absent, than present when it is present. But to note all these would be endless.

          The negatives should therefore be attached to the affirmatives, and the absence of the given nature inquired of only in those subjects that are most close to the others in which it is present and forthcoming. This I call the "Table of Deviation," or of "Absence in Proximity."

          Instances in proximity where the nature of heat is absent:

1. To the first [on the above chart]: The rays of the moon and of stars and comets are not found to be hot to the touch; indeed the severest colds are observed to be at the full moons.

...

32. To the 27th [on the above chart]: There are many actions common both to heat and cold, though in a very different manner. For children find that snow after a while seems to burn their hands. Cold preserves meat from rotting, no less than fire. Heat contracts bodies, which cold does also. But these and similar instances may more conveniently be addressed by an inquiry concerning cold.

          2.13. Thirdly we must present to the understanding instances in which the nature under inquiry is found in different degrees, more or less. This must be done by making a comparison either of its increase and decrease in the same subject, or of its amount in different subjects, as compared one with another. For, the form of a thing is the very thing itself. And the thing itself differs from the form no differently than as the apparent differs from the real, or the external from the internal, or the thing in reference to mankind from the thing in reference to the universe. Thus, it necessarily follows that no nature can be assumed to be the true form unless it always decreases when the nature in question decreases, and in like manner always increases when the nature in question increases. Therefore, this Table I call the "Table of Degrees" or the "Table of Comparison."

          Table of Degrees or Comparison in heat.

...

25. Some ignited bodies are found to be much hotter than some flames. Ignited iron, for instance, is much hotter and more consuming than flame of spirit of wine.

26. Of substances also which are not ignited but only heated by fire, as boiling water and air confined in furnaces, some are found to exceed in heat many flames and ignited substances.

27. Motion increases heat, as you may see in bellows, and by blowing. This is in view of the fact that harder metals are not dissolved or melted by a dead or quiet fire until it is made intense by blowing.

...

Inductive Inference from the Three Tables (from New Organon)

          2.15. The work and role of these three tables I call the "Presentation of Instances to the Understanding." Once this presentation is made, induction itself must be set at work. For, upon a review of each and every instance, the problem is to find such a nature that is always present or absent [i.e., violent motion] with the given nature [e.g. heat], and always increases and decreases with it, and which is (as I have said) a particular case of a more general nature. Now if the mind attempts this affirmatively from the beginning, as when left to itself as it always is inclined to do, the result will be fancies and guesses and poorly defined notions, and axioms that must be mended everyday....

          2.16. ... Therefore, the first work of induction (concerning the discovery of forms) is the rejection or exclusion of the various natures that [Table 1] are found in some instance where the given nature is present, or [Table 2] are found in some instance where the given nature is absent, or [Table 3] are found to increase some instance when the given nature decreases, or to decrease when the given nature increases. Then indeed after the rejection and exclusion has been appropriately made, there will ultimately remain an affirmative, solid, true, and well-defined form. All superficial opinions will have vanished into smoke. This is quickly said. But the way to come at it is winding and intricate.

          2.20. . . . From the instances taken collectively, as well as singly, the nature whose limit is heat appears to be motion. This is chiefly exhibited in flame, which is in constant motion, and in warm or boiling liquids, which are likewise in constant motion. It is also shown in the excitement or increase of heat by motion, as by bellows and draughts.

The Ideal University:  Experiments with Animals, Sounds, and Smells

 (from The New Atlantis, 1627)

You shall understand (my dear friends) that amongst the excellent acts of that king [i.e., King Altabin, law giver of the island of Bensalem], one above all has the pre-eminence. It was the erection and institution of an Order or Society, which we call Salomon's House; the noblest foundation (as we think) that ever was upon the earth; and the lantern of this kingdom. It is dedicated to the study of the works and creatures of God. . . . The end of our foundation is the knowledge of causes, and secret motions of things; and the enlarging of the bounds of human empire, to the effecting of all things possible. . . .

          We have also parks and enclosures of all sorts of beasts and birds which we use not only for view or rareness, but likewise for dissections and trials; that thereby we may take light what may be wrought upon the body of man. Wherein we find many strange effects; as continuing life in them, though divers parts, which you account vital, be perished and taken forth; resuscitating of some that seem dead in appearance; and the like. We try also all poisons and other medicines upon them, as well of surgery, as physic [i.e., medicine]. By art likewise, we make them greater or taller than their kind is; and contrariwise dwarf them, and stay their growth: we make them more fruitful and bearing than their kind is; and contrariwise barren and not generative. Also we make them differ in color, shape, activity, many ways. We find means to make commixtures and copulations of different kinds; which have produced many new kinds, and them not barren, as the general opinion is. We make a number of kinds of serpents, worms, flies, fishes, of putrefaction; whereof some are advanced (in effect) to be perfect creatures, like beasts or birds; and have sexes, and do propagate. Neither do we this by chance, but we know beforehand, of what matter and commixture what kind of those creatures will arise. . . .

          We have also sound-houses, where we practice and demonstrate all sounds, and their generation. We have harmonies which you have not, of quarter-sounds, and lesser slides of sounds. Divers instruments of music likewise to you unknown, some sweeter than any you have, together with bells and rings that are dainty and sweet. We represent small sounds as great and deep; likewise great sounds extenuate and sharp; we make divers tremblings and warblings of sounds, which in their original are entire. We represent and imitate all articulate sounds and letters, and the voices and notes of beasts and birds. We have certain helps which set to the ear do further the hearing greatly. We have also divers strange and artificial echoes, reflecting the voice many times, and as it were tossing it: and some that give back the voice louder than it came, some shriller, and some deeper; yea, some rendering the voice differing in the letters or articulate sound from that they receive. We have also means to convey sounds in trunks and pipes, in strange lines and distances.

          We have also perfume-houses; wherewith we join also practices of taste. We multiply smells, which may seem strange. We imitate smells, making all smells to breathe outs of other mixtures than those that give them. We make divers imitations of taste likewise, so that they will deceive any man's taste. And in this house we contain also a confiture-house; where we make all sweet-meats, dry and moist; and divers pleasant wines, milks, broths, and salads; in far greater variety than you have.

The High Cost of Doing Science: Bacon's Death

It was the Servant's Fault (from John Aubry, Brief Lives)

Mr. Hobbes told me that the cause of his Lordship's [i.e., Bacon's] death was trying an experiment. As he was taking the air in a coach with Dr Witherborne (a physician) towards Highgate, snow lay on the ground, and it came into my lord's thoughts, why flesh might not be preserved in snow, as in salt. They were resolved they would try the experiment at once. They alighted out of the coach, and went into a poor woman's house at the bottom of Highgate Hill, and bought a hen, and made the woman gut it, and then stuffed the body with snow, and my lord did help to do it himself. The snow so chilled him, that he immediately fell so extremely ill, that he could not return to his lodgings, but went to the Earl of Arundel's house at Highgate, where they put him into a good bed warmed with a pan, but it was a damp bed that had not been laid-in about a year before, which gave him such a cold that in two or three days, as I remember Mr Hobbes told me, he died of suffocation.

It was not the Servant's Fault (from Letter, Bacon to Arundel)

My very good Lord, I was likely to have had the fortune of Caius Plinius the elder, who lost his life by trying an experiment about the burning of the mountain Vesuvius. For I also was desirous to try an experiment or two touching the conservation and induration of bodies. For the experiment itself, it succeeded remarkably well; but in the journey between Highgate and London I was taken with a fit of casting, as I know not whether it was the stone, or some surfeit, or cold, or, indeed, a touch of them all three. But when I came to your lordship's house, I was not able to go back, and therefore was forced to take up my lodging here, where your housekeeper is very careful and diligent about me, which I assure myself your lordship will not only pardon towards him, but think the better of him for it. For, indeed, your lordship's house was happy to me; and I kiss your noble hands for the welcome which I am sure you give me to it.

GALILEO

Reverse Engineering the Telescope (from The Assayer, 1623)

On the simple information of the effect obtained [of the telescope], I discovered the telescope, not by chance [as was the case with the original Dutch inventor], but by the way of pure reasoning. Here are the steps. The artifice of the instrument depends either on one glass or on several. It cannot depend on one, for that must be either convex, or concave, or plain. The last form neither augments nor diminishes visible objects. The concave diminishes them, and the convex increases them, but both show them blurred and indistinct. Passing then to the combination of two glasses, and knowing that glasses with plain surfaces change nothing, I concluded that the effect could not be produced by combining a plain glass with a convex or a concave one. I was thus left with the two other kinds of glasses, and after a few experiments I saw how the effect sought could be produced. Such was the march of my discovery, in which I was not assisted in any way by the knowledge that the conclusion at which I aimed was a fact.

The Moon has a Rough Surface but does not Contain Life (from Letter to Giacomo Muti, Feb. 28, 1616)

A few days ago, when paying my respects to the illustrious Cardinal Muti, a discussion arose on the inequalities of the moon's surface. Signor Alessandro Capoano argued to disprove the fact [of its rough surfaces]. He argued that if the lunar surfaces be unequal and mountainous, and since nature has made our earth mountainous for the benefit of plants and animals beneficial to mankind, one may say as a consequence that on the moon there must be other plants and other animals beneficial to other intellectual creatures. Since such a consequence is most false, he said, then the fact from which it is drawn must also be false; therefore lunar mountains do not exist! To this I replied as follows. As to the inequalities of the moon's surface we have only to look through a telescope to be convinced of their existence. As to the "consequences," I said, they are not only unnecessary, but absolutely false and impossible. For I was in a position to prove that neither mankind, nor animals, nor plants as on this earth, nor anything at all like them can exist on the moon.

          I said then, and I say now, that I do not believe that the body of the moon is composed of earth and water, and lacking these two elements we must necessarily conclude that it lacks all the other things which without these elements cannot exist or subsist. I added further that even allowing that the matter of the moon may be like that of the earth (a most improbable supposition), still not one of those things which the earth produces can exist on the moon. For, to their production other things besides earth and water are necessary, namely, the sun – the greatest agent in Nature – and the resulting variance of heat and cold, and of day and night. Now, such variances are on the moon very different from those on the earth. In the latter case, to produce a diversity of seasons, the sun rises and falls more than 47 degrees (in passing from one tropic to the other). In the former case the variation is only 5 degrees on each side of the ecliptic. While, therefore, on the earth the sun in every 24 hours illuminates all parts of its surface, each half of the moon is alternately in sunshine and darkness for 15 continuous days of 24 hours. Now, if our plants and animals were exposed to ardent sunshine every month for 360 consecutive hours, and then for a similar time were plunged in cold and darkness, they could not possibly preserve themselves, much less produce and multiply. We must, therefore, conclude that what would be impossible on our earth under the circumstances we have supposed to exist, must be impossible on the moon where those conditions do exist.

Distinction between Primary and Secondary Qualities (from The Assayer, 1623)

As soon as I conceive a material or corporeal substance, I simultaneously feel the necessity of conceiving that it has its boundaries, and is of some shape or other; that, relatively to others, it is great or small; that it is in this or that place, in this or that time; that it is in motion, or at rest; that it touches, or does not touch another body; that it is unique, rare, or common; nor can I, by any act of the imagination, disjoin it from these qualities.

          But I do not find myself absolutely compelled to apprehend it as necessarily accompanied by such conditions, as that it must be white or red, bitter or sweet, sonorous or silent, smelling sweetly or disagreeably. If the sense had not pointed out these qualities, it is probable that language and imagination alone could never have arrived at them. For, I am inclined to think that these tastes, smells, colors, etc., with regard to the subject in which they appear to reside, are nothing more than mere names, and exist only in the sensitive body. This is to the extent that, when the living creature is removed, all these qualities are carried off and annihilated, even though we have imposed particular names upon them, and different from those of the other first and real accidents, and would gladly persuade ourselves that they are truly and in fact distinct. But I do not believe that there exists anything in external bodies for exciting tastes, smells, and sounds, but size, shape, quantity, and motion, swift or slow. If ears, tongues, and noses were removed, I am of opinion that shape, number, and motion would remain, but there would be an end of smells, tastes, and sounds, which, abstractedly from the living creature, I take to be mere words.

Reinterpret Scripture to Fit Science, Not the Reverse (from Letter to Castelli, December 21, 1613)

Importance of Non-Literal Interpretation of Scripture especially with Science

It seems to me that it was well said by her Most Serene Ladyship, and insisted on by your reverence, that the Holy Scriptures cannot err, and that the decrees therein contained are absolutely true and inviolable. But I should in your place have added that, though Scripture cannot err, its expounders and interpreters are liable to err in many ways. But one error in particular would be most grave and most frequent, if we always restricted ourselves to the literal signification of the words. By doing so not only many contradictions arise, but grave heresies and blasphemies. For then it would be necessary to give God hands and feet and ears, and human and bodily emotions, such as anger, repentance, hatred, and sometimes forgetfulness of past things, and ignorance of the future. In Scripture there are found many propositions which, taking the bare sense of the words, appear contrary to the truth. But they are placed there in such a way to accommodate themselves to the capacity of common people. For those few who deserve to be separated from the common crowd, it is necessary for wise expositors to produce the true meaning, and to explain the particular reasons for which they have been thus worded.

          It being established, therefore, that Scripture is not only capable of varied interpretations, but that in many places it requires an interpretation differing from the apparent meaning of the words, it seems to me that in mathematical disputes it must be interpreted according to the latter way. Holy Scripture and nature are both come from the Divine word; the former dictated by the Holy Spirit, the latter, the executor of God's commands. Holy Scripture has to be accommodated to the common understanding in many things which differ in reality from the terms used in speaking of them. But Nature, on the contrary, is unchangeable and immutable, and it cares not one bit whether her secret reasons and methods of operation are above or below the capacity of men's understanding. It appears that, as she never transgresses her own laws, those natural effects which the experience of the senses places before our eyes, or which we infer from adequate demonstration, are in no way to be revoked because of certain passages of Scripture, which may be turned and twisted into a thousand different meanings. For Scripture is not bound to such severe laws [i.e., rules of interpretation] as those by which nature is ruled. For this reason alone, that is, to accommodate itself to the capacities of common and undisciplined people, Scripture has not abstained from concealing in shadows its principal dogmas, by attributing to God himself attributes that differ from and are contrary to his [true] Divine essence. Who can assert or maintain that, in speaking incidentally of the sun, or of the earth, or of other created bodies, Scripture should have elected abandon this [flexible] approach and instead inflexibly confine itself to the strict [and literal] meaning of the words used? This is especially so when discussing things about these [celestial] objects which are far removed from the main purpose of holy scripture. Indeed, if the truth [about celestial objects] had been represented to us [in scripture] bare and naked, would this not have undermined its primary purpose since the uneducated would be made more stubborn and difficult to persuade concerning in the articles concerning their salvation?

Salvation is the Primary Purpose of Scripture, not Science

This, then, being conceded, and it being clear that two truths cannot be contrary to each other, it becomes the duty of wise expounders to labor until they find how to make these passages of holy scripture consistent with those conclusions, of which either necessary demonstration or the evidence of our senses have made us sure and certain. The Bible, although dictated by the Holy Spirit, admits (for the reasons given above) in many passages of an interpretation other than the literal one. Moreover, we cannot be certain that the interpreters are all divinely inspired. Therefore, I think it would be the part of wisdom to forbid anyone to apply passages of Scripture in such a way as to force them to support as true any conclusions concerning nature, the contrary of which may afterwards be revealed by the evidence of our senses, or by actual demonstration. Who will set bounds to human understanding? Who can assure us that everything that can be known in the world is known already? With the unchangeableness of articles concerning salvation and the stability of the faith, there is no danger of any valid and worthwhile innovation being introduced against them. But beyond these, it would perhaps be best to advise that none should be added unnecessarily. If it be so, how much greater the disorder to add to these articles at the demand of people who, though they may be divinely inspired, yet we see clearly that they are destitute of the intelligence necessary, not merely to disprove, but to understand, those demonstrations by which scientific conclusions are confirmed.

          I believe that holy scripture is intended to convince people of those truths which are necessary for their salvation, and which, being far above man's understanding, cannot be made credible by science or any other learning, but only through the voice of the Holy Spirit. But I do not think it necessary to believe that the same God who gave us our senses, our speech, our intellect, would have us put aside the use of these, to teach us instead such things as with their help we could find out for ourselves, particularly in the case of these sciences, of which there is not the smallest mention in the Scripture; and, above all, in astronomy, of which so little notice is taken that the names of all the planets are not mentioned. Surely if the intention of the sacred writers had been to teach the people astronomy, they would not have passed the subject over so completely.

Cannot Order Scientists to Disprove what they Demonstrate (from "Letter to the Granduchess," 1615)

I think that in discussing natural phenomena we should not begin with texts from Scripture, but with experiment and demonstration. For, from the Divine Word, both Scripture and Nature do alike proceed. . . . I conceive that, that which experience sets before our eyes concerning natural effects, or which demonstration proves to us, should not on any account to be called in question, much less condemned, upon the testimony of Scriptural texts, which may (under their mere words) have meanings of a contrary nature.

          I am inclined to believe that the intention of the sacred Scriptures is to give to mankind the information necessary for their salvation, and which, surpassing all human knowledge, can by no other means be accredited than by the mouth of the Holy Spirit. But I do not hold it necessary to believe, that the same God who has endowed us with senses, with speech, and intellect, intended that we should neglect the use of these, and seek by other means [i.e., through scripture] for knowledge which they are sufficient to procure us; especially in a science like astronomy, of which so little notice is taken in the Scriptures, that none of the planets, except the sun and moon, and, once or twice only, Venus under the name of Lucifer, are so much as named there. . . .

          To command professors of astronomy that they must themselves see to disproving their own observations and demonstrations is to ask the impossible. For it is not only to command them not to see what they do see, and not to understand what they do understand, but to seek for and to find the contrary. . . . I would beg these wise and prudent Fathers to consider diligently the difference between opinionative and demonstrative doctrines, to the end that they may assure themselves that it is not in the power of professors of demonstrative sciences to change their opinions at pleasure, and adopt first one side and then the other. For, there is a great difference between ordering a mathematician, or a [natural] philosopher, as to what opinion to hold, and doing the same with a merchant, or a lawyer. For, demonstrated conclusions touching things of nature and of the heavens cannot be changed with the same facility as opinions touching what is lawful, or not, in a contract, bargain, or bill of exchange. . . .

          Therefore, let such people apply themselves to the study of the arguments of Copernicus and others, and leave the condemning of them as erroneous and heretical to whom it belongs. Yet, as to this latter, they must not hope to find such rash and hurried determinations in the vigilant Holy Fathers, or in the absolute wisdom of him who cannot err, as those into which they permit themselves to be hurried by some particular affection or interest of their own. In these, and such like opinions which are not directly articles of faith, certainly no one doubts that his Holiness has always an absolute power of admitting or condemning them. But it is not in the power of any creature to make them to be true or false, otherwise than as, in fact, they are.

Church Approval to Present the Copernican System as a Hypothesis (from Dialogues on the Two Chief Systems, 1635, Introduction)

Some years ago a beneficial edict was proclaimed at Rome, which, in order to hinder the dangerous scandals of the present age, commanded a fitting silence on the Pythagorean opinion of the earth's motion. Some were uninhibited who rashly asserted that this decree originated, not from a judicious examination, but from an ill-informed passion. Complaints were heard that counselors totally inexperienced in astronomical observations ought not by hasty prohibitions to clip the wings of speculative minds. My zeal could not keep silence when I heard these rash lamentations, and I thought it proper, as being fully informed with regard to that most prudent edict, to appear publicly as a witness of the actual truth. At that time I happened to be in Rome. I was admitted to the audiences, and enjoyed the approval of the most distinguished prelates of that Court. Nor did the publication of the aforesaid decree occur without my receiving some prior indication of it. For that reason . . . collecting together all my own speculations on the Copernican system, it is my intention in this present work to show to foreign nations that the knowledge of this preceded the Roman censures. Thus, from this country proceeded not only dogmas for the salvation of the soul, but also inventive discoveries for the gratification of the understanding. With this object I have taken up in the dialogue the Copernican side of the question, treating it as a pure mathematical hypothesis. I try in every artificial manner to represent it as having the advantage, not over the opinion of the stability of the earth absolutely, but over it as taught and defended by some who profess to be peripatetics [that is, followers of Aristotle]. For they retain only the name ["peripatetic"], and are content, without improvement, to worship shadows, not philosophizing with their own reason, but only from the recollection of four principles imperfectly understood.

The High Cost of Doing Science: Galileo's Recantation (June 22, 1633)

I Galileo Galilei, son of the late Vincenzo Galilei, of Florence, aged 70 years, being brought personally to judgment, and kneeling before you, Most Eminent and Most Reverend Lords Cardinals, General Inquisitors of the universal Christian republic against heretical depravity, having before my eyes the Holy Gospels, which I touch with my own hands, swear, that I have always believed, and now believe, and with the help of God will in future believe, every article which the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church of Rome holds, teaches, and preaches. But because I had been ordered by this Holy Office altogether to abandon the false opinion which maintains that the sun is the center and immovable, and forbidden to hold, defend, or teach, the said false doctrine in any manner, and after it had been signified to me that the said doctrine is repugnant with the Holy Scripture, I have written and printed a book, in which I treat of the same doctrine now condemned, and adduce reasons with great force in support of the same, without giving any solution, and therefore have been judged grievously suspected of heresy ; that is to say, that I held and believed that the sun is the center of the world and immovable and that the earth is not the center and movable:

          Willing, therefore, to remove from the minds of Your Eminences, and of every Catholic Christian, this vehement suspicion rightfully entertained towards me, with a sincere heart and unfeigned faith, I abjure, curse, and detect the said errors and heresies, and generally every other error and sect contrary to the said Holy Church; and I swear that I will never more in future say or assert anything verbally, or in writing, which may give rise to a similar suspicion of me: but if I shall know any heretic, or anyone suspected of heresy, that I will denounce him to this Holy Office, or to the Inquisitor and Ordinary of the place in which I may be. I swear, moreover, and promise, that I will fulfil, and observe fully, all the penances which have been, or shall be laid on me by this I Holy Office. But if it shall happen that I violate any of my said promises, oaths, and protestations, (which God, avert!) I subject myself to all the pains and punishments which have been decreed and promulgated by the sacred canons, and other general and particular constitutions, against delinquents of this description. So may God help me, and his Holy Gospels, which I touch with my own hands.

ROBERT BOYLE (From "Of the Excellency and Grounds of the Corpuscular or Mechanical Philosophy" 1674)

Epicurean Atomism vs. Corpuscular Atomism

[W]hen I speak of the corpuscular or mechanical philosophy, I am far from meaning with the Epicureans, that atoms, meeting together by chance in an infinite vacuum, are able of themselves to produce the world, and all its phenomena. Nor with some modern philosophers, that, supposing God to have put into the whole mass of matter such an invariable quantity of motion, he needed do no more to make the world, the material parts being able by their own unguided motions, to cast themselves into such a system (as we call by that name).

          But I plead only for such a philosophy, as reaches but to things purely corporeal, and distinguishing between the first original of things, and the subsequent course of nature, teaches, concerning the former, not only that God gave motion to matter, but that in the beginning he so guided the various motions of the parts of it, as to contrive them into the world he designed they should compose (furnished with the seminal principles and structures or models of living creatures,) and established those rules of motion, and that order amongst things corporeal, which we are wont to call the laws of nature. And having told this as to the former, it may be allowed as to the latter to teach, that the universe being once framed by God, and the laws of motion being settled and all upheld by his incessant concourse and general providence; the phenomena of the world thus constituted, are physically produced by the mechanical affections of the parts of matter, and what they operate upon one another according to mechanical laws. And now having shown what kind of corpuscular philosophy it is that I speak of I proceed to the particulars that I thought the most proper to recommend it.

Five Features of Mechanical Philosophy that Distinguish it from Rivals

 I. The first thing that I shall mention to this purpose, is the intelligibleness or clearness of mechanical principles and explications. I need not tell you, that among the [Aristotelian] Peripatetics, the disputes are many and intricate about matter, privation, substantial forms, and their eduction, etc. And the chemists are sufficiently puzzled (as I have elsewhere shown) to give such definitions and accounts of their hypostatical principles, as are reconcilable to one another, and even to some obvious phenomena. And much more dark and intricate are their doctrines about the archeus, astral beings, gas, blass, and other odd notions. . . . But to come now to the corpuscular philosophy, men do so easily understand one another's meaning, when they talk of local motion, rest, bigness, shape, order, situation, and contexture of material substances. And these principles do afford such clear accounts of those things, that are rightly deduced from them only, that even those Peripatetics or chemists, that maintain other principles, acquiesce in the explications made by these, when they can be had, and seek not any further, though perhaps the effect be so admirable, as would make it pass for that of a hidden form, or occult quality. . . .

          But I must not now repeat what I elsewhere say, to show, that the corpuscular principles have been declined by philosophers of different sects, not because they think not our explications clear, if not much more so, than their own; but because they imagine, that the applications of them can be made but to few things, and consequently are insufficient.

          II. In the next place I observe, that there cannot be fewer principles than the two grand ones of mechanical philosophy, matter and motion. For, matter alone, unless it be moved, is altogether unactive; and while all the parts of a body continue in one state without any motion at all, that body will not exercise any action, nor suffer any alteration itself, though it may perhaps modified the action of other bodies that move against it.

          III. Nor can we conceive any principles more primary, than matter and motion. For, either both of them were immediately created by God, or (to add that for their sakes that would have matter to be unproduced) if matter be eternal, motion must either be produced by some immaterial supernatural agent, or it must immediately flow by way of emanation from the nature of the matter it appertains to.

          IV. Neither can there be any physical principles more simple than matter and motion; neither of them being resoluble into any things, whereof it may be truly, or so much as tolerably, said to be compounded.

          V. The next thing I shall name to recommend the corpuscular principle, is their great comprehensiveness. . . . [T]he mechanical affections of matter are to be found, and the laws of motion take place, not only in the great masses, and the middle-sized lumps, but in the smallest fragments of matter; and a lesser portion of it, being as well a body as a greater, must, as necessarily as it, have its determinate bulk and figure: and he that looks upon sand in a good microscope, will easily perceive, that each minute grain of it has as well its own size and shape, as a rock or mountain. And when we let fall a great stone and a pebble from the top of a high building, we find not but that the latter as well as the former moves conformably to the laws of acceleration in heavy bodies descending. And the rules of motion are observed, not only in canon bullets, but in small shot; and the one strikes down a bird according to the same laws, that the other batters down a wall. . . .

Mechanical Philosophy Examines Physical Changes, not Invisible Causal Agents

They that, to solve the phenomena of nature, have recourse to agents, which, though they involve no self-repugnancy in their very notions (as many of the judicious think substantial forms and real qualities to do) yet are such that we conceive not how they operate to bring effects to pass. These, I say, when they tell us of such indeterminate agents (as the soul of the world, the universal spirit, the plastic power, and the like) though they may in certain cases tell us some things, yet they tell us nothing that will satisfy the curiosity of an inquisitive person, who seeks not so much to know what is the general agent, that produces a phenomenon, as [instead] by what means, and after what manner, the phenomenon is produced. . . .

          And now at length I come to consider that which I observe the most to alienate other sects from the mechanical philosophy; namely, that they think it pretends to have principles so universal and so mathematical, that no other physical hypothesis can comport with it, or be tolerated by it.

          But this I look upon as an easy indeed, but an important, mistake; because by this very thing, that the mechanical principles are so universal, and therefore applicable to so many things, they are rather fitted to include, than necessitated to exclude, any other hypothesis that is founded in nature, as far as it is so. And such hypotheses, if prudently considered by a skillful and moderate person, who is rather disposed to unite sects than multiply them, will be found, as far as they have truth in them, to be either legitimately, (though perhaps not immediately,) deducible from the mechanical principles, or fairly reconcilable to them. For, such hypotheses will probably attempt to account for the phenomena of nature, either by the help of a determinate number of material ingredients, such as the tria prima of the chemists, by participation whereof other bodies obtain their qualities; or else by introducing some general agents, as the platonic soul of the world, or the universal spirit, asserted by some spagyrists; or by both these ways together.

          Now to dispatch first those, that I named in the second place [i.e., the spagyrists], I consider, that the chief thing, that inquisitive naturalists should look after in the explicating of difficult phenomena, is not so much what the agent is or does, as, what changes are made in the patient, to bring it to exhibit the phenomena that are proposed; and by what means, and after what manner, those changes are effected. . . . But this upon the by; after which I proceed, and shall venture to add, that whatever be the physical agent, whether it be inanimate or living, purely corporeal, or united to an intellectual substance, the above mentioned changes, that are wrought in the body that is made to exhibit the phenomena, may be effected by the same or the like means, or after the same or the like manner. As, for instance, if corn be reduced to meal, the materials and shape of the millstones, and their peculiar motion and adaptation, will be much of the same kind, and (though they should not, yet) to be sure the grains of corn will suffer a various contrition and comminution in their passage to the form of meal; whether the corn be ground by a water-mill, or a wind-mill, or a horse-mill, or a hand-mill; that is, by a mill whose stones are turned by inanimate, by brute, or by rational, agents. And, if an angel himself should work a real change in the nature of a body, it is scarce conceivable to us men, how he could do it without the assistance of local motion; since, if nothing were displaced or otherwise moved than before, (the like happening also to all external bodies to which it related) it is hardly conceivable, how it should be in itself other, than just what it was before. . . .

          From the foregoing discourse it may (probably at least) result, that if, besides rational souls, there are any immaterial substances (such as the heavenly intelligences, and the substantial forms of the Aristotelians) that regularly are to be numbered among natural agents, their way of working being unknown to us, they can but help to constitute and effect things, but will very little help us to conceive how things are effected. So that, by whatever principles natural things be constituted, it is by the mechanical principles that their phenomena must be clearly explicated. As for instance, though we should grant the Aristotelians, that the planets are made of a quintessential matter, and moved by angels, or immaterial intelligences. Yet, to explain the stations, progressions, and retrogradations, and other phenomena of the planets, we must have recourse either to eccentrics, epicycles, etc., or to motions made in elliptical or other peculiar lines; and, in a word, to theories wherein the motion, and figure, situation, and other mathematical or mechanical affections of bodies are mainly employed. But if the principles proposed be corporeal things, they will be then fairly reducible, or reconcilable, to the mechanical principles. . . .

          Having first premised once for all, that presupposing the creation and general providence of God, I pretend to treat but of things corporeal, and do abstract [i.e., withdraw] in this paper from immaterial beings (which otherwise I very willingly admit) and all agents and operations miraculous or supernatural. . . .

MARGARET CAVENDISH (from Observations upon Experimental Philosophy, 1666)

Rational Perception Corrects Sense Perception (1.1)

Before I deliver my observations upon that part of philosophy which is called experimental, I thought it necessary to premise some discourse concerning the perception of human sense. It is known that man has five exterior senses, and every sense is ignorant of each other; for the nose knows not what the eyes see, nor the eyes what the ears hear, neither do the ears know what the tongue tastes. And as for touch, although it is a general sense, yet every several part of the body has a several touch, and each part is ignorant of each others touch. And thus there is a general ignorance of all the several parts, and yet a perfect knowledge in each part; for the eye is as knowing as the ear, and the ear as knowing as the nose, and the nose as knowing as the tongue, and one particular touch knows as much as another, at least is capable thereof.

          Nay, not only every several touch, taste, smell, sound or sight, is a several knowledge by itself, but each of them has as many particular knowledges or perceptions as there are objects presented to them. Besides, there are several degrees in each particular sense. As for example, some men (I will not speak of other animals) their perception of sight, taste, smell, touch, or hearing, is quicker to some sorts of objects, than to others, according either to the perfection or imperfection, or curiosity or purity of the corporeal figurative motions of each sense, or according to the presentation of each object proper to each sense. For if the presentation of the objects be imperfect, either through variation or obscurity, or any other ways, the sense is deluded. Neither are all objects proper for one sense, but as there are several senses, so there are several sorts of objects proper for each several sense. Now if there be such variety of several knowledges, not only in one creature, but in one sort of sense (to wit, the exterior senses of one human creature) what may there be in all the parts of nature?

          It is true, there are some objects which are not at all perceptible by any of our exterior senses, as for example, rarified air, and the like. But although they be not subject to our exterior sensitive perception [i.e., sense perception], yet they are subject to our rational perception, which is much purer and subtler than the sensitive. Nay, so pure and subtle a knowledge, that many believe it [i.e., rational perception] to be immaterial, as if it were some God, when as it is only a pure, fine and subtle figurative motion or perception. It is so active and subtle, as it is the best informer and reformer of all sensitive perception. For the rational matter is the most prudent and wisest part of nature, as being the designer of all productions, and the most pious and devoutest part, having the perfectest notions of God, I mean, so much as nature can possibly know of God. So that whatsoever the sensitive perception is either defective in, or ignorant of, the rational perception supplies. . . .

Philosophical Speculation is Superior to Scientific Technology and Experimentation (1.2)

Some [defenders of experimental and mechanical philosophy, such as Robert Hooke] are of opinion,

That by art [i.e., scientific technology like microscopes] there can be a reparation made of the mischiefs and imperfections mankind has drawn upon itself by negligence and intemperance, and a willful and superstitious deserting the prescripts and rules of nature, whereby every man, both from a derived corruption, innate and born with him, and from his breeding and converse with men, is very subject to slip into all sorts of errors. [Robert Hooke, Micrographia (1665), Preface)

But the all-powerful God, and his servant nature, know that art, which is but a particular creature, cannot inform us of the truth of the infinite parts of nature, being but finite itself. For though every creature has a double perception, rational and sensitive, yet each creature or part has not an infinite perception. Nay, although each particular creature or part of nature may have some conceptions of the infinite parts of nature, yet it cannot know the truth of those infinite parts, being but a finite part itself, which finiteness causes errors in perceptions.

          Wherefore it is well said, when they [i.e., Robert Hooke] confess themselves, "That the uncertainty and mistakes of human actions proceed either from the narrowness and wandering of our senses, or from the slipperiness or delusion of our memory, or from the confinement or rashness of our understanding." But, say they,

It is no wonder that our power over natural causes and effects is so slowly improved, seeing we are not only to contend with the obscurity and difficulty of the things whereon we work and think, but even the forces of our minds conspire to betray us. And these being the dangers in the process of human reason, the remedies can only proceed from the real, the mechanical, the experimental philosophy, which has this advantage over the philosophy of discourse and disputation, that whereas that chiefly aims at the subtilty of its deductions and conclusions, without much regard to the first ground-work, which ought to be well laid on the sense and memory, so this [i.e., experimental philosophy] intends the right ordering of them all, and making them serviceable to each other. [Robert Hooke, Ibid.]

In which discourse I do not understand, first, what they mean by our power over natural causes and effects. For we have no power at all over natural causes and effects, but only one particular effect may have some power over another, which are natural actions. But neither can natural causes nor effects be over-powered by man so, as if man was a degree above nature, but they must be as nature is pleased to order them. For man is but a small part, and his powers are but particular actions of nature, and therefore he cannot have a supreme and absolute power. Next, I say, that sense, which is more apt to be deluded than reason, cannot be the ground of reason, no more than art can be the ground of nature. Wherefore [rational] discourse shall sooner find or trace nature's corporeal figurative motions, than deluding arts can inform the senses. For how can a fool order his understanding by art, if nature has made it defective? Or how can a wise man trust his senses, if either the objects be not truly presented according to their natural figure [i.e., characteristics] and shape, or if the senses be defective, either through age, sickness, or other accidents, which do alter the natural motions proper to each sense? And hence I conclude, that experimental and mechanic philosophy cannot be above the speculative part, by reason most experiments have their rise from the speculative, so that the artist or mechanic is but a servant to the student.

Limitations of the Microscope (1.3)

Although I am not able to give a solid judgment of the art of micrography [i.e., microscopes], and the several dioptrical instruments belonging thereto, by reason I have neither studied nor practiced that art [i.e., technology]; yet of this I am confident, that this same art, with all its instruments, is not able to discover the interior natural motions of any part or creature of nature. Nay, the question is, whether it can represent yet the exterior shapes and motions so exactly, as naturally they are. For art does more easily alter than inform. As, for example, art makes cylinders, concave and convex-glasses, and the like, which represent the figure of an object in no part exactly and truly, but very deformed and misshaped. Also a glass that is flawed, cracked, or broke, or cut into the figure of lozenges [i.e., diamond-shapes], triangles, squares, or the like, will present numerous pictures of one object. Besides, there are so many alterations made by several lights, their shadows, refractions, reflections, as also several lines, points, mediums, interposing and intermixing parts, forms and positions, as the truth of an object will hardly be known. For the perception of sight, and so of the rest of the senses, goes no further than the exterior parts of the object presented. And though the perception may be true, when the object is truly presented, yet when the presentation is false, the information must be false also.

          And it is to be observed that art, for the most part, makes hermaphroditical, that is, mixed figures, as partly artificial, and partly natural. For art may make some metal, as pewter, which is between tin and lead, as also brass, and numerous other things of mixed natures. In the like manner may artificial glasses present objects, partly natural, and partly artificial. Nay, put the case they can present the natural figure of an object, yet that natural figure may be presented in as monstrous a shape, as it may appear misshapen rather than natural. For example, a louse by the help of a magnifying glass, appears like a lobster, where the microscope enlarging and magnifying each part of it, makes them bigger and rounder than naturally they are. The truth is, the more the figure by art is magnified, the more it appears misshapen from the natural, in so much as each joint will appear as a diseased, swelled and tumid body, ready and ripe for incision. But mistake me not. I do not say, that no glass presents the true picture of an object; but only that magnifying, multiplying, and the like optic glasses, may, and do oftentimes present falsely the picture of an exterior object. I say, the picture, because it is not the real body of the object which the glass presents, but the glass only figures or patterns out the picture presented in and by the glass, and there may easily mistakes be committed in taking copies from copies. . . .

          Wherefore those that invented microscopes, and such like dioptrical glasses, at first, did, in my opinion, the world more injury than benefit. For this art has intoxicated so many men's brains, and wholly employed their thoughts and bodily actions about phenomena, or the exterior figures of objects, as all better arts and studies are laid aside. Nay, those that are not as earnest and active in such employments as they, are, by many of them, accounted unprofitable subjects to the commonwealth of learning. But though there be numerous books written of the wonders of these glasses, yet I cannot perceive any such, at best, they are but superficial wonders, as I may call them. . . .

          Wherefore the best optic is a perfect natural eye, and a regular sensitive perception, and the best judge is reason, and the best study is rational contemplation joined with the observations of regular sense, but not deluding arts. For art is not only gross in comparison to nature, but, for the most part, deformed and defective, and at best produces mixed or hermaphroditical figures, that is, a third figure between nature and art: which proves, that natural reason is above artificial sense, as I may call it. Wherefore those arts are the best and surest informers, that alter nature least, and they the greatest deluders that alter nature most, I mean, the particular nature of each particular creature. For art is so far from altering infinite nature, that it is no more in comparison to it, than a little fly to an elephant, no not so much, for there is no comparison between finite and infinite. But wise nature taking delight in variety, her parts, which are her creatures, must of necessity do so too.

Nature is an Infinitely divisible Plenum, not Indivisible Atoms in a Vacuum (1.31)

Although I am of opinion, that nature is a self-moving, and consequently a self-living and self-knowing infinite body, dividable into infinite parts; yet I do not mean that these parts are atoms. For there can be no atom, that is, an individable body in nature, because whatsoever has body, or is material, has quantity, and what has quantity is dividable. But some may say, if a part be finite, it cannot be dividable into infinite. To which I answer, that there is no such thing as one finite single part in nature. For when I speak of the parts of nature, I do not understand, that those parts are like grains of corn, or sand in one heap, all of one figure or magnitude, and separable from each other. But I conceive nature to be an infinite body, bulk or magnitude, which by its own self-motion is divided into infinite parts, not single or individable parts, but parts of one continued body, only discernable from each other by their proper figures, caused by the changes of particular motions.

          For it is well to be observed, first, that nature is corporeal, and therefore dividable. Next, that nature is self-moving, and therefore never at rest. I do not mean exteriously moving; for nature being infinite, is all within itself, and has nothing without or beyond it, because it is without limits or bounds. But interiously, so that all the motions that are in nature are within herself, and being various and infinite in their changes, they divide the substance or body of nature into infinite parts. For the parts of nature, and changes of motion are but one thing. For were there no motion, there would be no change of figures: it is true, matter in its own nature would be dividable, because wheresoever is body, there are parts. But if it had no motion, it would not have such various changes of figures as it has.

          Wherefore it is well to be considered, that self-motion is throughout all the body of nature, and that no part or figure, how small soever, can be without self-motion; and according as the motions are, so are the parts. For infinite changes of motions make infinite parts. Nay, what we call one finite part, may have infinite changes, because it may be divided and composed infinite ways. By which it is evident, first, that no certain quantity or figure can be assigned to the parts of nature, as I said before of the grains of corn or sand. For infinite changes of motions produce infinite varieties of figures; and all the degrees of density, rarity, levity, gravity, slowness, quickness; nay, all the effects that are in nature. . . .

Nature Consists of Self-Motion in Infinite Matter (1.31)

When I speak of motion, I desire to be understood, that I do not mean any other but corporeal motion, for there is no other motion in nature. So that generation, dissolution, alteration, augmentation, diminution, transformation; nay, all the actions of sense and reason, both interior, and exterior, and what motions soever in nature are corporeal, although they are not all perceptible by our exterior senses. For our senses are too gross to perceive all the curious and various actions of nature, and it would be but a folly to deny what our senses cannot perceive. . . .

          Thus I have declared my opinion concerning the parts of nature, as also vacuum, and atoms; to wit, that it is impossible there can be any such things in nature. . . .

          But to conclude this discourse, I desire it may be observed.

          1. That whatsoever is body, were it an atom, must have parts; so that body cannot be without parts.

          2. That there is no such thing as rest or stoppage in infinite matter; but there is self-motion in all parts of nature, although they are not all exteriously, locally moving to our perception; for reason must not deny what our senses cannot comprehend: although a piece of wood or metal has no exterior progressive motion, such as is found in animals; nevertheless, it is not without motion; for it is subject to generation and dissolution, which certainly are natural corporeal motions, besides many others; the truth is, the harder, denser, and firmer bodies are, the stronger are their motions; for it requires more strength to keep and hold parts together, than to dissolve and separate them.

          3. That without motion, parts could not alter their figures, neither would there be any variety in infinite nature.

          4. If there were any such thing as atoms, and vacuum, there would be no conformity, nor uniformity in nature.

          Lastly, as there is a perpetual self-motion in nature, and all her parts, so it is impossible that there can be perfect measures, constant figures, or single parts in nature.

Mind-Body Materialism (2.10)

Those authors [such as Joseph Glanvill] which confess,

that vulgar reason is no better than a more refined imagination, and that both reason, fancy and the senses, are influenced by the bodies temperament, and like the index [i.e., hands] of a clock, are moved by the inward springs and wheels of the corporeal machine, [Joseph Glanvill, The Vanity of Dogmatizing (1661), Ch. 13]

seem, in my opinion, to confirm, that natural sense and reason is corporeal, although they do it in an obscure way, and with intricate arguments. But truly, do what they can, yet they must prove reason by reason. For irrational discourse cannot make proofs and arguments to evince the truth of nature. But first it must be proved, what sense and reason is, whether divine or natural, corporeal or immaterial.

          Those that believe natural sense and reason to be immaterial, are in my opinion in a great error, because nature is purely corporeal, as I have declared before; and those which affirm, that our understanding, will and reason are in some manner like to God's, shall never gain my assent. For if there be so great a difference between God's understanding, will and decree, and between natures, as no comparison at all can be made between them, much more is there between a part of nature, viz. Man, and the omnipotent and incomprehensible God; for there is an infinite difference between divine attributes and natural properties. Wherefore to similize [i.e., compare] our reason, will, understanding, faculties, passions, and figures, etc. to God, is too high a presumption, and in some manner a blasphemy. Nevertheless, although our natural reason and faculties are not like to divine attributes, yet our natural rational perceptions are not always delusions. And therefore it is certain, that natures knowing parts, both sensitive and rational, do believe a God, that is some being above nature. But many writers endeavor rather to make divisions in religion, than promote the honor and worship of God by a mutual and united agreement, which I confess, is an irregularity and imperfection in some parts of nature, and argues, that nature is not so perfect but she has some faults and infirmities, otherwise she would be a God, which she is not.

Reason in Animals (2.13)

Some philosophical writers discourse much concerning the knowledge of man, and the ignorance of all other creatures; but I have sufficiently expressed my opinion hereof, not only in this, but in my other philosophical works, to wit, that I believe other creatures have as much knowledge as man, and man as much in his kind as any other particular creature in its kind. But their knowledges being different, by reason of their different natures and figures, it causes an ignorance of each other's knowledge. Nay, the knowledge of other creatures many times gives information to man. As for example, the Egyptians are informed how high the River Nile will rise by the crocodile's building her nest higher or lower, which shows, that those creatures foresee or foreknow more than man can do. Also many birds foreknow the rising of a tempest, and shelter themselves before it comes. The like examples might be given of several other sorts of animals, whose knowledge proceeds either from some sensitive perceptions, or from rational observations, or from both.

          And if there be such a difference in the rational and sensitive knowledge of one kind of creatures, to wit, animals, much more in all other kinds, as vegetables, minerals, elements, and so in all natures works: wherefore he that will say, "there is no knowledge but in man, at least in animal kind" does, in my opinion, say more than ever he will be able to prove. Nay, the contrary is so evident, as it is without all dispute: but man, out of self-love, and conceited pride, because he thinks himself the chief of all creatures, and that all the world is made for his sake; does also imagine that all other creatures are ignorant, dull, stupid, senseless and irrational, and he only wise, knowing and understanding. And upon this ground some believe that man is bound and decreed to pray to God for all other creatures, as being not capable to pray for themselves; like as a minister is bound to pray for his flock. But really, if the pastor should only pray, and his sheep not, but they did continue in their sins, I doubt his prayers would be of little effect, and therefore it is well if their prayers and petitions be joined together. The like may be said of all other creatures: for the single knowledge and devotion of mankind cannot benefit other creatures, if they be ignorant, and not capable to know, admire, adore and worship God themselves. And thus no man, with all the force of logic, will ever be able to prove, that he is either the chief above all other creatures, or that he only knows and worships God, and no natural creature else. For it is without dispute, that other creatures, in their kinds, are as knowing and wise, as man is in his kind.

Panpsychism: All Matter is Animated and thus has a Natural Soul (2.15)

Of all the opinions concerning the natural soul of man, I like that best which affirms the soul to be a self-moving substance, but yet I will add a material self-moving substance. For the soul of man is part of the soul of nature, and the soul of nature is material (I mean only the natural, not the divine soul of man, which I leave to the church). And this natural soul, otherwise called reason, is nothing else but corporeal natural self-motion, or a particle of the purest, most subtle and active part of matter, which I call animate; which animate matter is the life and soul of nature, and consequently of man, and all other creatures. For we cannot in reason conceive that man should be the only creature that partakes of this soul of nature, and that all the rest of nature's parts, or most of them, should be soul-less, or (which is all one) irrational, although they are commonly called, nay, believed to be such. Truly, if all other creatures cannot be denied to be material, they can neither be accounted irrational, insensible, or inanimate, by reason there is no part, nay, not the smallest particle in nature, our reason is able to conceive, which is not composed of animate matter, as well as of inanimate; of life and soul, as well as of body. And, therefore, no particular creature can claim a prerogative in this case before another, for there is a thorough mixture of animate and inanimate matter in nature, and all her parts.

          But some may object that, if there be sense and reason in every part of nature, it must be in all parts alike, and then a stone, or any other the like creature, may have reason, or a rational soul, as well as man. To which, I answer: I do not deny that a stone has reason, or does partake of the rational soul of nature as well as man does, because it is part of the same matter man consists of. But yet it has not animal or human sense and reason, because it is not of animal kind, but, being a mineral, it has mineral sense and reason. For it is to be observed, that as animate self-moving matter moves not one and the same way in all creatures, so there can neither be the same way of knowledge and understanding, which is sense and reason, in all creatures alike; but nature being various, not only in her parts, but in her actions, it causes a variety also amongst her creatures. And hence come so many kinds, sorts and particulars of natural creatures, quite different from each other; though not in the general and universal principle of nature, which is self-moving matter, (for in this they agree all) yet in their particular interior natures, figures and proprieties.

          Thus, although there be sense and reason (which is not only motion, but a regular and well-ordered self-motion) apparent in the wonderful and various productions, generations, transformations, dissolutions, compositions, and other actions of nature in all natures parts and particles, yet by reason of the variety of this self-motion (whose ways and modes do differ according to the nature of each particular figure) no figure or creature can have the same sense and reason, that is, the same natural motions which another has. And, therefore, no stone can be said to feel pain as an animal does, or be called blind because it has no eyes. For this kind of sense, as seeing, hearing, tasting, touching and smelling, is proper only to an animal figure, and not to a stone, which is a mineral. So that those which frame an argument from the want [i.e., lack] of animal sense and sensitive organs, to the defect of all sense and motion (as for example, that a stone would withdraw itself from the carts going over it, or a piece of iron from the hammering of a smith) conclude, in my opinion, very much against the artificial rules of logic. And although I understand none of them, yet I question not but I shall make a better argument by the rules of natural logic. . . .

The High Cost of Doing Philosophy: A Woman in a Man's World of Science (Diary of Samuel Pepys, May 30, 1667)

After dinner I walked to Arundell House, the way very dusty, the day of meeting of the [Royal] Society . . . where I find much company, indeed very much company, in expectation of the Duchesse of Newcastle [i.e., Margaret Cavendish], who had desired to be invited to the Society; and was, after much debate, pro and con., it seems many being against it; and we do believe the town will be full of ballads of it. Anon comes the Duchesse with her women attending her. . . . The Duchesse hath been a good, comely woman; but her dress so antick, and her deportment so ordinary, that I do not like her at all, nor did I hear her say any thing that was worth hearing, but that she was full of admiration, all admiration. Several fine experiments were shown her of colours, loadstones, microscopes, and of liquors among others, of one that did, while she was there, turn a piece of roasted mutton into pure blood, which was very rare. . . . After they had shown her many experiments, and she cried still she was full of admiration, she departed, being led out and in by several Lords that were there.

ISAAC NEWTON

Implications of Universal Gravity (from Principia Mathematica, 1687, Preface)

Our design not respecting arts, but philosophy, and our subject not manual but natural powers, we consider chiefly those things which relate to gravity, levity, elastic force, the resistance of fluids, and the like forces, whether attractive or impulsive; and therefore we offer this work as the mathematical principles of philosophy; for all the difficulty of philosophy seems to consist in this—from the phenomena of motions to investigate the forces of nature, and then from these forces to demonstrate the other phenomena; and to this end the general propositions in the first and second book are directed. In the third book we give an example of this in the explication of the system of the world. For, by the propositions mathematically demonstrated in the first book, we there derive from the celestial phenomena the forces of gravity with which bodies tend to the sun and the several planets. Then, from these forces, by other propositions which are also mathematical, we deduce the motions of the planets, the comets, the moon, and the sea. I wish we could derive the rest of the phenomena of nature by the same kind of reasoning from mechanical principles. For I am induced by many reasons to suspect that they may all depend upon certain forces by which the particles of bodies, by some causes hitherto unknown, are either mutually impelled towards each other and cohere in regular figures, or are repelled and recede from each other. Which forces being unknown, philosophers have hitherto attempted the search of nature in vain. But I hope the principles here laid down will afford some either to that or some truer method of philosophy.

          Four Rules of Reasoning in Natural Philosophy (from Principia Mathematica, 1687)

          Rule 1: We are to admit no more causes of natural things than such as are both true and sufficient to explain their appearances.

          To this purpose the philosophers say that nature does nothing in vain, and more is in vain when less will serve. For nature is pleased with simplicity and affects not the pomp of superfluous causes.

          Rule 2: Therefore to the same natural effects we must, as far as possible, assign the same causes.

          As to respiration in a man and in a beast, the descent of stones in Europe and in America, the light of our culinary fire and of the sun, the reflection of light in the earth and in the planets.

          Rule 3. The qualities of bodies, which admit neither intensification nor remission of degrees, and which are found to belong to all bodies within the reach of our experiments, are to be esteemed the universal qualities of all bodies whatsoever.

          For since the qualities of bodies are only known to us by experiments, we are to hold for universal all such as universally agree with experiments, and such as are not liable to diminution can never be quite taken away. . . .

          Rule 4. In experimental philosophy we are to look upon propositions inferred by general induction from phenomena as accurately or very nearly true, notwithstanding any contrary hypotheses that may be imagined, till such time as other phenomena occur by which they may either be made more accurate or liable to exceptions.

          This rule we must follow, that the argument of induction may not be evaded by hypotheses.

God Needed to Create Luminous Bodies (Letter to Richard Bentley, December 10, 1692)

As to your first query, it seems to me that if the matter of our sun and planets and all the matter in the universe were evenly scattered throughout all the heavens, and every particle had an innate gravity toward all the rest, and the whole space throughout which this matter was scattered was but finite, the matter on the outside of the space would, by its gravity, tend toward all the matter on the inside, and by consequence, fall down into the middle of the whole space and there compose one great spherical mass. But if the matter [of the universe] was [initially] evenly disposed throughout an infinite space, it could never convene into one mass. But some of it would convene into one mass and some into another, so as to make an infinite number of great masses, scattered at great distances from one to another throughout all that infinite space. And thus might the sun and fixed stars be formed, supposing the [original] matter were of a lucid nature. But how the matter should divide itself into two sorts, and the part of it which is fit to compose a shining body should fall down into one mass and make a sun and the rest which is fit to compose an opaque body should coalesce (not into one great body, like the shining matter, but into many little ones); or if the sun at first were an opaque body like the planets or the planets lucid bodies like the sun, how he alone should be changed into a shining body whilst all they continue opaque (or all they be changed into opaque ones whilst he remainst unchanged), I do not think explicable by mere natural causes, but am forced to ascribe it to the counsel and contrivance of a voluntary agent.

God Needed for Precise Motion of Planets (Letter to Richard Bentley, December 10, 1692)

To your second query, I answer that the motions which the planets now have could not spring from any natural cause alone, but were impressed by an intelligent Agent. . . . Were all the planets as swift as Mercury or as slow as Saturn or his satellites [i.e. its moons]; or were the several velocities otherwise much greater or less than they are (as they might have been had they arose from any other cause than their gravities); or had the distances from the centers about which they move been greater or less than they are (as they might have been had they arose from any other cause than their gravities); or had the quantity of matter in the sun or in Saturn, Jupiter, and the earth (and by consequence their gravitating power) been greater or less than it is; [then, in any of these cases] the primary planets could not have revolved about the sun nor the secondary ones about Saturn, Jupiter, and the earth, in concentric circles as they do, but would have moved in hyperbolas or parabolas or in ellipses very eccentric. To make this system, therefore, with all its motions, required a cause which understood and compared together the quantities of matter in the several bodies of the sun and planets and the gravitating powers resulting from thence.... And to compare and adjust all these things together in so great a variety of bodies, [such a design] argues that cause to be, not blind and fortuitous, but very well skilled in mechanics and geometry.

Possibility of Evenly Spaced Particles Not Converging, but Not Likely (Letter to Richard Bentley, January 17, 1693)

I agree with you that if matter evenly diffused through a finite space, not spherical, should fall into a solid mass, this mass would affect the figure of the whole space . . . The reason why matter evenly scattered through a finite space would convene in the midst you conceive the same with me, but that there should be a central particle so accurately placed in the middle as to be always equally attracted on all sides, and thereby continue without motion, seems to me a supposition as fully as hard as to make the sharpest needle stand upright on its point upon a looking glass. For if the very mathematical center of the central particle be not accurately in the very mathematical center of the attractive power of the whole mass, the particle will not be attracted equally on both sides. And much harder it is to suppose all the particles in an infinite space should be so accurately poised one among another as to stand still in a perfect equilibrium. For I reckon this as hard as to make, not one needle only, but an infinite number of them (so many as there are particles in an infinite space) stand accurately poised upon their points. Yet I grant it possible, at least by a divine power; and if they were once to be placed, I agree with you that they would continue in that posture without motion forever, unless put into new motion by the same power. When, therefore. I said that matter evenly spread through all space would convene by its gravity into one or more great masses, I understand it of matter not resting in an accurate poise. . . .

          And so a mathematician will tell you that if a body stood in equilibrio between any two equal and contrary attracting infinite forces, and if to either of these forces you add any new finite attracting force, that new force, howsoever little, will destroy their equilibrium and put the body into the same motion into which it would put it were those two contrary equal forces but finite or even none at all; so that in this case the two equal infinities, by the addition of a finite to either of them, become unequal in our ways of reckoning; and after these ways we must reckon, if from the considerations of infinities we would always draw true conclusions.

Scientific Method of Analysis (from Opticks, 1704, Bk. 3, Queries)

As in mathematics, so in natural philosophy the investigation of difficult things by the method of analysis ought ever to precede the method of composition. This analysis consists in making experiments and observations, and in drawing general conclusions from them by induction, and admitting of no objections against the conclusions but such as are taken from experiments or other certain truths. For, hypotheses are not to be regarded in experimental philosophy. And although the arguing from experiments and observations by induction be no demonstration of general conclusions, yet it is the best way of arguing which the nature of things admits of, and may be looked upon as so much the stronger by how much the induction is more general. And if no exception occurs from phenomena, the conclusion may be pronounced generally. But if at any time afterwards any exception shall occur from experiments, it may then begin to be pronounced with such exceptions as occur. By this way of analysis we may proceed from compounds to ingredients, and from motions to the forces producing them, and, in general, from effects to their causes, and from particular causes to more general ones, until the argument ends in the most general. This is the method of analysis, and the synthesis consists in assuming the causes discovered and established as principles, and by them explaining the phenomena proceeding from them and proving the explanations.

STUDY QUESTIONS

Please answer all of the following questions.

1. According to Copernicus, why did the Pythagoreans not publish their discoveries in writing, but only communicate them orally?

2. According to Copernicus, what are some of the problems with traditional theories of celestial motion?

3. According to Bacon in his Essays, what are the positive and negative effects of boldness?

4. In his Essays, what are Bacon's views on atheism?

5. According to Bacon in New Organon, what is so bad about deduction?

6. Explain each of Bacon's four idols (i.e., of the Tribe, Cave, Marketplace, Theater).

7. What, for Bacon are the four rules for arriving at a good theory for discovering the forms?

8. Explain Bacon's tables of presence, absence and degrees and how inductive inferences proceed from them.

9. According to Bacon in The New Atlantis, what are some of the experiments done regarding animals, sound and perfume?

10. For Galileo, what are the similarities and differences between the surface of the earth and the surface of the moon?

11. According to Galileo, which qualities of external objects seem to be really part of them, and which qualities do not but exist only within our human physiology of perception?

12. According to Galileo, what was God's intended purpose of scripture and what should be our source of knowledge about astronomy?

13. What is Galileo's distinction between opinionative and demonstrative doctrines?

14. According to Boyle, what are the five features of mechanical philosophy that distinguish it from rivals?

15. What are Boyle's main criticisms of invisible causal agents?

16. What are Cavindish's main criticisms of scientific "art" (i.e., technology) and the microscope (in Observations 1.2 and 1.3)?

17. What are the main features of Cavindish's views on mind-body materialism, animal rationality and panpsychism?

18. What, for Newton, are the four rules of reasoning in philosophy?

19. According to Newton, what kind of skills does God have which enable him to make the motion of the planets so perfect?

20. According to Newton, why is God needed to create luminous bodies, adjust planetary motion, and keep the universe from collapsing?

21. Short essay: please select one of the following and answer it in a minimum of 100 words.

a. The selections by Copernicus, Galileo and Newton raise issues about the boundaries between faith and reason, that is, religion and science. Is there a unified message that emerges from these three scientists on that subject?

b. Describe Bacon's account of atheism and discuss whether you agree.

c. Was Bacon too hard on the value of deductive logic in science? Explain.

d. John Stuart Mill makes the following criticism of Bacon: "Bacon's greatest merit can not therefore consist, as we are so often told that it did, in exploding the vicious method pursued by the ancients of flying to the highest generalizations first, and deducing the middle principles from them; since this is neither a vicious nor an exploded, but the universally accredited method of modern science, and that to which it owes its greatest triumphs. The error of ancient speculation did not consist in making the largest generalizations first, but in making them without the aid or warrant of rigorous inductive methods, and applying them deductively without the needful use of that important part of the Deductive Method termed Verification" (System of Logic, 1843, 6.5.5). Explain Mill's criticism and how Bacon might reply.

e. Biologist Steven J. Gould states the following about Bacon's four idols: "Bacon argued that we must filter sensory data about this world through mental processors and that these internal mechanisms always operate imperfectly because idols gum up the works. Discovery, therefore, arises from a complex intermeshing of these inside and outside components and not by the accumulated input of facts from the outside world, continually processed by a universal and unchanging machinery of internalized scientific logic" ("Bacon Brought Home," 1999). Is Gould correct in his understanding of Bacon's method of induction? Explain.

f. Philosopher C.D. Broad states the following about Bacon's idols: "Bacon admits that the three kinds of Idol just mentioned [i.e., tribe, market place, cave] cannot be altogether eliminated. The best that Logic can do is to point them out to us and thus put us on our guard against them" ("The Philosophy of Francis Bacon," 1926). Is this a good interpretation of Bacon? Explain.

g. Bacon's notion of forms was unique to him and was ultimately dismissed by later philosophers of science as an unhelpful metaphysical entity. Philosopher C.D. Broad explains the metaphysical nature of Bacon's notion of forms: "That heat consists of violent irregular molecular movement is a proposition of Metaphysics. That mixing sulphuric acid with water generates heat is a proposition of Physics. The particular substances, water and sulphuric acid, are the material causes; the process of mating them is the efficient cause. The notions of material and efficient cause, as used by Bacon, are thus perfectly clear. But what does he mean by a formal cause? When we ask: 'What is the formal cause of heat?' we are asking, not directly how to produce heat, but what heat really is in Nature apart from man and his sensations" ("The Philosophy of Francis Bacon," 1926). Is this a good interpretation of Bacon's concept of forms? Explain.

h. In his article "Bacon's Forms and Maker's Knowledge" (2006), Antonio Pérez-Ramos suggests that the central notion of Bacon's conception of forms "establishes that to know something (a natural phenomenon) amounts to being able to (re)produce that very phenomenon on any material substratum susceptible of manifesting it." Does this reduce the metaphysical component of Bacon's theory of the forms and make it more scientific? Explain. 2. In 1882 the Catholic Church lifted the ban on Galileo's Dialogues and in 1992 Pope John Paul II gave a speech before the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in which he discussed the Church's errors in their treatment of Galileo. He stated, "the new science [in Galileo's time], with its methods and the freedom of research which they implied, obliged theologians to examine their own criteria of scriptural interpretation. Most of them did not know how to do so. Paradoxically, Galileo, a sincere believer, showed himself to be more perceptive in this regard than the theologians who opposed him. 'If Scripture cannot err', he wrote to Benedetto Castelli, 'certain of its interpreters and commentators can and do so in many ways'. We also know of his letter to Christine de Lorraine (1615) which is like a short treatise on biblical hermeneutics." Would Galileo agree with the Pope? Explain.

i. The Pope also stated that "Galileo made no distinction between the scientific approach to natural phenomena and a reflection on nature, of the philosophical order, which that approach generally calls for. That is why he rejected the suggestion made to him to present the Copernican system as a hypothesis, inasmuch as it had not been confirmed by irrefutable proof. Such therefore, was an exigency of the experimental method of which he was the inspired founder." What is the distinction that the Pope is making here, and would Galileo agree?

j. The Pope also stated the following: "From the beginning of the Age of Enlightenment down to our own day, the Galileo case has been a sort of "myth", in which the image fabricated out of the events was quite far removed from reality. In this perspective, the Galileo case was the symbol of the Church's supposed rejection of scientific progress, or of "dogmatic" obscurantism opposed to the free search for truth. This myth has played a considerable cultural role. It has helped to anchor a number of scientists of good faith in the idea that there was an incompatibility between the spirit of science and its rules of research on the one hand and the Christian faith on the other. A tragic mutual incomprehension has been interpreted as the reflection of a fundamental opposition between science and faith. The clarifications furnished by recent historical studies enable us to state that this sad misunderstanding now belongs to the past." What exactly is the myth that the Pope is describing, and would Galileo agree with him?

k. Boyle argues that science should focus on physical changes within bodies, and not on invisible causal agents like angels that supposedly move the planets. Explain his reasoning and discuss whether this limits science too much, such as, for example, with black holes or dark matter which cannot be directly measured.

l. In Observations 1.3, Cavendish argues that we can learn more about nature with the naked eye than with microscopes since they "oftentimes present falsely the picture of an exterior object." Her skepticism is understandable considering how imprecise lenses were in the seventeenth-century. Explain her rationale and whether it still have some validity with today's scientific devices, in spite of their improved precision.

m. Newton proposes two separate accounts of scientific method, one from Principia Mathematica on "four rules of reasoning in philosophy" and the other from Opticks on the method of analysis. Contemporary philosopher Jaakko Hintikka summarizes Newton's method of analysis as follows: (1) the analysis of a complex phenomenon into ingredients; (2) the experimental or observational discovery of dependencies between different ingredients; (3) the inductive generalization of these dependencies to all similar cases; and, (4) the deductive application of the generalization to other cases. Are Newton's two accounts of scientific method different from each other or essentially the same? Explain.