Essay Review: Multiple Perspectives: The Seventeenth Century Scientific Revolution Then and Now: Reason,Experiment,and Mysticism in the Scientific Revolution

Malinowski Bronislaw , “Magic, science and religion”, in Magic, science and religion and other essays, introd. by Redfield Robert (Garden City, New York, 1954), 17–92, quotations from pp. 34–35.

Richter Maurice N. Jr , Science as a cultural process (Cambridge, Mass., 1972).

Ben-David Joseph , The scientist's role in society: A comparative study (Englewood Cliffs, N. J., 1971), 34–36; Smith C. U. M. , The problem of life. An essay in the origins of biological thought (New York and Toronto, 1976), 28–29.

On Athens and Jerusalem, see esp. Hooykaas R. , Religion and the rise of modern science (Grand Rapids, Mich., 1972), and Hesse Mary B. , Science and the human imagination: Aspects of the history and logic of physical science (London, 1954), 39–46.

Ben-David , The scientist's role (ref. 3), 46–50.

Knoll Paul W. , “The world of the young Copernicus: Society, science, and the university”, and Lindberg David C. , “Commentary”, in Science and society: Past, present and future, ed. by Steneck Nicholas H. (Ann Arbor, 1975), 19–51.

Corpus Hermeticum, Libellus xvi, “An epistle of Asclepius to King Ammon”, in Hermetica, the ancient Greek and Latin writings which contain religious or philosophic teachings ascribed to Hermes Trismegistus, ed. with English translation and notes by Scott Walter and Ferguson A. S. (4 vols, Oxford, 1924–36), i, 263–73, quotation from p. 267. The sentence in brackets is a probable reading supplied by Scott.

E.g., Kuhn Thomas S. , The Copernican revolution. Planetary astronomy in the development of Western thought (reprint edition, New York, 1959), 131; Yates Frances A. , Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic tradition (Chicago, 1964), 153–5.

Cf. Hesse's succinct remark regarding the treatment of ‘energy’ as a mere mathematical abstraction: “Was this what blew up Hiroshima?” ( Hesse , Science and imagination (ref. 4), 149, n. 2). Extreme positivism and extreme relativism both founder on the technological argument.

E.g., Gower Barry , “Speculation in physics: The history and practice of Naturphilosophie”, Studies in the history and philosophy of science, iii (1973), 301–56; Williams L. Pearce , The origins of field theory (New York, 1966).

Gower , “Speculation in physics” (ref. 10), 356.

Glanvill Joseph , Plus ultra: or, the Progress and Advancement of Knowledge Since the Days of Aristotle. In an Account of some of the most Remarkable Late Improvements of Practical, Useful Learning: To Encourage Philosophical Endeavours. Occasioned by a Conference with one of the Notional Way (London: Printed for James Collins at the Kings-Head in Westminster-Hall, 1668; facsimile reprint with introd. by Jackson I. Cope (Gainesville, Fla, 1958)).

Reason, experiment, and mysticism in the scientific revolution. Ed. by Bonelli M. L. Righini and Shea William R. (New York, 1975), 247–73.

ibid., 256.

ibid., 264.

ibid., 271.

Glanvill , Plus ultra, 6–7.

ibid., 119.

Richter , Science as a cultural process (ref. 2), passim.

Glanvill , Plus ultra, 12.

Dobbs B. J. T. , The foundations of Newton's alchemy, or “The Hunting of the Greene Lyon” (London, 1975), 93–125.

Debus Allen G. , “The chemical debates of the seventeenth century: The reaction to Robert Fludd and Jean Baptiste van Helmont”, in Reason, experiment, and mysticism in the scientific revolution, 19–47.

ibid., esp. 40–42.

Glanvill , Plus ultra, 92–110.

ibid., 13.

ibid., 56.

Reason, experiment, and mysticism in the scientific revolution, 95–110.

Shea William R. , “Introduction: Trends in the interpretation of seventeenth century science”, in ibid., 1–17, esp. 10–11.

Duchesneau François , “Malpighi, Descartes, and the epistemological problems of iatromechanism”, in ibid., 111–30.

ibid., 130.

Hesse Mary B. , Models and analogies in science (reprint edition, Notre Dame, Indiana, 1970).

Ihde Aaron J. , The development of modern chemistry (New York, 1964), 410–13.

van Spronsen J. W. , The periodic system of chemical elements. A history of the first hundred years (Amsterdam, 1969), 19–20, 220–3, et passim.

Reason, experiment, and mysticism in the scientific revolution, 112–13.

Quoted in ibid., 106.

ibid.

McGuire J. E. , “Atoms and the ‘analogy of nature’: Newton's third rule of philosophizing”, Studies in the history and philosophy of science, i (1970), 3–28; Dobbs , Foundations (ref. 21), 221–5.

Reason, experiment, and mysticism in the scientific revolution, 195–6.

ibid., 219–20.

ibid., 251–5.

King's College, Cambridge, Keynes ms 28, f. 6v, quoted by permission of the Master and Fellows of King's College: Et sicut res omnes ex uno Chao per consilium Dei unius creatae sunt, sic in arte nostra res omnes id est elementa quatuor ex una hac re quae nostrum Chaos est per consilium Artificis & prudentem rerum adaptionem nascuntur. The importance of this manuscript for Newton's alchemical thought has become apparent only since the publication of the Capri papers. The present writer expects to publish the full “Commentarium” with English translation in the near future.

Hall Marie Boas , “Newton's voyage in the strange seas of alchemy”, in Reason, experiment, and mysticism in the scientific revolution, 239–46.

Dobbs , Foundations (ref. 21), 109–11.

Science, experiment, and mysticism in the scientific revolution, 283–90.

ibid., 288.

Dee John , The mathematical praeface to the Elements of geometrie of Euclid of Megara (1570), with an Introduction by Allen G. Debus (New York, 1975).

Josten C. H. , “A translation of John Dee's Monas hieroglyphica (Antwerp, 1564), with an introduction and annotations”, Ambix, xii (1964), 84–221; Walton Michael T. , “John Dee's Monas hieroglyphica: Geometrical cabala”, Ambix, xxiii (1976), 116–23.

Glanvill , Plus ultra, 20.

ibid., 25.

Freud Sigmund , Civilization and its discontents, newly translated from the German and edited by Strackey James (New York, 1962), 17.