Essay Review: Licking Leibniz: Philosophers at War: The Quarrel between Newton and Leibniz

The first phrase comes from the “Account”, reproduced in Philosophers at war, 263–314, on p. 298; the last two sentences are from the Recensio, trans, by More L. T. , Isaac Newton: A biography (New York, 1934), 591, note.

A standard account is Merton Robert K. , “The normative structure of science”, in Merton , The sociology of science: Theoretical and empirical investigations, ed. Storer Norman W. (Chicago, 1973), 267–78.

Quoted in the sociological context by Merton Robert K. , “Priorities in scientific discovery”, in Merton , Sociology of science (ref. 2), 286–324, p. 303.

ibid., 308.

ibid., 307.

The quoted pasage is from ibid ., 315. Eleven years after this was composed Merton wrote a quite similar passage, omitting this time the word “valid”: “Behaviour patterns of scientists”, in ibid ., 325–42, on p. 335. Compare both with More, Newton(ref. 1), 567.

Hall does not address himself to Merton's interpretations of priority disputes, although he does approvingly quote the sociologist's views on the related subject of “simultaneous discovery” (pp. 254–5).

Manuel Frank E. , A portrait of Isaac Newton (Cambridge, Mass., 1968), 332, 348.

More , Newton(ref. 1), 567.

On the matters of who discovered the calculus first and whether there may have been plagiarism Hall offers no surprises but his outstanding scholarship tends to support the developing modern consensus, viz: Newton undoubtedly had priority and Leibniz, equally undoubtedly, made a later independent discovery (pp. 15, 21, et passim).

Brewster David , Memoirs of the life, writings, and discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton (2 vols, Edinburgh, 1855), ii, 83.

de Morgan Augustus , Newton: His friend: And his niece (London, 1885), 131.

da C. Andrade E. N. , Sir Isaac Newton (London, 1954), 113–14.

More , Newton (ref. 1), 565; to Brewster , Newton (ref. 11), ii, 3, the sight of “superior minds” in “collision” was “painful”.

To give Manuel his due he also made this point and, despite his book's psychoanalytic gloss, developed the insight to a greater extent than has Hall; see Manuel , Portrait of Newton (ref. 8), ch. xv, esp. 343–4.

The phrase is Leibniz's, quoted in Manuel, Portrait of Newton (ref. 8), 341. In spite of Professor Hall's suggestion his book in fact pays very little attention (less than Manuel's, for example) to the role of royalty. For some considerations which make the dynastic setting relevant, see below.

Quoted in Manuel, Portrait of Newton (ref. 8), 325.

Quoted in ibid., 341–2.

The remainder of this review deals with interpretative problems arising largely from Professor Hall's decision to exclude or downplay the significance of certain material. Two disclaimers are in order: First, the balance of this review is not a reflection of the substantive balance of the book (about so much unexceptionable scholarship there is little to say except to commend it); second, in what follows I am not suggesting that Professor Hall should have written a book about another topic (the very worst sort of review). I will, however, suggest ways in which he might have written an interestingly different book about the same topic.

He is far from unique in this. To Frank Manuel the key metaphysical issue in the Leibniz-Clarke correspondence was “a sideshow”. However, Manuel treated the two episodes together and used his psychoanalytical theory to speculate on the basis of the metaphysical conflicts: Leibniz opted for a plenum “in harmony with his more earthy character”; Newton's void was rooted in the “degradation of matter in his everyday existence and his dread of physical contact” (Portrait of Newton (ref. 8), 333–4). Other writers of standard accounts of these episodes reverse Hall's ordering and treat the metaphysical cleavages without significantly attending to priority disputes, e.g., Koyré Alexandre , From the closed world to the infinite universe (Baltimore, 1957), ch. xi. Unlike the chapters dealing with mathematical priority, Professor Hall's account of “The philosophical debate” (ch. viii) marks little if any advance on existing treatments.

Presumably Professor Hall means to distinguish the priority disputes and the metaphysical conflicts formally rather than historically, for as he says elsewhere by 1710 the two sorts of issues had fused into a “single quarrel” (p. 164).

Schaffer Simon , “Newtonian cosmology and the steady state” (Ph. D. thesis, Cambridge University, 1980), esp. ch. vii; Shapin Steven , “Of gods and kings: Natural philosophy and politics in the Leibniz-Clarke disputes”, Isis, lxxii (1981), 187–215. Schaffer stresses contrasting views on evolution and stability while Shapin emphasizes the role of matter-spirit boundaries. Professor Hall did not have these materials available to him at the time he wrote the present work, but, given the views expressed therein, it is debatable whether he would have approved of their arguments.

Jacob Notably M. C. , The Newtonians and the English revolution, 1689–1720 (Hassocks, 1976); Jacob J. R. , Robert Boyle and the English revolution (New York, 1977); Jacob J. R. and Jacob M. C. , “The Anglican origins of modern science: The metaphysical foundations of the Whig constitution”, Isis, lxxi (1980), 251–67; also Shapin Steven , “Social uses of science”, in Rousseau G. S. and Porter Roy (eds), The ferment of knowledge: Studies in the historiography of eighteenth-century science (Cambridge, 1980), 93–139.

For the clearest connection between voluntarist vs intellectualist conceptions of God's role in nature and the king's role in society, see Alexander H. G. (ed.), The Leibniz-Clarke correspondence (Manchester, 1956), 14, 19–20.

The best account of Newtonians' affiliations to the Junto is Schaffer, “Newtonian cosmology” (ref. 22), ch. v; also Shapin , “Of gods and kings” (ref. 22), 207–10.

For the freethinkers, see Jacob M. C. , The Newtonians (ref. 23), ch. vi; idem, The radical Enlightenment: Pantheists, freemasons and republicans (London, 1981). It is instructive to compare these studies of the importance of the freethinkers with Professor Hall's contention that Richard Bentley in his Boyle Lectures was arguing against “virtually nonexistent” enemies (p. 156).

This is not to claim (what would be untrue) that Leibniz himself had any sympathy with the views of a writer like Toland or that his political purposes were compatible with those of the Commonwealthmen; but it is not intentions which are at issue here. For more on these points, see Schaffer , “Newtonian cosmology” (ref. 22), 202–35; Shapin , “Of gods and kings” (ref. 22), espec. p. 214.

Professor Hall says “there is no evidence of any official interest [in George I's court] in dismissing or disgracing Newton” (p. 215). But the relations between the business of natural philosophy and political discourse discussed above go far beyond the simple matter of Newton's job security.

Thackray Arnold , “‘The business of experimental philosophy’: The early Newtonian group at the Royal Society”, Actes du XIIe congrès international d'histoire des sciences (Paris, 1970–71), IIIB, 155–9. This paper does not, however, discuss the intellectual substance of the disputes.

Manuel also provides evidence of this period of “reasonable, if tentative, accommodation” (Portrait of Newton (ref. 8), 327–8).

Professor Hall has changed his mind on the role played by Newton in Clarke's exchanges with Leibniz (pp. 220, 328, note 23).

See similar brief remarks in Boyer Carl B. , The history of the calculus and its conceptual development (New York, 1949), ch. v, esp. 209–10, 213, 217–20.

Hall A. Rupert , “Merton revisited, or science and society in the seventeenth century”, History of science, ii (1963), 1–16, p. 13.

Much of this empirical literature is discussed in Steven Shapin, “History of science and its sociological reconstructions”, History of science (forthcoming). A good example of this approach is MacKenzie Donald A. , Statistics in Britain 1865–1930: The social reconstruction of scientific knowledge (Edinburgh, 1981).