Supernaturalism and the Mechanical Philosophy

Some such studies are: McGuire J. E. , “Neoplatonism and active principles: Newton and the Corpus hermeticum”, in Westman Robert S. and McGuire J. E. , Hermeticism and the Scientific Revolution (Los Angeles, 1977); McGuire , “Boyle's conception of nature”, Journal of the history of ideas, xxxiii (1972), 523–42; idem, “Force, active principles, and Newton's invisible realm”, Ambix, xv (1968), 154–208; McGuire and Rattansi P. M. , “Newton and the'Pipes of Pan'”, Notes and records of the Royal Society, xxi (1966), 104–43, esp. 118–19, 134; Jacob James R. , “Boyle's atomism and the Restoration assault on pagan naturalism”, Social studies of science, viii (1978), 211–33; idem, Robert Boyle and the English Revolution (New York, 1977); Bréhier Emile , “La création continuée chez Descartes”, Sophia, v (1937), 3–10, reprinted in Bréhier, La philosophie et son passé (Paris, 1950), 127–37; Lenoble Robert , Mersenne ou la naissance du mécanisme (Paris, 1943); Oakley Francis , “Christian theology and the Newtonian science: The rise of the concept of the laws of nature”, Church history, xxx (1961), 433–57; Heimann Peter , “Voluntarism and immanence: Conceptions of nature in eighteenth century thought”, Journal of the history of ideas, xxxix (1978), 271–83; idem, “‘Nature is a perpetual worker’: Newton's aether and eighteenth-century natural philosophy”, Ambix, xx (1973), 1–25; Hooykaas R. , Religion and the rise of science (Grand Rapids, 1972); Wilde C. B. , “Matter and spirit as natural symbols in eighteenth-century British natural philosophy”, British journal for the history of science, xv (1982), 99–131; Gueroult Martial , “The metaphysics and physics of force in Descartes”, in Descartes: Philosophy, mathematics and physics , ed. by Gaukroger Stephen (Brighton, 1980), 196–229; Klaaren Eugene M. , Religious origins of modern science (Grand Rapids, 1977). In this paper I describe Newton as a ‘mechanical’ philosopher. Such a description, however, is often avoided, because of Newton's belief that mere matter and motion cannot account for such phenomena as cohesion and gravity. For my present purposes these views of Newton do not set him drastically apart from, say, Boyle or Descartes — since I am arguing that they too wished to emphasize the failure of mere mechanism to account for everything in the universe.

Boyle Robert , The works of the honourable Robert Boyle , ed. by Birch T. (6 vols, London, 1772), v, 170, 520. Cf. ii, 36–49; iii, 48; iv, 70, 161, 171. John Locke, An essay concerning human understanding (abr. edn, London, 1976), 140. Rene Descartes, The philosophical works of Descartes , trans. by Haldane E. S. and Ross G. R. T. (2 vols, Cambridge, 1931), i, 168, 227. Cf. ii, 64, 169–70, 219–20.

See the exchange of views in Descartes, Philosophical works , i, 180; ii, 138, 169–70, 183, 219–20, 226. See also Dijksterhuis E. J. , The mechanization of the world picture (Oxford, 1961), 425–6, and Kargon R. , Atomism in England from Hariot to Newton (Oxford, 1966), 66–68. Although Dijksterhuis and Kargon interpret Gassendi as giving his atoms an “intrinsic”, “essential” and “persisting” “moving force”, pondus, they also interpret Gassendi's world-picture as involving constant divine intervention. Cf. Boyle , op. cit. (ref. 2), ii, 42.

Boyle , op. cit. (ref. 2), v, 202, 218, 230. Cf. 240–1, 246. These passages of course do not cover all forms of naturalism, but a seemingly high proportion of such forms are the target of the work from which they are taken, A free enquiry into the received notion of nature, written 1666, published 1686. In “Boyle's atomism”, Jacob (see ref. 1), on the other hand, tends to see this work as directed at a relatively narrow class of naturalisms. So too does Steneck N. in his “Greatrakes the stroker: The interpretation of historians”, Isis, Ixxiii (1982), 161–77, esp. 174–5.

This interpretation is so standard that it can be readily found in the tertiary literature. See, e.g., Encyclopaedia of philosophy, v, ed. by Edwards P. (London, 1967), 143.

Childrey Joshua , Britannia Baconica (London, 1660), dedication. See also Steneck , op. cit. (ref. 4), esp. 174–5.

For a preliminary attack on this problem, see my “Reformation politics and the new philosophy”, forthcoming in Metascience: Occasional papers of the Australasian Association for the History, Philosophy and Social Studies of Science.

Doubtful and spurious works of the Venerable Bede, Elementorum philosophiae, Book 2, in Patrologiae Latinae, xc, ed. by Migne J.-P. (Paris, 1863), 1139D–1140C. Alistair Crombie characterizes the development of this new attitude as one of the major watersheds in the history of thought: See his Augustine to Galileo (2 vols, London, 1961), i, 26. See also: Idem, Robert Grosseteste and the origins of experimental science 1100–1700 (Oxford, 1953), 11–12; Gimpel Jean , The medieval machine (London, 1979), 164–5.

Cicero's De natura deorum, for example, is a sustained discussion of the issue central to the present paper: Do the Gods participate in the world, or are they withdrawn from it?.

See, e.g., Augustine , De civitate dei , xxii, 4–5. Augustine uses the miraculous/non-miraculous distinction rather than the supernatural/natural one. The argument of the present paper does not require that we differentiate between these two distinctions, nor does it require—as far as I can judge from my sources — any especial concern with the precise terminology used by different writers. Though many do not use the term ‘supernatural’, it appears that this word does de facto give us an adequate way of describing their ideas. Only in the case of demons and angels does there appear to be a significant terminological problem, for demons and angels are natural by comparison with the genuinely supernatural, yet quasi-supernatural by comparison with the material. Yet even here the terminological difficulties represent bona fide conceptual difficulties, and there is no possibility of avoiding the problem by adopting a superior terminology. I deal with these anomalous cases individually.

As a crude indication of Aristotle's lack of concern with the supernatural, there are no entries for “supernatural”, “pr(a)eternatural” or “miracle” in Organ Troy W. , An index to Aristotle (Princeton, 1949). For ‘the natural’, see Aristotle, Physics, II, 1 = 192b5–193b20. Though Aristotle sometimes suggests that all processes, including natural ones, require a sustaining external mover, and elsewhere proposes internal motivation as part of the essence of ‘the animal’ rather than ‘the natural’, these are only minor inconsistencies, problematical for the commentator, but the sort of things which the student must often be prepared to overlook if he wishes to make preliminary sense of Aristotelianism as a current of thought. Observers of the Aristotelian tradition in the period we are concerned with certainly saw internal governance as one of the marks of the natural: See, e.g., Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, la.117, 1; Cudworth Ralph , The true intellectual system of the universe (London, 1678; reprinted in 2 vols, New York, 1978), i, 76, 155; Boyle , op. cit. (ref. 2), v, 209–10, 245; Ross Alexander , The philosophical touch-stone (London, 1645), 13–14, 126. See also Dijksterhuis , op. cit. (ref. 3), 177–8.

See the discussion of Pomponazzi below, and: Cudworth , op. cit. (ref. 11), i, 54; Boyle , op. cit. (ref. 2), v, 1; Leff G. , Bradwardine and the Pelagians (Cambridge, 1957), passim, esp. p. 50; Maurer Armand , “John of Jandun and the divine causality”, Mediaeval studies, xvii (1955), 185–207, esp. 185–9; idem, “Between reason and faith: Siger of Brabant and Pomponazzi on the magic arts”, Mediaeval studies, xviii (1965), 1–18.

Aquinas , Summa theologiae , la.115,1–2; la117,1. For a seventeenth century example, see Glanvill Joseph , “Against modern sadducism in the matter of witches and apparitions”, in Essays on several important subjects in philosophy and religion (1676; London, 1970), 55. For a discussion of the essential naturalism of demons in late sixteenth century thought, see Clark Stuart , “The scientific status of demonology”, in Occult and scientific mentalities in the renaissance, ed. by Vickers Brian (Cambridge, forthcoming).

Aquinas , Summa theologiae , la104,1–2; 105,5,8; 2a2ae.178,1. For some seventeenth century endorsements of this idea, see: Childrey , op. cit. (ref. 6); Ross , op. cit. (ref. 11), 17, 96, and Medicus medicatus (London, 1645), 22–24.

Gierke Otto , Political theory of the Middle Age , trans. by Maitland F. W. (1900; reprinted Boston) 1958), 12–14. Cf. Church William F. , Constitutional thought in sixteenth-century France (1941; New York, 1969), 46–47. For explicit comparisons between natural and political powers, see: Aquinas , Summa theologiae , la.22,3; la. 103,6; McGrade Arthur S. , The political thought of William of Ockham (London, 1974), 82, 86, 197.

See Crombie , Augustine to Galileo (ref. 8), ii, 59. The passages cited in reference 14 suggest that Aquinas himself may not have accepted this way of describing divine action: Nevertheless it became a coherent extension of his philosophy of nature. Cf. Buridan, as quoted on p. 121 of Kuhn Thomas , The Copemican Revolution (New York, 1959); Dijksterhuis , op. cit. (ref. 3), 179–80.

See, e.g., Aquinas , Summa theologiae, la.75, 5; la. 115, 1–2; la2ae.62, 1–2; 2a2ae. 172,1.

Compare, e.g., Leff G. , The dissolution of the Medieval outlook (New York, 1976), 226–7 (“It is accordingly misleading to regard Aristotle's philosophy as the mainstay of Medieval Christian philosophy: Only St. Thomas Aquinas properly incorporated it into his system, and he suffered the stigma of having done so in the years immediately succeeding the condemnations. The unalloyed form in which Aristotelian ideas were held in the arts faculty at Paris, however, crystallized their latent opposition to Christian beliefs.”) with Dijksterhuis, op. cit. (ref. 3), 128, 425; Kuhn , op. cit. (ref. 16), 106–23; Drake S. , Galileo (Oxford, 1980), 8–10.

See the works cited in ref. 1.

For some studies which emphasize the conflict between Aristotle and the Church, see: Leff G. , Medieval thought (Harmondsworth, 1958), 206–302; Gilson Etienne , The unity of philosophical experience (London, 1938), 63–64; Gilson and Langen Thomas , Modern philosophy: Descartes to Kant (New York, 1963), 3–6; Maurer Armand , Medieval philosophy (New York, 1964), 208–19; Knowles David , The evolution of medieval thought (London, 1962), 291–300.

Allen Donald C. , Doubt's boundless sea: Skepticism and faith in the Renaissance (Baltimore, 1964), passim. Boyle, op. cit. (ref. 2), iv, 163. Maurer, “Between reason and faith” (see ref. 12).

For a seventeenth century specimen of mitigated Aristotelian naturalism, see Ross , op. cit. (ref. 11).

For the doctrine of double truth, see: Randall John H. , The School of Padua and the emergence of modern science (Padua, 1961), 18–26; Gilson Etienne , Reason and revelation in the Middle Ages (New York, 1938), 54–66; Leff , op. cit. (ref. 18), 26–27.

For Pomponazzi, his naturalism, and the resulting tension with theology, see: Allen , op. cit. (ref. 21), 29–45; Kristeller Paul Oscar , Eight philosophers of the Italian Renaissance (Stanford, 1964), 72–90; Douglas Andrew H. , The philosophy and psychology of Pietro Pomponazzi , ed. by Douglas Charles and Hardie R. P. (Cambridge, 1910; Hildesheim , 1962), esp. 270–303; Maurer , op. cit. (ref. 20), 344–46; Randall John H. , The career of philosophy, i (New York, 1962), 73–84; Thorndike Lynn , A history of magic and experimental science, v (New York, 1941), 96–110; Hine William , “Marin Mersenne: Renaissance naturalism and Renaissance magic”, in Occult and scientific mentalities (ref. 13), and “Mersenne and Vanini”, Renaissance quarterly, xxix (1976), 52–65.

Pomponazzi Pietro , De incantationibus (Hildesheim, 1970), 110, 161–3, 216, 237–42.

See, e.g., Lawn Brian , The Salemitan questions (Oxford, 1963), 49; Nicholas H. Steneck, Science and creation in the Middle Ages (Notre Dame, 1976), 119; Gunther R. T. , Early science in Oxford, i (Oxford, 1923), 2.

For some further specimens of the naturalness of occult qualities in the Aristotelian tradition, see: Ross , op. cit. (ref. 11), 56–57, 63–66, 126; Cf. Boyle , op. cit. (ref. 2), iv, 95. For some secondary studies which emphasize this naturalness, see: Hutchison , “What happened to occult qualities in the Scientific Revolution?”, Isis , Ixxiii (1982), 233–53; Clark , op. cit. (ref. 13), and Hine , op. cit. (ref. 24).

Cf. Glanvill , op. cit. (ref. 13), essay, 6 pp. 4,58; More Henry , An antidote to atheism (London, 1652), 142.

Pomponazzi , op. cit. (ref. 25), 6–7, 310–24. See also: ibid ., 85, 299–300; Maurer , “Between reason and faith” (see ref. 12), 6–7, 12; Hine W. , “Mersenne and Vanini”, “Marin Mersenne” (see ref. 24); anon., The Life of Lucilo (alias Julius Caesar) Vanini burnt for atheism at Thoulouse with an abstract of his writings being the sum of the atheistical doctrine taken from Plato, Aristotle, Averroes, Cardanus and Pomponatius' philosophy… (London, 1730), 43, where this Aristotelian argument is attacked as the foundation of naturalism. Cf. Ross, op. cit. (ref. 11), 96.

Pomponazzi , op. cit. (ref. 25), 293–4, 303; Douglas , op. cit. (ref. 24), 273 n2. Similarly, when Roger Bacon argues against demonic participation in many allegedly ‘magical’ actions, in his Epistola de secretis, he places great stress on the potency of nature: See Friar Bacon his discovery of the miracles of art, nature and magick , trans. by “T.M.” (London, 1659). Cf. Boyle, op. cit. (ref. 2), vi, 683. Gilson makes an analogous comparison between the supernaturalism of Ockham and the naturalism of Hume, op. cit. (ref. 20), 85.

See, e.g., Galilei Galileo , Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina (1615), trans. by Drake Stillman in Discoveries and opinions of Galileo , ed. by Drake S. (New York, 1957); Wilkins John , Mathematical and philosophical works (2 vols in 1, London, 1970), i, 159–80; Williams Arnold , The common expositor: An account of the commentaries on Genesis 1527–1633 (Chapel Hill, 1948), 48, 176–7; Luther Martin , Luther's works , i, ed. by Pelikan J. (Saint Louis, 1958), 47–48; Calvin Jean , Institutes of the Christian religion , ed. by McNeill T. , trans. by Battles L. (2 vols, London, 1961), i, 162 (= I.xiv.3).

Luther's works , i, 124–5. Cf.: Calvin , Institutes , i, 160–1 (= I.xiv.l); Geurish B. A. , “Luther's belief in reason”, in Luther a profile , ed. by Koenigsberger H. G. (London, 1973), 196–209.

Boyle , op. cit. (ref. 2), iv, 166; vi, 699–712. Cf. Ross , op. cit. (ref. 11), 104–6; Glanvill , “The usefulness of real philosophy to religion”, “The agreement of reason and religion”, op. cit. (ref. 12), passim, esp. 15, 27.

Luther's works , xxxiv, ed. by Spitz L. W. (Philadelphia, 1960), 258–9; Cf. Calvin , op. cit. (ref. 31), i, 55–56, 202 (= I.v.4, I.xvi.4).

In the notes he has added to the translation of Calvin's Institutes, McNeill frequently cites Pomponazzi as the probable target of Calvin's argument — see op. cit. (ref. 31), i, 202. Thorndike, however, suggests that De incantationibus (which was not published during Pomponazzi's lifetime) was eventually “printed under Protestant rather than Catholic auspices” in Basel in 1556 - see op. cit. (ref. 24), v, 99. Boyle explicitly lists Pomponazzi and his seventeenth century follower Vanini amongst his opponents: See op. cit. (ref. 2), v, 160. Hine has shown, too, that Vanini was one of Mersenne's targets: See his “Mersenne and Vanini” and “Marin Mersenne” (see ref. 24).

In making these remarks, and in using Luther and Calvin to support them, I might seem to be endorsing the thesis that the Scientific Revolution can be explained as an effect of Protestantism. I do not wish to be taken as endorsing this thesis, not because I know enough to reject it, but because I do not perceive the explanatory force of the thesis. Since Protestantism grew out of Catholicism, the truth of the thesis would also imply that the Scientific Revolution can be explained as an effect of Catholicism! It would thus seem to become a nugatory thesis. A better thesis would presumably be that which sought to explain the Scientific Revolution as an effect of the Augustinian-nominalist stream of Catholic thought. For an account of the Catholic roots of these ‘Protestant’ attitudes, see Leff , op. cit. (ref. 12), passim, esp., 15, 27.

Calvin , op. cit. (ref. 31), i, 162, 174, 242–3 (= I.xiv.3, 15, 16, 17; II.i.2).

My discussion of Luther is based on his commentary on Genesis. See Luther , op. cit. (ref. 31), i, 22–35, 47–50, 53, 92–96, 122–7, 164–5, 227–8. Cf. ref. 16 above, and Descartes, op. cit. (ref. 2), i, 169; ii, 170, 220.

Calvin , op. cit. (ref. 31), i, 55–65, 179–81, 197–206; ii, 1287, 1289, 1292–3 (= I.v.4–12; I.xiv.20,21; I.xvi.1–7; IV.xiv.12,14,17). (Direct quotations are from Thomas Norton's translation (London, 1561), with abbreviations expanded.) Cf. i, 171 (= I.xiv.l 1–12), where angels are accepted as intermediaries on the explicit understanding that they act only as God's hands. Calvin's attack on occult qualities is not directed against their occultness, but against the fact that they are intrinsic, delegated, and real: At ii, 1287 (= IV.xiv. 12) he attacks the non-occult agencies heat and light in precisely the same manner as he attacks the occult ones, and at i, 160, 164, 208 (= I.xix.l, 4; I.xvi.9) he supports the idea that there are occult facts and causes (as opposed to powers). Cf. Ross, op. cit. (ref. 11), 67–68, for another example of the contrast between magical and supernatural actions, and, for a very clear example of the distinction between astrological and supernatural actions, see Bodin Jean , La république (Paris, 1583; facs. reprint, 1961), 550. Here Bodin interprets God's commitment not to allow the Great Flood to recur as a promise of supernatural intervention to prevent the natural effects of the planets from being achieved whenever the configuration of the planets returns to that which originally generated the flood.

Cudworth , op. cit. (ref. 11), pp. vi–x of unpaginated preface, 105–9, 117ff. of text. Cudworth does not seem to be perfectly consistent in his classification. E.g. on p. 62 he gives a description of hylozoick atheism, which appears to overlap with that which he elsewhere designates hylopathic. This inconsistency is not very significant, for the really important distinction to Cudworth is that between the atheisms which assume passive matter and those that assume active matter, so it does not harm his argument if he equivocates somewhat as to the precise description of one of the vitalistic atheisms.

ibid., preface, pp. vii–viii, x, xv; text, pp. 46–50, 52, 105, 147–71, 884.

Ibid ., preface, pp. ix–x; text, pp. 103, 105–6, 123–6, 129–31 (p. 123 misnumbered as 117, 130 as 112). But cf. p. 62. See also Boyle , op. cit. (ref. 2), ii, 36.

Raleigh Walter , The works (8 vols, 1829; reprinted, New York, undated), ii, 24–25.

This, for example, is how McGuire and Jacob respectively approach Boyle in their papers “Boyle's conception of nature”, and “Boyle's atomism and pagan naturalism” (see ref. 1).

Boyle , op. cit. (ref. 2), iii, 39–40; iv, 72–73, 76, 192, 201; v, 164, 170, 198–201, 215–17, 245, 251–2; vi, 756. Cf. The Leibniz-Clarke correspondence, ed. by Alexander H. G. (Manchester, 1956), 553. See also McGuire , “Boyle's conception of nature” (see ref. 1), esp. 536–8.

Hutchison , “What happened to occult qualities?” (ref. 27). Lovejoy Arthur O. , Essays in the history of ideas (Baltimore, 1948), passim, but typically 99–135.

Indeed, Lotte Mulligan argues that this blending of illumination with natural reason was very widespread in the English context: See her “‘Reason’, ‘right reason’ and ‘revelation’ in mid-seventeenth century England”, in Occult and scientific mentalities (see ref. 13).

An expansion of these remarks, still all too brief, will appear in Hutchison , “Reformation politics” (ref. 7), and “Towards a political iconology of the Copernican Revolution”, in preparation. For some existing extended analyses of Reformation political debates in which these issues emerge, see: Skinner Quentin , The foundations of modern political thought, ii (Cambridge, 1978); Sabine George H. , A history of political theory (3rd edn, London, 1963). For an important discussion of the political dimensions of Aristotelian naturalism, see Ullmann Walter , Principles of government and politics in the Middle Ages (London, 1961). For an explicit linking of the doctrine of passive matter with seventeenth century politics, see p. 176 of Christopher Hill, “William Harvey and the idea of monarchy”, paper and debate on pp. 160–96 of The intellectual revolution of the seventeenth century , ed. by Webster Charles (London, 1974). (Hill, however, seems to be incorrect in attributing the doctrine of passive matter to the Aristotelians, and the doctrine of self-moving matter to the ‘moderns’.)

See Hutchison , op. cit. (ref. 27).