The Scientific Revolution and the Origins of Modern Science the Mechanical Philosophy

5 The Mechanical Philosophy The Scientific Revolution and the Origins of Modern Science Natural philosophy and the mathematical disciplines underwent considerable reforms during the Renaissance, but before the Third edition dominant scholastic Aristotelianism could be replaced, something more was required. Scholastic natural philosophy was a complete system, seemingly capable of dealing with most questions about the physical world. The Aristotelianism which formed the core of the system was dovetailed pretty neatly with Ptolemaic astronomy John Henry and with Galenic medicine. Furthermore, it was based upon a coherent and powerful metaphysics, and, thanks to the work of Thomas Aquinas and other church leaders since the thirteenth century, it was routinely seen as a 'handmaiden' to the 'queen of the sciences', theology. The essential unity of approach to the nature of the physical world, from the macrocosm to the microcosm, was seen as unshakeable testimony to the truth of the system. During the Renaissance that unity began to break up, but the general tendency among intellectuals was to patch up the old system and to stick with it. To be a natural philosopher, after all, was to be in possession of a key to answering all questions about the physical world. The result was, however, a proliferation of Aristotelian isms: a whole series of often ingenious refinements, reworkings and reinterpretations of traditional scholasticism to accommodate the latest findings and the latest fashions of thought [269]. While this state of affairs clearly satisfied many, there were others who wanted more. For them, what was required was a new system of philosophy, capable of replacing the Aristotelian system, root and branch. A number of rival attempts to produce such a system were developed, but for contemporaries they were gener ally regarded as versions of what was known as the 'mechanical philosophy'. By the end of the century, the mechanical philoso phy had effectively replaced scholastic Aristotelianism as the new key to understanding all aspects of the physical world, from the propagation oflight to the generation of animals, from pneumat ics to respiration, from chemistry to astronomy. The mechanical philosophy marks a definite break with the past and sets the seal upon the Scientific Revolution. In its strictest forms the mechanical philosophy was primarily characterized in terms of a restricted range of explanatory prin ciples. All phenomena were to be explained in terms of concepts employed in the mathematical discipline of mechanics: shape, 69 The Scienufic Revolution and the Origins cfModeni Science The Mechanical PhilosojJhy size, quantity and motion. The logic of this kind of explanation the twelfth century by Averroes (c. 1150), and stimulated by an tended to lead to a restricted theory of causation, conceived only I' increasing awareness of chemical change in the Renaissance, the in terms of contact action. The mechanical philosophy saw the supposition that substances were composed of so-called minima workings of the natural world by analogy with machinery; change naturalia played an increasing role in scholastic speculations about was brought about by (and could be explained in terms of) the the nature of matter. Eclectic Aristotelians like Daniel Sennert, intermeshings of bodies, like cogwheels in a clock, or by impact Girolamo Fracastoro and David van Goorle (fl. 1610) melded the and the transference of motion from one body to another. Explan tradition of minima naturalia with atomism in their attempts to ations in terms of animate principles, and teleological accounts reform medical and chemical theory [303; 206; 86]. One import (in which the behaviour of something was explained by refer ant aspect of these reforms was the establishment of a concept ence to its supposed purpose: Why does an acorn grow? Because of particles which, although held to be indivisible, had a finite its purpose is to become an oak to supply mankind with wood), size. Earlier atomist theories failed due to a confusion with what were rejected [but see Ill]. A distinction was made between what might be called mathematical atomism, in which atoms were held were considered to be the real properties of bodies (size and to be indivisible because they were nothing more than geometri shape, motion or rest) and merely secondary qualities, caused by cal points, without any extension. But such non-extended atoms the former, such as colour, taste, odour, hotness or coldness and Iii could not easily be conceived as taking part in physical explan the like [76; 318]. The idea was that something like vinegar, for ations of extended entities. Consider the example of vinegar Ii example, did not have a real quality or property, which was its again. It's one thing to say that its characteristic taste derives from 'taste', but its constituent particles were sharp and penetrating and the fact that its particles are like little needles, but it would be I pricked the tongue, so seeming to give it its acidic taste. It is signif pointless to try to explain any of its properties in terms of math icant that the manifest qualities of Aristotelianism are reduced to ematical, dimensionless indivisibles. By definition, all such indi being secondary qualities, brought about by the motions of the visibles are identical to one another. So, either everything would invisibly small particles which are held to make up large bodies. taste like vinegar, or nothing would. Besides, as Aristotle pointed Similarly, occult qualities are explained by recourse to mechani out, not even an infinite number of dimensionless points could cal principles. The Aristotelian distinction between manifest and add up to constitute something with dimensions. Minimally small occult qualities is no longer significant in the mechanical philoso but nevertheless extended particles faced none of these difficul phy since all explanations resort, ultimately, to the motions and ties. Gassendi was able to draw support from the minima tradition interactions of insensible particles [164; 212]. in his own attempts to clarify the principles of Epicurean atomism This brings us to the final major characteristic of the mechanical [179; 303]. philosophy: it was based on the assumption that bodies were made Recent historical research, chiefly by William R. Newman, up of invisibly small atoms or corpuscles. It is hardly surprising has revealed the importance of the alchemical tradition in the that one of the major sources of inspiration behind the formation development of corpuscular theories of matter [220; 221; see also of the new systems of mechanical philosophy was the revival of 216]. Even as early as the late thirteenth century, an alchemical the Ancient atomist philosophies of Democritus and, more espe work known as Summa Perfectionis(The Sum of Perfection), attrib cially, of Epicurus. Indeed, one of the major systems of mechanical uted (falsely) to an eighth-century Arab alchemist known to the philosophy, that of Pierre Gassendi, was based upon his attempts Latin West as Geber (c. 721-c. 803), presented a corpuscular to reconstruct the natural philosophy of Epicurus [179; 31]. But theory of matter as the only theory compatible with alchemical not all mechanists believed in the existence of necessarily indivis results. In particular, the phenomenon now known as a 'revers ible atoms. It was possible to be a mechanist and subscribe to the ible react.ion', in which ingredients can be combined in a chemical belief that matter was infinitely divisible, while insisting that in compound (as we would say) and subsequently recovered from practice there were basic minimal particles involved in all physi the compound in their original forms, led alchemists to deny the cal change. Robert Boyle, for example, referred to himself as a dominant scholastic view which insisted that the original ingredi corpuscularist, never as an atomist [279]. ents were irrecoverably lost once a new composition was formed. Another major stimulus to particulate theories of matter devel The dominant view was based on the underlying Aristotelian oped within the Aristotelian tradition itself. Initiating principally theory of body, in which bodies were supposedly composed of in the influential Arabic commentaries upon Aristotle written in matter and form (known as hylomorphism), and the form was 70 71 The Scientific Revolution and the Origins o('Modern Science The Mechanical Philosophs considered to be responsible for all the properties of the body. order to avoid this absurdity, it is supposed that displacements Since the compound had a new form of its own, entirely distinct typically occur in a fairly localized cyclical pattern. So, as some from the forms of the separate ingredients (which is to say, the thing moves forward, it displaces something ahead of it and so on; compound had completely different properties from either of but the successive displacements are considered to bend around the ingredients), it was supposed that the original forms of the in some way so that, at the end of the sequence, a displaced body ingredients had been lost or destroyed in the creation of the fills the space just vacated by the original mover. A moving body compound. Since alchemical practice showed that the ingredients can be seen, therefore, to form a circulation of matter, a vortex, could be recovered, alchemists looked for a different theory of or a series of such vortexes, in the surrounding densely packed body.According to Newman, a vigorous

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