Chapter 7. From Ptolemy to Newton
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1. In his Spiritus
Mundi (1976, p. 70-89), Northrup Frye speaks of the relation of the
Ptolemaic and Copernican world systems, and of astrology and astronomy, which
he takes, as a literary critic, to be "a collision between two
mythologies, two pictures or visions, not of reality, but of man's sense of
the meaning of reality in relation to himself."
Frye contrasts the two visions: "The
geocentric view had on its side the religious feeling that the moral and
natural orders had been made by the same God, that man was the highest
development of nature, that God had died and risen again for man, and that
therefore the notion of a plurality of worlds could be dismissed."
Moreover, the Ptolemaic view was also supported by the mythical analogy
between the macrocosm, the Universe, and the microcosm, Man.
The macrocosm was finite in both time and space.
"Just as man lives for only seventy years, so the universe was
created to last for seven thousand years, six thousand years of history and a
thousand years of millennium, corresponding to the six days of creation and the
Sabbath of rest. Creation took
place four thousand years before the birth of Christ, who was born in 4 B.C.:
therefore the millennium will begin in 1996. However the heliocentric view had
some mythological trump-cards too. The
sun is the source of light, and therefore the symbol of consciousness.
And the Renaissance brought with it a new and expanded sense of
consciousness, a feeling that consciousness represented something that tore
man loose from the lower part of nature and united him with a higher
destiny." But, Frye
says, "of course, it happens to be true that the earth goes around the
sun, and not true that the sun goes around the earth."
2. Is it false that the
sun goes around the earth? Albert
Einstein and Leopold Infeld say in their The
Evolution of Physics 1938,
p 212): "Can we formulate
physical laws so that they are valid for all CS [coordinate systems], not only
those moving uniformly, but also those moving quite arbitrarily, relative to
each other? If this can be done,
our troubles will be
3. Frye asserts that when
mythologies collide, it is doubtless an advantage to have the truth, or more of the
truth, on one's side -- but not a clinching advantage.
"The words 'sunrise' and 'sunset' are as familiar to us as
ever," he says. "We
'know' that what they describe is really an illusion, but they are
metaphorically efficient, and man can live indefinitely with metaphor."
Science only destroys the unscientific, and separates itself from
mythology. "The autonomy of
science," says Frye, "goes along with its reliance on mathematics,
which can apparently penetrate much further into the external world than words
can do." (Frye, ibid.)
4. As to mathematics and
words, Galileo says: "Philosophy is written in this grand book, the universe,
which stands continually open to our gaze.
But the book cannot be understood unless one first learns to comprehend
the language of mathematics, and its characters are triangles, circles and
other geometric figures without which it is humanly impossible to understand a
single word of it; without these one wanders about in a dark labyrinth."
(Galileo Galilei, Il Saggiatore
(The Assayer), translated by Stillman Drake in Discoveries
and Opinions of Galileo, 1957, p. 237-238.)
For Galileo as for Kepler, geometry is at the core of mathematics --
concepts of number, or at any rate numbers other than integers, depend on
concepts of geometry.
5. It is one thing to say
the heavens can be read like a book of words, and another to say that they can
be comprehended with geometry. Marsilio
Ficino wrote in his Theologia platonica
(late 15th century): "The
notions of divine beings are made clear by the disposition of the heavens, as
if through letters." (Quoted by Eugenio Garin in Astrology
in the Renaissance (1983, o. 69), translation of Lo Zodiaco della Vita (1976).)
Earlier still there is the statement of Bernard Silvester in his De
mundi universitate (12th
century), as reported by Thorndike: "Nous or Intelligence says to Nature, 'I would have you behold the
sky, inscribed with a multiform variety of images, which, like a book with
open pages, containing the future in cryptic letters, I have revealed to the
eyes of the more learned.'" (Lynn Thorndike, A History of Magic and
Experimental Science, 1923-1958, v. 2, p. 105.) Ficino and Silvester were talking about astrology.
6. Galileo inherited his
views of the importance of geometry
from classical Greek antiquity, and the 16th and 17th century scientists were
not the first to revive it. Robert
Grosseteste in his De lineis, angulis et
figuris (c. 1230) says: "There
is an immense usefulness in the consideration of lines, angles, and figures,
because without them natural philosophy cannot be understood.
They are applicable in the universe as a whole and in its parts,
without restriction, and their validity extends to related properties, such as
circular and rectilinear motion, nor does it stop at action and passion,
whether as applied to matter or sense ... For all causes of natural effects
can be discovered by lines, angles and figures, and in no other way can the
reason for their action possibly be known."
(quoted by James McEvoy in The
Philosophy of Robert Grosseteste, 1982, p. 168.)
7. There is something in
mathematics besides words and language, something more than algebra.
There are the abstract pictures and visions of geometry.
Beyond that, there are the intuitions
of mathematicians, instituted, it appears, by basic structures and processes
of our universe. In a narrow
sense, mathematical "intuition" refers to geometric visualization.
In a larger sense it refers to any mathematical knowledge which is not
based -- perhaps not base-able -- on formalized logic or language, and proofs
formulated using them. There
are some who appear to have direct insight into relations of numerical,
spatial and temporal abstractions, both among the abstractions themselves and
as they apply to other things. Formal
proofs follow after, if they can be found at all.
If this is so, mathematics is not merely a part of logic, as Bertrand
Russell and other logicians have maintained.
8. What about Frye's view
of mythology? Mythology, he
holds, is not primarily an attempt to depict reality, not a primitive form of
science or philosophy, but an attempt to articulate the greatest human
concerns. However, mythology, he
says, tends to project itself on the outer world and harness science with
pseudo-scientific presuppositions. Then
science has to destroy such mythological thinking in its own area. This doesn't mean that the mythological thinking should be
destroyed in the areas to which it
belongs. Mythology has its own
spheres and functions, and what takes place is a separation of mythology and
science. Frye quotes
Bernard Shaw to the effect that if William the Conqueror had been told by a
bishop that the moon was 77 miles from the earth, he would have thought that a
very proper distance for the moon, inasmuch as 7 is a sacred number.
As science destroyed the unscientific in its concerns, what Frye calls
"symmetrical pattern-making" went underground into occult science,
into alchemy, astrology, kabbalism and magic.
But of course, theoretical physicists and cosmologists are makers of
symmetrical patterns par excellence.
Perhaps Frye has in mind some kind of Baconian "inductive"
science, in which one collects pieces of information (probably dry and
unexciting in themselves) and somehow extracts from them hypotheses and
theories after the fact of gathering the information.
This is not the way of theoretical physics or mathematics.
9. As an example of the
gradual separating of poetic and scientific
modes of thinking, Frye takes astrology.
Astrology is, he says, like the science of astronomy, a study of the
stars, but it studies the stars from a geocentric point of view:
it is interested mainly in the influences that the movements of stars
are believed to have on human concerns. Geocentricity
is not a necessary concomitant of astrology, as we have seen.
Putting that aside, however, it is charming to think that while it
seems the physical influence on our characters of the planet Mars is
10. Frye states that it is
conceivable that astrology will eventually validate its claim to be a coherent
subject, but in the meantime, the popularity of astrology (he was writing in
the earlier 1970's) indicates a growing acceptance of a kind of thinking poets
use. In this way, astrology would not be empty, no matter what its
scientific status. In the
scientific view of things, Frye says, the starry universe died during the
course of
“The angels all were singing out of tune,
And hoarse with having little else to do,
Excepting to wind up the sun and moon
Or curb a runaway young star or two... "
It was Darwin, Frye observes, who completed the revolution in
perspective that Copernicus had begun. The
doctrine of evolution, he considers, made time as huge and frightening as
space. The past, after Darwin,
was no more emotionally reassuring than the skies had come to be.
Frye concludes that we live in more than one world.
We live in an actual world, our physical environment in time and space,
the world studied mainly by the natural or physical sciences. At the same time we live in worlds we want to
live in, and worlds we are creating out of our environment.
"This world," Frye claims, "is always geocentric, always
anthropocentric, always centered on man and man's concerns." (Frye, ibid.)
11. Frye proposes the
following chronology, for astrology
"1473.
Astrology and astronomy are much the same subject, and most of those who study
the stars are interested primarily in astrology.
1573.
The situation is not very different, despite Copernicus.
There had always been theological reservations about astrology, mainly
on the score of an implied fatalism, and these had been increased by the
Reformation and Counter-Reformation. But
still astrology was generally accepted as a reasonable hypothesis, and in the
next generation Kepler was an energetic caster of horoscopes.
1673. This is the age of the Royal Society, and by now most of
1773. With the discovery of Uranus imminent, belief and interest
1873. Astrology is firmly consigned to the scrap-heap of exploded
1973. Astrology is a major industry, with newspapers printing
horoscopes, a large number of books expounding the subject, and a great many
practicing astrologers plying their trade.
At the same time astrology has separated from astronomy:
the two studies are carried on by different people and their
literatures are addressed to different publics.
There are many who 'believe in' astrology, i.e. would like to feel that
there is 'something in it', but I should imagine that relatively few of them
are astronomers."
12. I suppose Frye doesn't
mean us to take his chronology of astrology too soberly.
A perhaps more soberly seriously chronology of the fortunes of
astrology in England for the years 1642-1800 has been given by Patrick Curry.
Briefly, astrology flourished in England in the middle years of the
17th century -- from about the beginning of the Puritan revolution in 1642 to
the Restoration in 1660. In many
respects, a decline began in 1660. During the course of the 18th century, omen
astrology continued to decline, and "high" astrology, meant as
serious cosmological or philosophical explanation by educated people,
practically died out. However,
"popular" astrology survived. Curry
mentions the annual Moore's Vox
Stellarum ("Voice of the Stars"), known as Moore's
Almanack. As well as simple
ephemerides, these provided yearly astrological guidance of the omen sort --
predictions about the weather, agriculture, politics, wars, and natural
disasters. By 1738, this was
outselling all its rivals at 25,000 copies a
year. Its printings rose
to 107,000 copies a year in 1768, 353,000 in 1800 and peaked at 560,000 in
1839. John Clare described in
1827 a typical farmer seated in a tavern and reading
"Old Moore's annual prophecies
Of flooded fields and clouded skies;
Whose Almanac's thumb'd pages swarm
With frost and snow and many a storm,
And wisdom, gossip'd from the stars,
Of politics and bloody wars.
He shakes his head, and still proceeds,
Nor doubts the truth of what he reads."
(Patrick Curry, Prophecy and Power, Astrology in Early Modern
England, 1989, p. 101-102.) Curry proposes that the survival of
popular astrology was a class phenomenon.
13. Bernard Capp concludes
from his study of English almanacs that, like astrology itself, they were at
their peak in the Elizabethan and Stuart periods, and showed decay by the 18th
century, at any rate among the educated.
The decay was gradual. There
was a lively debate on the validity of astrology in the mid 16th century.
A similar debate in France at that time proved to be a decisive turning
point for astrology there, leading to its devaluation.
The English episode was less decisive.
In the second half of the 16th century, no major scientist seriously
devoted his efforts to astrology, and the Royal Society, the universities and
the College of Physicians often displayed hostility toward it. Yet starting from the 1640's, interest in a reformed astrology increased dramatically.
In the 17th century, belief in astrology was never extinguished, even
in the upper classes of society, but scientists increasingly turned away from
it. (Bernard Capp, English
Almanacs, 1500-1800, Astrology and the Popular Press,
1979, p. 276-278.)
14. Morris Jastrow asserts
(in 1911) that in England, Jonathan Swift can fairly claim credit for having
given the death-blow to astrology with his famous squib, the Prediction
for the Year 1708, by Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq.
Swift begins by professing profound belief in the art, but then points
out the vagueness and absurdity of present practices.
He then proceeds to describe a more excellent way:
"My first prediction is but a trifle, yet I
15. Jacques Halbronn
comments that in the late 17th and early18th century attacks on astrology
often had a forbidding character which failed to undermine its appeal for
large sectors of the population. Laughter, as prescribed by Swift, was often a more effective
medicine. However, Halbronn notes
that Swift had been preceded in this genre by, among others, Franois Rabelais.
The latter's Pantagruline Prognostication was a sort of prognostication "for
all years", which revealed the truisms and
16. Among reasons long put
forward for the decline in the hold of astrology over the educated classes,
there are the discoveries of astronomers, with the telescope or otherwise,
that the heavens are not perfect or unchanging (novae, sun spots, mountains on
the moon), the discovery of new "planets" (which is what Galileo
called the moons of Jupiter he had discovered with his telescope), and the
realization that stellar distances are much greater than had been believed.
Perhaps also involved was the transition from a belief in an
Aristotelian-Ptolemaic universe of finite extent to a belief in a
decentralized universe of infinite extent, as described by Alexander Koyré (From
the Closed World to the Infinite Universe,
1957). (Most cosmologists today
believe the universe to be of finite extent, but expanding
-- the old finite universe was of fixed size.)
There was also a change in attitudes of churchmen toward astrology.
17. Capp says:
"Robert Boyle and others were convinced that science could
strengthen Christianity. From the
harmony and splendour of the universe they felt able to prove the existence of
a divine Creator. They depicted a
universe which was regular and ordered, shaped by the hand of God but run
according to the constant laws he had created.....
In this current of religious thought, which by 1700 represented the
orthodox view [in England], there was no place for a God repeatedly
interfering in his own laws. Nor,
by extension, could there be room for the stars as the instruments of such
intervention, and still less for astrologers as the self-appointed
interpreters of God's will." (Capp,
ibid., p. 280.) This no
doubt applies to astrological predictions which could be overturned, but it
would seem to strengthen a strictly deterministic astrology.
Astrologers might discover rather than interpret God's immutable will
by employing laws according to which the stars influence people -- if only
they knew the laws. However, the
scientists were more successful at discovering laws in their domain than the
astrologers were in theirs.
18. Patrick Curry says: "Often
people wanted more specific and personal advice, on urgent matters, than was
available from a book or almanac. Then they had recourse to the local 'wise' or 'cunning' man,
or woman. While it is impossible
to estimate numbers, it seems that this figure too had disappeared more from
'Books and Talk' than from 'the World'."
(Patrick Curry, Prophecy and
Power, Astrology in Early Modern England, 1989, p. 102.) (Curry is referring to a remark made by Mrs.
Hester Thrale in 1790: "Superstition is said to be driven out of the
World -- no such Thing, it is only driven out of Books and Talk.")
Such so-called cunning persons, Curry says, remained a recognized
influence well into the nineteenth century, combining -- for the poor --
services of medicine, divination and magical protection, all with a strong
though primitive astrological component.
Of course, we still have our local fortune tellers in the United States
today.
19. John Melton in his
attack on astrology, Astrologaster or the Figure-Caster, (1620), describes how he consulted an astrological
fortune-teller of this sort about a gold chain he had lost.
He is admitted to the astrologer's house and led upstairs by a small
boy. Then, Melston says:
"Before a Square Table, covered with a
greene Carpet, on which lay a huge Booke in Folio,
wide open, full of strange Characters, such as the Aegyptians and Chaldaeans
were never guiltie of, not farre from that, a silver Wand, a Surplus
[surplice?], a Watering Pot, with all the superstitious or rather fayned
Instruments of his cousening [cheating] Art.
And to put a fairer colour on his black and foule Science, on his head
hee had a foure-cornered Cap, on his backe a faire Gowne (but made of a
strange fashion) in his right hand he held an Astrolabe, in his left a
Mathematical Glasse [telescope?]. At
the first view, there was no man that came
to him (if hee were of any fashion) could offer him for his advice
lesse than a Iacobus [a coin on the
order of a pound or guinea], and the meanest halfe a Peece [half of a lesser
coin], although hee peradventure (rather than have nothing) would be contented
with a brace of Two-pences." (Quoted
by Don Allen Cameron in The Star-Crossed
Renaissance, 1941, p. 136.)
20. Nearly a century and a
half later, Tobias Smollett, in his novel The
Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves (1762), gives a similar description of
such a person, an astrologer consulted by Timothy Crabshaw, groom and squire
to Sir Launcelot: "He was
dragged upstairs like a bear to the stake, not without reluctance and terror,
which did not at all abate at sight of the conjurer, with whom he was
immediately shut up by his conductress, after she had told him in a whisper
that he must deposit a shilling in a little black coffin, supported by a human
skull and thigh-bones crossed, on a stoll covered with black baize, that stood
in one corner of the apartment. The
squire, having made this offer with fear and trembling, ventured to survey the
objects around him, which were very well calculated to augment his confusion.
He saw divers skeletons hung by the head, the stuffed skin of a young
alligator, a calf with two heads, and several snakes suspended from the
ceiling, with the jaws of a shark, and a starved weasel.
On another funeral table he beheld two spheres, between which lay a
book open, exhibiting outlandish characters and mathematical diagrams.
On one side stood an ink-standish with paper, and behind this desk
appeared the conjurer himself, in sable vestments, his head so overshadowed
with hair that, far from contemplating his features, Timothy could distinguish
nothing but a long white beard, which, for aught he knew, might have belonged
to a four-legged goat, as well as to a two-legged astrologer
21. "[The conjurer]
exhorted him to sit down and compose himself till he should cast a figure;
then he scrawled the paper, and waving his wand, repeated abundance of
gibberish concerning the number, the names, the houses, and revolutions of the
planets, with their conjunctions, oppositions, signs, circles, cycles, trines,
and trigons. When he perceived
that this artifice had its proper effect in disturbing the brain of Crabshaw,
he proceeded ... "
The astrologer tells Crabshaw some things that Crabshaw had already
told him, although Crabshaw seems to have forgotten this.
Crabshaw is "thunderstruck to find the conjurer acquainted with
all these circumstances," and wants to know if he can ask a question or
two about his fortune, "The
astrologer pointing to the little coffin, our squire understood the hint, and
deposited another shilling. The
sage had recourse to his book, erected another scheme, performed once more his
airy evolutions with the wand, and having recited another mystical preamble,
expounded the book of fate in these words:
"You shall neither die by war nor water, by hunger or by thirst,
nor be brought to the grave by an old age of distemper; but, let me see -- ay,
the stars will have it so -- you shall be -- exalted -- hah! -- ay, that is --
hanged, for horse-stealing." --"Oh,
good my lord conjurer!" roared the squire, “I'd as lief give forty
shillings as be hanged." --"Peace, sirrah!" cried the other;
"would you contradict or reverse the immutable decrees of fate? Hanging is your destiny, and hanged you shall be -- and
comfort yourself with the rejection, that as you are not the first, so neither
will you be the last to swing on Tyburn tree."
This comfortable assurance composed the mind of Timothy, and in a great
measure reconciled him to the prediction." (Tobias Smollett, The
Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves,
1762, Hutchinson edition of 1905,
bound with Adventures of an Atom, p.
215-217.)
22. Jacques Halbronn gives
some details about the decline of astrology in France.
The primary goal of the work of Abbé Pluche, especially the Histoire
du Ciel (1739) was to undermine the foundations of astrology by
reawakening the world of gods and heroes that had been pushed aside.
"The history of the birth of this supposed science," he
wrote, "is its refutation, for all Astrology is no more than a false
interpretation of certain signs that have been misunderstood."
One of Pluche's major concerns was to distinguish sharply between
astronomy and astrology, and Halbronn observes that "in this he was
followed by all the historians of the Revolutionary period, from Bailly to La
Lande and Delambre. Astronomers
to some extent felt affected by the disfavor attached to astrology, and since
approximately the time of Pluche, astronomers have been prime opponents of
astrology. Historians of astronomy committed themselves to removing the
stigmata of astrology by purifying their discourse of everything that might be
a reminder of the link between the two activities. For a century and a half, roughly from 1730 to 1880,
astrology was considered by many only in the past tense.
Astrology came to be considered as no longer dangerous, but merely
empty. (Jacques Halbronn,
"The Revealing Process of Translation and Criticism", in Astrology, Science and Society, 1987, edited by Patrick Curry, p.
213-215.)
23. The effect on
astrology of the transition from the Ptolemaic to the Copernican view of the
world has often been mis-evaluated. As
many astrologers realized, Copernicanism and astrology are as consistent as
Ptolemaicism and astrology, just as navigation by the stars as viewed from
earth is consistent with navigation by the stars as viewed from the sun.
Whatever influence the earth and sun have on one another doesn't depend
which body is taken as a reference point.
As far as positions of
celestial objects are concerned, aside from the forces they exert on one
another, it's just a matter of one's point of view. Given the general relativity of Einstein, this is so even
taking forces into account. It's
comparatively simple to transform positions with respect to our earth into
positions with respect to our sun, and vice versa.
Relating forces in the two systems is more difficult, but possible.
Furthermore, while the effect of placing the sun rather than the earth
at the center of the universe no doubt made some people feel less central (!),
I suggest that a decline in belief in the power of magic, and in the power to
predict personal and political matters by means of interpreting the stars,
contributed more than the advent of Copernicanism to feelings that the
universe was not made especially for us.
This was perceived as a loss of power,
or potential power, rather than of position.
24. A
decline in belief in astrology was especially prevalent among well educated
and scientifically oriented people. Formerly
there were professors of astrology in universities, and astrologers were openly
hired and consulted by temporal and spiritual leaders.
For example, at the universities of Bologna, Padua and Milan in Italy,
the list of professors of astrology is continuous from the early 13th to the
16th century, and includes such names as Pietro d'Abano, Giorgio Peurbach and
Regiomontanus. (Wedel, l.c., p. 77.)
The latter two are often counted among the earliest modern astronomers.
The chair in judicial astrology at the University of Salamanca was
occupied until at least 1770 (Thorndike, ibid., v. VI, p. 166).
Professors of mathematics and medicine were often astrologers, and
numerous officials of the State and Church up to kings and popes employed or
favored astrology. Wedel speaks,
for example, of Guido Bonatti, perhaps the most famous professional astrologer
of the 13th century: "As an
example of the kind of services he rendered his masters, Filippo Villani
relates that while in the employ of Guido de Montefeltro, he would mount the
campanile [bell tower] to observe the stars at the outbreak of any military
expedition. At the first striking of the bell, the count and his men
would put on their armor; at the second stroke, they would mount their horses;
and at the third, spur their steeds to a gallop.
Experience testifies, says Villani, that by this means the count won
many a victory." (Wedel, ibid., p. 78-79.) For a long time, astrology was a chief tool of medical
doctors. This is no longer so (I
think). Yet many people still to
some degree believe in the efficacy of astrology, such is the deep longing
many people have for the kind of power astrology is alleged to furnish.
25. I have depicted some
large patterns and small bits of astronomy/astrology, the study of stars, as
it was up to the transformation of science which began in the latter part of
the 16th century. It was in this
era that astronomy and astrology began to split apart to the extent we see
today. Galileo was a prominent
contributor to this separation. In
his Dialogo sopra due massimi
sistemi del mondo, tolemaico, e copernicano of 1632, Galileo has Salviati
(representing himself) say: "Likewise
it is completely idle to say (as is attributed to one of the ancient
mathematicians) that the tides are caused by the conflict between the motion
of the earth and the motion of the lunar sphere, not only because it is
neither obvious nor has it been explained how this must follow, but because
its glaring falsity is revealed by the rotation of the earth being not
contrary to the motion of the moon, but in the same direction. Thus everything that has been previously conjectured by
others seems to me completely invalid. But
among all the great men who have philosophized about this remarkable effect, I
am more astonished at Kepler than at any other. Despite his open and acute mind, and though he has at his
fingertips the motions attributed to the earth, he has nevertheless lent his
ear and his assent to the moon's dominion over the waters, to occult
properties, and to such puerilities."
(Galileo, Dialogue Concerning the
Two Chief World Systems,
1632, translated by Stillman Drake, 1962, p. 462.)
26. From our point of
view, as influenced by Newton's treatment of gravitational attraction, Kepler
seems to have had the right idea after all.
The moon does have a physical
effect on our lives, as star-gazers first maintained so long ago, inasmuch as
its gravitational attraction has an effect on our lives.
This much of astronomy/astrology has been absorbed into astronomy.
Galileo wanted to do away with even this much.
27. On the other hand, Galileo has Sagredo (representing an educated layman) say to Simplicio (representing an Aristotelian philosopher): "I have a little book, much briefer than Aristotle or Ovid, in which is contained the whole of science, and with very little study one may form from it the most complete ideas. It is the alphabet, and no doubt anyone who can properly join and order this or that vowel and these or those consonants with one another can dig out of it the truest answers to every question, and draw from it the instruction in all the arts and sciences. Just so does a painter, from the various simple colors placed separately upon his palette, by gathering a little of this with a bit of that and a trifle of the other, depict men, plants, buildings, birds, fishes, and in a word represent every visible object, without any eyes or feathers or scales or leaves or stones being on his palette. Indeed, it is necessary that none of the things imitated nor parts of them should actually be among the colors, if you want to be able to represent everything; if there were feathers, for instance, these would not do to depict anything but birds or feather dusters..... This manner of 'containing' everything that can be known is similar to the sense in which a block of marble contains a beautiful statue, or rather thousands of them; but the whole point lies in being able to reveal them. Even better we might say that it is like the prophecies of Joachim or the answers of the heathen oracles, which are understood only after the events they have forecast have occurred." Salviati interjects: "And why do you leave out the prophecies of the astrologers, which are so clearly seen in horoscopes (or should we say in the configurations of the heavens) after their fulfillment?" (l.c., p. 109-110.) This much of astronomy/astrology, attributed by Galileo to an unsupported use of language, is not found in our astronomy today.
28. Similarly, Thorndike
relates of Descartes that in 1629: "...
he wrote that he judged from the title of Gaffarel's recent Curiositez
inouyes sur la sculpture des Persans, horoscope des patriarches et lecture des
estoilles [Forgotten curiosities about the sculpture of the Persians,
horoscopes of the patriarchs and reading of the stars] that it would
contain only chimeras. Thus he
already drew a sharp line between natural or mathematical magic, which could
be effected or explained mechanically, and an immaterial magic based on the
power of words, pictures and
29. It has been stated at
times that a crucial blow to the validity of associating influences of
celestial objects with human affairs was dealt when Isaac Newton and Edmond
Halley discovered the regular orbits of comets.
In this view, it was the unpredictability of comets that made them seem
ominous, and when the unpredictability was removed, so was the ominousness.
However, Simon Schaffer has argued that the work of Newton, Halley and
some of their contemporaries on comets was part of a natural philosophy which
still dealt with prophetic aspects of astronomical signs.
In particular, Newton suggested that comets might be used by God to
replenish materials on Earth, or, more ominously, to terminate life on Earth
by crashing into the sun and defeating the stability of the solar system.
At the same time, it follows from Schaffer's work that Newton attacked
a basic tenet of astral religion, the divinity of celestial objects.
Newton took this doctrine to be a form of idolatry, and also as the
basis of astrology. Thus the work
of Newton on comets, and work related to it, contained an attack on astrology. Schaffer's analysis of Newton's cometography (as Schaffer
calls it, perhaps after a work Cometographia
of 1668 by Seth Ward which Schaffer cites, in which Ward asserted that comets
move in circles) can be used not only to reveal Newton's argument against
astrology, but also to show a part of what we now call astronomy emerging from
the astronomy/astrology which preceded it.
(Simon Schaffer, "Newton's Comets and the Transformation of
Astrology", in Astrology, Science
and Society,1987, edited by Patrick Curry, p. 219-243.)
30. It was a comet of
1664-1665 which aroused Newton's interest in comets, and perhaps in astronomy
in general. In his work on comets
(1619-1620), Kepler had distinguished between permanent celestial
objects which move in closed orbits, and transient ones, such as
comets, which move (he thought) in straight lines. By 1680, Newton had convinced himself that this
classification was correct. However,
certain events transformed his view. Among
these was a heightened concern among astrologers and their opponents over the
significance of comets in connection with a Catholic threat (the Popish Plot),
and the fall of monarchies. This
was of great concern to Newton. The
comets of 1680-1681 and 1682 were to become prize specimens in a new
cometography he developed. Robert
Hooke had by this time argued that comets were more like planets than was
generally thought at the time, and Edmond Halley had convinced himself that
linear paths for comets could not explain observations.
The astronomer Giovanni Cassini had identified the comet of 1680 with
those of 1577 and 1665. Earlier,
in 1677, the astronomer John Flamsteed had announced that comets "make
their returns as in stated times & move about ye fixed stars at a vast
distance." He pronounced
this to be a powerful argument against astrological predictions based on
appearances of comets, and even against judicial astrology in general.
In 1681, Flamsteed argued for a cometary path which took a sharp bend
near the sun, and suggested that it might be attracted by the sun in its
approach and repelled from it afterwards.
Between the spring of 1681 and the autumn of 1684, Newton decided that
comets should be treated in the same manner as planets, and that both types of
objects moved in elliptical orbits around the sun. He developed a method for calculating the parameters of the
orbits of comets and their periods which appeared in Book 3 of the Principia
in 1687. By the winter of
1695-1696, Halley and Newton had established at least two closed and periodic
cometary paths, and on 3 June 1696 Halley told the Royal Society that the
comet of 1682 and that of 1607 were the same, and that it had a period of
about 75 years. This became known
as Halley's comet. (Schaffer,
ibid.)
31. According to Schaffer,
this work of Newton and Halley on comets in the 1690's was intimately linked
to their re-definition of the function of comets in the universe.
There were a number of projects connected with these functions.
These included an analysis of the stability of the solar system, the
scriptural history of the Earth including the Biblical deluge and end of the
world, an analysis of changes in mass of the planets and sun, and of the
maintenance of vital activity throughout the cosmos. Newton held that comets were part of a divinely planned
system. For example, in a letter
to Richard Bentley, he says: "To
your second Query I answer that ye motions wch ye Planets now have could not
spring from any naturall cause alone but were imprest by an intelligent Agent.
For since Comets descend into ye region of our Planets & here move
all manner of ways going sometimes the same way wth the Planets sometimes the
contrary way & sometimes in cross ways in planes inclined to ye plane of
the Ecliptick at all kinds of angles: its plaine that there is no naturall
cause wch could determin all ye Planets both primary and seconday to move ye
same way & in ye same plane wthout any considerable variation.
This must have been the effect of Counsel."
(Letter from Newton to Bentley, 10 Dec 1692, in The
Correspondence of Newton, edited by H. W. Turnbull, J. F. Scott, A. R.
Hall and L. Tilling, 1959-1977, v. 3 (1961), p.234.) And he is quoted by Gregory as saying: "that a continual
miracle is needed to prevent the Sun and fixed stars from rushing together
through gravity: that the great eccentricity in Comets in directions both
different from and contrary to the planets indicates a divine hand: and
implies that the Comets are destined for a use other than that of the
planets." (Gregory,
memoranda of 5,6,7 May 1694, ibid., p.
336.)
32. In 1687, Newton argued
as follows in Book III of the Principia: "And it is not unlikely but that the vapor [from the
tails of comets], thus continually rarefied and dilated, may be at last
dissipated and scattered through the whole heavens, and by little and little
be attracted towards the planets by its gravity, and mixed with their
atmosphere; for as the seas are absolutely necessary to the constitution of
our earth, that from them, the sun, by its heat, may exhale a sufficient
quantity of vapors, which, being gathered together into clouds, may drop down
in rain, for watering of the earth, and for the production and nourishment of
vegetables; or being condensed with cold on the tops of mountains (as some
philosophers with reason judge), may run down in springs and rivers; so for
the conservation of the seas, and fluids of the planets, comets seem to be
required, that, from their exhalations and vapors condensed, the wastes of the
planetary fluids spent upon vegetation and putrefaction, and converted into
dry earth, may be continually supplied and made up; for all vegetables
entirely derive their growths from fluids, and afterwards, in great measure,
are turned into dry earth by putrefaction; and a sort of slime is always found
to settle at the bottom of
putrefied fluids; and hence it is that the bulk of the solid earth is
continually increased; and the fluids, if they are not supplied from without,
must be in continual decrease, and quite fail at last.
I suspect, moreover, that it is chiefly from the comets that spirit
comes, which is indeed the smallest but most subtle and useful part of our
air, and so much required to sustain the life of all things with us."
(Isaac Newton, Philosophiae
naturalis principia mathematica (1687), translated by Andrew Motte (1729),
revised by Florian Cajori (1934) with the title Mathematical
Principles of Natural Philosophy and his System of the World, p. 529-530.)
33. In the early 1670's,
Newton had written in a manuscript called "Of natures obvious laws &
processes in vegetation" that "this Earth resembles a great animall
or rather inanimate vegetable, draws in aethereall breath for its dayly
refreshment & vitall ferment & transpires again the grosse
exhalations". (Quoted by
Schaffer, ibid., p. 235.) These
ideas were made a part of his cometography after 1687, and amplified in the
final queries in his Optics of
1706. Thus comets served a divine
office -- the restoration of vegetative life.
34. Newton seems not to
have been much attached to the idea that celestial objects are alive.
The Earth, he says, resembles a large animal, or rather an
"inanimate vegetable" (whatever that might be).
Robert Westfall calls attention to an alchemical paper of Newton's
which probes the distinction between vegetation and mechanical changes.
Newton sometimes referred to a principle of vegetable action as a
spirit, or "Powerfull agent". Sometimes
he referred to it with a plural such as seeds or seminal virtues, which are
nature's "only agents, her fire, her soule, her life."
Westfall concludes: "That
is, what he found in the world of alchemy was the conviction that nature
cannot be reduced to the arrangement of inert particles of matter.
Nature contains foci of activity, agents whose spontaneous working
produces results that cannot be accounted for by the mechanical philosophy's
only category of explanation: particles of matter in motion." (Robert S. Westfall, ”Newton and Alchemy” in Occult
and scientific mentalities in the Renaissance, 1984, edited by Brian
Vickers, p. 315-335.)
35. Westfall makes a case
for concluding that Newton's alchemical studies stimulated Newton to introduce
his concept of forces of attraction and repulsion acting between particles of
matter. But the concept of a life
force animating matter is quite different from the concept of a living planet
with a soul. I have not been able
to find any indication that Newton considered planets to have souls, or to be
alive as an animal or person is alive, in the way Kepler did.
36. By 1698, Newton had
concluded that the comet of 1680 was periodic, and in the 2nd and 3rd editions
of the Principia (1713, 1726) said:
"The comet which appeared in the year 1680 was in its perihelion
less distant from the sun than by a sixth part of the sun's diameter; and
because of its extreme velocity in that proximity to the sun, and some density
of the sun's atmosphere, it must have suffered some resistance and
retardation; and therefore, being attracted somewhat nearer to the sun in
every revolution, will at last fall down upon the body of the sun.
Nay, in its aphelion, where it moves the slowest, it may sometimes
happen to be yet further retarded by the attractions of other comets, and in
consequence of this retardation descend to the sun.
So fixed stars, that have been gradually wasted by the light and vapors
emitted from them for a long time, may be recruited by comets that fall upon
them; and from this fresh supply of new fuel those old stars, acquiring new
splendor, may pass for new stars. Of
this kind are such fixed stars as appear on a sudden, and shine with a
wonderfull brightness at first, and afterwards vanish little by little."
(Newton, Principia, translation of Motte and Cajori, p.
540-541.) Thus Newton conjectures
that a nova may be the result of an old star being struck by one of its
comets. Furthermore, he predicts
that the comet of 1680, belonging to our own solar system, may fall into our
sun.
37. Newton never made
public the fact that his own work involved correlation between divine
functions of comets and ancient prophecy.
However, he drafted arguments in his System of the World
in 1685 that a true system of the world had been known in ancient
times, and later corrupted. A
version of this appeared in English in 1728:
"It was the ancient opinion of not a few, in the earliest ages of
philosophy, that the fixed stars stood immovable in the highest parts of the
world; that under the fixed stars the planets were carried about the sun; that
the earth, as one of the planets, described an annual course about the sun,
while by a diurnal motion it was in the meantime revolved about its own axis;
and that the sun, as the common fire which served to warm the whole, was fixed
in the centre of the universe. This
was the philosophy taught of old by Philolaus, Aristarchus of Samos, Plato
in his riper years, and the whole sect of the Pythagoreans; and this
was the judgment of Anaximander, more ancient still; and of that wise king of
the Romans, Numa Pompilius, who, as a symbol of the figure of the world
with the sun in the centre, erected a round temple in honor of Vesta,
and ordained perpetual fire to be kept in the middle of it."
38. "The Egyptians
were early observers of the heavens; and from them, probably, this philosophy
was spread abroad among other nations; for from them it was, and the nations
about them, that the Greeks, a people more addicted to the study of
philology than of Nature, derived their first, as well as soundest, notions of
philosophy; and in the Vestal ceremonies we may yet trace the ancient spirit
of the Egyptians; for it was their way to deliver their mysteries, that
is, their philosophy of things above the common way of thinking, under the
veil of religious rites and hieroglyphic symbols.
It is not to be denied that Anaxagoras, Democritus, and
others, did now and then start up, who would have it that the earth possessed
the centre of the world, and that the stars were revolved towards the west
about the earth quiescent in the centre, some at a swifter, others at a slower
rate. However, it was agreed on
both sides that the motions of the celestial bodies were performed in spaces
altogether free and void of resistance. The
whim of solid orbs was of a later date, introduced by Eudoxus, Calippus,
and Aristotle, when the ancient philosophy began to decline, and to
give place to the new prevailing fictions of the Greeks.
But, above all things, the phenomena of comets can by no means tolerate
the idea of solid orbits. The Chaldeans,
the most learned astronomers of their time, looked upon the comets (which of
ancient times before had been numbered among the celestial bodies) as a
particular sort of planets, which, describing eccentric orbits, presented
themselves to view only by turns, once in a revolution, when they descended
into the lower parts of their orbits. And
as it was the unavoidable consequence of the hypothesis of solid orbits, while
it prevailed, that the comets should be thrust into spaces below the moon; so,
when later observations of astronomers restored the comets to their ancient
places in the higher heavens, these celestial spaces were necessarily cleared
of the incumbrance of solid orbits."
(probably translated by Andrew Motte, appended to the Motte and Cajori
translation of the Principia, p. 549-550.)
39. In the years in which
Newton was forming his theory of comets, he was also composing a fundamental
study of ancient theology and natural philosophy, the Philosophical origins
of gentile theology (begun 1683-1684; reworked 1694 and after).
Here he linked idolatry and false cometography.
False cometography, he said, suffered from the worship of planetary
souls as real divinities identified with temporal kings and heroes. In the mid 1680's, Newton argued that the natural
philosophers of the ancients had been their priests.
The Chaldeans in Babylon were an example. In the Philosophical origins, he explained that when
"the stars were declared to move in their courses in the heavens by the
force of their souls and seemed to all men to be heavenly deities", then
"gentile Astrology and Theology were introduced by cunning Priests to
promote the study of stars and the growth of the priesthood and at length
spread through the world." (Quoted
by Schaffer, l.c., p. 242; "gentile" is used here with the obsolete
meaning of "heathen" or "pagan".).
Newton singled out Cabbalists, Gnostics and neo-Platonists as sharing a
common idolatry and a common error which concealed the true system of the
world. Thus around 1685, Newton
had composed a treatise on ancient philosophy in which he charged that false
worship of elements of what had been proper natural philosophy had destroyed a
correct theory of comets, already known to certain ancient astronomers, and
which he was undertaking to restore.
40. In Schaffer's view, Newton's interpretation of his work on comets
affected astrology in two ways. First,
it promoted the idea that the interpretation of comets should pass from
popular divination to a theologically oriented natural philosophy:
theologically oriented, since Newton regarded the activity of comets to
be divinely directed, and believed that they could be used by God as His
agents. This still gave comets a
dramatic function and prophetic meaning.
They could, for example, rejuvenate Earth and the planets, and they
could terminate life on Earth. Second,
Newton challenged the idolatry which attributed the wrong kind of spiritual
power to the heavens. That is, he
attacked the idea that planets are divine.
(Schaffer, ibid., p. 241-242.)
41. Here we come to a crux. Mathematical
celestial mechanics, of the sort largely founded by Newton, can be used to
predict the motions of comets -- they move pretty nearly in predictable
ellipses (at least, most all of them do -- a few might move in hyperbolas or
parabolas). Furthermore, mathematics
of the kind introduced by Newton, and extended by many others by way of
nonlinear dynamics, can be used to predict breakdowns of the stability of the
solar system. Thus Newton's
methods can be used to predict such things as the end of the world (quite
aside from the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which is another story).
Therefore one might be entitled to call Newton's celestial mechanics a
kind of reformed astrology. It
achieves one of the aims of astrology by methods quite different from
traditional astrology – Kepler’s announced program.
Newton himself believed that with his methods he was restoring
the system of the ancient Babylonian astronomers, which had been corrupted by
priests and astrologers. "Astrologers,
augurs, auruspicers &c are," he said, "such as pretend to ye art
of divining ... without being able to do what they pretend to ... and to
believe than man or woman can really divine ... is of the same nature with
believing that the Idols of the Gentiles were not vanities but had spirits
really seated in them." (Quoted
by Shaffer.)
42. Newton supplied us with techniques for divining, for predicting
what God intends (if one believes in this manner, as it appears Newton did),
with which suitably equiped people can do what they pretend to be able
to do in the way of certain kinds of predictions, or very nearly, in certain
circumstances. And it has often
been claimed that Newton's theory of gravity grew out of a theory of planetary
influences, although Newton himself showed a noticeable reluctance to say so,
protesting that his quantitative results were correct no matter what you
attributed them to. He showed
great reluctance to stand behind a mechanism for gravity, although at times he
spoke of God as an agency for maintaining celestial objects in their
courses.
43. Eugenio Garin observes: "The
stages of so-called 'scientific progress' are anything but straightforward and
unambiguous. In the middle of the
eighteenth century, G. M. Bose, Professor of Philosophy and Dean of the
University of Wittenburg, wrote, with regard to Newton and the Theory of
Universal Attraction: ... 'Shall action at a distance be granted?
Will you then prevent a star from acting [on] a Talisman at a distance?
Rejoice Melanchthon, the horoscope returns, Haly, Almutec, Athacir,
Alcecadenor, Hylec. Shall action
at a distance be granted? Soon
the Thessalian witch, horrid with wrinkles and bristles, raging, shall
return." (Eugenio Garin, Astrology
in the Renaissance, 1983), translation of La Zodiaco della Vita,
1976), p. 5-6.)
44. In Newton's Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the
Apocalypse of St. John, one
of his last works, published in 1733, a few years after his death, Newton
says: "For understanding the
Prophecies, we are, in the first place, to acquaint ourselves with the
figurative language of the Prophets. This
language is taken from the analogy between the world natural, and an empire or
kingdom considered as a world politic. Accordingly,
the whole world natural consisting of heaven and earth, signifies the whole
world politic, consisting of thrones and people, or so much of it as is
considered in the Prophecy: and the things in that world signify the analogous
things in this. For the heavens,
and the things therein, signify thrones and dignities, and those who enjoy
them; and the earth, with things thereon, the inferior people; and the lowest
parts of the earth, called Hades or Hell, the lowest or most miserable
part of them ....."
45. "In the heavens, the Sun and Moon are, by interpreters of
dreams, put for the persons of Kings and Queens; but in sacred Prophecy, which
regards not single persons, the Sun is put for the whole species and race of
Kings, in the kingdom or kingdoms of the world politic, shining with regal
power and glory; the Moon for the body of the common people, considered as the
King's wife; the Stars for subordinate Princes and great men, or for Bishops
and Rulers of the people of God, when the sun is Christ; light for the glory,
truth, and knowledge, wherewith great and good men shine and illuminate
others; darkness for obscurity of condition, and for error, blindness and
ignorance; darkning, smiting, or setting of the Sun, Moon, and Stars, for the
ceasing of a kingdom, or for the desolation thereof, proportional to the
darkness; darkning the Sun, turning the Moon into blood, and falling of the
Stars, for the same; new Moons, for the return of a dispersed people into a
body politic or ecclesiastic." (Observations
upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John (1733), p. 16-23.)
After this, Newton gives interpretations of fire in various forms,
various movements of clouds, winds, thunder, lighting, water in various forms,
geological formations, animals, vegetables and plants, and so on.
46. This passage, in which Newton describes how he reads Biblical
prophecies, puts light on his reference (cited above) to Chaldeans as
"the most learned astronomers of their time", and his complaint
(also cited above) that certain ancient Greeks and priests had corrupted
previously known correct astronomy by declaring that the stars
"move in their courses in the heavens by the force of their souls"
and were deemed to be "heavenly deities", and that "gentile
Astrology and Theology were introduced by cunning Priests to promote the study
of stars and the growth of the priesthood and at length spread through the
world." Newton speaks of the
correspondences between natural objects and processes, on the one hand,
and political entities and activities, on the other, as being a matter
of figurative language, based on analogy between the two worlds.
Yet he believes in the accuracy and indeed inevitability of the
predictions made by the Biblical prophets.
He says: "And the
giving ear to the Prophets is a fundamental character of the true Church..... The authority of the Prophets is divine, and comprehends the
sum of religion... Their writings
contain the covenant between God and his people, with instructions for keeping
this covenant..... And no power
on earth is authorized to alter this covenant."
Of Daniel in particular, he says:
"The predictions of things to come relate to the state of the
Church in all ages; and amongst the old Prophets, Daniel is most
distinct in order of time, and easiest to be understood: and therefore in
those things which relate to the last times, he must be made the key to the
rest." (Newton, ibid., p.
14-15.)
47. Thus according to Newton's description, Biblical prophecy can give
results of the kind the Chaldeans expected from their omen astrology
and other methods of prediction they used, before the invention of personal
astrology with its horoscopes and houses.
In Newton's view, as stated in the first part of the Observations
upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John, Biblical prophecy furnishes "in
figurative language" strictly determined predictions of political matters
based on the interpretation of natural processes involving celestial and
terrestrial natural objects. To
be sure, he doesn't admit the divinity of such objects.
The accuracy of the predictions is presumably guaranteed by the one God
alone, who uses the natural objects "figuratively" (whatever that
might mean) in order to communicate this foreknowledge.
Newton's views on this question therefore resemble those of Calvin, but
differ distinctly from those of Thomas Aquinas (to take just two examples).
A widespread judgment today (as discussed earlier) is that the
Chaldeans did attribute divinity to celestial objects.
Newton seems to imply (although I don't know of a place where he says
so outright) that the Chaldeans did not do so, and that such beliefs
were introduced later by certain Greeks, to the detriment of true astronomy. Of course, Newton knew nothing of the many Babylonian
writings which have been recovered after his time.
48. Pierre Duhem remarked that modern science was born on the day
someone proclaimed the truth that the same mechanics and the same physical
laws rule celestial and sublunary motions, the sun, the flow and ebb of the
tides, the fall of bodies. This
pertains to the universality I spoke of earlier.
For such a thought to become possible, Duhem says, it was necessary
that the stars fall from the divine rank in which antiquity had placed them,
and for this it was necessary for a theological revolution to occur. This revolution, Duhem believed, was the the work of
Christian theologians. (Pierre
Duhem, Le Système du Monde, 1913, v. 2, p. 453.)
The path to Duhem's conclusion is not clear, since denial of the
divinity of celestial objects occurred in pre-Christian antiquity, and seems
then and later to have had several sources.
For example, we noted that Deuteronomy 4.19 forbids the worship of
celestial objects, so it appears Jews
began or continued the theological revolution (if it can be called this)
before Christ appeared. Again,
with Galileo and after, telescopes revealed irregular features of our moon,
sun and some planets, some of which had counterparts on earth (mountains on
the moon), and this made it difficult to believe any longer in the perfection
and distinctiveness usually required of divine objects. But it would be characteristic of Newton to include a
theological motive among the reasons he rejected the divinity of celestial
objects.
49. Later in the Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel,
Newton deals with the Apocalypse of St. John, the book of
50. Newton continues: "The
folly of Interpreters has been, to foretel times and things by this Prophecy,
as if God designed to make them Prophets.
By this rashness they have not only exposed themselves, but brought the
Prophecy also into contempt. The
design of God was quite otherwise. He
gave this and the Prophecies of the Old Testament, not to gratify men's
curiosities by enabling them to foreknow things, but that after they were
fulfilled they might be interpreted by the event, and his own Providence, not
the Interpreters, be then manifested thereby to the world.
For the event of things predicted many ages before, will then be a
convincing argument that the world is governed by providence.....
The event [of Christ's second coming] will prove the Apocalypse;
and this Prophecy, thus proved and understood, will open the old Prophets, and
all together will make known the true religion, and establish it.
For he that will understand the old Prophets, must begin with this; but
the time is not yet come for understanding them perfectly, because the main
revolution in them is not yet come to pass ....."
51. "There is already so much of the Prophecy fulfilled, that as
many as will take pains in this study, may see sufficient instances of God's
providence: but then the signal revolutions predicted by all the holy
Prophets, will at once both turn mens eyes upon considering the predictions,
and plainly interpret them. Till
then we must content ourselves with interpreting what hath been already
fulfilled. Amongst the
Interpreters of the last age there is scarce one of note who hath not made
some discovery worth knowing; and thence I seem to gather that God is about
opening these mysteries. The
success of others put me upon considering it; and if I have done any thing
which may be useful to following writers, I have my design."
(Isaac Newton, Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel, p.
249-253.)
52. Newton said in the passage I quoted earlier that the book of Daniel
must be made the key to all the other prophecies about the end of time, which
express what God will bring to pass, and from all he says in the first few
pages of this work, we might expect that Biblical prophecy will enable to
predict when the world will end. But
this later passage is a kind of admission of defeat.
We cannot securely extract prophecies from the Scriptures, he is saying
-- we can only understand fully what the words mean retrospectively,
and then see that the prophecies have been fulfilled.
53. So Newton's method for reading Biblical prophecy appears from his
description, I suggest, as a kind of "purified" omen astrology, of
the general sort Kepler envisioned, along with some purified divination of
other kinds. Of course, Kepler influenced Newton in numerous other ways,
amd in any case, as we have seen, astrology and astral worship in various
forms were still intertwined with astronomy in the Europe of Newton’s time.
We can say, I suggest, that in the Principia, with his celestial
mechanics, Newton presented what can be, and may well have been taken in his
time, to be a kind of purified astrology -- a mathematically based system with
which one can in many cases predict with great accuracy the motions of natural
objects when one knows mathematical expressions for the forces -- or influences
-- acting on them. This can be described as a kind of natural astrology,
a term which was used in Newton's time, cf. Natural Magic.
There is a common objective underlying both of these works:
to be able to predict the course of things.
In interpreting Biblical prophecy for this purpose, Newton found the
canonical scriptures too obscure, an obscurity which he attributed to God's
design. In applying his laws of
motion and gravitation, and their mathematical development, for this purpose,
he may have taken himself to have had greater success in developing this
objective.
54. In the preface to his biography of Newton, Robert Westfall
observes: "It has been my
privilege at various times to know a number of brilliant men, men whom I
acknowledge without hesitation to be my intellectual superiors.
I have never, however, met one against whom I was unwillng to measure
myself, so that it seemed reasonable to say that I was half as able as the
person in question, or a third or a fourth, but in every case a finite
fraction. The end result of my
study of Newton [over a period of some 20 years] has served to convince me
that with him there is no measure. He
has become for me wholly other, one of the tiny handful of supreme geniuses
who have shaped the categories of the human intellect, a man not finally
reducible to the criteria by which we comprehend our fellow beings... "
(Robert Westfall, Never At Rest, A Biography of Isaac Newton,
1980, p. ix.)
55. It may be that Westfall is right about the nature of Newton's
genius, but I suggest that feelings of Newton's "otherness" may be
alleviated to some extent by admitting Newton's attachment to, or obsession
with, knowing the course of things as broadly as possible, together
with the fact that he was a firm believer in the truth of Biblical prophecy,
and was in some degree dedicated to the aims of omen or natural
astrology, although not to the methods. This
means that a certain distortion of Newton may be introduced by making too
central in one’s interpretation of Newton’s life and works that part of
Newton's work most people would nowadays characterize as “scientific”, and
separating this from his interests in what we now call alchemy, to be
distinguished from “genuine” chemistry, and astrology, to be distinguished
from “genuine” astronomy. For
example, Westfall says (on the next page of his preface):
"Newton holds our attention only because he is a scientist of
transcendant importance. Hence I tend to think of my work as a scientific biography,
that is, a biography in which Newton's scientific career furnishes the central
theme." (Westfall, ibid., p.
x.)
56. We should allow for what Newton took to be scientific
methods and subject matter, or rather what he took to be methods and subject
matter of natural philosophy, since the term “scientific” was not used in
his day in the ways we use it today (in English).
He appears, for example, to have believed that determining the
chronology of the world, and interpreting Biblical prophecy to predict the end
of the world, were enterprises which could be undertaken scientifically.
Newton wanted to find out about the course of things any way he could
– using mathematics, alchemy, scriptures, whatever offered some prospect of
working. This aim underlies both
his scientific (in our sense) and religious works. Given a tolerant enough view of the intellectual, religious
and political environment of his time, his interests and methods seem quite
understandable. His speed, depth
and scope of penetration are awesome -- but alien?
I think they need not be.
57. I have dwelt more on the astrology than the astronomy in
astronomy/astrology to set the stage for an appreciation of how astronomy, as
we now understand it, grew from a complex mixture of astrolatry, astrology and
astronomy. It seems likely to me that the positions of the planets and
sun and moon at our births are of little or no significance in determining our
characters and careers (unless Gauquelin and many present-day astrologers are
right; see Preface). But there
are subtler senses in which the stars can affect the way we are and act.
For example, it is a familiar contention that our values and ideals
aren't found, or shouldn't be found, in nature, in time and space.
"Is" doesn't imply "ought", the slogan goes. But how have our values, desires, hopes and ideals evolved as
we have interacted with the rest of the natural world -- in particular,
with the heavens? To what degree
have we been led by the stars, which are, according to most current physical
cosmologies, our ultimate ancestors?
58. Gerald Hawkins comments: "Perhaps
we shall never know the true significance of the sky in the lives of ancient
peoples. Did a gossamer idea
spread outward, transferred by contact between cultures, and was this idea the
critical step toward civilization, the emergence of man as that species with
transcendental consciousness? Or
was the awareness a natural response of different races, different cultures,
to the unifying stimulus of the sky? We
find evidence for this influence from before the time of writing, from deep
prehistory, on the continents of Asia, Africa, the Americas, and on the
Pacific Islands." (Gerald
Hawkins, Beyond Stonehenge, 1973, p. 282-283.)
59. E.C. Krupp suggests that what takes place in the sky assists our
brains in organizing its perceptions of the world.
The idea that order is a fundamental aspect of the universe may be
taken to be an assumption, having its ultimate origin in the
interactions of humans with the skies and their contents.
Without the sky, our brains might have sought symmetry and order and
cyclical phenomena elsewhere -- crystals or flowers, perhaps.
But the sky is an obvious repository of order.
Its effects on our brains is shown by the antiquity of astronomy and
the presence of celestial imagery everywhere in ancient times.
"What we see in the lights overhead," Krupp says, "is
the itinerary of cosmic order ... It defines what is sacred and makes the sky
the domain of the gods." (E.
C. Krupp, Echoes of the Ancient Skies, The Astronomy of Lost Civilizations,
1983.)
60. "If we are
seeking immortality," Krupp says, "the sky is a good place to start.
We see endless repetition there. Although
we know that we ourselves will die, we see the sun, moon and stars survive
night after night, month after month, year after year.
They may disappear, but their absences are only temporary.....
We see a fundamental pattern in the celestial realm and frame from it
what seems to be the cycle of cosmic order and the way of the world:
creation-growth-death-rebirth. We
seek our own past, present, and future in that cycle."
Of course we also see the cycle of birth-growth-death-rebirth in
vegetation, but this is seen to follow movements in the sky, which are more
certain and superior. Contemplation
and worship of celestial beings and their actions are an antidote to
chaos."
61. "Celestial order," says Krupp, "generally was
transfused into human society in ancient times through the sovereignty of the
ruler. The mandate of heaven
sanctified kingship. By invoking the sky, kings and their institutions gained
special authority and meaning." The
sky "is the door of perception to cosmic order."
However, its cycles are not simple.
This leads to complicated calendars.
Dealing with this complexity was a duty of central authorities.
Ultimate responsibility for the calendar might belong to the pharaoh,
the king, the emperor. His power
was thus enhanced because he was in league with the sky.
Celebrations of celestial renewal allowed ancient peoples to
participate in the rhythm of cosmic order, and also to promote terrestrial
renewal and stability. Usually, a
king acquired his authority through the mandate of heaven, the source of
order. But the king and his
people also had to re-energize the sky. Their
temples were made sacred as metaphors of cosmic order.
Entire cities and ritual centers were astronomically aligned and
organized. Krupp says:
"Beijing is the only world capital still laid out according to a
sacred cosmological plan... the
cosmological motive behind the city's layout is known and preserved.
Even today, the monuments of the secular government of the People's
Republic of China adhere to the ancient sacred plan.
The flagpole in Tian an men Square, the Monument to the People's
Heroes, and Mao Ze Dong's Mausoleum all occupy stations on the city's main
axis, between the Tian an men and the Qian men, two great gates of old
Imperial Beijing." (Krupp,
ibid., p. 15, 22, 63, 74-75, 96, 141, 183, 196, 259, 315.)
62. From the 1st century A.D.:
" ..... stetit unus in arcem
erectus capitis victorque ad sidera mittit
sidereos oculos propiusque aspectat Olympum
inquiritque Iovem; nec sola fronte deorum
contentus manet, et caelum scrutator in alvo
cognatumque sequens corpus se quaerit in astris.
..... perspice vires,
quas ratio, non pondus, habet: ratio omnia vincit."
"Only man stands on a hill with his head raised up, sending his
starry eyes in triumph to the stars, looking more closely at the
heavens, and searching for God. He isn't content with the outward
God, but examines heaven's womb. Following bodies akin to his
own, he looks for himself in the stars ..... consider the power
which reason has and gravity doesn't: reason conquers everything."
(Manilius, Astronomica, a treatise on astrology and simple
astronomy written about 10 A.D., text edited by G. P. Goold
(1972).)
63. From the late 20th century A.D.:
"All of chemistry, beyond hydrogen and helium, and therefore,
all of life has been formed by stellar evolution.
In other words, with the exception of hydrogen, everything in our
bodies and brains has been produced in the thermonuclear reactions within
stars which later exploded in galactic space." (Benjamin Gal-Or, Cosmology,
Physics, and Philosophy, 1981, p. 352.)