Reflections upon Ancient and Modern Learning/Chapter 26
CHAP. XXVI.
Of Ancient and Modern Natural Philosophy.
HAving gone through with the most considerable Branches of Natural and Mathematical Knowledge, I am now to enquire into the Comparative Excellency of Ancient and Modern Books of Philosophy, thereby to see in which of them Nature, and its Operations, are explained best. Here I shall first enquire into the several Methods of Philosophizing; and afterwards, into the Intrinsick Worth of the Doctrines themselves. Moderns here are taken in a very strict Sence. I shall mention none who have made any (a) Pag. 44.(a) Entries upon this noble Stage of Nature above LXXX. Years ago, since the Time of those first Flights of the Restorers of Learning, that are so exceedingly applauded by Sir William Temple. For Natural Philosophy was the last Part of Knowledge which was cultivated with any particular Care, upon the Revival of Learning; though Natural History, which is a principal Ground-work, had been long before increasing, and a considerable Heap of Materials had been collected, in order to the Work.
As for Modern Methods of Philosophizing, as compared with the Ancient, I shall only observe these following Particulars. (1.) No Arguments are received as cogent, no Principles are allowed as current, amongst the celebrated Philosophers of the present Age, but what are in themselves intelligible; that so a Man may frame an Idea of them, of one sort or other. Matter and Motion, with their several Qualities, are only considered in Modern Solutions of Physical Problems. Substantial Forms, Occult Qualities (b)(b) Pag. 46., Intentional Species, Idiosyncrasies, Sympathies and Antipathies of Things, are exploded; not because they are Terms used by Ancient Philosophers, but because they are only empty Sounds, Words whereof no Man can form a certain and determinate Idea. (2.) Forming of Sects and Parties in Philosophy, that shall take their Denominations from, and think themselves obliged to stand by the Opinions of any particular Philosophers, is, in a manner, wholly laid aside. Des Cartes is not more believed upon his own Word, than Aristotle: Matter of Fact is the only Thing appealed to; and Systems are little further regarded, than as they are proper to instruct young Beginners, who must have a general Notion of the whole Work, before they can sufficiently comprehend any particular Part of it; and who must be taught to reason by the Solutions of other Men, before they can be able to give Rational Solutions of their own: In which Case, a false Hypothesis, ingeniously contrived, may now and then do as much Service as a true one. (3.) Mathematicks are joyned along with Physiology, not only as Helps to Men's Understandings, and Quickners of their Parts; but as absolutely necessary to the comprehending of the Oeconomy of Nature, in all her Works. (4.) The new Philosophers, as they are commonly called, avoid making general Conclusions, till they have collected a great Number of Experiments or Observations upon the Thing in hand; and, as new Light comes in the old Hypotheses, fall without any Noise or Stir. So that the Inferences that are made from any Enquiries into Natural Things, though perhaps set down in general Terms, yet are (as it were by Consent) received with this Tacit Reserve, As far as the Experiments or Observations already made, will warrant.
How much these Four Things will enlarge Natural Philosophy is easie to guess. I do not say that none of these things were anciently done; but only that they were not then so general. The Corpuscular Philosophy is in all Probability the oldest, and its Principles are those intelligible ones I just now commended. But its Foundations being very large, and requiring much Time, Cost, and Patience to build any great Matters upon, it soon fell; before it seems to have been throughly understood. For it seems evident, That Epicurus minded nothing but the raising of a Sect, which might talk as plausibly as those of Aristotle, or Plato, since he despised all Manner of Learning, even Mathematicks themselves, and gloried in this, that he spun all his Thoughts out of his own Brain; a good Argument of his Wit indeed, but a very ordinary one of that Skill in Nature, which Lucretius extols in him every time that he takes Occasion to speak of him. The whole Ancient Philosophy looks like a thing of Ostentation and Pomp, otherwise I cannot understand why Plato should reprove Eudoxus and Archytas, for trying to make their Skill in Geometry useful in Matters of civil Life, by inventing of Instruments of publick Advantage; or think that those sublime Truths were debased when the unlearned part of Mankind have been the better for them. And therefore, as Plutarch complains in his Life of Marcellus, Mechanical Arts were despised by Geometers till Archimedes's Time: Now though this be particularly spoken there by Plutarch of the making of Instruments of Defence and Offence in War, yet it is also applicable to all the Ancient Philosophy and Mathematicks in general. The old Philosophers seemed still to be afraid that the common People should despise their Arts if commonly understood; this made them keep for the most Part to those Studies which required few Hands and Mechanical Tools to compleat them: Which to any Man that has a right Notion of the Extent of a natural Philosopher's Work, will appear absolutely necessary. Above all, the Ancients did not seem sufficiently to understand the Connection between Mathematical Proportions of Lines and Solids, in an abstracted Proposition, and in every Part of the Creation; at least in their reasonings about the Causes of Natural Things, they did not take any great pains to shew it. When Galen was to give an Account of Vision in his Books (c) De U. P. lib. X. cap. 12, 13, 14.(c) De Usu Partium, because he had Occasion to use some few Geometrical Terms, as Cone, Axis, Triangle, and the like; he makes a long Excuse, and tells a tedious Story of a Daemon that appeared to him, and commanded him to write what he did; and all this least the Physicians of that Age should think that he conjured, and so take a Prejudice against all that he said. This shews that in Galen's Time at least, there was little Correspondence between Mathematical and Physical Sciences, and that Mankind did not believe that there was so intimate a Relation between them as it is now generally known there is. Many a Man that cannot demonstrate any one single Proposition in Euclid, takes it now for granted that Geometry is of infinite Use to a Philosopher; and it is believed now upon trust, because it is become an Axiom amongst the Learned in these Matters. And if it had been so received in Galen's Time, or by those more ancient Authors, whom Galen's Contemporaries followed, or pretended at least to follow, as their Patterns; such as Hippocrates, whom all sides reverenced, Herophilus, Erasistratus, Asclepiades, and several more, there would have been no need of any Excuses for what he was doing; since his Readers being accustomed to such sort of Reasonings, would either readily have understood them, or acquiesced in them as legitimate Ways of Proof. If Three, or Four Mathematical Terms were so affrighting, how would those learned Discourses of Steno and Croone, concerning muscular Motion have moved them? How much would they have been amazed at such minute Calculations of the Motive-strength of all sorts of Muscles in the several general sorts of Animals, as require very great Skill in Geometry, even to understand them, which are made by Borellus in his Discourses of the Motion of Animals? It is not enough in this Case, to quote a Saying or Two out of some great Man amongst the Ancients, or to tell us that Plato said long ago, That God geometrizes in all his Works; as long as no Man can produce any one Ancient Essay upon any one Part of Physiology, where Mathematical Ratiocinations were introduced to salve those Phaenomena of Natural Things, upon which it was possible to talk plausibly without their Help. At least it is certain, That they contented themselves with general Theories, without entring into minute Disquisitions into the several varieties of Things, as is evident in the Two Cases already alledged, of Vision and Muscular Motion. Now as this Method of Philosophizing laid down above, is right, so it is easie to prove that it has been carefully followed by Modern Philosophers. My Lord Bacon was the first great Man who took much pains to convince the World that they had hitherto been in a wrong Path, and that Nature her self, rather than her Secretaries, was to be addressed to by those who were desirous to know very much of her Mind. Monsieur Des Cartes, who came soon after, did not perfectly tread in his Steps, since he was for doing most of his Work in his Closet, concluding too soon, before he had made Experiments enough; but then to a vast Genius he joined exquisite Skill in Geometry, and working upon intelligible Principles in an intelligible Manner; though he very often failed of one Part of his End, namely, a right Explication of the Phænomena of Nature, yet by marrying Geometry and Physicks together, he put the World in Hopes of a Masculine Off-spring in process of Time, though the first Productions should prove abortive. This was the State of Natural Philosophy, when those great Men who after King Charles II's Restoration joined in a Body, called by that Prince himself, the ROYAL SOCIETY, went on with the Design; they made it their Business to set their Members a work to collect a perfect History of Nature, in order to establish thereupon a Body of Physicks; what has been done towards it by the Members of that illustrious Body will be evident by considering that Boyle, Barrow, Newton, Huygens, Malpighius, Leeuwenhoek, Willoughby, Willis, and Abundance more already named amongst the great Advancers of real Learning, have belonged to it: If it shall be thought too tedious a Work to examine all their Writings, Mr. Boyle's Works, any one good System of the Cartesian Philosophy, Monsieur Rohault's for Instance, or to comprehend all under one, a Book Intituled, Philosophia Vetus & Nova ad Usum Scholæ accommodata, may be consulted, and then it will be evident enough of which Side the Verdict ought to be given; in the last Book especially it is evident how very little the Ancients did in all Parts of Natural Philosophy, and what a great Compass it at present takes, since it makes the Comparison I all along appeal to.
Thus, it seems to me to be very evident, That the Ancients Knowledge in all Matters relating to Mathematicks and Physicks was incomparably inferiour to that of the Moderns. These are Subjects, many of them at least, which require great Intenseness of Thought, great Strength and Clearness of Imagination, even only to understand them, how much more then to invent them? The Ancient Orators, who spoke so great things in Praise of Eloquence, who make it so very hard a thing to be an Orator, had little or no Notion of the Difficulty of these Sciences; the Romans especially who despised what they did not understand, and who did not without some Indignation learn of a People whom themselves had conquered. But if they could have conceived what a Force of Genius is required to invent such Propositions as are to be found in the Writings of their own Mathematicians, and of the Modern Geometers and Philosophers, they would soon have acknowledged that there was need of as great at least, if not greater Strength of Parts and Application to do very considerable things in these Sciences as in their own admired Eloquence, which was never more artfully employed than in commending it self: The Panegyricks which they made upon Geometry, were rather Marks of their Pedantry than of their Skill; Plato and Pythagoras admired them, and therefore they did so too, out of a blind Reverence to those great Names. Otherwise amongst those numerous Commendations which are given to Archimedes, some would have been spent upon the many noble Theorems which he discovered, and not almost all upon the Engines wherewith he baffled Marcellus at the Siege of Syracuse. The Proposition, That the Superficies of a Sphere is equal to the Area's of Four of its greatest Circles, which is one of the most wonderful Inventions that was ever found in Geometry, shews him to have been a much greater Man, than all that is said of him by the Roman, or Greek Historians. Had experimental Philosophy been anciently brought upon the Stage, had Geometry been solemnly and generally applied to the Mechanism of Nature, and not solely made use of to instruct Men in the Art of Reasoning, and even that too, not very generally neither, the Moderns would not have had so great Reason to boast as now they have: For these are things which come under ocular Demonstration, which do not depend upon the Fancies of Men for their Approbation, as Oratory and Poetry very often do. So that one may not only in general say that the Ancients are out-done by the Moderns in these Matters, but also assign most of the particulars, and determine the Proportion wherein and how far they have been exceeded, and shew the several Steps whereby this sort of Learning has from Age to Age received Improvement; which ends Disputes and satisfies the Understanding at once.