The role of Hermeticism in the rise of modern science
A major question in the history and philosophy of science is why science developed so rapidly in the middle sixteenth and the early seventeenth century. Some of the most influential explanations for this phenomenon have been the influence of Puritan values on the scientific ethos, the merging of the craft and scholarly traditions and the influence of the Renaissance artist-engineer. Recently there has been another influential and controversial explanation for the rise of science: Frances Yates’ thesis. She gives significant credit for the rise of science to the revival of Hermetic philosophy and its new image of man and our relation to nature and the cosmos. Yates’ thesis has stirred much interest and debate and many scholars now agree that Yates is at least partially right. The main point of this paper is that the Yates thesis has much to contribute to our understanding of the development of modern science but only when it is significantly limited in scope and only when Hermeticism’s discontinuities with science are emphasized.
I will begin by explaining Hermeticism and its revival in Florence by the philosopher Ficino in the fifteenth century. Then I will lay out Yates’ claims concerning how Hermeticism was essential to the rise of science. After this I will look at Westman’s criticism of the Yates thesis and follow Kuhn in modifying the thesis to apply only to the experimental sciences. Next I will look at a figure who was heavily influenced by Hermeticism, Paracelsus, and show how he made significant contributions to the ethos of experimental science. After showing the valuable contribution to experimental science that Hermeticism made, I will conclude by showing that Baconian science itself only became possible when Bacon rejected many of the features of Hermetic magic and significantly transformed many of its elements. So while Yates is right that Hermeticism is a good explanation for some aspects of the rise of modern science, one also has to emphasize the discontinuities between science and magic if one is to understand the rise of science. Rossi is right that in counterbalancing most earlier histories of science which totally emphasized the discontinuity between magic and science, Yates has gone too far the other way and has not sufficiently emphasized the fact that scientists such as Bacon significantly transformed the goals and ideas of the Hermetic and Paracelsian traditions in order to develop modern science.
Hermeticism originated in Alexandria between the second and fourth century CE and its most important work is the Hermetic corpus, a group of diverse works which claimed to be written by Hermes Trismegistus. This Hermes was supposed to be a real person, an Egyptian priest, and his works were considered to be the source of the most ancient wisdom given to man. Both the Hebrews and the Greeks were thought to have known this ancient wisdom but it was considered to have been lost over time. A significant part of the prestige of the Hermetic works was due to the fact that they were seen as the earliest and most complete revelation God gave prior to the Christian Gospels.[i] Here it is important to emphasize that the Hermetic works were seen as being harmonious with the Bible because they were both revelations from God. Thus someone like Paracelsus could be a Hermetic thinker and still derive significant aspects of his doctrines and values from the Bible.
Hermeticism was not well known in the West after the fall of the Roman Empire until Ficino translated the Hermetic works in the mid fifteenth century. The fact that he put aside translating Plato to translate these works shows how important these works were considered to be. Because of these translations, these works became widespread and influenced many Renaissance philosophers.
Central to Yates’ thesis is the claim that these Hermetic treatises and their view of man was essential to the rise of modern experimental science. Before exploring this thesis though, it is necessary to identify some of the essential features of Hermeticism.
The first characteristic of these treatises is Hermeticism’s strong emphasis on God as the maker or craftsman. This emphasis on God as the craftsman is continually raised throughout the Hermetica where God is primarily described as a craftsman.[ii] “God’s other name is father because he is capable of making all things. Making is characteristic of a father.”[iii] This of course could be said of the God who makes the Earth in Genesis. The Hermetica goes much farther than Genesis though in advocating the idea that God is primarily a maker. For it maintains that unless God makes, he does not exist. For it is God’s “essence to be pregnant with all things and to make them. As it is impossible for anything to be produced without a maker, so also is it impossible for this maker [not] to exist always unless he is always making everything in heaven, in the air, on earth, in the deep, in every part of the cosmos.”[iv] Furthermore, God is not a contemplator, but a doer. “God’s activity is will, and his essence is to will all things.”[v]
A second characteristic of the Hermetica is the sacralization of nature. God is not outside nature but an integral part of it. “For there is nothing in the cosmos that he is not. He is himself the things that are . . . he is all-bodied. There is nothing that he is not, for he also is all that is.”[vi] God is everything and there is nothing besides God, including matter. “Whether you say matter or body or essence, know that these also are energies of God . . . for God is all. And the all permeates everything and surrounds everything.”[vii] God is what he makes and if things were parted from God, “all things would collapse of necessity, all would die since there would be no life.”[viii] As God is all, this position leads to a position close to the Spinozistic one of identifying God and the cosmos. “God’s glory is one, that he makes all things, and this making is like the body of God.”[ix]
These first two ideas lead to the interesting proposition that God is never idle. “What else might he do [but] make? God is not idle, else everything would be idle, for each and everything is full of God. Nowhere in the cosmos nor in any other thing is there idleness.”[x] Further, so powerful is the idea that God is not idle, the Hermetica arrives at the position that “if God is idle, he is no longer God.”[xi]
A third characteristic of the Hermetic works is the tremendous importance and dignity of man. “For the human is a godlike living thing, not comparable to the other living things of the earth but to those in heaven above, who are called gods.”[xii] Indeed this characterization of man as being as good as the gods is not the full extent of the praise that the Hermetic works gives to man; for the works go even farther.
If one dare to tell the truth- the one who is really human is above these gods as well, or at least they are wholly equal in power to one another. . . . Therefore we must dare to say that the human on earth is a mortal god but that god in heaven is an immortal human.[xiii]
Thus “mankind certainly deserves admiration, as the greatest of all beings.”[xiv]
A fourth characteristic of Hermeticism is that mankind is meant to be the caretaker for God in the world. For God has shaped mankind to tend “earthly beings and govern them.”[xv] “God is the maker of the world and all it contains, governing all things along with mankind, who governs what is composite {those things with composite nature of divine and material elements}.”[xvi] Man is likGod as man is created in the father’s image and thus God bestowed on man authority over the things in his sphere.[xvii] Furthermore, the seven “governors loved the man, and each gave a share of his own order.”[xviii] So in this creation story, man “has authority over all things.”[xix]
In Genesis, the people are exiled from the garden and suffer a tremendous fall when they try to understand. On the other hand, in the Hermetic works, there is a new element to the story. For after the creation of light and the elements of nature, then God creates the Seven Governors or seven planets and the lower elemental world depends on these Governors.[xx] Most significantly, these Governors then gave dominion over part of nature to man. Thus the Hermetic corpus has man expressing his divinity by ruling over nature. Man is in immediate and powerful contact with the elements of nature and the truly divine man uses this power to rule over nature.[xxi]
A fifth significant characteristic of Hermeticism is the Hermetic emphasis on knowledge. While in Genesis people are punished for attempting to gain knowledge, learning and growing in knowledge is highly encouraged in the Hermetic creation story. For in this tradition, man becomes like God as he knows more, and even more importantly as he uses this knowledge to emulate God’s creation.[xxii] Furthermore, to exercise this authority, man needs to learn the arts and sciences. For only if he does this can he preserve this earthly part of the world that he is supposed to rule over. For God willed the world to be incomplete without these arts and sciences.[xxiii] When man learns arts and sciences and maintains the world man is doing God’s will. “Seeing that the world is God’s work, one who attentively preserves and enriches its beauty conjoins his work with God’s will when, lending his body in daily work and care, he arranges the scene formed by God’s divine intention.”[xxiv]
While the philosophy of the Hermetica is related to Plato’s metaphysics and Plotinus’ Neoplatonism, it is a mistake to see Hermeticism as merely Neoplatonism. While Plato emphasized, especially in the Phaedo and the Republic, that the world was merely a shadow of the real realm of the forms and the philosopher would be contemptuous of this world and commune with the higher world, and Plotinus emphasized the soul’s ascent to God, the Hermetica saw this world as very good. For the Hermetica emphasized that the world was an aspect of God or the body of God. This metaphysical difference led to a tremendously changed attitude of how man should relate to the world. For because the world was good, it was not our work to escape the world to a more divine realm, but to govern the world and create in it. Thus there was a completely different attitude in the Hermetica towards the world and the things in it than in Plato and Neoplatonism.
The Hermetic theology in which the world was sacred and man has authority over the world led to an attitude which emphasized man working in the world. Thus the highest value in the Hermetic tradition is imitating god and participating in creation by actively working in the world.
Renaissance Hermeticism also emphasizes a particular way of working in the world: performing magical practices. While the Hermetica that Ficino translated has relatively little to say about magic, there were other more popular Hermetic works which emphasized alchemy and magic. These more popular works are associated with the Hermetica but are much more concerned with the practical details of performing magic.[xxv]
Magic may be characterized as the utilization of occult forces for specific desired ends often by means of words and symbols.[xxvi] So for a magician, the aim is some real accomplishment, not mere knowledge or understanding and because of this instrumentality, magic is a technology not a science.[xxvii] The theological doctrine that linked the Hermetic theology with magic was the idea that there was a uniform font of force for all things in the world.[xxviii] This uniform font of force established a connection between things on Earth and things in the heavens and one could utilize this connection for practical purposes.
Hermetic magic involved specific doctrines about the nature of the connections between all things. First of all, the magicians thought that there was an analogy between man, the microcosm, and the universe, the macrocosm. There was also a natural sympathy and antipathy between various parts of the universe. These occult sympathies were especially important because the magician could utilize them in performing cures. Furthermore, in order to identify these occult sympathies, one had to understand the signatures or marks identifying the connections between various aspects of nature.
While there was a link between the terrestrial and celestial realms in Hermetic magic, it was necessary to do experiments and discover the signatures or signs which revealed the linkage between the plants and minerals which corresponded with the proper celestial bodies.[xxix] Because these signatures of connection were identifiable, the Renaissance scholars embarked on a fresh investigation of nature and its properties.[xxx] For this reason book learning with its reliance on Galen and Aristotle was tremendously discouraged and instead the observation of nature was strongly encouraged.[xxxi] Included in this rejection of book learning was also a strong rejection of authority and indeed it has been said that the first battle of the scientific revolution was between Paracelsus and Galen, not Copernicus and Ptolemy. It is important to point out that for the Paracelsians one could not understand these linkages between things in the celestial and earthly realm through human reason alone. In order to discover these linkages one had to go beyond reason to a sympathetic seeing into the substances which often included illumination through the grace of God.[xxxii] For the Paracelsians, this sympathetic seeing was possible because of the microcosmic-macrocosmic analogy. For because of this doctrine, it was thought man contained within himself representations of all things in the outer world. Thus a person could have an act of sympathetic attraction between the external object and the inner representation in his own constitution and through this process make discoveries about the external world.[xxxiii]
This impulse against reason and for observation is reinforced because nature shows itself in an interminable diversity and we cannot perceive it through abstract principles; instead we have to observe and experiment.[xxxiv] For in order to identify a sign, one needed to do experimental work as only through distillation could one separate the pure essence of a plant from the gross outer substance of it.[xxxv] The Paracelsians saw themselves as searching out the secrets of nature and like the Puritans they thought they could understand God through understanding the book of nature.[xxxvi] This led to an “almost evangelistic zeal of the Paracelsians toward fresh observations and experiments.”[xxxvii] For Paracelsus and his followers, science and observing nature became a form of divine service and a quest for God.[xxxviii]
In general the magicians wanted to utilize the connection between celestial and terrestrial elements for their own purposes here on Earth. Hermeticism emphasized magic and the practical work of a person performing magical actions to effect cures, make miraculous things happen, and even more significantly it emphasized that “this magical power enables man to participate in the maintenance of cosmic order.”[xxxix] Hermeticism was a practical way of doing things on Earth and often included alchemy, which was thought of as the Hermetic science par excellence.[xl]
Yates claims that this newly translated Hermeticism was very important for the rise of modern science. For she identifies certain people such as Bruno, Campanella, Fludd, Dee, Paracelsus, and Agrippa as Renaissance magicians who were heavily influenced by the Hermetic works. Furthermore she maintains that it is the Renaissance magus “who exemplifies that changed attitude of man to the cosmos which was the necessary preliminary to the rise of science.”[xli] Yates presents this as a truly new conception of man’s relation to the cosmos. For the first time in the Christian world, man is seen as the operator and manipulator of cosmic processes and he does this through natural magic.[xlii] We see this attitude in Paracelsus: “When a man undertakes to create something, he establishes a new heaven, as it were, . . . for such is the immensity of man that he is greater than heaven and earth.”[xliii] Yates claims that this operator, whose religious duty was to act in the world and manipulate natural forces, “was the immediate ancestor of the seventeenth-century scientist.”[xliv] This is the central point of her thesis and she maintains that this new attitude towards the world arising from Hermeticism was the chief stimulus turning man towards the world and developing the attitude of operating on it.[xlv] Yates’ thesis is that this new attitude toward the world was necessary for the rise of science and Hermeticism was necessary for the development of this new attitude.[xlvi] Significantly for the impact of Hermeticism on the development of science, there is also a major difference between the Hermetic and the Aristotelian tradition because the Aristotelian philosophers did not seek power over the natural world, but the Hermetic natural philosophers, like the later corpuscularians, did.[xlvii]
Yates’ view of the contribution of magic to science is quite different from previous conceptions which considered magic childish, embarrassing and irrelevant to the development of science. While the Yates thesis has not received the unanimous endorsement of historians of science, eminent historians and philosophers of science such as T. S. Kuhn recognize that Yates is pointing out something important about the rise of science.[xlviii] Indeed after modifying the thesis in a way I will discuss later, Kuhn writes that science’s “initial impetus to power over nature through manipulative and instrumental techniques was doubtless supported by Hermeticism.”[xlix]
It was not only because of a new attitude towards nature that Hermeticism was important. For Yates maintains that Hermeticism was important in developing a new attitude towards mathematics and mechanics- two essential elements in the development of science. At this time, Hermeticists regarded mechanics as a branch of mathematical magic.[l] Thus the Hermetic movement encouraged applied science, including mechanics. This encouragement is illustrated by such things as John Dee’s mechanical inventions.[li] The interest in mathematics grew even more when Pico synthesized the Egyptian, Hermetic magic with the Jewish, Cabalistic number magic.[lii] For in this new synthesis between the Cabala and Hermetic magic, numbers were assigned to various things such as Hebrew letters and the planets and angels. Then through rites and incantations, one could allegedly perform magical marvelous things.[liii]
While this new notion of man as an operator who used math and the crafts is the center of Yates’ thesis, she also maintains that there was a second phase to Hermeticism. This second phase was the Rosicrucian phase which was the link between the real scientists (as we now define the term) and the magician.[liv] (Here it is important to point out that Yates is not asserting that the Rosicrucians ever existed, but is only claiming that the Rosicrucians were a type of a person. Furthermore, she gives John Dee, Campanella, and Andreae and the later Paracelsians as examples of this type of person.[lv]) This Rosicrucian type develops from the influence of Paracelsus and his followers. According to Yates (and we shall see evidence for this later in the writings of Paracelsus) the Rosicrucian type is not interested in magic for his own gain, but for the good of all people. Because of this he heals the sick for free. The Rosicrucians not only use their powers for the good of all, but they also call for collaboration and cooperation for the greater good.[lvi] Thus, in a poorly worded passage, the Rosicrucian manifesto the Fama Fraternitatis castigates the magicians of Europe for not sharing their discoveries. “As there is nowadays in Germany no want of learned men, magicians, Cabalists, physicians, and philosophers, were there but more love and kindness among them, or that the most part of them would not keep their secrets close only to themselves.”[lvii] So while the mage demands secrecy concerning his endeavors, the Rosicrucians call for the sharing of knowledge and helps develop the idea of scientific sharing and collaboration.
Before I critically consider the Yates thesis, there is a major reason why Yates’ thesis is taken seriously as a possible explanation for the rise of science: it offers a plausible explanation for the interesting, or distressing fact (depending on one’s view) that so many of the major scientists had Hermetic tendencies. While there is no doubt that these scientists had an ambivalent attitude towards magic, there also is no doubt that almost all the major scientists till Newton had significant ideas or attitudes that were influenced by Hermeticism or movements rather close to it. (Galileo and Descartes are the major exceptions. Nevertheless there are some tangential connections. Galileo at least when he was younger, referred favorably to the microcosm-macrocosm analogy[lviii] and Descartes’ dream of universal science of nature with mathematics as the key is reminiscent of the dreams so popular in contemporary alchemical literature.[lix]) Copernicus included in his major work a paean to the sun which characterizes the sun as a visible god and this seems to be a quotation from Hermetical works as Copernicus ascribes it to [Hermes] Trismegistus.[lx] Paracelsus’ work in chemistry was tremendously influenced by his magical beliefs in the sympathy of all things. Gilbert’s magnetism seems very likely to be influenced by the Hermeticist notion of the world spirit and Gilbert himself proclaims his agreement with the master magicians of antiquity.[lxi] Kepler had his regular solids and their connection to the planets’ distance from the sun. Bacon was much influenced by alchemy and magic and the utopian reform projects of the Rosicrucians and similar groups.[lxii] Mersenne by the 1630′s was “by no means unfavourably disposed towards alchemy and cabala”[lxiii] and he even suggested the establishment of reformed alchemical academies in each kingdom.[lxiv] Harvey’s idea on the circulation of the blood also shows the impact of magical and alchemical influences on scientists seeking microcosmic analogues to the macrocosm.[lxv] Even Boyle believed in alchemy and the transmutation of gold and was true to the alchemical tradition in keeping his alchemical work secret.[lxvi] Bruno believed that Christianity had destroyed the true Egyptian, Hermetic religion and had put a worse form of religion in its place.[lxvii] Finally Newton evidently spent more time on alchemy than on his more conventionally scientific endeavors and it has even been said that, far from his alchemy being a sideline, his scientific work was actually the sideline and it was only by combining the active principle of Hermeticism with mechanism that he developed the idea of gravity.[lxviii] There has to be some way of dealing with these facts and Yates’ thesis gains plausibility by offering one way of explaining the close interconnection of magical and scientific activities among so many great modern scientists.
Having stated the main elements of Yates’ thesis, I will now develop a major criticism of it and show how the thesis must be modified to encompass only the experimental sciences. Then I will consider how Hermeticism contributed to the development of experimental science using Paracelsus as an example. Finally I will reconsider Yates’ emphasis on the continuity of magic and science by looking at the many transformations Bacon had to make in the magical tradition in order to develop a significant part of the basis for modern science.
A significant criticism of the Yates’ thesis was developed by Robert Westman. Westman mistakenly states that central to the Yates thesis is two claims.[lxix] The first claim is that Bruno and other Hermeticists perceived Copernicus’ heliocentric cosmos as a magical symbol which could lead to political and religious reform. The second claim is that in adopting and Hermeticizing Copernicus’ theory, these Hermeticists helped pave the way for the mathematization and mechanization of the cosmos. While Westman does not deal with the central point of the Yates thesis[lxx] which is the contention that Hermeticism brought in a new attitude about how man should relate to the cosmos, nevertheless Westman’s criticism reveals a major gap in her thesis. For Westman does a masterful job of showing that Hermeticism played no significant role in the reception of the Copernican hypothesis by the Hermeticists. Because of this, Westman has shown that the Copernican revolution has little to do with Hermeticism.
While Yates’ defenders could say that Hermeticism helped the acceptance of the mathematization of the cosmos, it is not necessary to ascribe this to Hermeticism; for this could easily come merely from Neoplatonism or a revived Pythagoreanism with its emphasis on number. Rosen develops this point when he shows that there is no need to say Copernicus’ often mentioned salutations to the sun were Hermetically influenced.[lxxi] The mathematics associated with the Pythagorean/Platonic revival would be sufficient for explaining Copernicus’ theory and its development especially as there is much evidence Copernicus and Kepler had many Pythagorean tendencies while there is little or no evidence they had any specifically Hermetic tendencies. Furthermore, Kepler was explicitly opposed to many of the Hermetic ideas as he made clear in his controversy with Fludd.[lxxii] Thus there is no need to bring in the Hermetic material in explaining the Copernican revolution as there is no evidence that those who were most involved with the change in astronomy -Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo- had any interests in Hermetic magical practices.
While Westman’s masterful survey diminishes the importance of Hermeticism to the rise of science, there is an acceptable way of modifying the Yates’ thesis. This position is advocated by Kuhn in his article “Mathematical and Experimental Traditions in the Development of Physical Science.” In this article he delineates the difference between two different scientific traditions and then maintains that the Yates thesis is applicable to only one of these traditions. The first scientific tradition Kuhn delineates is that of the sciences that were known in antiquity. These “classical sciences” were mathematics, astronomy, harmonics, optics, statics and the study of motion. These classical sciences were heavily mathematical and they had a continuous history of study and development from antiquity. Kuhn also points out that there was a second scientific tradition which was more experimental and less mathematical and it developed during the early modern period. While early science was experimental in a very limited way, a new type of experimental tradition arose at the beginning of modern times. The major difference between the two traditions of science was that the classical sciences were seen as mathematical while the new Baconian ones were viewed as experimental and had a significant tie to the crafts. Furthermore, the practitioners of the new experimental sciences disliked math and its deductive features.[lxxiii]
As I pointed out above, there seems to be little need to ascribe the progress in astronomy to Hermeticism. Furthermore Hermeticism played no role in the development of mechanics because its central figure, Galileo, was notably not influenced by Hermetic ideas. As the developments in astronomy and mechanics are usually considered the mainspring of the scientific revolution concerning the classical sciences, and Hermeticism did not contribute to this development, it is clear that Hermeticism did not significantly contribute to the scientific revolution in these classical sciences. While Hermetic movements may have helped promote the math that was associated with the classical sciences and helped encourage the quest for mathematical regularities that Kepler was looking for, there is no need to ascribe this influence to Hermeticism instead of to a revival of Pythagoreanism or Neoplatonism in general as there is nothing distinctly Hermetic about these doctrines.[lxxiv] While it is true that the natural sympathies and antipathies of Hermetic thought do help fill the void in theory that was caused by the demise of the Aristotelian spheres[lxxv] and Ficino’s magical theory also reduced the gulf between the sublunary realms and the supralunary realms,[lxxvi] unless it can be shown that the important mathematical impetus comes exclusively from Hermeticism and is due to its influence, it is not yet possible to claim much significant Hermetic influence on the classical sciences.
The experimental tradition is a different story though. Furthermore, with this distinction between the classical, mathematical sciences and the new Baconian, craft-inspired experimental sciences in mind, the Yates thesis can be modified. In this modified form it is not claiming that Hermeticism is an essential factor in the rise of science in general, but only that it was a very important factor in the rise and development of the Baconian, experimental sciences.
Just as it is hard to get clear about what Hermeticism is, it is also hard to get clear about what exactly science is. So Lindberg in his attempt to explain the nature of science says that scholars have not reached a general consensus about the nature of science.[lxxvii] Hall, when he tries to explain what science is, gives a list of four traits of modern science.[lxxviii] First, science demands rigorous standards in observation and experiment. Second, it excludes spiritual and occult powers and instead deals with only material entities. Third, it makes a firm distinction between the theories that have been confirmed by multiple evidence, those that are tentative hypotheses, and those that are unconfirmed speculations. Fourth it “presents not a possible or plausible picture of nature, but one in which all available facts are given their logical, orderly places.” Nevertheless Hall himself did not continue to maintain the view that these characteristics were always the way to judge what constitutes modern science and what does not. For while in the first edition of his book Hall states that these four traits “are the most important characteristics of modern science,” in the considerably revised later edition of this same book, he gives a modified list.[lxxix] Furthermore, he himself in this later book points out that one important characteristic of science, that of excluding spiritual agencies, was finally established only late in the nineteenth century.[lxxx] Thus it is very difficult to establish exactly the nature of science. Thankfully, for my efforts in this paper, Yates is not claiming that the work of the magicians was science, only that it was necessary in providing the basis for science. Thus I do not have to establish that the magicians’ work has characteristics of science per se, but only that Hermeticism played an essential role in the rise of experimental Baconian science.
There is much evidence to support this modified thesis. First the Hermetic tradition had a significant role in promoting the interest in phenomena that were a very important aspect of the development of the experimental sciences. Thus the importance given to occult sympathies in the Hermetic tradition is one reason there was a growing interest in magnetism and chemistry after the mid-sixteenth century.[lxxxi] As I stated earlier, Harvey’s view of the circulation of the blood also shows the impact of magical and alchemical influences on scientists because they sought microcosmic analogues to the macrocosm.[lxxxii] Furthermore, it is quite possible that this Hermetic interest in occult sympathies played a vital role in that most important of all scientific syntheses of the period- Newton’s theory of gravity.[lxxxiii]
Besides these general contributions to important aspects of the growth of science, there are essential values that Hermeticism contributed to experimental science. These values are an essential part of the scientific ethos and without them the Baconian sciences would not have developed. The best figure to illustrate Hermetic influences on the development of the ethos of experimental science is Paracelsus. For Paracelsus and the Paracelsian tradition contribute many values essential to the ethos of experimental science.
Paracelsus was very much influenced by magic and Hermeticism as the essential aspect of all orthodox Paracelsian thought was the macrocosm-microcosm analogy.[lxxxiv] Thus because man was created in the image of the larger world, real correspondences existed between man and the larger macrocosm. Nevertheless, Paracelsus and his followers were not just influenced by Hermeticism, they were also influenced by the Bible. Here it is important to remember that it was a fundamental feature of Renaissance Hermetic thought that the Bible and Hermeticism were harmonious doctrines as they were both expressions of an ancient wisdom revealed by God. Because Hermetic philosophers assumed that the Hermetic works were a revelation from the Christian God and they were fully compatible with Christian scripture, a thinker influenced by Hermeticism could also derive some of his doctrines from the Bible. Thus thinkers like Paracelsus and his followers, who thoroughly accepted Hermetic doctrines and its emphasis on magic, also accepted the Bible and its doctrines.
This concern for the Bible and its doctrines mark Paracelsus not as a pure Hermeticist mage, but a transitional figure. These transitional figures were influenced by proto-Puritan doctrines and values and they thus had values which were significantly different than the values of earlier magicians who were more purely Hermetic. Yates accommodates these transitional figures in her thesis and calls them Rosicrucian types and says that they are influenced by Paracelsus and his followers. Paracelsus, who lived from 1493 to 1541, is one of these transitional figures and he is the best one to consider as he not only is the originator of this tradition, but he also has many of the same concerns and attitudes as Bacon does and sometimes even expresses himself in similar language.
First, Paracelsus highly encouraged the turn towards learning from nature. For he thought that “only he who receives his experience from nature is a physician, and not he who writes, speaks, and acts with his head and with ratiocinations aimed against nature and her ways.”[lxxxv] “It is nature that teaches the physician . . . the art of healing comes from nature, not from the physician. Therefore the physician must start from nature with an open mind.”[lxxxvi] “The right path does not consist in speculation, but leads deep into experience. From experience the physician receives his help, and upon it rests all his skill. He must have rich knowledge based on experience, for he is born blind and book knowledge has never made a single physician.”[lxxxvii]
Because of this attitude that we must learn from nature, Paracelsus disagrees with the monastic scholar who tries to learn only from books and with his head. “From his head a man cannot learn the theory of medicine, but only from that which his eyes see and his fingers touch.”[lxxxviii] Because the monastic doctrines originate only in speculation, “the monastic scholar remains inexperienced and can never get to the fundament of things, whence everything comes; for this can never be discovered by pure theory. Theory and practice should together form one and should remain undivided.”[lxxxix]
Paracelsus extends this relationship between theory and practice. For he asks
what would you do if your speculation did not jibe with findings based on practice? Both must be true or both must be untrue….both theory and practice rest upon experience. Practice should not be based on speculative theory; theory should be derived from practice. Experience is the judge; if a thing stands the test of experience, it should be accepted; if it does not stand this test, it should be rejected.[xc]
Besides this conception of the relation of theory and practice, Paracelsus saw himself as the servant of nature. “The physician is only the servant of nature, not her master. Therefore it behooves medicine to follow the will of nature.”[xci] The physician does not make things out of his mind or through wild imaginings as some accuse the magician of doing, but he uses what is hidden in nature. Thus the physician/alchemist is one “who knows how to induce nature to be helpful, that is to say, is able to recognize what lies hidden in nature.”[xcii] For Paracelsus the magician is not one who overrides natural processes, but “holy men in God who serve the forces of nature, and they are called magi.”[xciii] Only if we followed the way of nature could we be happy. For “what then is happiness but compliance with the order of nature through knowledge of nature?”
Furthermore Paracelsus also illustrates the turn towards artisans that Bacon also called for more than fifty years later. “Artisans have explored nature and its properties in order to imitate her in all things, and to bring out the highest that is in her. Only in medicine has this been neglected, and therefore it has remained the crudest and clumsiest of all the arts.”[xciv] He further expands this call to be like the artisans by comparing the physicians to miners: “For the Great Physician (God) created the ore but did not carry it to its perfect state; He has charged the miners with the task of refining it. In the same way He enjoined the physician to purify man’s body.”[xcv] He also taught that the laborer has the same divine mission as the physician because they both participate in trying to bring the works of nature to perfection.[xcvi]
Another important element that Paracelsus articulated was an optimism that man can make new discoveries. Bacon wrote that “by far the greatest obstacle to the progress of science and to the undertaking of new tasks and provinces therein is found in this-that men despair and think things impossible. For wise and serious men are wont in these matters to be altogether distrustful” of any future progress in science.[xcvii] Paracelsus articulates an extremely optimistic attitude towards new discoveries. First he says that “in medicine we should never lose heart, and never despair. For each ill there is a remedy that combats it. Thus there is no disease that is inevitably mortal. All diseases can be cured without exception.”[xcviii] At others place he again says that “every disease has its own remedy.”[xcix] It is only because we do not yet know how to deal with these diseases that we cannot cure them.
The reason that Paracelsus has this optimistic attitude is connected with the important idea of the progress of knowledge. This idea was an essential aspect of overthrowing the authority of Aristotle and Galen in favor of new discoveries. For this idea Paracelsus was inspired by Hermetic religious motives of man completing the work of God. As Paracelsus and his followers thought God meant nothing to remain hidden, but wanted it all to be revealed, and that whatever God had not finished should be brought to completion, man’s job was to finish revealing all that God had not yet fully revealed. So the Paracelsians thought new discoveries could be made and things revealed which had never been seen before by the ancients and the Arabs.[c] For Paracelsus thought that while the virtues of plants are invisible, through diligent effort they can be revealed and detected. For “nothing is so hidden in them that man cannot learn of it.” He has a Hermetic magical reason and a religious reason for this position: “It is God’s will that nothing remain unknown to man.”[ci] “It is not God’s will that His secrets should be visible; it is His will that they become manifest and knowable through the works of man who has been created in order to make them visible.”[cii]
This position led to a deep drive to investigate and discover the facts of nature as “man should work continually to discover what God has given him.”[ciii] He emphasizes this point again by saying that since all things have been created for our sake and since we need them, we “must explore everything that lies in nature.”[civ] “Christ charged us with a task which must guide us all, which we must forever strive to perform. His commandments and teachings apply not only to the eternal light but also to the light of nature. He enjoined us: “Seek, and ye shall find.” It is our task to seek art, for without seeking it we shall never learn the secrets of the world.”[cv] “Rich is he who knows God by His works, who draws from them his faith in Him, and who does not pass them by like a man who is colourblind. For God wills that man know Him completely and not only half and without clarity.”[cvi] This connection between faith and knowing nature is made even stronger by Paracelsus. For he makes the surprising statement that “works alone lead one to faith, that is to say the works of nature, her signs and marvels. And since faith is based on works, signs and marvels… we are convinced that he who wants to believe must also know; for only from knowledge, and because of knowledge, does faith arise….For first comes knowledge, then faith.”[cvii]
Because Paracelsus is a transitional figure, one of those whom Yates herself calls a Rosicrucian type, there are also transitional elements in his thinking. These transitional features are particularly influenced by the Bible and its more humble views concerning the nature of man and his reason. Because he is a transitional figure influenced by the same Biblical elements as Bacon, we can also see in Paracelsus some of Bacon’s central objections against the Hermeticists.
First, like Bacon, Paracelsus castigates the magicians for failing to do the necessary hard work, hoping instead to find a shortcut to understand Nature’s secrets.[cviii] For Bacon believed that because of Adam’s Fall God commanded us that only “in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread.”[cix] Only by labor, Bacon says, not by “idle magical ceremonies” can man supply himself with food.[cx] Bacon opposed the magicians because they thought they could get noble gains by a “few easy and slothful observances” while to Bacon it was clear that we can only achieve such effects at the price of prolonged labor.[cxi] For Bacon, only infinite patience could solve the riddles of nature, and one had to proceed with humility instead of thinking that one had solved all the problems of nature through a few insights or hurried experiments as the magicians often did and Aristotle and his followers did too.[cxii] While it should be pointed out that mainstream science has not followed Bacon all the way on this point, Paracelsus also had earlier castigated the magicians in almost exactly the same way. For Paracelsus asks “what would men do if they had not been ordained to work? The commandment was: “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread.’.. when Adam was driven out of Paradise, God created the light of nature for him by ordering him to gain sustenance through the toil of his hands.”[cxiii] This emphasis on work is an important matter that Paracelsus never takes lightly. For he thinks that
“all things are given into the hands of man though he make no effort to obtain them; they grow without his help. The ore takes its shape without human aid, and the flowers likewise. But if he wants to use or enjoy them, he must expend labor upon them. For although iron is iron, it is not of itself a plowshare or a carpenter’s ax. Although corn means bread, it is not ready to be consumed as bread. So it is with all products; God had given them to us that through them we may preserve ourselves… Let us not be idlers or dreamers, but always at work, both physically and spiritually, so that no part of us remains inactive. Such work in the sweat of our brow may even drive away the devil and his pack, for where man is at work none of them can abide.”[cxiv]
Furthermore, besides this Biblical basis of this idea, Paracelsus also has a Hermetic theological basis for being against idleness which goes all the way back to the Hermetic works. For he says:
“No star can be idle; no star stands still, all exercise daily, to awaken nature and drive her to her daily work. And just as the stars have no rest, so also do the things of nature work without respite…. Thus nothing is idle in nature, all things work from hour to hour, from day to day.”[cxv]
Paracelsus also applies this idea of nothing being idle to man, even claiming it is the basis of man’s happiness. For man,
“happiness does not consist in laziness, or sensual pleasure, or riches, or chattering, or gluttony. In labour and in sweat must each man use the gifts that God conferred upon him on earth, either as a peasant in the fields, as a workman in the smithy, in the mines, on the seas, in medicine, or as one who proclaims the word of God. The proper way resides in action, in doing and producing.”[cxvi]
There is another reason Paracelsus has it that we must work: he thinks that we complete the work of God.
“God wills the earth to grow tree, pears, and other fruits, and creatures of all kind…Similarly He wills that all the arts-music, the crafts, the sciences, and doctrines of theology,- which He created, and which rest in the ‘firmament,’ should become real…And this must be done by man, just as the pears are brought to maturity by the tree. For the ‘firmament’ needs an agent through which to work, and this agent is man and man alone. Man has been so created that through him the miracles of nature are made visible and given form.”[cxvii]
In another place he reiterates this same point:
“for it is not God’s design that the remedies should exist for us readymade, boiled, and salted,, but that we should boil them ourselves, and it pleases Him that we boil them and learn in the process, that we train ourselves in this art and are not idle on earth, but labor in daily toil. For it is we who must pray for our daily bread, and if He grants it to us, it is only through our labour, our skill and preparation.”[cxviii]
In another way that he is like Bacon, but unlike the earlier purely Hermetic magicians, Paracelsus emphasizes that men have to be able to do the things that they say they can do. Men can’t live in the airy world of imagination while bombastically bragging about their accomplishments without being able to accomplish them. For this admonition, he again he has a religious reason. For
“when Christ spoke and taught, his words were always accompanied by deeds. It should be the same with medicine, Those who spend their time in idle chatter and disputes and do no work speak vain words…our words and deeds should be wedded to each other…because medicine is a true art, and truth lies only in the deed and not in the idle talk….therefore study and learn that words and deeds are but one thing; if you fail to understand this, you are not a physician.”[cxix]
He agrees with Bacon that we cannot have the all-encompassing knowledge that the magicians sometimes claim. “Nor can you acquire the art of medicine by sophisms, or after the manner of the sophists, those pseudo-scientists, who imagine that their own wisdom reaches as far as the end of the earth and the sea and all the elements.”[cxx] Far from thinking that we can know everything, Paracelsus thinks “that our knowledge rests upon no firm foundation, and that the truth is not known to us, but that we are inadequate and fragmentary in all ways, and that no ability and knowledge is ours.”[cxxi] He takes this position because he believes that all mortal, earthly things are subject to uncertainty. “Only divine things are certain, but not earthly things.”[cxxii] So “as long as the earth stands, all things will be uncertain.”[cxxiii]
Not only does he castigate the magicians as Bacon does for their excessive pride in their knowledge, he gives a warning that Bacon could have given. “Man’s frivolity is the cause of much disappointment, and we have no right to accuse anyone but ourselves. No one wants to learn his trade to perfection; everyone wants to fly before he has grown wings.”[cxxiv]
Regardless of how much knowledge or skill a physician may have, Paracelsus says that “he can be surprised by an anomaly- like a white raven- which confounds all the books; and all his experience, everything he has learned at the sickbed, is suddenly gone. Therefore study each day without respite, investigate and observe diligently; despise nothing, and do not lightly put too much trust in yourself. Do not be arrogant.”[cxxv] He also has a religious reason against any kind of arrogance. For to be a physician is a sacred calling and he builds on God’s work. We should imitate God, “follow His example and His actions, and he [the physician] should not overestimate himself as a physician, but consider himself only the disciple of the highest physician.”[cxxvi]
In another way that Paracelsus prefigured the later Bacon, Paracelsus and those following him did not see themselves as interested in their own glorification. The physician “does not act for himself, but for God, and God bestows His grace upon him so that he may come to the assistance of his fellow men in their needs. Medicine does not serve man’s self-conceit but his pressing needs…. For it is not you who acts through medicine, but God.”[cxxvii] Far from acting for his own selfish concerns as the magicians are often accused of doing, there is a tremendous emphasis on love and caring for other people in Paracelsus. He says “there are two kinds of physicians-those who work for love, and those who work for their own profit. They are both known by their works; the true and just physician is known by his love and by his unfailing love for his neighbor.”[cxxviii] On the other hand, the unjust physician is only concerned for profit. For Paracelsus it is a religious duty for the physician to be concerned for other people as the Scriptures say that God created the physician and endowed him with his mercy that he might help his fellow men.”[cxxix] The physician is different from ordinary men as he must not only care for himself but also for others. Indeed “his office consists of nothing but compassion for others….What is the meaning of an office to which one is appointed by God, if not to carry out and fulfill the will of God?”[cxxx] Paracelsus is not one who thinks the medical arts are grounded solely in technique. He goes as far as to say that “the art of medicine is rooted in the heart. If your heart is false, you will also be a false physician.”[cxxxi] Indeed “no one requires greater love of heart than the physician.”[cxxxii]
This love of God and neighbor has an important part to play in Paracelsus’ attitude toward science and nature. “God has ordained that we should love our neighbor as ourselves and Him above all else. Now if you would love God, you must also love his works.”[cxxxiii] Not only must you love nature, but also try to help others by trying to cure them. For “by what manner on earth can greater love be shown to a neighbor, than when a man motivated by true love discovers the curative virtues of remedies, in order to avert the great sufferings, the diseases, and the death that threatens his neighbour?”[cxxxiv] It is not only medicine that Paracelsus thinks comes from love. We “should know that art, science, and skill exist only to be conducive to joy, peace, unity…and help us to serve our fellow men.”[cxxxv]
Paracelsus has distinctly Hermetical theological positions as well as Hermetic values and magical metaphysics. These lead to a Hermetic way of investigating nature through observation, experiments and illumination. Paracelsus however, is a transitional figure, one that Yates calls the Rosicrucian type, and so he is also influenced by other non-Hermetic doctrines and attitudes- most importantly those from the Bible. His Hermeticism and its combination with Biblical doctrines and values lead him to articulate some of the most important values of the scientific ethos. Thus he emphasized the rejection of book learning in favor of observation and experiment, the need for experience to be the final arbiter of a theory, the view of man as a servant of nature revealing what’s hidden in nature, the turn towards the artisan tradition, the need for acting for the benefit of all people, the optimism that we can discover new things, the need to get rid of arrogant claims about the scope of one’s knowledge, the progress of knowledge and finally, like Bacon, the importance of diligent labor as opposed to the shortcuts of the magician. All these are significant features of Baconian science and they were first articulated by Paracelsus.
I want to make it clear that I am not claiming that Paracelsus was a scientist, just that he articulates some of the basic values that are a necessary part of the scientific ethos and he that sometimes does it in ways that are very similar to Bacon’s.
This Paracelsian tradition not only influenced the experimental tradition by its general principles, but it also bore important practical fruit too. Paracelsus is considered the precursor of microchemistry, antisepsis and modern wound surgery.[cxxxvi] While the Galenic tradition saw disease as caused by an imbalance of the humors, Paracelsus developed the way to modern medicine by maintaining that disease was caused by an external agent.[cxxxvii] Moreover, Paracelsus tried to relate specific diseases to specific agents. Instead of disease being considered an imbalance of fluids, it was instead considered local in nature and related to malfunctions of the body which were essentially chemical in nature. [cxxxviii] As a result of rejecting the humoral pathology of Galen, some of the later Paracelsians were also against blood letting.[cxxxix] Maybe most significantly of all, the Paracelsians used quantitative methods, solubility tests and other methods that were to provide the basic information necessary for Boyle’s work. [cxl]
For all these reasons Hermeticism gave a necessary impetus to the rise of Baconian science that is too often overlooked in the traditional scientific histories. So Yates and others such as Debus have made a significant contribution to understanding the rise of experimental science by pointing out the importance of Hermeticism.
Nevertheless, that is not the whole story concerning the Yates thesis. For another important objection to Yates’ work is stated by Rossi. He maintains that Yates and others only emphasize the elements of continuity between Hermeticism and modern science and not the discontinuities between the two traditions.[cxli] Rossi thinks that Yates overemphasizes the importance of Hermeticism for the rise of experimental science; he thinks it is important to keep in mind that only when Hermeticism was combined with and transformed by other factors, particularly Puritanism and the corpuscularian science, did modern science truly emerge.
This point is most clearly seen in looking at Francis Bacon and how he had to transform Hermeticism so that modern science could mature. Before stating the way he transformed the Hermetic tradition, it is necessary to point out some of the most significant Hermetic contributions to Bacon’s thinking. First he followed Hermeticism in striving for dominion over nature and in holding the idea of man as “but the servant and interpreter of nature: what he does and what he knows is only what he has observed of nature’s order in fact or in thought; beyond this he knows nothing and can do nothing.”[cxlii] Bacon so much emphasized this point that he made a similar statement of this principle the first aphorism of The New Organon. Bacon continually emphasizes that the only way to understand nature is to “wait upon nature instead of vainly affecting to overrule her.”[cxliii] Along with this viewpoint, he also shares with the magicians an emphasis upon the need to experiment and work on nature.[cxliv] Bacon also shared with Hermeticism in calling for a return to a pristine knowledge known to Adam (which was why he studied myths so assiduously) and the recognizably Paracelsian trait of rejecting Aristotle and disliking mathematics.[cxlv] Furthermore there are many deep similarities between the scientists of his New Atlantis and the Rosicrucians.[cxlvi] Finally Bacon was also following the Hermetic tradition in the importance he gave to the artisans and their traditions and methods. [cxlvii] So in The Great Instauration he says that while the sciences have not progressed, “the mechanical arts we do not find it so; they on the contrary, as having in them some breath of life, are continually growing and becoming more perfect.”[cxlviii] Paracelsus thoroughly agreed with him and said the same thing about the realm of medicine in relation to the arts. Furthermore there is a very plausible candidate for the transmission of this concern from the Paracelsians to Bacon: Palissy. Palissy was a potter who discovered the secret about white enamel which won him royal patronage[cxlix] and he was inspired by Paracelsian ideas.[cl] It is probable that when the young Bacon was in Paris he heard Palissy giving lectures on such subjects as agriculture, mineralogy and geology.[cli] Palissy called for the learned to abandon their books and observe nature:
“Through practice I prove that the theories of many philosophers, even the most ancient and famous ones, are erroneous in many points. Anyone can ascertain this for himself in two hours merely by taking the trouble to visit my workshop. Marvelous things can be seen here (demonstrated and proved in my writings and arranged in an orderly manner with tests at the bottom so that the visitor may be his own instructor).”[clii]
While this link between Palissy and Bacon cannot be definitely established, it is highly plausible and would give a direct link from the Paracelsians to Bacon concerning Bacon’s concern for the artisans.[cliii]
While Bacon shared these many important features with the Hermeticists, it is important to point out that Bacon rejected the metaphysical features of the magical tradition while he kept Hermeticism’s practical attitudes towards operating in the world. [cliv] Thus he saw man as an operator in the world but he rejected the idea that magic was the way of operating.
All superstitious stories… and experiments of ceremonial magic should altogether be rejected…Even the experiments of natural magic should be sifted diligently and severely before they are received, especially those which are commonly derived from vulgar sympathies and
antipathies.” [clv]
He castigates the magicians in other places too, saying that in “their idle and most slothful conjectures {they have} ascribed to substances wonderful virtues and operations.”[clvi] It was because of this rejection of the magical metaphysics, that Bacon had to significantly transform the magical tradition before experimental science could mature. The significant way he had to change methodological orientation once he rejected the metaphysics of magic was not sufficiently emphasized by Yates and thus she gives a misleading impression of the continuity between magic and science.
The first thing Bacon transformed was the secrecy which was endemic in magical practices and which even Paracelsus sometimes shared. The magicians, liked the Pythagoreans, believed that only the wise should know about the secrets of nature because only they would know how to use these secrets wisely.[clvii] In their view, if the secrets of nature’s control were told to ordinary, non-spiritually illuminated people, the average person would not have enough spiritual wisdom to correctly use the powers of nature. For this reason, the magicians emphasized that one should share one’s secrets only with the spiritually adept. Bacon, on the other hand, emphasized the need for public communication of a scientist’s work. Allied with this was Bacon’s call for the institutionalization of science through the sharing of information and he condemned magic for its selfish aims. Bacon also disliked the Hermeticists because they made extravagant claims such as Agrippa’s claim that he could command the elements totally. [clviii] The works of magicians were full of these extravagant claims and Bacon wanted a new, humble way of investigating nature- a way that was not filled with vanity and pretension as the Hermeticist way was.[clix] Indeed for Bacon, the magicians were so misguided and prideful that he thought that these magi with their pride were committing again Adam’s sin.[clx] Paracelsus agrees with Bacon about the pretentious claims of the magicians. Furthermore Yates agrees that the magi were too secretive and so a second phase of Hermeticism was needed with Rosicrucianism which called not for individual gain but the greater good of all. So the Yates thesis can accommodate these points of Bacon’s.
Nevertheless there are other major points about Bacon’s science that do not arise from the magical tradition and these points show that while Hermeticism was influential in the rise of Baconian science, science itself was only possible by repudiating much of the Hermetic tradition.
First, Bacon, like Galileo and unlike the Hermetic magicians, separated religion and science into two separate realms.[clxi] While the Hermeticists linked knowledge leading to salvation and knowledge leading to understanding nature, Bacon thought the knowledge of salvation is different than the knowledge of the world.[clxii] For Bacon the world is not made in the image of God, only man is made in God’s image. Thus for Bacon, unlike the magicians, the study of the world does not tell us anything about God’s nature or his will.[clxiii] Like Galileo’s position, this is the major step towards the total secularization of science.
Moreover Bacon disliked the illuminism which was so important to the magicians, Paracelsians and the Rosicrucians.[clxiv] So while Paracelsians maintained themselves “in a constant state of readiness to receive God’s illumination,”[clxv] Bacon rejected this illuminism and said that man needed external help: “Neither the naked hand nor the understanding left to itself can effect much. It is by instruments and helps that the work is done.”[clxvi] Instead of praising man’s powers and intellect as the Hermetic works did, Bacon said this overly high estimation of man’s mind was the reason science had not advanced much: “The cause and root of nearly all evils in the sciences is this- that while we falsely admire and extol the powers of the human mind we neglect to seek for its true helps.”[clxvii] He had this view because he thought the subtlety of nature was many times greater than the power of our senses and understanding.[clxviii] Bacon proposed a method that did not require geniuses getting flashes of illumination: “the course I propose for the discovery of sciences is such as leaves but little to the acuteness and strength of wits, but places all wits and understandings nearly on a level. For as in the drawing of a straight line or a perfect circle, much depends on the steadiness and practice of the hand, if it be done by aim of hand only, but if with the aid of rule or compass, little or nothing; so is it exactly with my plan.”[clxix]
Thus Bacon maintained that no person’s mind alone was adequate for understanding nature; rather we needed external helps such as his method. In this way, Bacon rejected the traditional image of the enlightened sage and illuminati and thus broke down the distinction between the enlightened genius and the ordinary person.[clxx] Because of this fact, in Bacon’s philosophy, scientists did not need individual brilliance or any kind of special illuminations. While he was again over-reacting to his predecessors and his view is not typical of science, this view led to important methodological insights that were important for the rise of science. Because for Bacon, instead of the few special geniuses getting flashes of brilliant insight, science had to be set upon a proper methodical way. For even if magic may occasionally discover something, Bacon was not interested in just those chance discoveries. Rather he wanted a way of systematizing this process. For these discoveries “are due to chance and experiment rather than to the sciences; for the sciences we now possess are merely systems for the nice ordering and setting forth of things already invented, not methods of invention or directions for new works.”[clxxi] In order to get true science, we must set up a better way. For in “order to penetrate into the inner and further recesses of nature, it is necessary that both notions and axioms be derived by a more sure and guarded way, and that a method of intellectual operation be introduced altogether better and more certain.”[clxxii] This new method was seen as a laborious process with careful observation and cautious hypotheses proceeding in collaboration with other workers.[clxxiii]
Thus Bacon castigates the alchemists and magicians for their lack of a method. Because of this lack, “the alchemist nurses eternal hope and when the thing fails, lays the blame upon some error of his own; fearing either that he has not sufficiently understood the words of his art or of his authors (whereupon he turns to tradition and auricular whispers), or else that in his manipulations he has made some slip of a scruple in weight or moment in time (whereupon he repeats his trials to infinity).”[clxxiv]
It is important to see that he had this view about the need for a new method because he did not share the Hermeticist view of the greatness of man and his reason. For Bacon, it is in the very nature of the intellect that it errs more than the senses do. To Bacon, the intellect like “an uneven mirror distorts the rays of objects according to its own figure,”[clxxv] unlike the magicians who emphasize that our mind is our divine part which makes us equal to the gods.
Furthermore, because he saw science as collaboration among a group of seekers, Bacon further emphasized the importance of strict methods and clearly and simply stating them as this would provide rules for more experimentation and so ensure progress.[clxxvi] Because it was not dependent on individual brilliance, Bacon’s science was based on division of labor and progressive continuity.[clxxvii] Also because he was against this individual illumination, he emphasized humility very strenuously. For if he has made any progress “the way has been opened to me by no other means than the true and legitimate humiliation of the human spirit.”[clxxviii] Most importantly, Bacon’s science has rules and methods of procedures which alchemy and magic did not need as they were based on illumination and did not stress the need for communication of their results. [clxxix]
While Bacon had to make significant transformations in the Hermetic tradition before modern experimental science could develop, Yates is right that Hermeticism was significant in the rise of modern experimental science. For it contributes several significant features to modern science. First, Hermeticism directly contributed a new attitude toward man’s ability to operate and work in the cosmos because it emphasized the dignity of man and the sacredness of nature. Secondly, it also gave tremendous impetus to the importance of the artisans and their traditions and methods because of its emphasis on knowledge and the need for man to perfect nature. We see this influence in the work of such Hermetic figures as Porta, Paracelsus, Palissy and Dee. Thirdly, it also helped lead the turn towards experimenting and observing nature because man cannot discover the magical sympathies and antipathies by reason alone. This emphasis leads to the Paracelsians throwing over the reliance on ancient authorities and instead actually investigating nature.
Furthermore, the transitional Hermetic figures that Yates regards as Rosicrucian types also contributed several important values to the scientific ethos. For figures such as Paracelsus emphasized the need to act for the benefit of all people instead of self-glorification, the need for hard work instead of the shortcuts of the magicians, the need to get rid of secrecy and communicate one’s knowledge, the need to be humble, and the need to make sure theory matches practice and finally the idea of the progress of knowledge.
Nevertheless Paracelsus and the Rosicrucian types were only transitional figures and Yates does not sufficiently emphasize this. For only when Bacon rejected two key features of the Hermetic tradition, its lack of distinction between the secular and sacred realms and its illuminism, did modern science arise. So while Yates is right that Hermeticism made significant contributions to the rise of modern science, her thesis has to be confined to the experimental sciences and one has to keep in mind that Bacon had to make significant changes to the tradition before modern experimental science could really emerge.
[i]. Stephen McKnight, Sacralizing the Secular: The Renaissance Origins of Modernity (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1989), p. 41.
[ii]. Hermetica, translated by Brian Copenhaver, (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1992), pp. 15,19, 20, 25, 28, & 53.
[xx]. Francis Yates, “The Hermetic Tradition in Renaissance Science,” in Art, Science and History in the Renaissance, ed. Charles Singleton (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1967), pp. 256-7.
[xxv]. Copenhaver in the introduction to the Hermetica discusses these points on pp. xxxii-xxxix.
[xxvi]. Bert Hansen, “Science and Magic,” in Science in the Middle Ages, ed. David Lindberg (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1975), p. 484.
[xxviii]. Thomas Schnelle and W. Baldamus, “Mystic Modern Science?” Zeitschrift fur Soziologie, August 1978, p. 258.
[xxix]. Allen Debus, The English Paracelsians, (New York: Franklin Watts Inc., 1965), p. 19.
[xxx]. Debus, English Paracelsians, pp. 19-20.
[xxxiii]. Brian Easlea, Witch Hunting, Magic and the New Philosophy (Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humanities Press, 1980), p. 101 and P. M. Rattansi, “The Social Interpretation of Science in the Seventeenth Century,” in Peter Mathias (ed.), Science and Society, (Cambridge: 1972), pp. 10-11.
[xxxv]. Debus, Man and Nature in the Renaissance, (Cambridge:1978), p. 53.
[xxxvi]. Allen Debus, “The Chemical Philosophy of the Renaissance,” in George Basalla, The Rise of Modern Science (Lexington: D.C. Heath and Company, 1968), p. 84.
[xxxvii]. Debus, “Chemical Philosophy,” p. 84.
[xxxviii]. Debus, Man and Nature, p. 14.
[xliii]. Paracelsus, Selected Works, (Princeton: 1958), p. 45
[xlvi]. The most interesting support for Yates’ view of the importance of the Hermetic works for developing a conception of man as an operator in the cosmos comes from Charles Trinkaus’
book In Our Image and Likeness, (Chicago: 1970). For while Trinkaus’ purpose is to show that earlier Renaissance thinkers such as Salutati and Manetti also were developing a conception of man as an operator, he admits that he is only doing to Yates’ thesis what Duhem did for our view of science: extend the basic thesis backwards in time. (p. xxiv) So instead of thinking that earlier thinkers were totally ignorant of the Hermetic works, we should realize that these earlier thinkers knew these works and were much influenced by them in their conception of man as operator. (pp. xxiii-xxiv, 187, 396 n. 21, & 502) So Trinkaus’ massive work supports Yates’ thesis that the Hermetic works are crucial for the concept of man as a maker and doer in the cosmos.
[xlviii]. T.S. Kuhn, “Mathematical versus Experimental Traditions in the Development of Physical Science,” in T. S. Kuhn, The Essential Tension, (Chicago: 1977), p. 54.
[lv]. Yates, ibid., pp. 263-5.
[lvii]. Fama Fraternitatis, reprinted in Francis Yates, The Rosicrucian Enlightenment (London: 1972), p. 240.
[lx]. B.J. T. Dobbs, “Multiple Perspectives” The Seventeenth Century Scientific Revolution Then and Now,” History of Science, 1977, p. 275. Although as I will show below this point is controversial.
[lxii]. Paolo Rossi, Francis Bacon: From Magic to Science, (Chicago:1968) pp. 11-22.
[lxiii]. D.P. Walker, “The Elusive Rosicrucians,” History of Science, December 1973, p. 309.
[lxv]. Hansen, p. 495 and also Debus, p. 69 and p. 72.
[lxvi]. Muriel West, “Notes on the Importance of Alchemy to Modern Science in the Writings of Francis Bacon and Robert Boyle,” Ambix, 1961., pp. 102-114 and also L. M. Principe, “Robert Boyle’s Alchemical Secrecy: Codes, Ciphers and Concealments,” Ambix, July 1992.
[lxviii]. Richard Westfall, quoted in Dobbs, “Multiple Perspectives,” p. 280 & 282. Although I will discuss Newton later, none of my thesis hangs on the controversial point of the role of Hermeticism in any of Newton’s theories.
[lxix]. Westman and McGuire, Hermeticism, p. 8.
[lxx]. Reviewers such as Schmitt and Rattansi agree that both Westman and McGuire misstate the central point of the Yates’ thesis. See Charles Schmitt, “Reappraisals in Renaissance Science,” (a review of Westman and McGuire, Hermeticism) History of Science, 1978, p. 202 and Rattansi, review of the same book, p. 393.
[lxxi]. Ed Rosen, “Was Copernicus a Hermeticist?” in Roger Stuewer (ed.), Historical and Philosophical Perspectives of Science, (Minneapolis:1970), pp. 164-169.
[lxxii]. Allen Debus, Man and Nature, pp. 123-4.
[lxxvi]. Quinton Skinner, “The New Philosophy of Nature,” in Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy, ed. Charles Schmitt and Quinton Skinner (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), p. 238.
[lxxvii]. David C. Lindberg, The Beginning of Western Science, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), p. 1.
[lxxviii]. A.R. Hall, The Scientific Revolution (Boston: Beacon Press, 1954), p.xi.
[lxxix]. A.R. Hall, The Revolution in Science 1500-1750, (London: Longman, 1983) p. 4.
[lxxxii]. Hansen, p, 495 and also Debus, p. 69 and p. 72.
[lxxxiii]. See Dobbs and her discussion of Westfall.
[xcvii]. Francis Bacon, The New Organon (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1960), p. 90. This is at the beginning of XCII.
[xcix]. Ibid., pp. 72, 76 & 77.
[c]. Rattansi, “The Social Interpretation,” p. 11.
[cviii]. Charles Schmitt and Quentin Skinner, ed., Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), p. 297.
[cix]. Bacon, The New Organon, p. 268. This is in the very last sentence of the book.
[cxii]. Rossi, Francis Bacon, p. 32.
[cxiii]. Paracelsus, pp. 101-2.
[cxxxvi]. Paracelsus, Selected Works, in the introduction by Jolande Jacobi, p. xlvii.
[cxxxvii]. Allen Debus, The English Paracelsians, (New York: 1966), p. 30. It must be pointed out that this external agent was not a virus or germ, but star-born poisons.
[cxxxviii]. Allen Debus, The Chemical Philosophy, Volume I, (New York: 1977), pp. 58-9.
[cxl]. Debus, Man and Nature, p. 29 and also Debus, The Chemical Philosophy, p. 112.
[cxli]. Paolo Rossi, “Hermeticism, Rationality and the Scientific Revolution,” in Reason, Experiment, and Mysticism ed. William Shea and M.C. Bonelli (New York: Science History Publications, 1975), p. 264.
[cxlii]. Francis Bacon, The Great Instauration, in Bacon, The New Organon, p. 29.
[cxliii]. Francis Bacon, The Great Instauration, in Francis Bacon, The New Organon, Indianapolis, Bobbs-Merrill, p. 3.
[cxliv]. Rossi, Francis Bacon, pp. 16 & 21.
[cxlv]. Debus, Man and Nature, pp. 103 & 104.
[cxlvi]. Francis Yates, The Rosicrucian Enlightenment, (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1972) pp 125-9.
[cxlvii]. William Eamon, “Arcana Disclosed: The advent of printing, the books of the secret tradition and the development of experimental science in the sixteenth century,” History of Science, 1984, p. 138.
[cxlviii]. Bacon, The Great Instauration, p. 8.
[cxlix]. Paulo Rossi, Philosophy, Technology and the Arts in the Early Modern Era, (New York: 1970), p. 2.
[cl]. Debus, The Chemical Philosophy, Vol. I, p. 89 and Vol. II, pp. 410-425.
[clii]. Quoted in Rossi, Philosophy, Technology, p. 2.
[cliii]. There is another candidate regarding Bacon’s concern for the crafts: John Dee. Dee encouraged the concern for artisans among the intellectuals and was extremely influential in such practical matters as the English voyages of discovery. Walter Trattner “God and Expansion in Elizabethan England: John Dee, 1527-1583,” Journal of the History of Ideas, 1964, pp.17-34, is the best introduction to this topic. Furthermore Dee was a mathematician who wrote the preface for the English translation of Euclid’s Elements. Dee specifically wanted to encourage the artisans and craftsmen to use geometry. Robert Norman in the first two pages of his dedication to The New Attractive, (London: 1585), specifically points to this translation of Euclid and other such works as evincing a new concern for the craftsmen amongst the scholars. Norman is very grateful for this help saying these “books are sufficient to the industrious mechanician to him perfect and ready in those sciences.”
[cliv]. Rossi, Francis Bacon, p. 21.
[clv]. Francis Bacon, Preparative Toward a Natural and Experimental History, in Francis Bacon, The New Organon (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1960), p. 274.
[clvi]. Bacon, The New Organon, p. 83.
[clvii]. Rossi, Francis Bacon, pp. 29-30.
[clix]. Rossi, Francis Bacon, p. 32.
[clx]. Yates, “Hermetic Tradition,” p. 267.
[clxii]. Stephen McKnight, The Modern Age and the Recovery of Ancient Wisdom, Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1991), p. 130.
[clxiii]. Rossi, “Hermeticism”, pp. 258-9.
[clxiv]. Yates, “Hermetic Tradition,” p. 266.
[clxvi]. Bacon, The New Organon, Book I, II.
[clxvii]. Bacon, The New Organon, Book I, IX.
[clxviii]. Bacon, The New Organon, Book I, X.
[clxix]. Bacon, The New Organon, Book I, LXI.
[clxx]. Rossi, Francis Bacon, p. 27.
[clxxi]. Bacon, The New Organon, p. 40. VIII.
[clxxii]. Bacon, The New Organon, p.42. XVIII.
[clxxiv]. Bacon, The New Organon, p. 83.
[clxxv]. Bacon, The Great Instauration, p. 22.
[clxxvi]. Rossi, Francis Bacon, p. 23.
[clxxvii]. Rossi, Francis Bacon, p. 33.
[clxxviii]. Bacon, The Great Instauration, p. 13.
[clxxix]. Rossi, Francis Bacon, p. 33.
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