From Paracelsus to Newton: Magic and the Making of Modern Science (Arthur Stanley Eddington Memorial Lecture) by Charles Webster (PDF)

Description

The alchemist and physician known as Paracelsus (1493–1541) appears to have dwelt in a completely different intellectual world from Sir Isaac Newton (1642–1727). Newton’s work lies in the lofty era of the Enlightenment and the modern world, while that of the enigmatic Paracelsus conjures up the superstitious lore of the Dark Ages. The rise of science and the decline of magic unfolded over many generations, and as this fascinating book shows, there existed remarkable elements of continuity between the world views of the early sixteenth and late seventeenth centuries.The essays contained in this volume constitute a slightly modified version of the Eddington Lectures, delivered at Cambridge in the autumn of 1980. In this masterly series of discourses, Charles Webster explores three test cases relating to prophecy, spiritual magic, and demonic magic. Focusing on evidence from Germany at the time of the Reformation and from England during the Restoration, these essays form a more balanced historical perspective on the epistemological shift that occurred between the ages of Paracelsus and Newton. They propose a view of the Scientific Revolution as a diverse phenomenon, the result of a dynamic interplay of forces emanating from many different directions, and all contributing to the process of creativity and change. 20 black-and-white illustrations. Introduction. Notes to each chapter.

User’s Reviews

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐On the backside of the book we read that Paracelsus lived during the years 1495-1541 so therefore the book are covering the thinking especially coming from the alchemist and the physician during the 2 mentioned centuries.The book contains 3 lectures, and here it must be stated that lectures like these mostly are being given at universities, so the writing in the book is meant for special historical or philosophic educations in universities, and there for a rather specialized topic, concerning ideas written by persons unknown to most of us. But of course the lectures/writings can also be used by private person who by their own interest are making their own self-studying.In the book we are getting more interesting drawings, parallel to the one on the front side, from many of the old books which we read about. For example one of the drawings comes from one of the books by Paracelsus, and it is showing a man who in total peace is sleeping under a tree. And with this picture because Paracelsus concluded that the World would finish in less than 100 years, and thereafter it would continue by a final peace and sleeping. As we reads, nearly all of the speculators back then were thinking that the Earth soon would finish, but they were discussing about what then would follow?Throughout the book we learn much about Paracelsus and understand how he was more modern in his ideas than the other thinkers at his time, and how he made a kind of a changing, or connecting between the thinking, and opinions, from before to the soon following new Universe from Kepler, and Newton’s new Physic with the Gravity. But in the book we don’t go in details concerning what these two persons showed, but only how the new knowledge’s was putting problems into the speculations concerning the Devil, Witchcrafts, and Spirits, in connection with Comets, Stars and so on. But it didn’t chance much, for long time, in what even most of the members of the Royal Society was thinking, or maybe only saying, by for example saying that those who didn’t believe in Witches were Atheist. And in the book we see that actual the physicians were afraid to go more straight out, by officially throwing away the old thinking, as for example that the Devil was the chief of the Comets and Stars. And concerning this we can remember Descartes – who only one time is mentioned in the book – as he actual in 1650, when he in Sweden got sick, was killed by a Dutch doctor, who didn’t like his new ideas.In the book it’s only very little we read about Newton, but interestingly we many times when books are mentioned about the Magic subjects, we learn that Newton owned copies of all of the books from the actual person, whose ideas we are reading about. But Newton by himself, during his life, actually were using more time on Alchemy than concerning the Physic and the Mathematic; where we during learning in the schools are thinking that he only was interesting in modern Physics, and Mathematics. As he for example calculated Hayley’s planet, when most of the people on his time believed that the comets were the Devils work.In the first of the 3 lectures we read much about the speculation that the World would stop in less than 100 following years, and what then would follow, and in the last of the lectures we go closer to the discussions concerning Witchcrafts, Spirits, the Devil. But again nearly only looking on the philosophers writing about this, and we have only a very small case of Witchcraft, even though we in the ordinary historical books reads about millions of persons being killed because of these thoughts which we in the book are reading about. In the book we read that many thought it was the Devil who was behind the Gravity, even though the Devil was secondary to the God.But we also, last in the book, read that many people still believes in spirits; as also stated by one of the other reviewer. And personally I have found that here in Thailand probably everybody believes in Spirits, Devils, Ghost and so on, and for example resulting in keeping the Spirits out by closing their windows during the nights. And in the interesting book by the missionary Daniel McGilvary: “A Half Century Among, the Siamese and the Lao an Autobiography”, printed in 1910, he tells about many cases. Especially when he arrived to Chiang Mai 150 years ago, one of the leading monks came to him with his personal speculating problems when reading the Buddha, among other that it is should be the Devil who are making the eclipses. McGilvary then gave him the date of the next eclipse and after this eclipse had been there, the monks speculating problems had been solved, but he continued being a Buddha chief monk. And now a day for example, actually the Thais by house inaugurations have a monk to come, and he brings a string which is turned around the house and into the rooms, and from there to the hands of the persons in the house. And then the monk loudly are reading what was written down more than 2,000 years ago, and chasing the Spirits out of the house, and after this then he goes around and sprinkle holy water on the house and the persons.It’s an interesting, but very special text containing book, only meant for persons interested in cutting debt into the learning about which person way back there 500 years ago writing down which idea about how the World would finish, about the Devil, and so on.

⭐A decent, well written account concerning the prevailing attitudes about magic among the pioneers of the scientific revolution. The author shows how this revolution did not sweep away so easily notions of a magical universe. Thanks to strong feelings of God’s providence, scientists kept alive a universe filled with spirits who acted on the natural world, even though modern science is not supposed to concede to supernatural forces the workings of nature. Read only if you are a specialist or an educated layperson. The author writes in a complicated style and does not spend any time elucidating points with examples.

⭐Provided a comprehensive review of the coexistence of magical and modern scientific thinking in the 16th and 17th centuries. It is not an easy read though because of extensive references to relevant but obscure individuals and writings. Also, its written style is ponderous and not infrequently confusing. Overall, however, very worthwhile.

⭐I picked up this little volume in puzzlement. The dust jacket quotes Charles Webster’s introduction as saying, “Our image of Newton is firmly associated with the values of the Enlightenment and the modern world.” Is this guy a crank, I wondered.No, as it turns out. These essays were the Eddington Lectures of 1980, and even if public opinion thinks of Isaac Newton as the epitome of the coldblooded scientific investigator, anybody who has read his biography knows that he spent most of his effort on deciphering the hidden meanings of Revelations, doubting the doctrine of the Trinity and other mystical mumbojumbo.Webster identifies three types of premodern thought that the mechanists had a hard time shaking: prophecy, natural magic and demonic magic.Paracelsus attempted to predict harvest failures, civil wars and whatnot from comets. Leading lights of the Royal Society, 150 years later, were beginning to find an ordinary explanation for comets, but they were still assiduously attempting to foretell the future, by dating the beginning of the Christian millenium from holy books. (Most thought the Millenium had begun or was to begin by 1720 at latest.)A little new knowledge turned out to be a dangerous thing. Webster says: “By the later seventeenth century, the experimental philosophers knew enough about explosives, volcanoes, earthquakes and mechanics to be able to frighten themselves and their public with various models of possible future catastrophe.” If that sounds precisely like 2011’s climate alarmists, who also know a lot about climate without yet understanding it, it is exactly the same thing.The chapters on magic are even more amusing, since except for a few byways like climate and psychology, scientists in most fields now understand enough to doubt apocalypses. Even the tetchy Union of Concerned Scientists doesn’t fret as loudly as it used to.It took longer than the triumphalist history of science used to acknowledge for materialism to shake the weight of medieval superstition, but physicists no longer worry about action at a distance. Aristotelianism is dead.Neoplatonism, however, is not merely alive but probably infects the majority of people who consider themselves modern. Paracelsus was among the first generation of intellectuals who began to doubt fairies and spooks.He believed in fewer than most people had, and had a modernist understanding that witches were medical cases, not evidences of demonism. Webster is bemused by the fact that 150 years later, the bright lights of the Royal Society were writing fat books — and selling several editions of them — to prove the existence of witches and incorporeal demons.In part, this was defensive. The ignoranti considered doubts about demons to be the same as atheism, and almost no early mechanists were irreligious. But Webster thinks this was not the main explanation.The early experimental scientists were still wrestling with the demon-question on virtually the same terms that Paracelsus had. True, belief in witches and demons was fading in society generally, but the skeptics were the preachers and lawyers, not the mechanists. Keith Thomas published his magisterial “Religion and the Decline of Magic” shortly before Webster wrote these essays, and Webster briefly mentions Thomas in a note.He does not take note, though, of the irony. Paracelsus was the hound of the Galenists and humanists, and in the long run Galenical medicine disappeared; but it was the Galenists and humanists who stopped taking demons seriously long before the materialist investigators did.There has been a lot of backsliding. Humoral medicine and the impetus theory of motion are extinct, but more people believe in demons today than do not. Even people who pretend to ascribe to the verdict of experimental science do: the Pontifical Academy of Sciences is right next door to the exorcism office.Housewives don’t churn butter at home any more, so they have no occasion to blame Robin Goodfellow when the cream doesn’t turn. They may think themselves modern, but few are.Most Americans claim to believe in angels and demons, and a public belief in actual demonic interference in politics is no bar to aspirants to the highest office. Pat Robertson refuses to show Popeye cartoon episodes on his TV station if they include the Sea-Hag. You might think such delusions would exclude him from politics, but not so far.

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