5 Steps to a 5TM AP European History

The Rise of Natural Philosophy, Scientific Revolution, and the Enlightenment (^) ‹ 103
In the Aristotelian cosmos, there were five basic elements, each of which was defined
by its qualities:

1. Earth, which was heavy and tended to sink toward the center of the cosmos


2. Water, which was slightly lighter and accumulated on top of the solid Earth


3. Air, which was lighter still


4. Fire, which was the lightest of all and tended to try to rise above all the others


5. Ether, which was perfect matter that existed only in the celestial realm and which moved
   in uniform circular motion
   The qualities of the five types of matter served as the basis of Aristotelian physics.
   The motion of terrestrial matter was understood to be the result of its composition. For
   example, if you threw a rock, its motion described a parabola because the force of the throw
   gave its motion a horizontal component, while its heaviness gave it a vertical component
   toward the Earth. If you filled an air-tight bag with air and submerged it in water, it would
   float to the top because the air was lighter than Earth or water. The planets and stars of
   the celestial realm moved at a uniform rate in perfect circles around the Earth because they
   were composed purely of ether.
   To the medieval church scholars who rediscovered and translated the writings of
   Aristotle, this Earth-centered, or “geocentric,” model of the cosmos not only made
   logical sense, it confirmed the Christian theological doctrine that the perfect kingdom
   of God awaited in the heavens for those humans who could transcend the corruption
   of the world.

Alternative Traditions of Knowledge Before

the Scientific Revolution

Although the dominant tradition of knowledge in European civilization before the

Scientific Revolution was scholasticism, which derived its knowledge from ancient texts

like those of Aristotle, there were other traditions upon which the Scientific Revolution

d re w.

Natural Magic, Alchemy, and Hermeticism

One was the tradition of natural magic and alchemy that understood the natural world to

be alive with latent power, just waiting to be tapped by those who could learn its secrets.

One strain of magical thought drew inspiration from a corpus of texts erroneously attrib-

uted to a supposed ancient Egyptian priest, Hermes Trismegistus. Hermeticism taught that

the world was infused with a single spirit that could be explored through mathematics as

well as through magic.

Neoplatonism

The most powerful and potent of the alternative traditions was developed by Renaissance

humanists who rediscovered and revered the work of the ancient Greek philosopher Plato.

Plato’s writings distinguished between a changeless and eternal realm of being or form and

the temporary and perishable world we experience. To the Neoplatonists, mathematics

was the language with which one could discover and describe the world of forms. Like the

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