292 Chapter 16
earlier movements, asked questions that were differ-
ent from those that had been asked before and by so
doing created a whole new way of looking at the uni-
verse. Modern science and the scientific method with
which it is associated may be the one body of Euro-
pean ideas that has had a transforming effect on vir-
tually every non-Western culture.
To appreciate the radicalism of the new views, ex-
amining what they replaced is useful. In 1500 the basic
assumptions of science had changed little since the
days of Pliny. The universe was thought to be orga-
nized according to rational principles. It was therefore
open to human observation and deduction, but the
principles of scientific inquiry were limited to those ac-
tivities alone. As in other fields of thought, the logic of
Aristotle, rooted firmly in language and in the meaning
of words, was accepted as the most powerful tool of
analysis. Scientific description therefore tended to be
qualitative rather than quantitative. Accurate observa-
tion provided clues to the nature or essential quality of
the object being observed. Reason could then deter-
mine the relationship of that object to other objects in
the natural world.
This was important because ancient science be-
lieved that all parts of the universe were interrelated
and that nothing could be studied in isolation. Today
this idea is called holistic, or perhaps organic. It was
stated expressly in Aristotle and, metaphorically, in the
popular image of the individual human being as a mi-
crocosm of the universe as a whole. It formed the basis
not only of academic science but also of the applied
sciences of the day: medicine, natural magic, astrology,
and alchemy. The last three were partially inspired by
the Hermetic tradition, a body of occult literature that
was supposedly derived from ancient Egypt. It was re-
garded with suspicion by the church because its practi-
tioners were thought in various ways to interfere with
Providence, but its theoretical assumptions did not con-
flict with those of the Aristotelians. Many, if not most,
of the early scientists were as interested in astrology or
alchemy as they were in physics and made no real
distinction between the occult and what would today
be regarded as more legitimate disciplines.
Whatever their interests, the learned agreed that
the world was composed of the four elements—earth,
air, fire, and water—and that the elements corre-
sponded to the four humors that governed the body as
well as the signs of the zodiac. Magic, “the chief power
of all the sciences,” sought to understand these and
other relationships between natural objects and to ma-
nipulate them to achieve useful results. The causes of
natural phenomena were of academic but little practical
interest and were generally explained teleologically.
That is, they were understood in terms of the result
they were intended to produce. Virtually everyone be-
lieved that the world had been created for a purpose
and that the behavior of natural objects would neces-
sarily be directed to that end. This preconception,
together with the tendency to describe objects in quali-
tative terms, ensured that causation, too, would usually
be explained in terms of the nature or qualities of the
objects involved. It was a view that comported well
with a providential understanding of the world.
Ideas of this kind are now found largely in the
pages of supermarket tabloids, but they were once uni-
versally accepted by learned people. They provided a
rational, comprehensive, and comforting vision of what
might otherwise have been a terrifying universe. They
have little in common with the principles of modern
science, which substitutes measurement for qualitative
description and attempts to express physical relation-
ships in quantitative, mathematical terms. Because its
vision of the world is mechanical instead of organic and
providential, modern science concentrates heavily on
the causes of physical and biological reactions and tries
to reject teleological and qualitative explanations. It is
more likely to ask “why?” than “what?” and has few
compunctions about isolating a given problem to study
it. Correspondences based upon qualitative or symbolic
relationships are ignored.The Origins of Modern Scientific Thought:
Physics from Copernicus to Newton
Methodologically, modern science seeks to create a hy-
pothesis by reasoning logically from accurate observa-
tions. If possible, the hypothesis is then tested by
experiment and a mathematical model is constructed
that will be both explanatory and predictive. The scien-
tist can then formulate general laws of physical behav-
ior without becoming entangled in the emotional
overtones of language. The scientific model of the uni-
verse tends to be mechanistic rather than organic,
mythological, or poetic. It is not necessarily godless,
but its predictability does away with the need for divine
intervention on a regular basis.
An intellectual shift of this magnitude did not oc-
cur quickly. Its roots are found in several traditions that
coexisted uneasily in late medieval and Renaissance
thought: the Aristotelian, the experimentalist, and the
humanistic. During the sixteenth century a process of
fusion began as thinkers adopted elements of each in