On the Shoulders of Giants: A Shandean Postscript

303 Pages·1965·8.905 MB·English

by  Robert K. Merton

On the Shoulders of Giants
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ON THE SHOULDERS
OF GIANTS
A Shandean Postscript
RO BERT K. M ERTO N
Catherine Drinker Bowen
w ith A f o r e w o r d by
T H E F REE P R E S S , NEW Y O R K
COLLIER-MAC MILL AN LIMITED, LONDON
copyright © 1965 by Robert K. Merton
copyright © 1965 by The Free Press
A DIVISION OF THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
Printed in the United States of America
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or
utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, in­
cluding photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and
retrieval system, without permission in writing from the Publisher.
For informations address:
THE FREE PRESS
A DIVISION OF THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
60 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10011
Collier-Macmillan Canada, Ltd., Toronto, Ontario
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 65-12859
PICTURE CREDITS:
2. Photographie Giraudon.
3-6. Marburg — Art Reference Bureau.
The Effable Three
STEPHANIE
ROBERT C.
VANESSA
AND
Their Ineffable Fifteen

Foreword
WHAT A pleasure, to write a foreword for this brilliant,
crazy, riotous Shan dean Postscript, all two hundred seventy-
seven pages of it, including more footnotes than any letter
to a friend has carried before or since.
The book is a romp, a frolic, a frisk, a ball — an im­
possible mad excursion into scholarship and round about
and out again, but boasting a plot with a beginning and an
ending (one cannot guarantee a middle). I laughed all the
way through and often I laughed out loud. Here is a college
professor of sociology who spoofs the college professors,
who makes fun of himself and his brethren by indirection,
yet ends by earning our profound respect for his own learn­
ing. In fact he earned mine on page 2, where he tosses
off his first easy reference to Didacus Stella (in Luc. io,
tom. 2).
The book purports to be a letter to a colleague, tracing
the origin of the famous phrase attributed to Sir Isaac
Newton: "If I have seen farther, it is by standing on the
shoulders of giants." Actually, the thing started as a letter
from Dr. Merton to a friend. I first saw it in that form, and
it was not written for publication. But how has anybody
time to write such a letter, time to read all those books and
then laugh them off, time to collect such a vocabulary? I
thought Sir Francis Bacon had the oddest repertory of words
ever printed. But even Bacon never spoke of cryptomnesia
or minimifidianism. If this is a sample of the letters Pro-
Vll
fessor Merton writes to his colleagues, I ask humbly, What
about his students, his sociology majors at Columbia? Where
do they fit in, and what else does he do with his life?
It takes a little while to find one’s way into this book,
discover what on earth the Professor is doing, where he is
going and why. But once in, it is impossible to stop. One
wants to stop. These digressions, asides, preambles, excur­
sions bring on hiccoughs, hysteria and high blood pressure.
Nevertheless one reads on. Dazed and groping, one holds
desperately to the thread Professor Merton has dropped. One
follows him to the end.
I have not met Robert K. Merton, nor have I seen him.
What manner of man is this, who darts under rocks like
a minnow after his prey and comes up spouting like an
erudite whale? How is he, at home with his family, what is
he like around the house? How is he with his daughter
Vanessa, of whom he tells us nothing save her enchanting
name (and as Merton himself would say, everybody knows
where that came from). Oh yes, he tells us that Vanessa does
not say "again and again”; she says again and again and
again and again and again. Are all the Mertons so deli­
ciously discursive? Do they all talk as fast as Merton père
writes — galloping, shouting, whispering, stumbling, re­
covering, gasping for breath but always cheerful and
assured?
There is wisdom in this book as well as fun. "Follow
your bent where it leads,” says Merton, "for there is no bet­
ter road to the writing of a history.” From this he goes into
what he calls the gist of the Shandean method. "In making
this strong statement,” Merton says (it does not matter
apropos of what) — "in making this strong statement, un­
weakened by carefully insinuated reservations” (my italics)
"I lay myself open to the charge of unscholarly conduct.”
Professor Merton on unscholarly conduct is marvelous; he is
a breath of fresh air where fresh air is needed. "If only,”
he mourns, "authentic scholarship were not such a series of
anti-climaxes.”
Perhaps one loves Dr. Merton most when he is apolo­
gizing because some abstruse reference book is not at hand in
his library (this happens about every three pages). As for
instance The Edinburgh Review for October, 1838, or the
copy of an item bearing the reference "in Cod. Corpus
Christi Oxon. 283 fol. i47ra.”
Here is one piece of scholarship, at any rate, which is
not a series of anti-climaxes. More power to you, Professor,
in all your searches and seizures!
Catherine Drinker Bowen