Sarton on History of Science

396 Pages·25.857 MB·English

by  George Sarton

SARTON
ON THE HISTORY
OF SCIENCE
Essays By
George Sarton
Selected and Edited By
DOROTHY STIMSON
HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS
Cambridge, Massachusetts
1 9 6 2 .
47261
WILMINGTON COLLEGE LIBRARY
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5 25
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© Copyright 1962 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College
All rights reserved
Distributed in Great Britain by Oxford University Press, London
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 62-20251
Printed in the United States of America
Preface
For forty years the name of George Sarton has been practically
synonymous with the history of science. He was its most tireless spokes¬
man in this country. He demonstrated its possibilities in literally
hundreds of articles and in many books. He founded and edited a
quarterly journal with international circulation that other scholars
might have a hearing. In his monumental Introduction to the History
of Science he provided a veritable encyclopedia of facts and references
from ancient times through the fourteenth century. And at Harvard
he helped train students as leaders and teachers for universities across
the land. Before he came to the United States in 1915 there was no
such subject in university curricula — histories of mathematics, of
chemistry, of medicine, yes, but none of science. Forty years later
students were earning their doctorates in that field at half a dozen
university centers.
How was all this possible, aside from the passionate enthusiasm of
one man? One reason was that interest had already been awakened in
this country from several different sources. A group of strong professors
at Columbia University, notable among them James Harvey Robinson
the historian and James H. Breasted the Egyptologist (later at the
University of Chicago) were emphasizing what Robinson called “the
New History” of culture and ideas rather than the old one of politics
and wars. History was rapidly shifting from kings, battles, and dates
to trends and influences, helped on by the new-style textbooks the two
men wrote separately and together, as well as by their powerful in¬
fluence in their crowded lecture rooms. Professor Robinson’s course on
the History of the Intellectual Class in Western Europe was an
eye-opening experience for scores of graduate students year after
year. Out of that course came his Mind in the Making (1921).
In that same period before the first World War, a new movement
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PREFACE
was stirring in philosophy classrooms, notably at the Johns Hopkins
University. Under the guidance of Professor Arthur O. Lovejoy and his
colleagues, especially George Boas, philosophy was swinging from a
preoccupation with philology to a deep concern with ideas. The in¬
fluence of Lovejoy’s seminars for graduate students was later spread
far and wide through his Great Chain of Being (1936).
The rapid advance of science in the latter part of the nineteenth
century had kept alive the old struggle between science and religion,
so-called. Andrew D. White’s scholarly volumes on A History of the
Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom (1896) were
widely read and his library of rare books helped to make Cornell
University another center for further studies, such as those of George
L. Burr on witchcraft. Professor Lynn Thorndike at Western Reserve
University (later at Columbia) had already started on his many-
volumed History of Magic and Experimental Science (1923-1958).
Another lover of history and of rare books, Dr. William Osier, was
infecting his students in the Hopkins Medical School with his own
enthusiasms, continued by his lectures at Yale in 1913 that became
his Evolution of Modern Medicine (1921). These enthusiasms his
colleague Dr. William Welch shared to the fullest extent. And Dr.
Welch became in the final stage of his long and varied career the
founder and first director of the Institute for the History of Medicine
at the Hopkins University.
Consequently there was already a good deal of interest in the history
of science when the young Belgian scholar, George Sarton, came to
Cambridge to work at Harvard as a research associate of the Carnegie
Institution of Washington. Following a meeting of the American
Historical Association in Boston, December 1923, David Eugene Smith,
historian of mathematics, Lynn Thorndike, and a group of other
members organized the History of Science Society, incorporating it
in January 1924. Its main purpose was to further that subject and at
the same time to support Dr. Sarton’s work, especially his journal,
Isis, again in publication after the interruption of the four war years.
During the succeeding years the membership of the Society repre¬
sented a wide range of interest, from scientists in many fields to his¬
torians, philosophers, journalists, publishers, and bibliophiles. When
Dr. Sarton finally resigned the editorship of the journal and the Society
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PREFACE
in 1953 took over full responsibility for its publication, it had the
support of some fifteen hundred members and an established place
nationally and internationally.
Many of Dr. Sarton’s articles appeared in Isis, often as prefaces to
volumes. Before his death he had drawn up a fist of some of these,
with others printed elsewhere, which he considered worth republish¬
ing. From that fist, with three exceptions, this collection has been
made. Its intent is to present the importance of the history of science as
he understood it, as the unifying factor underlying all knowledge and
forming its very core of truth. To him it was also the bridge that would
bring science and the humanities together. This theme runs through¬
out his work. He presented it in articles, in biographical studies, in
lectures, and in books. Intensely as this conviction was held, it was
inseparable from the man himself, for he gave it all his energies and
thought as well as his time and money, to the exclusion of much else
except music and art. A scientist by training, he had made himself a
historian, a medievalist, a linguist, an Arabic scholar, and an Orientalist
as he followed his major interest. His writing thus became an expres¬
sion of his personality in a fashion unusual in scholarship. He did not
hesitate to use the first person singular or to note the parallels between
his own experiences and that of the man whose fife he was describing.
Even his footnotes on occasion are personal. His mind ranging over
wide fields of knowledge was quick to see comparisons and contrasts
in illustrations drawn from different civilizations and literatures, and
some of his biographical articles, though with one name in the title,
may deal with one or more other men almost as fully. The essay on
Bonpland, for instance, reprinted here, is on Alexander von Humboldt
as well. Again and again these analogies impress one with the range
and depth of his knowledge.
To make this selection of Dr. Sarton’s writings adequately representa¬
tive, they are divided into three groups with a certain amount of
overlapping: to present Dr. Sarton (I) as propagandist, so to speak,
for the history of science; (II) as historian demonstrating its possibil¬
ities; and (HI) as writer and editor explaining his methods and pro¬
cedures. The first group of essays is roughly in logical order; the second,
in the chronological order of the men discussed. The third proceeds
from the reasons for the choice of English for the language of his
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PREFACE
journal through a discussion of some of the problems arising out of his
work and of suggestions of work needing to be done, concluding with
a summing up of what he himself had accomplished.
In the leading article, apparently the last important one he wrote,
the general reader will find a masterly summary of the history of
science, succinct, concise, and far less personal and discursive than
was usual for him. It is the epitome of his fifty years of thought and
study on the history of science. Comparing it with his statement twenty
years or so earlier giving the guiding principles in all his work, one
finds unchanged his emphasis on the unity of all knowledge — the
symbol of the tree with roots and branches constantly recurs — on the
search for truth as its goal and on the importance of the history of
science as the very core of the tree of knowledge connecting all its
branches. With his advancing years and the gradual acceptance of
his views, his writing became less dogmatic, more tolerant, and more
insistent on the brotherhood of all men, East and West, who should
together pursue ultimate truth in universal peace. Science is above
political, racial, and geographical boundaries and is the creation not
of a few but of the many, each adding his bit to that of others. There¬
fore its history should both humble the student and also impress him
with the supreme importance of the search for truth regardless of the
searcher’s race, creed, or color. Dr. Sarton’s own studies in Arabic
deepened his convictions on this point, as did his interest in Chinese,
Japanese, and Indian cultures.
The essays on Avicenna and Maimonides are important representa¬
tives of these principles and of the author’s erudition. They also con¬
tain much material difficult to find elsewhere and they appeared
originally in publications not generally available. The summary of the
Renaissance period, “The Quest for Truth,” valuable for its concise
comprehensiveness, is another such example. “Simon Stevin of Bruges”
is a thoroughgoing historical study of an important but somewhat
ignored scientist — as well as, perhaps, an unconscious tribute to the
author’s native land. Some of these articles were originally lectures
to which the author added technical material before publication.
Others, like those on Montucla and Quetelet, are fully developed
studies. Still others, like “Notes on the Reviewing of Learned Books,”
are in the nature of an editorial prefacing a volume of his quarterly.
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PREFACE
Most of Dr. Sarton’s work centers around men; for whatever their
theories, human beings do the work. He therefore studies men, seeking
to determine the influences upon and through them, always relating
them to their own era. Thus his first scholarly love, Leonardo da Vinci,
could not properly be studied until he knew what had gone before.
Out of that search grew his many-volumed Introduction to the History
of Science which after twenty years’ labor he had to end fifty years
before he had reached da Vinci. No collection of his writings would
be adequately representative without some word on Leonardo; hence
a hitherto unpublished article is given here. It, like many of the other
articles, exemplifies the author’s own personality as well. His warm¬
heartedness touches all his subjects. He seems to share their trials
and to rejoice with them over their triumphs. “Rumphius,” “Bonpland,”
and “Moseley” are illustrative of that and also of his generosity in
wishing to give well-earned credit to workers perhaps not too well
known. This markedly personal character of his style runs throughout
his work, even the drily technical parts. What would be egoism and
antiquarianism in another are in his case the product of a simple,
whole-souled absorption of the man in his work.
Scholar that he was, his articles are a student’s great resource. They
fairly bristle with bibliographical detail. Lists of publications, editions,
and dates are given meticulously, accompanied often by a careful
comment on which books he himself has handled and which he has
not seen. He sought for portraits to illustrate his biographies, for seeing
to him was worth many words. And the authenticity of these portraits
was a matter as important as the authenticity of a manuscript. His
“Iconographic Honesty” makes that very clear.
Obviously this collection is just a sample of Dr. Sarton’s productive¬
ness. However, the editor hopes that through the presentation of some
of the author’s views on the history of science, some illustrations of his
historical and biographical studies, and some accounts of his scholarly
procedures evolved out of his rich experience the author himself will
become a personnage to the reader. For, encyclopedic scholar that he
was, he was also a warm, compassionate, gentle human being, humble
in his own eyes, intense in his devotion to his chosen subject, but ever
ready to help others. Internationally known and admired, he was
greatly loved for himself by student and colleague alike. If the reader
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PREFACE
becomes interested in the history of science, well and good. If he
becomes interested in George Sarton himself and wants to know more
of his work, then this compilation will have accomplished its purpose.
At the suggestion of Miss May Sarton and Professor I. Bernard
Cohen, Dr. Sarton’s literary executors, the Director of Harvard
University Press, Mr. Thomas J. Wilson, asked me to select and edit
some of Dr. Sarton’s writings on the history of science for republica¬
tion. With their support and encouragement and with that of Mr.
Joseph D. Elder, science editor of the Press, whose help along the way
has been invaluable, it has been both a pleasure and a privilege to
work on this material.
For permission to use copyright material, grateful acknowledgment
is made to the Americana Corporation, publishers of the Encylopedia
Americana for “Science, History of”; to the Carnegie Institution of
Washington for excerpts from Introduction to the History of Science,
Monograph No. 501 (1938), and Year Book No. 48; to the Metropolitan
Museum of Art for “The Quest for Truth” from Symposium on the
Renaissance; to the New York Academy of Medicine for “Avicenna”;
to the Cleveland Medical Library Association for “Maimonides”; to
the Academie Internationale d’Histoire des Sciences for “Acta atque
Agenda.”
D. S.
x
CONTENTS
Biographical Note xv
I
History of Science 1
From Encyclopedia Americana, vol. 24, pp. 413-417 (1956).
Four Guiding Ideas 15
From Introduction to the History of Science (Baltimore: pub¬
lished for the Carnegie Institution of Washington by Williams
and Wilkins Company, 1947), vol. 3, part 1, pp. 19-26.
Acta atque Agenda 23
From Archives internationales d’Histoire des Sciences 30, 323-
356 (1951).
The Scientific Basis of the History of Science 50
From Cooperation in Research (Washington: Carnegie Institu¬
tion Publication No. 501, 1938), pp. 465-481.
II
Avicenna: Physician, Scientist and Philosopher 67
From Bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine 31, SOT-
SI? (1953).
Maimonides: Philosopher and Physician 78
From Bulletin of the Cleveland Medical Library 2, 3-22 (1955).
The Quest for Truth: A Brief Account of Scientific
Progress During the Renaissance 102
From The Renaissance: A Symposium, February 8-10, 1952
(New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1953), pp. 35-49.
Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) 121
Unpublished; a much abridged version appeared in Leonardo da
Vinci (Metropolitan Museum of Art Miniatures, Album LL;
New York: Book-of-the-Month Club, 1952).
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CONTENTS
Simon Stevin of Bruges (1548-1620) 149
From Isis 21, 241-303 (1934).
Rumphius, Plinius Indicus [the East Indian Pliny]
(1628-1702) 189
From Isis 27, 242-257 (1937).
Montucla (1725-1799): His Life and Works 197
From Osiris 1, 519-567 (1936).
Quetelet (1796-1874) 229
From Isis 23, 6-24 (1935).
Aime Bonpland (1773-1858) 243
From Isis 34, 385-399 (1943).
Moseley [1887-1915]: The Numbering of the Ele¬
ments
From Isis 9, 96-111 (1927).
Ill
[English as an International Language: ] A Letter to
the Editor of the New York Evening Post, Febru-
ary 22, 1919 284
From Isis 2, 6-7 (1919).
The Tower of Babel 287
From Isis 39, 3-15 (1948).
Notes on the Reviewing of Learned Books 305
From Isis 41, 149-158 (1950).
Incunabula Wrongly Dated 320
From Isis 40, 227-240 (1949).
Iconographic Honesty 326
From Isis 30, 222-235 (1939).
The Study of Early Scientific Textbooks 339
From Isis 38, 137-148 (1948).
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