eamon secrets to public knowledge libre

8/10/2019 Eamon Secrets to Public Knowledge libre

1/15

MINERVA

Editor:

Professor Edward

Shils

Published

by

The

International Council

on the

Future of the

University.

The issue

from

which this article

is

reprinted

also

conlains

ARTICLES

University Legislation

and

the Decline

of Acade.nic Autonomy

tn

Poland lanwz Mucha

The Tradition

and

Tasks

of Governmental

and Private

Suppott

of

Research:

The

Support

of

Science

since

1945 Symposium on

the

25th

Anniversary of

the FritzThyssen Stiftung

MINERVA

is

published

quarter

Annual subscrtion

rate:

UK

and

all

other countries

f30.00

-

except

United

States

oi

America

and Canada

$60.00(by

air

freight).Single copy

f,7.50

or

$15.00.

Back

numbes

10.00

or

Dollar equivalent.

Subscriptions

may

be

paid

by

sterling

or dollar

cheque" money

order

or

bank transfer to:

Subscrtion

Departrnent,

Minerva, 59

St.

Martin's Lane,

London

WC2N

4JS.

Clains

for

free

replacement of missing

issues

must

be made immediately

on

recet

of

the

subsequent

issue.

FROM TIIE

SECRETS OF' NATTJRE

TO

PT,JBLIC

XNOWLEDGE:

TIIE

ORIGINS OF TIIE CONCEPT

OF

OPEI\I\TESS

IN

SCIENCE

By

\ryILLIAM

EAMON

Reprnted

from

tvflNERVA

Vol.

XXIII, No.3

Autumn

1985

MINERVA

59

St.

Mafin's

Lane, London, WC2N

4JS

rinted n

Grea

Brtan by

The Edstern

Press Ltd,,

London

and

Reading


2/15

From

the

Secrets

of

Nature

to

pubtic

Knowledge:

The

Origins

of

the

Concept

of

Openness

in

Science

WILLIAM

EAMON

So,important

is

the

princi

,

that

many

observers

hold it

to be an

integral

compon

thos,,.3

In principle,

secrecy

is

universally

regarded

as

the

advancmeni

of

science.

one

might assume

that

a

rule

so central

to

modern

science

should

have

been

a part

ofthe tradition

from its

origins

in

antiquity.

Instead,

it

developed

relatively

recently,

at

least

in historical

terms.

Science

in

classical

Greece

developed

within

the

paradigm

of

competitive

public

debate,

which

tended

emergence

of

new

technology,

new

institutions

for

the promotion

of

scientific

activity,

and

institutional

mechanisns

to protect

the

interests

of


3/15

322

William Eamon

discoverers, did

the conception of

science as

"public

knowledge" take fbrm.

These

developments

resulted in changes in

the mechanisms

for

the

dissemination of scientific

knowledge,

and

also

in

a

transformation of

the

ethics

governing the

relationship

between

science and its

public.

Science and Secrets

in the Middle Ages

By

modern standards,

scientific communication in

the

Middle Ages

was

primitive and limited.

As

long

as

speech

and manuscript were the only

means

for the

diffusion

of

knowledge, new

discoveries and

theories were

disseminated

slowly.

with a

good deal

of

corruption

and

sacrifice of content,

and even

then to

a

linited audience.

This

situation

changed

with

the advent

of

printing, as scientific books reached

a

broader

and more diverse

audience,

and

prevailing theories, in relatively uncorrupted form, could

be

scrutinised

by many

critical

eyes at once.

As modern

research has

shown,

the

printing

press

revolutionised

the

communications

system

of

early

modern

Europe,

and contributed to the

"opening

up"

of

the

closed

world

of

medieval

science.s

Yet it

was not only

the

poor

system

of

communications

associated

with

scribal

culture that limited

the openness of

science.

The medieval scientific

community,

closed to all

but academics,

was to a

large extent isolated from

the

rest of society-

The

emergence of the

universities as

autonomous

corporate bodies

in

the thirteenth

and

fourteenth

centuries coincided with

the formation

of

guilds

in

commerce and

industry,

and of self-governing

communes

in

the

civic

sphere. Like

other occupational

groups

of

the

Middle

Ages, the

academic

community was autonomous,

governed

itself by

its

own rules,

and

stricly

regulated

entrance into its ranks. As

a

result of this

self-imposed

isolation,

academics conceived

of themselves as a community

separate from

other

occupational

groups,

such

as

craftsmen, monks

and

merchants.

Unlike

the

craft

and

merchant guilds, however, the universities

of

scholars

gained special exemptions

and

privileges.6

For

example,

efforts

were

made in

most

universities

to protect

scholars

from grasping

landlords

through the

provision

of fair-rent

policies.

Some cities

protected scholars

from

annoyances

that might

disturb

their

studies,

while others

created

special

immunities from

taxes

and other

obligations. In fourteenth-century

Montpellier,

a

scholar

brought suit

against a weaver who, the student

complained,

sang in

such

a

loud voice

that he disturbed the

student's study.

Despite

the

weaver's

plea

that

he was so

accustomed to singing while

at

work

s

Eisenstein,

Elizaber

L.,

The

Printing Press

as

an

Agent of Change

(Cambridge:

Cambridge University

P:ess,

1979); Drake, Stillman,

"Early

Science and

the Printed

Book:

The Spread

of

Science

3eyond

the University",

Renasance

and.

Reformation,

VI

(1970),

pp.38-52.

6

Kibre,

Pearl,

"Scholarly

Privileges: Their Roman Origins and Medieval Expression",

American

Historical Review, LIX

(April

1954),

pp.

543-567

-

See

also

Kibre, Pearl

and

Siraisi,

Nancy

G., "The Institudonal

Setting:

The Universities",

in Lindberg, David

(ed.),

Science

in

the

Middle

Ages

(Chicagr:

University

of Chicago Press, 1978,

pp.

120-144.

From

the

Secrets

of

Nature

to

public

Knowledge

323

that

he

could

not

stop,

the court

ordered

action

was

justified

on

the ground

of

public

for the

welfare

of the

city.

Clearly,

academ

of

"new

nobility"

in

medieval

Europe.

e

Middle

Ages because

theycal

learning, which

until

the.

.

Medieval

intellectuals

were

captured

in

the

words

of

a

Pisan

Scholar

named

Stephen,

who wrote

that he

had

journeyed

to

Antioch

during the

First

crusade in

order

to

learn

..all

the

In

an

atmosphere

so

heavily charged

with

fascination

for

sacred

knowledge,

books

that

purported

to

unveil the

esoteric

wisdom

of

the

ancients

had widespread

appeal.

one work

was

especially

attractive

in

the

West: the

pseudo-Aristotelian

Kitab Sirr

al-Asrar (,,-lheBook

of

the

Secret

of

Secrets"),

known

to

Europeans

as

the .icre

text

bearing

Aristotle's

name

carried

the

weight

of

a

ured

the

imagination

of the

medieval

West like

this

than

500

manuscripts

of the

work

have

been

identified,

fully

justifying

Thorndike's

characterisation

of

it as

"the

most

popular

book

in

the

middte

ages".

11

'lhe

secretum secretorum

originated

as a

handbook on

statecraft

in

the

form

of

a

letter

from

Aristotle

to

Alexander

the

Great.

By a

process

of

accretion,

it

gradually

developed into

an encyclopaedic

work comprising,

in

addition

to

its

original

moral

and political

component,

miscellaneous

information

on

occult

and

scientific

subjects:

medicine,

astrology,

^

7

Lindberg,

David, "The

Transmission

of

Greek and

Arabic

Learning

to

the vy'est",

in

s-c-ience in.the

Middle

Ages,

pp.52-90;

and Haskins,

charles

H., studies

in the

History

of

Medineval

Sc

1960).

8

Haskins,

e

-tbtd.,

pp.

tu

There

is

text;

see,

in

particular,

Manzaloui,

Mahmoud,

,.The

Pseudo-Aristotelian

Kitab

sirr

al-Asrar:

Facts

and

problems",

oriens, xxlJ,l-xxlV

(1974),

gV. 747-257; Ryan,

W.

F.

and

Schmju,

Charles

B.

(eds),

,,\cret

of

Secre":

Sources

and

Influences (London:

Wa

burg

Institute,

amon,

W_

inlss,

LXXXVI

(March

1985).

pp.94-95.

"

Thorndike,

Lynn, History of

Magic

and Experimental

Columbia

University

Press,

1923), Yol.Il,

p.

267.


4/15

324

William

Eamon

physiognomy,

alchemy and

magic.

Thus the

Secretum secretorurn

not only

professed

to reveal

the

deepest,

esoteric wisdom of Aristotle,

but

also

promulgated the

view that, v'ith the

aid

of this secret

knowledge,

limitless

things are

possible

in

the

material world.

These

convictions were

reinforced

by the

language of

the

work;

its

elusive, enigmatic

terminology made the

Secretum

secretorum even

more alluring

to

medieval intellectuals,

who

were

already convinced that the secrets

of nature were esoteric

and

hidden

from

the

eyes

of the unworthy. Pseudo-Aristotle explained:

I

am

revealing my secrets

to

you figuratively,

speaking with enigmatic examples and

signs, because I

greatly

fear that

the

present

book might fall

into the

hands of

infidels

and

arrogant powen, whereby they, whom

God on high has deemed undesewing

and

unworthy, migh arrive

at

that ultimate

good

and

divine

mystery. I

would

then

surely be

a transgressor of

divine grace and

a violator

of

the

heavenly secret and

occult

revelation. Because of this, I expose this

sacrament

to

you

in

the

manner in

which

it

was

revealed

to

me, under the seal of divine

justice.

Know therefore that

whoever betrays these secrets and reveals

these

mysteries

to

the

unworthy

shall

not

be

safe from

the

misfortune

that

shall soon befail

him.12

The

impact on

the

medieval

mind

of

the

Secretum

secretorum,

and

of

countless

similar works,

is difficult to

convey and often overlooked.

A

modern biographer of Roger

Bacon

has suggested that,

upon

reading

the

work,

Bacon "awoke to

a ne'w world" .The

Secretumsecretorum

"awakened

his

dormant sense

of wonder" about the mysteries of

nature,

and

caused

him

to shift his

interests

from

philosophy

and

theology

to scientia

experimentI.s.

13

Bacon made

his own edition

of the work

and

wrote

extensive

glosses

on it, convinced

that

whoever read and understood

the

Secretum

secretorum

would find in it

i'the

greatest

natural

secrets

to

which

man or human

invention can attain in this

life".la

The

Secretum

secretorum had

little impact on the development of

scientific

theory,

but

the

work

played

an

influential

role in shaping medieval

attitudes toward tre

disclosure

of

knowledge.

For

the

Secretum

secretorum

was above

all

a

book of

revealed

knowledge,

of

arcana

hidden

from

the

vulgus and reserved

for

the

select

few. Its

continual warning about the

danger of revealing

secrets

found

its

way

into numerous scientific

and

philosophical

works.ls As

Bacon

wrote in hs

Opus Majus:

[T]he

wise have always been

divided

from

the

multitude,

and

they

have

veiled

the

secrets

of wisdom

not

only

from the world at large but also from the rank and file

of

those

devoting

themselves

to

philosophy.

For this reason

wise

men

of Greece

tt

Bacon,

Roger,

Ooera hactenus

inedita Rogeri

Baconi,Fasc. Y'. Secretum secrelorum cum

glossis

et

notulis, ed. Steele,

Robert

(Oxford:

Oxford University

Press, 1920),

p.

41.

13

Easton, Stewart

C., Roger Bacon

and

His

Search

for

a Universal Sclen ce

(New

York:

Columbia University

Press, 1952),

pp.

78-86.

to

Bacon,

R.,

S

ecre

:um

s e

cretorum,

op

-

ct.,

p

-

l.

rs

Monfrin, J., "La

Place dtt Secret

des secrets

dans

la litterature

franaise mdivale", in

Ryan,

W. F.

and

Schmitt, C.

B.

(eds),

Pseudo-ArtotleThe"Secretof

Secre",

pp.7T773;and

Ryan,

W.

F., "Th

Secretum

secretorum

and

the Muscovite Anstocracy",

ibid.,

pp.

114-123.

From

the

Secrets

of Nature to

Public

Knowledge

325

s

of

the n

,

apart

from the

multitude,

to

n, of whi

s book

of

Attic

Nights

. .

.

In

it is fooli

when

thistles

suffie

him.

IIe

This outlook

was

amply

reinforced

by a

literary tradition,

going

back

to

Macrobius, in

which the

goddess

Natura

was

portrayed

as

being

modest,

covered

with

a

veil, and

hostile

to

an

open disclosure

of her

secrets.lT

Hence

it

was

a moral duty

for

the philosopher

to

approach

her discreetly,

to speak

of

her only

in

veiled

images

and fables (fabulosa),

so

as

not to

expose

her

nakedness to

public

view.

The

moral obligation

to

be

circumspect

when

dealing

with the secrets

of

nature

was

thus

a conviction

woven

into

the

very

fabric of

medieval thought.

The ethical obligation

of secrecy

was more pronounced

in

some traditions

than in others.

Alchemy,

for

example,

was always

considered

a

,.divine

science"

rather

than

a

purely

natural

one,

more

a form

of personal

knowledge

than public

knowledge.

Its

secrets

were

acquired

by

a

combination

of reason,

divine

illumination

and

practice,

and hence

transcended

the

power of

words

to

describe

them. These considerations

help

to

explain

the tendency

of alchemical

writers

to

use

obscure

symbols,

paradoxes,

allegories and

secret

names.18

The

esoteric

language

of alchemy

was

never intended

to

be

understood

literally,

but

was

deliberately

used

to

protect

divine

secrets

and to

guarantee

their

possession

by

a

small circle

of

initiates.

For both

moral

and

practical

reasons,

therefore,

alchemy

could

not

be public

knowledge:

the

only

way to

learn

the

arf,

apart

from

divine

inspiration,

was through personal guidance

by

an

adept.

Alchemical

writers

adopted,

almost

as an

expository

formula,

the convention

of

a

master

addressing

his

pupil,

initiating

him

into the secrets

of an

esoteric

tradition.

_

16

B_9r 9,,-Robert

Belle (trans.),

The

Opus Majus

of Roger

Bacon (New

york:

Russell

&

Russell,

1962),Yol.I, pp.

11-12.

_ _

r/

Economou.

George

D.,

The Goddess Natura in

Medieval

Literature (cambridge:

Harvard

University

Pre-ss,

1972);

see

{9o,

Raby,

F.

J. E.,,,Nuda

Natura and

Twentih-Century

Cosmology",

Speculum,

XLIII

(January

1968),

pp.72-77.

-

18

Crosland,

Maurice P.,

Historical

Smei

nihe

Languoge

of

Chemistry,

rev. edn

(New

Yok: Dove

Publications,

978),

pp.

3-62;

and,

Crisciani,

CLiara,

.,The

Conception

of

4lqtt:ryv

as

f

xprelsed in

the Pretiosa

Margarita

Novel/

of Petrus

Bonus of

Ferrar

u"

,

l^b*,

XX

(November

1973),

165-181.


5/15

326 William Eamon

Phrases

such

as

"Scias,

fili charissime"

("my

beloved son"),

occur

repeatedly

in

these

works.Ie

This

ethic did

not,

however, discourage some individuals

in the Middle

Ages

from experimenting on

their

own. As

the

case

of Roger

Bacon

suggests,

it may only have

quickened their curiosity

about the

empirical

approach

of

the

Arabs.

Hence

there

appeared

in

the

thirteenth

and

fourteenth

centuries

a

large body of

literature

concerned

with

secreta

and

experimenta,

or

recipes

and

formulae

attested

to

by

experience.20

Some

of

these

"secrets" were the-

discoveries of academics

like Bacon,

but

more

commonly

they were

the product

of

a

sort of "underworld

of learning"

consisting of

physicians,

craftsmen

and individuals who had gained

some

literacy

but

were not affiliated with traditional

academic or

learned

occupations.2l One

example of this type

of

individual

was

Gottfried

of

Franconia,

a fourteenth-century

journeyman

grafter

who

plied

his

trade

on

estates

all over Europe, and in the

process

observed craftsmen

at

work in

many

different

regions.

Unlike

many artisans,

Gottfried

could

read and

write,

and

he recorded his

experiences

in

a

work called the

Pelzbuch, a

collection

of

recipes

on grafting, winemaking

and

the

care

of

orchards.22

Gottfried's Pelzbuch was copied in scores

of

manuscripts,

and

his ideas were

cited

by

agronomists dc,wn

through

the

seventeenth

century. Although

experiments

like those recorded by Gottfried were most commonly

associated

with the medical tradition, in the form of special remedies

supposedly

"proven",

there

was

also

a sizeable

body of

"secrets"

connected

with

the crafts and the magical

tradition.

The

literature of

secreis

did

not

find place among

the

official sciences

of

the

universities,

however.23 Secreta

referred

to

two

types

of

phenomena:

those

that

occurred unexpectedly

as

a

result

of

some

unknown,

or occult

cause; and those

the

causes

of which were artificial rather than natural.

Scientia, on the other hand,

aimed

to

attain certainty about the

physical

le

Manget,

J.

J.,

Bibliotheca Chemica Curiosa

(Geneva:

1702),

Vol.

l,

pp.

679,693,763,790

(Arnald

of Villanova and

Raynond Lull).

Petrus

Bonus

wrote that

"at times

it would

almost

look

as

if this art could be acquired only by the

living

voice

of the master, or by direct

divine

inspiration",

Crisciani, C.,op.

cit.,p.113.

See

also,

Morienus,

A

Testamentof Alchemy,trans.

Stavenhagen,

Lee

(Hanover,

N.H.:

University

Press

of New England),

pp. 11,

17, 19,29,37;

and

Crisciani, Chiara,

"La

'Questio

de alchimia'fra duecente e trecento"

,

Medioevo,Il

(1976),

pp.

1227.

20

For examples,

see

McVaugh,

Michael,

"Two

Montepellier

Recipe Collections",

Maruucripta,

XX

(November

1976), pp. 175-180; Braekman,

Willy

(ed.),

Magishe

experimenten en toverpraktijken

uit

een middlened.erlans handschrift,Uitgavevan

het Seminarie

voor

Volkskunde

(Gent:

Seminarie

Volkskunde van

de Rijksuniversiteit, Publicatie,

1966);

and

Giannini, Giovanni

(ed.),

iJna

curiosa raccolta di

segreti

e di

pratiche

superstizione

fatta

da

unpopulanofiorentino delsecoio XIV(Castello: S. Lapi, 1898); andPansier, P.,

"Experimenta

Magistri Gilliberti, Cancellarii Montispessulani"

,

Janus, VIII

(

1903), pp. l4l-747 .

2t

Bolgar,

R. R.,

Tlz Classica Heritage

and

lts

Beneficiaries

(Cambridge:

Cambridge

University Press, 1963),

p.

180.

22

Eis, Gerhardt,

Gottfrieds Pelzbuch (Hildesheim: Georg Olms

Verlag,

19);

Eamon,

William,

"Botanical

Empiricism in Late Medieval Technical

Writings".

Res Publica

Litterarum,

III

(1980), pp,

237-245.

23

For

details

of this argument, see Eamon, William,

"Books

of

Secrets

in Medieval

and

Early

Modern Science", Sudhoffs

Archiv,

LXIX

(1985),

pp. 26-49.

From the

Secrets

of

Nature to

Public

Knowledge

327

world

as it

existed

in nature. Thus

"secrets"

were

idiosyncratic, in that they

were peculiar

to

a

relatively

narrow

class

of phenomena,

or

could

be effected

only

through

some special

insight,

skill, or cunning, whether

that

was

of

the

artisan

or

the

magus. For

these

reasons, knowledge

of secrets was

stricto

sens

impossible, in that they could

be neither understood

nor

explained

according

to

the ordinary

canons

of

logic

and natural philosophy.

They

occurred

spontaneously,

without evident

cause,

and hence

lay

outside the

boundaries

of official science. As the

leftovers, so to

speak, from the

attempt

to subsume

everything under the

categories

of Aristotelian

natural

philosophy,

secrets were the miscellaneous

data and

fortuitous

discoveries

that

did not fit into the mould

of.

scientia. Thus they accumulated,

filling

compilations

which found

their place

outside, or on the

fringe, of official

scrence.

The

Development of

the

Right of Intellectual Property

In addition to such

purely

philosophical

considerations,

social

and

economic

factors

also made for resistance

to

open disclosure

of

"secrets"

in

the

Middle

Ages. Technical

recjpes,

for

example,

were normally

the

property

of craftsmen,

who were compelled

by

guild

restrictions to

keep

secret

the

secrets

of the arts.

Disclosure

of craft

techniques

threatened

to

undermine their monopoly

over

specialised

skills. Engineers

and

inventors

rwere

also

reluctant

to

publish

their discoveries,

for fear of losing claim

to

public

recognition for their inventions. Although we are

no longer

inclined

to explain

Leonardo

da Vinci's

mirror

writing

in

his

notebooks

as a

response

to fear of

persecution-it

came naturally

to

him as a

left-handed person-it

may

be that he

adopted this

practice

in

order to maintain proprietary

rights

over

his

inventions by making

casual

copying

difficult.

Other

Renaissance

engineers

employed similar

tactics.

Giovanni

da

Fontana

(c.

1395-c. 1455),

for

example,

composed

several

highly original

treatises

on technology, all

written

in

cipher

to prevent

them

from

being

read.2a

The

fifteenth-century

engineer,

Mariano

Taccola

(1382-c.

L453), was

warned by Brunelleschi

to

conceal

his

inventions from

the

public:

Do.not share

your

inventions

with

many,

share

them

only

with

few who understand

and love the sciences.

To

disclose too

much

of

one's

inventions

and achievements

is

one and

the

same

thing as

to give up the fruit of

one's

ingenuity. Many

are ready,

when listening

to the inventor, to belittle and deny his achievements,

so that

he will

no longer be heard in honourable

places,

but after

some months or a

year

they use the

inventor's

words,

in

speech

or writing or

design. They

boldly

call themselves

the

inventors

of

the things

that

they

first

condemned, and

attribute

the

glory

of another

to themselves.

2a

Clagget, Marshall,

"The

Life

and

Career of Giovani

Fontana",

Annali dell'

Istituto e

Museo di Storia della Scienza di

Firenze,I,

fasc.

1

(1976),pp.128;

Birkenmajer, Alexander,

"Zur

Lebensgeschichte

und

wissenschafthchen

Ttigkeit

von

Giovanni Fontana

(1395?-

14552)".

Iss.

XVII

(1932), pp.

34-53.

2s

Quoted

in Prager, Frank D-,

"A

Manuscript

of

Taccola,

quoting

Brunelleschi, on

Problems

oflnventors and Builders"

,

Proceedings

ofthe

American

Philosophcal Society,CXll

(1968),

p.

lal.


6/15

328

William Eamon

Taccola ignored

Brunelleschi's advice

at his

peril,

and was

repeatedly

plagiarised.

So was Francesco di

Giorgio Martini

(1439-1501),

who

complained

bitterly:

Such knowledge

[of

my

inventions]

as

I have

has

been acquired

with

great

toil and

at

the

sacrifice

of my means of livelihood,

so I am

reluctant to

show them

forth to all,

for

once an

invention

is

made

known not much

of

a

secret

is

left.

But

even this

would

be a

lesser

evil

if

a

greater

did

not

follow.

The worst

is

that ignoramuses

adorn themselves

with

the labours

of others and usurp the glory

of an invention that

is not theirs.

For

this

reason

the efforts

of one who

has tme

knowledge is oft retarded.

If

in

all

epochs

this vice

hath abounded,

in our

own

it

is more

widespread

than

in any other.26

In the

absence

of effective provisions

for copyright,

Renaissance

engineers

were

justifiably

reluctant to publish

their

discoveries.

The concept

of the rifit of

intellectual

property,

guaranteed

through

patents

and copyrights,

emerged

in

response

to a

growing

awareness

that

scientific

knowledge could be

put

to

practical

use, and that

as

long

as

new

discoveries

were

kept

secret, the

advance

of knowledge,

and

hence profit,

would

be

retarded. The earliest

known

patent was

one issued by

the council

of Florence

to

the architect

Fitippo

Brunelleschi

for

a

cargo

ship

in

1421.27

The council's order

expressly

forbade

any

person,

"wherever

born

and

of

whatever

status,

dignity, quality

and

grade",

from

using

Brunelleschi's

design

for

a

period

of three

years.

The order

was

intended

not only as an

encouragement

to

Brunelleschi to

"open up what he

is hiding and

.

. .

disclose

it to all", but

also "so

that

he may be animated

more fervently

to

even

higher

pursuits and

stimulated

to

more subtle

investigations".

Implicit

in

the

council's

order

was the

recognition that revealing

secrets to

the

public

would lead

inevitably to

technological progress.

The

precedent

established

by

the council

of

Florence

was

continued

by

the

governments

of

other

Italian cities

in

the

fifteenth

century,

frequently

by

the grant of a monopoly

on

the use

of the device to the

inventor.

The first

patent law

was

enacted

in

Venice

inL474, and its preamble

is worth quoting

in

full:

We have

among us men of

gr:at

genius,

apt to invent and discover

ingenious devices;

and in view

of

the

grandeur

end virtue

of

our

City,

more

such men come to us

every

day

from

divers

parts.

Now

if provision were made

for

the works and devices

discovered

by

such

persons,

so that

others

who

may

see

them

could

not

build them

and take the

inventor's

honor away, more men would then apply

their

genius,

would

discover,

and

would build

devices

of

great

utility

and benefit

to

our

commonwealth.28

The statute

enjoined

anyone from imitating the invention

for

a period

of

ten

years.

More important,

i,

recognised the

social

utility of

patents,

and

saw

26

Quoted

in

Reti, Ladislao,

"Francesco

di

Giorgio

Martini's

Treatise

on

Engineering

and Its

Plagiarists",

Technology and Culrure,

IV

(1963), pp.291-292.

''

Prager,

Frak

D.,

"Brunelleschi's

Patent"

,

Journal

of

the

Patent Office Society,

XXVilI

(February

19aQ, pp.

109-135.

28

Mandich, Guilio,

"Venetian

Patents (1450-1550)",

Journal

of the Patent

Office Society,

XXX

(March

1948),

p.176.

From

the Secre of Nature

fo

Public

Knowledge

329

protection

of

intellectual

property

as

necessary for

advancing technological

knowledge.

The

number

of

patents

granted

throughout

Europe

in the sixteenth

century

increased

dramatically.2e

Evidently,

this

system assured

many

inventors

that, by

taking

out

a

patent, they need

not

lose

their claim

to

priority

of

discovery.

The

concept

of

intellectual property rights

was

eventually

extended

to the realm

of

pure

ideas,

as

printers

and

authors

began

to

demand

the

same

privileges

as inventors,

and soon

gained

them

in

the

form of

copyrights.30

Scribal

culture had

offered

little

incentive

for men

of

science

to make

their

discoveries

known

for

others

to steal.

As long

as

secrets

were

kept

secret,

they

were

valuable;

once

they became

public

property they

could

be exploited

by

anyone,

and

hence were worthless.

All

of this

changed

with

the

advent

of

printing,

for

even without

a formal

copyright,

authors

could

be

assured

that

their

discoveries

would

at

least be

acknowledged

by

having

their names

prominently

displayed on

the

title

pages of

their

books.

The

growing market

for

printed

books

soon made

it

pparent

that

not only

fame,

but

profit

as

well,

could

be

had

by publishing

one's

"secrets"

to

a

new, expanded reading

public.

The

Trdition

of

Books

of

Secrets

One

of the

most

remarkable

signals

of this shift

in

consciousness

was the

publication

in

the sixteenth

century of

scores

of

"books

of secrets"

that

professed

to

reveal,

to

anyone

who could

read

them, the

secrets

of

nature

and

the arts.31

on the

face of it,

the books

of

secrets

were

little

more than

collections

of

recipes

relating

to medicine

and

the arts,

and included

everything

from

cures

for

the plague and

gout

to

instructions

for making

cosmetics,

perfumes,

dyes,

jewellely

and articles

of metal.

The earliest

of

these handbooks

were

a series of

Italian

pamphlets

for

domestic use

printed

in

the

1520s and

1530s.

In Germany,

a

group of

popular craft

manuals,

known

as

the Kunstbchlein,

appeared

in

th

reprinted

and

translated

throughout

the

handbooks,

which

offered

recipes

on

dyeing,

and

practical

chemistry,

were

printers'

compilations

from workshop

notes,

;;T'T:fr

1?f":i*i::',:{{::::{,*

Patent

Office

Society,XI'YI

(April

1964),

pp.268-297.

"3o

patterson,

Lymari

R., Copyright

in

Historical

Perspective

(Nashville: Vanderbilt

Bibliographical

Notes on

,

1959).

See

also,

Eamon,

Secrets

Tradition

and the

Htory

of

Science,

XXII

Kurstbchlein,

d Medizin,

Heft

114-125.

"'

oP' cit''

PP'


7/15

330

lUilliam

Eamon

but

were presented

to

the

public

as

efforts

to

improve

the

arts

through

scientific

techniques.

The

most

famous

example

of this

genre

was

Alessio

piemontese's

secreti,

which

was

first published

in

1555

and

had appeared

in

over 70

editions

in

various

languages

by

the

end

of the

seventeenth

century.3.

The

circumstances

surrounding

the

composition

of

this

little-known work

are

extremely

interesting

and

significant

for

the

development

of the

ethos

of

public

science.

Its author

was most

probably

Girolamo

Ruscelli

(c.

1500-66),

a minor

humanist

ard

professional

writer

whose

works

included

annotations

on Boccaccic

and

Petrarch,

commentaries

on the

Italian

language,

books

on

poetry.

According

to Ruscel

s Secreti

nuovi

(1567),

he had

onym

of

"Alexis

of

Piedmont'

ts"

in an

experimental

academy

that

he

had organised

in

Naples, probably

in

the

1540s.34

The

society was

called

the

Academia

Segreta, a

name

meant

to

signify

two

of

its

essential features.

First,

it

was quite

literally

a secret

society,

each of

its

27 members

having

taken

an

oath not

to

breathe

a word

of

its existence

to

anyone. The

name also described

the group's

scientific

aim,

which,

as

Ruscelli put

it, was

to

"make

a true

anatomy"

of

nature

by

uncovering

its secrets.

The

academy

was

heavily subsidised

by

an

unnamed

"prince"

of

the

city,

a man

evidently

committed

to

the

advancement

of

experimental

science

and

to

its

use

in promoting

the

welfare

of the state.

Ruscelli's

remarkable

preface

goes

on

to

describe

a laboratory,

the

Filosofia,

which

his academicians

had

constructed

for

the

express

purpose

of

"proving"

all

the recipes

and secrets they

had collected.

The

society even

employed

craftsmen

to

assist

them

in their

experiments,

which

were

conducted

according

to a

"method" described

as

follows:

In doing

such

experiments,

we

adopted

an order

and

method,

one

better

than

which

cannot

be

found or imaginec,

as

I

shall

next relate:

of all

those

secrets

and

. we

made

those

that

of

people

The

method

articulated

in this

passage

is

obviously

primitive

by

modern

standards.

Yet

historically

it

is

quite

significant,

for in the

medieval

scholastic

tradition

an

"experiment"

was

nothing

more than an

experience

of

something:

experimentum

and

experientia

were generally

used

From

the

Secrets of Nature

to

Public

Knowledge

33r

interchangeably.36

For

Ruscelli,

however, experiments

were

not random

experiences,

but

deliberate

tests, trials of

the recipes

and

techniques

collected from

manuscripts

and

by word of

mouth. His

requirement

that

each secret

be

tried

three times

before

giving it the

stamp of approval

was

a

mechanism

of control.

It established

critical

standards

and

systematic

procedures,

a

recognition of

the

variability

of

experimental situations.

The

only

direct evidence

we

have for

the existence of

the

Accademia

Segreta is Ruscelli's

own

testimony,

for

unlike

modern scientific

societies,

this

group

operated

in strict

secrecy.

Ruscelli

explained:

pt

secret,

this

was

not because

the

contrary,

his Excellency's

be manifested

and

publicised

to

every one

as

a

most

worthy to elicit

the

noblest

rivalry

fro

and from

every

beautiful

and

sublime

mind

y

reasons

of ours and also

because

while

reducing it

to

perfection,

we

would

be able

to

do

it

more

quietly,

without

being

disturbed,

impaired

or troubled at

all

times by

this

one and

that one

running

to see

and hear the fruit

of

our

labor rather

than mere

rumors or

extravagant

promiss

such

as

many

make.37

Ruscelli's

cryptic

explanation

suggests

that

he and

the

members

of

his

academy were

conscious

that they

were

embarking

on something

new

and

untried.

It

also implies

that

they

were

aware of

the suspicions

that could

be

cast

upon

the experimental

investigation

ofthe

"secrets

ofnature".

Indeed

it

is

quite

possible

that

the Accademia

Segreta

was

closed

down,

along

with

the

other

Neapolitan

academies,

during

the

political "tumult"

of

1547,

when

the nobility

and people

of Naples

rebelled

against attempts

to introduce

the

Spanish

Inquisition

into

the city.

The Spanish

viceroy,

Don

Pedro

of

Toledo,

had

long

suspected

the

academies of being

hotbeds

of religious

and

political intrigue:

according

to

the

historian

Antonio

Castaldo--a

member

of

one

of

the

academies-Toledo

was

convinced

that

"it

did not

look

good

to

have under the

pretext

of

literary

exercise so

many

gatherings and

such

continuous

meeting

of

the wisest

and

loftiest

minds of

the

city,

because the

pursuit

of

letters

makes

men

more

shrewd,

bolder,

and

more

headstrong

in

their

actions".38

Although

Ruscelli

did

not

go

into

the

reasons

for the

closure

of his

academy,

it is

possible

that

the

group

was

suspected

of

dabbling in magic

as

well

as

political

intrigue.

We

can

surmise

this

because'

in

1560, the

Neapolitan

philosopher

Giambattista

della

Porta

organised

an

academy

3

Schmitt,

Charles 8., "

with Galileo's

in

De

motu",

"Problems

of

Empiricism",

Encyclopedia

of Unfed

S

pp.5T94.

37

Eamon,

W.

and Paheau,

F., op.

cit.,

p'

340'

38

Minieri-Riccio,

Camillo, "Notizia

delle

accademie

institute

nelle

provincie napolitane",

Archivio

storico

per Ie

province napolitane,

IV

(1879)'

p.

173.

^

33.Ferguson,JohnK.,"TheSecretsofAlexis",

proceedingsoftheRoyalsocietyofMedicine,

se^ction

on

Hstory

of

Med.icine,xxry

(1931),

pp.

zzsS+ir,amoi,

williu.-,

,rhe

secreti

of

Alexis

of

Piedmont,

1555",

Res Publica Liueraium,II

(1979),

pp.

4 56.

_

'o

T "

preface is

translated,

and

the

academy

describe,

in

motr,

william

and paheau,

Franoise,

"The

Accademia

Sggreta

of

Girolamo

Ruscelli:

A

Sixteenth

Century

ltalian

Scientific

Society",

1s.s,

LXXV

(Jrne

1984).

pp.327-342.

3s

lbi.,

p.

34b.


8/15

332 William Eamon

with

similar purposes---{alled,

coincidentally,

the Accademia dei

Segreti-

into

which,

supposedly, no one was

admitted

unless he

had

discovered

a

"secret

of

nature

or

the

arts".3e Although

this

was

a

strictly

private and

informal group, meeting occasionally

in

della

Porta's house,

it too was

forced to close,

and

della

Porta was summoned to Rome to answer

to

charges

of

religious heresy. Despite

this

brush

with the

authorities,

he

published

the

results

of

his

academy's

work in

the expanded

edition

of his

Magia natural's

(1589),

a

popular

work

that

played a

major role in making

publicly

known the experimental

approach to science

that he advocated.

The

work

is also important in illuminating changing

attitudes

toward

maintaining

secrecy

in

the

sciences. In

contrast to Roger

Bacon

and the

medieval tradition,

della

Porta announced,

"I discover those things that

have

been long hid,

either

by the envy

or ignorance of

others

.

. .

Vy'herefore

such

things

as

hitherto lay

hid in

the bosome of

wondrous Nature shall

come

to

light, from

the storehouses

of the most ingenious

men,

without

fraud or

deceit". Nevertheless,

della Porta

was

not willing to

reveal everything to

everyone.

He

acknowledged

that

there

were

some

secrets best kept secret:

"Such

[secrets]

as

are magnificent

and most excellent,

I

have veil'd

by the

article

of

words,

by

transposition

and depression

of

them; and

such

things as

are

hurtful and

mischievous,

I have written

obscurely;

yet

not

so,

but

that

an

ingenious

reader

may

unfold it,

and the

wit

of

one

that

will throughly

search

may

comprehend

it."4o

Della

Porta

believed,

like

Bacon before him, that

"if

rude and

ignorant

men

shall deal

in

these

matters, this science

will

be

much

discredited".

Like

most

of the authors of the

books

of secrets,

della

Porta

evidently intended

his

work

to reach an

audience

best

described

as

the

"virtuosi": socially

ambitious,

middle-class

readers who were

assured

that

"true

nobility"

consisted

in virtue and merit rather than birth, and that virtue

is acquired,

not

inherited.ar

One

of

the

outward

signs of this new

status

was

"virtuosity",

which included

collecting

"secrets"

and cabinets of curiosities. To protect

secrets

from

less

worthy,

della

Porta

gave

this

advice:

"If

you

would

have

your

works

appear

more wonderful,

you

must

not let

the

cause

be

known,

for that

is

a wonder to us,

which

we

see to

be

done,

and

yet

know not the

cause

of

it."42

The

furtiveness regarding della Porta's Accademia dei Segreti

might

well

be

expected

from

the

foremost natural magician of the

age.

After

all,

della

Porta had

enthusiastically

proclaimed

that

secrets

were

"the

quintessence

of

3e

On

the chaacter of this

group,

see Gliozzi, M.

,

"Sulla

natura dell'

'Accadenia

de'

Secreti'

di Giovan Battista Porta", Archites internationales d'htorie

des

sciences, XII

(July

1950),

pp.

53G541.

a0

Della

Porta, John Baptista,

Natural Magick

(1589),

ed. Price, D. J.

(New

York: Basic

Books, 1957),

"Preface

to the Reader".

atThebeststudyofthevirtuosi,thoughitdealsonlywiththeEnglishtradition,isHoughton,

Walter,

"The

English

Virtuosi

in the

Seventeenth

Centvy"

,

Journal of

the Htory

of

Ideas

,Ill

(January

1942).

pp.5l-73,

and

(April

1942).

pp.

190-219.

o2

Porta. J. 8.. Natural Magick. op. cit..

p- 4.

From

the

Secrets

of

Nature

to

Public

Knowledge

333

matters.

The

Critique

of

"Forbidden

Knowledge"

meaning

of

this

triple

exhortation

is evident:

a3

Paparelli,

Gioacchino,

"Giambattista

della.

Porta:

(1) D9ll"-

t-l"Totologia;

(2)

'Liber

medicus,,,,

Rivta

di

stori;

delta

scienze

mediche

e

naturali,

XLVII

(January-June

1956),

oo.79-94.

";t')iure,carlo,

,,High

and

Low:

The

Theme

of Forbidden

Knowledge

in the

sixteenth

una

s*it""th

Ceniurie",

Past

and

Presenl'

LXXIII

(November

7976)'

p'

32'


9/15

334 William

Eamon

ise

motivations

of

the

papacy

to

he possibility

of

gaining

wi

of

the

priesthood.46

The establishment

of experimental

scientific academies

also

played

a role

in

breaking down the

barrier of secrecy

surrounding

knowledge.

Underlying

their

formation

was

a

pronounced dedication

to

the

discovery

of

new

experimental

data-as

opposed to the

exposition

of texts,

which

had

characterised

scholastic

science-and

a commitment

to

publishing

the

results

of research

in

books

or periodicals.

A

new

ethic

of science

was taking

shape;

as the

books

of secrets

suggest,

science

was

conceived

of

as a venatio

,

or

a hunt, an aggressive

pursuit

after the deepest

secrets

of nature.

..Man

is

not

content

to

investigate

nature,"

wrote

Isabella

Cortese

nher

Secreti

of

1561,

"he seeks

to

put

his investigations

to

work

in

everything

and

throughout

everything,

to

become

the

Ape

of

Nature,

or

rather to supersede

nature, attempting

to

do

that

which

nature finds

impossible;

and

that

this

might be

true,

he

himself

is

able to

dig

up secrets

which

every

day

are

seen

put

into

execution."47

Instead

of withholding the

results

of their

research

from

the eyes

of

the

vulgar,

the

"professors

of

secrets"-as

Tomasso

Garzoni

aptly dubbed

them-published

them

for the

entire

world

to see.48

By the

seventeenth

century,

there

was

a

widespread

realisation

that

traditional

injunctions

against

forbidden

knowledge

had resulred

in

the

stagnation

of

knowledge

rather than

the protection

of

valuable

secrets.

Francis

Bacon

was

a particularly

forceful propagandist

of this

position.

In

his

Great Instauration,

he

wrote

that

one of

the chief

obstacles

to

the

advancement

of

science

was

the

error

committed

in

thinking

"that

the

inquisition

of nature is

in

any part

indicted

or forbidden" .

To this he

added:

For it was not

that

pure

and uncorrupted

natural

knowledge

whereby

Adam gave

names

to the creatures

according

to their propriety,

which

gave

occasion

to the

fall.

It

was

the

ambitious

and

proud

desire

of moral

knowledge

to

judge

of

good

and

evil, to

the

end

that

man

may revolt

from

God

and give

laws

to himself,

which

was the

form

.

Whereas

of

the

sciences

which regard nature,

the

t

"it

is.thoe

glory

of God to

conceal

a

thing,

but it is the

g

out."

-

With great

insight,

Bacon

went

on

to

describe

the adverse

consequences

of

the

tendency

to apply to

natural philosophy

an

injunction

intended

for

religion.

One result

was that it

generated

fear

among theologians

that

to

Milton

rn

Language

illey,

Ba

mondsworth:

I

Secreli

W..

,.Arcana

From

the Secrets

of

Naare

to Public

Knowledge

335

penetrate

the

secrets

of

nature

"should

transgress

the permitted

limits

of

sober-mindedness"

in

religious

matters;

another

was

the

fear

that

the

investigation

of nature

might

weaken

the

authority

of

religion

among

the

people.

To

this apprehension

Bacon

answered:

"If

the

matter

be

truly

considered,

natural philosophy

is,

after

the

word

of

God,

at

once

the surest

medicine

against superstition

and

the

most

approved nourishment

for

faith.

"so

The

removal

of the

secrets

of nature

from the

traditional

triad

of

forbidden

subjects was even

more

carefully

delineated

in the

establishment

of

Thophraste

Renaudot's

Bureau d'adresse,

which

began weekly

meetings

on Paris in 1633.sr

In addition

to

being a

public

registry and

clearing-house

for

goods

and

services, the

Bureau held

regular

conferences

on

scientific and

technical

subjects.

All topics

were

admitted

for

discussion,

with

two

important

exceptions:

affairs

of

religion

and

the

state. According

to

Renaudot,

"Not only

is

slander

banished,

but

for

fear

of irritating

minds

easily

upset by

problems

of Religion,

all such concerns

are

referred

to

the

Sorbonne. The

mystery of affairs

of

State,

partaking

of the

nature

of

divine

things, of which

those

who

have the most

to

say,

say

the least, we

refer them

to the

Conseil

[du

Roi]

from

where

they proceed.

All

the rest are

here, to

give

free

play

to

your

imagination."S2 There were

limits

to

freedom

of

inquiry.

Nevertheless, unlike

religion

and

politics,

science

was

increasingly

becoming

the domain

of the public

forum

instead

of

the

church

and court.

Progress

and

Poltical

Change

The

more

favourable attitude

towards

scientific publicity

was

also

conditioned

by the

emergence of

the

concept

of scientific progress.

As

Edgar

Zilsel

pointed

out nearly

40 years

ago, the

modern

idea of

scientific

progress,

which embodies the

concept of science

as

an

edifice,

constructed

laboriously

in

slow stages

through

the collaborative

effort

of

many

workers,

was

a

product

of the

revolution in

thought of the sixteenth

and

seventeenth

centuries.s3

This

idea

was

almost totally absent

from the

great

philosophical

systems

of

classical antiquity; nor

could it

have developed

in the

medieval

universities,

where

the

authority

of Scripture,

the church

fathers,

and

Aristotle

prevented

scientists

from

seeing their

own

work

as anything

more

than

refinement

of

truths

already

given.

Zilsel maintained

that the

modern

so

New

Organon, ibid.,

p.

88.

st

Brown, Harcourt,

Scientific Organizations in

Seventeenth

Century France

(Baltimore:

Williams

and Williams, 1934),

p.

21.

See

also Solomon,

Howard M., PublicWelfare,

Science,

The Innovations

of

Thophraste

Renaudot

f Scientific Progress"

,

Journal

of the

Htory

of

Ideas,

VI

(June

1945),

pp.

325-349.

See

also,

Lilley,

S.,

"Robert

Recode and the Idea

of

Progress",

Renissance

and Modern

Studies,

ll

(1958),

pp.

l-37;

and

Molland,

A.

G.,

"Medieval

Ideas

of

Scientific Progress", Journal

of

the

History of ldeas,

XXXIX

(October-

December 1978),

pp.

561-577.


10/15

336 William

Eamon

ideal

of scientific

progress

was a

direct

consequence

of the rise

of capitalism

and

the

breakdown

of the

nedieval

guild

structure. Contrasting

the

isolation

of

the monk's

cell to

the co-operative

atmosphere

of

the

artisan's

workshop,

Zilsel

argued

that, when

guild

restraints

broke

down

in the late

Middle

Ages,

the

inventive

genius

of individual craftsmen

gradually

came to the

fore.

The

intensely competitive environment

of

early

capitalism

calied

insistently

for technical i:rprovements, and artisans

were compelled

to

make their contributions to

the store of

technical

knowledge.

This, in turn,

forced

a

recognition that technical

knowledge

is a cumulative

store

tha: is

built

up

by

a

succession

of individual

contributions:

each individual

takes

over

what

has

been

accumrlated

by his

predecessors,

adds

his

contribution,

and passes

the

augmented

store to

his

successors,

who

are expected

to make

their contributions

in turn-

Although Zilsel's enthusiasm for the contributions

of

artisans

may

have

been too

extreme,

his

main argument retains some

validity.

Recently Paolo

Rossi

has

modified Zilsel's thesis by

stressing

that it

was

not so

much

rhe

artisans

themselves who

ushered in the idea of

scientific

progress,

but

he

re-evaluation,

by

scholars, of the artisanal

tradition.

The

recognition

of;hedignity of

labour

and

of

technical knowledge, while

absent

from

the

classical

and

medieval outlook, is already apparent in the technological

treatises

of

the

sixteenth

century.

Writers

on technical subjects stressed

that knowledge

has a public

and

collaborative character:

"It

presents itself

as

a series of

individual contributions

organized in

the form

of a systematic discourse,

which

is offered

with

a general

success

in view and

which

in turn ought

propeily

to be the

patrimony

of

all

mankind."s4 Thus the praise

of

.he

mechanical

arts, which reverberates

throughout

the early modern era, was

equally

a condemnation

of

medieval attitudes

towards secrecy.

A new

outlook

on the

social

and

economic

order

began

to take form

during

the early modern cra. It rejected the closure of one

part

of

society

from other parts, and criticised monopolies and privileges.

Secrecy

rvas

identified

with

the

old order;

the ethic

of

secrecy,

which had characterised

medieval learning,

was

perceived

as

being

a barrier to

social

and

economic

advancement.

The outburst

of

critical

sentiment

against

monopolies

reflects

a

growing

awareness

of the

dangers to

liberty of

closed

systems of

knowledge.

"The

Liberty

of our Common-Wealth,"

wrote

Nicholas

Culpeper

in

7649,

"is

most infringed by

three

sorts of men,

Priests,

Physitians,

Lawyers:

. . . the one

deceives men

in matters

belonging to

their

Souls,

the

other in

matters

belonging

to their Bodies,

the

third in

matters

belonging to their

Estates."ss

The

leader of an

unsuccessful

lower-class

conspiracy against the papal

government in

Rome announced

at his

trial

in

sa

Rossi, Paolo, Philosophy, Technology and

the

Arts

in the

Ea Modern Era

(New

York:

Harper

&

Row.

1970).

p.

x.

ss

Quoted

in Webster, Charles, The Great Instauration: Science, Medicine and Reform,

1626-1660

(New

Yok: Holmes

rrd

Meir, 1976),

p.

257. See also

Hill,

Christopher, TheWorld

Turned Upside Down

(Harmondsworth:

Penguin

Books,

1975), 297f.

From the

Secrets

of

Naare

tu

public

Knowledge

33i

1619 that

"only

fools

believe

that

hell

exists. Princes

want

us

to

believe

it,

because

they want to

do as

they

please.

But now,

at

last,

all

the common

people

have

opened their

eyes."s

Knowledge

rwas

power,

and

secrecy

was

incompatible

with

the opening of

the

eyes

of

the people.

The technological

treatises

of

the

Renaissance

reflect

this growing

consciousness.

Sixteenth-century

writers

on

technology

were

in

nearly

unamimous

agreement

that

knowledge

of technical

processes

does not

depend

upon

magic

or illumination,

or

upon chance

or the

cunning

of

inventors,

but

on

an understanding

of the

causes

of

natural

phenomena.

Thus

Vannoccio Biringuccio,

in his

treatise on

metallqrgy,

t]ne

pirotechnia,

repeatedly

discussed

the

role

of

fortune

in the

metallurgical

arts.

Success

in

the art

of casting,

for

example, is

so difficult

that

to the casual

observer the

outcome

seems

to

depend

more on

good

fortune

than

skill.

"I

say

that

in this

as in

every other

work

.

. .

it

is

necessary

to

have good

fortune

in

bringing

a

work

to

the perfection

of

its end,"

Biringuccio

wrote.

"But you

yourseif

can

make fortune good.

If

you

always

use the

necessary

care

to make

the

means

perfect

the

end will never

be in doubt.ttsT

1n polemic

against

alchemy,

Biringuccio

distinguished between magical knowledge

and

technical

knowledge. The

former

claims

its authority

from divine illumination

and

the

superhuman

cunning

of

the practitioner,

but

is

only

so

much puffery

and

deceit; the

latter,

by contrast,

depends

upon knowledge

of

natural causes,

patience,

and

careful

attention

to the

details of

the work.

Though

it

is

the

more

arduous

road

to discovery,

it also

leads

to real

results

insteadof

..windy

and useless

verbiage".ss

The

same

polemic

was taken

up by George

Agricola,

who

in De re

metallica

inveighed against

the deliberate

obscurity

of alchemical

terminology.

There are

many

books on

the

subject

of alchemy,

Agricola

\ryrote,

"but

all are

difficult

to follow,

because

the

writers

upon these

things

use

strange

names,

which

do

not

properly

belong to

the

metals, and because

some

of

them employ

now

one name and

now

another,

invented

by

themselves, though the

thing itself

changes not.

"se

Agricola's

insistence

on

clarity

of language

was not unique to

writers

on

technological

subjects,

however:

it was

part

of

a

general

and

wholesale

attack

on the

occult

tradition

itself.

Indeed,

Agricola

remained wedded

to

an

earlier

tradition,

despite

his

condemnation

of obscurity

in

language,

when

he

wrote that

words

ought

to

"properly

belong" to the thing

signified.

This view

of

language

implied

not

only that words

have

the inherent power

to

represent

things,

but that

this

power

could be

manipulated

by man through

magic,

a view

that later

thinkers

emphatically

rejected. Language,

Hobbes wrote

in

De

homine,

"is


11/15

338 William

Eamon

the

connexion

of

names constituted by the

will

of

men

to

stand

for

the series

of

conceptions

of

the things about

which

we

think."

They

are signs

not

of

things,

but

of our

conceptions

of things.

The

notion that words have

innate

power

was an

important

concept

in the

magical

tradition,

which flourished in the

sixteenth

century.

The

revival

of

the texts

of

Hermes Trismegistus and

the growing interest

in

the

cabbala

reinforced

the

belief

that

there

was a real, not conventional,

connection

between

words and things.

Therefore, according

to this tradition,

it

was

possible

to manipulate

nature by manipulating

language.6l

Always,

however,

the

art

of the

"wonder-working word"

\ilas

secret,

revealed

knowledge

and not public

knowledge.

In Johannes

Reuchlin's

De

Verbo

Mirifico

(1494)

it is

preceded

by

religious rites

of

purification

to prepare

the

operator

for

initiation into

God's

mysteries.

When words

are sacraments,

as

they are

in

this

tradition,

communication is necessarily

limited

to adepts.2

The polemic

taken

up

in the

seventeenth century

against

the natural

theory

of

language had important

consequences

for

the development

of the

idea of public

knowledge. If

words

have

innate power

because

they naturally

stand

for things, truth is

fixed in language,

the meaning

of

which

is

known

only

by

revelation.

If,

on the other hand,

language

is thought

to

be

an

activity in

which meaning

is assigned

to

words

by

general

agreement

and

not

"by nature",

then the knowledge

of the special

relationship

between words

and things,

which had

previously

been reserved

for

the

initiated,

is

discredited.

In his

analysis

of the

"idols"

and false

notions that beset

the

human understanding,

Francis Bacon claimed

that the

"idols

of

the

market-place"-the

confusion

of

words

and things-were

the

most

troublesome

of

all.

"Words are

but the

current

tokens

or marks

of

Popular

Notions

of

things,"

he

announced

in The

Advancement of Learning;the

only

remedy

for

the

sophistry arising from the

improper

use

of

language was

to

frame

definitions

around

publicly

verified

experiments.3

The

Baconian Tradition

Bacon's conception of

scientific

progress

had a

profound

and

lasting

influence

on the

development

of the

idea

of

public

knowledge

in science.

One of the

singular

features

of his

programme of

reform

was

its insistence

on

the need

for

co-operation

and

communication

within

the scientific

community. Bacon's

polemic

against the

tyranny

of

philosophical

systems

o

Vickers, Brian,

"Analogl,versus

ldentity: The

Rejection of

Occult Symbolism,

1580-

n

(ed.),

Occult and Scientific Mentalities inthe

Renaissance

(Cambridge:

Press, 1984j,

p.

103f.

P., Spiritual

and.

Demonic

Magic From Frino to

Campanella

(Notre

Dame:

University of Notre Dame Press, 1975);

and Yates, Frances

A.,

The Art

of Memory

(Chicago:

University of Chicago Press,

196).

e

Zika,

Charles,

"Reuchlin's

De Verbo

Miriftco

and

the Magic Debate

of

the late

Fifteenth

Century",Iournal of the Warburg and

CourtuuW

lfitues,

XXXIX (1976),

pp.

10zt-138.

See

als,o,

Tambiah,

S. J.,

"The

Magical Power

of Words",

Man,III

(June

1968),

pp.

175-208.

63

Worlcs,

op. cit.,Yol.III,

p.388;

andNovwnOrganum,

ibid.,Yol.IV,

p.60f.

From the

Secrets

of

Nature

to

public

Knowledge

33g

ere

is no

ement

of

In the

mechanica

nowledge

is

progressive.

Collaboration

amo

han exclusive

rule-by

a few

philosophers,

is

its

Bacon's

works were

widely

read

in

the

seventeenth

century,

not

only

in

England

but

on

the

continent.

His utopian

fragment,

New

Atlantis,

had a

major

influence

in

shaping

ideas

concerning

the

organisation

of

scientific

inquiry.

In Bacon's

image

of

"salomon's

House",

ihe scientific

research

academy

in

the country

of

Bensalem,

experimenters

were

divided

into

research

groups

assigned

to

specific

subjects.

The

scientists

collaborated

with

one

another

in an

atmosphere

that

encouraged

open

communication.

Not

all

the results

of

the research at Salomon's House are revealed

to

the

wider

public,

however: "all

t

those

which

we

think

fit to kee

the

state,

and

some

ot."67

sieirtific

society

in a

modern

are

enveloped

in all the

trappings

of

a

consecrated

priesthood.

yet

as

scientists,

they

owed

allegiance

neither

to class

nor country;

they

were

members

of an

international

scientific

freemasonry.

u_

Ibid.,

Vol. IV,

p.

62f.

65

lbid., Vol.

III,

p.

289f.

6

Bacon's

influence

on the

French

academies

is

stressed

by Brown,

H,

op. cit.

See

also

Minkowski,

Helmut,

"Die

geistesgeschichtliche

und

die

lirerarische

Nachfolse

der

New-

Atlant

des

Francis

Bacon",

Neophilologus,

xxII

(1937).

pp.

120-139,185-2fu1 un

..Di"

Neue

Atlantis

des

Francis

Bacon

und

die

Leopoldino-carotin",

Archiv

fr

Kultuigeschichte,

XX_VI (1936),

pp.

28T295.

o'

Worl


12/15

340

William

Eamon

Bacon's

New

Atlantis,

like

all of

his

works, had

a pronounced

ethical

and

religious

intent.

His

programme

of scientific

reform

was conceived within

the

framework

of

an

ambitious

plan

for religious

reform, the

aim

of

which

was

nothing

less

that the restitution

of

human

dominion over

the natural

world, which

had been

lost

with

Adam's fall.

One

of the

lasting

effects

of

the

influence

of Bacon's

philosophy

was

the

establishment of

a

new

model

of

the

scientific

research worker

as

one

dedicated to the

pursuit

of

knowledge for

the public

good.68

No longer

was science

to

exist

merely

for

the

pleasure

and

illumination

of a few minds;

it was

to

be

used

for

the advancement of the

commonwealth in

general. This

new

demand required that more knowledge

be

shared,

both

within

the

scientific

community

and

with

society

at large.

The

religious

motivations

underlying Bacon's

philosophy

were

especially

appealing to the English

Puritans,

who

linked

Bacon's

"great

instauration"

*iitt

ttreir own

programme

for

religious

and social

reform.e

The fall of

the

monarchy

presented

them

with

the

prospect

of carrying out

their own, more

radical

version

of

Bacon's

philosophy; when

the Puritans

gained control

of

Parliament

in

1640,

dozens

of

proposals for

educational and social

reform

were considered.

Many of

these measures

emanated

from

the

remarkable

circle of

reformers

whose nucleus

was

centred

on

three

foreigners-Samuel

Hartlib,

John

Dury

and Jan

Amos Komensky

(Comenius)-who

had

come

to

England

hoping

to find fertile soil

in

which

to transplant their

vision of

"Pansophia",

an

ideal that

emerged out

of the

pietistic

Protestant

movemnt

in Germany

and eastern Europe.7o

The

aim

of

"Pansophia"

was

sweeping

in scope:

its

adherents

believed

that through

a combination of

universal

knowledg

eamon secrets to public knowledge libre

Documents