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7/21/2019 Journal of the History of Ideas Volume 37 Issue 2 1976 [Doi 10.2307%2F2708824] I. Bernard Cohen -- The Eightee
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The Eighteenth-Century Origins of the Concept of Scientific RevolutionAuthor(s): I. Bernard CohenSource: Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 37, No. 2 (Apr. - Jun., 1976), pp. 257-288Published by: University of Pennsylvania PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2708824.
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7/21/2019 Journal of the History of Ideas Volume 37 Issue 2 1976 [Doi 10.2307%2F2708824] I. Bernard Cohen -- The Eightee
2/33
THE EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY
ORIGINS
OF THE CONCEPT
OF SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION1
BY I. BERNARD OHEN
Many
historians of
science,
like their fellow
general
historians,
believe that
the
concept
of revolution
in
science
is of
fairly
recent
origin,
and that
it
has
been
superimposed
anachronously-and
even
harshly-on
events
of
the
past.2
In
fact,
however,
for
some
three
centuries there
has been a more
or less unbroken tradition
of
viewing
scientific change as a sequence of revolutions. In the eighteenth century,
when this tradition
appears
to
have
taken
its first
rise,
there was
still
some confusion
and
ambiguity
about
the sense
of the word "revolution":
in
relation
not
only
to science
but to
political
events.
Although
"revolu-
tion"
came
into
general
usage during
the
eighteenth
century
to
denote a
breach
of
continuity
or a secular
change
of real
magnitude,
there also
remained
current
the older sense
of "revolution" as
a
cyclical
phenomenon,
a
continuous
sequence
of ebb
and
flow,
a
kind of circula-
'This
article,
based
on
research
supported by
a
grant
from the
Spencer
Foundation,
is
taken
from a
larger
and
more
general
survey
of
the
origins
and
development
of the
concept
and
name,
"scientific
revolution,"
presented
at the
semicentennial
meeting
of
the
History
of Science
Society
(Oct.
1974)
and-in
a somewhat altered
version-at the
Boston
Colloquium
for the
Philosophy
of Science
(Feb. 1975).
2
In the
past
decade or
more,
the
discussions
of
revolutions
in
science have
pivoted
on
Thomas
S. Kuhn's bold
and
challenging
tract,
The Structure
of
Scientific
Revolutions
(Chicago,
1962;
also issued as vol.
2 of the
International
Encyclopedia
of
Unified
Science;
2nd
ed.,
enlarged,
1970).
For a
response
to Kuhn's
analysis,
see Imre Lakatos
and Alan
Musgrave
(eds.),
Criticism and
the Growth
of
Knowledge
(Cambridge,
1970),
comprising
a
primary
paper by
T.
S.
Kuhn,
followed
by
critical discussions
by
J.
W.
N.
Watkins,
S. E.
Toulmin,
L. Pearce
Williams,
K.
R.
Popper,
Margaret
Masterman,
I.
Lakatos,
P.
K.
Feyerabend,
plus
a final
"Reflections on
my
Critics"
by
Kuhn.
Among
many
reviews
and
review
articles,
particular
attention
may
be called to those
by
Gerd
Buchdahl,
Dudley
Shapere,
and Israel
Scheffler. The
propriety
of
using
the word and
concept
of
"revolution"
in relation
to science
is
discussed
by Stephen
E.
Toulmin,
in the
course
of a
lengthy
historical
narrative
of,
and
critique
upon,
Kuhn's
views,
in
Human
Understanding
(Princeton,
1972),
I, 100-30,
esp.
117-18.
The reaction to
Kuhn's thesis
of social dynamics of scientific change in terms of a sequence of revolutions (alternating
with what he calls
"normal
science")
has
been either
to
apply
or
to
challenge
some fea-
tures of
his
analysis,
or to
question
the
meaning
(or
meanings)
of the technical terms
he
uses,
or
to
raise
doubts as
to the
propriety
of
using
the
concept
of revolution
in relation
to scientific
change.
Thus
the
secondary
literature on the
philosophy
and
history
of
science
has
become saturated
with books and articles
using
the word "revolution" in
al-
most
every possible
context,
and
dealing
with
almost
every aspect
of
scientific
revolu-
tions,
save one:
there has been
no
adequate study
of what the
particular
uses
of this
word and
concept may
have
been
in
successive
past ages.
(But
see
note
19
infra.)
257
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7/21/2019 Journal of the History of Ideas Volume 37 Issue 2 1976 [Doi 10.2307%2F2708824] I. Bernard Cohen -- The Eightee
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258
I.
BERNARD
COHEN
tion
and
return,
or
a
repetition.3
After
1789,
the new
meaning
came
to
predominate
and,
ever
since,
"revolution"
has
commonly implied
a
radical change and a departure from traditional or accepted modes of
thought,
belief,
action,
social
behavior,
or
political
or social
organiza-
tion.
Thus
in
early
modern
times there
occurred a double transforma-
tion of "revolution"
and
the
concept
for
which it is the name.
First,
a
scientific term,
taken
from
astronomy
and
geometry,
came to be
ap-
plied
to
a
general
range
of
social,
political,
economic,
and
intellectual or
cultural
activities;
and, second,
in
this
usage
the term
gained
a
new
meaning
that was
radically
different
from-if not
diametrically opposite
to-the original and strict etymological sense of "revolution" (revolu-
tion,
revoluzione),
which is
derived
from
the mediaeval Latin
revolutio,
a
rolling
back or
a
return,
usually
with
an
implied
sense
of
revolving
in
time.4
During
the
eighteenth
century,
the
point
of
view
emerged
that
scientific
change
is
characterized
by
an
analog
of
the
revolutions
that
alter
the
forms
of
society
and
the
political
affairs of the state. Whereas
earlier,
science had contributed
"revolution" to the discourse
of
social
3An
example
is Colin Maclaurin:
An Account
of
Isaac
Newton's
Philosophical
Dis-
coveries
(London, 1748);
a facsimile
edition,
with an introduction
by
L. L. Laudan
(New
York,
1968).
Here
it
is said
(39)
to be "not worth
while
... to
trace
the
history
of
learn-
ing
thro' its various
revolutions
in
the later
ages."
Maclaurin also referred
to
a
com-
parison
made
by
Aristotle of the
"revolutions
of
learning"
and
"the
rising
and
setting
of
the
stars."
Maclaurin
obviously
had
in
mind a
cyclical
phenomenon,
or
ebb and flow. In
another
passage
(ibid.,
42),
he referred to
the
return
of
learning
to the "western
parts
of
Europe,"
observing
that "the
period
which commenced
upon
the revolution we
have
mentioned,
has
already
continued some hundred
years."
He also wrote that with
the
dis-
pelling
of the
cloud of mediaeval
darkness,
"the liberal arts
and sciences
were
restored,
and none of them has
gained
more
by
this
happy
revolution
than natural
philosophy"
(ibid., 41).
4Some
historical studies of the
concept
and name
of
"revolution" are: Felix
Gilbert,
"Revolution,"
Dictionary of
the
History of
Ideas,
ed.
Philip
P.
Wiener,
5
vols.
(New
York,
1973),
IV,
152-67;
Karl
Griewank,
Der
neuzeitliche
Revolutionsbegriff
En-
stehung
und
Entwicklung
(Weimar, 1955);
Arthur
Hatto,
"Revolution:
An
Enquiry
into
the Usefulness
of an
Historical
Term,"
Mind,
58
(1949),
495-517;
Melvin J.
Lasky,
"The
Birth of a
Metaphor.
On the
Origins
of
Utopia
&
Revolution,"
Encounter,
34
(Feb. 1970), 35-45, 34 (Mar. 1970), 30-42; Eugen Rosenstock [=Rosenstock-Huessy],
"Revolution
als
politische Begriff
in
der
Neuzeit,"
Abhandlungen
der Schlesischen
Gesellschaft fur
vaterlandische
Cultur
(Geisteswissenschaftliche Reihe),
5. Heft:
"Festgabe
der rechts-
und
staatswissenschaftlichen
Fakultat
in
Breslau
fur
Paul Heil-
born
zum 70.
Geburtstag
6. Februar 1931"
(Breslau,
1931),
83-124,
of which the main
points
are
given
in
summary
in Hatto's
article;
Vernon
F.
Snow,
"The
Concept
of
Revolution
in
Seventeenth-Century England,"
The Historical
Journal,
5
(1962),
167-74.
Useful as
first
guides
to the
history
and successive
meanings
of
"revolution"
are E.
Lit-
tr6,
Dictionnaire
de
la
languefrancaise,
4
vols.
and
suppl.
(Paris, 1881-83),
and A
New
English Dictionary
on Historical
Principles,
ed. James A. H.
Murray,
Henry Bradley,
W. A.
Craigie,
C. T.
Onions,
and reissued as The
Oxford English Dictionary,
12 vols.
and
suppl.
(Oxford,
1933).
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CONCEPT OF SCIENTIFIC
REVOLUTION
259
and
political
change,
now
social and
political thought
gave
back to
science the
concept
of revolution
in the
newly
established
sense,
no
longer as a term serving in the scientific explanation of natural
phenomena,
but
rather an
expression
to
be used
in
the
social
or
in-
tellectual
explanation
of scientific
change
itself-now visualized as a
series
of secular
discontinuities of
such
magnitude
as
to
constitute defi-
nite breaks with the
past.
The
rejection
of
the
older and more traditional
opinions
in
which
scientific
change
was seen as a
cyclical
continuous
process,
and
the
rise of the
doctrine that science
progresses by
radical
revolutions
has
occurred
by degrees
ever since
the
opening
years
of
the
eighteenth century, and has been continuously influenced by the
development
of
concepts
and theories of
political
and social
(and
cultural)
revolution.
Accordingly,
an
understanding
of the
rise of the
idea of
revolutions
in
science
(and
of
the existence of
the Scientific
Revolution)
requires
some
knowledge
of the
general
history
of the con-
cept
and name
"revolution."6
The
history
of the
idea
of
revolution
in
the sciences
is of
real
im-
portance
for
our
understanding
of
the
development
of the sciences. For
example,
we
today
conceive
Galileo
to have been a
revolutionary
figure
and
write
about
the "intellectual revolution" that he
wrought;
but did he
consider
himself to have been a
revolutionary?7
Did Newton? When
did
the value
of
progress
become linked
to the
concept
of
change
by
revolu-
tion? Such
questions
illuminate the nature
of scientific
change
by
mak-
5
An
example
of the
ways
in which
political
and social
events
may
affect the
image
of
revolution
in
science
occurs in the
acceptance
by
today's
scholars
of the
conception
that
the Scientific
Revolution was
not
an
event or a set of events that occurred
in
a narrow
compass
of
time
(as
was the case for the American
and French
Revolutions),
but
may
have lasted
through
two or even three centuries. Such a notion of a continuing revolution
appears
to have been one
of the innovative features
of the Russian
Revolution,
which
went so far as
to reckon the calendar
in
years
of
the
Revolution,
rather than
years
since
the
Revolution;
so that the
revolution itself became an
era. Students of
revolution
point
out that all
previous
revolutions had been
(or
had been conceived
as)
events in a
limited
time-span
that
produced
a
change-violent,
dramatic,
even
cataclysmic-or
a
rapid
series
of such
events.
The
acceptable
title
of
a
book such
as A. R.
Hall's
The
Scientific
Revolution
1500-1800
(London, 1954),
thus reflects
a
general
point
of view
concerning
revolutions that
has become
common-place
in recent
decades,
but would
itself have been
revolutionary a century ago. Eugen Rosenstock has discussed the ways in which such
phrases
used
in
Russia
as
"the next two
decades
of the Revolution"
imply
an
institu-
tionalizing
of the
revolution;
cf.
loc.
cit.,
84.
6This relation
of the
changing
concept
of revolution
(in
the
political,
social,
and
eco-
nomic
domains)
to the successive
ways
in which
scientists,
philosophers,
and
historians
of science have
conceived the so-called
Scientific Revolution
(and
revolutions
in
science)
is
one
of the main themes
of
a
more
general inquiry
I
have undertaken
into the
origins
and
history
of
the
concept
of revolution in science. The results shall
eventually
be
published
in
book
form
by
Science
History
Publications,
a
division
of
Neale Watson
Academic
Publications,
New York.
7Such a question has both historical and philosophical components. Historical re-
search tells us that
the noun
"revolutionary"
had
not
yet
come into
being,
and that
at
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7/21/2019 Journal of the History of Ideas Volume 37 Issue 2 1976 [Doi 10.2307%2F2708824] I. Bernard Cohen -- The Eightee
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260
I.
BERNARD COHEN
ing precise
the scientist's
image
of
himself,
which is
directly
related to
the
public
image
of the
scientist,
a factor
in
the
type
of
creative indi-
vidual attracted to the pursuit of science.8 In some of his scientific work,
notably
in
physics,
Newton saw
himself
as
only
rediscovering
some of
the
knowledge
of
nature
and
of her laws
that had
been current
among
certain
ancient
sages;9
but
in
mathematics he was so
jealous
of
his
pro-
prietary rights
in
the invention of
the
calculus
that
he
concluded that
Leibniz could have
produced
similar
results
only by plagiarism
from
the
Newton
mathematical
manuscripts
then
in
circulation.
Furthermore,
the
present enquiry
clarifies
such
fundamental historical issues as the
special defining features of the Newtonian revolution in science by
enabling
us
to
distinguish
between
what
Newton's
contemporaries
and
immediate successors held
to
be his
signal
achievement
and
what seems
to
us-some two
and
a half centuries
later-to have been
so remarkable
and
innovatory
in
Newtonian science.10
In
recent
discussions,
historians
and
philosophers
have
expressed
doubts as to whether
it
is
proper
to
use
"revolution"
to
describe
scientific
change,
and whether in
any
event
there
ever
was a Scientific
Revolution;l1
yet
in
all
writings
on this
sub-
ject
with
which
I
am
familiar,
the
question
is
never
raised as
to
whether
the
scientists
allegedly participating
in
such
supposed
revolutions
may
or
may
not
have
considered themselves to be
active
in
a
revolution or to
have
been
immediate
heirs to
a revolution.
For
these and other
reasons,
the
present
enquiry may
transcend the value of
a
mere
chronicle
of
an
idea,
and
shed some illumination on
the
nature
of science
and
of
scienti-
fic
change
in
the
age
of
Newton.
that time
the
word
"revolution" had not
yet
been
applied
to
the
description
of scientific
change.
But there is an
open
philosophical question
as to whether the
foregoing
his-
torical
fact
would
actually
have
inhibited Galileo from so
considering
himself.
8This
topic
is
explored
in
the
work
cited
in
note
6
supra.
90n this
aspect
of
Newton's
thought
see J.
E.
McGuire
and P. M.
Rattansi,
"Newton
and
the
'Pipes
of
Pan',"
Notes
and
Records
of
the
Royal Society of
London,
21
(1966),
108-43;
I. B.
Cohen,
"'Quantum
in
se
est': Newton's
Concept
of
Inertia
in
Relation to
Descartes
and
Lucretius,"
ibid.,
19
(1964),
131-55.
"?This
question
is discussed
in
my
forthcoming
book,
The Newtonian Revolution in
Science,
with
Illustrations
of
the
Transformation of
Scientific
Ideas
(Cambridge:
at
the
University Press, to be publishedin 1977).
11The Scientific
Revolution
is the
name
commonly
given
today
to
the
particular
scientific
revolution
(or
set
of
revolutions)
of
the
sixteenth
and seventeenth
centuries,
by
means
of
which our modern
science
was
established,
associated
with such
figures
as
Copernicus
and
Vesalius,
Bacon and
Descartes,
Galileo
and
Kepler,
Harvey, Huygens,
and
Newton.
In
the
eighteenth century,
and
in
the
seventeenth
century,
a
revolution was
conceived
as a
single
event
(e.g.,
the
Glorious
Revolution)
or
a
composite
event
(e.g.,
the
French
Revolution).
Thus
it
is
hardly
likely
that
any analyst
would then
have
thought
of
a
revolution
in
science
extending
over
more
than
a
century
of
time,
say
from
Copernicus
(1543)
to
Newton
(1687).
The
writers on science
in
the
eighteenth
century developed
the
notion of revolutionary scientific events, comparable to political events and usually
associated with
the
work
of
a
single
individual:
Copernicus,
Descartes,
Newton. Never-
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CONCEPT
OF
SCIENTIFIC
REVOLUTION
261
During
most
of
the
eighteenth
century-as
in the
preceding
centuries-the
primary signification
of "revolution"
was
astronomical,
and thus-associatively or derivatively-astrological. The revolutions
observed
in
the diurnal
motion
of the heavens12and
the
apparent
diurnal
and orbital
motions of
the
"planetary"
bodies
(or
of their
spheres)
had
been recorded
over centuries
in the
works
of
Chaucer,
Dante,
Alfra-
ganus
(who
was
a
major
source of astronomical
knowledge
for
Dante),
Messahala,
Sacrobosco,
and countless
others.
This term
appears boldly
in
the title of
Copernicus's
celebrated
book,
De revolutionibus
orbium
coelestium
(1543),
and
it occurs
not
infrequently
in
Galileo's
Dialogue
concerning
the Two
Chief
World
Systems.13
It
may
be found
in
almanacs and
in
such
popular
works as Leurechon's
La Recreation
mathematique
(which
was
Englished
by
William
Oughtred),
and
in
Vincent
Wing's
popular
compendiums
of
astronomy
and
astrology
theless,
there
are also
some
implications
of
larger-scale
revolutions
in
science
than
would
be
represented by
any
one treatise
or a
single
discovery
or
invention,
however
monumental.
The historian
of
mathematics,
Montucla,
thus wrote of
"l'heureuse revo-
lution"
that,
soon
after
Copernicus,
"6prouva
la
philosophie."
Bailly,
in his
history
of
astronomy, though asserting that Newton's Principia was to create a "revolution dans
l'astronomie,"
observed
that this revolution
"ne
se
fit
pas
tout-a-coup."
Bailly,
as
we
shall see
below,
extended
the
revolutionary concept
to
a
series
of
events
that could
extend
over the
greater
part
of a
century, including
the
stage
of destruction
of a
received
system
as a
necessary prior
condition
for the
construction
and
acceptance
of a new one.
For him Descartes did
not achieve
revolutionary
status,
although
he was
of the
utmost
importance
in
preparing
the
Newtonian revolution
to come.
Furthermore,
in
the
eighteenth
century,
there
seems to have been
a
widely
held
opinion
that
the
special
fea-
tures of the
science that
emerged
between
Copernicus
and
Newton
did not
merely
constitute an
"improvement"
of ancient
knowledge,
but were
revolutionary,
in the
sense
of being new and unprecedented. The inaugural century of modern science, in other
words,
had
produced
the foundation
for the
future scientific
revolutions
and
for those
that had
occurred
in
the
eighteenth
century.
In the
post-Principia
decades,
the events
of
the
primary
century
of
revolution
were not
called
"the
Scientific
Revolution,"
as
is
done
today,
but this distinction
between
the
conceptions
of that era
and of
ours
may
have less
real fundamental
difference
than
may
at
first
sight appear.
12Throughout
most of
modern times
there has
not been a clear distinction
between
revolution and
rotation,
such as is
generally
made
today:
rotation
being
the
turning
of a
body
about an axis and
revolution
the
motion
of a
body
in an orbit. In the case of
the
heavenly bodies,
the
planets
revolve about
the
sun while
rotating
on their axes. But
their
revolutions
would
actually
be rotations
if
the
planets
were conceived
to
be
attached
to
large
rotating
spheres.
Hence
there
is a lack
of
clarity
in the
title
of
Copernicus's
De
revolutionibus
orbium
coelestium
(1543),
since the
heavenly spheres
in
question
are
presumably
not the
planets
but the
rotating
spheres
that
carry
the
planets
around
the
sun
in
their revolutions.
The
two
words are used somewhat
interchangeably
in
Newton's
Principia
(1687).
And even
today
we still refer
to
a solid
generated
by
the rotation
of a
plane
figure
about
an axis
in that
plane
as a
"solid
of revolution."
'3The
Dialogo
sopra
i
due
massimi
sistemi
(Florence,
1632),
was
published
in an
English
version in 1661.
A
facsimile
of the latter was
published
in 1967
by
Dawsons
of
Pall Mall (London) and Zeitlin and Ver Brugge (Los Angeles), with an introduction by
Stillman Drake.
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7/21/2019 Journal of the History of Ideas Volume 37 Issue 2 1976 [Doi 10.2307%2F2708824] I. Bernard Cohen -- The Eightee
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262
I. BERNARD
COHEN
(1651,
1669)
and Streete's
Astronomia
Carolina
(1661,
1663,
1710),
from
which the
youthful
Newton
recorded
Kepler's
third law.
In the late Middle Ages, "revolution" came to signify not only the
moving
of
a
celestial
body throughout
a
complete
closed orbit
(or
the
time in which the
circuit of
the
orbit
is
completed),
but also
any turning
or
rolling
back or
around-ranging
from
the
circular
turning
of
a
wheel
to
the
figurative
sense
of
turning
over
in the
mind
or
considering.
By
the
time of
the
Renaissance,
"revolutions"
had a
wider
significa-
tion-including
any
periodical
(or quasiperiodical)
occurrences,
and
eventually
any
group
of
phenomena
that
went
through
an ordered set
of
stages-a cycle (in the sense of "coming full circle").14Even the rise and
fall of
civilizations,
or of
culture,
as a kind
of tidal ebb
and
flow,
was
called
a revolution.
All
of these
usages
are
obviously
linked
to the
primary
sense
in
which
this word occurs
in
astronomy
and
geometry.
It
shall
be seen
below how these several
meanings
were
applied
to science
and the sciences
during
the Scientific Revolution.
One
possible
link between the
original
cyclical
meaning
and
today's
common
usage
of "revolution"-for
a
"complete change
of
affairs"
or
a
"reversal
of
conditions,"
an
overthrowing (usually accompanied by
vio-
lence)
of established
government
or
society
or institutions-lies
in
the
close
association
of a
cyclical "turning-over"
and a secular
"overturn-
ing."
Today,
the associated
verb
used
to denote
cyclical phenomena
is
"revolve";
whereas
the
verb "revolt"
implies
an
uprising against
the
political
state
or social
order.
Both "revolve" and "revolt"
come
from
the same
verb:
revolvere,
revolutus.
In
the
eighteenth
century, prior
to
1789,
these two
distinct
and
very
different senses
of "revolution"
are
apt
to occur
together
in
discussions of
history
and
politics
as
well as the
course
of
development
in
literature,
the
arts,
and
the sciences.
It
is,
ac-
cordingly,
not
always
a
simple
task to discover
whether a
given
eighteenth-century
author
may
have had
in
mind a
cyclical
return
(an
ebb
and
flow)
or a secular
change
of a
significant
magnitude
(often,
but
not
necessarily,
accompanied
by violence).
This
ambiguity
was
particu-
larly
a
feature of the
years
between
the
English
revolutions
of the
seventeenth
century
and the American
and
French revolutions-the
era
'4See
Arthur
Hatto,
"Revolution
. ."
(1949,
cited
in note 4
supra).
A
cyclical
view
of
history
was
propounded
in
antiquity by
Plato and
Polybius,
and
discussed
by
Cicero.
A
major
modern
cyclical
concept
of
history
occurs
in Giambattista
Vico's
Scienza
nuova
(1725);
see
The
New Science
of
Giambattista
Vico,
revised
translation
of the
third
edi-
tion
(1744) by
Thomas
G.
Bergin
and Max
H. Fisch
(Ithaca, 1968). Among
the
many
works on
cycles, particular
attention
may
be
called
to Mircea
Eliade,
The
Myth of
the
Eternal
Return,
trans. from
the French
by
Willard R. Trask
(Princeton,
1954,
1965);
Stephen
G.
Brush,
"The
Development
of
the
Kinetic
Theory
of Gases.
VIII.
Random-
ness and
Irreversibility,"
Archive
for
History of
Exact
Sciences,
12
(1974),
1-88,
esp.
?
7, "The Recurrence Paradox," 67-77; Abel Rey, Le retour eternel et la philosophie de
la
physique
(Paris, 1927).
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7/21/2019 Journal of the History of Ideas Volume 37 Issue 2 1976 [Doi 10.2307%2F2708824] I. Bernard Cohen -- The Eightee
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CONCEPT
OF SCIENTIFIC
REVOLUTION
263
of the Newtonian
revolution
in science
and
of the
emergence
of the
con-
cept
of revolution
as a mode
of scientific
change.
There is one term, however, whose usage generally enables
the
modern
(i.e.,
post-1789)
reader to
distinguish
between
the two
senses of
"revolution,"
that
is,
the use
of the word
"epoch."
Thus
there
is no am-
biguity
whatsoever
in
Alexis
Clairaut's
blunt
assertion
in 1747:
"Le
fameux
livre des
Principes
mathematiques
de la
Philosophie
naturelle
[de
Newton]
a ete
l'epoque
d'une
grande
revolution
dans la
Physique."15
Here
"epoch"
is
not
used
in
the
presently
current
meaning
of an
era
or
an
age
(the
primary
sense in American
English),
but
rather
signifies
an
event that
inaugurates
an
age
or
that
is
the initial
or
major
occurrence
of or
in
a
revolution:
the
beginning
of a new
era.
Often,
in the
late
seventeenth
and
in the
eighteenth
century,
this word
appears
in its
late
Latin form
as
epocha,
in
historical
and
political
writings
and
in
scientific
works.16
The sixteenth
century
knew no
full-scale or national
revolutions
in
the
sense
in which
we use
the
word
today
in
social
and
political
contexts;
but the seventeenth
century
was
witness to the Glorious
Revolution
(1688)17
and to an
earlier series
of
events and
political
and social
move-
15Alexis-Claude
Clairaut:
"Du
systeme
du
monde,
dans
les
principes
de la
gravitation
universelle,"
Suite
des
memoires
de
mathematique,
et
dephysique,
tires des
registres
de
l'Academie
Royale
des Sciences
de l'annee
M.DCCXL
V
(Amsterdam,
1754),
II,
465;
Clairaut's
paper
was
read
"a
l'Assemble
publique
du 15
Nov.
1747."
16This is
still the
first definition
of
"epoch"
in British
and French
dictionaries:
an
event that
begins
an
era
in
history,
in
life,
or in science.
It is thus
closely
akin to
"epoch-
making."
On
"epoch,"
see
Bossuet's
Discours
sur l'histoire
universelle,
"Dessein
general
de
cet
ouvrage"
(Edition
augmentee
des nouvelles
additions
et des variantes
de
texte, Paris,
1823),
I,
5-6.
'7The primary image of revolution in the eighteenth century was The Glorious Revo-
lution,
cited in
the
general
article
on
"Revolution"
in the Diderot-d'Alembert
Ency-
clopedie,
and
in fact the chief
example
there
given.
The
Glorious
Revolution
grew
greater
and
greater
in
importance
in the
development
of the
concept
of revolution
up
to
1789,
as
it
gradually
became
evident to
both
Englishmen
and Continentals
that
there
had
been
a
revolution
in
England,
possibly
the first true
revolution
in the
modern era.
In
Samuel
Johnson's
Dictionary
of
the
English
Language
(1755),
this revolution
appears
in
the third definition
of
"revolution":
"Change
in
the state of a
government
or
country.
It
is
used
among
us .
.
. for the
change
produced
by
the admission
of
king
William
and
queen Mary."
The Glorious
Revolution
may
not seem as
revolutionary
to us-with
our
outlook
so determined
by
such
greater
cataclysms
as the
French,
Russian,
and
Chinese
revolutions-as
it
did
to the men
and women
of the
eighteenth
century.
But to thinkers
of so different
a
political
stripe
as
Joseph
Priestley
and
David
Hume,
it was indeed
a
revolution,
and
a rather
glorious
one
at that. In
Priestley's judgment,
"the most
im-
portant period
in our
history
is that of the revolution
under
king
William.
Then
it was
that
our
constitution,
after
many
fluctuations,
and
frequent
struggles
for
power by
the
different
members
of it
(several
of them
attended
with
vast effusion of
blood),
was
finally
settled.
A revolution
so
remarkable,
and attended
with such
happy
consequences,
had
perhaps
no
parallel
in the
history
of the
world,
till the still more
remarkable
revolutions
that have lately taken place in America and France. This it was, as Mr. Hume says, that
cut off all
pretensions
to
power
founded on
hereditary
right;
when a
prince
was chosen
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7/21/2019 Journal of the History of Ideas Volume 37 Issue 2 1976 [Doi 10.2307%2F2708824] I. Bernard Cohen -- The Eightee
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264 I.
BERNARD
COHEN
ments
that
we have
lately
come to
call
the
English
Revolution.18There
were thus
no
political
or
social
events
of
the sixteenth
century,
or
of
the
seventeenth century before 1688, that could provide examples or con-
ceptual
models for
revolution
(in
the sense
of
a drastic
or
even
a sudden
secular
change)
in
the areas of human
creative
effort;
this
fact
is
mir-
rored
in
the failure to find an
example
of
a
coupling
of "science"
and
"revolution"
dating
earlier than
about
1700.19
About a
half-century
after
the
Glorious
Revolution, however,
just
at
the time when the full-
ness
of Newton's achievement had become
recognized,
the new
concept
of
revolution
was
being applied
to
science,
and
specifically
to Newton's
Principia.20 And even earlier, the new infinitesimal calculus of Newton
and
of
Leibniz
had
been
judged
to have constituted a
revolution
in
mathematics.
Those who wrote
of
"revolutions"
in
political
affairs
in
the late
seventeenth
century
most
often had
in
mind
some
kind of
restoration,
a
form
of
return to
a former or
original
state,
or
at
least
the
completion
of
a
cycle.
If
this
meant
the
end of a condition
that
was
found
to
be
in-
tolerable,
then the
act
of
completing
that
cycle
could be a
kind of revo-
lution
in
the
post-1789
sense. In
this way the concept of a revolutionas a
who
received
the crown on
express
conditions,
and found his
authority
established on the
same
bottom
with
the
privileges
of
the
people
.. ." Hume referred
specifically
to
"that
famous
revolution,
which
has
had such a
happy
influence on
our
constitution,
and
has
been
attended
with
such
mightly consequences."
See
Joseph
Priestley,
Lectures
on
His-
tory
and
General
Policy
(London,
1826),
Lect.
36,
286-87;
David
Hume,
A
Treatise
of
Human
Nature,
ed. L. A.
Selby-Bigge
(Oxford,
1967,
reprint;
first
ed.,
1888),
563;
Book
III,
"Of
Morals,"
part
2,
sect. 10.
Guizot,
calling
for a
new
attitude
toward
British
eighteenth-century
history,
observed that
Hume
had
"formed
... the
opinion
of
Europe"
but that his "narrative and
opinions
. . . had ceased to
satisfy
the
imagination
and reason
of the
public."
See his
History
of
the
English
Revolution
from
the Accession
of
Charles
I,
trans. Louise
H. R.
Coutier
(Oxford, 1838),
"Author's
Preface,"
xxi-xxii.
'8The
so-called
English
Revolution
was
not
generally
conceived to have
been
a revo-
lution until the twentieth
century,
although
a few
historians
of the
nineteenth
century
(notably
F. P. G. Guizot and Samuel R.
Gardiner)
had
supposed
the
events of the 1640's
to have
been
a revolution.
(Gardiner
wrote
of a Puritan
Revolution.)
See,
on this
topic,
J. R.
Jones,
The Revolution
of
1688
in
England
(London, 1972),
9;
R.
C.
Latham,
"English
Revolutionary Thought,
1640-60,"
History,
30
(1945),
38-59.
"9Theearliest such instance that I have found cited in the secondary literature is Di-
derot's
essay, "Encyclopedie"
(1755),
in the
great
encyclopaedia
associated
with his
name;
this occurs in Lewis
S.
Feuer,
Einstein and the Generations
of
Science
(New
York,
1974),
241. But Diderot was
preceded
in this
usage
by
Fontenelle, Clairaut,
and
d'Alembert
(and
perhaps
others),
as
shall
be seen below. Feuer's
book,
which
appeared
as
I
was
completing
this
study,
contains
some
notes on
the
history
of
"The Idea
of
Scientific
Revolution"
(239-52),
as a section
of
part
3
dealing
with
"Generational Move-
ments
and
'Scientific
Revolutions',"
in which
the
main
topic appears
to be "The Dis-
analogy
of Scientific Revolution: The Absence
of
Revolutionary
Situations"
(252-68).
Feuer's
brief historical r6sum6
of this
topic
is
impaired by
errors
of
fact and
omissions;
e.g., he mistakenly states that William Whewell did not refer to revolutions in science.
20See note 15
supra.
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7/21/2019 Journal of the History of Ideas Volume 37 Issue 2 1976 [Doi 10.2307%2F2708824] I. Bernard Cohen -- The Eightee
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CONCEPT
OF SCIENTIFIC
REVOLUTION
265
radical
change
could
be
compatible
with the ancient
cyclical
view
of
his-
tory,
and did
not
necessarily imply
a secular
(non-cyclical)
or linear con-
cept of historical change-even in the political sphere. Revolution thus
could and did mean
a
dynastic change
or
a
dynastic
restoration or
a
change
in
the
actual form or
system
of
government
or
rule,
as well as a
cyclical change,
"in
administration,
economics and
the social
life of a
people."21
The
ordinary
usage
at the end of the
seventeenth
century may
be
illustrated
by
the
writings
of Hobbes
and Locke.
Hobbes
was
perfectly
familiar with
the traditional scientific
sense of "revolution"
and he used
this expression in his writings on geometry and on natural philosophy.
He
wrote of "a
contrary
revolution,"
of
"epicycles,"
and of
revolutions
in the
sense
of
completed
circular motions.
But
apparently
he
did not
transfer
this scientific term to
politics,
where
to "describe
a sudden
political
change
Hobbes-like
Bacon, Coke,
Greville and
Seldon-used
such
words as
'revolt',
'rebellion'
and
'overturning'."22
Locke,
in
both
his
Elements
of
Natural
Philosophy
and
Some
Thoughts
Concerning
Education,
used "revolution"
in
reference to
the
Earth's annual
motion about
the Sun
(her
"annual
revolutions")
and
referred to the
Sun as
the
"Center"
of
our
planet's
"Revolutions."23
In the
political
sphere,
Locke
followed
Francois
Bernier
(whose
Histoire de la
derniere
revolution des
etats du Grand
Mongol
he had studied
in
close
detail)
in
his use of "revolution"
in
the sense
of
completed dynastic change.24
In
his famous
Second
Treatise,
notable
for
its defense
of the Glorious
Revolution and
for its
presentation
of the
theory
of
government
based
on
compact,
Locke used
"revolution"
only
twice-each
time
referring
to
a
political cycle
in which there
was a return to
a
previous
state
with
regard
to some constitutional
points.
Thus he mentioned
the "slowness
and aversion
in the
people
to
quit
their old
constitutions,"
which "has
in
the
many
revolutions
that
have been
seen in this
kingdom,
in this
and
former
ages,
still
kept
us
to,
or
after some
interval of
fruitless
attempts,
still
brought
us back
again
to
our
old
legislative
of
king,
lord,
and com-
mons."25
Rather
early
in
the
eighteenth
century,
when
"revolution"
began
to
gain
currency
in the
meaning
of
a radical or
significant
change,
there
were seen to have been revolutions in
many
domains of human
activity.
21V.
F.
Snow,
"The
Concept
of
Revolution,"
op.
cit.,
172.
22Ibid.,
169.
23Ibid.,
172. Cf. Peter
Laslett,
"The
English
Revolution and
Locke's'Two
Treatises
of
Government',"
The
Cambridge
Historical
Journal,
12
(1956),
40-55;
esp.
55.
A
similar
expression
occurs
in
the
Essay
Concerning
Human
Understanding.
24Snow,
op.
cit.,
173.
25Ibid.,
173. Cf.
Peter Laslett's
critical
edition
of
Locke's
Two
Treatises
of
Govern-
ment
(2nd
ed.,
Cambridge,
1967),
432
(II,
?
223).
Locke also wrote
that
"such
Revolu-
tions happen not upon every little mismanagement in publick affairs"; ibid., 433 (II, ?
225).
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266
I. BERNARD COHEN
It
was
then
that an
interest became
expressed
n
two
aspects
of
possible
revolutions
n
science:
the scientific revolutions
hat
might
have
occur-
redin the past (associatedwithCopernicus,Bacon,Descartes,Galileo)
and
those
that were
actually
in
progress.
In
the
extreme,
in
the
decade
or so before
the
French
Revolution,
possibly
two
scientists
concluded
that
theirown
workwas
revolutionary.2
I
have
not
been able
to
find
any
references
to revolutions
n the
sciences
earlier
than
1700.27One
source that had held
promise
of
possi-
ble
usage
of
"revolution"
was
the
literature
concerning
he Battle
of
the Books
(the
Quarrel
between
the
Ancients
and the
Moderns),
since
in
the sciencesthe superiority f the modernsmightseem to haveimplied
an
order-of-magnitude
reak withthe
past.28
But
a close examination
f
26They
were
Antoine-Laurent
Lavoisier
and
(possibly)
Jean-Paul
Marat;
see notes
78-82
infra.
27Should
any
reader
have encountered
a
pre-1700
occurrence
of "revolution"
in
rela-
tion to the
growth
of
science,
I should
be
grateful
for
the reference.
I
myself
have
not
found
any
in the
writings
of
Galileo,
Kepler,
Descartes,
Bacon,
Leibniz,
Huygens,
Wallis,
Newton,
Halley,
Flamsteed,
Hooke,
or Duhamel
(although
there
may
be one
that I have missed); nor have I had any better luck in perusing the seventeenth-century
volumes of
the
Journal des
Scavans,
or
the
Philosophical
Transactions,
or the volumes
of
Histoire
(and
Memoires)
of the Paris
Academy
of
Sciences;
and a
variety
of other
works
by
seventeenth-century
authors.
I
have
kept
on
the
look-out for
such an occur-
rence for
many
years
and
I
have
asked
more
colleagues
than
I would care
to
mention
as
to whether
they
have ever encountered
the use
of
the term
"revolution"
in
relation
to
scientific
change.
Accordingly,
may
I be allowed to
presume
that
such a
usage
(should
any
ever
turn
up)
would
probably
be rather
obscure
or
uncommon?
28For this
purpose
I
have
carefully
examined-in vain-the
writings
of
Fontenelle,
Glanvill,
Perrault, Swift,
Temple,
and Wotton.
On this
topic
see
Ferdinand
Brunetiere,
Etudes critiques sur l'histoire de la litterature francaise, cinquieme sdrie (Paris, 1893),
183-250,
"La formation de l'idee de
progres
au
XVIIIe
siecle,"
and
also Richard Foster
Jones,
Ancients and
Moderns:
A
Study
of
the Rise
of
the
Scientific
Movement
in
Seventeenth-Century
England
(2nd.
ed.,
St.
Louis,
1961);
the first
edition
(Washington
University
Studies,
New
Series,
Language
and
Literature,
No.
6,
St.
Louis,
1936)
was
entitled:
Ancients and
Moderns:
A
Study
of
the
Background
of
the
Battle
of
the Books.
One of the reasons
why
the
Quarrel
between
the Ancients and the
Moderns seemed
so
promising
is
that one
of the late books
(possibly
the
latest)
in
this
controversy
has a
postil
to
its second
paragraph,
reading:
"Revolution dans les sciences."
This
work
is
Louis Dutens: Recherches
sur
l'origine
des decouvertes
attributes aux
modernes,
oiu.
I'on
demontre
que
nos
plus
celebres
philosophes
ont
puise
les
ouvrages
des
anciens...,
2
vols.
(Paris, 1766).
A
second edition
was
published
in Paris in
1776,
a third in London
in
1796,
and
a fourth
in Paris
in
1812.
This
phrase
occurs also
in the index
to the
second
edition
(and
the later
editions)
in
the
"Table des
matieres,"
where
we find: "Revolution
dans les
sciences, 1.3;
des
astres;
v.
Proportion;
des
planetes
sur
elles-memes,
1,228,
v.
Rotation. Revolution
particuliere
&
gnedrale
des
astres,
1.231:
des
cometes, 1.241;
v.
Seneque."
There
is no other occurrence
of
the
phrase
"Revolution
dans les sciences"
in
Dutens'
book,
and
in
context
it is evident
that he
was
referring
to
a
return,
a
finding
again
of the truths
known-at least
in
principle-in
antiquity.
Some of the
major
publications in the Battle of the Books, or the Quarrel between the Ancients and the
Moderns,
in
modern
editions,
are:
Bernard Le
Bouyer
(or
Bovier)
de
Fontenelle,
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CONCEPT OF
SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION 267
the main writers disclosed
that
apparently they
never used the term
"revolution"29 and rather tended
to invoke
"improvement"
of
knowledge, although
two of the
protagonists (Fontenelle
and
Swift)
did
write of "revolutions"
in
other contexts and one
of them
(Fontenelle)
applied
this
very
word to the
development
of mathematics.
Nor did I
find
any explicit
reference to
a
revolution
in
Thomas
Sprat's
defence
of
the
Royal Society
of 1667.30The fact
that the term "revolution" does
not
appear
in
relation to
scientific
change
prior
to
the
eighteenth
century
is
not
unexpected,
since "revolution" did not
begin
to
come
into
general
use-even
in
the discourse
of
politics-until
after the Glorious
Revolution of 1688.31
An
unambiguous
reference to a
revolution
in
the sciences as a
radical
change
occurs
in
Bernard Le
Bouyer
(or
Bovier)
de
Fontenelle's
preface
to his
Elements
de la
geometric
de 'in
fini
(1727).
Fontenelle
has
been
discussing
the
newly
discovered
(or
invented)
infinitesimal cal-
culus
(le
calcul
de
l'infini)
of
Newton
and
Leibniz,
and the several
ways
in which
"Bernoulli,
le
marquis
de
l'Hopital,
Varignon,
tous les
grands
geometres"
carried
the
subject
forward
"a
pas
de
geant."
Then
he
said:
L'infinieleva tout a une.. facilitd,dont on n'eutos6 auparavant oncevoir
l'esperance;
t c'est
la
l'epoque
d'une rdvolution
resque
otale
arrivee
dans la
geometrie.32
Digression
sur les
anciens et les
modernes,
edited
together
with
Fontenelle's
Entretiens
sur la
pluralite
des
mondes,
by
Robert Shackleton
(Oxford,
1955);
Joseph
Glanvill,
Plus
Ultra:
or,
the
Progress
and
Advancement
of
Knowledge
since the
Days
of
Aristotle. In
an
Account
of
Some
of
the
Most
Remarkable Late
Improvements
of
Practical,
Useful
Learning
(London,
1668;
facsimile
reprint
with
an intro.
by
Jackson
I.
Cope:
Gainesville,
1958);Charles Perrault, Paralelle des anciens et des modernes en ce qui regarde les arts
et les
sciences,
4
vols.
(Paris,
1688-97;
facsimile
reprint
"mit einer einleitenden Abhand-
lung
von
H.
R. Jauss
und
kunstgeschichtlichen
Exkursen
von M.
Imdahl," Miinchen,
1964);
Jonathan
Swift,
A
Full
and
True Account
of
the
Battel
fought
last
Friday
between
the Antient and the Modern Books in St. James's
Library
(1704),
available in
Herbert
Davis
(ed.),
The Prose Works
of
Jonathan
Swift
(Oxford, 1939),
I, 137-65;
Sir
William
Temple,
Five
Miscellaneous
Essays,
ed. Samuel
H. Monk
(Ann
Arbor,
1963);
William
Wotton,
Reflections
upon
Ancient
and Modern
Learning
(London,
1694;
a
"third
edition,
corrected"
was
printed
1705).
The
only
one
of
these
authors
cited
by
Dutens
in his
"liste
des
principaux
Auteurs cites dans cet
Ouvrage
..
."
is
Wotton.
29Again,I should be grateful to any reader who may know of such an occurrence that
I
may
have
missed.
30Thomas
Sprat,
The
History
of
the
Royal
Society of
London,
for
the
Improving
of
Natural
Knowledge
(London,
1667;
facsimile
reprint
with a critical
apparatus
by
Jackson
I.
Cope
and Harold W.
Jones,
Saint
Louis,
1958).
31
ee
note 17
supra.
32Elements de la
geometrie
de
l'infini.
Suite
des
memoires de L'Academie
Royale
des Sciences
(Paris,
1727),
"pr6face,"
a4
verso;
a variant edition
or issue
differs
in title
only
in
the
first word
(ELEMENS
for
ELEMENTS),
and has the
same
publisher
and
date
(although
it
was
apparently published
some
decades
later).
The
preface
is
included
in the
CEuvres
e Fontenelle
(nouvelle
edition,
1790),
VI,
43.
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268
I. BERNARD
COHEN
The
conjunction
of words
"epoque"
and "revolution" leaves
no
doubt
that
Fontenelle had
in mind
a
change
of such an
order of
magnitude
as
to alter completely the state of mathematics. And Fontenelle went on at
once
to
emphasize
that
this
revolution was
progressive
or beneficial
to
mathematical
science,
although
not
unaccompanied by
several
prob-
lems.33
Fontenelle
used
the
term
"revolution"
in the
eloge
of
the mathema-
tician,
Michel
Rolle,
which he wrote in
his
capacity ofsecretaireperpe-
tuel of the
Royal
Academy
of Sciences. But "revolution" does
not here
occur
in relation
to the work
of Rolle
himself,
but rather
in an
aside;
on
the Analyse des infiniment petits (Paris, 1696; later eds., 1715, 1720,
1768)
of
the
Marquis
de
l'H6pital,
the first textbook
on
the
new infini-
tesimal calculus:
En ce
temps-la
e
livre du
marquis
de
l'H6pital
avoit
paru,
et
presque
ous les
mathematiciens
ommengoient
se tournerdu c6te de
la nouvelle
g6ometrie
de
l'infini,
usques-la
peu
connue.
L'universalite
urprenante
des
methodes,
1'ele-
gante
brievete
des
demonstrations,
a
finesse
et la
promptitude
es solutions es
plus
difficiles,
une nouveaute
inguliere
t
imprevue,
out attiroit
es
esprits,
et
il se faisoitdans e mondegeometreune revolution ienmarquee.34
Fontenelle
also used
"revolution"
in
the
eloge
of
l'H6pital
(d. 1704),
again
in relation
to his
textbook,
and
the
avidity
with which
"I'Analyse
des
infiniment
petits
a
ete
saisie
par
tous
les
G6ometres
naissans."
L'Hopital's
aim
had
been
"principalement
de
faire
des
Mathe-
maticiens,"
Fontenelle
wrote,
and
he had
the satisfaction
of
seeing
that
"des
Problemes
reservez
autrefois a
ceux
qui
avoient
vieilli dans
les
epines
des
Mathematiques,
devenoient
des
coups
d'essai
de
jeunes
gens":
Apparemment
a
revolution
eviendra ncore
plus
grande,
& il
se seroit
trouve
avec
le
temps
autantde
Disciples,
qu'il
y
eut eu de
Mathematiciens.35
These latter
two uses of "revolution"
in
relation
to
l'Hopital's
textbook
33Ibid.;
"Cette
revolution,
quelque
heureuse
qu'elle
ffit,
a
pourtant
ete
accompagnee
de
quelques
troubles."
A
succinct
appraisal
of this work of Fontenelle's
is
given by
Su-
zanne Delorme in the
Dictionary of Scientific Biography,
ed.
Charles C.
Gillispie
(New
York, 1972), V, 61b; a review by the Abbe Terrasson appeared in Journal des scavans,
July-Oct.
1728, 387-403,
608-25.
34"Eloge
de
Rolle,"
CEuvres
de
Fontenelle
(nouvelle
ed., Paris,
1792),
VII,
67.
This
eloge
was first
published
in the
Histoire
de
l'Academie
Royale
des Sciences
(1719).
Fontenelle was the author of
the
anonymous preface
to
l'Hopital's
book,
which was
writ-
ten
in a
style
that would
lead
the
unsuspecting
reader to
suppose
it
had
been written
by
l'Hopital
himself.
35"Eloge
de
M.
le
Marquis
de
l'H6pital,"
Histoire
du renouvellement
de
l'Academie
Royale
des
Sciences
en M. DC.XCIX. et les
eloges historiques
de
tous
les academiciens
morts
depuis
ce renouvellement
(Amsterdam, 1709),
105-06. In
the
"Eloge
du
Marquis
de l'H6pital," publishedin CEuvres e Fontenelle (Paris, 1790) VI, 131, the word "revo-
lution" is
misprinted
as
"resolution."
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CONCEPT
OF
SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION
269
differ
from
the former
instance,
in that the calculus
inaugurated
a con-
ceptual
revolution
in
mathematics,
whereas the
Analyse
des
infiniment
petits
consolidated the
achievements
of that revolution
and made its
methods
and
achievements
so
readily
available
as
to revolutionize
the
profession
of
mathematician;
that
is,
I'Hopital
was
(according
to
Fontenelle) primarily responsible
for
attracting
young
mathematicians
("geometres")
to the
new
analysis
and
endowing
them with
new
powers.
Fontenelle
would
thus seem to
have made
a distinction
between
"une
revolution
presque
totale .
. . dans
la
geometrie"36
and
"une revolution
bien
marquee,"
such as
l'Hopital's
book
produced
"dans
le
monde
geometre."37
The revolution within the sciences to which Fontenelle referred was
the
discovery
or invention
of the
calculus
by
Newton
and
by
Leibniz.38
Another
eighteenth-century
reference
to
Isaac
Newton and
a revolution
in
science
is
found
in
Clairaut's statement of
1747 that
Newton's
Prin-
cipia
had marked
"l'epoque
d'une
grande
revolution dans
la
Phy-
sique."39
The fact that
these earliest
references
to a
revolution in
science
occur
in
relation
to
Newton
is
worthy
of
notice,
since
it was
Newton's
achievement
in
pure
mathematics
coupled
with his
analysis
of
36
A
"revolution
presque
totale" would seem
more
fitting
an
expression
for a
cyclical
phenomenon
than for the kind of revolution Fontenelle had
in mind.
37
In
his
"Eloge
du Czar
Pierre,"
Fontenelle used
the word "revolution"
in two
ways,
neither of
them in relation
to science. Thus he wrote
that
"La
revolution,
arriv6e en
Perse
par
la
revolte de
Mahmoud,
attira
de ce
cote-la
les
armes du
Czar et du
grand
Seigneur." Again,
he mentioned
"[la]
nation
Moscovite,
peu
connue
que
de ses
plus
proches
voisins,
. . .
presque
une nation
a
part,
qui
n'entroit
point
dans le
systeme
de
l'Europe,
. . . et
dont
a
peine
6toit-on curieux
d'apprendre
de tems en tems
quelques
revolutions
importantes."
This
eloge
is
printed
in
CEuvres
e
Fontenelle,
nouvelle ed.
op.
cit., VII, 166, 188. This second quotation appears to have cyclical overtones of the ebbs
and flows
of
ordinary
history,
and
as
such
may
resemble a
statement in Fontenelle's
"Preface
sur
l'utilit6 des
mathematiques
et de la
physique,
et sur les
travaux de l'Aca-
demie des
Sciences,"
Histoire de l'Academie
Royale
des
Sciences.
Annee
M. DC.XCIX.
Avec les memoires de
mathematique
& de
physique,
pour
la
meme annee. Tires des
registres
de cette Academie. Seconde
edition, revue,
corrigee
&
augmentee
(Am-
sterdam,
1734),
I,
v-xxvi.
In
this
form,
the
essay
is
merely
entitled
"Preface";
the above
title
comes
from the
somewhat truncated
reprint
in
CEuvres
e
Fontenelle,
nouvelle 6d.
op.
cit.,
VI,
59-75.
An
English
version
was
published
in
Miscellanea
Curiosa,
vol.
1
(London,
1705;
2nd
ed., London,
1708;
3rd
ed.,
London,
1726).
Here Fontenelle
says:
"L'Histoire ne
fournit
pas
dans
toute
son
6tendue,
des
examples
de
vertu,
ni des
regles
de
conduite.
Hors de
la,
ce n'est
qu'un
spectacle
de revolutions
perpetuelles
dans les
affaires
humaines,
de
naissances,
de chuites
d'empire,
de
mceurs,
de
coutumes,
d'opinions, qui
se
succedent
incessament;
enfin de
tout
ce
mouvement
rapide,
quoiqu'insensible, qui
emporte
tout,
et
change
continuellement
la face de
la terre."
38In the "Preface"
to the
Elements
de la
geometrie
de
l'infini,
loc.
cit.,
Fontenelle
said of the calculus: "Newton
trouva le
premier
ce merveilleux
calcul,
Leibnitz
le
publia
le
premier.
Que
Leibnitz
soit inventeur
aussi bien
que
Newton,
c'est
une
question
dont
nous avons
rapport6
l'histoire
en
1716,
et
nous ne la
r6epterons
pas
ici."
39See note 15 supra. This statement was repeated almost verbatim by Joseph-Louis
Lagrange,
John
Playfair,
and
Thomas
Henry
Huxley.
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7/21/2019 Journal of the History of Ideas Volume 37 Issue 2 1976 [Doi 10.2307%2F2708824] I. Bernard Cohen -- The Eightee
15/33
270 I.
BERNARD
COHEN
the
system
of the world
on
the
basis
of
gravitational
dynamics
that
actually
set the seal on
the "Scientific Revolution" and
caused scientists
and philosophers to recognize that a revolutionhad in fact taken place.40
In this
sense,
Newton's
Principia
of 1687
would have
played
the same
r6le
in the
recognition
of the
occurrence of a scientific revolution that
the Glorious Revolution
of 1688
apparently
did
for
political
revolution.
The
great Encyclopedie
of Diderot and d'Alembert
contains a nota-
ble
entry
on
revolution.
The
concept
of revolution
was,
in
fact,
in-
troduced
at
the
very
start
of this collective
work,
since
it
occurs
in
a dra-
matic
fashion
in
d'Alembert's
Discours
preliminaire,
as well as later on
in his article "Experimental." In the Discours preliminaire (publishedin
1751),
d'Alembert introduced
the
concept
of
revolution
in a
thumb-nail
sketch of the rise of
modern science
or, rather,
of a
philosophy
associated
with modern science. The aim of
the
essay
was to sketch out
a
methodological
and
philosophical analysis
of all
knowledge
(including
science which
occupies
a central
place
in his
scheme41)
and not
to
portray
the
sciences themselves. d'Alembert
begins
his historical
presentation
with
"le Chancelier
Bacon,"
who
occupies
an
avuncular
position, and then moves on to a brief resume of Descartes's radical in-
novations.
Fully appreciative
of
the
significance
of
the
Newtonian
natural
philosophy,
which
in fact
had
just
overthrown and
replaced
the
Cartesian,
d'Alembert
nevertheless felt the need to
say
some kind
words
for
Descartes,
a
fellow
Frenchman
and fellow mathematician. He
thus called
particular
attention to the
great
"revolte"
of
Descartes,
who
had
shown
"intelligent
minds how to
throw
off
the
yoke
of
scholasticism,
of
opinion,
of
authority...."
d'Alembert
had
in
mind
a clear
image
of
the action of
political revolutionary forces,
and
he
portrayed
Descartes
"as a leader
of
conspirators
who,
before
anyone
else,
had the
courage
to
rise
against
a
despotic
and
arbitrary
power
and
who,
in
preparing
a
resounding
revolution,
laid the foundations of a
more
just
and
happier
government,
which he himself
was
not
able
to
see established."42
Descartes's
role in thus
"preparing"
the
"revolution" or his "revolt"
was "a service to
philosophy
perhaps
more difficult
to
perform
than
all
40This
heme
is
developed
in the
work cited
in note 10
supra.
41Ronald
Grimsley,
Jean d'Alembert
(1717-83)
(Oxford,
1963);
Thomas L.
Hankins,
Jean d'Alembert: Science
and
Enlightenment
(Oxford, 1970),
8.
42All of the
following
references are
to
the first
edition,
available in
a
facsimile
re-
print:
Encyclopedie,
ou Dictionnaire raisonne des
sciences,
des arts et des metiers.
Nou-
velle
impression
en
facsimile
de
la
premiere
edition de
1751-1780
(Stuttgart-Bad
Cannstatt,
1966).
See vol.
1
(Paris, 1751),
xxvi.
Quoted
from
the
English
translation
made
by
Richard N. Schwab
(with
the
collaboration
of
Walter
E.
Rex),
available
in
Jean
LeRond
d'Alembert,
Preliminary
Discourse
to
the
Encyclopedia
of
Diderot
(In-
dianapolis,
1963-The
Library
of Liberal
Arts),
80-81.
It
should be observed that
d'Alembert used the metaphor of political life in describing Descartes' rl6e in the revo-
lution.
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