The Competitiveness of Nations in a Global Knowledge-Based Economy
Edgar Zilsel
The
Sociological Roots of Science
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III – Why Not Elsewhere and Else When?
HHC: titles added |
American Journal of Sociology, 47
(4)
Jan. 1942,
544-562. |
In the period from
1300 to 1600 three strata
of intellectual activity must be distinguished: university scholars, humanists,
and artisans. Both university scholars
and humanists were rationally trained. Their
methods, however, were determined by their professional conditions and differed
substantially from the methods of science. Both
professors and humanistic literati distinguished liberal from mechanical arts
and despised manual labor, experimentation, and dissection.
Craftsmen were the pioneers of causal
thinking in this period. Certain groups
of superior manual laborers (artist-engineers, surgeons, the makers of nautical
and musical instruments, surveyors, navigators, gunners) experimented,
dissected, and used quantitative methods. The
measuring instruments of the navigators, surveyors, and gunners were the
forerunners of the later physical instruments. The
craftsmen, however, lacked methodical intellectual training.
Thus the two components of the
scientific method were separated by a social barrier: logical training was
reserved for upper-class scholars; experimentation, causal interest, and
quantitative method were left to more or less plebeian artisans.
Science was born when, with the progress
of technology, the experimental method eventually overcame the social prejudice
against manual labor and was adopted by rationally trained scholars.
This was accomplished about 16oo
(Gilbert, Galileo, Bacon). At the same
time the scholastic method of disputation and the humanistic ideal of individual
glory were superseded by the ideals of control of nature and advancement of
learning through scientific co-operation. In
a somewhat different way, sociologically, modern astronomy developed.
The whole process was imbedded in the
advance of early capitalistic society, which weakened collective-mindedness,
magical thinking, and belief in authority and which furthered worldly, causal,
rational, and quantitative thinking.
Were there many separate cultures in which science
has developed and others in which it is lacking, the question about the origin
of science would generally be recognized as a sociological one and could be
answered by singling out the common traits of the scientific in contrast to the
nonscientific cultures. Historical
reality, unfortunately, is different, for fully developed science appears once
only, namely, in modern Western civilization. It
is this fact that obscures our problem. We
are only too inclined to consider ourselves and our own civilization as the
natural peak of human evolution. From
this presumption the belief originates that man simply became more and more
intelligent until one day a few great investigators and pioneers appeared and
produced science as the last stage of a one-line intellectual ascent.
Thus it is not realized that human
thinking has developed in many and divergent ways - among which one is the scien-
1. This article outlines a study undertaken with
the help of grants from the Committee in Aid of Displaced Foreign Scholars, the
Rockefeller Foundation, and the Social Science Research Council.
tific.
One forgets how amazing it is that science arose at all and especially in
a certain period and under special sociological conditions.
It is not impossible, however, to study the
emergence of modern science as a sociological process.
Since this emergence took place in the
period of early European capitalism, we shall have to review that period from
the end of the Middle Ages until 1600. Certain
stages of the scientific spirit, however, developed in other cultures too, e.g.,
in classical antiquity and, to a lesser degree, in some oriental civilizations
and in the Arabic culture of the Middle Ages.
Moreover, the scientific and half-scientific cultures are not independent
of each other. In modern
Human society has not often changed so
fundamentally as it did with the transition from feudalism to early capitalism.
These changes are generally known.
Even in a very brief exposition of the
problem, however, we must mention some of them, since they form necessary
conditions for the rise of science.
1.
The emergence of early capitalism is connected
with a change in both the setting and the bearers of culture.
In the feudal society of the Middle Ages
the castles of knights and rural monasteries were the centers of culture.
In early capitalism culture was centered
in towns. The spirit of science is
worldly and not military. Obviously,
therefore, it could not develop among clergymen and knights but only among
townspeople.
2.
The end of the Middle Ages was a period of rapidly
progressing technology and technological inventions.
Machines began to be used both in
production of goods and in warfare. On
the one hand, this set tasks for mechanics and chemistry, and, on the other, it
furthered causal thinking, and, in general, weakened magical thinking.
545
3. In medieval society the individual was bound to
the traditions of the group to which he unalterably belonged.
In early capitalism economic success
depended on the spirit of enterprise of the individual.
In early feudalism economic competition was unknown.
When it started among the craftsmen and
tradesmen of the late medieval towns, their guilds tried to check it.
But competition proved stronger than the
guilds. It dissolved the organizations
and destroyed the collective-mindedness of the Middle Ages.
The merchant or craftsman of early
capitalism who worked in the same way as his fathers had was outstripped by less
conservative competitors. The
individualism of the new society is a presupposition of scientific thinking.
The scientist, too, relies, in the last
resort, only on his own eyes and his own brain and is supposed to make himself
independent of belief in authorities. Without
criticism there is no science. The
critical scientific spirit (which is entirely unknown to all societies without
economic competition) is the most powerful explosive human society ever has
produced. If the critical spirit
expanded to the whole field of thinking and acting it would lead to anarchism
and social disintegration. In ordinary
life this is prevented by social instincts and social necessities.
In science itself the individualistic
tendencies are counterbalanced by scientific co-operation.
This, however, will be discussed later.
4. Feudal society was ruled by tradition and
custom, whereas early capitalism proceeded rationally.
It calculated and measured, introduced
bookkeeping, and used machines. The rise
of economic rationality furthered development of rational scientific methods.
The emergence of the quantitative
method, which is virtually nonexistent in medieval theories, cannot be separated
from the counting and calculating spirit of capitalistic economy.
The first literary exposition of the
technique of double-entry bookkeeping is contained in the best textbook on
mathematics of the fifteenth century, Luca Pacioli’s Summa de arithmetica
(Venice, 1494); the first
application of double-entry bookkeeping to the problems of public finances and
administration was made in the collected mathematical works of Simon Stevin, the
pioneer of scientific mechanics (Hypomnemata mathematica [Leyden 1608]),
and a paper of Copernicus on monetary reform (Monetae cudendae ratio
[composed in 1552]) is
among the earliest investigations of coinage.
This cannot be mere coincidence.
The development of the most rational of sciences,
mathematics, is particularly closely linked with the advance of rationality in
technology and economy. The modern sign
of mathematical equality was first used in an arithmetical textbook of Recorde
that is dedicated to the “governors and the reste of the Companio of Venturers
into Moscovia” with the wish for “continualle increase of commoditie by their
travell” (The Wetstone of Witte [
Even rationalization of public administration and
law had its counterpart in scientific ideas. The
loose state of feudalism with its vague traditional law was gradually superseded
by absolute monarchies with central sovereignty and rational statute law.
This political and juridical change
promoted the emergence of the idea that all physical processes are governed by
rational natural laws established by God. This,
however, did not occur before the seventeenth century (Descartes, Huyghens,
Boyle). 2
We have mentioned a few general characteristics of
early capitalistic society which form necessary conditions for the rise of the
scien-
2.
Cf. Edgar Zilsel, “The Genesis of the Concept of
Physical Law,” Philosophical Review, LI
(1942).
547
tific spirit. In
order to understand this development sociologically, we have to distinguish
three strata of intellectual activity in the period from 1300 to 1600: the
universities, humanism, and labor.
At the universities theology and scholasticism
still predominated. The university
scholars were trained to think rationally but exercised the methods of
scholastic rationalism which differ basically from the rational methods of a
developed economy. Tradesmen are
interested in reckoning; craftsmen and engineers in rational rules of operation,
in rational investigation of causes, in rational physical laws.
Schoolteachers, on the other hand, take
an interest in rational distinction and classifications.
The old sentence, “bene docet qui bene
distinguit,” is as correct as it is sociologically significant.
Schoolteaching, by its sociological
conditions, produces a specific kind of rationality, which appears in similar
forms wherever old priests, intrusted with the task of instructing priest
candidates, rationalize vague and contradictory mythological traditions of the
past. Brahmans in
As a rule the specific scholastic methods are
preserved when theologians, in the course of social development, apply
themselves to secular subject matters. Thus
in Indian literature Brahmans who had entered the service of princes discussed
politics and erotics by meticulously distinguishing and enumerating the various
possibilities of political and sexual life (Kautilya, Vatsyayana).
3
In a somewhat
analogous way the medieval scholastics and the European university scholars
before 1600 indulged in subtle distinctions, enumerations, and disputations.
Bound to authorities, they favored
quotation and uttered their opinions for the most part in the form of
commentaries and compilations. After the
thirteenth century mundane subject matters were treated by scholars, too, and,
as an exception,
3. Cf. M.
Winternitz, Geschichte der indischen Literatur (Leipzig,
1920), III, 509 ff.,536
ff
even experience was referred to by some of them.
But when the Schoolmen were at all
concerned with secular events they did not, as a rule, investigate causes and,
never, physical laws. They endeavored
rather to explain the ends and meanings of the phenomena.
Obviously, the occult qualities and
Aristotelian substantial forms of scholasticism are but rationalizations of
prescientific, magic, and animistic teleology. Thus
till the middle of the sixteenth century the universities were scarcely
influenced by the development of contemporary technology and by humanism.
Their spirit was still substantially
medieval. It seems to be a general
sociological phenomenon that rigidly organized schools are able to offer
considerable resistance to social changes of the external wor1d.
4
The first representatives of secular learning
appeared in the fourteenth century in Italian cities.
They were not scientists but secretaries
and officials of municipalities, princes, and the pope looking up with envy to
the political and cultural achievements of the classical past.
These learned officials who chiefly had
to conduct the foreign affairs of their employers became the fathers of
humanism. Their aims derive from the
conditions of their profession. The more
erudite and polished their writings, the more eloquent their speeches, the more
prestige redounded to their employers and the more fame to themselves.
They therefore chiefly strove after
perfection of style and accumulation of classical knowledge.
In the following centuries the Italian
humanists lost in large part their official connections.
Many became free literati, dependent on
princes, noblemen, and bankers as patrons. Others
were engaged as instructors to the sons of princes, and several got academic
chairs and taught Latin and Greek at universities.
Their aims remained unchanged, and their
pride of memory and learning, their passion for fame, even increased.
They acknowledged certain ancient
writers as patterns of style and
4.
Pierre Duhem has brought into prominence the
fourteenth-century Ockhamists of the university of Paris (Buridan, Oresme, and
others) and has attempted to vindicate for them scientific priority to
Copernicus and Galileo. Though knowledge
of late scholasticism has been greatly furthered by Duhem’s investigation of the
Paris Schoolmen, he has considerably overrated their “anticipations” of modern
physical and astronomical ideas. He
singles out the scarce and rather extrinsic conformities with modern natural
science and omits the abundance of differences.
Duhem’s opinion has been uncritically adopted by many followers.
549
were bound to these secular authorities almost as
strictly as the theologians were to their religious ones.
Though humanism also proceeded
rationally, its methods were as different from scholastic as from modern
scientific rationality. Humanism
developed the methods of scientific philology, but neglected causal research and
was ignorant of physical laws and quantitative investigation.
Altogether it was considerably more
interested in words than in things, more in literary forms than in contents.
Humanism spread over all parts of
western and central
The university scholars and the humanistic
literati of the Renaissance were exceedingly proud of their social rank.
Both disdained uneducated people.
They avoided the vernacular and wrote
and spoke Latin only. Further, they were
attached to the upper classes, sharing the social prejudices of the nobility and
the rich merchants and bankers and despising manual labor.
Both, therefore, adopted the ancient
distinction between liberal and mechanical arts: only professions which do not
require manual work were considered by them, their patrons, and their public to
be worthy of well-bred men.
The social antithesis of mechanical and liberal
arts, of hands and tongue, influenced all intellectual and professional activity
in the Renaissance. The
university-trained medical doctors contented themselves more or less with
commenting on the medical writings of antiquity; the surgeons who did manual
work such as operating and dissecting belonged with the barbers and had a social
position similar
5. It seems to be a rather general
sociological phenomenon that, where there are professional public officials,
secular learning first appears in the form of humanism.
In
to that of midwives.
Literati were much more highly esteemed
than were artists. In the fourteenth
century the latter were not separated from whitewashers and stone-dressers and,
like all craftsmen, were organized in guilds. They
gradually became detached from handicraft, until a separation was effected in
Beneath both the university scholars and the
humanistic literati the artisans, the mariners, shipbuilders, carpenters,
foundrymen, and miners worked in silence on the advance of technology and modern
society. They had invented the mariner’s
compass and guns; they constructed paper mills, wire mills, and stamping mills;
they created blast furnaces and in the sixteenth century introduced machines
into mining. Having outgrown the
constraints of guild tradition and being stimulated to inventions by economic
competition, they were, no doubt, the real pioneers of empirical observation,
experimentation, and causal research. They
were uneducated, probably often illiterate,
7 and,
perhaps for that reason, today we do not
6
On the prestige of the literati, artists,
inventors, and discoverers cf. Edgar Zilsel, Die Entstchung des
Geniebegriffes: Ein Beitrag zur Ideengeschichte der Antike und des
Fruehkapitalismus (
7. Cf. the statistical data on population and
number of school children in the chronicle of Giovanni Villani (X,
162 [fourteenth century,
551
even know their names.
Among them were a few groups which
needed more knowledge for their work than their colleagues did and, therefore,
got a better education. Among these
superior craftsmen the artists are most important.
There were no sharp divisions between
painters, sculptors, goldsmiths, and architects; but very often the same artist
worked in several fields, since, on the whole, division of labor had developed
only slightly in the Renaissance. Following
from this a remarkable professional group arose during the fifteenth century.
The men we have in mind may be called
artist-engineers, for not only did they paint pictures, cast statues, and build
cathedrals, but they also constructed lifting engines, canals and sluices, guns
and fortresses. They invented new
pigments, detected the geometrical laws of perspective, and constructed new
measuring tools for engineering and gunnery. The
first of them is Brunelleschi (1377-1446), the constructor of the cupola of the
cathedral of
The surgeons belonged to a second group of
superior artisans. Some Italian
surgeons had contacts with artists, resulting from the fact that painting needs
anatomical knowledge. The artificers of
musical instruments were related to the artist-engineers.
Cellini’s father, for example, was an
instrument-maker, and he himself was appointed as a pope’s court musician for a
time. In the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries the forerunners of the modern piano were constructed by the
representatives of this third group. The
makers of nautical and astronomical instruments and of distance meters for
surveying and gunnery formed a fourth group.
They made compasses and astrolabes,
cross-staffs, and quadrants and invented the declinometer and inclinometer in
the sixteenth century. Their
measuring-instruments are the forerunners of the modern physical apparatus.
Some of these men were retired
navigators or gunners. 8
The surveyors and the navigators,
finally, were also considered as representatives of the mechanical arts.
They and the map-makers are more
important for the development of measurement and observation than of
experimentation.
These superior craftsmen made contacts with
learned astronomers, medical doctors, and humanists.
They were told by their learned friends
of Archimedes, Euclid, and Vitruvius; their inventive spirit, however,
originated in their own professional work. The
surgeons and some artists dissected, the surveyors and navigators measured, the
artist-engineers and instrument-makers were perfectly used to experimentation
and measurement, and their quantitative thumb rules are the forerunners of the
physical laws of modern science. The
occult qualities and substantial forms of the scholastics, the verbosity of the
humanists were of no use to them. All
these superior artisans had already developed considerable theoretical knowledge
in the fields of mechanics, acoustics, chemistry, metallurgy, descriptive
geometry, and anatomy. But, since they
had not learned how to proceed systematically, their achievements form a
collection of isolated discoveries. Leonardo,
for example, deals sometimes quite wrongly with mechanical problems which, as
his diaries reveal, he himself had solved correctly years before.
The superior craftsmen, therefore,
cannot be called scientists themselves, but they were the immediate predecessors
of science. Of course, they were not
regarded as respectable scholars by contemporary public opinion.
The two components of scientific method
were still separated before 1600 - methodical training of intellect was
preserved for upper-class learned people, for university scholars, and for
humanists; experimentation and observation were left to more or less plebeian
workers.
The separation of liberal and mechanical arts
manifested itself
8.
Cf.,
e.g., the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography on the English
instrument-makers, Humfrey Cole (d. 1580), William Bourne (d.
1583), and Robert Norman.
553
clearly in the literature of the period.
Before
1550 respectable scholars
did not care for the achievements of the nascent new world around them and wrote
in Latin. On the other hand, after the
end of the fifteenth century, a literature published by “mechanics” in Spanish,
Portuguese, Italian, English, French, Dutch, and German had developed.
It included numerous short treatises on
navigation, vernacular mathematical textbooks, and dialogues dealing with
commercial, technological, and gunnery problems (e.g., Etienne de la Roche,
Tartaglia, Dürer, Ympyn), and various vernacular booklets on metallurgy,
fortification, bookkeeping, descriptive geometry, compass-making, etc.
In addition there were the unprinted but
widely circulated papers of the Italian artist-engineers.
These books were diligently read by the
colleagues of their authors and by merchants. Many
of these books, especially those on navigation, were frequently reprinted, but
as a rule they were disregarded by respectable scholars.
As long as this separation persisted, as
long as scholars did not think of using the disdained methods of manual workers,
science in the modern meaning of the word was impossible.
About
1550, however, with the
advance of technology, a few learned authors began to be interested in the
mechanical arts, which had become economically so important, and composed Latin
and vernacular works on the geographical discoveries, navigation and
cartography, mining and metallurgy, surveying, mechanics, and gunnery.
9
Eventually the
social barrier between the two components of the scientific
9. Peter Martyr (1511,
1530), Peter Apian
(1529), Gemma Phrysius
(1530), Orontius Finaeus
(1532), Nunes
1537, 1546, 1566), George
Agricola 1544, 1556), Pedro de
Medina
(1545). Ramusio (1550),
Leonard Digges (1556, 1571,
1579), Mercator (1569,
1578,
1594), Benedetti (1575),
Guido Ubaldo (1577),
Hakluyt (1589), Thomas Hood
(1590, 1592, 1596, 1598), Robert
Hues (1594).Edward Wright
(1599), and others.
The high percentage of English authors
is striking. They seem to have been
interested in the mechanical arts earlier than Continental writers (ci. Francis
R. Johnson, Astronomical Thought in Renaissance
method broke down, and the methods of the superior
craftsmen were adopted by academically trained scholars: real science was born.
This was achieved about 1600 with
William Gilbert 1544-1603),
Galileo (1564-1642), and Francis Bacon (1561-1626).
William Gilbert, physician to Queen Elizabeth,
published the first printed book composed by an academically trained scholar
which was based entirely on laboratory experiment and his own observation (De
magnete [1600]). Gilbert used and
invented physical instruments but neither employed mathematics nor investigated
physical laws. Like a modern
experimentalist he is critically-minded.
Aristotelism, belief in authority, and humanistic verbosity were
vehemently attacked by him. His
scientific method derives from foundrymen, miners, and navigators with whom he
had personal contacts. His experimental
devices and many other details were taken over from a vernacular booklet of the
compass-maker Robert Norman, a retired mariner
(1581).
10
Galileo’s relations to technology, military
engineering, and the artist-engineers are often underrated.
When he studied medicine at the
10. Cf. Edgar Zilsel, “The Origin of William
Gilbert’s Scientific Method,” Journal of the History of Ideas,
II (1941), 1-32.
555
and to talk with the workmen.
In his chief work of 1638, the
Discorsi, the setting of the dialogue is the Arsenal of Venice.
His greatest achievement - the detection
of the law of falling bodies, published in the Discorsi - developed from a
problem of contemporary gunnery, as he himself declared.
11
The shape of
the curve of projection had often been discussed by the gunners of the period.
Tartaglia had not been able to answer
the question correctly. Galileo, after
having dealt with the problem for forty years, found the solution by combining
craftsman-like experimentation and measurement with learned mathematical
analysis. The different social origin of
the two components of his method - which became the method of modern science -
is obvious in the Discorsi, since he gives the mathematical deductions in
Latin and discusses the experiments in Italian.
After 1610 Galileo gave up writing Latin treatises and addressed himself
to nonscholars. His greatest works,
consequently, are written completely or partially in Italian.
A few vernacular poets were among his
literary favorites. Even his literary
taste reveals his predilection for the plain people.
His aversion to the spirit and methods
of the contemporary professors and humanists is frequently expressed in his
treatises and letters.
The same opposition to both humanism and
scholasticism can be found in the works of Francis Bacon.
No scholar before him had attacked
belief in authority and imitation of antiquity so passionately.
Bacon was enthusiastic about the great
navigators, the inventors, and the craftsmen of his period; their achievements,
and only theirs, are set by him as models for scholars.
The common belief that it is “a kind of
dishonor to descend to inquiry upon matters mechanical”
12 seems
“childish” to him. Induction, which is
proclaimed by him as the new method of science, obviously is the method of just
those manual laborers. He died from a
cold which he caught when stuffing a chicken with snow.
This incident also reveals how much he
defied all customs of contemporary scholarship.
An experiment of this kind was in his period considered worthy rather of
a cook or knacker than of a former lord chancellor of
11. Letter to Marsili (
12.
Novum Organum.
of natural science, and his writings abound with
humanistic rhetoric, scholastic survivals, and scientific mistakes.
He is the first writer in the history of
mankind, however, to realize fully the basic importance of methodical scientific
research for the advancement of human civilization.
Bacon’s real contribution to the development of
science appears when he is confronted with the humanists.
The humanists did not live on the
returns from their writings but were dependent economically on bankers,
noblemen, and princes. There was a
kind of symbiosis between them and their patrons.
The humanist received his living from
his patron and, in return, made his patron famous by his writings.
Of course, the more impressive the
writings of the humanist, the more famous he became.
Individual fame, therefore, was the
professional ideal of the humanistic literati. They
often called themselves “dispensers of glory” and quite openly declared fame to
be the motive of their own and every intellectual activity.
Bacon, on the contrary, was opposed to
the ideal of individual glory. He
substituted two new aims: “control of nature” by means of science and
“advancement of learning.” Progress
instead of fame means the substitution of a personal ideal by an objective one.
In his Nova Atlantis Bacon
depicted an ideal state in which technological and scientific progress is
reached by planned co-operation of scientists, each of whom uses and continues
the investigations of his predecessors and fellow-workers.
These scientists are the rulers of the
New Atlantis. They form a staff of
public officials organized in nine groups according to the principle of division
of labor. Bacon’s ideal of scientific
co-operation obviously originated in the ranks of manufacturers and artisans.
On the one hand, early capitalistic
manual workers were quite accustomed to use the experience of their colleagues
and predecessors, as is stressed by Bacon himself and occasionally mentioned by
Galileo. On the other hand,
division of labor had advanced in contemporary society and in the economy as a
whole.
Essential to modern science is the idea that
scientists must co-operate in order to bring about the progress of civilization.
Neither disputing scholastics nor
literati, greedy of glory, are scientists.
Bacon’s idea is substantially new and occurs neither in antiquity nor in
the Renaissance. Somewhat similar ideas
were pointed out in the
557
same period by Campanella and, occasionally, by
Stevin and Descartes. As is generally
known, Bacon’s Nova Atlantis greatly influenced the foundation of learned
societies. In 1654 the Royal Society was
founded in
On the whole, the rise of the methods of the
manual workers to the ranks of academically trained scholars at the end of the
sixteenth century is the decisive event in the genesis of science.
The upper stratum could contribute
logical training, learning, and theoretical interest; the lower stratum added
causal spirit, experimentation, measurement, quantitative rules of operation,
disregard of school authority, and objective co-operation.
13
III – Why Not Elsewhere and Else
When?
The indicated explanation of the development of
science obviously is incomplete. Money
economy and co-existent strata of skilled artisans and secular scholars are
frequent phenomena in history. Why,
nevertheless, did science not develop more frequently?
A comparison with classical antiquity
can fill at least one gap in our explanation.
Classical culture produced achievements in
literature, art, and philosophy which are in no way inferior to modern ones.
It produced outstanding and numerous
historiographers, philologists, and grammarians.
Ancient rhetoric is superior to its modern counterpart both in
refinement and in the number of representatives.
Ancient achievements are considerable in the fields of theoretical
astronomy and
13.
The development of modern astronomy took place in a somewhat different
way. After the days of the Babylonian
priests, the links connecting astronomy with priesthood, calendar-arranging, and
religious feasts had never been quite interrupted.
Astronomy, therefore, was linked with
the idea of celestial sublimity and always belonged to the free arts.
As a consequence Pythagorean and
nonmechanical animistic ideas are conspicuous in Copernicus and Kepler.
Practical astronomy, on the other hand,
was linked with navigation, which was interested in exact star positions and
measuring instruments. In the period of
mathematics, limited in the biological field, and
poor in the physical sciences. Only
three physical laws were correctly known to the ancient scholars: the principles
of the lever and of Archimedes and the optical law of reflection.
In the field of technology one
difference is most striking: machines were used in antiquity in warfare, for
juggleries, and for toys but were not employed in the production of goods.
On the whole, ancient culture was borne
by a rather small upper class living on their rents.
Earning money by professional labor was
always rather looked down upon in the circles determining ancient public
opinion. Manual work was even less
appreciated. In the same manner as in
the Renaissance, painters and sculptors gradually detached from handicraft and
slowly rose to social esteem. Yet their
prestige never equaled that of writers and rhetors, and even in the period of
Plutarch and Lucianus the greatest sculptors of antiquity would be attacked as
manual workers and wage-earners. Compared
with poets and philosophers, artists were rarely mentioned in literature, and
engineers and technological inventors virtually never.
The latter presumably (very little is
known of them) were superior artisans or emancipated slaves working as foremen.
In antiquity rough manual work was done
by slaves.
As far as our problem is concerned, this is the
decisive difference between classical and early capitalistic society.
Machinery and science cannot develop in
a civilization based on slave labor.
Slaves generally are unskilled and cannot be intrusted with handling
complex devices. Moreover, slave labor
seems to be cheap enough to make introduction of machines superfluous.
On the other hand, slavery makes the
social contempt for manual work so strong that it cannot be overcome by the
educated. For this reason ancient
intellectual development could not overcome the barrier between tongue and hand.
In antiquity only the least prejudiced
among the scholars ventured to experiment and to dissect.
Very few scholars, such as Hippocrates
and his followers, Democritus, and Archimedes, investigated in the manner of
modern experimental and causal science, and even Archimedes considered it
necessary to apologize for constructing battering-machines.
All these facts and correlations have
already been pointed out several times.
559
It may be said that science could fully develop in
modern Western civilization because European early capitalism was based on free
labor. In early capitalistic society
there were very few slaves, and they were not used in production but were luxury
gifts in the possession of princes. Evidently
lack of slave labor is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for the
emergence of science. No doubt further
necessary conditions would be found if early capitalistic society were compared
with Chinese civilization. In
The rise of science is usually studied by
historians who are primarily interested in the temporal succession of the
scientific discoveries. Yet the genesis
of science can be studied also as a sociological phenomenon.
The occupations of the scientific
authors and of their predecessors can be ascertained.
The sociological function of these
occupations and their professional ideals can be analyzed.
The temporal succession can be
interrupted and relevant sociological groups can be compared to analogous groups
in other periods and other civilizations - the medieval scholastics with Indian
priest-scholars, the Renaissance humanists with Chinese mandarins, the
Renaissance artisans and artists with their colleagues in classical antiquity.
Since, in the sociology of culture,
experiments are not feasible, comparison of analogous phenomena is virtually the
only way of finding and verifying causal explanations.
It is strange how rarely investigations
of this kind are made. As the complex
intellectual constructs are usually studied historically only, so sociological
research for the most part restricts itself to comparatively elementary
phenomena. Yet there is no reason why
the most important and interesting intellectual phenomena should not be
investigated sociologically and causally.
The sociological analysis of nascent Science must
be based primarily on the writings of the scientific authors from
1400 to
1650. The
material is very extensive but must be used in its entirety.
For the relations of science to
technology, commerce, military engineering, and instrument-making the following
authors are especially important: Luca Pacioli, Tartaglia, the English
mathematicians Recorde and Leonard and Thomas Digges, Stevin, William Gilbert,
Galileo, and Francis Bacon. Often (e.g.,
in Guido Ubaldo) valuable sociological material is contained in the prefaces and
dedications. The vernacular writings of
the craftsmen, instrument-makers, and navigators are important.
The following authors may be mentioned:
Ghiberti (Commentarii [ca.
1450]), Piero
de’Franceschi (De prospectiva pingendi [1484]), Leonardo, Alberti,
Biringuccio (Pirotechnia [ca.
1540]), Dürer (Underweysung der Messung
[1525], Befestigung der stett,
schloss und flecken [1527]),
Wiffiam Bourne (Inventions or Devises [1578], On the properties and
qualities of glasses, in
The modern literature is of secondary importance.
A few works may be mentioned: extensive
material on the economy and technology of the period is contained in Werner
Sombart, Modern Capitalism. On
scholasticism: M. Grabmann, Geschichte der scholastischen Methode
(1909); George Sarton,
Introduction to the History of Science, Vol. II.
Much valuable material on late medieval
physics is contained in Pierre Duhem, Etudes sur Leonard de Vinci (
561
E. R. G. Taylor, Geogr. Journal
(1924), on Jean Rotz, and
ibid. (1928), on William
Bourne. On Galileo and contemporary
technology: L. Olschki, Galilei und seine Zeit (
562