"I am a lumper, not a splitter. I admire those who
write tightly focused micro-studies of episodes or individuals, and am
impressed by the kind of quantitative history, usually on demographic or
economic topics, which aspires to the purity of physics or mathematics. But I
am content to be numbered among the many historians whose books remain literary
constructions, shaped by their author's moral values and intellectual
assumptions."[1]
Keith Thomas
There never was a merry world since the fairies left off
dancing and the parson left conjuring.
—John Selden (1584–1654)
Michael Hunter is an Emeritus Professor of History at
Birkbeck and is the author of various essays and books. A world-renowned expert
on Robert Boyle (1627-1691). His book Boyle: Between God and Science (2009) won
the Roy G. Neville Prize. He has produced a catalogue of Boyle's vast archive
and was given the task of editing Boyle's Works (14 vols., 1999-2000).
Given this level of expertise and knowledge, you would have
thought he would have been more careful in the opening pages of his new book in
describing the 17th-century scientific revolution as "so-called". In
a 2001book review [2],
Hunter again cast doubt on there being a scientific revolution by putting quotation
marks around the term.
We should be thankful for small mercies when he correctly surmises
the problem some historians have in using the term scientific revolution; he
writes "The concept of a 'Scientific Revolution' — a radical
transformation of ideas about the natural world that occurred in the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries — seems to have survived the attacks on it in recent
years by revisionists who stress the continuity between old and new ideas in
the period. On the other hand, it has become more rather than less difficult to
write about the topic. This is partly due to the accumulation of research and
partly to the proliferation of different approaches to the subject.
The Marxist view of science as being moulded by social
forces still exerts a strong influence on ideas about developments in the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. This period saw the emergence not only of
modern science but also of modern capitalism, raising questions about how the
two are related. There was a powerful intellectualist reaction against this
view in the postwar years, associated particularly with the historian of
science Alexandre Koyré, which stressed the internal dynamics underlying the
evolution of scientific ideas. This tradition, too, remains very much alive.
More recently, we have seen the rise of cultural history, which looks for
subtler social and institutional links between ideas and their context".
Given Hunter's well-known aversion to anything Marxist maybe
it was the word revolution that Hunter objected to and not the term scientific.
His reticence over the term scientific revolution is not surprising since Hunter
is part of a group of historians of early modern science and medicine,
according to Andreas Sommer who "have challenged simplistic popular
accounts, according to which the 'decline of magic' in western culture was due
to progress in the sciences or open-minded empirical approaches to 'occult'
phenomena".[3]
Hunter's aversion to science's role in the decline of magic
is a significant departure from the previous historiography. His book has been
compared to Keith Thomas's Religion and the decline of magic. Thomas correctly had
science playing the lead role in the decline of both religion and science.
As Roger L. Emerson correctly points out "Keith Thomas
ended Religion and the Decline of Magic by claiming that the works of Isaac
Casaubon, Robert Boyle, Isaac Newton, John Ray, and other like-minded men in
the Royal Society, along with a host of continental philosophers, had made it
possible for magical thinking to be overthrown among the elite intellectuals
and for religious claims to be chastened by "rationalism." Beliefs in
things like second sight and communion with witches and fairies were being
relegated to the lower orders. He noted the role in this process of social
developments, such as the wider and quicker dissemination of news by more
presses and better roads, the optimism which came with the increased ability to
predict and control events in one's life, and of the emergence of attitudes that
gave the new sciences and medicine more purchase on a world which seemed less
magical and spirit-haunted. He so saw these developments as being based on the
"methods of the scientists," which he characterised as
"controlled experiment and innovation," methods which were not those
of the religious or the magicians.[4]
Thomas's viewpoint has since the 1970s been consistently
under attack. Hunter has been one of many historians that have sought to
undermine some of Thomas's historiography, and in particular his insistence on
science playing the most prominent role in the decline of religion and magic.
The central premise of Hunter's new book is that it was not
scientists that were predominantly responsible for the decline of both magic
and religion but freethinkers. Hunter states 'Insofar as there was a political
dimension to this, it was arguably not in the struggles of Whigs and Tories but
in the inexorable growth of the state and the establishment in this period of what
J.H. Plumb aptly described as "political stability." And this went
with an increasing emphasis on the pursuit of an essentially civil religion
which Deists like John Toland had pioneered.' (175).
Hunter is careful enough not to rubbish too much the part
science played in the decline of magic but downplays its role citing the fact
that many leading scientists of the day defended the "reality of
supernatural phenomena."
Hunter's book has been widely reviewed and widely praised
with very few if any hostile reviews. The book is well written and well
researched which does not come as a surprise given Hunter's stature. It is
beautifully produced by Yale containing many varied illustrations and
photographs. Some of the reviews have been a little over the top, such as "Hunter's
book deserves to become another classic."— "This is an important and
remarkable book" "Definitely a book to think with, and Hunter brings
new figures to scrutiny".
The majority of reviews skate over Hunter's very dangerous
downplaying of science's preeminent role in the decline of magic and religion.
As Jeremy Black points out "The scholarly move away from an emphasis on
science leads to the observation that assertion, rather than proof, was important
to the dismantling of belief in magic. Particular case- studies take up much of
the relatively short text (there are valuable notes and interesting
appendices), before the conclusion, which offers a pulling together of the case studies and themes, including a review of other literature."[5]
The elevating of "freethinkers" above both
scientists and politicians for being responsible for the decline of both
religion and magic is one dimensional. Hunter's attitude towards science is replicated
by an attitude towards politics in which he downplays the role of politics in
the decline of religion and magic As this paragraph from the book shows "'Scepticism
about witchcraft had escaped from its dangerous affiliations with freethinking
to become an acceptable viewpoint for orthodox thinkers of various houses. The
truth is that party politics were tangential to the major attitudinal change
towards magic that was now coming about: one is here reminded of the rather
fruitless debate over the party-political affiliations of Newtonianism in the
same period that occurred some years ago, which ended in an almost total stalemate.'
(174)
Hunter's chapter on the Englightenment and the rejection of
magic is both small and disappointing. Given that the subtitle of the book is
Britain in the Enlightenment you get a lot of Britain but very little
Enlightenment.
Hunter should be applauded for his work on the "freethinkers"
of the period covered in the book such as John Toland. But his assertion that
these "freethinkers" were leading the struggle against religion and
magic is contentious. As the Marxist writer David North correctly states it was
the scientist who led the way "Until the early seventeenth century, even
educated people still generally accepted that the ultimate answers to all the
mysteries of the universe and the problems of life were to be found in the Old
Testament. But its unchallengeable authority had been slowly eroding,
especially since the publication of Copernicus's De Revolutionibus in the year
of his death in 1543, which dealt a death blow to the Ptolemaic conception of
the universe and provided the essential point of departure for the future
conquests of Tycho Brahe (1546-1601), Johann Kepler (1571-1630) and, of course,
Galileo Galilei (1564-1642). Intellectually, if not yet socially, the
liberation of man from the fetters of Medieval superstition and the political
structures that rested upon it, was well underway.
The discoveries in astronomy profoundly changed the general
intellectual environment. Above all, there was a new sense of the power of
thought and what it could achieve if allowed to operate without the artificial
restraints of untested and unverifiable dogmas. Religion began to encounter the
type of disrespect it deserved, and the gradual decline of its authority
introduced a new optimism. All human misery, the Bible had taught for
centuries, was the inescapable product of the Fall of Man. But the invigorating
scepticism encouraged by science in the absolute validity of the Book of
Genesis led thinking people to wonder whether it was not possible for a man to
change the conditions of his existence and enjoy a better world. The prestige
of thought was raised to new heights by the extraordinary achievements of Sir
Isaac Newton (1642-1727) who, while by no means seeking to undermine the
authority of God, certainly demonstrated that the Almighty could not have
accomplished his aims without the aid of extraordinarily complex mathematics."[6]
Britain and the
Englightenment
Perhaps one of the most disappointing aspects of the book is
that it only concentrates on Britain's place in the Englightenment. While a
historian is free to choose the subject, putting the decline of religion and
magic in a European context would have given the book a much more
multi-dimensional outlook.
British enlightenment thinking could be perhaps best summed
up as a more pragmatic approach summed up by John Locke who said "our
business here is not to know all things, but those, which concern our conduct. It
has been argued that the enlightenment "baby's first words were spoken in
English".
Enlightenment figures in Britain had a profound effect on
thinking around the world as Voltaire wrote, "without the English reason
and philosophy we would still be in the most despicable infancy in
France". Diderot translated into French the works of people such as
Shaftesbury, and the idea of the Encyclopedia came from a scheme to translate
Ephains chamber Encyclopaedia.
Having said that there was a dialectical relationship between
the English Enlightenment and Europe. The Scottish economist Adam Smith absorbed
much of what the physiocrats were saying in France. The philosophy Jeremy
Bentham derived his utilitarianism partly from a study of Helvetius.
The American declaration of independence was heavily
influenced by the thinking of John Locke, whose idea that there were no innate
principles in mind reflected much of the thinking on the continent of Europe. Diderot
summed the universal friendship fostered by enlightened thinkers when he said
of David Hume "my dear David, you belong to all nations, and you will
never ask an unhappy man for his passport".[7]
Perhaps the hardest thing for these Enlightenment figures to
do was to define what was the Enlightenment. Norman Hampson, who
is one of the leading authorities on the subject defined it as "less a body
of doctrines than a shared premise from which men from different temperaments
placed in different situations drew quite radically different conclusions".
Maybe they held a common language but
talked with different accents.
John Gray in his book The Great Philosophers: Voltaire: said
of Giovanni Battista Vice (23 June 1668
– 23 January 1744) "that historical epochs may be so different that their
values cannot be recaptured without the tremendous effort of imagination.
Herder's claim that different cultures may honour goods that cannot be combined
and which are sometimes incommensurable. Pascal's distinction between l'espirit
de teometrie and le espirit de finese and its collollary that truth cannot be
contained within the confines of any system or discovered by applying any one
method- such ideas are alien to the humanist spirit of the Enlightenment. They
limit too narrowly what can be known by human beings and what can reasonably be
hoped for them to be acceptable to any enlightened thinker".
To conclude, readers should approach this book in the spirit
of the Enlightenment, which was "Sapere Aude" dare to know". Hunter's
revisionist outlook should also be approached with caution. I would urge the
reader to read around the subject before judging this book as another classic.
[1]
The Magic of Keith Thomas-Hilary Mantel- www.nybooks.com/articles/2012/06/07/magic-keith-thomas/
[2]
How the old became new Revolutionizing the Sciences: European Knowledge and its
Ambitions,1500–1700 by Peter Dear Palgrave: 2001. 208 pp. £45 (hbk), £14.99
(pbk)
[3]
https://www.forbiddenhistories.com/hunter-decline-of-magic/
[4]
https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=5397
[5]
https://thecritic.co.uk/discussing-magic/
[6]
Equality, the Rights of Man and the Birth of Socialism
By David North-24 October 1996-
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/1996/10/lect-o24.html
[7]
The Roads to Modernity: The British, French, and American Enlightenments – 1
Aug. 2004-by Gertrude Himmelfarb
