1 The Birth of Science - MSRI

11.10 The Removal of Ancient Science 345
called Anti-Aristarchus (Antwerp, 1631). 172 It was also then that Hellenistic
technological inventions were forgotten or assigned the role of accidental
“precursors” of their modern imitations. 173
The age-long history of thinking on gravitation, too, was erased from
collective consciousness, and that force somehow became the serendipitous
child of Newton’s genius. 174 The new attitude is well illustrated by
the anecdote of the apple, a legend spread by Voltaire, one of the most
active and vehement erasers of the past. 177 (The immense popularity of
this legend is worth dwelling on. It is hard to talk of universal gravitation
without wondering what might have led to an idea so far removed from
common experience as the mutual attraction of all bodies. But one can’t
reconstruct the genesis of this idea within the confines of modern science,
which reclaimed it from an ancient tradition. Thus the erasure of gravitation’s
long history left a void that had to be filled by some other story: for
the gullible, it could even be the notion that all it took was a genius seeing
an apple fall.)
Newton’s name became a pigeonhole for an incredible number of ideas, page 423
in a process already discussed. 177a Even one of the seven wonders of the
ancient world suffered the magnetic attraction of his fame: lighthouses
were dubbed Newton’s towers in the eighteenth century.
Of course, in order for the new picture of the development of science
to gain credit, it was necessary to forget the essential role played by the
“missing links” between ancient and modern culture — intellectuals like
Crisogono, Boulliau and de Dominis, whose works include early forms of
172
These books are mentioned in the preface to Heath’s Aristarchus of Samos: the ancient Copernicus,
a lovely work whose title nonetheless manages to get history backwards — as do all those who
marvel at the “foresight” of Aristarchus the “precursor” of heliocentrism.
173
Some scholars tried to resist this trend. See, for example, Louis Dutens, Origine des découvertes
attribuées aux modernes, Paris, 1766.
174
See Section 10.7 for a reconstruction of the subject’s ancient lineage. Much information about
the medieval and modern history of gravitation (which we discussed briefly on pages 331–334) can
be found in [Duhem: TP], Chapter VII, Section 2.
177
Voltaire tells the anecdote in the fifteenth of his Lettres philosophiques. To get an idea of the
general tone of his polemic, it suffices to read the entry système in his Dictionnaire philosophique (see
http://www.voltaire-integral.com/20/systeme.htm). There Voltaire inveighs against Aristarchus
of Samos, whom he thinks not only scientifically mediocre but bigoted, wicked and hypocritical
(this based on the passage of Plutarch we discussed on note 104 of page 73). After admonishing
the wayward reader for thinking that perhaps heliocentrism predated Copernicus, after extolling
ever more the depth, exactness, creativity and other qualities of Newton’s genius, Voltaire tears at
Dutens (see note 173) and all others who dare betray their own contemporaries by stressing what
the ancients knew.
177a
See Section 11.7 and note 20 on page 240. Another example is the discovery that the earth is an
oblate spheroid and the explanation for this shape. We read in [Whewell], vol. II, p. 111: “Newton’s
attempt to solve the problem of the figure of the earth, supposing it fluid, is the first example of
such an investigation, and this rested upon principles which we have already explained, applied
with the skill and sagacity which distinguished all that Newton did.” Compare Section 10.7 above.
Revision: 1.11 Date: 2003/01/06 07:48:20