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SCARELLA AGAINST BOŠKOVIĆ (ADVERSUS
BUSKOVIKIUM): THE FIRST PRINTED ATTACK ON
BOŠKOVIĆ’S THEORY OF FORCES FROM 1754
“Many objections against my theory have been published so far,” Bošković
wrote in the preface of his treatise De materiae divisibilitate printed in 1757.
To these objections he answered in the first part of his Theoria philosophiae
naturalis (1763), dividing them into two groups: “objections against the theory of
forces” (objectiones contra theoriam virium) and “objections against points”
(objectiones contra puncta), avoiding on this occasion to mention his critics.
Who attacked Ruđer Bošković in print? Who was the first to attack Bošković
on the many pages of his book? No answer to this question has been offered
so far.
This was first done by Giambattista Scarella in his textbook Physica generalis
methodo mathematica tractata et in tres tomos distributa. First volume
was published in Brescia in 1754, second in 1756, and third in 1757. Here
I aim to present how Scarella criticised Bošković in the first volume of his
General Physics.
Scarella devoted a whole chapter to the proof of the thesis: “extended continuum
cannot be composed from the non-extended parts” (continuum extensum
ex inextensis componi non potest). Having earlier warned in the preface,
he took the opportunity to “examine also a new system of the composition of
continuum devised by the most learned professor of mathematics Father Buskovikius
from the Society of Jesus.” Indeed, in the paragraph 17 entitled “Systema
P. Buskovik” he targeted his attack on Bošković’s points of matter, as the
renowned Ragusan expounded at the beginning of his treatise Dissertationis de
lumine pars secunda (1748). He was especially puzzled by Bošković’s thesis:
“in bodies we do not allow mathematically continuous extension.” However,
he admitted that Bošković’s theory solves many difficulties surrounding the
continuous quantity.
Bošković’s views caught Scarella’s attention on yet another occasion – in
a lengthy chapter “De virium aestimatione”, in his polemic with the work
Dialogo intorno alle forze vive (Bononiae, 1749) by Vincenzo Riccati, who
expressed his appreciation of Bošković’s sententia on living forces published
in the treatise De viribus vivis (1745).
Key words: Ruđer Bošković, Giambattista Scarella, composition of continuum, points
of matter, mathematically continuous extension, vis viva controversy,
Vincenzo Riccati
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