The origins of the telescope - DWC - KNAW

achieve in itself. This testimonial way of establishing ‘facts’ could generate authority
in its own right, which only few people would dare to question. 105
With respect to the priority question about the invention of the telescope,
this same mechanism has put its stamp on history. The high social rank of
Willem Boreel, a nobleman, knighted in 1619 by the English king, was crucial
in the acceptance of his verdict, first in the seventeenth century by Borel, and
later, in the nineteenth century, by scholars such as De Kanter, Harting, Japikse
and others. 106 Even the highly critical scholar Moll accepted Boreel’s statement
relating to Jansen as the inventor of the microscope. Without Boreel’s second
testimony, published in Borel’s De Vero Telescopii Inventore, probably nobody
would have paid any attention to Zacharias Jansen. Perhaps his name would
have popped up in 1906, when Beeckman’s little remark was found by De
Waard. But given the fact that Jansen was not mentioned in the archives as
a spectacle maker before 1616, Beeckman’s small note would never have received
such weight. So, in the end, Boreel’s high social status remains the most
crucial element in the credibility of Johannes Sachariassen’s testimony. This
feeling was put nicely into words by Harting in 1853:
‘When one realizes that WILLEM BOREEL, one of our most honourable statesmen
in the early seventeenth century, to whom, during this important period of our
[Dutch] history, was entrusted the position of ambassador, first to England and later
to France, then surely one must acknowledge that the testimony of such a man deserves
a very high degree of credibility.’ 107
Curiously, in his turn, Harting’s own credibility as a university professor
appeared to be crucial for the acceptance of the undocumented Snijder-tube
as Jansen’s ‘first microscope.’ Although in 1866, the secretary of the Zeeuwsch
Genootschap had expressed some doubts about the authenticity of Snijder’s
legacy, this hesitation had vanished completely after Harting’s investigation.
Harting’s reasoning concerning Snijder’s tubes had been extremely speculative,
but his authority as a specialist in optical instruments removed all reticence,
with the result that the smallest tube was seen by many as the original microscope,
the oldest product of Jansen’s workshop.
105 Cf. Dear, ‘‘Totius in Verba’’ (1985) and Shapin, A Social History of Truth (1994).
106 Cf. Gerrits, Grote Nederlanders (1948), 45.
107 Cf. Harting and Matthes, ‘Verslag over den vermoedelijken uitvinder van het microskoop’ (1853),
70.
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