purtitanism, capitalism and scientific revolution

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The Past and Present Society

Puritanism, Capitalism and the Scientific RevolutionAuthor(s): H. F. KearneySource: Past & Present, No. 28 (Jul., 1964), pp. 81-101Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of The Past and Present Society

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PURITANISM, CAPITALISM AND THESCIENTIFIC REVOLUTIONTHE STUDY OF THE SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION OF THE SEVENTEENTHcentury reached some time ago the stage of sophistication when thehistorianwas requiredto deal not with the "facts" of Copernicus orGalileo but a variety of interpretations. For those seeking anexplanation why the acceleration of scientific advance took placebetween I540 and 1700, the choice is threefold. In the work of somehistorians, the role of individual genius is stressed as the decisivefactor; with others, the evolutionarycharacter of scientific develop-ment; or among the sociologically minded, the significance of theimmediate social environment against which the discoveries tookplace. It would be easy to illustrate the differencesbetween theseinterpretationsby means of specially chosen examples, but it wouldbe less misleading to suggest that among the leading historians ofscience, the distinction is mainly one of emphasis. All agree, forexample, in recognizing the importanceof the unique insight whichis called genius; wherethey differ is in the varyingsignificancewhichthey attach to it. Butterfield, while stressing that the lightning ofgenius strikes unpredictably, would admit that some atmosphericconditions are more favourableto electrical disturbancethan others.Marxist historians, on the other hand, find it difficult to ignore thepersonal role of Copernicus, Galileo and Newton, though they mayargue that social forces would have filled any gap in the ranks. Forthe moment, however, it will be convenient to stress the differencesbetween these various historical points of view.Of those who emphasize the role of men of genius, the mostoutstanding are Butterfield, Koestler and Koyre.1 Butterfield, forexample, uses phrases like "an epic adventure", "a certain dynamicquality", "a creativeproductof the west", "a greatepisode in humanexperience",all of which hint at indefinableentities. He continuallyemphasizes the difficulty of putting on "a new thinking cap", ofbreaking the bonds of education, habit and practical experience.Clearly,from this point of view, the ScientificRevolution is ultimatelyinexplicable; it could not have been predicted. Butterfield refers tothe existence of a complicatedset of conditions which existed only inWestern Europe, such as the rise of the middle class or the influence

H. Butterfield, Origins of Modern Science (London, 1950). A. Koestler,The Sleepwalkers (London, 1959). A. Koyr6, Etudes Galileennes (Paris, I939).


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PURITANISM, CAPITALISMAND THE SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION 83recipe for success. Randall,whose work on RenaissanceItaly is wellknown, puts forwardthis thesis most forcibly. He singles out thework of sixteenth-century Aristotelians such as Zabarellaas of thehighest importance. Galileo's work markedthe take-offstage in theScientificRevolution, but only because much intellectual capitalhadbeen alreadycreatedby the patient under-rewardedlabour of others.In contrast to all this, the influence of sociological considerationsindicated alternativetheories, based upon the nature of seventeenth-century society. For some, such as R. K. Merton, the work of Webersuggested the existence of a close link between Puritanism andscientific study.4 This is a thesis which has recently come underheavy fire.5 Merton also noted the importanceof technology, fromthe influence of which even so abstract a work as Newton's Principiawas not immune. Others, such as Zilsel, sought the key to the riseof science in the alliance between the intellectual and the artisan,which took place only towards the end of the sixteenth century.6According to this view, scientific advance took place when theRenaissance studio and the workshop were brought together infruitful conjunction. Marxist historians also considered that therise of modernscience must be explainedby consideringcontemporarysocial changes. They have tended to follow the lead given by Engelsin his letter to Starkenburg,written in I894.7 Engels wrote:

If society has a technical need, that helps science forward more than tenuniversities. The whole of hydrostatics (Torricelli etc.) was called forth bythe necessity for regulating the mountain streams of Italy in the sixteenth andseventeenth centuries. We have only known anything reasonable aboutelectricity since its technical applicability was discovered. But unfortunatelyit has become the custom in Germany to write the history of the sciences asif it had fallen from the skies.Engels also goes on to make the point that there is no placefor uniquegenius in the materialistinterpretationof history. Great men suchas Napoleon have their part to play but they are not unique. If

4 R. K. Merton, "Science, Technology and Society", in Social Structure andSocial Change (Glencoe, Illinois, I957). For a full discussion of the literatureon this point, see T. J. Rabb "Puritanism and the Rise of Experimental Sciencein England" in Jl. World History, vii (I962), pp. 46-67. There is a goodbibliography in the facsimile edition of Sprat's History of the Royal Society, ed.J. I. Cope and H. W. Jones (London, I959), p. xii.5 See especially L.S. Feuer, The Scientific Intellectual (New York- London,I963), as well as M. M. Knappen, Tudor Puritanism (Chicago, I939);P. H. Kocher, Science and Religion in Elizabethan England (San Marino, I953)and M. Curtis, Oxford and Cambridgein Transition (Oxford, I959).6 E. Zilsel, "Scientific Method of William Gilbert", repr. fromJ /. Hist. Ideas,in Roots of Scientific Thought, ed. P. Wiener and A. Noland (New York, I957),pp. 219-50.7 Marx Engels, Selected Works (London, I950), ii, pp. 457-9.


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PAST AND PRESENTBonapartehad not existed, anotherman would have arisento fill thesocial vacuum. By analogy, it may be expected that if Newton orLavoisier had not existed their work would have been done by others.In this as in othersociologicalinterpretationsof the historyof science,there is little if any scope for the unique, the fortuitous and thevisionary.With the publication of Mr. ChristopherHill's book The Centuryof Revolution(196I), reinforcedby his Ford Lecturesgiven at Oxfordin I962,8 a sociological interpretation of the Scientific Revolutionmade its first real impact in the field of general English history, asdistinctfrom specialiststudies in the historyof scienceor of literature.In Hill's work, science is treated as general social phenomenon,analogous and related to the rise of Puritanism and the rise of thebourgeoisie. Indeed, Hill regardsscience along with these as one ofthe causes of the Civil War. The "causes" of the rise of science areto be sought in the state of English society at the time. Individualcontributions by scientists such as Briggs and Gunter do not gounrecognized,but the main emphasis is upon sociologicalconsidera-tions. If geniuses do exist, they are essentiallyspokesmenfor socialmovements and trends, which are more important than any singlehuman being.The great attraction of Hill's interpretationis that it makes thehistory of science part of general English history and one can easilyappreciate why it has had such a favourable reception. It isexpounded with great skill. It hangs together as a rational whole.Moreover,Hill is surelycorrect in thinkingthat now is the momenttooffer explanation, rather than narrative. Nevertheless there aregrounds for thinking that in many ways this interpretationcarriessimplicityto excess and imposes a rationalframeworkmorerigid thanthe complexity of the period will stand.The centralpoint round which Hill's interpretationdevelops is thefigure of Francis Bacon. On this view, it was Bacon's Advancementof Learningand New Organon,which provided a blueprint for the"forwardlooking" merchants and artisans of early Stuart England.The self-taught, eagermerchantsand artisanssoughtto come to termswith the new astronomy of Copernicus and Galileo, increasinglyrejected authorityin Church and State and, optimistic for the future,found their spokesmanin FrancisBacon,the prophetwhom the courtrejected. The court, the clergy and the universities looked to the8 Published in abbreviated form in The Listener (May-July I962). Shortlyto be published in full by the Oxford University Press, under the title IntellectualOrigins of the English Revolution.

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PURITANISM, CAPITALISMAND THE SCIENTIFICREVOLUTION 85past, accepted authority uncritically and were pessimistic about thepossibilityof progress. In the future Civil War,the Ancientswere toface the Moderns in the field as they had done earlier in the study."The Civil War", Hill tells us, "was fought between rival schools ofastronomy; between Parliamentarian heliocentrics and RoyalistPtolemaics".9In elaboration of this view Hill also maintains that Baconianismexisted before Bacon. He makes a good deal of the action of SirThomas Gresham, Elizabeth's adviser in economic matters, inleaving money to endow a college in London, which was to providethe institutional counterpartfor Bacon's ideas. Gresham College,founded in 1596,was, it is stressed,under the controlof the merchants,not the clergy. It aimed at providinguseful knowledge;its expectedclientele were to be artisans, seamen, craftsmen; for which reasonsome of its lectures were to be in the vernacular. It provideda contrast at every point with the clerically-dominateduniversities,cateringfor the gentry, based on a Latin curriculumperpetuatingtheauthorityof the ancientsand exposedto controlby the court. Underits first professors,Briggs, Gunter and Gellibrand,Gresham Collegebecame the centre of scientific advance as well as popularization.Meanwhile, the universities languished, monuments of the ancientregime. The future was bound up with the lay science of GreshamCollege, not with the universities.Bacon'sideas, it is pointed out, also suggesta link betweenscientificradicalism and religious radicalism. Bacon's method is based onpersonal observation and personal experience. "This highlyindividualistic approach compares with the Puritan demand forfirst-hand religious experience as against the traditions of men".Bacon's mother was a Puritan. Pym and other leaders of the Puritanparty in the Commons invited Comenius over to Englandin I64I inorder to found a college on Baconian lines. It was only after I640that Bacon's writings were published on a wide scale. Most of themerchantswho attended Gresham lectures were Puritanin sympathy.There was "anintimateconnectionbetweenmerchantsandscience".10All in all, Hill has no doubts of the interconnection of the progressiveforces of early Stuart England. Science was one of these and it wasnot surprisingthat the advanceof Scienceshould speed up duringtheInterregnumwhen Puritanism was in power.

There can be no doubt that Hill presents his case attractivelyand9 The Listener, 7 June I962, p. 985. Cf. also Hill, Century of Revolution,p. I79.10The Listener, 3I May I962, p. 946.


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PAST AND PRESENTably. He marshals his evidence imaginatively and writes in apersuasive prose. Nevertheless, I believe that it does not stand up toanalysis.Let us examine each of the key points of the argument in turn:GreshamCollege, the role of merchants and artisans in the history ofscience, Baconianideas, and the intellectualsignificanceof Puritanismand the Civil War.

IGresham College occupies a strategic position in the argument.Hill stresses severalaspects: first, that it was a lay institution, distinctin kind from the clerically dominated universities; secondly, it wasendowed by a merchant and controlled by merchants; thirdly, itprovided up to date instruction in science in the vernacular formerchantsand artisans. Finallyhe hints that the Puritanconnectionsof Gresham College were of some significance. The College seemsto provide decisive evidence for his view that Puritanism, modernscience and the merchant-artisangroupsare all interrelated.Now it is indisputable that in Briggs, Gunter and Gellibrand,Gresham College possessed several distinguished scientists on itsstaff. But this should not lead too readily to the conclusion thatthe College was essentially scientific in character. Readers ofF. R. Johnson'sclassical article on GreshamCollege might well drawthis conclusion, but it would be mistaken." In fact, Sir ThomasGresham endowed an institution which closely resembled thetraditionalimage of a university. It provided for the instruction inthe threemajorfacultiesof divinity,law and physic, and, in the juniorfaculties of arts, for music and rhetoric12 as well as astronomyandgeometry. If we concentrateour attention on the last two arts of thetraditionalquadrivium,we obtaina misleadingimpressionof GreshamCollege. It was, in fact, much closer to Oxford and Cambridgeinconcept than to, say, a technical institute, such as the Casa deContractionin Seville. When the universityof Cambridge objectedto its foundation,this was not a simple case of the outmodedattackingthe up to date,of AncientsagainstModerns;ratherit was of one of theancient universities scenting the danger to its monopoly of higherlearning. Fear of the Great Wen, not defence of the Great Chainof Being, was the motive. The fact that the law taught at Gresham"1F. R. Johnson, "Gresham College: Precursor of the Royal Society",repr. from Ji. Hist. Ideas in Roots of Scientific Thought, pp. 328-53.12 It seems likely that Ben Jonson was assistant professor of rhetoric c. I620.Cf. Poems of Ben Jonson, ed. G. B. Johnston (London, I954), p. xxxiii.

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PURITANISM, CAPITALISMAND THE SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION 87was Civil Law was of great significance, since this reinforces thesuggestion that Oxford and Cambridgewere the model. CommonLaw as taught at the Inns of Court was already catered for inLondon.13Once GreshamCollege had been set up, the connectionbetween itand the universities could hardly have been closer. It recruited itsprofessors exclusively from the universities. It produced no alumniof its own. Many of its professors combined fellowships at Oxfordand Cambridgewith their posts at Gresham. Richard Holdsworthwas a fellow of St. John'sCambridge,while at the sametime professorof divinity at Gresham,and did not resign his Greshampost when hewas elected Master of Emmanuel. John Greaves continued to holdhis fellowship at Merton despite his appointmentto a Greshamchairin I630. Peter Turner, who succeeded Briggs at Gresham in I620,continued to hold his fellowship at Merton - if Briggs came toGreshamizeMerton, Turner went to Mertonize Gresham. ThomasEden combined his GreshamChair of Civil Law with the Mastershipof Trinity Hall from I625. In short, one cannot draw a divisionbetween Gresham College and the universities. There were closelinks between the two.

To regard Gresham teaching as in some way in advance of theuniversities is equally mistaken. It was fortunate in having Briggs,a greatmathematicianby the standardsof the day, but it also carrieddead wood. The first professor of astronomy, Edward Brerewood(1596-I6I3), was an Oxford M.A. whose main achievementswere inlogic andethics. He wrote textbooks on these andpublishednothingin astronomy. His successor,Thomas Williams(I613-19), wasthe sonof a merchant who showed no aptitudefor the post. It was not untilEdwardGunter was appointedin I619 that the chairhad an occupantwho was a true mathematician. But Gunter was a student of ChristChurch, he was in orders and he was a bachelor of divinity to boot.He is no evidence for the existence of lay science, apart fromuniversities. His successor, Henry Gellibrand,was an Oxford M.A.who had been a pupil of Sir Henry Sauile there. Nor does the storyof the geometry chair under Briggs (1596-I620), Peter Turner(I620-30) and John Greaves (I630-43) offer any evidence for a splitbetween Gresham and the universities. Briggs was a fellow of St.John's and lecturer in mathematics at Cambridgebefore coming toGresham, while Turner and Greaves both retainedtheir connection

13 There is no full modern study of Gresham College. The standard work isJ. Ward, Lives of the Professors of Gresham College (London, I740) from whichmuch of the following information is taken.


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PAST AND PRESENTwith Merton. Briggshimselfwasessentiallyaproductof RenaissanceCambridge,where St. John's, to judge from its alumni, had a strongmathematical tradition. Even after he came to Oxford, Briggs'sservices as a consultantwere in demand.13aAgainst this background,Gresham College does not appearas aninstitution cut off from the universities. A Greshamprofessorsuchas Briggs is in many ways scarcely distinguishablefrom a universitydon. This point also emergesfromletters exchangedbetweenJamesUssher of Trinity College, Dublin and various correspondents inEngland including Briggs at Gresham College, and Bainbridge atOxford, both of them mathematicians. Ussher himself was nomathematician. He was primarily a theologian with historicalinterests who in the course of his studies of the Old Testamentbecameabsorbed in problems of dating. Solar eclipses in Biblical timesseemed to him to form a basis for an absolute chronology and thisbrought him into contact with Briggs and led him to acquire thepapersof Bainbridgeand EdwardWright. 4 Ussher and Briggswereclearly on friendly terms and Briggs did his utmost to be helpful.In a letter from Gresham College dated the ioth of March i615 hementioned Napier's logarithmicdiscoveriesto Ussher and expressedthe hope that these would help in the solution of problemsraised byeclipses.15 Clearly logarithms were not regarded by Briggs asa narrowlypracticaltool but one which might be put at the service oftheology. They were useful but not in the twentieth-centurysenseof the word. Briggs remained interested in theologicalmattersafterhe went to Oxford in I620. Thomas James, who was Bodley'sLibrarian I602-20, referred to the need for help from Briggs andBainbridge in certain difficulties of textual criticism."6 "I haverestored three hundred citations" he wrote "and rescued them fromcorruptionin thirty quire of paper: Mr. Briggswill satisfy you in thispoint and sundry other projects of mine .... " Several pointsemergefromthis correspondence. First, with Briggsas with Newton,theological and "scientific" interests merged. Secondly, he was inthe closest contact on matters of general scholarshipwith university

l3a Acts Privy Council 1625-6, p. 361.14 W. O'Sullivan, "Ussher as a Collector of Manuscripts", Hermathena,lxxxviii (I956), p. 42.16 The Works of James Ussher, ed. C. R. Elrington (Dublin, I864) xv, p. 89.Professor Trevor-Roper points out that Napier himself regarded logarithms asa short cut to calculating the Number of the Beast: cf. "The General Crisis ofthe Seventeenth Century", Past and Present, No. i6 (Nov. I959), p. 62, note 3.16Ussher, Works, xv, p. 266. Cf. also Bainbridge's letters to Ussher, ibid.,pp. 394, 447. John Greaves, a Gresham professor, also wrote to Ussher aboutsuch matters, ibid., p. 73.

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PURITANISM, CAPITALISMAND THE SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION 89scholars, and his mathematical and other learning was in somedemand. Thirdly, he moved in semi-Puritanicaluniversity circles.He was anxious to recommend young men as students from TrinityCollege, Dublin at a time when this foundationwas too PuritanicalforArchbishop Abbott. But his Puritanism led him into theologicalniceties not awayfrom them. The Advancementof Learningin thiscircle was a conceptwhich included scripturaltruthas well as practicalutility. If Briggswas a Puritan,then so were half the dons of Oxfordand Cambridge;and if this is admitted,what remains of Hill's viewthat Puritanism, science, Gresham College and the merchantsforma meaningful sociological grouping? Violent criticisms of theuniversities such as were made by Milton and others during theperiod I640-60 may lead to the false conclusionthat all Puritans weresomehow violently antagonistic to university education. This is togeneralizeon too narrowa foundation.Thus Gresham College was not as an institution distinct from theuniversities, but one designed to make university learning readilyavailable to the population of London, not merely mathematicsandnavigation, but also rhetoric, divinity, and civil law. It was anextra-mural college, drawing its intellectual strength from theuniversities, yet watched jealously by them to prevent it developinginto independent life of its own.Any attempt to stress the lay, Puritan, and scientific character ofGresham College, as distinct from the clerical, conservative and"useless" educationprovidedby the universitieswill not stand up todetailed examination. Gresham College as much clerical as lay, andmore middle-of-the-road Protestant than Puritan, was a worthyattempt to provide extra-muralteaching in i6oo. It was fortunatein having Briggs, as was the W.E.A. in its early years in havingTawney as a tutor. But to regardit as an institution distinct fromtheuniversitiesis to do violence to the facts.We may conclude these remarks on Gresham College with twoquotations,which maybe set in contrastwith the rapturousverdicts ofthe two Greshamprofessors quotedby Hill in praiseof that institution.The first of these extracts illustrates the views of George Hakewill,a writer of the I63os well-known for his advocacy of progress. Itmay be argued that Hakewill is making a conventional tribute toOxford,but the same weight may be placed on his words as Hill doesupon the inaugural lectures given by Wren and others at GreshamCollege. Many will find it surprisingthat Hakewill, who as one ofHill's Baconianswould be expected to criticize Oxford, should praisethe universityso enthusiastically. The second extractis from a I647pamphlet, criticizing Gresham College, though this is precisely the


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PAST AND PRESENTscience, there were other great courtiers such as Cumberland,Bridgewater, and Cecil himself. Charles Cavendish, youngerbrother of the earl of Newcastle,was a friendof OughtredandWallis,a patron of Pell and Warnerand a man keenly interested in science.Sir Francis Kynaston was the patron of a German mathematician,John Speidell. Another member of the gentry, William Gascoigne,killed on the royalist side at Marston Moor, was well known for hiswork in improving perspective glasses. The group surroundingtheTowneleys of Towneley Hall also included many scientists of greatmerit, including John Flamsteed. Indeed, throughoutthe sixteenthand seventeenth centuries, from Leonard Digges and John Deeonwards,the gentry played a prominent part in the patronageof thenew science. Another group of patrons came from those interestedin the practice of astrology and the making of almanacks. Thiscategory is less susceptible to clear analysis since its membershipranged from obvious cranks to men who combined astrology withmedicine or surveying. But they cannot be ignored among themathematicalpractitionersof England during this period. Finally,the patronagewhich camefrom the merchantsand the greatmerchantcompanies may be mentioned. It was the Muscovy Company, forexample,which backed the translationof Martin Cortes'stextbookonnavigation from the Spanish in I56I. The East India merchants,Wolstenholme and Smythe, both friends of the court, endoweda lectureshipin navigationin I604. However,it should also be notedthat Edward Wright was refused help by the East India Companywhenthe deathof PrinceHenryremovedhis royal patron. Merchantswere quite capableof driving a hard bargainin such matters.The conclusion seems inescapable that patronage for appliedmathematics came from no single source. It also appears thatmerchantscounted for much less in this field than might have beenanticipated,a reason for which may be sought in the depressedstateof the English economy. The years I560-I640 no longer seema period of uninterruptedeconomic advance. The work of Fisherand Supple and others20has shown that there was a dark side to theglories of Elizabeth's reign. Contractingmarkets, endemic under-employmentand adepressedeconomybrought manysocialdifficulties.There was some recovery after the Spanish peace of I604 up toCockaigne's scheme, and English merchants, as Mr. Davis has

20 F. J. Fisher, "Tawney's Century" in Essays in the Economic and SocialHistory of Tudor and Stuart England, ed. F. J. Fisher (Cambridge, I96I),pp. 1-14. B. Supple, Commercial Crisis and Change in England i600-1642(Cambridge, I959), p. 23.

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PURITANISM, CAPITALISMAND THE SCIENTIFICREVOLUTION 93shown, displayeda good deal of enterprisein the Mediterraneantradeand east of Suez.2' Even so, we may be sure that it is misleadingtoconsiderallEnglishmerchantsatthis time asby definition"progressiveandforwardlooking". In the seventeenthcenturyas in the twentiethmuch depended on the individual firm. In the Levant trade andEast India tradeit was possible to make great profits,but the namesof royalists like Sir Paul Pindar and Sir Henry Garwayare not oneswhich fit at all into Hill's scheme of things. Another name, that ofSir Morris Abbott, shows the difficultyof separatingthe universitiesfrom the commercialworld, since two of his brotherswere fellows ofBalliol and one of his sons was an Oxford graduate. The two greattradingcompanieswere "forwardlooking",yet their sympathieswereright wing politically and religiously, as indeed we might anticipate.All this suggests that there is no clear and obvious link betweenmerchants and political, religious or scientific radicalism. Perhapswe need the same kind of detailed researchon the merchant classesas is being done on the gentry, before even tentative generalizationispossible.So far, attentionhas been focused upon mathematicalpractitionersand their patrons,but their activity should not be identified with theScientific Revolution as such. Practicaladvancewent on apace, butthis in no way made a theoretical break-throughinevitable.22 Inmany ways, indeed, successfulpracticemight well have impededfreshtheoreticaldevelopment. Thomas Digges, for example,was shockedby the conservatismof skilled seamen on a four-month voyage whichhe undertook. Oughtredcriticizedthose "would-be mathematicianswho occupythemselveswith so-calledpracticewhichis in realitymerejugglers tricks with instruments". Indeed, the theoretical advanceswhich were made were often beyond the capacity of many seamenuntil education in mathematicsbecame more widespread.Such major advances as were made during the period underdiscussion were in fact the achievementof a handful of men, Gilbert,Briggs, Gunter, Gellibrand, Wilkins, Barlow, Wallis, Wright,Oughtred and a few others. None of these were artisans,althoughthey did find the assistance of instrument makers essential. All of

21 R. Davis, "England and the Mediterranean I570-I670" in Essays in theEconomic and Social History of Tudorand Stuart England, ed. Fisher, pp. I I7-37.22 See A. R. Hall, "The Scholar and the Craftsman" in Critical Problems inthe History of Science, ed. M. Claggett (Madison, Wisconsin, I959), pp. 3-22.Cf. also Leonardo's remark, "Practice must always be founded on soundtheory": A. Blunt, Artistic Theory in Italy 1450-r600 (Oxford, I940), p. 49.Newton expressed a similar view in I694: The Correspondenceof Isaac Newton,ed. H. W. Turnbull (Cambridge, I959-), iii, pp. 359-60.


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them were university educated, not in the conventional sense of twoor three years, but over an extended period of ten years or more.EdwardWright, whose CertainErrorsin Navigationwas a landmark,was a fellow of Caius for nine years before joining the earl ofCumberland. Some, like Barlow, Gunter, Wilkins and Oughtred,were clergymen. Others like Briggs and Gilbert were physicians.If we seek what these had in common, the secret does not seem to liein any affiliationof class. For Barlow,whose contribution to scienceis underestimatedby Hill, family connection may supply the answer.He was the nephew of Roger Barlow, the early sixteenth-centuryexplorer. For some, such as Oughtred, the key may well lie in thepossession of leisure. For all of them science seems to have been animaginativeratherthan a practicalactivity, something carriedon forits own sake, not for merely utilitarianends. What is certainis thatno merchant made any direct contribution to science during thisperiod.

IIIHill's final point, the role of Puritanism in the rise of science,must now engage our attention. He makes this in various ways, by

reference to the Puritanism of the early patrons of science and thePuritanism of some of the Gresham professors, by associating"puritanismand freedomof thought",bycomparingBacon'semphasison personal observation and personal experiment with the Puritandemand for first-handreligious experience and by stressing the factthat science emergedfully only duringthe PuritanRevolution. TheBaconian sympathies of leaders of the Puritan party also appearsignificant,and it almost seems no paradoxto associatePym and theRoyal Society. All these points build up into a formidablecase, butonce againwe may askwhether the pictureis so simple.We must first quarrelwith the view that in essence Puritanismandscience are analogous. All general terms are ambiguous, butPuritanism is more ambiguousthan most. In Hill's use of the word,the emphais seems to fall upon religious experienceor what some inthe seventeenth century termed "enthusiasm". Puritanism in thissense found expression in the Independents. In the intellectualfield, it went with a violent hatred of the universitiesand of the use oflearning in religion. In preaching it was associated with a plainunadornedstyle, which had no use for learnedallusions and imagery.It found its spokesmenin such writers as Webster and Hall. If weadoptPuritanismin this sense, then it is truethat one ortwo scientists,Gellibrand for example, may have been Puritan. Briggs, like

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PURITANISM, CAPITALISMAND THE SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION 95Ussher, moved in left-wing Protestantcircles, but how much he hadin common with the Puritans is open to conjecture. However, whenwe look at the general run of the leading scientists, such as WilliamHarvey,RobertBoyle, JohnWilkins and Seth Ward,we findthat theybelong to quite anothertraditionof religious thought, best describedas latitudinarianor moderate. Ward and Wilkins became bishopsafter the Restoration. Robert Boyle was sympatheticto the tolerantviews of the CambridgePlatonists, who had reactedstrongly againstthe Calvinist doctrine of predestination.23 William Harvey'sreligious opinions were similarly moderate. Isaac Newton movedtheologically in the same gravitational field as Henry More, theCambridgePlatonist.24 In short these men maybe rankedamongthegreatest opponents of the type of Puritanism described by Hill. Itwas not surprisingthat Wilkins and Ward should be found defendingthe universitiesagainstthe attacksof Webster and Hall. These menemphasized the place of reason in religion, rather than emotionalexperience. They stressed what was in common between Christianand pagan learning. Natural theology, and, in the outlook of a manlike Boyle, naturalscience, became a means of studying the wisdomof God as revealed in the Universe. Between these men and Hill'sPuritans a great gulf was set.Any difficultieswhich remain in elucidatingthe connection betweenPuritanism and science derive from Hill's view that science andBaconianismwere identical. If this is accepted,then the enthusiasmof the Puritan leaders for Baconian ideas must be interpreted asenthusiasm for science. "Baconianism", however, is also anambiguous term, and the word "Baconian" is used by Hill in amanner so broad that it includes Sir John Eliot, who cannot beregarded as showing any sympathy in his writings for Bacon.However, the real ambiguityof the word "Baconian",as Hill himselfpoints out, lies in the ambiguityof Bacon's own position. Bacon wastorn between advocating the pursuit of knowledge for its own sakeand the advancement of learning for utilitarian purposes. In ourterms, he was undecided as to the relative importanceof technologyand pure science; in his own terms, it was not quite clear which camefirst, "fruit" or "light".Of these two attitudes, utility carried the greatest appeal for thePuritans of the seventeenth century. The greatest exponents of the

23Anglicanism, The Thought and Practice of the Church of England Illustratedfrom the Religious Literature of the Seventeenth Century, ed. P. E. More andF. L. Cross (London, I935), p. lix.24E. A. Burtt, Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Science (New York, I952),p. 259.


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PURITANISM, CAPITALISMAND THE SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION 97term, the sense in which it designated an obscurantist utilitarianism hostileto all disinterested curiosity and to all enquiry about unsolved problems aboutthe physical world.28In the I640os this combination of religious enthusiasm andutilitarianzealgave birth to a groupknown as the "Invisible College".Hartlib was prominent among them, so also were Haak andOldenburg, who were later to be associated with the Royal Society.One of their members, Boate, produced a Natural Historyof Ireland, written, typicallyenough, not for its own sake,but to servethe needs of the Cromwellian Plantation. Another man who wasonce attractedby the group was Robert Boyle, though his enthusiasmwaned after a time. The "Invisible College" was at once Comenianand Baconian, amateurish,enthusiastic and utilitarian,certainly theprecursorof the Royal Society in one of its aspects.It is also clear, however,that a differentkind of group can claim tobe an ancestor of the Royal Society, namely the scientists whocongregatedat Oxfordin the i65os. They differed fromthe "InvisibleCollege" in several respects. In the first place, they were nearlyallskilled mathematicians, and it was in mathematics rather than inexperiment that they placed their hopes for the advancement oflearning. This certainly put them out of step with Bacon and gave

them more in common with Descartes. Secondly they wereAristotelian enough to place discovery above utility, "Light" above"Fruit". Thirdly, in the persons of Wilkins and Ward, theydefended the universities and traditionallearning against the attacksof the Puritan pamphleteers. Finally, as has already been pointedout, in their religious views they tended to identify themselves witha non-Puritan outlook. This group, which included many of theleadingscientists of the day, was serious and professionalin a waythatthe "Invisible College" could neverhope to be. They and the spiritwhich they represented were to form the hard core of the RoyalSociety, the "players"as distinct from the "gentlemen".The difference between the "Invisible College" and the Oxfordgroup is to be seen in the movement of Robert Boyle from one to theother. As Professor Boas has pointed out, by I635 Boyle wasbecoming less and less the dilettante amateur and more and morethe serious scientist. As soon as this changeof attitude took place, hemoved from London to Oxford. Even then his lack of mathematicsand his interest in the experimental side of chemistry made himsuspect. In i66o he wrote:Some Learned Men ... thought it strange (if not amisse also) that one whose

28 Reason and the Imagination, ed. J. A. Mazzeo (London, I962), p. 142.


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studies they were pleased to have too favourable an Expectation should spendupon Chymicall tryalls (to which I then happened to be invited by theopportunity of some Furnaces and some leisure) much of those Endeavourswhich they seemed to think might be farre more usefully employ'd then uponsuch empty and deceitful study.29The Oxford scientists were very critical of the practical aims ofmere "sooty empiricks". They poked fun at the "companyof mereand irrationaloperatorswhose experimentsmayindeed be serviceableto Apothecaries and perhaps to Physicians, but are useless toa philosopher,that aims at curing no disease but that of Ignorance".It was not surprising that the unquiet utilitarian spirit of Pettyshould find Oxford oppressive and lead him to seek more practicalandfinanciallyprofitableactivitiesin Ireland. All this maylead us toquestion whether the connection between Puritanism and science isas clear as Hill makes out.One finalpoint remainsto be discussed, namely the significanceofthe Civil War period. Hill clearlyattachesgreat significanceto thisperiod. "In this intoxicating era of free discussion and freespeculation,nothing was left sacred". Victoryin the Civil War wentto the side which supported the new science. "The Civil War wasfought between rival schools of astronomy,between Parliamentarianheliocentrists and Royalist Ptolemaics: Ptolemy perished withCharles I". Moreover "more of Bacon's works were published inI640-I than in all the fourteen years since his death".30 Here againthe evidence seems to be overwhelming,but here again it is open tocriticism of a serious kind.First, the spread of Bacon's writings. A glance at the standardbibliographyrevealsthat the evidence of this is by no means as clearas one would have expected from Hill's categoricalstatement.31 Ofthe editions of the New Organon,one was published in I620 inLondon, the other three editions in Holland in I645, I650 and I66o.What this tells us about the spread of Baconian ideas is a matter forconjecture. Of the editions of De Augmentis Scientiarum, oneappearedin I623, the remainingsix were continental.3la Similarly,of the Advancementof Learning,all editions were published beforeI640 including two by Oxford University Press in I633 and I640.Of the Sylva Sylvarum,much the most popularwork apartfrom theessays, the first six editions appeared before I640 and only three

29M. Boas, Robert Boyle and Seventeenth-Century Chemistry (Cambridge,I958), p. 37.80 The Listener, 7 June i962, p. 985.31 R. W. Gibson, Bibliography of Francis Bacon (Oxford, I950).31a i624, i635, i645, i654, i654, i662: Gibson, op. cit., p. xv.

98 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 28


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PURITANISM, CAPITALISMAND THE SCIENTIFICREVOLUTION 99during the Interregnum. Some of Bacon's writings were reprintedin I641 but their chief attraction was apparently of a political orreligious character, for example his discourse concerning ChurchAffairs and his three speeches concerning Anglo-Scottish matters,obviously of relevance in I64I. This particular piece of evidencedoes not favour Hill's case. Baconian ideas did spread during theCommonwealthperiod, but they did so largely in a crude and over-simplified form. The Baconian pamphleteering of Webster, Pettyand Hartlib stressed the utilitarianside of Bacon to the exclusion ofall others, and tailored the New Organonto fit their Ramist andComenian preconceptions.

The idea that the political divisions in the Civil War correspondto divergencesin astronomyis an attractiveone, and Hill claims MissMarjorie Nicolson in support.32 It is doubtful, however, whetherher words support the interpretation he places on them. Forexample, she comes down against the simple view that this wasa period of free discussion, of Cromwellian light contrasted withLaudian darkness.During this period, [she wrote] astrology came again for a time into its ownand comets and eclipses were forebodings of the doom that seemed to hangover the little world of man. In addition almanacks came to be recognisedas valuable tools of propaganda. The majority of their editors naturallysided with the party in power and their prognostications were drawn less fromthe conjunctions of the planets than from the editors' desire to curry favourwith the rulers.In other words, in the main Parliamentaryalmanack makers wereno more "scientific" than their Royalist counterparts. IndeedFairfaxhad recourseto astrologersat the siege of Colchester,requiringthem to predictan outcome favourableto the Parliamentarycause, asa boost for the morale of his men. In addition, the simple contrastbetween Copernicanand Ptolemaic theories before the Civil War was

tending to give way to a more complex pattern, in which the rivalcosmologies were derived from Copernicus and Tycho Brahe. Thepicture, so far as rival cosmologies is concerned, turns out to be ascomplex as any other we have examined. It is stimulating to havethe matterraised,but to arriveat a simple answeris nearto guesswork.If close analysis were undertaken,it might well show that the morebiblically minded of the Parliamentarianstended to support theTychonic compromise,which wasexpresslydesignedto save the literalsense of the Bible.* * * * *

32 M. Nicolson, "English Almanacks and the New Astronomy", Annals ofScience, iv (I939), pp. I-I33. The passage quoted is at pp. I9-20.


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PAST AND PRESENTThe conclusionstowardswhich this investigationpoints arelargelynegative in character,but not entirely so. It has been shown, in the

first place, that there was no simple connection between Puritanismand science. But this need not rule out alternative theories ofa relationship between religious radicalismand scientific discovery.It is possible, for example, that a more critical attitude towardsreligious authority created a climate of opinion which predisposedsome men to be equally criticalof dogma in science. A recent bookby Professor Van Gelder, The Two Reformationsin the SixteenthCentury,33is relevant here. This suggests that a rival religiousmovement existed alongside the Protestant Reformation. It de-veloped throughoutthe sixteenth centuryand by the close it includedamong its disciples many important figures in both the CatholicandProtestant Churches, among them such men as Lipsius andMontaigne. To this movement, scientists such as Galileo andKepler may be said to have belonged, and even FrancisBacon. Thereligious views of the Cambridge Platonists, of Robert Boyle andIsaac Newton may also be traced back to the same tradition. If weare seeking a connection between the Reformation and the ScientificRevolution,this "MajorReformation"seems likelyto provideit.

Our second conclusion is that there was no direct connectionbetween economic and scientific development. Tempting though itmay be to link up the Commercial Revolution of the SixteenthCentury and the Scientific Revolution, no valid body of evidenceseems to exist upon which to base a generalizationof this kind. Therevolutionarydiscoveriesin science had no practical application, anymore than Darwin's theory of Evolution had. The mathematicalworld of the new science was as abstractin its own way as the worldof Aristotelianmetaphysics. Yet this need not rule out the possibilitythat social change did have some effect in making the ScientificRevolution possible. But what kind of social change? It may wellbe that new wealth in the seventeenth century made possible theexistenceof a greaternumberof scholars with leisure than ever before.More men attended the English universities than at any time untilthe nineteenth century. This meant that more men received atrainingin abstractthought, particularlyin mathematics,than before.Social change of this kind, which is not to be explained merely ineconomicterms, may well be a decisive factor.

Finally, we have suggested that an attempt to link up politicalattitudes during the seventeenth centurywith rival cosmologiesis an33 H. van Gelder, The Two Reformationsin the Sixteenth Century (The Hague,I96i).

NUMBER 28IO0


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PURITANISM, CAPITALISMAND THE SCIENTIFICREVOLUTION IOIunprofitableexercise. Fundamentallythe main objectionhere lies inthe insularity of any view which treats English politics on the sameplane as European intellectual developments. The English CivilWar and Commonwealth may have been an English affair, thoughthere aregroundsfor thinking it was not so exclusivelyone as is oftenmade out. But the Scientific Revolution was not English, it wasa Europeanmovement. Newton was a great Englishman,but it wasthanks to the workof his fellow EuropeansGalileoand Keplerthat heachieved success. The same may be said for comparativelyminordevelopments in navigation and surveying. English politics areirrelevant,partlybecausethey arepolitics but even more becausetheyare English. When all is said Hill's interpretationis too narrowlyEnglish in its scope. By leaving Europe out of account, he sharpensthe outline of the picture produced but the simplicity of effect isartificial. What is needed is a broad sweep which takes account ofthe Jesuit Cavalieri and the JansenistPascal as much as the PuritanGellibrand. A European approach would also lead us to considerwhether the style of continental science was as different from that ofEnglandas Racine'stragediesfrom Shakespeare's,orwhetherEnglandwas relativelybackwardin any field. It might also suggest that theRenaissance cannot be left out. Renaissance painting may beregarded without paradox as a form of practical science and theabsence of a Renaissanceschool of paintingin England may well haveaffected the development of science in England. These sociologicalconsiderationsand manyothers are raisedas soon as English science islooked at in a Europeancontext. Thus criticism of Hill's sociologicalinterpretationof the rise of science need not rule out other and widerinterpretationsof a sociological character. If one agrees that everysociety gets the kind of science which it deserves,then an examinationof English society in the earlyseventeenth centuryis surely a relevantconsideration. But concepts such as Puritanism, merchant classes,even "the gentry" are much too loose to be really helpful.Seventeenth-century history needs a more critical vocabulary toenable it to escape from a cloud of false problems.34Universityof Sussex H. F. Kearney

34 See J. G. A. Pocock, "History and Theory", Comparative Studies in Societyand History, iv (1962), pp. 525-35.

purtitanism, capitalism and scientific revolution

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