time's arrow, time's cycle. myth and metaphor in the discovery of geological time

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104 Book Reviews The last two essays of the collection take us into post-Aristotelian philosophy. Jonathan Barnes, ‘Peripatetic Negations’, explicates a passage of Alexander of Aphrodisias on the Peripatetic treatment of negation as applying to the predicate of a sentence rather than the whole proposition. Finally Richard Sorabji in ‘Closed Space and Closed Time’ examines a parallel between the closed space of modern physics and the recurring time cycles of some ancient theories. He discusses interesting implications for Stoic and Pythagorean theories but curiously omits one of the most interesting of ancient cyclical theories, that of Empedocles. The essays in this collection show a high level of expertise such as one would expect from a notable group of scholars honoring a distinguished colleague. Brigham Young University Daniel W. Graham Time’s Arrow, Time’s Cycle. Myth and Metaphor in the Discovery of Geological Time, Stephen Jay Gould (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1987), xiii + 222~~. $17.50, H.C. At one point in Time’s Cycle: Time’s Arrow, Stephen Jay Gould proclaims geology not simply as science but as history, a study in succession. This dichotomy, with its implied differences of method and approach, captures the book’s central theme, one more generally expressed through the time metaphors of the book’s title. The reader is introduced to the problem through a vital shift in the subject’s intellectual history, a shift which Gould thinks has been misrepresented. It is symbolised by Charles Lye11 afid his Principles of Geology, a work first published in 1830-33 and which passed through many subsequent editions. Historians of geology have portrayed Lye11 as a pioneer of scientific geology, stressing his reliance on fieldwork as a source of ideas and data and contrasting his work with earlier, more speculative studies whose interpretative framework was constrained by biblical ideas. Gould sets out to moderate between this supposed gulf in method. His approach is textual rather than contextual, seeking to make his point through what was actually written rather than by re-constructing the circumstances under which ideas were produced. It is also selective, concentrating on Thomas Burnett’s Telluris Theoria Sacra (1680-90), James Hutton’s Theory of the Earth (1795) and Lyell’s Principles of Geology (1830-3). From the outset, Gould tries to lessen their differences. Thus, although Burnett is often portrhyed in histories of the subject as a purely speculative worker with little grounding in actual observation, Gould shows how, once God had been used as prima causa in terms of creation, Burnett makes extensive use of natural causes to explain the ongoing history of the world. Hutton, meanwhile, is usually portrayed as the first great field worker, yet devastatingly, he formulated his ideas on how the earth evolved through phases of restoration as well as erosion before he had seen an example of unconformity (the stratigraphic link between the two phases) in the field and after seeing only one example of granite, the prime evidence for restoration through igneous activity! Whereas Hutton’s style inhibited the easy acceptance of his ideas, Lye11 benefitted from the opposite effect. For Gould, he was the great communicator of nineteenth-century geology, someone whose ideas-though defective in crucial ways-were more widely disseminated precisely because of the style with which they were written. Gould m-casts the significance of these studies in wholly different terms. What really mattered was the discovery of deep time, the realisation that the earth had a far longer history. Hutton’s Theory of theEarth, with its discussion of igneous rocks, provided a firm empirical basis for deep time but it was Lye11 who was the first to provide what Gould calls

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104 Book Reviews

The last two essays of the collection take us into post-Aristotelian philosophy. Jonathan Barnes, ‘Peripatetic Negations’, explicates a passage of Alexander of Aphrodisias on the Peripatetic treatment of negation as applying to the predicate of a sentence rather than the whole proposition. Finally Richard Sorabji in ‘Closed Space and Closed Time’ examines a parallel between the closed space of modern physics and the recurring time cycles of some ancient theories. He discusses interesting implications for Stoic and Pythagorean theories but curiously omits one of the most interesting of ancient cyclical theories, that of Empedocles.

The essays in this collection show a high level of expertise such as one would expect from a notable group of scholars honoring a distinguished colleague.

Brigham Young University Daniel W. Graham

Time’s Arrow, Time’s Cycle. Myth and Metaphor in the Discovery of Geological Time, Stephen Jay Gould (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1987), xiii + 222~~. $17.50, H.C.

At one point in Time’s Cycle: Time’s Arrow, Stephen Jay Gould proclaims geology not simply as science but as history, a study in succession. This dichotomy, with its implied differences of method and approach, captures the book’s central theme, one more generally expressed through the time metaphors of the book’s title. The reader is introduced to the problem through a vital shift in the subject’s intellectual history, a shift which Gould thinks has been misrepresented. It is symbolised by Charles Lye11 afid his Principles of Geology, a work first published in 1830-33 and which passed through many subsequent editions. Historians of geology have portrayed Lye11 as a pioneer of scientific geology, stressing his reliance on fieldwork as a source of ideas and data and contrasting his work with earlier, more speculative studies whose interpretative framework was constrained by biblical ideas. Gould sets out to moderate between this supposed gulf in method.

His approach is textual rather than contextual, seeking to make his point through what was actually written rather than by re-constructing the circumstances under which ideas were produced. It is also selective, concentrating on Thomas Burnett’s Telluris Theoria Sacra (1680-90), James Hutton’s Theory of the Earth (1795) and Lyell’s Principles of Geology (1830-3). From the outset, Gould tries to lessen their differences. Thus, although Burnett is often portrhyed in histories of the subject as a purely speculative worker with little grounding in actual observation, Gould shows how, once God had been used as prima causa in terms of creation, Burnett makes extensive use of natural causes to explain the ongoing history of the world. Hutton, meanwhile, is usually portrayed as the first great field worker, yet devastatingly, he formulated his ideas on how the earth evolved through phases of restoration as well as erosion before he had seen an example of unconformity (the stratigraphic link between the two phases) in the field and after seeing only one example of granite, the prime evidence for restoration through igneous activity! Whereas Hutton’s style inhibited the easy acceptance of his ideas, Lye11 benefitted from the opposite effect. For Gould, he was the great communicator of nineteenth-century geology, someone whose ideas-though defective in crucial ways-were more widely disseminated precisely because of the style with which they were written.

Gould m-casts the significance of these studies in wholly different terms. What really mattered was the discovery of deep time, the realisation that the earth had a far longer history. Hutton’s Theory of theEarth, with its discussion of igneous rocks, provided a firm empirical basis for deep time but it was Lye11 who was the first to provide what Gould calls

Book Reviews 105

a ‘codification’ of deep time, a sense of its successional if not chronological order. Together, they gave time a depth that matched the breadth which Newtonian ideas had given to space. Of the very essence to Gould’s argument is his observation that in order to cope with the idea of time beyond measurement, those who contributed to this change of scale invariably used metaphors as a means of conveying the point. Those who see the history of the earth as one of catastrophe or directional change and therefore as a narrative story effectively employ the metaphor of time’s arrow. Conversely, those who talk of a balance between erosional and restorative forces, of repetition and steady state, use the metaphor of time’s cycle. Having recast the problem in these terms, Gould points to Hutton and Lyell’s uncompromising belief in time’s cycle, the world as a ‘self-renewing machine*, but of the latter’s final retreat from this position, his acceptance of a greater role for catastrophe and therefore of narrative, in the final editions of his Principles, beginning with the 10th edition of 1866. By contrast, Burnett incorporated both directional and cyclical concepts into his argument. Far from preaching confusion, this combined use of directional and cyclical concepts accords more closely with modern thinking and certainly with Gould’s Typically, there is a wider point at issue in what Gould has to say on this matter. The tendency for science to think its big problems out through metaphors and to maximise the differences between explanations by using dichotomies, creates an exclusiveness between explanations that may positively mislead.

University College of Wales, Aberystwyth Robert A. Dodgshon

History of Universities, Volume VI: 1986-7, ed. Peter Denley, general ed. Laurence Brockliss (Oxford University Press, 1987) xv + 166 pp., $25.00, H.C.

The new editor of History of Universities will be L. Brockliss of Magdalen College, Oxford (author of the recent French Higher Education in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries) after the untimely death in 1986 of the founder editor Charles Schmitt. An obituary notice recalls the work of the eminent Renaissance scholar. In future, more emphasis will be given to post-1800 research into universities, the size of the volume enlarged, and a bibliographical section on work in progress will be added (edited by J. Fletcher of the University of Aston, Birmingham).

The first article, ‘John of Salisbury and Education in Twelfth-Century Paris from the account of theMetafogicon’ (K.S.B. Keats-Rohan) is a detailed analysis ofthe Metafogicon (in the process of being jointly edited by the author). John of Salisbury defended the traditional triuium, distinguishing between scientia(worldly) andsapientia(divine). Being on the side of the Realists, and although taught by Abelard, he thought Nominalism to be a passing fashion; he kept to Aristotelian logic. Thus he rejected all excess of either verbiage or inadequate expression. In the quadriuiuium he was against merely remunerative but hollow dialectic. His criticism of twelfth-century education in Paris was directed against its utilitarianism. When education became institutionalised in the next century it turned to vocational training for the lucrative posts in church administration, by students’ request. John himself was a pragmatist and pursued a career as ecclesiastical administrator.

The article ‘Career Trends of Parisian Masters ofTheology 1200-1320’ (R. Avi-Yonah) follows on the previous one, concerned as it is with the impact of universities on society. The study is based on P. Glorieux’s Rkpertoire des Maitres en Thkologie de Paris au XIIZe Si.?cZe (1933-34) who listed some 280 theologians with their biographical data. They either remained as teachers in the university or took posts in the church. Some university teachers moved on to high ecclesiastical posts later, as did Stephen Langton after twenty