I suddenly realized that I still hadn’t posted this article…… This piece was originally supposed to appear in Dushu Bao, but by some strange twist of fate it somehow ended up being published in Zhongguo Tushu Shangbao, and I don’t know exactly how much was cut from it. To this day I still haven’t seen the newspaper or the fee…… I’m told that in the next couple of days I’ll be rewriting it and submitting a new version to senior brother Bu Tian…… If I’m going to revise it, I might as well revise it more thoroughly—why not try a different line of thought and rewrite it from scratch?…… It’s that end-of-term anxiety season again. I only have two papers waiting for me, and yet I’m still anxious, anxious……
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This year, several heavyweight works in Western history of science have been published in China in quick succession: Elephant Press has continued its Chinese translation of the Cambridge History of Science, and after translating Volume 7 two years ago, Volume 4 has now also been completed. At the same time, Elephant Press has also introduced, among the great works of the father of the history of science, Sarton, The Ancient Science of the Greek Golden Age. Meanwhile, Hunan Science and Technology Press, known at home for its “First Driving Force Series,” has launched the “Sources of Science Translation Series,” preparing to systematically introduce classic works in Western history of science. The first batch consists of three books: Dijksterhuis’s The Mechanization of the World Picture, Grant’s The Foundations of Modern Science in the Middle Ages, and Cohen’s The Birth of a New Physics.
Compared with Elephant Press’s three huge bricks of books (in hardcover), Hunan Science and Technology’s three titles seem much lighter if one considers only their “weight.” Just the price of one of Sarton’s books (158 yuan) exceeds the total of the first three volumes in the Sources of Science series. But in terms of scholarly significance and social influence, the series of history-of-thought works led by The Mechanization of the World Picture is by no means inferior in weight.
Grant and Cohen already had other works translated into Chinese, so they are not entirely unfamiliar to scholars in China, whereas Dijksterhuis’s work is being introduced here for the first time, and it is heavier in weight and greater in significance; therefore I will focus on introducing this book next.
The Dutchman Eduard Jan Dijksterhuis was born in 1892 (the same year as Koyré and Berthelot). He taught mathematics and physics in secondary school for many years while also conducting research in the history of science. In 1950, The Mechanization of the World Picture was published in Dutch; in 1956 the German translation appeared; and in 1961 the English translation was published. From then on it won international renown, and in 1962 he was awarded the Sarton Medal, being regarded as one of the most important historians of science of the twentieth century.
In terms of sheer bulk, The Mechanization of the World Picture cannot compare with Sarton’s majestic magnum opus; in terms of historiographical method, it cannot compare with Koyré’s pioneering history of scientific thought; in terms of philosophical insight, it perhaps cannot compare with Bert, Kuhn, and others; and in terms of the readability of a general history, it probably cannot compare with Lindberg and the like…… So where, exactly, does the importance of this book lie? In short, because it is “classic.”
We may as well say that this is the most classic Whig history of science.
So-called Whig history refers to narrating historical development by taking the present state of affairs as the final goal of history, and then describing history’s evolution according to how closely it approaches or deviates from that goal. It often fails to make any effort to return to the historical context of the time, to view the ancients from the ancients’ own perspective, and it does not assume that historical development has only this one correct outcome; instead, it acknowledges and reveals the possibilities of historical development. (Of course, in terms of trying to return to historical context, Dijksterhuis can also be said to be anti-Whig, but insofar as he is only concerned with the ancients’ contributions to mechanistic science and does not trace the historical development of ancient thought itself, his basic program remains Whig in character.) So-called internal history refers to treating science as a system with internal logic, considering only the development of science’s “content” and not caring about external factors, such as social ones, in shaping scientific development.
At first glance, Whig internal history seems to be a one-sided and outdated historiographical method. In today’s world, where all sorts of more “fashionable” historiographical approaches keep emerging in endless variety, does this old-fashioned way of writing history still have any significance?
In fact, whether it is the social history program, the chemist’s-program, the feminist program, or all kinds of postmodern narrative methods, none of them is truly comprehensive or correct. Any historiographical method selects and organizes historical materials through a particular lens, and each such “lens” is bound to be partial. Being stubbornly attached to one particular historical perspective—for example, being confined to a Whig internal history centered on mathematical and physical science—is of course a kind of partiality, but that does not mean we can simply abandon this traditional line of historical narration altogether. In fact, only after first affirming the classic status of such an orthodox historiographical mode do those more fashionable methods reveal their distinctive value. How can one speak of postmodernity without understanding modernity? To borrow Jiang Xiaoyuan’s phrase: “Any vision of so-called ‘leapfrog development’ can never skip over the lessons that still need to be made up.” Jiang Xiaoyuan was referring to Sarton’s historiographical method, but in fact Sarton’s way of writing history probably cannot be called orthodox or classic, since he did not sketch out a clear line of historical development; instead, he simply listed scientific achievements in great quantity. No one continued Sarton’s work, and no one imitated it. In that sense, he could not become “classic.” One necessary function of a classic work is to become a “model”: it should be an outstanding representative among contemporary works and a standard example for later works to imitate and improve upon. It is precisely in this sense that The Mechanization of the World Picture deserves to be called classic.
The reason we may sneer at Whig history as soon as we hear the term is probably that we have not yet understood what truly classic works are. What we are more familiar with is the kind of heroic-achievement history that lists scientific achievements according to contemporary scientific conclusions and sings paeans to the greatness and heroism of scientists. Such history merely describes how the ancients made achievements that conform to modern scientific standards, while ignoring everything that runs counter to “correct” ideas. The flaw in this kind of historiography is less that it fails to be anti-Whig than that it is fundamentally anti-historical: it is merely narrating a contemporary result, only labeling each part one by one with the discoverer and the date of discovery. Even when dates are attached, such narration remains completely static and does not truly tell a process of “development.” If we acknowledge that the contemporary result is a product of historical development, then we must pay attention to the ideas of the ancients that differ from modern ones. Only by thoroughly pursuing these differences can we understand history as movement and understand the historicity of the present. According to one traditional distinction in Western historiography, annals are not history.
The Mechanization of the World Picture is a Whig history, and it is indeed a history. Starting from modern problems, it attempts to construct a line of historical development. Unlike ordinary Whig history, it is not trying to praise the achievements of “modernity,” nor trying to show that modern outcomes are correct and inevitable; but neither does it blindly rail against modernity or postmodernity without first clarifying what modernity actually is. It brackets value judgments for the time being and places modernity within history for examination, in order to understand modernity. Dijksterhuis first makes clear that, given that the mechanistic worldview is the final thread leading to the core of contemporary history of science and cultural history, people may debate endlessly whether the consequences of “mechanization” are good or bad, accidental or necessary, yet often lack an understanding of the concept’s content and origins. Therefore he goes back into history to investigate the formation and development of mechanistic ideas. This is still very meaningful for Chinese academia today—whether in serious academic discussion or in general public courses, expressions like “mechanism” and “mechanistic view of nature” have long been commonplace. Yet historical investigation into the lineage and evolution of this concept has remained thin and weak. We criticize the mechanistic view of nature that modern science has brought to modern people, but how this view of nature was brought into modern science is something we have not pursued.
The Mechanization of the World Picture goes from the Pythagoreans of ancient Greece all the way to Newton. Following the line of how mechanistic ideas arose, developed, and ultimately became embedded at the center of modern science, it selects materials and organizes the thread, without caring about historical content unrelated to this line. For example, he says: “We are concerned only with the contribution of Greek culture to the rise of mathematical science, not with tracing the historical development of Greek thought itself, but with investigating the intellectual legacy Greece left to Europe and seeking the direction it pointed European thought.” (p. 10) Of course, he is not concerned only with what is regarded as scientific content by modern standards, but also more concerned with various ideas that, though not scientific content in themselves, exerted a lasting influence on the development of mechanistic thought, including philosophical and theological ideas, as well as topics such as technology, astrology, and magic. In terms of focusing on a clear line of development, Dijksterhuis’s vision is narrow; in terms of his range and command of historical materials, his vision is extremely broad.
Although this book aims to provide a “broad outline” for “ordinary readers” rather than to be read only by historians of science, readers will by no means find it as light and effortless as ordinary popular general histories. Why is that? Although the language of the original Western-language edition is indeed difficult, the Chinese translation by Zhang Butian is excellent, so the Chinese text is at least fluent and readable. As for the formulas and calculation procedures inserted here and there, they do not go beyond the level of middle-school mathematics. Therefore, the book does not create reading obstacles because of obscure expression or too much technical content. And yet this is indeed a hard book to chew on, because its content is extremely condensed. It is unlike ordinary general histories, which are full of “water.” For example, when introducing a scientist, one usually begins with some biographical story, either praising his diligence and love of learning, or gossiping about some anecdote or strange incident. Such content is irrelevant to understanding the development of scientific ideas, but it is the necessary “lubricant” for our usual reading of general histories. Dijksterhuis, by contrast, inserts almost no empty words at all; every sentence is truly a gem. As the Chinese translator says: “Not a single sentence can be brushed over casually; the reader needs enough patience to slowly dilute those contents so concentrated that they cannot be dissolved, and to savor carefully the meanings contained within.” Therefore, if one is merely looking for a leisurely read to increase one’s knowledge, there is no need to consider this book. But if one has a serious interest in the history of science or in modernity, the “mechanistic view of nature,” and related questions, then readers must not miss this book. Taking the time to chew it carefully will surely repay one a great deal.
Of course, even if one cannot work through the whole book in one go and instead treats it as a reference work to consult from time to time, it is still beneficial. On the one hand, many of the topics it covers remain unfamiliar to scholars in China; on the other hand, for things we seem to know well, the book can also correct many misunderstandings. Although it was written more than fifty years ago, the author’s wide command of primary sources and authoritative secondary literature makes the book’s content still extremely solid and reliable. Because it pursues concepts with depth and rigor, the book can help us avoid many taken-for-granted misconceptions.
Two quick examples will do: we usually know that Galileo derived the law of inertia from the thought experiment of a ball moving endlessly along a horizontal plane, but is that really so? “We cannot see any trace of such reasoning in his texts, …… Galileo could not possibly have reasoned in this way” (p. 378). In fact, Galileo understood inertia as a tendency to preserve circular motion, and his “horizontal plane” referred to a sphere centered on the earth. And even Newton, “had not yet adopted the concept of inertia prevalent in later mechanics…… Newton still held the Aristotelian view that any motion requires a mover, albeit in the modified form of the Paris nominalists.” (p. 512) In addition, we all know that Newton’s second law is “F=ma,” but is it really? In fact, Newton’s second axiom says that the “change of motion” is proportional to the motive force, whereas in Newton’s usage change is not equivalent to rate of change. “F=ma is a sufficient but not necessary condition for definitions 8 and axiom 2 to hold. Therefore, taken together, definition 8 and axiom 2 are not equivalent to F=ma” (p. 517), and the force mentioned in the second law is probably not a continuous force either, but rather some kind of “impulsive force causing an instantaneous change in momentum” (p. 518).
Many more such examples could be given. In fact, these misunderstandings are not accidental. We are always inevitably interpreting ancient texts under the deep-rooted influence of modern concepts and ways of thinking. Without the kind of thorough and serious investigation undertaken by Dijksterhuis, it is difficult to detect the differences involved. And these subtle differences in conceptual understanding are by no means trivial; rather, they precisely embody the changes in ways of thinking or worldviews between ancient and modern times. Aren’t we precisely trying to investigate the origins and development of the modern mechanistic worldview? With the aim of investigating worldviews, Dijksterhuis draws us into a careful and detailed inquiry into the history of scientific thought.
Finally, Dijksterhuis gives his answer to the question of what exactly the mechanization of the world picture is—“The mechanization of the world picture means the introduction, by means of the mathematical concepts of classical mechanics, of a description of nature.” But in terms of the value of this book, his conclusion itself is of little importance. What is more meaningful to us is his profound and precise explanation of the development history of a tangled and difficult set of conceptual ideas. Even if we understand the mechanization of the world picture differently, reading this book will certainly be immensely rewarding.
November 19, 2010
Translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The original text is authoritative.
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