The Sleepwalkers (50 page)

The
union
between
the
Church
and
the
Stagyrite,
which
had
started
with
so
much
promise,
turned
out
to
be
a
misalliance,
after
all.

3.
The Weeds

Before
we
take
leave
of
the
medieval
universe,
a
brief
word
must
be
said
of
astrology,
which
will
crop
up
again
repeatedly
in
later
parts
of
this
book.

In
the
days
of
Babylon,
science
and
magic,
calendar-making
and
augury,
were
an
indivisible
unity.
The
Ionians
separated
the
wheat
from
the
chaff;
they
took
over
Babylonian
astronomy,
and.
rejected
astrology.
But
three
centuries
later,
in
the
spiritual
bankruptcy
following
the
Macedonian
conquest,
"astrology
fell
upon
the
Hellenistic
mind
as
a
new
disease
falls
upon
some
remote
island
people."
¹⁰
The
phenomenon
repeated
itself
after
the
collapse
of
the
Roman
Empire.
The
medieval
landscape
is
grown
over
with
the
weeds
of
astrology
and
alchemy,
which
invade
the
ruins
of
the
abandoned
sciences.
When
building
started
again,
they
got
mixed
up
in
the
materials,
and
it
took
centuries
to
clean
them
out.
^*

____________________

But
the
medieval
addiction
to
astrology
is
not
merely
a
sign
of
"failure
of
nerve".
According
to
Aristotle,
everything
that
happens
in
the
sub-lunary
world
is
caused
and
governed
by
the
motions
of
the
heavenly
spheres.
This
tenet
served
as
a
rationale
for
the
defenders
of
astrology,
both
in
antiquity
and
the
Middle
Ages.
But
the
affinity
between
astrological
reasoning
and
Aristotelian
metaphysics
goes
deeper.
In
the
absence
of
quantitative
laws
and
causal
relations,
the
Aristotelian
thought
in
terms
of
affinities
and
correspondences
between
the
"forms"
or
"natures"
or
"essences"
of
things;
he
classified
them
by
categories,
and
sub-categories:
he
proceeded
by
deduction
from
analogies,
which
were
often
metaphorical,
or
allegorical,
or
purely
verbal.
Astrology
and
alchemy
employed
the
same
methods,
only
more
freely
and
imaginatively,
undeterred
by
academic
pedantry.
If
they
were
weeds,
medieval
science
itself
had
become
so
weedy,
that
it
was
difficult
to
draw
the
line
between
the
two.
We
shall
see
that
Kepler,
the
founder
of
modern
astronomy,
was
chronically
unable
to
do
so.
No
wonder,
then,
that
"influences",
"sympathies"
and
"correspondences"
between
planets
and
minerals,
humours
and
temperaments,
played
an
integral
part
in
the
medieval
universe,
as
a
semi-official.
complement
to
the
Great
Chain
of
Being.

4.Summary

"In
the
year
1500
Europe
knew
less
than
Archimedes
who
died
in
the
year
212
B.C.",
Whitehead
remarks
in
the
opening
pages
of
his
classic
work.
¹¹

I
shall
try
to
sum
up
briefly
the
main
obstacles
which
arrested
the
progress
of
science
for
such
an
immeasurable
time.
The
first
was
the
splitting
up
of
the
world
into
two
spheres,
and
the
mental
split
which
resulted
from
it.
The
second
was
the
geocentric
dogma,
the
blind
eye
turned
on
the
promising
line
of
thought
which
had
started
with
the
Pythagoreans
and
stopped
abruptly
with
Aristarchus
of
Samos.
The
third
was
the
dogma
of
uniform
motion
in
perfect
circles.
The
fourth
was
the
divorcement
of
science
from
mathematics.
The
fifth
was
the
inability
to
realize
that
while
a
body
at
rest
tended
to
remain
at
rest,
a
body
in
motion
tended
to
remain
in
motion.

The
main
achievement
of
the
first
part
of
the
scientific
revolution
was
the
removal
of
these
five
cardinal
obstacles.
This
was
done
chiefly
by
three
men:
Copernicus,
Kepler
and
Galileo.
After
that,
the
road
was
open
to
the
Newtonian
synthesis;
from
there
on,
the
journey
led
with
rapidly
gathering
speed
to
the
atomic
age.
It
was
the
most
important
turning
point
in
man's
history;
and
it
caused
a
more
radical
change
in
his
mode
of
existence
than
the
acquisition
of
a
third
eye
or
some
other
biological
mutation
could
have
achieved.

At
this
point
the
method
and
style
of
this
narrative
will
change.
The
emphasis
will
shift
from
the
evolution
of
cosmic
ideas
to
the
individuals
who
were
chiefly
responsible
for
it.
At
the
same
time,
we
plunge
into
a
new
landscape
under
a
different
climate:
the
Renaissance
of
the
fifteeenth
century.
The
sudden
transition
will
leave
certain
gaps
in
continuity;
these
will
be
filled
in
as
the
occasion
arises.