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OF THE HISTORY
OF IDEAS
Studies \ oj Selected Pivotal Ideas
PHILIP P. WIENER
EDITOR IN CHIEF
VOLUME I
Design Argument
"Agnosticism"
from Language, Truth and Logic, by A. J. Ayer, copyright 1935,
by permission of Victor Gollancz Ltd.
"Catharsis"
from The Oxford Translation of Aristotle, trans. W. D. Ross,
copyright 1925, by permission of The Clarendon Press, Oxford
"Cosmology"
from Early Science in Oxford, by R. T. Gunther, copyright
1931, by permission of The Clarendon Press, Oxford
Isaiah. Berlin
George Boas
Salomon Bochner
Felix Gilbert
Frank E. Manuel
Ernest Nagel
Rene Wellek
Charles E. Pettee
.Laurie Sullivan
CONSUL TING EDITORS
Harold Cherniss
Wallace K. Ferguson
E. H. Gombrich
PaulO. Kristeller
Peter B. Medawar
Meyer Schapiro
Harry A. Wolfson
PREFACE
Artists, writers, and scientists do nothesitate in their interpretation contained in the scholarship of our con-
creative efforts and researches to borrow ideas outside tributors, and in future research the cross-references,
their own special fields whenever their themes reach bibliographies, and index should be valuable aids.
beyond established forms, styles, or traditional methods. The topics chosen are intended to exhibit the in-
The languages of the arts will often show the impact triguing variety of ways in which ideas in one domain
of literary themes, scientific discoveries, economic tend to migrate into other domains, The diffusion of
conditions, and political change. The physical, biologi- these ideas may be traced in three directions: hori-
cal, psychological, and social sciences have branched zontally across disciplines in a given cultural period,
out from ancient mythical and metaphysical ideas of vertically or chronologically through the .ages, and "in
nature and man, andin their historical development depth" by analysis of the internal structUl~eof pervasive
have utilized the results of analyses and experimental and pivotal ideas. Internal analysis is needed if one is
methods that have emerged from the cross-fertilization to discover the component ideas that have become
of tested ideas and methods. This outward reaching of elements of newer and larger thoughts or movernents.
the-mind motivates the historian of ideas to explore the A now classic model is Arthur O. Lovejoy's historical
pivotal clues to man's artistic and scientific achieve- study and internal analysis of the Great Chain of Being
ments in diverse fields. While respecting the integrity into its component "unit-ideas" of continuity, grada-
and need for specialized departments of learning, the tion, and plenitude. These unit-ideas are not descrip-
historian of ideas makes his particular contribution to tions of the whole organic cultural and historical setting
knowledge by tracing the cultural roots and historical of thought, but products of analysis, which Lovejoy
ramifications of the rnajor and minor specialized con- proposed as aids to the unravelling of complex ideas ..
cerns of the mind, and of their roles in different contexts. However, no
The editors have invited contributions from scholars single method or model hasbeen prescribed or adopted
of many countries, especially those scholars who have as exclusive by either editors or contributors. We have,
shown a particular awareness of the cultural and his- therefore, studies of three different sorts: cross-cultural
torical affiliations of their respective disciplines with studies limited to a given century or period, studies that
other allied fields. Departmental and national bound- trace an idea from antiquity to later periods, and studies
aries have thus been crossed in the cooperative ex- that explicate the meaning of a pervasive idea and its
change of ideas and cultural perspectives among editors development in the minds of its leading proponents.
and contributors. Minor figures cannot be neglected since they often
We cannot emphasize too strongly the point ex- reflect the prevailing climate of opinion of their times.
pressed in the subtitle of our work, that we are pre- The cross-references appended to each article have
senting a varied array of selected pivotal topics in been carefully prepared to direct the reader to related
intellectual history and of methods of writing about articles in which the same or similar idea occurs within
such topics. Although the number of topics discussed a different domain, often modified and even trans-
is large, we do not pretend that these volumes represent formed by the different context. But despite our inter-
the entire range of intellectual history. To attempt a disciplinary aim, we do not ignore the fact that de-
complete history of ideas would be to attempt (of partments of study are established in academic and
course, in vain) to exhaust the history of the human 'other specialized institutions. The Dictionary will fa-
mind; hence, the limited number of topics dealt with, cilitate the reader's transition from the ideas familiar
and even these contain lacunae which we hope will to him in his special area of study to those very ideas
encourage further studies. Students of the history of operative in, and transformed by, related ideas in other
ideas should profit from the substance and methods of fields with which he is less familiar. Vll
PREFACE
In some cases the same word will have entirely will lead outward to still other clusters of ideas. The
distinct meanings in different disciplines, so that it is "Faust Theme," for example, is an illustration of the
important not to confound words with ideas; for exam- more general idea of "Motif" in the history of litera-
ple, it is a sophistic confusion to draw inferences from ture, but the Faust theme is itself pregnant with sym-
the theory of relativity in physics to relativism in bolic references to the problem of evil, to the ideas of
morals, or to impose seventeenth-century mechanical tragedy, of macrocosm and microcosm.
models on organic or social phenomena. But it is Although the intensive synchronic study of any
germane to the history of thought and culture to record "period" of cultural or intellectual history may reveal
the historical role of such pervasive models in diverse the predominance of certain artistic, scientific, indus-
fields. Consequently, we did not seek to collect topics trial, political, religious, or philosophical ideas, there
for articles at random, but organized an analytical table is no a priori ranking of these groups of ideas. Nor can
of contents into a seven-fold grouping of topics, thus it be presumed that they are all of equal importance
discovering important relationships which might oth- through all periods of cultural development viewed
erwise have been overlooked. The following domains diachronically. The Dictionary's emphasis on jnter-
and disciplines, of course, involve unavoidable over- disciplinary, cross-cultural relations is not intended as
lapping, but form the basic framework of the selected a substitute for the specialized histories of the various
topics contributed. disciplines, but rather serves to indicate actual and
I. The history of ideas about the external order of possible interrelations.
nature studied by the physical and biological sciences, The purpose of these studies of the historical inter-
ideas also present in common usage, imaginative liter- relationships of ideas is to help. establish some sense of
ature, myths about nature, metaphysical speculation. the unity of human thought and its cultural manifesta-
II. The history of ideas about human nature in tions in a world of ever-increasing specialization and
anthropology, psychology, religion, and philosophy as alienation. These cumulative acquisitions of centuries
well as in literature and common sense. of work in the arts and sciences constitute our best
III. The history of ideas in literature and the arts insurance against intellectualand cultural bankruptcy.
in aesthetic theory and literary criticism. Taking stock of the ideas that have created our cultural
IV. The history of ideas about or attitudes to history, heritage is a prerequisite of the future growth and
historiography, and historical criticism. flourishing of the human spirit.
V. The historical development of economic, legal, The editors are indeed grateful for the cooperation
and political ideas and institutions, ideologies, and of so many scholars, including advisers and readers as
movements. well as contributors and the staff of the publisher.
VI. The history of religious and philosophical ideas. Without the unstinting aid and constant encouragement
VII. The history of formal mathematical, logical, of Mr. Charles Scribner, who initiated the idea of this
linguistic, and methodological ideas. Dictionary, the project would not have come to fruition.
Few of the pivotal ideas presented fall squarely and
only within anyone group. Even the ancillary topics PHILIP P. WIENER
VIll
ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. The history of ideas about the external order of nature studied by the physical and biological sciences, ideas
also present in common usage, imaginative literature, myths about nature, metaphysical speculation.
Cosmic Voyages
Optics and Vision
Entropy Relativity
Environment Space
Spontaneous Generation
Environment and Culture
Technology
Evolutionism
Time and Measurement
Experimental Science and Mechanics in the Middle
Ages Uniformitarianism and Catastrophism IX
ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS
II. The history of ideas about human nature in anthropology, psychology, religion, and philosophy as well as
in literature and common sense.
Imprinting and Learning Early in Life Renaissance Idea of the Dignity of Man
Man-Machine from the Greeks to the Computer Virtu in and since the Renaissance
III. The history of ideas in literature and the arts in aesthetic theory and literary criticism.
Motif in Literature: The Faust Theme Poetry and Poetics from Antiquity to the Mid-
Eighteenth Century
Literary Attitudes Toward Mountains
Realism in Literature
Music and Science
Rhetoric after Plato
Music as a Demonic Art
Romanticism in Literature
Music as a Divine Art
Romanticism (ca. 1780-ca. 1830)
Myth in Antiquity
Satire
Myth in Biblical Times
Victorian Sensibility and Sentiment
Myth in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance
Style in Literature
Myth in English Literature: Seventeenth and Eigh-
teenth Centuries Sublime in External Nature
Myth in the Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centu- Symbol and Symbolism in Literature
ries
Taste in the History of Aesthetics from the Renaissance
Myth in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries to 1770
IV. The history of ideas about or attitudes to history, historiography, and historical criticism.
Culture and Civilization in Modern Times The Influence of Ideas on Ancient Greek Historiog-
raphy
Cycles
Humanism in Italy
Determinism in History
V. The historical development of economic, legal, and political ideas and institutions, ideologies, and movements.
Constitutionalism Liberalism
Democracy Loyalty
Despotism Machiavellism
Economic Theory of Natural Liberty Marxist Revisionism: From Bernstein to Modern Forms
Equality Nationalism
Totalitarianism Work
Buddhism Eschatology
Heresy in the Middle Ages Positivism in the Twentieth Century (Logical Empiri-
cism)
Heresy, Renaissance and Later
Pragmatism
Hermeticism
Prophecy in Hebrew Scripture
Hierarchy and Order
Prophecy in the Middle Ages
Holy (The Sacred)
Pythagorean Doctrines to 300 B.C.
Idea
Pythagorean Harmony of the Universe
Ideal in Philosophy from the Renaissance to 1780
Ramism
Impiety in the Classical World
Rationality among the Greeks and Romans
Irrationalism in the History of Philosophy
Reformation
Islamic Conception of Intellectual Life
Relativism in Ethics
Macrocosm and Microcosm
Origins of Religion
Metaphor in Philosophy
Ritual in Religion
Metaphor in Religious Discourse
Religion and Science in the Nineteenth Century
Metaphysical Imagination
Religious Enlightenment in American Thought
Moral Sense
Religious Toleration
Necessity
Right and Good
N eo-Platonism
Romanticism in Post-Kantian Philosophy
Ethics of Peace
Sin and Salvation
Perennial Philosophy
Skepticism in Antiquity
Perfectibility of Man
Skepticism in Modern Thought
Pietism
Ethics of Stoicism
Platonism in Philosophy and Poetry
XIV
ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS
VII. The history of formal mathematical, logical, linguistic, and methodological ideas.
Study of Language
xv
LIST OF ARTICLES
Literature and Its Cognates III 81 Myth in Biblical Times III 275
Love III 94
Myth in English Literature: Seventeenth
and Eighteenth Centuries III 294
Loyalty III 108
Myth in the Eighteenth and Early
Machiavellism III 116 Nineteenth Centuries III 300
Macrocosm and Microcosm III 126 Myth in the Nineteenth and Twentieth
Centuries III 307
Man-Machine from the Greeks to the
Computer III 131 Medieval and Renaissance Ideas of Nation III 318
xxiii