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The St. John's Review
Volume XLI, number one (1991-92)
Editor
Elliott Zuckerman
Editorial Board
Eva T. H. Brann
Beale Ruhm von Oppen
Joe Sachs
Cary Stickney
John Van Doren
Robert B. Williamson
Subscriptions and Editorial Assistant
Jack Hunt
'
The St.John's Review is published three times a year by the Office ofthe Dean, StJohn's
College, Annapolis: Christopher B. Nelson, President; Eva T. H. Brann, Dean. For those
not on the distribution list, subscripti9ns are $15.00 per year. Unsolicited essays, stories,
poems, and reasoned letters are welCome. Address correspondence to the Review, St.
John's College, P.O. Box 2800, Annapolis, MD 21404-2800. Back issues are available,
at $5.00 per issue, from the St. John's College Bookstore.
© 1992 St. John's College. All rights reserved; reproduction in whole or in part without
permission is prohibited.
ISSN 0277-4720
Desktop Publishing and Printing
The St. John's College Print Shop
��Contents
1 . . . . . The Body Electric
Howard Fisher
39. . . . . . The Education of Te1emachos
Amy l}pfel Kass
61. . . . . . The Least Deceptive Mirror of the Mind:
Truth and Reality in the Homeric Poems
Carl A. Rubino
75 ...... What is a Book?
Eva T. H. Brann
89 ...... Poems
J.H. Beall
Sandra Hoben
Kemmer Anderson
97
Re-Reading:
A Note on Ibsen and Wagner
Elliott Zuckerman
101 ..... Solution:
St. John's Crossword Number Two
Trout
103. . . . . . St. John's Crossword Number Four ·
Captain Easy
:
��I
The Body Electric
Howard Fisher
I. Does the electric eel shock itself?
In the dialogue Me no, that otherwise unmemorable character establishes his own
lasting memorial by creating one of the most memorable similes in all the
dialogues of Plato: Socrates, he says, is like the torpedofish (Figure 1) whose
shock plunges his prey into a stupid paralysis.' Meno calls the simile his "little
jest"; and while Socrates does agree to accept the supposedly playful image, he
makes one qualification:
If the totpedo tOtpifies itself while making others totpid, then I may be
compared with it; otherwise not?
FIGURE 1: Torpedo-fish (alter Grundfest)
Howard Fisher is a tutor at St. John's College, Annapolis. This lecture was given at
the College in October, 1991, to mark the bicentennial ofFaraday's birth, on September
22, 1791. Figures 1-4 are by John Langley Howard. They are reprinted with permission
from the article "Electric Fishes," by Harry Grundfest, in Scientific American, October,
1960, p.122.
�2
1HE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
Torpidity in the fish's victim represents the perplexity and ineptitude displayed by one who, like Meno, has been forced under Socmtic questioning to
acknowledge his own ignomnce. Thus the turn Socrates gives to Meno's simile
means, first of all, that Socrates paralyzes his respondents not through mastery
but through deficiency: through the same mortal ignorance that Meno has been
brought painfully to face in himself.
But scarcely concealed beneath Meno's by now brittle jocularity lies another
element, and a disturbing one. Meno's image of Socrates is 1ife with allusions to
the magical and supernatural. He declares that Socrates is "bewitching" him with
"spells and incantations," and that in any other city Socrates would be condemned as a "wizard." This more sinister theme casts Socrates as other-worldly,
with an inhuman and perhaps unnatural power over men, as the weird powers of
the torpedo-fish set it apart from more conventional carnivores. Socrates' correction of the simile thus has a second meaning also: If the torpedo-fish is subject
to the same power that it itself exercises, then the fish is part of the natural order;
and its power is likewise a natuml, not a magical one. 3 Similarly, the Socratic
power that derives from knowing that one does not know-a power to neutralize
conventional opinions and break their merely habitual hold over us-will be a
human, not a diabolical, power. So much so, for Socrates, that to love wisdom
rather than dogma, to be philos sophoi, is to exercise the very paradigm of human
powers.
But does the torpedo-fish torpify itself? Is the creature an exemplar of
diabolical power, as in Meno's simile, or of activity according to nature, as in
Socrates'? And we might frame a similar question about any of the other animal
species with well-developed electric organs who hunt their prey seemingly
Zeus-like, hurling down potent electric blasts upon their doomed victims-the
Raia or electric skate (Figure 2), the Malapterurus or electric catfish (Figure 3),
and the Gymnotus or so-called "electric eel" (Figure 4 ).4 Does the electric eel
shock itself? That is the question we shall regard as having been suggested by
Meno's simile and Socrates' reply. But it reflects a larger question: What is the
relation in nature between an agent and its own power?
In November of 1838 Michael Faraday, the great experimentalist and natural
philosopher, reported to the Royal Society on "the character and direction of the
electric force of the Gymnotus.''5 Faraday had long been trying to obtain an
electric eel [1752]; 6 and in August of 1838 a certain intrepid Mr. Porter succeeded
in bringing one to London from South America, where it had been captured five
months before. Porter sold the creature to an establishment in Adelaide Street
whose proprietors generously made it available to Faraday for such scientific
researches as should be consistent with "a regard for its life and health" [1754].
This was not Faraday's first encounter with animal electricity. He had in 1833,
some five years before, established the probable identicality of all forms of
�FISHER
3
FIGURE 2: Raia (after Grundfest)
FIGURE 3: Ma/apterurus (after Grundfest)
FIGURE 4: Faraday's Gymnotus,
the modern Electrophorus (after Grundfest)
�4
TIIE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
electricity, including animal electricity;7 and in 1814-15 he had assisted Humphrey Davy in tests, at that time inconclusive, to see whether the shock of the
"electric fish" could decompose water. 8
Faradity's reports to the Society from November 1831 on, along with other
writings, were republished by him in a collection called Experimental Researches in Electricity, a project that was to grow to three sizable volumes by
1855. The Experimental Researches is a remarkably dialectical book in which
topics persistently appear and reappear, developing often in new and surprising
forms that both draw from and contribute to other, at first seemingly disparate,
investigations. The researches are chronologically organized into twenty-nine
numbered "Series"; and while each Series has an identifiable area of inqniry,
multiple strands of tributary or even tangential investigations are continually
encountered and freely admitted to the narrative. In fact, rather than call these
narrative units merely "series," I prefer to think of them as comparable to the
sallies of Don Quixote. They are exploratory journeys, sometimes into new,
sometimes repeatedly into the same territory; and in them the protagonist appears
to exert only a moderate effort to shape or regulate the adventures that ensue.9
Also available to us is Faraday's laboratory Diary, a no less remarkable
production, in which his laboratory work is recorded sequentially and in complete detail for a span, seldom interrupted, of forty-two years. Not everything in
the Diary could possibly be suitable for publication, of course, but it is amazing
how much of the Diary did find its way into papers and letters and thence into
the Experimental Researches. I will occasionally refer to the Diary for some
items Faraday did not publish.
Faraday's 1838 Gymnotus report makes up the Fifteenth Series of Experimental Researches, and I am delighted to be able to say that in it Faraday actually
touches on our question-whether the electric eel shocks itself. True, he mentions it only in passing, and his answer-that "the animal does not apparently
feel the electric sensation which he causes in those around him" [1772]-is only
a guess. 10 But it is rather charming that Faraday should raise the question at all.
Indeed the entire Gymnotus report is charming, with its description of the fish
and its history, its inclusion of part of a letter from Humboldt on proper care and
feeding ("cooked meat, not salted"), and even the delightful sketch, which we
shall return to later, of the Gymnotus in his tubu (Figure 5).
Repeatedly in Faraday's report we find signs of a wondering and appreciative
eye for the striking and exotic in nature. Faraday calls the Gymnotus "this
wonderfnl animal" [1769]; and the word "wonderful" actually begins the paper.
But what is the source of Faraday's wonder, in which presumably we too are to
share? Is it exclusively the animal's strangeness and mystery-that, as Meno
intimates, it goes somehow beyond the bounds of ordinary nature? Or is Faraday
capable, and are we, of bestowing wonder on other than the spectacular and the
�5
FISHER
16
17
15
14
19
11
10
FIGURE 5: (from ERE)
arcane? 12 Faraday characterizes the wonder he has in mind at the outset of his
paper:
Wonderful as are the laws and phenomena of electricity whim made evident
to us in inorganic or dead matter, their interest can bear scarcely any comparison with that which attaches to the same force when connected with the
nervous system and With life ... [1749]
Clearly the interest raised by animal electricity is not that it goes beyond
nature. Rather what is compelling here is precisely the conformity between
Gymnotns's living power and the more prosaic electrical phenomena associated
with inorganic bodies. 13 Electrical powers formerly thought to be confined to
"inert" matter are here seen to be exercised by living beings also. Such a
communion of powers holds promise for the expansion of our existing
knowledge-a promise Faraday is all the more keen to acknowledge because its
importance has not been widely appreciated:
�6
THE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
[T]hough the obscurity which for the present surrounds the subject may for a
time also veil its importance, every advance in our knowledge of this mighty
power in relation to inert things, helps to dissipate that obscurity, and to set
forth more prominently the surpassing interest of this very high branch of
Physical Philosophy. [1749]
This is a statement about the order of discovery in nature. Faraday here notes
that advances in our understanding of ifwrganic powers will shed light in turn
upon living processes. Later in the paragraph, Faraday voices his belief that we
are "upon the threshold of what ... man is permitted to know of this matter." I
take seriously the qualification: permitted to know. The promise of animal
electricity has nothing to do with forbidden knowledge, wizardry, or things
unnatural. Faraday seems to affmn that, just as inorganic forces lie well within
the domain of standard science, so an understanding of living forces stands as a
merely more distant, but assured, prize.
Yet Faraday's mention of the "surpassing interest" of animal electricity
presents animal processes as more than mere extensions of inorganic ones.
"Surpassing" interest suggests almost a reverse order of discovery: that exercise
of a power by a living being may prove to be visible and intelligible in ways that
power exercised by inert matter alone is not. I see two areas in particular where
animal electricity might prove to be especially illuminating.
First, in animal electricity we have an instance of one identical power
exercised both by living and nonliving agents. The baffling relation between an
agent and the power it exercises may be more accessible when it is viewed in the
comparison between a living and a nonliving system; and if so, knowledge of
the animal may contribute as much to our knowledge of the inorganic system as
the other way around.
Second, a living creature's ability to respond to and alter its environment by
intention or habit adds a new interpretive dimension to the animal's electrical
relations with its surroundings. The general relation between an agent and its
surrounding medium may therefore stand forth more pointedly when exemplified by a Jiving agent. In fact I will argue that the electric fish does become for
Faraday an explanatory image for inorganic agents, and particularly for the
magnet.
If the new knowledge intimated by animal electricity is, as I said, not an
uncovering of things hidden and forbidden, it must be a knowledge of things
which are already there to be seen, but which we have not yet learned to see. 14
Knowledge of this sort will therefore in large measure consist not in the content
but in the mode of vision-or one might say, in rightness of vision. 15 In the case
of Gymnotus, gaining such orthoscopy begins with the quest for an adequate
image of the fish himself. Much of Faraday's activity in the Fifteenth Series is
concerned with bringing this image to light. Faraday's experiments with
�FISHER
7
Gymnotus are as much concerned with eliciting images of the animal as with
establishing factual information about him.
Besides Faraday's own experiments, conventional anatomy plays a role in
originating the elements of the Gymnotus images. For example, Faraday is aware
that the electric organ tissues are of muscular derivation; he cites Geoffroy St.
Hilaire, who classifies them not with the organs of higher life functions but
among "the common teguments" 16 [1789]. What this means is that the fish's
elecbic apparatus is comparable in its office to any of the ordinary muscular
organs, for example to the locomotory structures, the fins.
Gymnotus's anal fin, which runs some 4/5 of the length of the body, is that
animal's principallocomotmy organ (see again Figure 4). The fish propels itself
forward or backward by sending a sinusoidal wave in the appropriate direction
along the fin. But obviously the fin achieves nothing except when the fish is
surrounded by its watery medium. Likewise for land animals; hands and feet
achieve nothing in the way of locomotion except in reaction to a resisting
medium or surface. 17 Bearing that in mind, I hope you will not think it too fanciful
of me to suggest that, from a locomotory point of view, the medium ought to be
counted as part ofthe body. Faraday, I hasten to say, makes no such interpretation
of the mechanics of animal locomotion. But elecbically, at least, his researches
with Gymnotus will conbibute to a new image of body, extended continuously
throughout the medium and contiguous with all other bodies through its own
activity. The Body Electric will possess a distinctive shape and will call for new
principles of anatomy.
II. The Expetiments of 1838
Faraday's experimental exercises with Gymnotus fall into two classes. The
first of these may be called "identity" experiments. In them, Faraday confirms
through his own work the conclusion he had reached in 1833 when surveying
the investigations of others: the animal's elecbicity is identical to all other
elecbicities in its panoply of effects-physiological, magnetic, thermal, chemical, and so on. Some of his methods are new, 18 but the experimental aims of the
"identity" exercises in 1838 are unchanged from those he had reviewed in 1833.
The second exercises are wholly new. Faraday characterizes them as "experiments relating to the quantity and disposition of the elecbicity in and about this
wonderful animal" [1769]; I will call them simply the "disposition" experiments.
The two classes of experiment are different not ouly in their objectives but in
the rhetoric they bring to the animal's elecbical powers. The bringing forth of a
phenomenon in the distinctive forms given by experimental apparatus is a
rhetoric, just as certainly as Meno's verbal portrayal of Socrates in the form of
the torpedo-fish was rhetoric. We can see something of the rhetorical difference
�TIIE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
8
between the "identity" and the "disposition" exercises by examining their
respective apparatus. Faraday describes three kinds of what he calls "collectors,"
with which to sample the fish's electric action:
(1) The hands. Here the experimenters 19 subject themselves to shock through
their unprotected hands, either grasping the fish directly or immersing the hands
at various locations in the water. Employing their own bodies as experimental
apparatus, the investigators stand in the most intimate possible relation to the
object of their study.
(2) The "disk" collectors. Here the investigators make their hands only the
indirect recipients of the shock by grasping the handles of a pair of disk-shaped
copper conductors (Figure 6) and disposing the disk ends variously about the
fish's watery element and on his body. These instruments give increased precision of placement, but to some extent their inte!JlOsition mediates between the
investigator and the shock received [1760].
(3) The "saddle" collectors. Here the hands are replaced altogether by a pair
of copper straps, which Faraday sometimes insulates [1759] with rubber jackets
(Figure 6). Instead of being hand-held, the saddle collectors sit astride the fish
and are wired directly to other indicating devices [1761-66]; and thus the
investigator is placed at still greater removal from the direct electrical effect.
f
.
-~
1
....
"!
·3~
Zj.-
FIGURE 6: Disk and saddle collectors (from Diary)
�FISHER
9
In this short catalog we find an order of increasing sophistication of apparatus
(from bare hands to specialized clamps), together with a corresponding regression of the observer from the locus of action. Most of the "identity" experiments
make use of the saddle collectors; thus the investigator in the identity experiments makes only minimal ingression to the scene of action. He does not
generally place himself in direct relation with the fish's power, but rather with
apparatus that displays concomitants of that power.
The "identity" experiments propound a rhetoric of mobility. In them tile power
is conveyed away from' the fish and its habitat. It is separable and has a nature
of its own that is studied independently of the fish and in comparison to other
"electricities," similarly abstracted from their respective sources. Gymnotus's
power can be transferred through conductors to other venues, where it proceeds
to display the same phenomena of magnetic action, chemical action, shock,
spark, and so on, as do conventional electricities. Not only is this power
qualitatively identical in its effects but quantitatively too: the ratio between its
magnetic and chemical efficacies is consistent with the ratio Faraday had
established in 1833 for Voltaic electricity [1770].
It is fair, I think, to say that the "identity" experiments are more concerned
with the electricity than with the fish. Insofar as these exercises portray the fish
at all, they represent him as just another electrical source; and hence two images
sttaightaway emerge in close succession, both of which focus on the source
aspect of the animal: Gymnotus as Leyden Jar, and, alternatively, Gymnotus as
Voltaic Battery. Both these images are explored in a sequence of experiments
that establish the quantity and intensity of the animal's electrical shock.
FIGURE 7: Faraday's discharge arrangement (from Diary)
�10
TilE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
Faraday's procedure for establishing quantity amounts to a sort of practical
pun on the Leyden jar image (Figure 7). He substitutes for the fish in water two
brass balls bearing insulated wires, which latter can be connected at will to a
Leyden battery of well-documented dimensions [1770, 291]. He also includes a
length of wetted string in the circuit to lower the intensity of discharge below the
sparking point-for he has already found that Gymnotus's electrical intensity is
too low for a spark to appear, except under the most favorable conditions
[1766-67]. The Leyden battery is then given its maximum charge. When it is
subsequently discharged through the brass balls into the water a shock is felt,
"much resembling that from the fish." Faraday continues:
I think we may conclude that a single medium discharge from the fish is at
least equal to the electricity of a Leyden battery of fifteen jars, containing 3500
square inches of glass coated on both sides, charged to its highest degree.
[1770]
Judged by the quantities of electricity typically employed in electrostatic
experiments, this would be a considerable dose,20 but one also well within the
capabilities of a few moments' action by a large Voltaic battery. Quantitatively,
then, both the Leyden jar and the Voltaic battery serve equall ywell as preliminary
images for the fish qua electrical source. But it is important to appreciate that
they are images; Faraday certainly does not expect to find either capacitative or
Voltaic structures anatomically present within the animal, and there is no
question of his taking either of them as a literal explanation. For one thing, neither
image can be easily fitted to the animal's ability to deliver a series of shocks in
rapid succession [1771]. Basically, the problem is that neither image allows for
an "on-off' switch.2 1
Such a failure to articulate the animal's ability to control its action would be
fatal to a hypothesis, if that were Faraday's aim. But Faraday is pursuing an
image, not a hypothesis; and therefore in his subsequent exercises with Gymnotus he will continue to call upon laboratory devices like the Leyden jar as
metaphors.22
Earlier investigators had sought to solve the mystery of auimal electricity by
a more literal appeal to some sort of internal battery in the fish. 23 In 1775 Henry
Cavendish had constructed a model torpedo-fish out of shoe-leather. He
equipped the model with a pair of metal plates which, suitably situated, and
energized by a Leyden battery, served as the "electric organs" of his imitation
Leviathan.24 But as his drawings show (Figure 8), Cavendish strove for a measure
of verisimilitude in shape as well as material that Faraday evidently regarded as
wholly beside the point.25 Now there is no doubt that to be able to interpret the
electric fish as containing a source analogous to a Voltaic cell or Leyden jar would
be of much explanatory va1ue;26 and it might even seem to advance a more
unified view of nature by reducing two apparently different electrical sources to
�FISHER
11
~
c
F
D
G
...
N
,,
E
~~---··
B
FIGURE 8: Cavendish's "torpedo"
oneP But Faraday's conception of the unity of natural forces is more sophisticated than any merely reductive program. His view is relational, rather than
reductive: he will strive to explicate a nature whose unity lies in the interconvertibility of forces, rather than in anything so literal-minded as trying to find a
Voltaic cell, or any other laboratory device, hidden within every electric source.
The problem with images of source as such is that they focus on the agent to the
detriment of the activity; they tend to represent an "active" source in isolation
from a "passive" object. Images capable of integrating the agent and its own
power must be sought through a different kind of experiment.
We may therefore tum to the second class of Faraday's Gymnotus exercises.
The disposition experiments are carried out almost entirely either with the
unaided hands or with the hand-held disk collectors. These are mapping experiments; they employ a rhetoric of residence. In contrast to the identity experiments, the fish's power is not here conveyed to a remote observer; rather the
observers make full ingression to the scene of action and quite literally immerse
themselves in the place of habitation of the power. 28
�12
Tiffi ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
A rhetorical contrast between the identity and the disposition exercises is
thus evident: the identity of the power is established by removing it from its
place; the disposition of the power is studied by ascribing it to its place. The
contrast is not absolute, of course. On the whole, though, the experiments of the
Fifteenth Series exhibit two different aims, two different rhetorical dimensions,
and eventuate in two different kinds of image-the image of electrical source,
which we have just discussed, and the image of system, to which we now turn.29
By "system" I think Faraday means to identify not only an interdependence
of relations, but also an allied' condition of activity: something like Aristotle's
"housebuilder building," 30 which is an agent at work and in an essential relation
of doing with the surroundings. 31 This is an image which, if it does not actually
unify the doer with the deed, at least minimizes their mutual alienation.
Faraday departs in several ways from what had been customary in work with
electric fishes. He consistently treats the animal and its surroundings as essentially related, not isolated aspects of the survey. As one sign of this, not one of
his experiments calls for removal of the fish from the water [1758]. This is in
marked contrast to the traditional torpedo-fish researches, which frequently
emphasized the strength and quality of shocks delivered to a handler by a fish
held in the air?2 Certainly Faraday's refusal to do likewise was in part a reflection
of concern for the welfare of the animal [1754]; but it may also indicate that his
view of the fish-and of "agents" in general-was already one which strove for
unity in the treatment of agent and medium.33 If so, it would follow that a study
of the animal in its accustomed medium would better reveal the nature of its
characteristic action. While this principle is not exactly the same as that of the
animal ethologist, nevertheless we shall find that the fish's habitual behavior will
provide rich guidance to Faraday in the interpretation of its electrical activity.
A survey with the hands gives the most comprehensive picture of the state of
Gymnotus's body at the time of shock. A single hand placed anywhere on the
fish's body feels only a feeble disturbance during a shock, and then only in the
partofthehand that is actually in the water [1774]. Twohandsplacedatthesame
spot, or even laterally opposite each other, give the same weak result [1773].
But two hands placed axially, along the the body of the fish, transmit
considerable shock, often "extending up the arms, and even to the breast of the
experimenter." Within limits, the greater the longitudinal distance between the
hands, the greater the shock [1776]. Maximum shock is received when the fish
is grasped with one hand just behind the head and the other about six inches from
the end of the tail [1760].34
Manual survey of the water reveals a similar continuously electrified condition in the surrounding medium. One hand placed in the water, or two hands
placed together, delivers at most a sensation of tingling-Faraday calls it "the
pricking shock" [1781]-and only in the part immersed. But two hands placed
�FISHER
13
apart transmit strong shocks up the arms if their line of separation is parallel to
the fish, as 10-11 or 14-15 (see again Fignre 5); if perpendicular, however, as
12-13, then only weak sensations in the immersed portions of the hands.
When several colleagues take part together, the shock is felt simultaneously
at all locations, though with diminishing severity at increasing distances from
the center of the fish. Thus at 10-11 the shock is strong, at 14-15 less strong, at
16-17 very feeble, as also at 18-19 [1777-81]. The occnrrence of simultaneous
shocks throughout the water shows, what is probably no surprise to us, that
discharge occnrs throughout all the snrrounding medium. Amazingly, this was
still a live question for Faraday in the Diary! On October 16, 1838 Faraday had
written:
Now endeavd to ascertain whether three or four persons, each fanning a
separate circuit, could be shocked at once and without touching the fish; i.e.•
whether the discharge is in every direction through all the surrounding water
or other conducting matter. (Diary, 5017)
If, as is not the case, shock did occnr in only one part of the medium or along
only one path at a time, we should probably be led to seek in the medium some
process comparable to a spark, for it is characteristic of the spark that it tends to
establish only one path at a time between the same points [1407ff.]. What would
this amount to but invoking an image of Gymnotns as Zeus the Thunderer, who
can throw his fiery bolts to one place, and spare a neighboring place, as he sees
fit? I had myself, if you recall, casually voiced that simile at the beginning of
this talk. But the differentially electrified state of the water, clearly revealed by
the occnrrence of simultaneous shocks, completely overthrows any thunderbolt
image. It is now abundantly clear that Gymnotus does not "throw" a bolt of power
to a particular place, independently of neighboring places. Whatever the fish
does, it must energize the water as a whole.35 My Zeus-simile, therefore, was at
least as rash as Meno's Torpedo-image. But I thought it would make a sufficiently
harmless beginning provided I abandoned it at an appropriate time, which I now
do. Possibly Meno thought the same.
But if Zeus the thunderer is banished from the scene, another, even more
potent image for the fish emerges. Gymnotus is presented as an agent that
occupies space through its peculiar action:
[A]ll the water and all the conducting matter around the fish through which a
discharge circuit can in any way be completed, is filled at the moment with
circulating electric power. [1784]
The fish is here seen as the bearer of an action that fills space. Or, since
Faraday's images generally tend towards the concrete,36 this one too develops
specificity. It will become an image of Gymnotus as Magnet.
�14
TIIE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
III. The Fish as Magnet
Results from the manual survey are rough, fragmentary, and highly dependent
on the ability of individual investigators to correlate their respective impressions
of the animal's shock. Faraday emphasizes that a general pattern becomes
evident only after many repetitions of such observations [1782]. But something
more than repetition is needed to integrate those experimental "soundings" of
the fish's neighborhood into a coherent, readable pattern. Faraday relies heavily
upon the pattern of magnetic lihes offorce surrounding a bar magnet to provide
the schema for such an integration. With the aid of the magnetic pattern-the
one he will in later years name the "sphondyloid" [3271]-Faraday has no
difficulty integrating the coarse survey results into a shape that closely resembles
that distinctive figure. He gives a small sketch in the Diary (Figure 9).37
FIGURE 9: (from Diary)
�15
FISHER
In the Experimental Researches Faraday verbally notes this resemblance to
the magnet [1784] and virtually invites the reader to make a similar diagram for
himself; yet Faraday does not publish any such drawing-neither the sketch from
the Diary nor any other. I think his reluctance to present this most important
image visually in a published paper may arise just because the manual survey is
so coarse [1782]. Any sketch could only be, as the sketch in the Diary is, an
"artist's rendition"-a vehicle for the imagination, perhaps, but not a depiction
offacts. There are in fact no lines visible about the fish; Faraday is appealing to
the magnet, in which tlie lines are visible,38 in order to make visual sense of the
fish. Gymnotus is represented both in thought and in experimental practice by
the metaphorical image of Fish as Magnet. Not that Faraday thinks Gymnotus
exercises the same kind of force as the magnet does, but it imposes a comparable
geometry of action upon its surrounding neighborhood. Faraday takes as an
image for the fish, then, not a picture, but rather the magnet itself.
Though he is a powerful proponent of the imagination, I sense in Faraday a
persistent reluctance to picture its contents. 39 Pictures, it almost seems, are for
him Sacred to Fact; when imaginative constructs are to be conveyed, Faraday
employs his incomparable gift for verbal narrative instead. It is that language
that now takes on the burden of presenting a further imaginative integration of
additional aspects of the fish. The narrative vehicle Faraday chooses here is a
particularly striking one. In one brief but dramatic incident the fish begins to
develop interpretive independence from its new-found image "as Magnet."
Gymnotus had performed a maneuver which, by Faraday's account, is so
transparent and readable, the fish might almost be said to have presented its own
interpretive image.
The Coiling Incident
We have been considering the electric eel as maintaining a fixed, straight,
bodily posture. But as the fish will sometimes bend itself .from side to side,
Faraday describes the effects that such inflections of the body would be expected
to have upon the external distribution of the shock. "[1]he lines of force ... ,"
he says, "vary ... in a manner that can be anticipated theoretically" [1783]. First,
he explains, a handler who grasped both head and tail of the bent fish would feel
a reduced shock, because the shorter water path created by the mutual approach
of head and tail permits a greater portion of the force to pass through the water;
less, therefore, up the arms. But for that very reason, he continues (Figure 5),
... with respect to the parts immersed, or to animals, as fish in the water
between 1 and 7, they would be more powerfully, instead of less powerfully,
shocked. [1783-Faraday's italics]
�TilE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
16
As we soon discover, a bending, or rather coiling, maneuver by the fish was not
hypothetical but had actually taken place. I hardly know whether the following
incident attracts more interest from an electrical, or from an ethological, point
of view. Here it is; Faraday is the narrator:
This Gymnotus can stun and kill fish which are in very various positions
to its own body; but on one day when I saw it eat, its action seemed to me
peculiar. Alive fish about five inches in length, caught not half aminute before,
was dropped into the tub. The Gymnotus instantly turned round in such
manner as to form a coil inclosing the fish, the latter representing a diameter
across it; a shock passed, and there in an instant was the fish struck motionless,
as if by lightuing, in the midst of the waters, its side floating to the light The
Gymnotus made a tum or two to look for its prey, which having found he
bolted, and then went searching about for more. A second smaller fish was
given him, which being hurt in the conveyance, showed but little signs oflife,
and this he swallowed at once, apparently without shocking it The coiling of
the Gymnotus round its prey had, in this case, every appearance of being
intentional on its part, to increase the force of the shock, and the action is
evidently exceedingly well suited for that purpose, being in full accoodance
with the well-known laws of the discharge of currents in masses of conducting
matter; and though the fish may not always put this artifice in practice, it is
very probable he is aware of its advantage, and may resort to it in cases of.
need. [1785]
For this incident, too, Faraday had made a sketch for himself in the Diary that
does not appear in the published paper. I give it here in two forms. Fignre lOb is
Faraday's original sketch. In Fignre lOc I have filled in the path of concentration
of force, at least as implied by its deadly effect on the prey.40 There is probably
no particular efficacy in delivering the shock through lines of force that run, as
they do here, transversely to the length of the prey; but it is true that, in this
position, the prey is intersected by the rnaximmn nmnber of lines.41
~
©~
(b)
(c)
(pj
(jJ
?"
?" =---
(a)
FIGURE 10: The coiling incident (from Diary). (a) hunting; (b) coiling;
(c) showing implied pattern of the lines of force (see text)
�FISHER
17
An important stylistic feature of Faraday's account of the coiling incident is
his effort to convey what is evidently for him the preeminent readability of the
fish's behavior.42 The theme of concentration of the ambient power is evidenced
by the unusually sudden and intense convulsion delivered to the prey-emphatically conveyed in Faraday's phraseology: "in an instant ... struck motionless,
as if by lightning ... ."Electrical readability in this episode derives also from
the volitional readability of the coiling gesture. Since Gymnotus's shock is
generally for the sake of killing his prey, a gesture that enhances his habitnal
hunting behavior implies also an enhancement of lethal power-hence a concentration of force onto the prey. That the animal must bend its own body in order
to effect an apparent focusing of its external power suggests, if it does not actually
imply, a definite though flexible structure in the external action,43 itself a kind
of body or extension of body; a body, moreover, whose substance is not matter
but force. Once again we have occasion to reject the image of Zeus and his
thunderbolt: Gymnotus's shock is to be viewed not as a separable armament, but
as a functional extension of the body. It is not a weapon wielded, but a limb
employed.
The twin anatomical principles of this new body are contiguity and coherence.
In contrast to the specialized organs, ligaments, and conduits of a physiological
body, in this new Body Electric action is everywhere. It is voluminous and fills
space, yet is not contained either by a membrane or a vessel. It is shaped, but not
by a container-rather by its own relations of equilibrium. It is, in 1838, an
admittedly enthusiastic and somewhat fantastic metaphor; yet by 1852 Faraday
will be speaking essentially the same language-honed, disciplined, and enriched by a series of brilliant magnetic researches-about the lines of magnetic
force, that most profound, pervasive, and fertile of all his images.
The element of animal readability appears also in another fish story that we
find only in the Diary. Faraday does not rehearse that anecdote in so striking a
fashion, but the episode is visually almost as suggestive as the coiling incident:
A live gudgeon was put into the water [with Gymnotus]. Perhaps he was
shocked now and then, but he was not killed and eaten. Indeed he must have
had shocks frequently while we were at work.
At last he took up his position, very frequently, with his nose close to and
opposite the nose of the Gymnotus and remained there. Now this is a place of
no discharge, and probably the fish found that out; but at the sarue time, it is
the place of feeding for the Gymnotus if he had been hungry, and it would
appear that this may be a natural provision to drive his prey towards his head
and mouth. (Diary 5052-53)
Although the coiling episode is by far the more dramatic, I would say that
both vignettes point in the direction of a developing "self-interpretive" animal
character. Purposiveness was paramount in the interpretation of the coiling
�18
THE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
episode. In the Diary incident, too, an element of voluntarism plays an interpretive role. The small gudgeon appears by its choice of swimming position to
indicate an electrical null point in the region about Gymnotus. This is not new
information, even supposing that Faraday has rightly interpreted the smaller
fish's action; for he has already gathered (through the manual survey) that the
region of the mouth is "a place of no discharge." Nevertheless the smaller fish
provides confirmation of that condition spontaneously, almost "at a glance,"
while the survey pattern had \O be pieced together from individual observers'
reports. Thus the incident spells another advance in representational integration.
IV. The Magnet as Fish
The course of development of Faraday's interpretive images is always a
dialectical one, laced with tension and reversals. In the case of Gymnotos he
began with tentative representations first as Voltaic cell, then as Bar-magnet.
These images were, it seems, necessary first stages in the attempt to visualize
Gymnotus's peculiar activity. Yet they were no sooner invoked than revised, and
fmally surpassed.
The increasing interpretive independence of animal electrical action, gained
largely through the interpretive role of such volitional actions as Gynmotus's
"coiling," comes to a brief but instructive culmination some fourteen years later
in which the fish not only frees itself from the magnet-metaphor but actually
inverts it. In June 1852, Faraday will bring forth his most profound and comprehensive interpretation of magnetic power in the great essay, "On the Physical
Character of the Lines of Magnetic Force.'>14 There he will argue that the lines
of magnetic force are not merely representative symbols but real structures
physically present in all the materials through which they mn, structores present
even in so-called "empty space." But when Faraday expounds the magnet under
this view he uses, besides the Voltaic battery, also the electric fish as one of his
explanatory images, thereby placing the fish prior in explanatory order to the
magnet!:
The magnet, with its surrounding sphondyloid of power, may be considered
as analogous in its condition to a Voltaic battery immersed in water or any
other electrolyte; or to a gynmotus or torpedo, at the moment when these
creatures, at their own will, fill the surrounding fluid with lines of electric
force. [3276]
In 1838 the image was Fish as Magnet; in 1852 the image is Magnet as Fish.
How did the electric fish, which formerly had been interpreted by the magnet,
come to be the interpreter of the magnet?
�FISHER
19
When Faraday introduces this reversal of images in the 1852 essay, his
immediate topic is the external geomelfY of the magnet's power. But beyond that,
Faraday is concerned to convey his sense that the exterior action of the magnet
represents an integrally shaped, and quantitatively defmite, physical structure.
It is in this service that the electric fish is called to the scene. 1iue, Faraday had
revealed the definite quantity of magnetic action during the previous year
through the phenomena of the Moving Wire [3109]; but it was the early studies
of the Voltaic cell, and e;;pecially the Gymnotus mapping exercises of 1838, that
had given the first intimations of a power that fills up its medium, and whose
exterior action bears an essential relation to the interior condition of the agent.
In order to convey his vision of the magnetic lines of force in 1852, Faraday
describes typical methods for making visible the lines of electric force45 about
an immersed voltaic battery [3276]. These procedures are virtual recapitulations
of the 1838 Gymnotus exercises! For example, he describes how the Iiues of
electric force may be probed with the galvanometer; for if its leads are dipped
into the conducting fluid the instrument will show deflection when the line
joining its collector ends is parallel or oblique to the lines of electric force, but
shows no deflection when at right angles to those Iiues. This exercise rehearses
the earlier Gymnotus mapping, both with hands and with the disk collectors
[1775-81]. He describes also an electrochemical direction-indicator for lines of
force, which recalls the role of electro-decomposition in establishing the direction of Gymnotus's discharge46 [1763]. Each of these exercises draws on earlier
imagery from the Gymnotus mapping experiments to articulate the physical
occupation, by means of external action, of the medium surrounding an agent.
Another element in the 1852 reversal of images is Faraday's appreciation of
shape and proportion in magnetic systems. Variations in form of the magnet, it
is clear, correspond to the coiling configurations of Gymnotus. Faraday will
devote five full pages"7 of the 1852 essay to a lovingly detailed exposition of the
changes in external disposition of magnetic power that result when a bar magnet
is bent, stretched, or squeezed out of its original proportions. All the diflerently
shaped "atmospheres" of magnetic lines of force shown here (Figure 11 )48 are
in that essay revealed as derivatives and variants of the standard "sphondyloid"
shape.
Recognition of the generic topology of magnets depends heavily on the study
and interpretation of magnets fabricated in a variety of shapes, and upon the study
of changing conditions in the surrounding medium (such as the approach and
attachment of"keepers" or other susceptible bodies).49 From the mutual relations
thus revealed between the magnet's shape and the external disposition ofits force
arises Faraday's magnificent vision of the essential equality and necessary
connection between the "inner" and "outer" action of a magnet:
�20
THE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
FIGURE 11: (from ERE) Magnets of various shapes.
�FISHER
21
The physical lines of force, in passing out of the magnet into space, present a
great variety of conditions as to fonn ... [T]he form of the magnet as the
source of the lines has much to do with the result; but I think the surrounding
medium has an essential and evident influence ... [3275]
But the Gymnotus had bent and "distorted" itself in the course of its habitual
movements fourteen years earlier, and in its natural predatory activity it presented itself in multifarious electrical relations to other animals in the surrounding medium. Gymnotu~'s habitual behavior thus had occasioned the direct
display of much the same topology for the animal that artifice and more
ingressive experimentation later make evident for the magnet. The animal's
habitual action was at the same time a heuristic, self-interpretive action. In the
1852 essay Faraday reflects:
When, therefore, a magnet, in place of being a bar, is made into a horseshoe
form, we see at once that the lines of force and the sphondyloids are greatly
distorted or removed from their former regularity; that a line of maximwn
force from pole to pole grows up as the horseshoe form is more completely
given; that the power gathers in, or accumulates about this line, just because
the badly conducting medium, i.e. the space or air between the poles, is
shortened A bent voltaic battery in its surrounding medium, or a gynmotus
curved at the moment of its peculiar action, present exactly the like results.
[3282]
The efficacious relation between shape of external action and shape of the
body proper can be read more surely in the magnet, thanks to Gymnotus's having
already called that vision forth for itself fourteen years before.
In another area too the electric fish achieves a degree of interpretive
self-evidence that will render it, for a time, prior in explanatory order to the
magnet. In his 1838 report Faraday is much impressed by the relation offitness
that he finds between Gymnotus's electrical characteristics and the conductivity
of its freshwater medium [1786-87]. As we saw when considering the identity
experiments, when compared to electrostatic laboratory devices designed for use
in air the quantity of the Gymnotus discharge is relatively high and the intensity
low. Such animal electric apparatus is well suited to electrify fresh water, a
moderately good conducting medium. The organs are useless in air, since they
cannot develop sufficient intensity to throw air into a conductive state. If the
animal is nonetheless induced to discharge in air, as Faraday will have gathered
from Cavendish's researches50 as well as from electrical theory, the electricity
passes either to a restraining handler, or over the animal's own body surface. It
is not clear whether Faraday knew, or suspected, that the Torpedo, whose
saltwater medium is an even better conductor than fresh water, has lower
intensity and higher quantity of shock than Gymnotus.51 But he certainly seems
to have grasped a consistent relation between the medium and the inherent
�22
TilE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
character of the electric power. I can best express that relation by constructing
the following table:
Plate Machine
Gymnotus
Torpedo
(single tum)
Quantity of discharge
low
high
very high5 2
Intensity of discharge
high
low
very low
Conductivity of medium
poor
(air)
good 53
very good
(saltwater)
(freshwater)
Comparing Plate Machine, Gymnotus, and Torpedo
To Faraday, for whom such fitting relations between creatures and their
habitats signify God's wisdom [1786], a connection between the physiology that
generates animal electricity and the conducting ability of the medium through
which it is discharged cannot be accidental; an image of the electric animal as
agent must then be integral with the image of the animal's exterior powers.
Faraday could not hope to achieve a fully integrated vision of Gymnotos's
internal and external action in 1838,54 but the animal did at least define no less
than such a view as the goal. Thus the criterion of an integrated vision of agent
and act, even though not yet realized, is already available and familiar when, in
1852 and earlier, Faraday finds himself reflecting on the significance of the
closed lines of magnetic force and on other circumstances that incline him to
consider"this outer medium as essential to the magnet" [3277; Faraday's italics],
and that "the space or medium external to the magnet is as important to its
existence as the body of the magnet itself'' [3284].
The 1852 reversal of explanatory order thus stands as a confirmation, albeit
a retrospective one, of some of the intimations of intelligibility and readability
in animal powers that Faraday is responding to in his 1838 Gymnotus report. The
promise held out by animal powers cannot claim finality, for the earlier image
of Gymnotus falls far short of the later vision of the magnet in comprehensiveness and depth. The magnet especially benefits from a view of its interior
that is made possible through the action of the Moving Wire, while no comparable interior view can be secured for the electric fish. Nevertheless Gymnotus
may be credited with presenting a more accessible starting point for the ultimate
vision than the magnet itself could provide. Its "promise" might best be described, therefore, as inviting or even instructional. Gymnotus's contribution to
the elucidation of the magnet does not consist of data, perhaps not even of
concepts. It provides rather a concrete object which both invites and serves as
the practice ground for a kind of thinking that will ultimately be demanded by
the magnet. The Gymnotus in his tub becomes a school for interpretation. Or if
not a school in its own right, Gymnotus surely qualifies through its naturally
heuristic activities as a constituent tutorial within-to use Faraday's own phrase
�23
FISHER
of 185!-5Z-"nature's schoo1."55 The brief image reversal in 1852looks back
over a long period of schooling for the image of the magnet.
V. "The very flrst that I would make"
I said earlier that in 1838 the Electric Eel appeared to Faraday to exhibit the
agent-power relation in a way that held promise for solving the riddle of the
"on-Dff' mechanism, tlie activation and cessation of power. That question is no
less than the problem of will in animals, and the problem of fore;• in agents
generally. And though I do not think Faraday can claim very much progress on
the question, he does have one thing to say about it, a rather strange and
fascinating thing. Whatever it means to exercise a power, Faraday will conclude,
such exercise must represent a conversion offorce.
Faraday was always reluctant to accept mere correlation as the content of any
law of nature; rather, a causal content was to be sought.57 For example, the
relation between the current induced in a moving wire, and the number of lines
of force cut by the wire, was for him not just a law of constant ratio but an instance
of conversion offorces; in 1852 he would characterize that current as "the full
equivalent" of the force that is exerted in the place through which the wire had
moved [3270]. And in 1857 he would criticize the gravitational inverse-square
law, not for inaccuracy of the ratio but for the incoherence, as he thought, of a
law that merely correlates change in force with change in distance--it ought
rather to couple the change in gravitational force with some equivalent and
opposite alteration. The "changing" gravitational action would then be seen as
either a transfori1Ultion of force or a displacement of force from one arena to
another.
These examples are from the 1850s; but even prior to the Gymnotus
researches Faraday had opposed theories in several areas at least partly on the
grounds of a similar incoherence. Since 1834 he had repeatedly objected to the
theory of the so-called "contact force" in the Voltaic cell-and he would in
January 1840 deliver almost the fatal blow to it.58 The contact force theory held
that whenever dissimilar materials came into contact their junction became the
seat of an electromotive force; this in torn gave rise to an electric current, which
would continue so long as the contact was maintained. The problem with contact
theory was that it took the fact of juxtaposition for the cause of the power.59 As
Faraday would later characterize it,
It is assumed by the theory that where two dissimilar metals (or rather bodies)
touch, the dissimilar particles act on each other, and induce opposite states. I
do not deny this ... But the contact theory assumes that these particles, which
have thus by their mutual action acquired opposite electrical states, can
�24
THE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
discharge these states to one another, and yet remain in the state they were
frrst in, being in every point unchanged by what has previously taken place. 60
One can almost hear Faraday's indignation as he recounts this crucial and
offending credo of the contact theory-that an agent can exercise a power, yet
be itself unaltered by that exercise! In expressing the objection Faraday does not
anticipate a principle of conservation of energy. 61 To be sure, the contact force
theory does violate conservation of energy; and the recognition, both of that fact
and of the conservation principle itself, would eventually put an end to the
contact force as a viable theory. But Faraday's principle here is nota quantitative
but a formal one: an entity that undergoes no change itself is incompetent to have
an action ascribed to it Such an entity may be, as Faraday says, a partial but not
a full cause.62 A truly causal theory disdains mere correlation of entities; instead,
it shows that cause and effect are equivalent; 63 and it is obvious that an absence.
of change cannot be equivalent to a deed.
A model for the kind of theory Faraday does recognize as causally competent-in contrast to deficient theories like that of the "contactforce"-is seen in
his own treatment of the Voltaic cell, which he had advanced in the Eighth Series
(April1834). Here was a comprehensive chemical theory, built on the principle
that each quantity of electric action of the Voltaic cell represents the displacement
and transformation of an equivalent chemical action within the cell [919].
What Faraday's theory dictated for the Voltaic cell will become his paradigm
for all action. To "exercise a power" will come to mean, primarily, to convert or
transform a power.64 And if to exercise a power means the conversion or
transformation of something actual, rather than the actualization of something
potential, then the power so exercised is not specifically the agent's but nature's;
and the agent is only, as it were, the locus of the conversion. 65 Such Aristotelian
language is of course not Faraday's, and at the time of the Gymnotus researches
such a view is as yet by no means a paradigm with him. But the vision does at
least allow him to appreciate that the agent-power relation probably involves a
condition of equivalence; and that in turn shonld help explain why Faraday finds
the volitional activity of animals so promising: the "on-off" cycles of animal
electrical action provide an opportunity for studying conversion that inorganic
forces, which are always "on," do not permit. Admittedly, that opportunity is in
1838 quite an abstract one; but it is based on a very influential principle. In the
realm of nature, at least, we are all inclined to think that conting-to-be from
something is more knowable than always-having-been.66
Approaching volitional electrical action as a phenomenon of conversion at
least points us beyond the "on-off switch" image, which as we saw earlier is just
not conformable to animal physiology. Instead of a switch that "blocks the way,"
like a door or a drawbridge, Faraday will seek a process when he looks for an
on-off device.67 And, as ever with Faraday, he conceives the search as a matter
�FISHER
25
for experiment At the very end of the Gymnotus report he proposes a series of
experiments whose immediate aim will be to study the conversion relations·
between "nervous force" and electric force, but whose overall purpose is to make
a further step towards illuminating the agent-power relation.
The electric organs' anatomy, their susceptibility to fatigue, and especially
the constant direction68 of the current they produce-all, Faraday says,
... induce me to beJieve, that it is not impossible but that, on passing
electricity per force through the organ, a reaction back upon the nervous
system belonging to it might take place, and that a restoration, to a greater or
a smaller degree, of that which the animal expends in the act of exciting a
current, might perhaps be effected. [1790]
Faraday has in mind no less an attempt than to recharge the fish! He readily
admits that such a proposal may seem a very wild idea [1791]. It is wild, to be
sure; but perhaps not wildly wild. As Faraday noted earlier, the electric organs
are not vilal organs like brain and heart; they are rather like fin and foot Their
office is not essential to the very being of the animal. The experiments Faraday
proposes might be delicate and difficult-but in attempting them he would not,
at least, be mucking about with life. That force, it seems, Faraday does regard as
surpassing our experimenlal art He says:
that exertion [ofnervous power] which is conveyed along nerves to the various
organs which they excite into action, is not the direct principle of life; and
therefore I see no natural reason why we shouldnot be allowed in certain cases
to determine as well as to observe its course. [1791; Faraday's italics]
I note that in the Diary Faraday is uncertain whether there may be an opposite
current within the fish, to correspond with the current externally (Diary, 4956).
In the published report, however, he insists that there must be some internal
process, equivalent and opposite ("from the tail to the head") to the external
current [1772].69 Faraday's allusion to an opposite internal process seems to have
fostered a myth which continues to be propagated by commentators since
Maxwell. There is a widespread impression that Faraday's idea is to send a
reverse current through the electric organ and restore the nervous energy of a
fatigued animal in the same way as we recharge our automobile batteries.70 True,
a storage battery is recharged by passing through it a current in the reverse
direction to that which the active battery provides. It is what used to be called a
secondary device, since to be activated at all a cbarging current had originally
to be supplied to it from some primary source, as a well pump supplies a water
tank. Hence the name, "storage" battery; and for us the popular, automotivelyderived metaphors of "recharging one's batteries" and "reftlling one's tank"
convey just about the same image of ftlling up an empty container.71
�26
THE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
But there were no storage batteries in 1838. Faraday's Voltaic batteries were
primary devices. "Recharging" them meant dumping out the used electrolyte and
replacing it with fresh. Faraday would have been familiar with varieties of a
rudimentary secondary cell, principally Ritter's.72 But that cell had so little
storage capacity it is hard to believe it could have served as a leading metaphor
in the kind of restorative experiment Faraday is contemplating.73 In any case,
Faraday's own words just do not seem to describe a reverse current; or they are
at least ambiguous enough to fllake the question of direction debatable.
In the Gymnotus paper there are three passages touching on the direction of
Faraday's proposed fish-recharging current; there are none in the Diary. I have
already cited the first passage, at [1790]:
... on passing electricity per force through the organ, a reaction back upon
the nervous system belonging to it might take place ....
Must "per force" necessarily mean "backwards?" I see no reason to think so. The
remaining two passages are at [1792-93]:
If a Gymnotus or Torpedo has been fatigued by frequent exertion of the electric
organs, would the sending of currents of similar force to those he emits, ... ,
in the same direction as those he sends forth, restore him his powers and
strength more rapidly than if he were left to his natural repose?
Would sending currents through in the contrary direction exhaust the animal
rapidly?
I do not see how this wording can be taken otherwise than to suggest that Faraday
expects a current in the usual direction through the organ ("in the same direction
as those he sends forth"), not a reverse current, to have a restorative effect on the
animal.
If then, as I think, Faraday clearly proposes aforward current for rejuvenation,
he cannot be viewing either Gymnotus or the restorative process under the image
of a Voltaic battery. Forward current through a Voltaic cell would not only fail
to recharge it but would exhaust the cell even more quickly. But an application
of force in the "forward" direction is exactly how we do restore a degraded
bar-magnet! A weakened magnet can be returned to strength by placing it
"
FIGURE 12: "Charging" a magnet
�FISHER
27
between the poles of a strong magnet in its normal direction-that is, the
direction in which the magnetic lines it sends forth shall consist with the lines of
force imposed by the strong magnet (Figure 12).
As I described earlier, the image of Fish-as-Voltaic-cell was explored in the
identity experiments, while the image of Fish-as-Magnet had emerged tbrough
the disposition experiments on Gymnotus. Now Faraday seems to be following
the magnet-image, abandoning the metaphorical Voltaic cell, as he contemplates
the proposed restorative experiments. Yet if so, what reason is there to favor the
one over the other? Externally, after all, they are identical; both the magnet and
the Voltaic cell imply the same geometry of lines of force in the surrounding
medium. And if, as we admitted, it is difficult to conceive how the Voltaic cell
could be "turned on and off," there is no less of the same difficulty with the
magnet.
But as sources ofpower the two images show a radical difference- The Voltaic
cell must eventually become exhausted and fail. Even a rechargeable secondary
cell acts by gradually consuming a fixed quantity of chemical action. Is that not
the lesson of Faraday's celebrated law of electro-chemical proportion?74 The
chemical battery is 1/Wrtal. A magnet, by contrast, does not languish in any
comparable sense. Magnets can be damaged, destroyed-as Aristotle would say,
tbrough bia, violence. But how different this is from the Voltaic cell, whose
activity and 11Wrtality are realized together! In the magnet we find no reservoir
to be exhausted, no life's course to be run.75
Might Faraday have seen in the magnet a disposition of power more nearly
approaching to an image of life? Might the proposed direction-protocol in the
restoration experiments reflect a conviction, or even a suspicion, that living.
power cannot be imaged according to a logic of finitude and rationing? Still, if
Faraday ever did entertain such leanings, there are ample indications that he also
resisted them, especially as a younger man.'6 Nor was the magnet's mode of
exerting its power a problem Faraday would ever sufficiently clarify to his own
satisfaction.77 The whole picture of Faraday's view of living pliwers remains far
from clear; so I must be content to offer the suggestion as my own "wild idea"
in homage to Faraday's earlier one [1791). Yet there is another indication that
disposes me to take it seriously. Faraday's closing words in the Fifteenth Series
characterize his proposed restorative experiments this way:
Such are some of the experiments which the confonnation and relation of the
electric organs of these fishes suggest, as being rational in their performance.
and promising in anticipatioiL Others may not think of them as I do; but I can
only say for myself, that were the means in my power, they are the very first
that I would make. [1795)
The very first experiments that he would make-this from one of the most
celebrated experimentalists of the day! That is extraordinarily urgent language,
�TilE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
28
it seems to me. The urgency may, for all I know, arise for Faraday from strictly
mundane considerations and may not reflect a particularly intense interest in
living powers at all. Nevertheless, a topic more deserving of Faraday's pressing
attention than mortality in nature. I cannot imagine.
***
APPENDIX: QUANTITY OF GYMNOTUS'S DISCHARGE
The Leyden battery to which Faraday compares the fish's discharge comprises 15 jars, 3500 square inches of glass, coated on both sides, "charged to the
highest degree" [1700, 291]. Forty turns of Faraday's large plate electrical
machine will "fufly charge" 8 of the jars [363]. Therefore it should take about
75 turns to charge the 15 jars fully.
As indicated by a ballistic galvanometer deflection of 5.5 divisions (22\ a
voltaic arrangement of Zn-Pt wires held in acid for 8 beats of his watch (a little
over 3 seconds) produces the same quantity of electricity as 30 turns of the
electrical machine [363, 364, 370].
But he finds it would take some 800,000 times this quantity to decompose 1
grain of water [861]. Since, in modern units, 96,500 coulombs will decompose
9 grams of water, therefore 695 coulombs will decompose .0648 gram (= 1 grain)
of water. So 30 turns of the plate machine produce 695/800,000 or .00086
coulomb. Hence the 75 turns that fully charge Faraday's Leyden battery represent
about .00218 coulomb.
WORKS CITED
Agassi,Joseph(197!):FaradayasaNaturalPhilosopher, Chicago and London.
Bence Jones, H. (1870): The Life and Letters of Faraday, 2 vols., London and
Philadelphia. Cited as L&L.
Cantor, Geoffrey N. (1985): "Reading theBookofNatore," in Gooding and James
(1985), 69-81.
Cavendish, Han. Henry (1776): "An Account of some Attempts to Imitate the
Effects of the Torpedo by Electricity," Phil. Trans., 66 (1776), 196-225, and
Maxwell (1879), 194-215. Reference is made to the Maxwell edition.
Davy, Sir Humphrey (1828): "An account of some experiments on the Torpedo,"
Phil. Trans., (1829), 15-18.
Davy, John (1832): "An Account of some Experiments and Observations on the
Torpedo," Phil. Trans., (1832), pp.259-78.
_ _ (1834): "Observations on the Torpedo, with an account of some additional
Experiments on its Electricity," Phil. Trans., (1834), pp. 531-50.
�FISHER
Faraday, Michael (1839-55): Experimental Researches in Electricity, 3 vols.,
London. Cited as ERE followed by paragraph number (in square brackets) or
volume and page number.
(1852a): "On the Physical Character of the Lines of Magnetic Force,"
Phil. Mag., June, 1852, and ERE ill, 407-37.
- - : - - (1852b): "On the Physical Lines of Magnetic Force," Proc. Roy. Inst.,
June 11, 1852 and ERE III, 438-43.
--~ (1854): "On Mental Education," lecture given at the Royal Institution
on 6 May 1854; in Lectures on Education, Parker and Son, 1855 and ERCP,
463-91. Reference is made to the ERCPreprint.
---=-=(1857): "On the Conservation of Force," Proc. Roy.lnst., February 27,
1857, 352 and ERCP, 443-63. Reference is made to the ERCP reprint.
--:;-~ (1858): "On Wheatstone's Electric Telegraph's relation to Science
(being an argument in favour of the full recogrtition of Science as a branch of
Education)," Proceedings of the Royal Institution, 2 (1854-58): 555.
--::;-,---; (1859): Experimental Researches in Chemistry and Physics, London.
Cited as ERCP followed by page number.
--:;-__.,.(1932-36): Faraday's Diary, being the various philosophical notes... ,
7 volumes and index, London. Cited as Diary followed by paragraph number.
Fisher, Howard(1979): "The Great Electrical Philosopher," The College, 31 (July
1979), 1-16.
Gill, T. H. (1864): "Second Contribution to the Selachology of California,"
Proceedings. Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, 1864 (May),
147-51.
Gooding, David (1980): ''Metaphysics vs. Measurement: the Conversion arid
Conservation of Force in Faraday's Physics," Annals of Science, 37 (1980),
1-29.
--=-(1982): "Empiricism in Practice: Teleology, Economy, and Observation
in Faraday's Physics," Isis, 73 (1982), 266,46-67.
-::---::-_(1985): "In Nature's School," in Gooding and James (1985), 105-35.
Gooding, David and James, Frank A.J.L., eds., (1985): Faraday Rediscovered,
Macmillan, 1985 and American Institute of Physics, 1989.
Gray, Sir James (1968): Animal Locomotion, Norton.
Grundfest, Harry (1960): "Electric Fishes," Scientific American 203 (October
1960), 115-24.
Grzimek, B., ed. (1974): Grzimek's Animal Life Encyclopedia, New York, Van
Nostrand.
Heilbron, J. L. (1982): Elements of Early Modem Physics, Berkeley.
Levere, T. H. (1971): Affinity and Matter: Elements of Chemical Philosophy
!800-1865, Oxford.
Maxwell, James Clerk, ed. (1879): The Electrical Researches of the Honourable
Henry Cavendish, Cambridge, 1879 and London, 1967.
Simpson, Thomas K. (1970): ''Faraday's Thought on Electromagnetism," The
College, 22 (July 1970), 6-16.
Williams, L. Pearce (1965): Michael Faraday, A Biography, London.
--=-=-
29
�30
TilE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
Notes:
1. Meno 80a.
2. Meno SOc. The play on he narke and narkan corresponds to "torpedo" and
"torpid," which are similarly related. Compare Faraday's literal use of the
verb "astonish" in connection with the electric eel's shock in ERE [1788]:
"he [the electric eel] has quickly shown his power and his willingness to
astonish the experimenter."
3. Self-susceptibility is a mark of natural activity in Aristotle's comparable
image for nature in Physib II.8 (199b30): "a doctor doctoring himself."
4. Gymnotus, from gymno- + notos: "naked back"-it has no dorsal or ventral
fins. The term "electric eel" is a misnomer, as the animal is not, taxonomically, an eel (Anguilla). What is more, the animal formerly called Gymnotus
has since been renamed Electrophorus in accordance with a proposal by
T. H. Gill (1864). Although G. electricus was still being promulgated in the
1904 edition of The Cambridge Natural History, vol. 7 (copyright 1895),
the term Gymnotus no longer refers to Faraday's animal, but refers to a
weakly-electric member of the gymnotoidae (Grzimek 1974). I will follow
Faraday's taxonomy. (My thanks to Dr. Stanley H. Weitzman of the
Smithsonian Institution for the reference to Gill.)
5. Phil. Trans., November 1838; ERE, Fifteenth Series. Here, as elsewhere,
Faraday uses the word "force" in a sense much broader than the strictly
mechanical one. In an 1858 addendum to his "On the Conservation of
Force," he will explain: "What I mean by the word 'force,' is the cause of
a physical action; the source or sources of all possible changes amongst the
particles or materials of the universe" (ERCP, p. 460; Faraday's italics). I
shall follow that same usage in this talk.
6. All references in square brackets are to paragraph numbers in Faraday
(1839-55), cited as ERE.
7. ERE, Third Series, January, 1833. But Faraday's connection with animal
electricity in this project was limited to reviewing the researches of others.
The Diary also records exercises with frogs and fish in 1831 and 1832; but
in these the animal is the detector, not the source, of electric action.
8. Davy (1828). An account is given in Williams (1965), p. 37.
9. A comparison with Don Quixote is not idle. Not only do the two books make
comparable demands on the reader, but Faraday and the Quixote character
can be compared in interesting ways. If one views Don Quixote as having
a quest-say, to right the world's wrongs-Faraday also has an aim: to bring
to light the powers of nature (Simpson 1970). But I think it would be truer
to say that Quixote has chosen a life rather than a quest; and Faraday, too,
I think of as a man who has chosen a certain life's activity because it is a
worthy life, and not primarily for the sake of solving a certain problem or
achieving a set goal.
10. In a Diary note of December 19, 1833, Faraday notes that the Torpedo is
insensitive to its own electricity, though susceptible to current from a Voltaic
�FISHER
11.
12.
13.
14.
31
battery. But he thinks he could devise an arrangement by which the
Torpedo's shock would be directed back to itself! (Diary, 1200).
The fish is 40 inches long, the tub is 46 inches in diameter and is filled with
water to a depth of 3.5 inches-the minimum depth that will permit the
Gymnotus to keep itself entirely submerged [1755, 1773].
For a character who can take delight only in things exotic, consider the vapid
triumphalism of Hamlet as he exults in the things undreamt of in Horatio's
philosophy. Man delights not him, nor woman neither; and the natural world
is but a depressing, unweeded garden. Yet how high-spirited and full of
banter he is in the presence of the Ghost! (l.v, II.ii, I.ii)
Compare Faraday (1858): "The beauty of electricity, or of any other force,
is not that the power is mysterious and unexpected, ... but that it is under
law, and that the taught intellect can even now govern it largely. The human
mind is placed above, not beneath it ..." Cited in Williams (1965), p. 341.
Seeing is something that has to be learned. Compare Faraday (1854): "the
mind has to be instructed with regard to the senses and their intimations
through every step of life" (p. 466); and: "we frequently have to ask what
is the fact?-often fail in distinguishing it,-often fail in the very statement
of it,-and mostly overpass or come short of its true recognition" (p. 469).
15. Faraday's emphasis on the visual as the paradigm for understanding is well
known. But an unusually explicit identification of experiment as corrective
to vision is revealed in his prescription that "all cases [of the subject under
investigation] should pass in review, and be touched, if needful, by the
lthuriel spear of experiment." Faraday (1854). It is in Milton's Paradise
Lost (IV.810-19) that the disguised Satan is revealed in his true shape by a
touch of the angel Ithuriel's spear.
16. "Tegument" = integument: covering, sheath, hide, husk. Even Dr. John
Davy, who emphasized histological dissimilarities between electric organs
and muscular organs, thought it likely that the electric organs were functionally integrated with contiguous muscle sheathes, generating electricity
when compressed by the latter. Davy (1832), esp. pp. 269 and 276.
17. We seldom think to take this perspective, though it expresses the soundest
physics. Gray (1968) does so explicitly in his engaging statement of
Newton's Laws of Motion in biological terms. For example, the First Law:
"If an animal is to move its body by its own unaided efforts, it must elicit
a force from its external environment ..."
18. For example, the ingenious method used to obtain the spark [1766]-a
forerunner of the automotive "viQrator" spark coil. (Subsequently Faraday
obtained the spark directly.)
19. Faraday's need to make siroultaneous multiple observations dictated his
recruitment of additional participants. The Diary's lists of colleagues present on various days include such names as Cowper, Daniell, Gassiot,
Wheatstone, and Young.
20. It is the charge delivered by 75 turns of Faraday's large plate electric
machine, or about 2 millicoulombs (see Appendix). Less than half this
amount-that is, the charge of only 30 turns-is the quantity Faraday refers
to in the Seventh Series as "sufficient if passed at once through the head of
�32
TIIE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
a rat or cat to have killed it" [860]; and again, more "than any man would
willingly allow to pass through his body at once" [873].
21. In the Diary (4968) Faraday emphasizes the "important fact" presented by
this series pattern. The Leyden jar image has an additional difficulty, for
the discharge time of a Leyden jar into a good conductor is extremely short;
having discharged once it could not reasonably be expected to discharge
again without some restorative process. Whatever that process might be, it
is utterly unexplained by !he metaphor of the Leyden jar itself. The Voltaic
battery is capable of delivering great quantities of charge over long periods,
but for it, too, there is sfill no obvious "on-off switch." Fifty years later
Maxwell, who delighted in taking such metaphors literally (never forgetting, however, that they were metaphors), would suggest "a Voltaic battery,
the metals of which are lifted out of the cells containing the electrolyte, but
are ready to be dipped into !hem." Maxwell (1879), p. 436. Note the element
of bodily motion ("ready to be dipped") in Maxwell's image.
22. Compare Agassi (1971), p. 307: "There is little doubt ..• !hat in some sense
Faraday used laboratory tools such as condensers and magnets as symbols
in his thinking.''
23. In a letter to Benjamin Franklin, also communicated to !he Royal Society
on July 1, 1773, John Walsh had apostrophized !he Torpedo as an animate
Leyden jar ("animate phial"). Another comparison, this one non-electrical,
was to a rack of musketry! Quoted in Maxwell (1879), p. xxxv.
24. Cavendish (1776). To call Cavendish's procedure "literal" is not to deprecate it. For him such literal mimicry had the wholly appropriate purpose of
advancing as a hypothesis that the Torpedo's power was electrical-an idea
then widely viewed as impossible. See Heilbron (1982), p. 233 and Maxwell
(1879), p. xxxvii. Maxwell also implies !hat the fastidious style of lhese
demonstrations reflected more the limitations of some among the audience
!han !he quality of Cavendish's own lhought.
25. In order for Cavendish to argue from same effect (quality and magnitude of
shock) to same cause (electricity), he had to insure that all other factors,
including the form and material of the replicated body, were as invariant as
possible. But Faraday, having already established !he identity of animal
electricity and Voltaic electricity, could regard most of Cavendish's imitative details as inessential.
26. Faraday himself had been quick to notice indications of a Voltaic analogy
in 1833; in the Third Series he had suggested !hat !he repeated discharges
of Torpedo ~~resemble" those of a Voltaic arrangement rather than a Leyden
apparatus. But this was no attempt to decide between competing hypotheses;
he insisted that "in reality, there is no philosophical difference" between the
two cases [359].
27. Note that this would be a "reduction" not of electricities-animal and
Voltaic electricity had already been shown to be identical in 1833-but
rather of the animal and Voltaic sources.
28. David Gooding (1985), pp. 122-23, points out !hat "Faraday's method of
active exploration made variations of a property with position all important
... Like an explorer of geographical territory, Faraday occupied !he very
�FISHER
33
space filled by the forces he was investigating." Gooding cites the famous
Cage of 1836 as the culminating instance of Faraday's occupying that space
"with his person as well as his instruments!' The Gymnotus survey is a
somewhat less spectacular, but equally clear, instance.
29. Although the term "system" may now strike us as a bit anachronistic,
Faraday seemed to like it and would eventually give it star billing in the
interpretation of the magnet, as in the opening sentence of Faraday (1852b):
"That beautiful system of power ... "
30. Physics Il.3, Metaphysics IX.3.
31. Cf. Aristotle: "Cau~es which are actually at work and particular exist and
cease to exist simultaneously with their effect, e.g . ... that housebuilding
man with that being-built house" (Physics 195b18, tr. Hardie and Gaye).
32. See, for example, Johu Walsh to Benjamin Franklin, July 1, 1773, excerpted
in Maxwell (1879), p. xxxv; Cavendish (1776); Johu Davy (1832), p. 262
and (1834), pp. 545-46.
33. Compare Gooding (1980), p. 9, who holds that by 1836 Faraday's assumption of an essential relation between force and a reacting environment had
attained "the status of a principle." Admittedly, another factor might also
have helped to shape Faraday's experimental policy with Gymnotus: while
the Torpedo produces only about 35 volts, a large Gymnotus develops up to
650 volts at 1 ampere. To an animal handler out of water, such capability
would present questions of personal safety!
34. Cf. Diary 4939.
35. A trace of the Diary's doubt on this point perhaps survives in ERE where
Faraday considers the possibility that the animal might "direct" its power
by activating its electric organs separately [1782]. But such selective activation of organs, like the "coiling" behavior to be discussed below, could
at most only introduce a change in the pattern of the whole, not an electrification of one region independently of neighboring regions.
36. Gooding (1985), p. 133, n. 4.
37. Diary 5041 (October 22, 1838).
38. The magnet's lines are "visible" eithe~ through the use of iron filings [114n.]
or by tracing the course of a small magnetic needle. They are not, of course,
visible in the sense of being "luminous" (see Faraday's footnote to the title
of the Nineteenth Series), nor as in the Kerr effect, which Faraday had
repeatedly and unsuccessfully sought to achieve.
39. The curved lines of force in electrostatic induction are not depicted (see
Plate VII in the Eleventh Series), because they can only be inferred-though
the inference is certain. For a similar reason Faraday will not draw lines of
;
force within the body of a magnet, even though the Moving Wire detects
both their existence and their quantity there (see the figures to [3093-3118]
in the Twenty-eighth Series). In connection with one topic only, that of
magnetic conduction, does Faraday relax this self-restraint. The figures to
[2807-21, 2831, 2875] explicitly depict the expanded or compressed course
of lines within dia- and paramagnetic bodies. Perhaps Faraday means to
offer some justification for taking this liberty when he cites the motions of
�THE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
34
the bodies themselves as "proof' of the concentration or dispersal of the
lines [2844].
40. The visualization also relies on Faraday's having identified the neck and the
region six inches from the tail as the places of concentration of force at the
body (seep. 12, above). While the superficial appearance of the body is a
closed ring, from the point of view of its action the fish's shape is none other
than that of a horseshoe-magnet!
41. Maxwell notes a report which would suggest that, if anything, the transverse
position is least deadly to the victim: "Du Bois Reymond . .. found that
Malapterurus was very ~lightly affected by induction currents passing
through the water of his tub, though they were strong enough to stun and
even kill other fishes. When the induction currents were made very strong,
the fish swam about till he had placed his body transverse to the lines of
discharge, but did not appear to be much annoyed by them., Maxwell
(1879), p. 437.
42. We may take note of some other evocative elements in Faraday's language.
The fish is highly characterized, mainly through Faraday's vocabulary of
gestures: "instantly turned round . .. ," "made a turn or two to look for its
prey ... ," "went searching about for more." There is no stalking, no catand-mouse game. Gymnotus is efficient, insouciant. There is a strong
Biblical flavor to the language at several points, particularly the phrase, "in
the midst of the waters. "The pace of narrative halts suddenly to contemplate
the struck fish, "its side floating to the light"-a respite which Gymnotus
does not participate in!
43. Earlier in the same year (1838), Faraday had discussed a comparable
instance of constancy in structure coupled with variability ofform (Gooding
1985) in the disposition of the "striations" that made up the electrical hrush
[1449].
44. Phil. Mag., June 1852; ERE ITI, pp. 407-37 [3243-99]; or Faraday (1852a).
45. We would say "current flow"; but Faraday employs a terminology that does
not carry the, to him, dubious electric-fluid connotations of "flow."
46. But the 1852 decomposition method is far more elegant, being manifest on
a small plate or ball that is introduced into the medium itself; It is thus a
true "disposition" exercise, in the sense of the Gymnotus experiments. Note:
Faraday does not give his usual paragraph citation When discussing these
exercises; are they recorded in the Diary?
47. [3282-90]; from the middle of ERE III, p. 428 to the middle of p. 433!
48. ERE, Vol. ITI, Plate III.
49. More fundamentally, of course, it depends on the quantitative measurements
made possible by the Moving Wire; see Fisher (1979).
50. Cavendish (1776), p. 205.
51. A suspicion at least as to intensity could have been suggested by his having
obtained the spark, though with great difficulty, from the Gymnotus's
discharge; whereas there were no confirmed reports of spark from the
Torpedo; cf. J. Davy (1832), pp. 261-62 and (1834), pp. 54546.
52. If, indeed, Faraday suspected Torpedo's ranking with respect to quantity.
�FISHER
35
53. Though today we seldom think of fresh water as a "good,. conductor, that
was Faraday's epithet [1786].
54. But see ahead, on the proposed "restorative" experiments.
55. Gooding (1985) gives the origin of Faraday's phrase as well as a beautiful
analysis that respectfully but effectively penetrates that naive metaphor.
Nevertheless, I think there is much to be gained from applying the image,
in its own terms, to Faraday's work; the present study attempts to carry out
that approach.
56. See above, note 5.
57. Cantor (1985), p. 74, n. 27; p. 77.
58. Rejection of the "contact force," at least as a sufficient theory of the Voltaic
cell, is expressed in ERE Seventh Series [872] and throughout the Eighth
Series. His 1840 criticism in ERE Sixteenth and Seventeenth Series was
"almost" fatal, since probably no argument against the contact force hypothesis could be fatal without a theorem of conservation of energy.
59. As though we were to identify the electric lamp's switch as the cause of the
light-ignoring the electromotive source of power!
60. ERE Seventeenth Series, January 1840 [2066-67]. Faraday's italics.
61. Faraday (1857). Williams's discussion of this unconventional paper makes
it clear that Faraday's principle is not that of conservation of energy, and is
not intended to be; Williams (1965), p. 457.
62. That is, roughly, it may be a necessary but not a sufficient condition. Faraday
(1857), ERCP p. 445.
63. Faraday (1857), ERCP pp. 445, 447, and related passages on pp. 449-50,
452.
64. See the opening paragraphs of Faraday (1857).
65. In 1852 Faraday will bring the magnet under this view; the iron material
will become not the seat of a specifically magnetic force but only, as we
will discuss later, "the habitation of lines of force" [3295]. See note 77,
below.
66. As an indication of how thoroughly Faraday shared that inclination, note
that as late as 1857 he will even invoke a fictive coming-to-be of the
gravitational force, because such a fiction makes Newtonian gravity theory
thinkable-and its causal inadequacies evident! Faraday (1857); ERCP,
p. 448. His argument is a reductio: If the gravitating power of a body
changes with distance, then it also changes with the creation or annihilation
of another body; nor can the latter "change" be distinguished from the
former. But the latter change is creation de novo, which (excepting divine
creation) is absurd. The objection, as Faraday continually stresses, is not to
the descriptive accuracy of the gravitational inverse-square law, but to its
pitiful lack of causal content.
67. Maxwell will one day show that even a "switch" is to be understood as a
process; his displacement current permits equation of the decaying current
as the switch opens to the electric field buildup across its terminals. Yet
Faraday has already in the Twelfth Series broached a related conception
(January, 1838-a few months prior to the Gymnotus report): "The water is
�36
1HE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
... a bad conductor and a bad insulator; but what it does insulate is by virtue
of inductive action ... " [1345; my italics].
68. In the Diary by far the single most-repeated exercise on Gymnotus is that
of establishing the direction of its current, which is externally from (posi-
tive) head to (negative) tail (Diary 4949-61, 4969-76, 5013-16, 5031,
5035-36).
69. Interestingly, he appears to allow an "equivalent" process that is not necessarily simultaneous with the discharge. But if the equivalent process is not
simultaneous, some medi~ting state of tension would have to intervene-a
"zoOtonic state"?
·
70. See, for example, Maxwell (1879), p. 436; Williams (1965), p. 364. It seems
that these expositors have been influenced by an image of battery recharging, and have supposed Faraday to have been thinking in the same image.
71. Note that these metaphors also pertain to the emotions, or"nervous energy."
72. See ERE First Series [77], in which Faraday refers to articles by Mariani
and others in Annates de Chimie, XXXVffi. Faraday's own investigation
into the peculiar behavior of "interposed plates" in electrochemical troughs
disclosed them to be a kind of secondary cell. See ERE Sixth Series [660]
and Eighth Series [1003-33], and especially [1035, 1040-41].
73. Neither is the Leyden jar a suitable image, since in being charged it literally
stores electricity, which is not to be supposed for a fish. The "storage cell"
converts electricity to chemica/force during recharge, which is at least more
conformable to an animal image.
74. ERE Seventh Series.
75. Pearce Williams thinks this is a problem for Faraday's magnetic theory:
Faraday would eventually abandon a proffered analogy between magnet and
Voltaic pile for lack of any identifiable magnetic energy source to corre-
spond to the chemical power expended in a Voltaic cell; Williams (1965),
pp. 452-53. But as touching the proposed experiments on Gymnotus's
nervous force I can see the contrast between Voltaic cell and magnet as a
source of as much inspiration as frustration.
76. In an early lecture (to the City Philosophical Society?), the young Faraday
had characterized life as merely a prolonged chemical reaction:. However,
contrast" the far more sympathetic passage in On Some Points of Magnetic
Philosophy (1854): "(A]ll natural forces tend to produce a state of rest,
except in cases where vital or organic powers are concerned; ... as in life
the actions are for ever progressive, and have respect to a future rather than
a present state ... so all inorganic exertions of force tend to bring about a
stable and permanent condition, having as the result a state of rest, i.e., a
static condition of the powers" [3318].
77. The relation between an agent and its power assumes, for the magnet, the
form of this question: What is the relation between the magnet and its own
lines of force? But the nature of that connection will remain a continuing
mystery to Faraday. He does coin a remarkable metaphor for it; in 1852 he
describes magnets as "the habitations of bundles of lines of force" [3295],
but this colorful language does not take us very far. It particularly fails to
distinguish the relation that lines of force bear to their "habitation" from the
�FISHER
37
relation they may have with any chance conductor. Why is it that, when the
"habitation" moves, its lines of force move with it, following the iron or
other material to its new location; but when materials, not magnetized in
themselves, are waved about in the vicinity of a magnet, the lines of force
suffer only temporary deflections while the invading material passes among
them and spring back to their former positions when it departs? In fact
Faraday introduces the "habitation" metaphor not intending to elucidate the
agent-power relation, but simply to bring home that we can, from the mutual
motions of magnet~, frequently infer the motions of their corresponding
lines. He had himself drawn such inferences in his interpretation of attraction and repulsion between para- and diamagnetic materials in a common
magnetic field [2844]; see note 39, above.
�38
TilE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
�I
The Education of Telemachos
Amy Apfel Kass
What is it that moves u~ in a great book? According to Samuel Butler
it is not the outward and visible signs of what we read, see, or hear, in any
work, that bring us to its feet in prostration of gratitude and affection; what
really stirs us is the communion with the still living mind of the man or woman
to whom we owe it, and the conviction that that mind is as we would have our
own to be. All else is mere clothes and grammar. 1
Butler was reflecting on Homer's Odyssey and for this book his remarks seem
especially apt. True, the Odyssey invites us to participate in a world alien to our
sensibilities, a world in which heroic he-men perform seemingly impossible
feats, a world populated by strange gods and goddesses, demons and enchantresses, who come and go as they please, victimizing or protecting people
for no apparent reason. But all this is ouly "clothes and grammar." The Odyssey
is essentially a story about Odysseus, the much-turned, much-traveled, man of
many ways, and about his effort to achieve home. Thus, it speaks to pressing and
persistent human concerns about the meaning of home and what it takes to make
a home a home. Through Odysseus's many struggles and his own bittersweet
homecoming, Homer shines his light on what each of us must necessarily and
continually undergo as we try to gain a home for ourselves in an inhospitable
world. Indeed, upon reading and re-reading Homer, one comes to feel like the
rebellious child who in his infmite wisdom and confidence strikes out on his own
only to discover just how smart his parents have become.
This brings me to the aspect of Homer's broad subject that I want to take up
with you this evening. The question is this: What does it take for children to
accept their parents? More specifically, How does Homer show us what it took
for Telemachos to accept Odysseus? While these questions may seem, at first
glance, peripheral to Homer's main concern in the Odyssey, I offer this preliminary reflection as a defense: If Telemachos-Odysseus's only son and only
heir-{!oes not fully and knowingly accept his father, could we say that
Amy Kass is Senior Lecturer in the Humanities at the University of Chicago. This
lecture was delivered at St. John's College, Annapolis, in November, 1991, on Parents'
Weekend.
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TIIE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
Odysseus's homecoming is complete? My thesis can he simply put: Facing
Telemachos and gaining his acceptance is Odysseus's most decisive and important battle; how this battle is won is the story-behind-the-story of the homecoming
of Odysseus. To support this thesis, we shall take a close look at selected
thoughts, deeds, and utterances in the Odyssey, first, at its start-in Ogygia, on
Olympus, and in Ithaka-then, later, during the various stages ofThlemachos's
own odyssey, Telemachos's education. My argument will be long, for which I
apologize in advance, but in order to understand and appreciate the education of
Telemachos and his ultimate reconciliation with his father, one must first look
at the beginning to establish Telemachos's initial disposition and attitude.
I. Obstacles to Homecoming: Setting tbe Plan
The wish so close to the heart of every hero in the Iliad-to be forever ageless
and immortal-is the opportunity offered to Odysseus as the Odyssey hegins.
The narrative proper opens as follows:
Then all the others, as many as fled sheer deslruction,
were at home now, having escaped the sea and the fighting.
This one alone, longing for his wife and his homecoming,
was detained by the queenly nymph Ka!ypso, bright among goddesses,
... desiring that he should be her husband. (L 11-15)
[E]ver with soft and flattering words she works to
chann him to forget Ithaka; and yet Odysseus,
straining to get sight of the very smoke uprising
from his own country, longs to die... (!.56-59)2
What an odd situation. A generation has passed since Odysseus last touched
Ithaka, ten years since the sack of Troy, seven years since he arrived on Kalypso's
island. "[A]ll the others, as many as fled sheer destruction," were home at last,
but, as we know, there weren't very many who came safely back. Odysseus, too,
knows this well-he alone of all his company had survived. Odysseus also knows
that the dangers he faced from the Cyclopes, from the Laistrygonians, and from
Scylla and Charybdis, to recall but a few, were mere appetizers to the feast of
troubles he could expect from the suitors back home in Ithaka. Further, he knows
that even were he to slaughter the suitors, his triumph would be fleeting, for
afterwards another long journey awaits him. Teiresias had spared him no details
when they spoke together in Hades.
Few of us, looking out over such a past or into such a future, would long to
leave the luxuriant island of Kalypso, that perfectly ordered paradise of beauty
and comfort. Few of us would long for rocky lthaka, or for growing sons, or for
aging wives, or for ailing fathers, or for crushed kingdoms, if an ageless and
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41
beautiful goddess beckoned. Few of us would give up immortality for a few more
months of worldly power. Few of us would ever long to die. Not so Odysseus.
Why not? What does he want? What is the vision that animates him?
A legend, though not recounted in either the Odyssey or the Iliad, proves
helpful:
When. .. the Greeks began to organize themselves for their Trojan expedition,
they drafted all the chieftains to join them with their men, ships, and supplies.
But Odysseus, ruler of Ithaka, in the prime of young adulthood, with a young
wife and a baby son, was anything but enthusiastic about going to war. When
the delegates of the Greek states arrived to assess the situation and to compel
Odysseus's compliance, he malingered, faking insanity. The emissaries-
Agamemnon, Menelaos, and Palamedes-fonnd him ploughing with an ox
and an ass yoked together, and flinging salt over his shoulders into the furrows;
on his head was a silly, conically shaped hat, as usually worn by Orientals. He
pretended not to know his visitors and gave every sign that he had taken leave
of his senses. ButPalamedes suspected him of trickery. He seized Telemachus,
Odysseus's infant son, and flung him in front of Odysseus's advancing plough.
Odysseus inunediately made a semi-circle with his plough to avoid injuring
his son-a move that demonstrated his mental health and made him confess
that he had only feigned madness in order to escape going to Troy. 3
Odysseus, here depicted as the first draft evader, seems to have cared deeply for
his son. He went off to war, but not willingly. At Troy, as we see in the Iliad, he
was indispensable to the Achaians and, as we hear in the Odyssey, "he sacked
Troy's sacred citadel." He was counted among the heroes, but he shared neither
their virtne nor their vision. Ever mindful of where he was, and of who he was,
Odysseus never lost his head. And he never forgot his home, not even on the
battlefield. To his warrior colleagues, he was known as the son of the hero
Laertes, but to himself, he was always the "father ofTelemachos," the young son
whose name can mean "far away from battle," whom he had left behind. The
vision that animated him long ago, and seems still to animate him as he sits on
Kalypso 's island, was less the solo fight in war that would win for himself and
his father great glory and immortality, and more the shoulder-to-shoulder fight,
the Laertes-Odysseus-Telemachos figh~ we witness at the very end of the
Odyssey, the fight which secures his home, now and for the future, against outside
disturbers.
Odysseus, like the heroes, is ever mindful of mortality, but unlike them, is
willing to affirm it. Odysseus's legendary plough is a fitting symbol of his
awareness and acceptance of the "unrolling destiny" of human beings which sees
"the next generation as an extension of one's self."4 It is this awareness that
makes possible, but also problematic, his homecoming. Even though the gods
are willing to work out his homecoming, it will be no easy task, not mainly
because of Poseidon, but for another, more delicate reason.
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THE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
Having informed us that the year has come round for the homecoming of
Odysseus, and that his enemy Poseidon is temporarily "out of sight" and "out of
hearing," our narrator moves abruptly io the council of the gods on Olympus
where Zeus is holding forth. We anticipate reflections about Odysseus. Instead,
Zeus, we are told, was "thinking in his heart" not of Odysseus, but of "blameless
Aigisthos." And, remembering him, he speaks forth as follows:
"Oh for shame, how the mortals put the blame upon us
gods, for they say evils come from us, but it is they, rather,
who by their own recklessness win sorrow beyond what is given,
as now lately, ... Aigisthos married
the wife of Atreus' son, and murdered him on his homecoming,
though he knew it was sheer deslruction, for we ourselves had told him, ...
not to kill the man, nor court his lady for maniage;
for vengeance would come on him from Orestes, son of Atreides,
whenever he came of age and longed for his own country.
. . . And now he has paid for everything." (!.3243)
Zeus speaks about homecoming, but not about Odysseus's. Rather, he dwells on
Agamemnon's aborted homecoming and its terrible consequences: The lover
Aigisthos, despite the warnings of the gods, wooed Agarnenmon's wife, then
murdered Agamemnon, and was finally killed himself when Agamemnon's son,
Orestes, carne of age. Zeus's speech introduces the Oresteia story which serves
later as a prod for Telemachos (Orestes is held up as model for him by Athene,
Nestor, and Menelaos), as a vindication of Penelope (whom we are meant to
compare with Klytaimestra), and as au invitation to compare Odysseus and
Agamemnon, as well as Aigisthos and the suitors. Seen in this light, Zeus's
speech is, as several critics have argued, generally programmatic for the epic,
taken as a whole.5 But it also has a more specific function in its particular context.
Though he speaks about Agamemnon's disastrous homecoming, for which
Aigisthos bears responsibility, Zeus is "thinking in his heart of blameless
Aigisthos." Zeus implies, through this epithet, that Aigisthos might have killed
Agarnenmon because of the crimes of Agarnenmon's father, Atreus, against
Aigisthos's own father, Thyestes. Aigisthos was, like Orestes, animated by the
desire to avenge crimes against his father and, as such, was blameless. While his
fate vividly shows the results of ambition, it also underscores the brutalizing
effects of smouldering resenbuent and its imperviousness to reason or persuasion. Taming the son's ambition and overcoming his resenbuent seem indispensable if the father is to gain his home. It is especially this thought, I would suggest,
that truly sets the program for the epic. The plan set out immediately after Zeus
speaks draws on this insight, though we must travel far to make it apparent.
Mter Zens, Athene is the first to speak. Like us, she had eagerly awaited a
speech about Odysseus and is somewhat annoyed by the digression. She says:
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43
"... Aigisthos indeed has been sll'llck down in a death weII merited.
Let any other man who does thus perish as he did.
But the heart in me is tom for the sake of wise Odysseus,
... But you, Olympian,
the heart in you is heedless of him. Did not Odysseus
do you grace by the ships of the Argives, making sacrifice
in wide Troy? Why, Zeus, are you so harsh with him?" (1.46-48, 59-62)
Athene readily agrees tjlat Aigisthos got what he deserved, but that is beside the
point. Odysseus is blameless; he is not getting what he deserves. Why does Zeus
continue to trouble him? Zeus, in responding, denies the allegation. He asks, "My
child,... How could I forget Odysseus the godlike, he who is beyond all other
men in mind, and who beyond others has given sacrifice to the gods, who hold
wide heaven?" (1.64-67). Zeus shifts the blame to Poseidon, but nevertheless
agrees to help. Stiii, he conspicuously postpones any decision about how he will
help. In the meantime, Athene says she wiii go directly to Ithaka to "stir up" the
son of Odysseus, Telemachos: she will have him summon the Achaians to an
assembly, and then travel to sandy Pylos and to Sparta "to ask after his ...
father's homecoming, if he can hear something, and so that among people he
may win a good reputation" (I.94-95); she will prompt Telemachos to become
both a hearer and a subject of speeches and stories. Zeus, remaining silent, neither
dissents nor consents. Athene's pnrpose is not yet his own. It will take yet another
assembly of the gods to win his full participation. Why? If the point is to bring
Odysseus home, why proceed in this roundabout way? Why does Athene urge
this plan? We must look in on Ithaka and, especially, on Telemachos and the
suitors, to find out.
II. Telemachos Among the Suitors
Athene promptly enacts her plan. "[S]he bound upon her feet the fair sandals,
golden and immortal, ... caught up a powerful spear, edged with sharp bronze,"
and disguising herself as a friend, Mentes, she "descended in a flash of speed
from the peaks of Olympos, and lighted in the land of Ithaka, at the doors of
Odysseus, at the threshold of the court" (1.96-97, 99-100, 102-5). Leaping over
the dunghill, she enters the gates. Here, in the middle of the afternoon, she finds
108 grown men mindlessly amusing themselves with games while their hardworking heralds and henchmen are preparing massive quantities of food and
dtink. No one notices her arrival. Telemachos is first to note her presence:
Now far the first to see Athene was godlike Telemachos,
as he sat among the suitors, his heart deep grieving within him,
imagining in his mind his great father, how he might come back
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TilE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
and all throughout the house might cause the suitors to scatter, nd hold his
rightful place and be lord of his own possessions.
With such thoughts, sitting among the suitors, he saw Athene
... the heart within him scandalized
that a guest should still be standing at the doors. (1.113-24, emphasis added)
Homer's description of the scene and, especially, of Telemachos invites the
popular conclusion that, despite his twenty years or more, Telemachos is still a
mere babe-passive, young, and immature. He sits among the suitors, but he is
not of them; though physically present, he remains psychically absent. Brooding
and forlorn, he dreams of his "great," his wonderful and godlike, father, who will
come one day and set things right, his father, the heroic superman, who will
suddenly fly in from afar to save what is rightfully his, Telemachos included.
Telemachos is impotent and weak, will-less and powerless, and all too ready to
yield and submit, all too eager to project his childhood still farther into the future.
But this common impression of Telemachos cannot be the whole story. First,
though he is seemingly a merely passive daydreamer, Telemachos is certainly
not witless. The most common name-epithet for Telemachos is Telemachos
pepnumenos: to be pepnumenos is to be of sound understanding, shrewd, and
sagacious. True, this epithet, prominent from the start of the Odyssey, may
describe Thlemachos's potential rather than his state when the poem begins. Still,
if such potential exists, can we so readily believe that Telemachos is simply the
egoless and unreflective boy his outward passivity might suggest? He may draw
faulty inferences or conclusions, but no doubt his mind is alive, wondering, and
perhaps even calculating.
Second, Telemachos has lived in the city, close to his mother, for almost
twenty years; for most of that time there has been no other parental presence, not
even a grandparent: Odysseus's absence drove away also his parents-Antikleia,
Odysseus's mother, perished long ago, out of grief and sorrow for Odysseus
(XI.202-3); Laertes, Odysseus's father, abandoned the city long ago, likewise
out of grief and sorrow, and now roams his estate, like one of the slaves, sleeping
in the dirt next to the fire, or alone on "fallen leaves in piles along the rising
ground" (XI.l90-95). Would not a child, even a dull child, resent the man whose
absence caused such misery?
Third, weknowthatever since the suitors arrived, even Telemachos's mother,
Penelope, has become more distant, more self-absorbed. Telemachos surely
notices her odd behavior: her courting and uncourting of the suitors--Jlhe sends
them messages and makes promises by day but weeps by uight; her weaving and
unweaving of the shroud-sbe weaves by day and then unweaves by night; her
concern and unconcern for Telemachos himself--Jlhe is shocked and horrified
to learn that Telemachos has gone abroad but is unaware of his departure until
someone tells her, more than a week after the fact (IV.703). Telemachos must
feel himself ignored and abandoned.
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But, one might argue, there were always, at hand, the trusty Eurykleia,
nursemaid to both Odysseus and Telemachos, and the ever faithful swineherd,
Eumaios, to prevent resentment or hard feelings and to soothe the child, even
when he became a young man. Surely they could and no doubt did tell
Telemachos stories about how his exemplary father, the sceptered king, the king
of kings in Ithaka, was a man of ready heart, and, as ruler, both kind and gentle,
his very thought schooled in justice, stories about how Odysseus inspired loyalty
and trust in others. No doubt such lovely images and stories, one could argue,
might have comforted and assuaged any hard feelings.
Given what we know of the state of things in Ithaka, however, snch a
suggestion is unconvincing. If the ways of Odysseus were indeed exemplary,
inspiring gratitude and faithfulness, why do the nobles gather daily in the palace,
holding Penelope, the servants, and even Telemachos himself hostage? Why do
their fathers and grandfathers, the other kings in Ithaka who kuew Odysseus
firsthand, support such behavior? Such questions would very likely present
themselves to pepnumenos Telemachos.
Finally, and most important, we observe Telemachos's own disparagement
of songs or stories. In conversing with Athene (disguised as Mentes),
Telemachos's criticism of the suitors betrays his own sentiments. He says, "Dear
stranger, would you be scandalized at what I say to you? This is all they think
of, the lyre and the singing" (!.158-59). Yet, when Penelope asks Phemius, the
bard, to cease from singing the song of the sad return of the Danaans, Telemachos
adopts the suitor's attitude: "There is nothing wrong in his singing the sad return .
. . People, surely, always give more applause to that song which is the latest to
circulate among the listeners. So let your heart and let your spirit be hardened to
listen" (!.350-53). Although he denounces the suitors, and even claims to be
scandalized by them, with respect to songs, at least, Telemachos seems to share
their outlook-songs or stories are not bonds to the past but mere objects of
consumption.
We are now inclined to suspect that Telemachos's identification with the
suitors might be very great indeed. Telemachos is twenty years old. The suitors,
probably not very much older than he, have been in his house for more than three
years, ever since his own manly powers began to burgeon. As Homer remarks
several times, Telemachos "sits among the suitors." Everywhere else in Homer,
critics have noted, "orientation in space"- where one places oneself, how one
moves, the gestures one makes-is an expression of psychological condition;
space is "invested with spiritual quality."' Might not the same be true here?
If so, Thlemachos's apparent grief and passivity reflect more than a longing
to be saved by his heroic, godlike father. One needn't be a Freudian to think that,
after twenty years absence, Telemachos might well regard his father as a rival,
especially with respect to the affections of his mother. It seems hard to avoid the
inference that Telemachos must, in no small part, identify inwardly with the
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THE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
suitors. But what this might mean requires us to look more closely at the suitors
themselves. Who are they? What do they want?
III. The Soul of !he Suitors
The presence of the suitors in Odysseus's palace is, at least from one point of
view, quasi-legitimate. Much depends on the status of Odysseus. If Odysseus is
dead, their presence is, if not 1ltogether justifiable, at least excusable? But even
this concession to the suitors assumes that they are indeed suitors, that is, men
who have come to court Penelope, seriously to press their suit for her hand in
marriage. This assumption proves doubtful on closer inspection.8
When they speak before others, in public, the suitors insist that they want to
marry Penelope. In the public assembly, in Book Two, for example, Antinoos
vigorously insists that neither he nor the rest of the suitors will go back to their
own estates "until [Penelope] marries whichever Achaian man she fancies"
(ll.l26-27). Enrymachos echoes the same sentiment: It is Penelope, he argues,
who "makes the Achaians put off marriage with her, while we, awaiting this, all
our days quarrel for the sake of her excellence, nor ever go after others, whom
any one of us might properly marry" (II.204-7). But though their public speech
throughout points in this direction, their private speech points in another.
In Book Sixteen, when they return after their futile attempt to ambush
Telemachos, the suitors, we are told, "went in a throng to the assembly, nor did
they suffer any of the young men or any of the elders to sit with them"
(XVI361-62). Antinoos leads them on:
"... [L]et us surprise [Telemachos] and kill him, ...
. . . and ourselves seize his goods and possessions,
dividing them among ourselves fairly, but give his palace
to his mother to keep and to the man who marries her. Or else,
if what I say is not pleasing to you, but you are determined
to have him go on living and keep his father's inheritance,
then we must not go on gathering here and abundantly eating
away his fme substance, but,from his own palace each mao
must strive to win her with gifts of courtship; she will then marry
the man she is fated to have, and who brings her the greatest presents."
(XVI.383-92, emphasis added)
Here, in closed session, the suitors reveal, as they bear witness against themselves, their own unambiguous criminal intentions. Their presence in the house
has only secondarily to do with their wooing of Penelope. If the only, or even
the main, concern of the suitors were to win Penelope, they would do so, as
Antinoos here suggests, from their own homes. Their feasting in the house of
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Odysseus is directed, ultimately, against Odysseus himself, his possessions and
his power, and hence, immediately, against Telemachos, his would-be heir.9
Once we see clearly their criminal intentions, many of their other remarks
take on more sinister meaning. In Book One, for example, Antinoos, taken aback
by Telemachos's first daring speech, says: "I hope the son ofKronos never makes
you our king in seagirtlthaka. Though to be sure that is your right by inheritance"
(!.386-87). In the Ithakan assembly in Book 1\vo, Leokritos says that even if
Odysseus returned "his ,wife would have no joy of his coming... but rather he
would meet an unworthy destiny" (II.249-50). And, later, in Book Twenty-one,
when the suitors, one after the other fail to string the bow of Odysseus,
Eurymachos speaks for them all when he says:
''Oh, my sorrow. Here is a grief beyond all others;
it is not so much the marriage I grieve for, for all my chagrin.
There are many Achaian women besides, ...
but it is the thought, if this is true, that we come so far short
of godlike Odysseus in strength, so that we cannot even
string his bow...." (XXI.249-55)
The suitors clearly want to defame and destroy Odysseus; they want to take
his place. They do not envy Odysseus his kingliness-his "thoughts schooled in
justice," his gentleness, his ability to rule fairly, or even the faithfulness of his
beautiful and prudent wife. Rather, they envy him his power and his strength,
which they lry, metaphorically, to gather to themselves by eating up his substance, and by trying to kill his son Telemachos. The suitors are "civilized"
cannibals who, like their soul-mates, the Cyclopes, would assert brute force in
place of kingship. They look to nothing beyond themselves, respect nothing that
carne before themselves, honor nothing above themselves. Forever whiling away
their hours playing games, stuffing their faces, drinking and whoring, they are
neglectful of time, past and future. They consult ouly their own most pressing
and immediate needs and desires.
In relrospect, Telemachos's initial remark to Athene, a propos the suitors'
consumer-like attitude toward song, tells the whole story: asPhemios, "who sang
for the suitors, because they made him," played his lyre and struck up a song,
Telemachos, we recall, remarks, "Dear stranger, would you be scandalized at
what I say to you? This is all they think of, the lyre and the singing" (!.154-59).
If human beings are by nature rational beings, that is, beings with logos, clearly,
for Homer, the highest and most proper use of speech is the telling of stories.
Further, it is in their attitndes toward stories that the souls of human beings are
most clearly revealed. To put it succinctly, if somewhat formulaically, no stories,
no memory; no memory, no sense of time; no sense of time, no respect or aidos;
no respect, no kingship; no kingship, no city. Not accidently, in Homer, to have
the mind of a king is tantamount to being a host of strangers. The suitors'
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THE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
perverted attitude toward songs or stories points directly to their shamelessness
with respect to slrangers, and, finally, to their criminal desire to dethrone
Odysseus and to overturn the city. But, as we have already seen, Telemachos,
despite his apparent shame and alleged hatred of the suitors, fundamentally
shares their attitude toward songs. We can now give a fuller account of
Telemachos's inner state, and the difficulties it might pose for the homecoming
of Odysseus.
IV. Telemachos, the Suitors, and the Council of the Gods
It goes without saying that Telemachos is neither fully conscious of the
ambivalence he might feel toward Odysseus, nor fully aware of the extent to
which he may share the suitors' outlook. But given what we have observed about
Telemachos, we cannot overlook his, at least partial, identification with the
suitors and, hence, his own possibly criminal intentions. Recall the initial
description: ''Telemachos... sat among the suitors, his heart... grieving within
him, imagining ... his great father, how he might come back, and... cause the
suitors to scatter, and hold his rightful place and be lord of his own possessions"
(1.113-17, emphasis added). Might not anotherreading, very different from the
one offered earlier, equally fit this description? Telemachos, like the suitors,
longs to replace Odysseus, but knowing that such a place is surely not his
"rightful place," and that Odysseus's "possessions" are not his for the taking, his
heart "grieves within him." He bitterly dreams about his "great," that is, his
powerful and mighty, father who abandoned him long ago, and about how he
will return and reclaim what is rightfully his, scattering all the suitors, himself
included.
On the earlier reading of Telemachos's state, feelings ouly of personal
impotence and weakness were present, with Odysseus cast in the role of god or
heroic savior. On this reading, dreams of personal potency and vitality are also
present, and Odysseus appears as a rival king. Where we earlier saw
Telemachos's desire to prolong his childhood, we now see a somewhat guarded
and guilty awareness of patticidal desires. While the first portrait suggested
will-lessness, ego-lessness, and readiness to depend on others, to submit and
yield in order to avoid trouble, the second suggests will-fulness, concern with
identity, readiness to stand independently, to assert himself, even to court trouble.
Though the sentiments point in opposite directions-the one to cowardice, the
other to pride-though the longings they reflect are logically incompatible, does
it not seem likely that both may co-exist within Telemachos 's troubled soul and
inform his self-understanding?
If so, Telemachos faces a frightful dilemma. For if Telemachos is himself a
suitor, albeit one with a conscience, can he ever wholeheartedly welcome back
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his father? Conversely, if he looks only to his father for his own salvation, can
he ever realize his wish to stand on his own two feet? Longing for his father
makes it impossible for him to act at all; resenting his father and longing to
replace him make it impossible for him not to act. Telemachos's habitual grief,
his immobility, and his inertia manifest this dilemma and the division within his
soul. Indeed, his frank and obviously bitter admission to Athene, that he does not
know whether he really is the son of Odysseus-"My mother says indeed I am
his. I for my part do not know" (1.215-16)-demonslrates emphatically his
ambivalence. 10 Telemachos, it seems, like those other sons, Aigisthos and
Orestes, has -at least in part- a resentful, vengeful soul.
We are now in a better position to make sense of the odd sequence of Zeus's
reflections and Athene's plan narrated at the beginning of the Odyssey. Since
homecoming is neither an heroic deed that one can freely choose and perform
by oneself, nor a trial that one must endure and suffer through alone, it stands to
reason that if Odysseus is to have his homecoming, others must play their vital
roles. Just as one must recognize in oneself one's own vulnerabilities and
dependencies in order to seek home, so one must depend on others to achieve it.
Odysseus must depend on the acceptance of the Ithakans to resume his kingship,
on Penelope to resume his place as husband, on Laertes to resume his relation as
son, and on Telemachos to resume his relation as father. Perhaps this is what
Odysseus is contemplating as he sits, impotent and forlorn, on Kalypso's island,
looking out over the waters, shedding tears, "longing to die."
Of the relations Odysseus must resume to gain his homecoming, his relation
with Telemachos, it would seem, must surely be primary. For Odysseus's
kingship cannot be secured if he has no heir, nor, we imagine, can he live again
easily with his wife, if their ouly child has psychically, if not literally, unsonned
himself, or, even worse, if he must lose or even kill his son in order to regain his
home. Neither, we imagine, can he face his father, Laertes, his still living past,
if he knows there will be no future. But, for the many reasons we have suggested,
the impediments to Odysseus's reunion with Telemachos are great. Telemachos,
unlike Aigisthos, for example, the subject of Zeus's reflections, cannot be relied
upon to act, uneqnivocally, for the sake of his father: Odysseus is to Telemachos
as both Thyestes and Agamemnon combined were to Aigisthos. Is it any wonder,
then, that it takes more than one council of the Gods to arrange the homecoming
of Odysseus? Doesn't the failure of the gods to assuage the heart of Aigisthos
provide fair warning of the difficulty of the task at hand? Is it any wonder that
Athene proposes and enacts, with Zeus's tacit consent, the plan that she does, a
plan that begins with, and ultimately depends on, Telemachos? Is this not why
the Odyssey begins with the Telemachy?
In Telemachos, then, as another meaning of his name-"final battle"-suggests, Odysseus faces his most decisive battle. Ready to sail home at the outset
of the narrative, Odysseus must first await and then assist in the radical reorien-
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TilE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
tation of Telemachos: Telemachos must learn to beat down his own worst fears
and resentments and to moderate his own ambition; he must learn to see the home
of Odysseus as his own, not to conquer but to inherit, and not to inherit passively,
but actively to preserve and perpetuate; he must learn to see Odysseus neither as
a god or heroic savior, nor as rival, but as a man and as his father. The radical
reorientation, or education, of Thlemachos bears the burden of much of the
narrative that ensues. It proceeds in two stages: In stage one, Telemachos is
brought into consciousness o~ himself as the son of Odysseus, largely through
speeches and stories (Books I to N and Book XVI); in stage two, he comes to
accept the responsibilities incumbent upon him as the son of Odysseus, primarily
through deeds (Books XVI to XXIII).
Stage one culminates in the moment that Telemachos allows Odysseus to
come into his embrace; stage two cuhninates when Telemachos voluntarily goes
forward in his father's footsteps and under his guidance, when father and son
fight shoulder-to-shoulder, first against the suitors, and later, with Laertes,
against their kin. Together, both stages fulfill Athene's announced plan. Though
we cannot here review every step in the education of Telemachos, I shall try in
the last section to make vivid some of its major moments.
V. The Education of Telemachos
Like his father's travels which they seem so closely to imitate, Telemachos's
travels take him far from home, exposing him to things he had never experienced
before. But, at the same time, they also bring him, psychically, closer to home.
Visiting the cities of men and learning their minds-.seeing the world withoutenables Thlemachos to see also himself within. As one student of the Odyssey
put it, Athene exposes Telemachos to things she knows "will bring out certain
traits and responses in him which he will recognize as having come from his
father Odysseus.'' 11 Telemachos's travels, then, hold up a mirror to his own
Odyssean soul. Books I to IV abound with examples. Let us look at a few.
His "travels" begin even before Telemachos steps out of his own home in
Ithaka. Knowing full well that cultivating the capacity to be a host of strangers
is tantamount to cultivating the capacity for kingship, Athene descends on Ithaka
in a foolproof disguise. Her sudden arrival immediately initiates Telemachos's
physical and psychic journey away from the suitors, and soon from his mother
as well. Abandoning his habitual lethargy and his place among the suitors,
Telemachos gets up and goes to meet Athene, offers her food and drink, and then
speaks to her privately, "apart from the others" (I.132). Even before he asks after
his guest's identity, he draws attention to the scandalous behavior of the suitors
(1.158-62) and articulates his own helplessness and hopelessness (1.163-68).
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51
Athene's very presence engenders the initial journey toward self-recognition.
Her subsequent technique takes him still further.
As Norman Austin has observed, Athene proceeds dialectically, posing tactful
but pointed questions out of "feigned ignorance." She enacts the part of "the
skillful psychotherapist who forces her patient to verbalize, and thereby creates
in him the psychological readiness for action." 12 She compels Telemachos to
bear witness against himself and, hence, further to confront his own situation.
But the main point of hyr method is made clear only as she departs:
After maintaining her disguise throughout the scene, Athena metamorphoses
into a bird and flies away. .. We are told that Telemachos at once recognized
that his visitor had been a deity... Telemachos has [thus] been given his first
lesson in discernment. .. His powers of observation [are made] to penetrate
disguises, to distinguish the genuine from the spurious. 13
As we all know, it is precisely this power of discernment, often manifest as
circumspection, sometimes as irony, that especially characterizes the family and
friends of Odysseus, but above all, Odysseus himself. Athene, then, brings
Telemachos into closer relation to Odysseus, frrst, by "sharpen[ing] his inner
vision," and then, through her act of self-revelation, by turning his "discerning
eye on the external phenomena around him." 14
Telemachos is a quick Ieamer. He absorbs and immediately applies the lesson,
making manifest, by doing so, his close resemblance to his family: In reply to
the suitor's inquiry about the identity and mission of his guest, he devises a
plausible, yet deceitful response; indeed, he lies three times in succession.
Further, he immediately assumes an authoritative postnre: He summarily dismisses his mother when she tearfully complains of the singer's song, and he tells
the suitors of his intention to put an end to their rapacity. Both his mother and
the suitors, we are told, stand back in amazement and, we must imagine,
Telemachos probably does also. But more important than. these immediate
effects, the powers tapped by Athene give Telemachos the courage to heed her
instructions-to go abroad in search of news of his father and to assume a more
active and assertive role at home. In carrying out these instructions, he further
perfects his own Odyssean powers, and, in this way, is brought more vividly to
recognize his kinship to Odysseus.
The travels abroad bring Telemachos face to face with the world of his father.
From Odysseus's friends and admirers-Nestor, Menelaos, and HelenTelemachos acquires close knowledge of a world he never knew. In Pylos and
Sparta, where these heroes of old still live and re-live their stories, he sees people
weep as they tell of their beloved companion, Odysseus the king, Odysseus the
warrior, and most especially Odysseus the able and cunning strategist.
In each place, Telemachos first listens attentively and later speaks, first
hesitantly, then with growing confidence. In each place, he is immediately
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THE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
recognized as the son of Odysseus, by the likeness of his feet, of his hands, of
his glancing eyes, his head and his hair, and, most significantly, by the likeness
of his words. In each place Telemachos weeps, first for his owu impotence, then
for his father. In each place he becomes progressively stronger, more selfpossessed, more clever, more independent, and, in Sparta, very confident that
Odysseus is still alive and, very likely, already at home. 15
Recall, for example, the very tactful, utterly plausible, but completely false,
excuse he gives Menelaos fo~ leaving Sparta: Telemachos, the young man who
thinks about little besides his home and family, says, "I could well be satisfied
to sit here beside you for a year's time, without any longing for home or parents
... but by now my companions in sacred Pylos are growing restless" (XV.SS91 ). Recall the wish he expresses to Menelaos, that aniving in lthaka he might
find Odysseus, which wish, in turn, prompts the bird omen, which Helen
interprets to mean that Odysseus was already at home (XV.l55-60, 171-78).
Recall his decision to risk incurring the wrath of Nestor by going directly
home-he neither stopped to give Nestor greetings from Menelaos, as he had
promised, or to bid him farewell in person. Athene 's instructions, it seems, have
forced Telemachos to develop Odysseus's own greatest virtues-resourcefulness, prudence, tact, self-control, and a keen sense of timing.
No longer hopeless and helpless, well aware of his own identity as kin to
Odysseus, confident in his growing powers, Telemachos sails home again to
Ithaka. Thougb we, the readers, deligbt in Telemachos's achievements and
appreciate the signs of his increasing self-recognition and empowerment, we
must wonder, now more than ever, whether Athene's careful ministrations won't
backfire. As this first stage of Telemachos's education nears its completion, we
wonder whether the ground that has been so successfully laid for the recognition
and reunion of this son and his father won't collapse nnder its own weight. Is
there any reason to believe that the changes wrought in Telemachos haven't
further fueled his resentment, and, even more, armed his ambition? The culminaling scene of this first stage of Telemachos's education, the reunion of
Telemachos and Odysseus, warrants our close attention and, unfortunately,
supports our fears.
It is early in the morning. Odysseus, newly returned to Ithaka but disgnised
as a beggar, and Eumaios, the swineherd, are preparing their breakfast inside
Eumaios's hut. Suddenly, as if from nowhere, Telemachos appears. Amazed,
Eumaios runs out to greet him, and embraces and kisses him "as if he had escaped
dying." In a burst of weeping, Eumaios speaks: "You have come, Telemachos,
sweet light; I thought I would never see you again" (XVI.21-24). Telemachos,
away, we presume, for little longer than a week, is welcomed by Eumaios, "as a
father, with heart full of love, welcomes his only and grown son ... when he
comes back in the tenth year from a distant country" (XVI.l?-19). We imagine
Odysseus, inside the hut, is listening attentively. The two, Eumaios and
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Telemachos, now go into the hut, and for the first time in twenty years Odysseus
beholds Telemachos, and Telemachos, Odysseus. The two sit close together, in
silence, and they eat. The silence must be deafening. ForifTelemachos has really
absorbed Athene's lessons, and we have eve1y reason to believe he has, surely
clever, perspicacious Thlemachos must immediately penetrate the disguise of the
man before him. The conversation that ensues must be excruciatingly difficult
for both son and father.
Telemachos addresse,s Eumaios and seems pmposely not to ask who the
stranger is, but rather where he carne from, how the sailors brought him to Ithaka,
who the sailors were. Ewnaios responds with a story about the stranger's origins
and wanderings, but, most emphatically, with a command: '"I put him into your
hands now. Do with him as you will. He names himself your suppliant" (XVI.6667, emphasis added). The tone of Telemachos's answer no doubt smprises
Eumaios, as much as it reveals to us the depth of his own ambivalence.
"Ewnaios," he says, "this word you spoke hurt my heart deeply. For how shall I
take and entertain a stranger guest in my house? I myself am young," he says,
retreating at least in speech, to his own impotent past, "and have no faith in my
hands' strength to defend a man, if anyone picks a quarrel with him." He blames
his own impotence, in part, on his mother: She "ponders two ways, whether to
remain here with me, and look after the household, keep faith with her husband's
bed,... or go away at last with the best man of the Achaians who pays her court
in her palace." Though he offers to outfit the stranger with clothing and weapons,
he says he wants to do so in order to send him on his way. Concluding, he again
draws attention to his own incapacity: "I will not Jet him go down there and be
where the suitors are, for their outrageousness is too strong and I fear they may
insult him, and that will be a hard sorrow upon me and a difficult one for even a
strong man to deal with" (XVI.69-89).
Odysseus, sure! y recognizing that Telemachos knows who he is, responds, as
we might expect most any father would, first with grief, then disbelief, then with
some instruction. He tries, as Athene had earlier, by asking questions, tactfully
and hopefully to appeal to Telemachos's own better nature:
"Dear friend, . ..
you eat away the dear heart in me, as I listen
to what you tell of the suitOrs and their reckless contrivings
inside your palace, against your will, when you are such a one
as you are.Tell me, are you willingly oppressed by them? Do the people
hate you throughout this place, ...
. . . Do you find your brothers wanting? ...
I wish that I were truly as young as I am in spirit,
or a son of stately Odysseus were here, or he himself might
come in from his wandering. ... If such
things could be, another could strike my head from my shoulders
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THE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
if I did not come as an evil thing to all those people
as I entered the palace of Odysseus, the son of Laertes.
And if I, fighting alone, were subdued by all their number,
then I would rather die, cut down in my own palace,
than have to go on watching forever these shameful activities, ...
(XVI.91-107)
Odysseus's speech does not promptly have the desired results. In responding,
Telemachos does affirm, as he hadn't before, that he is the son and heir of
Odysseus--"[11he son of Kr6nos," he says, "made ours a single line. Arkeisios
had only a single son, Laertes, andLaertes had only one son, Odysseus; Odysseus
in tum left only one son, myself' (XVI.ll8-20). He acknowledges that he has
friends among the people. But he insists, again, on his own helplessness:
"Odysseus... left only one son, myself, in the halls, and got no profit of me, and
my enemies are here in my house, beyond numbering ... [and] my mother...
does not. .. make an end of the matter" (XVI.ll9-29). And moreover, now, in
addition, Telemachos blames the gods. It seems that for Telemachos to accept
his kinship, he must forfeit his manhood; he cannot accept his father as father,
but only as a conquering hero, a hindrance and rival to his own empowerment.
In what follows, however, Telemachos acts with confidence, and shows that
his speech of impotence was largely a pose. He commands Eumaios to go to the
city to tell Penelope of his safe return. As if taking her cues from Telemachos,
Athene transforms Odysseus into the resplendent hero Telemachos had envisioned, and she summons Odysseus to reveal himself to his son. Telemachos is
caught off guard. Astonished by the transformation, he first averts his eyes and
then, taking Odysseus to be some god, begs him to be merciful. Odysseus now
speaks with great restraint and, we imagine, with great pain: "No god. Why take
me for a god? No, no. I am that father whom your boyhood lacked and suffered
pain for lack of. I am he" (XVI.l87-89). Then, holding back no longer, the tears
ran down his cheeks and he kissed his son.
Telemachos's disbelief persists. Odysseus, painfully, repeats himself:
"Telemachos... No other Odysseus than I will ever come back to you... [H) ere
you see the work of Athene... who turns me into whatever she pleases"
(XVI.202-4, 207-8). Recognizing Telemachos's own pain, Odysseus neither
dissembles nor forces himself on Telemachos. He makes no demands. He speaks,
then he sits down and waits. Finally, Telemachos
folded his great father in his arms and lamented,
shedding tears, and desire for mourning rose in both of them;
and they cried shrill in a pulsing voice, even more than the outcry
of birds, ospreys or vultures with hooked claws, whose children
were stolen away by men of the fields, before their wings grew
strong; such was their pitiful cry and the tears their eyes wept.
(XVL214-19)
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This very moving moment does not, however, complete our quest For though
Telemachos now openly acknowledges that Odysseus is Odysseus, and though
he has allowed Odysseus in1D his embrace, in the conversation that follows he
makes even more vivid his deep ambivalence and irresolution about his own
sonship. When Odysseus eagerly proposes plotting revenge on the suitors,
Telemachos responds with doubt and cunning: "What you have spoken of is too
big; I am awed" (XVI.243-44). Even though he is more aware than ever before
of Athene's guardianship, and of his father's own powers, and of his own great
abilities, Telemachos is 'strangely not ready to join. His pose of impotence is a
mask for his ambivalence, not about the likelihood of success but about its
desirability.
Odysseus now faces his most difficult and delicate trial: He must encourage
his son to assume his manhood, knowing full well that it may rob him of his own.
And so begins stage two of the education of Telemachos. This time Odysseus,
not Athene. is "Mentor."
Like Athene's educational strategy, Odysseus's trusts largely to the psychological impact of exposure to difficult and trying circumstances. Thlemachos, as
before, will be made to assert his authority as host, but this time he will do so,
purposefully and consciously, on behalf of his father. He will be made 1D exercise
his own great Odyssean capacities for cunning and self-contrul, just as Odysseus
would exercise them: Telemachos must pretend that he doesn't know the
stranger; he must stand still and hold back as others taunt and ridicule and throw
things at his father. And he must do all this precisely for the sake of Odysseus.
If the success of a teacher is in the performance of his students, then Odysseus
cansurelybeproud.ForfromthemomentOdysseus,disguisedasabeggar,enters
his palace, Telemachos acts coolly, efficiently, and competently. But, as we all
know, following the directives of others, however proficiently, seldom reveals
the heart. Though the trials he is made to endure may have been necessary, they
were not yet sufficient. Telemachos's true willingness to accept himself as son
and heir becomes manifest only when he departs from his father's directives and
takes initiative himself. Nowhere is this more evident, or more threatening to
Odysseus, than in the contest of the bow. Here, Odysseus's fate comes to rest
entirely in Telemachos's hands.
It was Penelope who had proposed the contest of the bow to the suitors,
promising to marry the man most able 1D string Odysseus's bow with the greatest
ease, and to send an arrow through twelve axes. Both the bow and the contest
had been Odysseus's trademarks in Ithaka, as the suirors well knew. It was,
therefore, the perfect test, and, for a young man, the fitting rite of passage.
Penelope had conceived the plan the evening before, during her long conversation with the "stranger" Odysseus; Odysseus, self-confident, had given it his full
approval. But when Penelope, after much weeping and hesitation, produces the
bow, and invites the suitors to enter the contest, and Eumaios, following
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THE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
Penelope's command, places the bow and the gray iron before the suitors,
Telemachos-quite on his own and without foreknowledge of the plan-steps
forward to take command. Disrupting the timing, and, seemingly calling
Penelope's bluff, he propels the situation toward its crisis.
While the suitors stand round, each gazing hopefully at the bow, Telemachos,
witlessly laughing, bursts forth: "Come, you suitors," he yells, "since here is a
prize set out before you, a woman; there is none like her in all the Achaian
country, neither in sacred PyJos nor Argos nor in Mykene, nor here in lthaka
itself, nor on the dark mainland .... Come, no longer drag things out with delays,
nor turn back still from the stringing of the bow... "(XXI.l06-12). Telemachos
abruptly announces that he too is willing to enter the contest, and claims that
should he win, he too will be entitled to the prize: "If I can put the string on it
and shoot through the iron, my queenly mother would not go off with another,
and leave me sorrowing here in the house; since I would still be found here as
one now able to take up his father's glorious prizes" (XXI.116-17). Telemachos's
own words seem to hurl him further onward, for immediately after speaking he
"sprang upright," set the axes, dug the trench, drew the chalkline, and stamped
down the earth, all, we are told, properly and orderly, and very mnch to the
amazement of those present, for he had never seen it done before. Then, standing
on the threshold, he went and tried the bow.
Telemachos's witless levity may be his most artful disguise, as Norman
Austin has suggested: "No more appropriate irony (acting the child, harboring
the thoughts of the adult) could be found." 16 But, I think, much more likely, it is
the spontaneous and effusive response of a man, suddenly abundantly aware that
everything he ever wanted is now within reach. Now he can claim all that is
"rightfully" his. Now he can show both himself and the world his own strength
and power. Now he can take his revenge--{)n the suitors, on his mother, on his
father. No doubt Penelope waits and watches apprehensively-and so do we. But
no one could be as apprehensive or as helpless at this moment, or as magnificently self-controlled, as Odysseus.
"Three times [Telemachos] made [the bow] vibrate, straining to bend it, and
three times he gave over the effort, yet," the poet pointedly tells us, "in his heart
[he] was hopeful of hooking the string to the bow and sending a shaft through
the iron." Finally, "pulling the bow for thefourth time," we are told, "he would
have strung it, but Odysseus stopped him, though he was eager, making a signal
with his hem!' ( XXI.125-30, emphasis added). Though Telemachos desists on
a paternal glance, he submits not from weakness but from strength. Now knowing
that he could string the bow, he no longer feels compelled to do so. Having finally
realized his own manhood and felt his own power to equal his father, Telemachos
can now freely and generously acknowledge and accept his father's lead and
authority-perhaps because he recognizes that it was his father's self-control
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which had enabled him to gain his moment of triumph, and even more, because
the triumph is clearly acknowledged in his father's signal.
Immediately, without resentment, as if on cue, Telemachos joins the plot with
his now characteristic Odyssean cunning and dissembliog: "Shame on me," he
says, " 'I must be a coward and weakling, or else I am still young, and my hands
have yet no confidence to defend myself against a man who has started a quarrel.
Come then, you who in your strength are greater than I am, make your attempts
on the bow, and let us finish the contest'" (XXI.130-35).
Telemachos's silent assent to Odysseus's silent signal is his true embrace of
Odysseus. All the events that ensue make abundantly clear his respect, his loyalty,
and his proud affection. One moment especially stands out. After each of the
suitors, in turn, tries, unsuccessfully, to string the bow, blaming their incompetence on Apollo, they try to postpone the contest. But at this moment the stranger,
Odysseus, begs for a chance, and Penelope comes forward in his defense. When
the suitors strenuously object, Telemachos again takes command. He reiterates
his claim that he has "the power in the household," and, as he had done once
before, sharply urges Penelope to attend to her own work. But this time, though
he challenges his mother's authority, Telemachos, quite vigorously, takes up her
cause:
"My mother, no Achaian man has more authority
over this bow than I, to give or withhold, at my pleasure;
not one of those who are lords here in rocky Ithaka,
not one of those in the islands off horse-pasturing Elis;
no one can force me against my will; if I want, I can give it
to the stranger as an outright gift, to take away with him... "(XXL344-49)
Now Penelope, Odysseus, and Telemachos are, in Homer's word
homophrosyne; they all think alike in their thoughts. Moments later, Telemachos,
over the objections of the suitors, has the bow delivered to Odysseus. Assured
of the futnre, Odysseus can now reunite past and present. Odysseus, now truly
home, proceeds to string the bow and reclaim his house. And Telemachos,
knowing, at last, that he is able to fill his father's shoes, with his father's
blessings, gladly takes his rightful place as next in line.
�TIIE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
58
Coda
The Odyssey ends, we recall, as grandfather Laertes, father Odysseus, and
son Telemachos go forth to face the grandfathers and fathers who would avenge
the terrible death of their sons. No doubt the wrath felt by these avenging fathers
was fueled by their own deeply felt guilt. Was it not their own indifference to the
outrageous exploits of their growing sons that won them these sorrows? No doubt
a terrible blood bath would have ensued had Athene not intervened. But she did,
and we rest content thinking' that with the pledges sworn to by both sides, and
Odysseus's reunions completed, Odysseus's home is secure now and for the
future.
So ends the poem. But as we all know this end does not mark the absolute
end of Odysseus's travels. Teiresias had foretold and Odysseus had repeated to
Penelope the tale of the journey that still remained. It is to be, recall, a solo
journey to a far-away, landlocked place, where there are people living who know
nothing of the sea, not its food, its ships, not the "well shaped oars which act for
ships as wings do" (Xl.l25). Odysseus is to carry his own oar to this land, which
he will recognize when another wayfarer, meeting him on the road, mistakenly
calls his oar a winnowing fan. Once there he is to plant his oar and render
ceremonious sacrifice to Poseidon.
We may speculate, fruitfully, I think, about where this land is, how long such
a journey may take, what the planted oar might mean to these landlocked folks,
and so on. But given our concern this evening, it occurred to me that encoded in
this last, rather obscure adventure, may indeed lie Homer's deepest reflection on
fathers and sons, or more generally, on parents and children. I asked myself this
question: Given all that has happened, would it not have made more sense for
Homer to have had Odysseus give his well-shaped oar, that artful reminder of
his own manhood and wanderings, to his own son Telemachos? Apparently not.
Why not?
If the telos of Homer's poem is the completed home, that is, the home that is
secure now and in the future, Homer seems to be suggesting that for a home to
endure, parents must be ever vigilant. They must watch their children, of course,
but they must especially watch themselves. They must desist, as we have seen
Odysseus do, from asking their children tQ accept them, but, more iroporlantly,
they must desist from foisting on their children their own hopes and dreams and
ambitions. Parents may continue to live in their children, but they cannot live
through their children. They must inspirit and gnide their children, school them
in their ways and traditions, give them encouragement and time-Homer never
excuses Odysseus's absence-but they carmot put their own well-shaped oars
into the hands of their sons or daughters. The life they have given can replace,
but it cannot repeat their own. Having prepared the way, we parents must allow
the next generation to carve their own oars, to navigate their own waters, even
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as we hope that their journeys will resemble our own. A very hard lesson, indeed.
Even Odysseus must be coaxed.
If this speculation is true, then it would seem that the real education of
Telemachos has only just begun.
***
Notes:
1. Samuel Butler, The Authoress of the Odyssey (New York: AMS Press, I 968),
p.279.
2. Homer, Odyssey, translated by Richmond Lattimore, (New York:Harper and
Row, 1977). All Odyssey citations are from this translation, except where
otherwise indicated.
3. Cited in Heinz Kohut, "Introspection, Empathy, and the Semi Circle of
Mental Health," International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 63 (1982) 404.
(There is one allusion to the embassy in the Odyssey at XXIV.l!S-19.)
4. Ibid.
5. Cf. Edward F. D' Arms and Karl K. Hulley, "The Oresteia-Story in the
Odyssey," Tra:nsactions and Proceedings, American Philological Association, 77 (1946) 207-13
6. Norman Austin, Archery at the Dark of the Moon (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1975), p.I02. Austin continues his argument as follows:
"Man's movement, his gesture even, is a declaration of that harmony
between inner and outer. Gesture is space invoked, space imitated. Going
eastward or westward, upward or downward, left or right, is a physical act,
but an act significant of a person's character or emotion. It is because space
has quality that we are entitled to find significance in Achilleus' gesture
when he hurls the royal scepter to the ground and sitS down himself
(ll.l.245-46) or to assert that when Agamemnon sits down to deliver his
apology to Achilleus his posture is as important as his utterance (ll. 19.77)."
Austin cites Odysseus's father, Laertes-his ragged clothes, his abandonment of the city, his preference for ashes and leaves, or for decay and
dissolution-as the "clearest example" of this phenomenon.
7. This is the view set out by, among others, Norman Austin in "Telemachos
Polymechanos," California Studies in Classical Antiquity, Vol.2, 1969, p.47.
8. See Agathe Thornton, People and Themes in Homer's Odyssey (Dunedin:
University of Toronto Press, 1970), especially, Chapter VII. "The Suitors,"
pp.63-67. Though the inferences I draw are my own, the discussion of the
suitors that immediately follows draws heavily on Thornton's observations.
9. Cf. Thornton, op.cit., p.64
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THE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
10. It is, in general, the case that in the world according to Homer, to be in the
dark about who your father is is to be in the dark simply-disoriented and
without hope. See, especially, Homer's simile at V.394-99.
11. Mary Hannah Jones, "A First Reading of the Odyssey," in Prize Papers, St.
Joho's College, 1977-78, p. 62.
12. Austin, "Telemachos Polymechanos," op.cit., p.53
13. Ibid., p.53
14. Ibid.
15. In an effort to emphasi~e the apparent changes in Telemachos and the
moment of his meeting With his father, I have shortchanged the "schools"
that were Sparta and Pylas. It is surely no accident that Athene sent
Telemachos to these places in particular. For no doubt pepnumenos
Telemachos is made far more aware of his geographical and paternal origins
by the very fact that each place and its presiding figure(s) is so different
from the other, and so different from lthak:a. Let me collect here just a few
of the more salient differences.
Sandy Pylos, where 4,500 residents congregate, at day break, near the
shore to offer a ceremonious sacrifice of 81 bulls to Poseidon, stands in stark
contrast to the rich, inland plains of horse-pasturing Sparta, and both stand
in stark contrast to rocky Ithaka. In Pylos, where men live piously and
simply and, seemingly, mostly outdoors, old Nestor presides. In Sparta,
where one's attention is drawn to the lavish interiors, to the abundant wealth
and beauty of the palace-Telemachos mistakes the palace for the home of
Zeus himself-Menelaos and Helen preside. In Pylos, where every visitor
provides a fresh occasion to show one's gratitude to the gods, men celebrate
the past and look forward to the future: Nestor is always flanked by his six
sons and companions. In Sparta, where every visitor provides a fresh
reminder of the miserable origins of Trojan War, men look only to past pain
and seemingly have no future: though Helen and Menelaos are celebrating
a marriage-their only child, Hermione, born before the war, is about to
marry Neoptolemos, Achilles' son-the departure of Hermione further
highlights the emptiness, indeed, the sterility, of their home. Though he
hears tales of Odysseus' heroic virtues, he also hears tales about the difference between Odysseus and his heroic counterparts, tales which, no doubt,
spark Telemachos' special interest. In Pylos, for example, Nestor's tale
about the strategy he urged_ at the end of the war invites Telemachos to think
about the difference between Nestor and Odysseus as counsellors.
Menelaos's and Helen's tales of Odysseus' enormous capacity for selfcontrol make evident, by contrast, their own deficiencies. See, especially,
Austin, Archery at the Dark of the Moon and George E. Dimock, The Unity
of the Odyssey (Amherst: The University of Massachusetts Press, 1989) for
a more extensiVe discussion of the "schools" of Pylos and Sparta.
16. Austin, "Telemachos· Polymechanos," op.cit.
�The Least Deceptive Mirror
of the Mind:
Truth and Reality
in the Homeric Poems
Carl A. Rubino
I
At the climax of hls encounter with the Roman governor Pontius Pilate, the
strange and annoying Nazarene called Jesus introduces the matter of truth: "I
was born and I carne into the world to bear witness to the truth, and everyone
who sides with the truth hears my voice" (John 18.37). Pilate's well-known
response belies his frustration; "What is truth?" he asks, and quickly turns to
leave the room. Pilate seems well aware that a discussion of truth between him
and Jesus would involve the sort of "cultural confrontation" that any Roman
administrator who wished to succeed could ill afford.
Had Jesus and Pilate been Westerners of a more recent stamp, they might have
engaged in a discussion of the notions of transparency and fullness. That most
exemplary Westerner, Erasmus, who falsely claimed to hail from Rotterdam,
makes his heroine Folly pay heed to-and at the same time undercut-the ideal
of transparency. "Folly speaks," and she informs us that "speech is the least
deceptive mirror of the mind."1 We also expect what is true to be complete; we
demand fullness; when we swear in court, we promise "to tell the truth, the whole
truth, and nothing but the truth." Consider the hearings on the Watergate scandal
or the more recent Iran-Contra affair. Both were replete with demands for and
promises of "full disclosure."
Some have come to associate the demand for transparency with what they
call the "correspondence theory of truth," where it is a matter of accurate
representation. If! say "It's raining outside" when it is actually sunny, I have not
represented reality but masked it; my words do not correspond to what is really
Carl Rubino is Professor of Classics at Hamilton College. He was a tutor at St. John's
College, Annapolis, in the academic year 1988-89, and at the Graduate Institute in the
summer of 1990.
�62
1HE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
happening out there. In its extreme fonn, the correspondence theory takes ideas
as copies of objects and words as copies of ideas. Fullness, on the other hand, is
associated with the "coherence tl1eory of truth." Here it is a matter of getting
everything to hang together, and there is no truth shmt of the whole truth.' Thus
the slick lawyer of television and films or the tough detective-novel cop will try
to knock holes in a suspect's story; find the places where the story does not hang
together, and the whole false tangle will unravel just like Penelope's web, that
delaying fiction ultimately unmasked by the truth-hungry suitors (Od. 2.85-110).
Here we must note an important corollary: Even though someone might be telling
the truth, even though what he or she says is "what really happened," if that
person is unable to tell it coherently, in the proper style, it can and often will be
taken as falsehood, as all those bumbling victims of fast-talking lawyers can
testify.
The notion of uuth as coherence is the one we often invoke in attempting to
explain how works of art-fictions all---<:an somehow be true. When we gaze
with wonder upon the awesome splendor of Michelangelo's David, for example,
we do not expect the statue merely to correspond to what a human male body
actually looks like. If we want to see "real bodies," all we have to do is look at
one another; there is no need to contemplate great works of art. What we really
expect from Michelangelo, or from any other artist, whether painter, sculptor,
writer, or composer, is that the work cohere in a way that pleases, moves, and
inspires us. Works of art, even so-called realistic works, do not merely correspond
to reality; on the contrary, they transfonn reality, investing it with a marvelous
luminosity, and the mode of transfonnation is their superior degree of coherence.
Speaking from another point of view, we might associate transparence with
candor and fullness with spontaneity. Although such associations serve to
demonstrate that it is ultimately impossible to maintain our distinctions absolutely, since the meanings of candor and spontaneity often overlap, we can still
perceive the distinction if we remember that a candid person is someone whose
words clearly reflect his thoughts, while it remains true that at least one phrase
associated with spontaneity is "He simply blurted it all out."
II
In any case, everyone would probably agree that both candor and spontaneity
are obvious characteristics of"the best of the Achaeans," Achilles. At the opening
of the l/iad he enjoins a fearful Calchas to "tell it like it is" (1.74-91), and he
insists upon "speaking his mind" to a resentful and angry Agamemnon who is
yet quite willing to compromise (examine 1.116-20 and 140-47, lines too little
noted by commentators). It is difficult to imagine a hero like Achilles not saying
what he means; and it is this attitude as much as Agamemnon's arrogance that
�RUBINO
63
brings on the crisis ofthelliad. To reach the accommodation advocated by Nestor
(1.254-84), compromise is necessary; as Nestor says, it is better to listen to reason
and take advice. For Nestor it is a question of compromise between manly
prowess on the one hand and political authority on the other. Unfortunately, all
such compromises require a certain softening or blurring of what one sees clearly
as hard truth; and Achilles simply will not modify his position or mollify his
words. Agamemnon is well aware of this; he notes that even though the gods
have made Achilles a great warrior, they have not given him the right to hurl
insults (1.290-91).
'
Achilles himself makes his attitude quite clear during the embassy's visit in
Book Nine. Immediately after Odysseus has conveyed to him the generous terms
of Agamemnon's peace offer, he responds with these frank words:
I owe you a straight answer, as to how
I see this thing, and how it is to end
No need to sit with me like mourning doves
making your gentle noise by turns. I hate
as I hate Hell's own gate that man who hides
one thought within him while he speaks another.
What I shall say is what I see and thiok.
(9.309-14) 3
The fault that Achilles hates, saying one thing while thinking another, is of course
the very opposite of candor and spontaneity; the liar does not display what is in
his mind but rather disguises it. For the liar, speech is not Folly's bright mirror
but the means par excellence to keep one's thoughts in the dark. Yet we should
note that in this case at least Odysseus's intentions are not only honorable but
also transparent. Like his companions on the embassy, he wishes to effect a
reconciliation between Agamemnon and Achilles, and he makes no secret of that.
It is because he wishes so ardently for that reconciliation that he omits from his
report of Agamemnon's offer, which is otherwise repeated in all its detail
(9.122-57 and 9.264-99, mutatis mutandis), the part that Achilles would have
found unpalatable:
Let him be subdued!
Lord Death indeed is deaf to appeal, implacable;
of all gods therefore he is most abhorrent
to mortal men. So let Akhilleus bow to me,
considering that I hold higher rank
and claim the precedence of age.
(9.158-61)
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THE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
For those tough words, Odysseus substitures the following pitch:
Even if you abhor
the son of Atreus all the more bitterly,
with all his gifts, take pity on the rest,
all the old army, worn to rags in battle.
These will honor you as gods are honored!
And ah, for these, what glory you may win!
Think: Hek(or is your man this time: being crazed
with ruinoUs pride, believing there's no fighter
equal to him among those that our ships
brought here by sea, he 'II put himself in range.
(9.300-306)
As always, Odysseus is very shrewd. Insread of offering Achilles an exhortation
to obedience, he appeals to his feelings for his fellow warriors, to his obsessive
desire for honor and glory, and to his competitive inslincts, his insistence upon
being Number One.
Unfortunarely, the tactic does not work, perhaps because it is so very transparent. Achilles is not obtuse, and he knows that something is wrong with
Odysseus's report. He guesses wrong about what Odysseus has done, accusing
him of not being lransparent when Odysseus is in fact not being forthcoming, is
simply withholding an important part of Agamemnon's message and replacing
it with something he thinks Achilles would rather hear. Of course, Achilles' error
is minor and is perhaps best defined as misplaced emphasis, not only because
withholding can be described as lack of candor, but also because everyone knows
that the Odyssean personality is willing and able to violare the canon of
lransparency when that seems necessary. Ullimarely, therefore, Achilles is perfectly correct: Achilles is the opposite of the man who glories in the nighttime
sneak-attack on the Trojan camp (Book Ten, the Do/oneia) and who stoops to
use the poisoned arrows mentioned by Athena, his equally non-lransparent
alter-ego, in this instance disguised as Mentes (Od. 1.260-64). No, Achilles is
once and for all the ideal slraight shooter and slraight talker. The kind of hero
exalted in the Iliad purports to be a man of action, not a man of words (listen to
Hector at II. 20.366-68, 20.430-37, and 22.279-82; there is also Aeneas at II.
20.244-58), but when he does use words, lie remains absolutely faithful to the
canons of lransparency and fullness. He makes every effort to say what he means.
It is worth taking a leap across the centuries to the hero whose k/eos aphiton
is celebrared not by Homer but by Plato. Socrates, well-known for his obstinate
insistence on speaking the truth, recognized his kinship with the great hero of
thelliad.ln answer to those who would reproach him for putting his life in danger
by such behavior, Socrates speaks as follows:
�RUBINO
65
On your view the heroes who died at Troy would be poor creatures, especially
the son of Thetis. ... he made light of his death and danger, being much more
afraid of ao ignoble life aod of failing to avenge his friends .... The truth of
the matter is this, gentlemen. Where a man has once taken his stand, either
because it seems best to him or in obedience to his orders, there I believe he
is bound to remain and face the danger, taking no account of death or anything
else before dishonor.4
There it is: death before dishonor, standing up for what you believe, maintaining
one's position at all costs, that stubborn, almost pigheaded insistence on never
letting up, never softening your position, never giving any quarter to your
unfortunate opponents. The best of the Achaeans and the best of the Athenians
are two of a kind!
III
The Odyssey, on the other hand, is at one with its protagonist in consistently
sliding off course, consistently denying the value of candor and spontaneity,
emphasizing in their place the non-transparent face of language and the uses of
withholding the truth. 5 The much-discussed Cyclops episode will have to do its
duty once again, since it offers a splendid example of my point. That episode, as
we all know, is replete with deception. Consider, for example, Odysseus's
passing out of the cave hidden under the ram's belly. It is marked throughout by
insincerity. Odysseus ignores the urgings of his men, who wish to steal some
cheeses and run, then to come back later to drive out the lambs and kids; he insists
that they wait and try to talk the Cyclops, whom he imagines he can cast for the
role of sucker, out of some gifts, relying on good old xenie, one of the greatest
ruses of the confidence-man (Od. 9.224-30).6 When the Cyclops fmally returns
to his cave, Odysseus confronts him with a failed masterpiece of the swindler's
art:
We are from Troy, Akhaians, blown off course
by shifting gales on the Great South Sea;
homeward bound, but taking routes and ways
uncommon; so the will of Zeus would have it.
We served under Agamemno~ son of Atreus-
the whole world knows what city
he laid waste, what armies he destroyed.
It was our luck to come here; here we stand,
beholden for your help, or aoy gifts
you give-as custom is to honor strangers.
We would entreat you, great Sir, have a care
for the gods' courtesy: Zeus will avenge
the unoffending guest.
(9.259-71)
�66
THE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
That seems a fairly windy speech for Odysseus. His initial tactic is to impress
Polyphemus with some pretentious name-dropping, the kind of thing that the
gullible always go for. Thus we get mention of Troy, of Agamemnon and the
great fame he and his comrades won there, and of Zeus himself, who is supposed
to have arranged our hero's visit to the Cyclops's island. Roughly midway
through this valiant effort, however, we can see Odysseus changing course as he
sees from the expression on the Cyclops's face that the intended victim is not
buying his line. Thus at line 266 Odysseus makes a sudden detour into religious
discourse, turning himself and his men from big-time conquering heroes to abject
suppliants whose safety now depends upon the protection of Zeus: "Zeus-you
know the one I mean, Zeus xeinios, the one who takes care of strangers and
suppliants" (270-71). For all his fear, however, Odysseus is still after those gifts,
and it is to the Cyclops's credit that at least he does not fall for this.
The episode is also marked by the withholding of truth. In that splendid pun
on outis Odysseus both withholds his real name and gives the Cyclops a name
that is not transparent, that is at odds with reality, that does not correspond with
his real name. In the end, as the reaction of his fellow Cyclopes forces Polyphemus to see, outis is no name at all. This brilliant piece of linguistic chicanery,
worked out at the expense of the unfortunate and ignorant Cyclops, who insists
upon taking people at their word, is a perfect encapsulation of the Odyssean
attitude toward language, truth, and reality. But we should not be too eager to
condemn our wily hero as a villain and a cad. Even though we must constantly
recall that it is Odysseus who is telling this story and thus manipulating us as
well as the Cyclops,? we must also remember that in situations such as the one
Odysseus describes here, telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the
truth, remaining faithful to our beloved ideals of candor and spontaneity, would
lead to unmitigated disaster. Indeed, the Cyclops episode contains an extremely
telling point against spontaneity. After the Cyclops has made his first meal of
Odysseus's companions, washing down their flesh and bone with plenty of good
fresh milk, he falls asleep right in front of the terrified survivors. Odysseus tells
us what happened next:
My heart beat higb now at the chance of action,
and drawing the sharp sword from my hip I went
along his flank to stab him where the midriff
holds the liver. I had touched the spot
when sudden fear stayed me: if I killed him
we perished there as well, for we could never
move his ponderous doorway slab aside.
So we were left to groan and wait for morning.
(9.298-306)
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RUBINO
The sudden fear that prevents the mmder of the Cyclops is prompted by a truly
inspired "second thought" and by typically Odyssean presence of mind. Where
most people, Achilles included, would have killed the sleeping giant in a bmst
of unrestrained spontaneity, Odysseus hangs on grimly, waiting for the main
chance, as always. Where we would have perished, gasping for our last breath·
and lamenting our lack of forethought (much as Achilles bemoans his inability
to foresee the arranged death ofPatroclus), Odysseus remains alive to pursue his
homeward journey.
Returning to the question of candor, to the matter of Odysseus revealing his
name when he is asked for it, we should remember thatin the end he does indeed
give that name to Polyphemus, using the full-dress version.
Kyklops,
if ever mortal man inquire
how you were put to shame and blinded, tell him
Odysseus, raider of cities, took your eye:
Laertes' son, whose home's on Ithaka!
(9.502-5)
That extremely rare example of Odyssean "full disclosme," uttered at an equally
rare moment when our calculating hero gives way to passion, proves catastrophic
for Odysseus and his men, for it allows the wounded Cyclops to identify his
tormentor to Poseidon, who consequently undertakes the hounding of Odysseus.
We must conclude, then, that in the Odyssey candor and spontaneity are not
highly valued as tools for survival.
Language as a disguising medium is vitally important to Odysseus throughout
his travels, but it is no less important after he returns to Ithaca, a place now
dominated by the dangerous suitors and their allies. Here, once again, telling the
unvarnished truth would have been foolhardy and suicidal. The suitor Leokritos
puts the matter quite well in Book Two, as Telemachus is preparing to go in search
of news about his father. The loyal Mentor has attempted to arouse the Ithacans
against the suitors, and Leokritos replies on their behalf:
Suppose Odysseus himself indeed
came in and fouud the suitors at his table:
he ruight be hot to drive them out. What then?
Never would he enjoy his wife againthe wife who loves him well; he'd only bring down
abject death upon himself against those odds.
(2.246-51)
Odysseus simply cannot confront the suitors directly. Where Penelope once
wove her web to deceive and delay the suitors, Odysseus must now weave his
own web of falsehood and lies. Where Penelope's clever strategem ultimately
�THE ST. JOHN•s REVIEW
68
failed. Odysseus must develop a wimring strategy, for he is playing for iufinitely
higher stakes-his life. Like the contest Odysseus the bowman announces at the
opening of Book Twenty-Two, and unlike the aristocratic contests of the
Phaeacians in Book Eight or the decadent dalliance of the suitors with the bow
in Book 1Wenty-One, Odysseus's game upon his return to Ithaca is from start to
finish an aethlos replete with afe, one in which the losers will really and truly
be blown away. 8 If Odysseus loses this one, he will die. It is therefore no accident
that Books 13-21 display the art of deception raised to its highest level, and
Aristotle has good reason to shy that "Homer more than any other has taught the
rest of us the art of framing lies in the right way.''9
IV
It is not difficult to see that Odysseus must lie if he is to survive. Yet there is
much more to it than that. Odysseus is frequently described as an "outsider," and
this notion proves crucial for understanding the relation of language, truth, and
reality in the Odyssey. The plain fact is that it is far easier for insiders to tell the
truth and to be believed than it is for outsiders to do so.
When it is a matter of simple statements of fact, such as my earlier example
"It's raining outside," verification presents no difficulties. Whether or not the
person who makes such a statement is known or unknown to us, all we have to
do is look outdoors to determine whether he is telling the truth. But reflect on
the fact that if we know and trust the person who makes such a statement, if he
is an insider, we do not take the trouble to check; we take him at his word. This
becomes especially significant in matters where verification is not so easy, where
we are compelled to take people at their word.
In such cases we take a much closer look at that word, and the criterion for
judging truth or falsehood is almost exclusively coherence. We tend not to
believe people who rave or babble. The form of presentation becomes crucial. If
something sounds true, we tend to take it as true. This may seem quite simple
and obvious, but it is not, for the canons of coherence and thus of verisimilitude
are not universal but culture-bound. What seems raving or babbling in one culture
may make perfect sense in another; what ma)<:es sense, what hangs together, what
seems true can vary from culture to culture.10 It follows that outsiders will have
difficulty getting believed in such situations, for they will have difficulty producing the required sort of coherence. This explains why the slick lawyer can
victimize the innocent, truthful, but uneducated witness. Such a witness cannot
meet the required standard of coherence. It also lies behind Pilate's refusal to
discuss the truth with Jesus. The jaded Roman is very well aware that the canons
of truth for himself and the strange foreigner standing before him are so different
�69
RUBINO
that such a discussion would either be impossible or too dangerous to risk, since
it would gravely threaten the accepted cultural norms and divisions.
Not only do the words uttered by outsiders fail to cohere in the proper way;
often those outsiders are not permitted to cohere, since they are not part of the
group whose norms they must satisfy. Thus outsiders often have great difficulty
being taken seriously, getting others to examine the !ruth-value of their words.
Take, for example, Thersites (fl. 2.211-77), the quintessential outsider despised
by both the aristocrats and the troops. What he says to Agamemnon in the
presence of the Achaeans is not very different from what Achilles says in Book
One and is considerably less insulting; furthermore, his statements can be
defended as being quite lrue. Yet he is beaten and ridiculed. He is an outsider;
he is not part of the leadership. Thus he has no right to speak the !ruth, and his
words will not be heeded. The opposite is true for Achilles, the very incarnation
of the hero, the indispensible warrior, the ideal Achaean. He can say anything he
pleases, since his place is at the very center of the group, whose embodiment he
is. Insiders like Achilles and Agamemnon can trade the most vicious insults and
accusations while still remaining accepted members of the group; in Book
Nineteen, justa few days after their acrimonious quarrel, they are reconciled and
all seems forgotten. The insider can say almost anything, the outsider almost
nothing.
Odysseus is always aware of this restriction; thus he always plans his
utterances with extreme care, knowing that his ouly chance lies in producing a
coherence so superior that it compels others to give him a hearing. His carefully
contrived, intricate webs, those marvelous Odyssean texts-remember that our
word text comes from the Latin word for weaving-ensnare Nausicaa, inducing
her to provide him with the all-important entree to the people who count in
Phaeacia; they buy him the time he needs to size up the situation at Ithaca; they
give him the opportunity to set the unfortunate snitors up for the kill; and, most
important for my purposes here, they create and maintain among the Phaeacians
that feeling of kinship with Odysseus that guarantees their promise to deliver
him safely home to Ithaca. Enthralled by Odysseus's tales and obviously hoping
for more, Alcinous reiterates his promise to arrange our hero's conveyance.
Our friend
longs to put out for home, but let him be
content to rest here one more day, until
I see all gifts bestowed. And every man
will take thought for his launching and his voyage,
I most of all, for I am master here.
(11.350-53) 11
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TilE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
v
Lucian, who claims for himself the ability to relate intricate and well-embroidered lies in a plausible manner, informs us that our "guide and instroctor" in
this sort of thing is Horner's Odysseus, who bamboozled the simple-minded and
gullible Phaeacians with those tall tales ofhis. 12 But perhaps Lucian has not given
sufficient credit to Alcinous and his court. Arete's interruption of Odysseus's
narrative (11.336-41) makes it clear to her fellow countrymen that they ought to
judge their guest favorably oil the basis of his narrative. Speaking to Odysseus
a few lines later, Alcinous himself expands upon this notion:
As to that, one word, Odysseus:
from all we see, we take you for no swindlerthough the dark earth be patient of so many,
scattered everywhere, baiting their traps with lies
of old times and of places no one knows.
You speak with art, but your intent is honest.
The Argive troubles, and your own troubles,
you told as a poet would, a man who knows the world.
(11.363-69)
Alcinous emphasizes the coherence, the verisimilitude, of Odysseus's narrative,
not its correspondence to reality. He and his fellow countrymen "believe"
Odysseus because his narrative displays morphe, the kind of coherence that
demonstrates that he-like them-is a man of good sense, phrenes esthlai
(11.367), the phrase Fitzgerald renders as "honest intent." The compelling
quality of Odysseus's narrative, which does after all deal with events that most
sophisticated audiences would take as "fictional," binds him closely to the
Phaeacians and at the same time serves to distinguish him and his gracious hosts
from that large, amorphous, and anonymous mass of outsiders. It is they, not us,
who tell lies; it is they who are not to be trosted. The compelling coherence of
Odysseus's narrative, its IIWrphe, accomplishes the essential metamorphosis,
transforming him from outsider to insider, moving him right to the center of the
group.
Alcinous's comparison of Odysseus to an epic poet reveals even greater
insight into the matter. Odysseus is believable and trostworthy because his
narrative coheres in a way that satisfies its audience's expectations and canons
of coherence, i.e., because it is art, superior fiction, successful poii!sis. The
Phaeacians come to accept Odysseus because they recognize him as a great artist,
a world-class storyteller. It is his marvelous artistic ability as a spinner of words
that enables him to survive his journey horne from Troy and the harrowing time
with the arrogant suitors, to overcome the dangers posed by alien cultures and
by decadence within his own culture. In this sense, paradoxically, Odysseus
�RUBINO
71
stands as a powerful proof that great art transcends cultural boundaries and is in
some sense universal.
One final paradox. In the end, Odysseus's narrative, for all its marvelous
coherence, artifice, and art, turns out to be gorgeously transparent as well. With
an important qualification: it displays not so much the truth of what is related
but the character of its immensely skillful narrator. Thus Aristotle is right once
again. TheOdysseyisindeedastory aboutcharacter(Poelics 1459bl2-16). Upon
reflection, then, Odysseus's words do indeed become the least deceptive mirror
of his mind, an extremely accurate reflection of what he is. But what is he? Wbat
do we mean by character, mind, or the self? For Aristotle character is something
we create for ourselves by the choices we make throughout our lives. Contemporary thinkers have also given much attention to the question of character and
the self. In the opening pages of his Mythologiques, Levi-Strauss states that
"unlike philosophical reflection, which claims to go back to its own source, the
reflections we are dealing with here concern rays whose only source is hypothetical," that emanate from a virtual focal point (unfoyer virtue[)P After observing
that the structural method employed by Uvi-Strauss "aims at preventing this
virtual focus from being made into a real source oflight, " 14 Paul de Man extends
Levi-Strauss's analogy lD literature and its "source":
The "virtual focus" is, strictly speaking, a nothing, but its nothingness concerns us very little, since a mere act of reason suffices to give it a mode of
being that leaves the rational order unchallenged. The same is not true of the
imaginary source of fiction. Here the human self has experienced the void
within itself and the invented fiction, far from filling the void, asserts itself as
pure nothingness, our nothingness stated and restated by a subject that is the
agent of its own instability. 15
We need not go quite so far in the direction of nihilism to agree that what we call
the self or our character is truly something we create for ourselves. It is an
invention, a fiction, a poiesis. Despite the many constraints placed upon us by
nature and human society, we are very much our own creations, and what we
make of ourselves as human beings is up lD us. Indeed, nature, of which we are
a part and whose processes are part of us, challenges us to become fully ourselves.
If the Odyssey is a poem that satisfies our hunger for both coherence and
transparency, a poem that is rich in truth, that truth remains the truth of fiction.
And although fiction too has its constraints, its truth remains the truth that saved
Odysseus and the only truth that can set us free.
�Tiffi ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
72
Notes:
1. Praise of Folly, trans. B. Radice (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1971),
I and 5, pp. 63 and 67.
I am grateful to audiences at Brown University, the University of California, Santa Cruz, the University of Southern California, and the University
of California, San Diego, for their helpful remarks on earlier versions of
this paper.
2. I am indebted here to SO!l)e unpublished remarks of Richard Rorty, made in
response to a paper of mlne delivered at Princeton University on April 10,
1976.
3. Translations of Homer are by Robert Fitzgerald: Iliad (Garden City: Anchor/Doubleday, 1974); Odyssey (Garden City: Anchor/Doubleday, 1961).
Readers are, of course, strongly urged to examine Homer's Greek.
4. Apology 28b9-d9, trans. H. Tredennick (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books,
1969). To those who would argue that II. 1.188-222, where Athena intervenes to prevent Achilles from drawing his sword against Agamemnon,
suggest that Achilles may not be quite so spontaneous as I have maintained
here, it may be replied that the need for Athena to intervene serves to
demonstrate my point. Without her intervention, Achilles' inability to curb
his "natural impulses" would have led to disaster.
5. See Ann L. T. Bergren, "Odyssean Temporality: Many (Re)Tums," in Carl
A. Rubino and Cynthia W. Shelmerdine, eds., Approaches to Homer (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1983), pp. 38-73. There are, of course, many
other parts of the Odyssey that could have served my analysis here. Book
Fourteen, for example, shows Odysseus constructing an elaborate skein of
falsehoods to get the desired results from Eumaeus, who, unlike Polyphemus, turns out to be no fool. Especially interesting here are lines 156-57,
where Odysseus, about to tell his false story, echoes the very words of
Achilles at II. 9.312-13: "I hate as I hate Hell's own gate," he says, "that
weakness that makes a poor man into a flatterer."
6. See Norman Austin, "Odysseus and the Cyclops: Who is Who," in Rubino
and Shelmerdine (above, note 5), pp. 3-37.
7. Ibid.
8. See E. D. Francis, "Virtue, Folly, and Greek Etymology," in Rubino and
Shehnerdine (above, note 5), pp. 74-121. See also William F. Wyatt, Jr.,
"Homeric "ATH," AJP !03 (1982), 247-76.
9. Poetics 1460al9-20, trans. I. Bywater (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1924).
10. See John Peradotto, "Odyssey 8.564-571: Verisimilitude, Narrative Analysis, and Bricolage," Texas Studies in Literature and Language 15 (1974),
803-32. See also his Man in the Middle Voice: Name and Narration in the
Odyssey (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990).
II. See Od. 7.308-28 and 8.536-86. See also Peradotto (above, note 10),
Bergren (above, note 5), and James M. Redfield, "The Economic Man," in
Rubino and Shelmerdine (above, note 5), pp. 218-47.
�RUBINO
73
12. True Story 1.2-3. See 1(. 2.484-92 and Hesiod, Theogony 26-28. See also
Pietro Pucci, I-/esiod and the Language of Poetry (Baltimore: The Johns
Hopkins University Press, 1979) and "The Language of the Muses," in
Wendell M. Aycock and Theodore M. Klein, eds., Classical Mythology in
Twentieth Century Thought and Literature =Proceedings of the Comparative Literature Symposium, XI (Lubbock: Texas Tech Press, 1980), pp.
163-86.
13. The Raw and the Cooked, which is vol. II of Introduction to a Science of
Mythology, l, trans .. J. and D. Weightman (New York: Harper and Row,
'
1975), p. 5.
14. Blindness and Insight: Essays in the Rhetoric of Contemporary Criticism
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1971; reprinted, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1983), p. 11.
15. Ibid., p. 19. In a book that points us towards Derrida and "post-structuralism," the Sartrean echoes of such statements come as a surprise.
�74
TilE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
�I
What is a Book?
Eva T. H. Brann
It is our tradition that the first lecture of the year should be dedicated to our
freshmen. They have newly joined a community whose program of learning
centers on the scheduled reading of a pre-set list of books and on the twiceweekly discussion that takes place in the seminar. They have come to us chiefly
because that is what we do here. I have read each of their applications, and I can
vouch for the fact.
Then what sort of impression will I be making on them if I ask an absurd
question like "What is a book?"-and ask it in public? Don't we, known to the
world as a Great Books College, know what a book is, even what a great book
is?
I was friends once with a little boy (we are still friends, but he is a big strapping
lawyer now, a public defender, no less) who told me he was making a rocket to
send into space. Because proper adults like to annoy little children I asked him
"What do you mean, space?" He looked at me in big-eyed amazement (he was
used to grown-ups having more answers than he had questions) and said
incredulously: "Don't you even know what space is-you know, outer space?"
So don't I even know what a book is, a great book?
Well, I do and I don't. I don't say that to create confusion. Contrary to what
some of your upper-class colleagues may try to tell you, confusion is not our
business, but rather clarification, partly because clear-headedness is one condition of open-mindedness. Aslowly developing, limited clarity of mind does seem
to me to be our business.
Nor, for that matter, is reading books our primruy activity, or even thinking
about them. Our primruy purpose is, in my opinion (I say "in my opinion"
because not everyone agrees) to reflect, which means literally "to bend (our
thought) back"-on itself and on ourselves. When you leave us in four years you
may well have chosen a career. The word "career" is related to "car" and connotes
This lecture, delivered in September, 1991, was the Dean's opening lecture of the
academic year.
�76
TilE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
taking off on a track, straight, speedy-and upward, we hope. The years immediately before you are, on the contrary, years ofleisure, of slow progress in a
rising circle (such as is called a spiral), of reviewing your points of origin-one
of which is yourself-from different vantage points. It is significant that we never
ask you to "take a comse" but always to "be in a tutorial." We invite you not to
course along a set track of organized knowledge, but to be active in a community
protective of learning wherever it goes, even when it goes in circles. That,
incidentally, is why your tea9hers are not called professors but tutors. These are
both Latiu words. A professor is "one who speaks out assertively in public," but
a tutor is "one who safeguards and watches" over things. A tutorial, then, is a
safe haven for learning with fifteen or so members, one of whom is the special
guardian of learning.
It is often said that there is yet another presence in the tutorial or the seminar,
the one that brings us together, the true guide and teacher, namely the great book
being studied. We often say that, and I think it is true. Not for nothing does our
college seal display seven books.
Let me take out a minute here for an interjection. You may be surprised by
my vehemence, but I want to warn you of what seems to me a very bad blight.
Countries, congregations, colleges-all have their verities, truths they keep
telliug about themselves. When a truth has been told and heard very often, it
loses, by a very natural process, its sap and its savor. Then there is a type of
person who concludes that because the truth has lost its savor for them, it is
unsavory, and they affect ennui and disdain toward it. They think the truth is flat
and falsified when it is their souls that have gone flaccid. I am not speaking of
those who vigorously oppose the truthfulness of the truth; they are the tonic that
keeps truths healthy. lam speaking of people-ourselves in certain moods-,-who
let the soul slip from the words they speak and then blame the words. The cure
for this condition seems to be to cultivate the habit of reverence. By reverence I
here mean the disposition to grant at least provisional significance to words and
sayings from which the meaning seems for the moment to have withdrawn and
to have become remote. The next step is then the effort to recover that meaning.
In that spirit I say that great books are om teachers, and this lecture is one
attempt to recall the meaning of this truism.
�BRANN
77
There is a man-you will spend much of your year arguing with him-who
intimates that it is foolish to talk about the quality and purpose of a thing before
asking what it is. In the manner of this man Socrates let me then put my title
question, to which we all know some obvious answers that turn increasingly
unobvious under reflection: What is a book?
Books as Bodies
A book appears to be, to begin with, a bodily thing. In an old college film,
which I hope you get to see sometime, there is a dorm sequence of a student
shouting upstairs to her friend: ''11rrow me down my Iliad." Down comes the
Iliad. Or it might have been her Paradise Lost, I've forgotten. Is the Iliad then a
thing subject to gravity, gaining distance as the square of the time? Is it her Iliad
or Homer's Iliad or Achilles' Iliad? Where is the place of this Iliad? In a book,
in the rhapsode's literal line-by-line memory, in the student's impressionistic
memory, nowhere, in Troy, in Hades? I say Hades, because as you will soon read
in the Odyssey, it is to the blood-drained invisible underworld that you must go
to learn the great tales on which poetry works. Again, when is a book's time of
being? When the story called the Iliad happened, in the twelfth century B.C.?
When it was told, in the eighth century B.C.? When an Athenian commission
first produced an official written version, in the sixth century B.C.? Or whenever
Johnnies read their seminar in the twentieth century, or, for that matter, in 1808
when the freshmen of this college (then called the "noviate class") first read
Homer-in Greek? (T. F. Tilghman, The Early History of St. John's College in
Annapolis, p. 36.) Or whenever Homer's poem is at work influencing lives, as
the vision of Achilles once, in the fourth century B.C., drove Alexander the Great
to the deeds that made him so?
Or is it whenever the Iliad stands on a shelf waiting to be opened? In that
most thought-provoking of children's books, Michael Ende'sNeverending Story,
the boy Sebastian, about to open the magical book he has stolen, says to himself:
I would like to lmow what actually goes on in a book as long as it's closed.
. . . One has to read it to experience it, that's clear. But it's already there
beforehand. I would like to know, how?
These are tricky perplexities that push themselves forward when you approach this book-thing with questions such as Whose possession? In what place?
At what time? Let me nonetheless stick for a while with the crudest set of
solutions, those that take a book as a physical object.
�78
THE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
Paul Scott, the author of the Raj Quartet, the work I think of as the most
considerable novel of the time between the Second World War and our present,
was much impressed by the following prosaic account of what it is to be a book:
A small hard rectangular object, whose pages are bound along one edge into
fixed covers and numbered consecutively.
(On Writing and the Novel, p. 211, quoting Bergonzi)
As I flesh out this bare-bones definition of a bound paper book, do, please,
compare what it means to read such a book with the unrolling of a papyrus scroll
on the one hand, and the scrolling of a computer display on the other.
Books, says the passage, are small and hard, which means they are safely
carried hither and thither and can even be thrown down the stairwell. As
sophomores you will read Augustine's autobiography, in which he confesses first
his life of sin and finally his conversion to faith. He tells how his landlord let
him use the garden of the house Augustine was renting, and there he and his
friend one day carried a book, or codex, as Augustine calls it, which means a set
of wooden tablets, a sort of proto-book. It was not just any book, but a codex
apostoli. It was a pari of the The Book, to bib/ion, in English, the Bible. (Let me
take out a minute to say that the Greek word bib/ion means a thing made of biblos,
which is the word for papyrus, while papyrus itself comes into English as paper.)
Augustine was, at that time, in great agony over his sins and his doubts.
Suddenly, in the garden, he heard a child's voice saying over and over in a
sing-song tone: "Tolle lege, to/le lege," ''Take it and read it, take it and read it."
So he took the book and read what he found, and at that moment it was, as he
says in his beautiful Latin:
Quasi luce securitas infusa cordi mea, omnes dubitationes tenebrae
diffugeruut. (Corifessions VIII, 12)
"As if a light of assurance had poured into my hear!, all the shadows of doubt
fled away." If the book had not been in the garden there might have been no
voice, or if there had been a voice, Augustine would not have heeded it, or if he
had heeded it, he would have had nothing to take up and read. And he would
have missed the moment that made him, his conversion. It is because books are
portable that the ready reader can sometimes come on the word fitly spoken
To descend from the solemn to the ordinary: the bound paper book can be
carried about more conveniently than most other containers of valuables except
wallets-in a pocket, handgrip, or knapsack, to bed, bathroom, beach, or waiting
room. How many of you spent months in high school carrying around a book
until the time was ripe, and you took it and read it?
�79
BRANN
Besides being small and hard, the book of the definition is normally rectangular. Its rectangularity betokens the self-effacement of the visible layout of the
text. Let me explain.
There is something called pattern poetry. An example is the Mouse's sad Tale
in Alice in Wonderland, which looks like what it sounds like, a tail. You see here
only the tail end of the tale:
'Snch a
trial
dear sir,
With no
. jury or
JUdge,
would be
wasting
our breath.'
'I'll be
judge,
I'll be
jury,'
Said
cunning
old Fury:
'I'll try
the whole
cause,
•nd
condemn
you
to
death.'
This sort of innocent typographical game, a kind of printed calligraphy, has,
I should tell you, recently been used as a jumping-off place for grave reflections
on the latest of intellectual revolutions. A famous French intellectual has said:
Thus the calligram aspires playfully to efface the oldest oppositions of our
alphabetical civilization: to show and to name; to shape and to say; to
reproduce and to articulate; to imitate and to signify; to look and to read.
(Michel Foucault, This is Not a Pipe, p. 21)
The traditional book, it is true, suppresses the looking in favor of the reading.
It is rectangular because it breaks the narrative into optically convenient and
semantically arbitrary stacks of lines. In some traditions these are arranged
horiwntally, in some, like the Chinese and Japanese, vertically; some are read
from left to right, and some like Hebrew, from right to left so that the book begins
where an English book ends. The earliest Greek writing is sometimes read back
and forth, which is called boustrophedon, meaning ox-turning, as in plowing. I
�80
THE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
am sure that all these conventions carry significance with them. For instance, the
fact that Western readers' eyes survey the page in the plane of the horizon back
and forth, while Oriental readers move their head vertically as though noddingthere must be some meaning in that.
Next, Scott's quotation says that the pages of a book are numbered consecutively. This pagination is, so to speak, the street address of the narrative. That
address system makes it possible to revisit locations in a book. For worthy books
are meant to be read in a double way, so that the first reading is somehow already
the second reading. One way' is to follow the stacks of lines and the sequence of
pages straight through. Of course, while we are barging on with the inexorable
clock-say it is 6:30 on a seminar night-the time of the narrative warps back
and forth. For example, the centerpiece of the Odyssey, Books IX through XII,
where Odysseus turns poet and tells of the len years when he seemed lost to the
world, is all flashback; it is only with Book XIll that we return to the present of
the story.
But there is a second way to scramble the time of reading. It is made possible
by the fact that a book is a bound stack of numbered pages. That means you can
put slips of paper or fingers in the pages you have passed. As a visible, weighty,
numbered thing, a book is all there at once, and we can treat all its tale or
argument as simultaneously accessible.
Literary theorists have in fact invented a word for the writing that fully
exploits the non-linear property of the book format. They call it "spatial" prose.
(J. Frank in Spatial Form in Narrative, 1977.) It is spatial because it depends on
continual back-reference, on always holding the text present, as if it were all
there simultaneously just as space is-while time is always either gone or yet to
come. It seems to me that the physical format of the bound book invites the writer
to make spatialist demands on the reader. That does not mean that authors who
may not have been writers at all, like Homer, or who wrote in scrolls that show
only one place at a time, did not compose spatially. All great texts demand
continual back-reference, but book texts make it mechanically easier. The
theorists I have mentioned thought that the so-called "Modernist" writers, above
all James Joyce, were peculiarly spatial, but you will see that every Platonic
dialogue (for example) requires you to refer back all the time-a demand which
you cannot, of course, fully meet until you have studied your way through the
text once. We might conjecture, on the other hand, that a people that values time
and its sacred cyclical order might keep its scripture in scrolls, as do the Jews
their Torah.
The other place where events that are strung out in time are kept simultaneous
is memory. A book is indeed a memory analogue: an external memory. This
seems to me a wonderful thing.
The last dialogue and the last book you will read this year-in May when all
reading is a drag-is called the Phaedrus. In it Socrates will claim that any
�BRANN
81
written text is pernicious because it can't answer back when questioned, and also
because it acts as a pharmaceutical pacifier: It keeps you passively reminded and
prevents you from being actively mindful (275). Readers of dialogues might
point out to Socrates that the texts in which he appears do answer back, and
readers of books might say that a paginated book does keep us actively casting
back and forth.
Finally, a book, in Paul Scott's quotation, is bound along one edge between
fixed covers. This physical fact means that books have spines; they are upright
vertebrates. They normitlly stand on shelves next to one another. (I can't help
telling you that in my private library at home only the books I respect stand np;
the indifferent ones have to lie prone on the top shelves.) Only the spine shows,
so a book is known by its backbone. That fact in turn means that a book is
identified by author and title. In antiquity titles were evidently not always given
by the author. Who knows whether Homer would have called his song about the
wrath of Achilles after the name of Hector's city? Or what Aristotle wonld have
called his lectures on being, later called by the ambiguous title Metaphysics,
meaning either "the book that follows the Physics" or "the subject matter beyond
nature"?
In modem times, on the other hand, titles are almost always carefully crafted
armouncements of the author's intention, and they are the first thing to think
about as soon as you have finished the book once. Some titles reveal, some
retract, some complement the contents of the book. For example, as a rising
senior you will spend a glorious summer with Tolstoy's fourteen-hundred-page
novel entitled War and Peace, of which 1340 pages are devoted to war and sixty
to peace. What did Tolstoy mean by his title? Did he mean that those last pages
of peaceful family life, the so-called First Epilogue, have as much gravity, as
much cosmic significance, as all the turmoil that went before? I think so, but you
may find that your seminar divides around that question, which is made more
interesting by the fact that the Russian word for "peace" also means "world."
*
That concludes my unpacking of the definition of a book as a small hard
rectangular object, made of paginated leaves bound along one edge. So far the
answer to the question "What is a book?" has amounted to this: A book is the
kind of artifact we call a medium. It is made to mediate a text to us.
In his Physics Aristotle will observe a fundamental twofoldness in the human
world. Some things in it grow, or at least move by themselves, and these, he says,
are natures. Other things are made by a human being out of some material
according to a plan, and these we call artifacts. (I might say, incidentally, that
one of our modem perplexities is our capability for turning natures into artifacts.)
Now to figure out what a natural being or what a given artifact truly is-a house,
a marble image, a tool-is complicated enough. But to think about the kind of
�82
TilE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
artifact called a medium requires special subtlety. For a medium is meant to come
between the receiver and the source in such a way as to convey a message while
being itself overlooked. Telescopes, telephones, television sets, whose names
mean respectively things for scanning objects that are far off, for hearing voices
that are far off, for seeing images produced far off, are not the focus of the user's
interest when they are transmitting, and go dead or empty when not in use. But
as the book is not a medium that plays or replays some performance far off in
space or even in time, so it is not like a tape or disk that goes inactive after it has
been played. Sebastian's question-What goes on inside a book when it is
closed?- is not purely phantastic; even an unread book seems to have a sort of
secret vitality just because its text is all latent significance-imageless squiggles.
I ask the seniors if there has been a single seminar book in your three years here
that would gain very much from being illustrated. The solemn last paragraph of
Hegel's Phenomenology of the Spirit speaks of Spirit in time as presenting a
languidly moving "gallery of pictru·es." Ask yourselves, when you come to it,
whether you would wish someone to take Hegel at his word and produce an
illustrated Phenomenology.
In the image-smashing distmbances of late antiquity, the icono-clastic opposition to depictions of God and Christ was countered by the notion of a "Pauper's
Bible." Religious images, the iconophiles argued, are scripture for the illiterate.
Perhaps they should have conceded that for those who can "take up and read"
the written word is antagonistic to depiction, because pictures fix the narrative
in its flow, specify its intimations to the imagination, and rivet the eye on the
page. In shor~ illustrations turn a book from a medium into a presentation. They
capture the imagination and thereby drain the word.
I have only mentioned book illustrations to set off the peculiar wonder of the
verbal book as a medium-body, a medium that harbors its content without
presenting it-I mean, as I said before, that we are not caught by images, and we
read right past the print presented on the page. To me there is something elusive
and mysterious about this unpresented yet ever-present life of books which
makes the question what happens within them permissible and plausible. Of
course, I am too much of a coward seriously to propose that arguments go on
developing and characters go on conversing all over my library-and yet! And
yet-they do seem to have done just that from reading to reading. The mystery
here is that of mental life encased in a hard rectangular object.
A book, then, is a peculiar kind of medium, a medium not unlike a vessel of
the spirit-that is what makes it understandable that people might kiss a book or
swear on it or carry it always along. Yet although it is a peculiar medium, it is
still a medium. Being a medium means that it mediates between senders and
receivers, in this case, between the writers and the readers. Let me start with the
readers, since that is what we are-and there are, thaak heaven, more of us than
of them.
�83
BRANN
Readers as God-Parents
I call this section oflhe lecture "Readers as God-Parents" because I will later
liken writers to parents. A god-parent is the sponsor of a rite of spiritual
regeneration; a reader sponsors the rebirth of the book-body's soul. The first step
toward this revival is, of course, to tum the spatially all-present text back into
real, live, passing time.
There are many perplexities and complications in the conscious reading of a
book. The study of these problems is called "hermeneutics," named after Hermes,
the god of messages. It seems to me far more important to read books than to
engage in this study. I once offered a preceptorial on it which left us all unclear
whether anyone could in fact read a book. Let me proceed on the sensible
hypothesis that books are readable.
Then the first practical observation to be made is that there are different kinds
of books, and they should be read differently. It would be plain eccentric not to
quote from Frances Bacon's essay "Of Studies" here;
Some Books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be
chewed and digested; That is, some Books are to be read only in parts; others
to be read but not curiously, and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence
and attention.
Let me give you examples. Some people will be outraged right away and that
was part of my pleasure in writing this lecture.
I. Mysteries. When you are about to invest a portion of your life in reading
one-on the hypothesis that you will get to be eighty and that it takes three hours
to read the mystery, that would be .0000042 of your life, but these things add
up-do the following. Tom to the denouement and find out whodunnit. If you
still care to read the book, start at the beginning. Otherwise, forget it.
2. Scholarship. Read the preface. If it is clear what will be proved and why,
go on. Otherwise, forget it.
3. Minor novels. Apply the sortes Biblicae, an old mode of reading. Sortes is
a Latiu word for "chances." "The chance of the Bible" is exactly what Augustine
was bidden to take when he was told to "take up and read." If the passages you
find at random are entrancing, begin at the beginning. Otherwise, forget it.
Notice that these kinds of books are not the ones you will read for seminar,
though it is true that one of the novels on our list is, among other things, also
a murder mystery-Dostoyevsky's Brothers Karamazov; however, that is
scarcely a minor novel.
Notice also that the books we do read for seminar all have one thing in
common: None that I can think of has an index, at least not one made by the
author. Why do great books have no index? Because you are bidden to read them
�1HE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
84
whole and as a whole at least once, from their pregnant beginning to their
well-delivered end. Because you are not to look up subjects that interest you or
follow through topics you specialize in. Because understanding is not an encap·
sulated result but a way, the way through the book. Because a book of stature,
be it philosophy or fiction, is not about-round-and-about-something, but is
the presentation of a matter most adequate to it in the author's judgment. (I might
say, incidentally, that Hegel gives similar reasons for arguing, in the long and
famous Preface to his Phenof!1enology, that prefaces are impossible.)
When you are reading a book for the second time you may want to do the
following to the text, provided you own the book bodily. You may want to take
a marker of the color children use when they draw the sun, and highlight
passages. How is highlighting compatible with reading the whole well? It seems
to me to be permissible for four reasons:
I. Some writers occasionally stop to put their whole meaning in a nutshell.
Whether you have come on such a nugget, you cannot really know until you have
read the whole book. If you mark a nutshell for yourself, then, when you come
on it again, you can crack it and re-develop for yourself the argument, which is
all there, in nuce. An example of this sort of nutshell is Kant's epigram, in the
Critique ofPure Reason (B75): "Thoughts without content are empty; intuitions
without concepts are blind." Whenever you recall that sentence, you can recover
the whole Critique for yourself.
2. Often you will notice, some time into the book, that a motifkeeps recurring
and that you must at some point collect its incidences and figure out its meaning.
An example is the returning vision of large blueness in War and Peace.
3. A third case of occurrences inviting highlighting is the significant mystery.
A book will say things that you don't yet understand, that are pregnant enigmas
for you, and that you want to talk about in seminar. One example for me is the
second half of the fourth tine of the Jliad:
.•• Ll.t{)~
o' ~'t£Ae!em ~OUA:f\
... Dios d' eteleieto boule
. . . and the plan of Zeus was fulfilled.
What plan? When fulfilled? That is the puzzle dominating the epic.
4. Last among the occasions for highlighting that I can think of are the
passages of personal import-those that penetrate to your heart and you want
never to lose, the ones you keep to yourself or show to close friends. I won't give
an example now, but I will tell some, if asked.
Let me say it again: Highlighting, whether in sky-blue ink or sun-yellow
marker, is for the second reading. I think that though the books may look defaced
when you are finished, the writers are rejoicing in your reading of them, be they
still on earth or in either of the other places. That brings me to the author.
�BRANN
85
Writers as Parents
We speak of "Homer's gods." "Homer's gods," we might say, "are frivolous
creatures--just compare the lightness of their invulnerable immortality to the
gravity of his death-expectant heroes." Homer's gods, Homer's heroes, Homer's
Iliad: How is the author related to the book? Auctor means literally "progenitor,
parent." And like a child, the book goes forth into the world, sometimes falling
into hands the parent may shudder at.
But like a good parent, the author knew that this would happen and gave the
offspring what it needs in order to be on its own: self-sufficiency, a certain
repleteness. Here is what I mean.
In the course of the year you will be writing at least five small papers in your
language tutolial and several more in your other classes. On some of these you
will have conferences with your tutors. Your tutor will ask: "Wbat are you saying
here, what did you have in mind?" And you will tell all the things that you thought
but failed to say in your paper. That is what distinguishes an accomplished writer:
the ability to make the book independent, to turn it loose, to find a way to get the
reader to ask not "Wbat was the author thinking?" but "What is the book saying?"
Annie Dillard, a very fine contemporary writer, who has thought much about
composing a book, says in her book The Writing Life (p. 4): "Process is nothing;
erase your tracks." She is attacking a current school of writing teachers who exalt
process over product, writing exercises over perfected expression. Here you will
almost never be asked to write merely for the sake of writing. We take a leaf, so
to speak, from the books of real writers and ask you to think about a matter that
really does make you think, and then to say on paper, as perfectly as possible,
what you have thought. That is what the authors of our books have done-they
have thought and found the right words. "Thought" is a noun, but it is also the
past form of the verb "to think." Thought is thinking that has been done, thinking
perfected. So Annie Dillard should not have said "Erase your tracks" but "Absorb
your tracks; make your product point the reader to your tracks." For writing is
thinking frozen in its tracks by speech, speech crystallized so as to make the point
of origin visible within. A book is a translucent product containing its process.
That is how Homer's Iliad can become our Iliad. It preserves within it the world
that Homer meant with each word he said. (Incidentally, it is because we want
you to write papers somewhat as real wliters write them-first think, then
say-that you will have such a devilish hard time writing, but at least the task
will dignify rather than degrade you.)
So no more than we ask your parents what they meant by producing you, need
we ask what Homer meant in his epics. The offspring in both cases are amply
provided to speak for themselves. Or rather, you are amply provided to read it.
Even the Iliad, the one that is not a matelial thing to own, is yours, the reader's.
�86
THE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
You bring it to life, melt its frozen state. Again I quote from Bacon, this lime
from his Advancement of Learning (Bk.l):
But the images of men's wits and knowledges remain in books, exempted
from the wrong of time, and capable of perpetual renovation. Neither are they
fitly to be called images, because they generate still, and cast their seed in the
minds of others, provoking and causing infinite actions ami opinions in
succeeding ages: so that, if the invention of the ship was thought so noble,
which carrieth riches and c~)lnmodities from place to place, and consociateth
the most remote regions iri participation of their fruits, how much more are
letters to be magnified, which, as ships, pass through the vast sea of time, and
make ages so distant to participate of the wisdom, illuminations, and inventions the one of the other?
Now the notion that you bring the hook to life seems to be close to the claim
of a currently very busy school of thought: that the reader is the author. But what
I mean is in fact a world apart from the notion that you may tease the text into
any meaning your brilliant wit devises.
On the contrary: it is the book's will, not yours, that is to be done. There is a
book by Joseph Conrad (whose novella "The Heart of Darkness," to my mind
the greatest short story of our century, you will read as seniors). The book is
called The Mirror of the Sea. It tells of the difference between going to sea in
sailing vessels and on steamboats. A steamboat plows through the water; it
conquers the ocean. Its progress is mechanical, though its route is willful. The
sail ship on the other hand respects its element and responds to its every
indication. From departure to landfall, it is engaged in a fierce and loving battle
with the sea. Its course is contingent and its arrival uncertain. A great writer, to
extend Bacon's nautical figure, provides a book that is more like a sea for sailing
than an ocean for steaming.
And that brings me to my final reflection, on the greatness of hooks. Before
I finish let me say that I know full well that I have been speaking in similes and
metaphors and that I expect to be held to a more literal account in the question
period.
Greatness in Books
St. John's is known as a "Great Books College," and, as I said early on, I
know from your applications that you came because you want to read hooks that
raise you rather than demean you.
Mr. Curtis Wilson, a retired tutor who was twice dean of the college, used to
wish that we would stop talking of"the hundred great books," and instead speak
of "some very good books." I agree with "some," but, though I see his point-
�BRANN
87
greamess is not a very sensible sort of classification-I can't quite agree to
dropping "great," not at this moment in America.
To begin with, I want to prognosticate that the more books you read, the more
you will find that there is greatness, that it is an emergent quality that some books
just have, and that each reading confirms. The community that has in common
the reading of these books and the acknowledgment of their greatness is bound
by two powerful bonds: first, the fact of a shared judgment, competently come
by and continually confirmed, and second the fact of a practical willingness to
revere what is high, a willingness expressed in a daily schedule of study.
Some of you may know that nowadays these are fighting words in academe.
How, they ask, can any communal judgment have been fairly arrived at when
we are a people divided by a diversity of hopelessly opposed interests-who are
playing, as they say, a zero sum game? How, again, can any one human
expression be higher than another, when every text is a testimonial to some
human condition, and the tradition of chosen books merely represents the
winner?
In other words, the present trend is to want democracy without commonality
and equality without excellence. To me the wish seems outrageous-and again
I am yours to question in the question period-but doubly outrageous because
it contains the seed of a fair dream. The fair dream is that the human being in us
should be universally respected and that all our works should be universally
appreciated. The forced version is that we should live in a society in which,
without admitting a common humanity, every last group discrimination based
on extrinsic properties, such as race and sex, is outlawed, while all intellec1nal
discriminations based on intrinsic criteria of quality are proscribed as having
ulterior motives.
Let me offer two rules for choosing books to read that take some account of
what is fair in the desire for universal appreciation.
Here is Law One of the Discriminating Reader: Devour everything you can
swallow with relish, indiscriminately. Test texts as I recommended before, but
give everything a try. There are dozens of wonderful genres and fine works
within them: science fiction, utopias, and fantasy; children's, ethnic, and
women's literature; westerns, adventures, and thrillers; book reviews, political
flyers, and literary criticism. (If you come to see me in my office I will be
delighted to tell you my loves and hates in each category. I also know a lot of
rather pleasing trash, including comic books.)
Law Two of the Discriminating Reader then goes as follows: Read only a
limited number of books, perhaps a hundred and twenty or so; discriminate
severely; while attending to a text allow a little voice on the sidelines to say:
"This is great and worthy of my best time; that is not."
�88
1HE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
Far from being at odds, Law One and Law Two are complementary. Obeying
the first shows you to be a lover of books, a bibliophile; obeying the second
makes you a student, a reader.
But how will you judge that a book is great? I had a teacher, forty years ago
in Brooklyn College, who said that some books made her hair stand on end, and
they were great. Much as I like this criterion, which, I have since discovered,
was not original with her, I see some flaws in it. But there are many other
diagnostic marks, signs and indices of greatness, that people have listed, and we
might talk about them in the question period. Let me add to that multitude one
observation of my own, which does not so much pick out greatness as distinguish
greatness in works of fiction from greatness in works of reflection:
In a great epic or drama or novel, if any word were different, the tale told
would be other than it is; in a great philosophical treatise, every sentence could
be paraphrased and the truth told would be the same.
To make myself clearer, let me take the counter-example, that of lesser books.
A mediocre novel tells a tale coarse-meshed enough, with characters grossgrained enough, to be equally presentable in language only approximately
equivalent. A mediocre piece of philosophy, on the other hand, can't be told to
its advantage in other terms: It is ali idiosyncratic jargon and its ordinary
language paraphrase puts it to shame. That is why trying to say exactly what the
book says in another way is the useful initial exercise in seminar when the work
is philosophical, but is love's labor lost when the work is fictional. And that is
why it is usually harder to read a novel than it is to read a philosophical
text-except perhaps when that text is also a drama. I am referring to the Platonic
dialogues, the first of which you will be reading right after Homer. They are the
hardest of all, since they are philosophical plays-you will decide whether
tragedy or comedy.
Let me end, if not conclude. My question for myself and for you was: "What
is a Book?" My answer was: It is a specialkindofbody made to be inhabited by
a curious kind of frozen but fusible soul, a body fit to mediate its own peculiar
life. It has a parent, the author, who equips it with all it needs to live on its own,
and god-parents, readers, who can revivify its printed life. The books that realize
their book nature most perfectly may be called "great," and it is from these that
we at St. John's College have selected a number for study. Both because it is a
strenuous and wearing business to be constaritly in their presence, and for reasons
of inclusive humanity, it is good to read many lesser books as well.
Have I answered the question I posed for us? Not remotely. Let us try again
in the question period.
�Poems
J.H. Beall
Sandra Hoben
Kemmer Anderson
J.H. Beall is a tutor at St. John's College, Annapolis, and an astrophysicist. His latest
published collection of poems is entitled Hickey, the Days. Poems of Sandra Hoben, a
graduate of the College, have appeared in the Partisan Review and the Antioch Review.
Her volume of poetry, Snow Flower, was published by the Westigan Press. Kemmer
Anderson, an alumnus of the Graduate Institute, teaches English in Chattanooga.
�90
THE ST.JOHN'S REVIEW
Foxfire
J.H.Beall
A foxfire scattering of stars
and a lone planet hang low
over the nqrtheast, where the wind
comes from, down like a coyote,
nose down, its warm tongne licking
a chill out of the earth, the dawn's
chill of stiff awakenings after
the night's dancers, their supple sweat,
the way it loves its body, then sinks
into salt rest. The earth last
night sank so, its blush and rose
twilight giving up the light so well
that those in their houses walked out
into the roads and yards, arms folded
their skins flushed with an excitement
drawn of this pink light, and discussed
it-not the coyote's old trail
they stood on, but the huge
evanescent cathedral of light
that reared before them like a great
dancer, his headdress streaming
its eagle wildness, while they talked
their awe of its wordless beauty.
The subtle dawn, alone with foxfire,
now reclaims. It licks the wounds
that words have made in us, that we
in that first step down made of ourselves.
�POEMS
91
Wendy
J.H. Beall
At first each day she expected
at the window a faint tapping
not Unlike the new bud tossed
in a spring breeze, its index
prodding quizzically the cold, flat pane.
But different-night again
come alive. Then the years
like a mist obscuring
softened the longing pain, and she
wondered that it might have been
a dream. Her husband held her
and she woke as a princess
whose cheeks like pink blossoms
held a living promise: children
and her father's house. Where
after many years the tapping
came again late one night,
and perhaps because of the nature
oflove or the imperative of dreaming .
instead of rebuke she opened wide
the windows and gave her children to it.
�92
THE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
Republic
(for William)
J.H. Beall
I recall you when the sentences
were not of silence, your eloquence
not a single stare. How one time
in a fit of humor at the pique
of au adversary, aside in my
cramped kitchen, you confided,
"I think I'm beginning to get through
to him." Always. The apologist
for another's ignorance. In the way
you smile now, you apologize
for my own at not being able
to enter into that world
where the mind flickers shapes
into existence, a dark theater
not unlike a cave you try
to climb out of, we try
to climb out of. What I want
to say is theater, really. Yearning
for a time when my life played
grandly upon the stage, the wall
of your memory-Nicholson
on that promontory for example
kneeling before the old, silent
father's fierce, blank gaze
(the hardest piece being the future)
tears on his face as he says
"auspicious beginnings-we both know
I was never really that good, anyway."
�93
POEMS
Leda and the Swan
Sandra Hoben
It so happens
she wasn't totally
averse to the situation.
She was walking along
the marshy edge of the pond, glad
to be away from the company of men.
She noticed things
that had escaped her for monthsthe ducks with brown and white feathers,
uniform as men in tweed suits,
and others, a flash of emeralds
at the throat. She'd been told
that with birds, fue male
wears rouge and diamonds.
How do they do it?
A pillow fight when the seam suddenly rips,
and at other times more like fish,
swimming past each other, never touching.
Engrossed as she was
she didn't notice
the swan gliding up to her,
his wings held heart-shaped,
one foot cocked over his back,
the other a rudder.
Then he stood in front of her,
stuck out his belly, and flapping his wings,
drew himself up to his full bird heighta bit ridiculous.
But he had no choice.
She lifted her arms, and he was in them.
�94
THE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
Like the Inhabitants of Plato's Cave
Sandra Hoben
Like the inhabitants of Plato's cave,
my son, il) his third month,
is more interested in the shadow
of his hands than in his hands themselves.
He holds them up to the light
and watches the dark shapes fonn
as creatures march to join him,
facing forward, some whirliog and homed.
Once, in the beginning, my milk gave out
and he cried all day for the pain and injustice
I'd brought him to. That night
I curled around him, he turned
inside me once again, and we rocked.
The lamp burned behind us:
two Indonesian puppets cast on the wall.
But today when he cries, I give the pram a shake
and flip through his birth pictures,
those images of him naked and streaked
with my blood, throwing open his arms
and all his fingers against the harsh light.
It calms me-and therefore himto try to make out the figures:
the nurse's ann like a branch shading him,
the doctor's face as the scale tips.
Then they stapled shut the slash
across my belly with little hinges,
holding the rest of the dark inside me.
�POEMS
95
Parallel Lines
Sandra Hoben
By definition, parallel lines never meet. This fact makes it possible for
bird cages to exist, and jails of all sorts, railroad tracks, picture frames,
director'schairs. And v;e can walk to the store and back, water the garden,
watch the shadows lengthen on the lawn.
But parallel lines meet at infinity, which makes it possible to get to
Chicago, build fires, tame animals, and we have eggbeaters, hammocks,
the hulls of ships. We can tune banjos, swim, read books more than once;
folk dances can be passed down, and rings.
If parallel lines meet at infinity, it is also true they never meet;
conversely, if they do not meet at infinity, it is also not true they never
meet. And so we are lonely and confused, our dreams have coins in them,
our pets die. There are eclipses, earthquakes, falling stars. And although
we can see the spiral within shells and the delicate double circle within
flowers, we will never understand what we already know, and, even if we
did, there would be nothiog we could do about it.
�96
TIIE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
The Iliad of Assateague Island
Kemmer Anderson
Fog dissolves the form of horse into sand
and night at Assateague Island, but I
still hear the sound of snort and stomp on land.
Waves of hoofbeats trample around my eye
steering chariots through the press of shields
as I sleep by the beached black ships from Crete.
Drugged with a vision of Mountlda 's fields,
a warrior calls for immediate retreat:
I am sick of words, tactics, and command.
The olive boughs of home brush through my dreams
with a need to reap what I understand:
nothing in war is ever as it seems.
�Re-Reading:
A Note on Ibsen and Wagner
Elliott Zuckerman
Recently, in preparation for a seminar, I returned to The Wild Duck, a play that
I last read and discussed almost forty years ago. At that time, my Cambridge tutor
was an Ibsenite, and in his presence we subscribed to the view that Ibsen was a
dramatist of the highest rank-a view expressed during the same era by Una
Ellis-Fermor in the introduction to her translations for Penguin, where we can
still read, mentioned as a matter of course, that Ibsen was one of the five greatest
playwrights in history. The others, I suppose we can rightly assume, were the
Greek tragedians and Shakespeare, and about them almost everyone will agree.
But these days there seems to be doubt about Ibsen as the fitting fifth. At St.
John's College he has been only an intermittent visitor to the reading list, whereas
Racine and Moliere are central in the language tutorial. My candidate for the
fifth position would be Moliere, if only in order to have a representative of
Comedy-not the Shakespearian romance but the unalloyed comedy that is rarer
and harder to invent. But even where Ibsen is accepted into the Pantheon, be it
of five, six, or seven, he is the only one there who is in danger of being considered
old-fashioned. There is some significance in the fact that the great playwright
who is fading also happens to be the most recent.
My tutor had written a book about Ibsen's dramatic technique.' The thesis
was simple: that in order to get at the full meaning of Ibsen's dramas one had to
attend carefully to the stage directions. The characters are presented "not only
through the dialogue but also through the suggestiveness of visual details
contained in his visually important stage-directions, which so many producers
have perverted ... always to a play's detriment" (p. 11). That Ibsen attached
prime importance to the visual and directorial details is persistently documented,
not only in the texts themselves but in Ibsen's instructions to the producers of
the early productions and, above all, in the many drafts of the plays, where one
• John Northam, Ibsen" s Dramatic Method: A Study of the Prose Dramas. London:
Faber and Faber, 1953.
�98
TilE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
can trace the evolution of those details. He was scrupulously attentive to such
matters as the placement of the white shawl in Rosmersholm, and there is much
to be learned from how Hedda Gabler wears her hair.
Such attention to the telling detail that is simultaneously realistic and symbolic seems to me to be Wagnerian. It was Wagner, after all, whom Nietzsche
called the supreme miniaturist. Given the size and length of the music-dramas,
Nietzsche probably intended to sound paradoxical. But seldom did Wagner allow
the sweep to override the mmnentary. I have in mind not Wagner's peremptory
stage-directions so much as that staple of his technique which is their aural
counterpart, the famous leitmotivs, the musical phrases that underline and
interpret the action at every moment. At their most obvious they have been
accused of merely duplicating what we already know-as in the well-known
remark, variously attributed, about idiots presenting their calling -cards in person.
At their most subtly effective they themselves constitute the true action and the
most interesting ideas-as in the third act of Tristan, where it is in the orchestral
interweaving of the significant musical phrases that we apprehend the remarkably descriptive self-analysis of the delirious lover. Each wave of the everdeepening self-discovery is set in motion by a fragment of the Old Tune, played
originally on the English Hom. Overtly the Tune is a mournful reminder that
Isolde's ship has not yet been sighted; but it is also used as a melismatic bridge
to Tristan's childhood, in the contemplation of which he realizes that the brewer
of the love-potion was none other than himself.
I wanted Ibsen's visual details to work as well as Wagner's musical details
do when they are at their best-to seem natural, as they do for Tristan and for
his blood-brother Amfortas, and not mechanical, as they often are for the Gods
of Rheingold and even for the ordinary people in Meistersinger, that most
breathtakingly complex but also most factitious (and least funny) of great
operatic comedies. Both playwright and music-dramatist had something like a
"system" for putting together works that could sustain a long evening (or many
long evenings), and systems are more likely to reveal a mechruiical than an
organic configuration.
What seemed to me to be the weakness of The Wild Duck was the obtrusiveness of its central symbol, the bird itself. There is something arbitrary in
furnishing the Ekdal household with a loft containing a wounded duck, along
with other birds and some rabbits, in an artificial forest of old Christmas trees.
Yet once the image is embraced-with, perhaps, the palliative observation that
the play is foreshadowing the final plays, which are explicitly and therefore
acceptably "poetic"-all the other images fit neatly into the central pattern. The
duck, that is to say, is uncomfortably necessary for the motion of the machine.
Among the other images, I am thinking particularly of one that I had not
properly attended to in my original reading. In the first act-the only act that
does not take place in the Ekdals' apartment-the comfortably furnished study
�WCKERMAN
99
of the Werle household is provided with "lighted lamps with green shades, giving
a subdued light" In contrast we can see further within to another room, "large
and handsome," which is "brilliantly lighted with lamps and branching candlesticks."
The green lampshades are missing from the first draft When Ibsen added that
important detail, he was visually reinforcing the connection between the first act
and the last Once we know the play and start it again, attentive to the greenish
light and noticing which of the actions and conversations go on in its shadow,
we realize that the peivading color of the Ekdal loft is being significantly
adumbrated from the outset By the end of the play we have connected the
first-act green with both the green of the "forest" in which old Ekdal goes
hunting-the abode of the wild duck-and the green of the sea, from the depths
of which the duck had once been rescued. Since almost every other image of the
play is related to that forest and that sea, the green shade can prompt any number
of green thoughts. In the setting of Act Five, for example, the "wet snow [that]
lies upon the large panes of the sloping roof-window" places the Ekdal studio
plainly under water. Both the framing acts are imaginatively submarine, and the
complex interrelatedness of the images does much to justify the arbitrariness of
the central symbol.
My sense of that arbitrariness was anyway diminished by the seminar
discussion. In response to the opening question-which was really an expression
of my doubts about the duck-someone reminded me that within the play (so to
speak) it was, after all, the Ekdals themselves who had invented their unlikely
attic; the loft and its inhabitants were projections of the Ekdals' strange and
self-deceptive psyches. The symbol seems less mechanical when one emphasizes
not the playwright's imposition into the play but the apt inventiveness of the
characters within it
There is an intellectual pleasure, albeit a minor one, in tracing and contemplating these visual and verbal interconnections. And because there are few
productions of Ibsen these days, and they seldom, so far as I know, follow his
visual prescriptions, we can only indulge in the pleasure by imagining his settings
while reading, helped, perhaps, by my Tutor's handbook. Those who enjoy the
musical equivalent of such tracing and contemplating are by no means similarly
deprived_ In addition to the music, available with an ease that the builder of
Bayreuth could scarcely have foreseen, the Wagnerian decades left us a legacy
of handbooks and commentaries, all for the delight of those devotees whom
Nietzsche ungenerously called Educated Philistines. To follow the mirrorings of
the motives is dazzling, and one is overawed by an appreciation of the master's
control of his system. Hence there is a danger. Seldom ·do such maps of
interconnections encourage one to delve downward from the motives, even in
such seminal places as the Prelude to the Ring, where the long-sustained major
triad should lead to questions not only about the myth that follows but about the
�100
TilE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
nature of music itself. If the motion is merely lateral, one is condemned to the
surface.
If the Ibsen industry had ever matched the Wagner industry, then by now the
greens and the forests, the snows and the seas, the towers and the tarantellas,
would be as thoroughly codified as the swords and the dragons, the Desire for
Dominion and the Redemption through Love. But the visual and even the verbal
are never so powerful as the musical, and Wagner knew what he was doing when,
in his search for control of a vast audience, he enlisted the arsenal of tonal music.
At first his talent for music seemed slim, but it was expanded to greatness by the
demands of his genius. Had he been unable to commandeer the effectiveness still
latent in the language of Beethoven (and of Chopin and Liszt), Wagner's genius
would have been a great deal less than Ibsenian.
For decades the music-dramas have easily withstood the stylized productions
that ignore the prescribed pictures, or place the drama within some entirely alien
setting, usually to make a political point. Ibsen caunot survive comparable
treatment, for the settings that carry the symbolic weight are the counterpart not
of Wagner's settings but of his music. Ibsen in the Round is not the equivalent
of a Ring enacted on discs and slabs; it is like Wagner reorcheslrated or even
reharmonized. And just as no director, however self-centered, is allowed to
tamper with the music of Wagner-it is, indeed, held to be more inviolable than
even Mozart's and Verdi's, where the separable numbers can be omitted or
re-arranged-so no one ought to change the settings of Ibsen. Though he was
deprived of their sunlight, Ibsen, like his contemporaries Monet and Cezanne,
knew precisely where to place his colors.
�I
Results of St. John's
Crossword Number Two
On the next page is the solution to Crossword Number 1\vo, "Canonic Eponyms," by Trout. The nine clueless answers are various Saint Johns. The allusion
for older alumni was to Nine St. John's, a dorm building that used to be on St.
John's Street. The fourth of Charlotte Fletcher's essays was about the naming of
the College. All the names are to be found in a Martyrology, along with the
Catholic Encyclopedia and Butler's Lives.
There was only one submission, a correct solution solved jointly by Ann
Martin and Meredith Gardner. For this prize the amount of the book token is
increased to $50. Number 1\vo was a hard one. Number Fow·, by a new compiler,
Captain Easy, is easier. There is more cross-checking than is usual in such
puzzles, but the Captain hopes you enjoy the clues.
The solution to Crosswonl Number Three will appear in the next issue, along
with the announcement of the prize-winners.
�102
THE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
Solution to Crossword Number Two
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�St. John's
Crossword Number Four
"Famous Pairs"
By CAPTAIN EASY
At the asterisked numbers, no clues are provided. The answers fall into five pairs
that have something in common. The clued answers include nine (or ten) words
that should be capitalized, a German word and a French word (both well known),
and two common acronymic abbreviations. As usual, three book tokens of $35,
redeemable at the College Bookstore, will be awarded to the first three correct
solutions opened at random. The date for the opening is a month after the mailing
of the issue.
�104
THE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
Across
5.
11.
13.
14.
Shiner sounds earnest (6)
Tune arrangers have it (3)
Tutor, return the bow (3)
I can make a fuss when
raised (4)
16. Listlessness is current, righthand man comes back (6)
18. I sold broken images (5)
19. Ungulate takes a trip (5)
21. Lengthen likewise (3)
22. Study, replace the extremes
with aural ease (5)
24. Revelation in one book or
another (5)
25. Exploits in various essential
ways (5)
31. Spout "Raven!" (3)
33. Is this how we now refer to
connected twins? (4)
34. A band-Wagner's starts in the
Rhine (4)
35. Perhaps Grecian, but run
badly (3)
38. A bird-a loud bird (4)
40. Rising for a degree (10)
42. Whatever way you look at it,
he's essential (4)
44. Set disheveled Cockney
hairdo (5)
45. Follow the Development with
some more capital (5)
47. The element is Back Bay (3)
52. Iu retrospect, let Siegfried
display spirit (5)
54. Disconcertingly loud, the
Spanish in the practise of
swordplay (6)
56. Flyer in the afternoon (4)
57. St. John's College is not in this
league (3)
58. One is confused for an
eternity (3)
60. Sat on a mistuned Hammerklavier, for example ( 6)
Down
2. Stock rush (4)
3. Lake loses energy, flows back
in rage (3)
4. Pater, a movement in art (4)
5. A resort in southern
Penosy lvania (3)
6. Louis, perhaps, or I? (3)
7. State missing a brave (6)
8. Leap tlu·ough the stable tours
oddly (6)
9. YY (a clever clue) (4)
10. Decline tax in No. 3, reversed (9)
12. Funny priest, most ready
to eat (6)
14. A,noble number (5)
15. Victory mirrored in Peking (4)
17. Take a walk at the Albert
Hall? (9)
19. At first the unusual notes evoke
a melody (4)
23. A sound an sich (4)
26. Me? Prof? Err? Confound it, I
did! (9)
27. Ben sound like that woman (3)
29. Anooying horse (3)
30. Hope and Crosby went there in a
trio (3)
32. Big Bird, headless author of Treatises is back (3)
33. Etta's London showplace (4)
36. The Persian Milhaud (6)
37. It's OK in the Savoy (4)
40. Seed begins growing, drops (5)
41. Start "Singing in the Rain"
-it's sweet (6)
43. Can't see the color (4)
46. Emphatically, put down the
cheap wine (British) (5)
48. Ballet painter is backward,
incomplete, and elderly (4)
50. It can be square and lame (4)
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51. League of Nations, in a dumb
location (4)
53. Tube, a southern source of
power (3)
54. Genetic and misdirected (3)
55. Eighty yards of worsted
pasture (3)
����
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Text
The St. John's Review
Volume XLV, number two
Editor
Pamela Kraus
Editorial Board
Eva T.H. Brann
james Carry
Beale Ruhm von oppen
joe Sachs
john Van Doren
Robert B. Williamson
Elliott Zuckerman
Subscriptions and Editorial Assistant
Anne McShane
Special Advisors for this Issue
Howard Fisher
Curtis Wilson
The St. John's Review is published by the Office of the Dean, St.
John's College, Annapolis: Christopher B. Nelson, President; Harvey
Flaumenhaft, Dean. For those not on the distribution list, subscriptions
are $15.00 for three issues, even though the magazine may sometimes
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Annapolis, MD 21404-2800. Back issues are available, at $5.00 per
issue, from the St. John's College Bookstore.
© 1999 St. John's College. All rights reserved; reproduction in whole
or in part without permission is prohibited.
ISSN 0277-4720
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��Contents
Beyond Hypothesis:
Newton's Experimental Philosophy
St. John's College, Annapolis
March 19-21, 1999
Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Harvey Flaumenhaft
Newton's Nature:
Does Newton's Science Disclose
Actual Knowledge of Nature? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Franr;:ois De Gandt
Newton's Theory of Light and Colors ......................... 20
William H. Donahue
How Did Newton Discover Universal Gravity? .................. 32
George E. Smith
Redoing Newton's Experiment for Establishing
The Proportionality of Mass and Weight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 64
Curtis Wilson
The First Six Propositions in Newton's Argument
For Universal Gravitation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
William Harper
Cause and Hypothesis:
Newton's Speculation About the Cause of Universal Gravitation ..... 94
Dana Densmore
��I
Foreword
Harvey Flaumenhaft
Newton's work, one of the greatest enterprises of the human spirit, has
shaped our minds and transformed the world we live in, yet only a very
small portion of humanity has ever read what Newton wrote. It seems that a
large part of that very small portion of humanity must consist of people who
have passed through the halls of St. John's College. Every junior at this
college spends a large part of the year pondering long and difficult passages
in Newton's Principia, presenting in class the fruits of that study, and
discussing other great thinkers who were trying to come to terms with
Newton's work. That is not business as usual in American higher education
-nor, for that matter, in higher education anywhere else.
Some years ago, I wrote to a number of historians of science in order
to call attention to a series of guidebooks to the study of great texts in
mathematical and natural science. One of those historians was a worldfamous scholar who at the time was the leading American authority on
Newton; he replied with praise for the enterprise, but with a sad warning:
willingness to read serious books, he said, may be too much to expect of
students; after all, when you can hardly get people to look at authors like
Shakespeare, it would seem hopeless to try to get them to study authors like
Newton. On the occasion of the three-hundredth anniversary of the
Principia, therefore, when I read a newspaper article that mentioned how
many copies of the book were sold each year, the thought that struck me on
examining the numbers was that most of those copies of Newton's Principia
had to have been sold to Johnnies in the St. John's College Bookstore.
So, I'm happy to say that the study of Isaac Newton's work flourishes
uniquely at St. John's College. Our nondepartmentalized faculty regards it as
among their most important tasks to equip themselves to study Newton and
to help our students to do so. To help us in that endeavor, the College held
a conference on the work of Isaac Newton the weekend of March 19-21,
1999. The conference provided an opportunity to share with guests the
delight and the instruction to be gained from the distinguished scholars
Harvey Flaumenhaft is Dean at the Annapolis Campus of St. Jolm's College.
�6
TilE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
whom we invited to speak on the subject; and collecting the papers in this
issue of the St. John's Review provides us with the opportunity to share what
we gained with even more people.
It is a pleasure to acknowledge with gratitude the support of the
Dibner Fund, whose generosity made the conference possible. It's also a
pleasure to acknowledge the gracious loan of various sorts of Newtoniana books and equipment that were on exhibit during the conference in our
Greenfield Library-from the Burndy Library of the Dibner Institute for the
History of Science and Technology at MIT, and from the Smithsonian
Institution's National Museum of American History. A great deal of work in
setting it all up was done by several tutors: Howard Fisher, chairman of the
planning committee, and its other members, Adam Schulman and Curtis
Wilson. The person who set it all in motion was the alumnus for whom our
new Library is named, Stuart Greenfield, a member of our Board of Visitors
and Governors who is also a member of the board of the Dibner Fund.
�~
Newton's Nature:
) Does Newton's Science Disclose
~ Actual Knowledge of Nature?
~
Fran\=ois de Gandt
The question posed to me was: Does Newton's science disclose actual
knowledge of Nature? The question was not mine; it was posed to me, but I
accepted it. I found it interesting and challenging and rich. And also, in this
question I feel several smells or moods. For instance, I feel some postmodern suspicion about the value of science. Does it disclose actual
knowledge of nature? I feel also some nostalgic mood: maybe we have lost
contact with nature through our modern science. Such a question for me was
an occasion to sum up, to tighten various things, to envisage things in a
unified view, and to tighten some knots that were loose in my own mind. So
my lecture will not be a part of the book that Mr. Wilson has so well
translated into English;' (or, if you consider it, it could be a development of
the last page of the book). But the book mostly deals with the mathematics
of Book I of the Principia/ and some aspects around that, I mean
mathematics at the time of Newton or before Newton. And here I shall deal
more with the presence or absence of Nature, and that means especially
Book III of the Principia, Tbe System of the World.
I shall put this in the context of 18th-century science, because this is a
domain in which I am at work now. I work particularly in a group, a large
group of people who are preparing the complete critical edition of the works
of Jean le Rand d'Alembert-d'Alembert the friend of Diderot. There are
many manuscripts left in Paris, Berlin, and elsewhere, manuscripts which
have never been edited, and we want to give a complete, critical edition of
the works of d'Alembert. It is a huge task, and we are just in the beginning
of that enterprise. Probably I shall not see the end of it myself, but, well,
that's the intellectual life.
This has also been the occasion for me to pose certain philosophical
questions, and as I grow older I think the time has come to philosophize,
especially concerning the place of science in culture, the place of science in
Franr;;:ois de Gandt is Professor of Philosophy at Universite de IJlle. This keynote address, given
to students and tutors at St. Jolm's College, Annapolis, on 19 March 1999, was transcribed and
polished by Adam Schulman and Curtis Wilson.
�8
THE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
life, and something about certainty and belief. I am interested in all that. So I
shall give only a general landscape, a sort of orientation on that question, and
we can develop particular aspects during the discussion, I hope.
I give you my plan. First, Newton in the 18th century: triumph and
critique. Then I come to what I call the other Newton and the life of Nature.
Then, the mathematical, deductive frame. Then a sort of conclusion about
Nature and mechane-the Greek word. All of you know Greek-you are
supposed to.
The pivotal place, the most important place in the Principia where we
speak of the science of real nature is Prop. 7 of Book Ill. In Latin,
Gravitatem in corpora universa fieri, etc. Here everything is suspended; it is
the critical place, the most important place. That Prop. 7 is a sort of summit
in a certain path, in a certain road you follow. We go up to Prop. 7, and then
there is a sort of a descent. You can think of the ascendant and the
descendant paths in Plato's Republic. The highest point is reached with Prop.
7, which asserts that there is universal gravitation; there is some sort of
weight of gravity toward all the bodies. In Latin, it is in the accusative. The
previous propositions have as their purpose to reach that summit, passing
from motions to forces, and then unifying forces. So you have motions in
front of you-in the heavens, somewhere-and you study those motions,
and you draw the notion of force from those motions, and then progressively
you unify those forces. This force is the same as the second one, the second
one is the same as the third one, etc., and then at the end, you end up with
just one force. And you are allowed to call it weight. It is just weight, just
gravity, pesanteur, le poids. Things have a weight toward each other. In fact,
here in Prop. 7, things have weight toward each particle of matter. Each
particle of matter is a center of weight around itself. This is the crowning
point of Book III, Tbe System of the World. For that purpose you use the
previous theorems of Books I and II, but not much from Book II, which is
about fluids.
Now after Prop. 7 you have a descent, which is an a priori
argumentation. You know that there is universal gravitation, and from that
you draw consequences, and the consequences are placed in our world; they
are terrestrial and celestial consequences of universal gravitation. And then
Newton has a sort of program of deduction and research. It is not completely
done. In many cases he says: "We would like the observers to see if... ,"
''We would like the astronomers to decide whether... ," etc. So, once you
have accepted the idea of universal gravitation, you reorganize the world,
and you are able to pose interesting questions to the world. Do tides behave
this way or that way? Do the satellites of this planet behave in this way or
�DEGANDT
9
another way? Universal gravitation is a sort of guiding light to pose questions
to nature in an a priori mode. And then you have various aspects: orbits of
planets, shape of the Earth (called Ia figure de Ia terre in the 18th century),
then the tides with their ebb and flow, the Moon, the precession of the
equinoxes, the comets; and with the comets comes the end of Book III. This
is the program which is set in Book III. But this is also the list of themes that
were addressed by scientists in the 18th century. This is the agenda of
physics in the 18th century, almost in that order. It is strange.
The orbits of planets: the greatest scientist of that time was Christiaan
Huygens, and Christiaan Huygens admitted that for the orbits of planets the
system of Newton is marvelous. It gives extraordinary consequences, which
are exactly adapted to what we can see in the orbits of planets-much more
than in Descartes's system. The Cartesian system had no answer, even no
question concerning the geometrical aspects of the orbits. And here Huygens
said, it's a marvel: we can now say why the eccentricities of the orbits are
constant, we know why the planes of the orbits pass through the Sun, which
is so important dynamically speaking, but in Cartesian terms it has no
importance. There's no reason why the center of the vortex should be always
on the plane of the orbit. And the inclinations of the orbits always remain the
same; it's important in Newtonian terms, in Cartesian terms it has no
particular sense. Many details of the orbits of planets can be explained. You
can give an account of them through universal gravitation. So Huygens was
satisfied, except that he found the theory absurd. Well, of course. I insist
upon Huygens, because very often people say that Newton was not accepted
on the Continent before a late date. It's not true. A man called Huygens
wrote and published in 1690 vigorous praise of the system of Newton.
Next, let's come to the shape of the Earth. This gave rise to a quarrel
between some quasi-Cartesians and the Newtonians in the years 1735-36,
especially amongst Frenchmen, in particular the Cassinis, Clairaut, Bouguer,
Maupertuis, la Condamine. And the French decided to send two expeditions,
one to Lapland, toward the North Pole, and the other to Peru and to the
Equator, to determine the length of the meridian, and then to see whether
the Earth is flattened at the poles. I could tell you much more about that, it's
a really funny story, an extraordinary story, especially the story of the
expedition to the Equator: extreme problems of health, difficulty with the
Indians, with the Viceroys. One member of the expedition came back only
36 years later. That expedition was not lucky. The expedition to Lapland was
much more lucky and successful, and they proved that the Earth is really
flattened. But it was not a proof of Newton's system, because many
Cartesians admitted also that the Earth was flattened. Voltaire said: Now
�10
TilE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
Newton has triumphed, etc. Here I should mention the mundane belleslettres, etc., the people who wrote about Newton without understanding.
That is the usual fate of science.
The tides: the tides provided the occasion of an important discussion in
1739-40. The question was posed by the Academie des Sciences de Paris: can
we explain the tides by universal gravitation? The answer of the Principia
was yes; but in how much detail? And so several people tried to develop the
details of the explanation of the tides via universal gravitation. But this was a
big task. Sometimes it is said that the success in carrying it out was complete;
that is not true. The subject is very complex, and it is especially complex
because you have a simple cause, but many, many intermediate phenomena:
resonance in basins, inertia of the water, etc., and it is very hard to see
whether the theory was really corroborated by those studies. The studies
were written by Euler, Maclaurin, and Daniel Bernoulli.
Concerning the Moon, there was a very interesting discussion and crisis
in 1747-48, because Euler, d'Alembert, and Clairaut became aware--or more
clearly aware-that a certain motion of the Moon, the motion of the Moon's
apse, cannot be explained by universal gravitation, for you derive only half
the observed motion of the apse. They had to redo the derivation. Euler
thought there could be some fluid complicating the process. D'Alembert was
skeptical, as usual; he said, probably there must be some magnetic influence,
or the Moon is hollow, with an irregular shape inside. And Clairaut said,
well, let's try to compute. He made calculations, and he showed in 1749 that
there is no need to change the law of gravitation, no need to introduce a
further mechanism; the calculation works perfectly well, once you have
admitted a certain way of doing the approximation. So the result was a
success, after a crisis for universal gravitation.
The precession: well, let's skip that and turn to comets. Halley's Comet
returned in early 1759. On the basis of Newton's theory, Clairaut predicted
the return of the comet to within approximately one month. This was a
popular success, a popular triumph for Newton's theory. Some people said,
"One month is marvelous." Others said, "Well, one month, that's much!" And
Clairaut had to compute the influence of the big planets in perturbing the
path of the comet.
So these are the triumphs of the Newtonian theory in the 18th century
which were synthesized, summarized in Laplace's M§canique celeste, which
was published around the tum of the century (around 1800). For instance,
Laplace wrote "La tbeorie de Ia pesanteur a devance les observations": the
theory of gravity has preceded observations. It was in advance.
�DEGANDT
11
This could be misleading. There were other questions that were not so
easily solved; in some cases the theory did not work. For instance, the
attempt to calculate the trade winds via gravitation didn't work; the study of
the resistance of fluids-it is a very, very difficult, complicated problem that
was not successfully solved in Book II of Newton's Principia. But, on the
whole, one can say that this [Laplace's Mecanique celeste] marks the triumph
of the system of Mr. Newton, especially in the French-speaking part of
Europe. In that day the English-speaking part was not as active as the Swiss,
the French, the people in Berlin (but in Berlin there were Swiss and French).
So I come to the limits and the critique of Newton's system. First, the
theory of Newton is absurd. It starts from a stupid assumption: that two
particles of matter can do something to each other at a distance, without
touching each other-a sort of magic or sympathy. "Attraction" was a wellknown word for things that were crazy. Daniel Bernoulli in his book about
tides starts by writing, "Get incomprehensible et incontestable principe queM.
Newton a si bien etabli . .." The phrase is marvelous: This incomprehensible
and indisputable principle that Mr. Newton has so well established. How can
you establish something incomprehensible?
And all the discussion should be placed inside a larger context, a
philosophical context and also a theological context, the context of a crisis of
causality. People at that time, the beginning of the 18th century, became ill at
ease with the notion of cause: what is a cause? And philosophers like
Malebranche or Berkeley, or even Maupertuis and d'Alembert, tried to
dismiss the traditional notion of cause. And the Newtonian system was a part
of the discussion. In the Newtonian system you cannot say you have reached
a cause, but nevertheless you go on, doing useful computations and
predictions, etc. For instance, Berkeley has a beautiful sentence in his
Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge: "Those men who
frame general rules from the phenomena, and afterwards derive the
phenomena from those rules, seem to consider signs rather than causes." Not
causes but signs. Physics has to do with signs only. This is Berkeley.
Then around 1750, there was a sort of turn, a sort of new fashion.
People were expecting, awaiting a new science, for instance the new science
advocated by Diderot, the friend of my d'Alembert. And Diderot's idea, for
instance especially in his Pensees sur !'interpretation de Ia nature, in 1754, is
that "le temps des geometres est passe." Mathematics are void. Nothing
happens in mathematics; you only translate the first statement in various
ways, in mathematical discourse. Diderot knew that from his friend
d'Alembert, who said so: mathematics is just translation. It is time to go to
new objects, a new style of science, especially concerned with living beings,
�12
TIIE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
because Nature is living and productive. This had to do with the secret,
subterranean influence of Leibniz-Leibniz who spoke very often of ipsa
natura, in a sort of pre-Romantic thought. And Nature is made of a chain of
beings. And people like Diderot were very interested and enthusiastic about
that chain of various beings from the stone to the man, even further-we
don't know. With the polyp, for instance, between two domains of nature:
the polyp is at the same time an animal and not an animal, we don't know
exactly. And all those new objects cannot be studied by the methods of
mathematical physics. So Newton for these people was an old-fashioned
scientist.
And the most systematic criticism came from the German Romantic
movement. There were also English Romantics concerned with this criticism,
for instance, if you read William Blake or Coleridge, they discussed Newton;
for them Newton is a representative of a particular sort of science. In Blake's
extraordinary world, Newton represents a certain figure. But I am more
interested by German Romantics, people like Goethe, Schelling, Hegel. For
them Newton was the symbol of dry, mathematical abstraction, of the
scientific understanding that desiccates Nature. Thus in Hegel or in Schelling,
in texts dating from around 1801 and 1802, for instance Hegel's De orbitis
planetarum, and the beautiful dialogue written by Schelling called Bruno:
there you swim in the ocean of infinite beauty, etc., you see everything from
a high vantage point. It's philosophy at its smoothest and its most dangerous,
perhaps. But it's fun; you should read Schelling's Bruno. And for these
authors, the composition and decomposition of force is a violence done to
Nature, because force is something unitary, autonomous, and active, and
force cannot be decomposed. There's no sense in trying to decompose a
force. In Nature there are degrees of freedom, in accordance with the Great
Chain of Being, and those degrees of freedom statt from the stone, which is
a complete prisoner of gravity, and then you go to the solar system; and
Hegel and Schelling say that the solar system has a certain higher level, and
has its own freedom. The planets are in a certain sense free, and more free
than a pure stone, which is the slave of gravity. And then, of course, a still
higher level is that of the animal. And then you come to the Spirit. And
finally, consciousness and knowledge are the highest points of Nature and
must be included in that large science of Nature.
That is, Newtonian science is abstract, it is partial, it explains only one
level of Nature, and it is non-reflexive: it does not explain itself, whereas
Romantic Naturpbilosophie explains itself. Genius is a part of Nature. My
imagination is a part of Nature. In a text of Navalis or Schelling, you explain
how the knowledge of man is a part of the operations of Nature.
�DE GANDT
13
The strange thing is that there is a big misunderstanding in all that,
because Newton would have agreed. Newton was on their side, in fact. But
we have discovered it only recently, in the last 40 years or so, I would say. I
will try briefly to show how Newton would have agreed with the Romantic
view of Nature. First, is Newtonian science abstract? Is mathematics abstract?
No. Newton maintains that his fluxions are in Nature; they do exist in Nature.
There are fluxions; you can see them. They are the real operation of Nature.
For instance, I remember a passage in Colin Maclaurin, who is sometimes a
faithful Newtonian. He says: the French Cartesians have invented fictions:
they have invented infinitesimals and vortices. But our Newtonian concepts
are rooted in Nature, very deeply; they are faithful to Nature. And Newtonian
science tried not to be partial, not to explain just one domain of facts. The
concept of centripetal force should be useful in other domains, should be
extended to, for instance, the cohesion of bodies, to electricity, to chemical
properties, even to nervous transmission in the brain. That is, Newtonian
science tends to be also reflexive, to explain how knowledge is possible-it's
the limit of that program. Even sensibility, immediate knowledge, would be
explained in Newtonian terms if the program of Newton had been
completely achieved.
We have the traces of that immense program in various manuscripts,
but also in some published texts, where Newton says we should go from
phenomena to forces, and then classify forces into certain large classes of
forces, and then we come to the causes of those forces, which are different:
forces are not causes. Thus we proceed from the motions to the forces, from
the forces to the classes of force, from the classes of force to the causes, and
ultimately to God Himself, who is the highest cause. And philosophy, natural
philosophy, should go up to God, should attain God. And then, in that vast
program, the Principia is just a small part of the statue, just the torso or the
leg, I don't know; but it's only the beginning of a part of a vast program.
And then, in the second edition of 1713, Newton added a strange text
to the Principia, a text called "Scholium Generale," which I think you read in
your classes. It contains an extraordinary avowal of the shipwreck, of the
failure: "Causam gravitatis nondum assignavi." I have written 500 pages of
difficult physics, and I end the book by saying: "I don't know the causes."
But physics is about the causes. In Descartes, in Aristotle, all physics is
always about causes. So you end your book of physics by saying: I have not
found the causes; then it's useless!
Here is a little comparison that is not, I think, completely false. When
Daladier came back from Munich in the autumn of 193&-Chamberlain went
to London, Daladier came to Paris, after the discussion with Hitler, and they
�14
THE ST. JOHN'S REVlEW
said, "We have peace for the world," etc. in 193&--and Daladier in the plane
saw how crowded the airport was, there were thousands, tens of thousands
of people waiting for him at the airport, and he said to his counselor, "I shall
be lynched." And the counselor: "No, no, no, they are just here to cheer
you." And then Daladier said "Ah, /es cons." It's untranslatable, it's not very
good French. It means something like, "How can they be so stupid? How can
they be so stupid to applaud when I bring back such a failure?" He knew
that Munich was really a failure. But apparently the other people did not
know it. I think that Newton must have at some time had that sort of feeling
in his mind: they cheer me, they applaud the Principia, but they don't know
how enormous the task was, and this was not what I wanted. I gave that, but
I wanted much more . ... "Ah, les cons."
In the Scholium Generate Newton added a small addition, very strange,
which gives you a hint, a trace, of that vast program which extends to the
whole domain of Nature, about a certain spirit. The last paragraph of the
Principia begins: Adjicere jam liceret nonnul/a de spiritu quodam
suhtilissimo. You are good in Greek but not in Latin, I've heard. "Let it be
allowed to add something [that hypocritical manner of Newton's]-about a
certain spirit, vety subtle . .. , etc." And that spirit has many active operations,
as you know. And that spirit could be, in some. sense, the most overt way in
which Newton gave an indication of his larger philosophy of nature.
Probably he had the hope of proving mathematically that nature is active,
living, operative. But the road was too long, and he covered only a very
small part.
So Newton was called by John Maynard Keynes "the last magician." Is
that program about the life of nature a sort of dead end? Because the
Principia was taken as a complete system; and in the 18th century there
were few people who cared about the spiritus quidam, etc., and all that
hidden part of the program of Newton. And all those vague statements about
God and spirit were almost without influence. Actually, it's not so simple;
you should look more closely at the definition of "natural philosophy" in
English authors. For instance, on the last page of Locke's Essay Concerning
Human Understanding, you have a definition of "physics," which includes
angels, spirits, and God. So physis for Locke includes spirits, even up to God.
And I have found authors that were influenced by Newton and were
influential in their turn, who should be studied more. I am thinking for
instance of a certain David Hartley. In his book, Observations on Man, his
Frame, his Duty, and his Expectations (1749), Hartley has a complete theory
about vibrations and that notion of spirit, pervading a sort of aether,
pervading all nature. It even penetrates our nerves and brain and explains
�DEGANDT
15
the functioning of our brain. He speaks of a sort of harmony that can
establish itself between things that are at a distance from one another. His
theory includes even psychology, morality, and theology. So Hartley has a
complete Newtonian philosophy of nature and spirit and God, based on that
Newtonian notion of spirit. And strangely enough, that man Hartley
influenced Jeremy Bentham as well as Joseph Priestley. And he is sometimes
associated with the birth of utilitarianism and the theory of the association of
ideas. But there is almost no study on Hartley except a French one, Elie
Halevy, La naissance du radicalisme philosopbique, Vol. 2. And I have found
a sort of Hartleyan or Newtonian quotation in an unexpected place: Laurence
Sterne, A Sentimental journey. In the chapter, "The Bourbonnais," we read:
Dear sensibility! source inexhausted of all that's precious in our
joys, or costly in our sorrows! ... 'thy divinity which stirs within me'not that in some sad and sickening moments, 'my soul shrinks back upon
herself' . .. but that I feel some generous joys and generous cares beyond
myself-all comes from thee, great SENSORIUM of the world! ["sensorium"
is the Newtonian word for the presence or place of God] which vibrates
[I'm not sure he isn't confusing "spirit" and "sensorium," but those
notions are so strange] if a hair of our heads but falls upon the ground, in
the remotest desert of thy creation . ...
That is action at a distance. If a hair of a creature falls in a desert, you
feel it, because there is that universal vibration of the aether. And that
explains sensibility. That explains also why we are sometimes pushed
outwards, and we can perceive what happens elsewhere-not in our body
only. And sensibility was an important slogan in the 18th century. It has
something to do with the Newtonian program.
I had here a digression about the logic of that Newtonian program, and
what could be called the Paracelsian mode of science. At that time there was
not only the mechanical picture, but also something else, another way of
doing philosophy, another way of looking at nature, at life, at knowledge,
which was influenced by Neoplatonism and by Hermetism and well
represented by the alchemists and the Paracelsians. But that can be a theme
for later discussion.
Maybe we could be cynical and say that all that hidden program of
Newton, all those speculations about spirits and sensorium, have not much
to do with real science, that they remain marginal. Hartley is mostly
forgotten. Maybe that's just right, and the fame of Newton rests not on
alchemy and theology, but on the mathematical theory of gravitation.
Our usual reading of the Principia is far removed from the unified and
vital conception of nature. Is it totally unfaithful to Newton to read the
�16
THE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
Principia just as a piece of mathematical physics? I think Newton is also
responsible for that.
Newton accepted another tradition just by writing physics
mathematically. Newton accepted the tradition of mathematical physics,
which is an old thing. This is what I could call the Archimedean tradition.
You have read Archimedes' treatises on the equilibrium of planes and on
floating bodies. The natural charge is at the beginning, or maybe at the end.
That is, you put the real thing in the principles, and then you draw the chain,
you tum the crank. It's not so easy to tum the crank, but the real physical
charge is at the beginning. You pose a certain assumption, you postulate
lambanomena or aitemata at the beginning of the theory. So it's not a study
of the causes, but it's building a deductive apparatus.
And this is exactly what Galileo does. The name of Galileo appears
here in a very essential way, because Galilee is in some sense the father of
Newton, or Newton is the son of Galileo. They do the same job. And Galilee
accepts the restriction of not dealing with causes, whereas Newton is more
embarrassed ("I have not found causes"). Galileo says: We shall not study
causes; we shall just assume a certain definition of accelerated motion, and
then we turn the mathematical crank, we arrive at a certain consequence,
and we try to see if the consequence works in the real world. That's the way
we have to deal with Nature in our science. Of course, it is a deceiving
science, because we don't deal with causes. But that is not the job of this
sort of science.
I'm just paraphrasing an important passage from the Third Day of
Galilee's Discourses on Two New Sciences; I believe it is part of your
curriculum. So, Newton does the same. He has the physical charge in the
principles, and then comes the mathematical deduction. And at the end, you
can see whether it works, whether it is adjusted to the physical facts. And the
Galilean influence is much deeper also. I mean that the very notion of
gravitation is Galilean gravitation. What is gravity? We don't know the cause
of it, we don't know whether it is impulsive or attractive, whether it is a
question of pushing something, or being drawn, being pulled, being
attracted. We don't know that, we don't have to decide that. The only thing
that we know and that is important for the rest is that gravity implies a
certain law of acceleration around the particle having mass. Every particle
creates around itself a field of acceleration. This is the only thing we need to
know. And it's the basic thing at the beginning of the Principia. That is,
universal gravity is generalized Galilean weight, nothing more, nothing less.
Everywhere in the world, at each instant, there is action of Galilean weight.
�DEGANDT
17
And we just observe it by observing accelerated motion. We know nothing
more and we don't need to know anything more.
That deductive frame-you put the physical charge at the beginning,
and then you draw mathematically, deductively the consequences-that
frame is not so new. It is a Greek frame, it is a Greek_ pattern, a Greek
invention: deductive science. Deductive science applied to physical reality.
And I think many commentators on modern science have not been
sufficiently aware-myself, I have discovered it progressively-of the
immense importance of the four mixed sciences. What are the four mixed
sciences? Music, astronomy, optics, mechanics. This is the list you have in
Aristotle's Metaphysics 13.3 or Physics 2.2. And you have the same list in
Galileo's Discorsi. You know that place [Third Day, following Cor. I of Prop.
II of On Naturally Accelerated Motion] where Salviati has unrolled his text in
Latin, and then Simplicio says, Well, all this is very good, but I would like to
see the experiments. And Salviati doesn't say, Oh, Simplicia, you are a
university scholar, always fond of Aristotle. No! He says: you are perfectly
right! He says: Voi, da vera scienziato, which is slightly ironicaL You are a
real scientist, Simplicia. And why are you a real scientist, Simplicia? Because
you ask what is usually asked in those sciences which apply mathematical
demonstration to natural conclusions, as is the case [and here come the four
sciences] ne i perspettivi, negli astronomi, ne i mecanici, ne i musici [in the
writers on optics, astronomy, mechanics, and music].
So Galileo accepts the traditional frame of those mixed sciences. What
he does is nothing else than renewing and extending those ancient sciences.
For instance, when he wanted to demonstrate the isochronism of the
pendulum, in the letter to Guido Ubaldo of 16o2, he says: I want to prove it
senza trasgradire i termini meccanici-without trespassing beyond the
boundaries of mechanics. For him the isochronism of the pendulum should
be proved inside traditional mechanics.
So I have much to say about those four mixed sciences. And I think if
we really want to discuss the question, Do we have real knowledge of nature
in Newton's science? we should first deal with the question of the relation of
those four disciplines to nature. For instance, there is a very important fact,
which I discovered recently, one month ago, in the last issue of Early Science
and Medicine (February 1999). Ulrich Taschow from Halle discusses music in
Nicole Oresme. Maybe Oresme is a well~known name for you-a figure at
the end of the medieval period. And Oresme uses music as a very important
example for his latitudines formarum. And Tasch ow discusses the
importance of music, and he remarks (p. 44) that it is strange that all the
sciences apply to nature but only in a certain, special sense. Astronomy has
�18
THE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
to do with the celestial spheres, which are not ordinary matter; they are
made of quintessentia, the fifth substance, which is not ordinary matter.
Optics has to do with species, which is not material. And music, which was
the theme of the article in Early Science and Medicine, has to do with ratios
between sounds, and these, too, are nothing material. Thus the three upper
sciences have to do with things which are in nature but are not exactly
material, which are quasi-material, of some sort of super-essential matter; it is
thus, you see, in the case of sound, of planetary orbits or heavenly spheres,
and of the rays of light, or the rays which come from your eye.
But mechanics is an exception because mechanics is a very terrestrial,
down-to-earth discipline. It has to do first with military engines, and with
levers, pulleys, cranks, fortifications: that is mechanics. Mechanics is really
down-to-earth, an everyday science. Astronomy, optics, and music are not
everyday sciences. They have not much to do with the real world. So
mechanics is an exception, and it would be very interesting but difficult to
try to follow the strange evolution of mechanics, and even of the
word, mechane, mechanika, mechanike. What is it exactly? Mechane is a trick.
You are a mechanician when you are clever, you are tricky, you know the
roundabout way, you don't deal directly with the thing. You are like Ulysses:
Ulysses is a master of mechanics. Whereas Achilles goes straight on, Ulysses
knows a trick: polumechanos Odysseus-maybe you remember that.
And then, does all that deal with nature? What is the link between
mechane and nature? I will not answer, but I'll just finish with a small
quotation from Sophocles' Antigone. You know the text. You remember
probably that the chorus says that Man is something extraordinary among
extraordinary things, a marvel of marvels or enigma of enigmas, polla ta
deina k'ouden anthr6pou deinoteron, etc. And you remember that Man does
violence to the Earth, and the word has some sexual connotation, apotruetai.
The poor Earth is fecundated at a certain price each year by the man with
the plow and the horses. And Man is a king of tricks. The word mechane
_occurs at various places in this chorus of Antigone. For instance, you have
the strange phrase, to miJcbanoen tecbnas, etc. And so Man is able to keep
away from Nature, to keep away from natural dangers. He has his shelter, his
weapons. The mecbane is a way to avoid the direct contact with Nature, in
some sense. Man has created another world, another realm, which is the
domain of mechane.
If we admit that in that text, the hymn to Man in Antigone, there is a
certain flavor of disrespect, almost blasphemy against Nature, then we should
not say, we should not believe that we have lost a certain contact with
Nature which was a privilege of the ancient world. The ancient world was no
�DEGANDT
19
more in contact with Nature than we are, in some sense. They admitted that
a certain mechane was there to protect them against Nature. That mechane
was also the genius of Man, because mechane goes up to the creation of
speech and laws, in the text of the chorus of Antigone.
In the beginning I spoke of nostalgia. Nostalgia is a noble and sweet
feeling. And Nature is in some sense our paradise lost. For every people,
every country, every century, Nature is always in some sense a paradise lost.
So, nostalgia is a sweet feeling. But the higher attitude seems to me to admit
almost to blasphemy or at least to attifact in our life, and to live with it.
Notes
1. Frans;ois de Gandt, Force and Geometry in Newton's Principia, trans. Curtis Wilson
(Princeton University Press, 1995).
2. Isaac Newton, Philosopbiae Natura/is Principia Mathematica, (first edition, 1687).
References are to the third Latin edition (1726) with variant readings edited by
Alexandre Koyre and I. Bernard Cohen, Harvard University Press, 1972. I will refer
to this work throughout as Principia. All English translations are by William H.
Donahue.
�Newton's New Theory
of Light and Colors
William H. Donahue
Isaac Newton is known for having invented many things: the Newtonian
telescope, universal gravitation, and the cat door among them. It is not
widely known, however, that he also invented the scientific journal article.
His invention appeared in the form of a letter, and was published in the
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society in 1672.' It was about light
and colors, and began with an account of his famous experiment with 'two
prisms, which he called "the E;xperimentum Crucis," by which he hoped to
show that sunlight consists of differently refrangible rays, each with its own
characteristic angle of refraction. This experiment, and Newton's description
of it, is my topic this morning, and so I shall begin by reading the pertinent
parts of Newton's article.
Newton begins:
Sir,
To perform my late promise to you, I shall without further
ceremony acquaint you, that in the beginning of the Year 1666 (at which
time I applyed my self to the grinding of Optick glasses of other figures
than Spherical,) I procured me a Triangular glass-Prisme, to try therewith
the celebrated Phaenomena of Colours. And in order thereto having
darkened my chamber, and made a small hole in my window-shut
[shutters], to let in a convenient quantity of the Suns light, I placed my
Prisme at his entrance, that it might be thereby refracted to the opposite
wall. It was at first a very pleasing divertisement [diversion], to view the
vivid and intense colours produced thereby; but after a while applying
my self to consider them more circumspectly, I became surprised to see
them in an oblong form; which, according to the received laws of
Refraction, I expected should have been circular.
William Donahue, a graduate of St. John's with a Ph.D. in the history of science from Cambridge
University, is the translator of Kepler's Astronomia Nova, and is now completing a translation of
Kepler's Astronomiae Pars Optica. With Dana Densmore he operates the Green Lion Press,
which publishes works of importance in the history of science. Mr. Donahue illustrated his talk
at appropriate moments with a video portr.1yal of the experiment prepared by Mr. Howard
Fisher and Mr. Adam Schulman. In the printed version of the talk, the illustrations will be three
diagrams drawn by Newton himself.
�21
DONAHUE
[2] They were terminated at the sides with streight [straight] lines,
but at the ends, the decay of light was so gradual, that it was difficult to
determine justly, what was their figure; yet they seemed semicircular.
[3] Comparing the length of this coloured Spectrum with its
breadth, I found it about five times greater; a disproportion so
extravagant, that it excited me to a more than ordinary curiosity of
examining, from whence it might proceed .... ( 47-48)
p
" "'
Fig. 1. XY is the Sun, F the hole in the window shutter,
ABC the prism, and PT the oblong image on the wall.
And having placed [the prism] at my window, as before, I observed, that
by turning it a little about its axis to and fro, so as to vary its obliquity to
the light, more than an angle of 4 or 5 degrees, the Colours were not
thereby sensibly translated from their place on the wall, and
consequently by that variation of Incidence, the quantity of Refraction
was not sensibly varied. [See Fig. 1.] By this Experiment therefore, as well
as by the former computation, it was evident, that the difference of the
Incidence of Rays, flowing from divers parts of the Sun, could not make
them after decussation [the point where nonparallel rays cross] diverge at
a sensibly greater angle, than that at which they before converged; which
being, at most, but about 31 or 32 minutes, there still remained some
other cause to be found out, from whence it could be 2 degr .49'. ( 49-50)
Note that there is a lowest position which the spectrum can attain, no
matter how the prism is rotated. When the spectrum is at its lowest position,
the prism is said to be in the position of minimum deviation.
This position has theoretical importance since one can show from the
sine law of refraction (which was known in Newton's day) that it is a
position of symmetry with respect to both incoming and outgoing beams;
and therefore that a light beam refracted by the prism should pass through
with its angular width unchanged. Newton refers to such a calculation in
Paragraph 6. During the experiment the prism was never rotated very far
from its position of minimum deviation, once that position was found . Thus
�22
THE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
the spreading out of the beam in one direction cannot be explained by the
reference to the ordinary law of refraction alone.
We return to Newton's letter at paragraph 9:
[9] The gradual removal of these suspitions, at length led me to the
Experimentum Crucis, which was this: I took two boards, and placed one
of them close behind the Prisme at the window, so that the light might
pass through a small hole, made in it for the purpose, and fall on the
other board, which I placed at about 12 feet distance, having first made a
small hole in it also, for some of that Incident light to pass through. Then
I placed another Prisme behind this second board, so that the light,
trajected [passed] through both the boards, might pass through that also,
and be again refracted before it arrived at the wall. This done, I took the
first Prisme in my hand, and turned it to and fro slowly about its Axis, so
much as to make the several parts of the Image, cast on the second board,
successively pass through the hole in it, that I might observe to what
places on the wall the second Prisme would refract them. [See Fig. 2.]
Fig 2.
And I saw by the variation of those places, that the light, tending to
that end of the image, towards which the refraction of the first Prisme
was made, did in the second Prisme suffer a refraction considerably
greater then the light tending to the other end.
And so the true cause of the length of that image was detected to
be no other, then that Light consists of Rays differently refrangible, which,
without any respect to a difference in their incidence, were, according to
their degrees of refrangibility, transmitted towards divers parts of the
wall. ( 49-50)
The rest of my talk will consist largely of a careful reading of these
last two sentences, to try to understand what they mean and on what
�DONAHUE
23
grounds we might be able to judge of their truth. I say "we" because I hope
you will be participants in the reading. I'm not a Newton scholar, and am
approaching the text in the tradition of St. John's, as a thoughtful reader
rather than as an expert.
So let's jump in. I'll read Newton's conclusion again:
And l saw by the variation of those places, that the light, tending to that
end of the image, towards which the refraction of the first Prisme was
made, did in the second Prisme suffer a refraction considerably greater
then the light tertding to the other end. And so the true cause of the
length of that image was detected to be no other, then that Light consists
of Rays differently refrangible, which, without any respect to a difference
in their incidence, were, according to their degrees of refrangibility,
transmitted towards divers parts of the wall.
The first remarkable thing we notice is that Newton does not use the
word "color," even though it is the colors of the refracted spectrum
(Newton's word) that one notices, almost to the exclusion of anything else.
Indeed, he goes through considerable verbal contortions to avoid using the
c-word: "the light, tending to that end of the image, towards which the
refraction of the first Prisme was made, ... the light tending to the other end."
Instead, the question Newton sets out to answer is why the form of the
image is oblong:
It was at first a very pleasing divertisement, to view the vivid and intense
colours produced thereby; but after a while applying my self to consider
them more circumspectly, I became surprised to see them in an oblong
form; which, according to the received laws of Refraction, I expected
should have been circular.
The distinction here is between something about which he had few
expectations, though it was interesting and fun, and something else that was
not behaving as current theory predicted-a serious matter. In refractions,
the sine of the angles of the incident and refracted rays (let's accept this
term, for the moment) were believed to maintain a constant ratio
characteristic of the two media transmitting the ray. Had the ray behaved in
accordance with this rule, it would have had about the same shape after
refraction as before. This expectation had nothing to do with color: the
refracted ray could have exhibited various colors in various places without
being elongated, or it could have been elongated while remaining white.
And the elongation was considerable: Newton found the image to be about
five times as long as it was wide.
�24
TilE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
Newton's conclusion is remarkable for more than just the lack of any
mention of color: nothing in the way of an explanatory mechanism is
proposed. In fact, the conclusion seems excessively modest, stating the
obvious-not the sort of brilliant theoretical leap we would expect of
Newton. Nevertheless, far from being obvious, it received considerable
criticism, some of it from respected scientists such as Huygens and Hooke.
So it appears that we are missing something, and need to look more carefully
at what Newton says.
And I saw ... that the light, tending to that end of the image, towards
which the refraction of the first Prisme was made, did in the second
Prisme suffer a refraction considerably greater then the light tending to
the other end.
He says "I saw." Well, this is stretching things a bit. He didn't "see"
these things in the way that one says "I saw the son of Diares here
yesterday." But it does tell us what Newton intends. He hopes to convince us
that his conclusion falls directly out of observation, without the intervention
of theories or hypotheses. Has he succeeded?
Let us continue reading.
"And I saw ... that the light, ... " Notice that he doesn't say "I saw the
light": indeed, light itself, whatever it may be is not simply visible, as one
learns in the optical part of the Junior Lab at St. John's. It becomes visible
when it falls on something. In our video of the experiment, we saw that the
first prism was illuminated by the Sun, and that the screen placed beyond it
was illuminated by something that came from the first prism. Our
understanding has to come into play here, in tracing the relationship
between the Sun, the prism, and what we see on the board. If, for example,
a cat were looking at this same scene, she would see the spectrum as an
independent thing, and probably try to catch it. But once we understand the
connection, I think it's fair to say that we "see" that something has happened
somewhere between the Sun and the screen. A few ancillary experiments,
such as those described by Newton, would serve to locate the change in the
prism itself.
So what is the nature of the event that occurs in the first prism? Is this,
too, something that we "see"? Newton is careful to avoid terms that would
suggest an explanation or hypothesis. He uses the language that was
commonly accepted in geometrical optics-ray optics-in describing the path
of a "ray" of light passing from one medium into another: it is said to be
refracted, and all this means is that its path is bent. So can we be satisfied
that this language is perfectly neutral?
�DONAHUE
25
The troublesome term here is not "refraction" but the term "ray" (I'm
lifting it from the next sentence, but it is obviously implicit here), which
carries a lot of baggage with it. Optics, like astronomy, had long existed in
two forms: the mathematical discipline and the physical/physiological theory,
Geometrical optics, as far as we know, originated with Euclid, and was a
mathematical treatment of how things appear. It involved what is called an
"extramission" theory of vision, in which the eye was thought to emit rays
that reach out to objects and, as it were, feel them, as a blind person senses
objects by feeling them with a stick. This type of optics explained why
distant things appear small, how binocular vision works, and so on. The rays
in this theory were visual rays, not light rays: it does not deal with light as
such, and in fact there doesn't seem to be any reason why a light source
would be needed in order to see.
Then there was the other side of optics, which concerned itself with
what light is and how the sense of vision works-the big picture. Aristotle's
account in De Anima and On Sense and Sensibles is an example. Aristotle
was familiar with ray explanations of reflection, and so set out to say why
vision could occur only in the presence of light. His opinion was that light
only served to act on a medium that is transparent in potency so as to make
it actually transparent. In other words, we don't see things in the dark
because the air is opaque. Nothing is travelling from the Sun to the prism:
the colors that we see are only there in the colored object-the screen, the
ceiling, the prism support, and so on.
Now, of course, there are problems with this account. Nevertheless, it
was widely taught and widely accepted, and could be made consistent with
the extramission theory, though Aristotle himself rejected the latter. And, as
you can appreciate, it's hard to know what to make of the prism and its
refraction on this view. If there is no such thing as a ray of light coming from
the Sun, but only rays between the eye and the thing seen, there can't be a
refraction of the ray. We are almost left without language to describe what
we have seen. And, of course, it would seem perverse to speak of what we
have seen without mentioning color, since what is seen is nothing but color.
Perhaps, if we were trying to see through Aristotle's eyes, we would say that
without the prism we see a white shape at a certain place on the screen, and
with the prism we see an elongated and multicolored shape higher up on the
screen. Possibly Newton could convince us Aristotelians that something is
forming a straight line on one side of the prism, and that on the other the
succession of images (imagining the screen to be placed at different
distances) spreads out. But I don't think we could be made to see light
passing from the Sun in a straight line and being refracted, because that isn't
what light, as we understand it, does.
�26
TilE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
It's evidently hard to get a conversation going between Aristotle and
Newton: they're not speaking the same language. But that in itself says
something about the "experimental philosophy." Experiments are not just
perceptions; they aren't just experiences either. Experiments must be
expressed in language, and the language in which they are expressed is
never neutral. Language implies some level of shared understanding upon
which further discourse can be based.
In this example, the language Newton was speaking came chiefly from
the work of Kepler and Descartes. Kepler had reworked the tradition of ray
optics into a comprehensive physical theory that began with the nature of
light, gave an account of reflection and refraction (including an accurate
mathematical law of refraction), and described light's path from a luminous
source to an illuminated object and on to the retina of the observer's eye.
Kepler was a careful reader of Aristotle, and explicitly rejected Aristotle's
view that nothing actually flows from the Sun to the scenery.
Descartes acknowledged his debt to Kepler, but gave Kepler's
conclusions a Cartesian foundation and replaced Kepler's refraction rule with
Snel's. Although he believed that light is instantaneously transmitted through
a medium by impulse, he retained the ray optics as a useful mathematical
device.
Newton had read works of Descartes and other contemporary authors
of the mechanical tradition as an undergraduate. Interestingly, what little he
says about Aristotle's views seems to have come from a seventeenth-century
textbook writer: Newton may not have read Aristotle at all. His remarks in
early optical lectures display impatience and contempt for what he took to
be Aristotelian opinions. His intended audience had clearly outgrown such
puerilities.
So perhaps we should agree to speak his language, and to accept
tentatively whatever baggage it brings with it. And near the beginning of our
inquiry, before we became Aristotelians, we had agreed that something
happens in the first prism: the rays (whatever they are) are refracted through
a range of angles, even though the incident rays meet the prism at nearly the
same angle. What is the nature of this event?
To answer this question, Newton performs what he calls an
experimentum crucis. He got this term from Hooke, who used it in the
course of investigating colors in his Micrographia (1665).' Hooke brought in
the example of colors produced by thin films and plates to refute Descartes's
proposal that colors are somehow created by a spin imparted to particles in
refraction, there being no refraction in these instances. He remarks,
�DONAHUE
27
This experiment therefore will prove such a one as our thrice excellent
Verulam [i.e., Francis Bacon] calls Experimentum Crucis, serving as a
Guide or Land-mark, by which to direct our course in the search after the
tme cause of Colours. (54)
Now Bacon did not use this exact language, but in Aphorism 36 of
Book II of the Novum Organum he introduces instantiae crucis, or "crucial
instances." 3 The "crux," or "cross," in question was actually a road sign,
pointing out which road to take. Bacon writes,
They operate as follows. When in the investigation of nature the
understanding stands evenly balanced, unable to decide to which of two
... natures the cause of the nature in question should be ascribed ... ,
Crucial Instances show the union of one of those natures with the nature
in question to be constant and unbreakable, but that of the other
breakable and separable. The inquiry is then over, and the former nature
is accepted as the cause, the latter dismissed and denied. (210)
If we can assume that Newton was using this term in its full Baconian
sense, the crucial or signpost experiment was not intended as the sole means
of revelation of the truth expressed in the conclusion following it. Rather, it
was a way of deciding which of two competing alternatives to accept.
Although Newton does not give us another alternative in this letter, the other
fork in the road would have been that the prism materially altered the light,
spreading it out into an oblong shape. If this were the case, then we would
expect the light to be similarly affected if it were passed through a second
prism; that is, any small part of the light from the first prism, passed through
a second one, would also be spread out over an angle of nearly three
degrees. If, however, the different angles of refraction belong to the rays
themselves, each kind of ray having its own specific refraction, then the
second prism would not spread out the beam of light, but would bend each
kind of ray through the same angle through which it had been bent by the
first prism.
Although he did not make this alternative explicit in the 1672 paper, he
considered it in the Gpticks: '
Considering therefore, that if in the third Experiment the Image of the
Sun should be drawn out into an oblong Form, either by a Dilatation of
every Ray, or by any other casual inequality of the Refractions, the same
oblong Image would by a second Refraction made sideways be drawn
out as much in breadth by the like Dilatation of the Rays, ... I tried what
would be the Effects of such a second Refraction. For this end I ordered
all things as in the [single prism] Experiment, and then placed a second
Prism immediately after the first in a cross Position to it, that it might
again refract the beam of the Sun's Light which came to it through the
g~~~ n~:~~
f2k\
�28
THE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
Q~~
s ..
D
R-
V ··N
H
Fig. 3.
And, in fact, this experiment was. also included in his optical lectures,
which were given before the present paper was written. So his omission of
the alternative was deliberate, and therefore we should be cautious about
drawing conclusions here.
I have described this situation much as I think Newton would have
characterized it (if he had chosen to make the alternatives explicit). Once it
is put this way, I think the result of the experiment is very clear and
compelling. But even if we concede that the two stated alternatives are the
only possibilities, some doubts remain. In particular, it is not self-evident that
the alteration option would necessarily require the light to spread out in
passing through the second prism. The light might well be altered in such a
way as to retain its new refraction angle in subsequent refractions.
And, in general, one can always find some way around a supposedly
crucial experiment, though often the detour is so obviously fictive as not to
merit serious consideration. In this instance, Hooke and Huygens remained
unconvinced; Newton believed their dissent to spring from excessive
fondness for their own hypotheses. But what really seems to have been at
issue was not a question of logical necessity but the much larger matter of
how to understand nature. The prevailing view was that science was done by
finding plausible explanations or hypotheses for the phenomena, basing
such explanations as much as possible on mechanical principles. According
to this view, Newton's experiment would be seen as designed to test two
competing hypotheses, with the idea that one of them would be logically
incompatible with the phenomena described.
I think Newton would object to this in two respects. First, he did not
believe he was evaluating hypotheses, and second, he did not consider the
evaluation to be a matter of strict deductive logic.
�DONAHUE
29
Newton's dislike of hypotheses is notorious. In a letter to Henry
Oldenburg, Secretary of the Royal Society,' regarding criticism of the present
paper, he wrote,
If I had not considered [these properties of light] as true, I would rather
have them rejected as vain and empty speculation, than acknowledged
even as an hypothesis. (264-65)
As for what he would propose as an alternative, his replies to Hooke
and others who expressed doubts about his conclusions give perhaps the
clearest testimony.
To the French Jesuit Ignace Pardies, he wrote,
For the best and safest method for philosophizing seems to be, first to
inquire diligently into the properties of things, and establishing those
properties by experiments and then to proceed more slowly to
hypothesis for the explanation of them. (285)
And to Oldenburg,
You know, the proper Method for inquiring after the properties of things
is, to deduce them from Experiments! And I told you that the Theory,
which I propounded, was evinced to me, not by inferring 'tis thus
because not otherwise, that is, not by deducing it only from a confutation
of contrary suppositions, but by deriving it from Experiments concluding
positively and directly. (285, n. 24)
Thus Newton's experimentum crucis seems not to be Bacon's or
Hooke's experimentum crucis. He had hoped that the experiment itself could
be described in sufficiently neutral terms, and could be clearly enough
organized, that the theory would simply fall out of it. In response to Hooke's
view, that Newton supposed light to be corporeal, Newton wrote,
I chose to ... speak of Light in general terms, considering it abstractly, as
something or other propagated every way in streight lines from luminous
bodies, without determining, what that Thing is.
When the experiment is expressed in such general terms, the correct
"reading" of the events would be natural, obvious, and direct. Other readings
would be possible, but, in Newton's view, would involve the assumption of
more than is evident in the phenomena. And this would constitute the
unwarranted introduction of hypotheses.
Many years later, in the "General Scholium" to the second edition of the
Principia, he stated the procedure more succinctly:
�30
TI!E ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
Hypotheses . . . have no place in experimental philosophy. In this
philosophy particular propositions are inferred from the phenomena, and
rendered general by induction.
Let's return to the sentences with which we began, keeping Newton's
intentions in mind while still reserving our judgment. First sentence:
And I saw by the variation of those places, that the light, tending to that
end of the image, towards which the refraction of the first Prisme was
made, did in the second Prisme suffer a refraction considerably greater
then the light tending to the other end.
In the language of the General Scholium, this is the "particular
proposition inferred from the phenomena." We know from his reply to
Hooke that when he says, "light," he only means to point at that "something
or other" that goes from the Sun through the prisms to the screen. The claim
is that no assumptions are made about its nature.
Second sentence:
And so the true cause of the length of that image was detected to be no
other, then that Light consists of Rays differently refrangible, which,
without any respect to a difference in their incidence, were, according to
their degrees of refrangibility, transmitted towards divers parts of the wall.
In the language of the General Scholium, this is the "particular
proposition" (first sentence) "rendered general by induction." All that has
been done here is to restate the proposition generally, without reference to
the apparatus involved (prisms and places on the wall). Yet it makes a
sweeping statement about the nature of light that represented a marked
departure from currently held views. Certainly, objections could be raised,
and were in fact raised. But Newton would claim that these involve making
further assumptions that are not supported by the phenomena. For example,
one could claim that to bundle all the rays together under the single name
"light" begs the question of whether it is all really unchanged in the course
of being refracted. Newton would reply that, though a change is conceivable,
there is no evidence supporting such a "hypothesis," and so it should not be
entertained. Should one devise another experiment that would demonstrate
such a change, Newton happily grants the "correctibility" of his conclusions.
As he said in the Principia, in the fourth of his "Rules of philosophizing,"
In experimental philosophy, propositions gathered from phenomena by
induction should be considered either exactly or very nearly true
notwithstanding any contrary hypotheses, until yet other phenornen:1.
make such propositions either more exact or liable to exceptions.
�DONAHUE
31
What, then, are we to make of this? Do we agree with Newton that his
procedure is the true one, or have we instead been rather persuasively sold a
bill of goods? Is Newton's method a way of avoiding hypotheses, or is it just
another set of rules about how to make them up? Do we now really know
something about the true nature of light itself, or is light still a slippery
demon, about which neutral statements can't be made?
Notes
1. Isaac Newton's Papers and Letters on Natural Philosophy. 2nd ed. ed. I. B. Cohen
(Harvard University Press, 1978)
2. Robert Hooke. Micrographia (New York: Dover, 1961).
3. Francis Bacon. Novum Organum. trans. and ed. Peter Urbach and John Gibson
(Chicago' Open Court, 1994).
4. Sir Isaac Newton. Opticks (New York: Dover, 1952).
5. Letters quoted by A.l. Sabra. Theories of Light from Descartes to Newton (London:
Oldbourne, 1967).
�How Did Newton Discover
Universal Gravity?
George Smith
As satisfying to our romantic conception of genius as the story of the apple
may be, Newton surely did not discover universal gravity in a flash of insight
while sitting in his mother's garden in 1667. For one thing, universal gravity
is much too complicated for that. His discovery involved a sequence of ten
increasingly problematic theses:
1. Orbiting bodies are retained in orbit, rather than moving forward
uniformly in a straight line, by forces directed toward central bodies.
2. These forces, and hence the resulting "centripetal" accelerations, vary
inversely with the square of the distance from the central body.
3. These forces act not only on the principal bodies orbiting the central
bodies, but on other bodies as well.
4. In the case of the Moon, the force in question is simply terrestrial
gravity.
5. In all celestial cases, the force in question is one in kind with terrestrial
gravity.
6. There is a force of this same kind on the central body directed toward
each body orbiting it, so that the two bodies-e.g. the Sun and
Jupiter-interact.
7. There are mutual forces of this kind between all celestial bodies----e.g.
between Jupiter and Saturn, as well as between each of these and the
Sun.
8. The forces in question vary in accord with the law of gravity-i.e., the
"motive" force on a body directed toward another body is proportional
to the product of the masses of the two bodies and inversely
proportional to the square of the distance between them.
9. The force of gravity is universal-i.e., the law of gravity holds between
any two particles of matter in the universe.
10. The force of gravity is one of the fundamental forces of nature-i.e., it
is not composed out of forces of other (known) kinds.
Now Newton, who by 1667 knew the principles of uniform circular
motion, may well have conjectured about some variant of the first few of
George E. Smith is both a philosopher of science in the Philosophy Department. of Tufts
University and a practicing engineer.
�SMITII
33
these theses in the late 1660s. Hooke and Wren were entertaining versions of
at least the first two in the late 1670s, after the account of uniform circular
motion Huygens published in 1673. We can even find a vague conjecture
along the lines of the third, fourth, and fifth in Streete' s Astronomia Carolina
of 1661, the work from which Newton learned his orbital astronomy. The last
five theses, however, reach increasingly far beyond prior thought. The last
two, we should not forget, were little short of mind-boggling at the time,
even for Newton himself.
A second reason for thinking that Newton did not discover universal
gravity in a flash of insight in 1667 is the little store he put in conjectured
hypotheses. His distrust of hypotheses did not appear for the first time in the
second, or even the first, edition of the Principia. We see it in his exchanges
over light and color in the early 1670s, where he complains that too many
disparate hypotheses can be made to fit the same facts. Indeed, given the
outspoken remarks he made about hypotheses after 1710, Newton would be
guilty of the rank hypocrisy with which Imre Lakatos charged him if he had
initially thought up universal gravity as a conjectured hypothesis, only to be
misled by bad data from Galilee in the "Moon test" of the late 1660s.' What I
am going to do in this essay is to free Newton of this charge of hypocrisy by
proposing a step-by-step sequence of reasoning by which he could have
arrived at these ten theses, one by one. We will never know for sure how
Newton arrived at universal gravity. All I can claim for the sequence I will
propose is that it is entirely compatible with the available manuscriptsespecially so when they are read in their own right, as they would have been
at the time, and not in the light of the subsequent Principia.
In fact, Newton's manuscripts and correspondence give us the best
reason for thinking that he had not discovered universal gravity before late
1684. Of particular note is his response at the time to the comet of 1680-81
(see Figure 1). Flamsteed had concluded from the bilateral symmetry of the
trajectories of the two comets observed in late 1680 and early 1681 that they
were one and the same comet that had approached the sun, only to be
repulsed by the latter's magnetism. When Newton heard of this, he became
very interested, informing Flamsteed of the alternative that the comet had
button-hooked around the sun, which Flamsteed proceeded to show was
also compatible with the observations. After intensely scrutinizing the data
and attempting to calculate trajectories, however, Newton concluded that this
is just not what comets do:
But whatever there be in these difficulties, this sways most with me that
to make the Comets of November and December but one is to make that
one paradoxical. Did it go in such a bent line other comets would do the
�34
THE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
like and yet no such thing was ever observed in them but rather the
contrary. . . . Let but the Comet of 1664 be considered where the
observations were made by accurate men. This was seen long before its
Perihelion and long after and all the while moved (by the consent of the
best Astronomers) in a line almost straight. (Letter of 16 April 1681Y
This shows that, regardless of what Newton thought at the time about
the inverse-square governed trajectories of planets, he did not think the
centripetal force governing them extends to comets as well. His celestial
forces of 1681 were definitely not universal.
Newton's Alternative
Flamsteed's Idea
D
:
.
n
:
El
Flamsteed's Trajectories
Fig. 1. The Comet(s) of 1680/81.
Reprinted by permission from The Correspondence of Isaac Newton, Vol. 2 (Cambridge at
the University Press, 1960)
�35
SMI1H
Circular Motion and the Moon Test
The obvious question, then, is what are we to make of his so-called
"Moon test" of the late 1660s? This test is presented in a brief tract written in
Latin, as if for publication. The tract begins with an analysis of circular
motion, concluding that the tendency or endeavor of the object to recede
from the circle varies as v2/r, and hence as radius or diameter over period
squared (see Figure 2). A corollary of this is that if several bodies in uniform
circular motion about a central body satisfy Kepler's 3/2 power rule--that is,
the square of the periods of revolution vary as the cubes of the radii of the
orbits-then the endeavors of these bodies to recede are inversely
proportional to the squares of the radii of their orbits. The "Moon test" itself
compares the endeavor of the Moon to recede with the known value of the
acceleration of gravity at the surface of the Earth, using 60 Earth radii for the
radius of the Moon's orbit and Galileo's incorrect value for the Earth's radius
(taken from his Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems). Newton
concludes that "the force of gravity is 4000 and more times greater than the
endeavor of the Moon to recede from the center of the Earth," much greater
than the 3600 it should be if the inverse-square rule holds around the Earth
as well.
Fig. 2. The "Moon Test" of the late 1680s.
Newton considers the body revolving in the circle as being subject to an
"endeavor to recede" from the center C. This endeavor would accelerate it
through BD in the time it moves over the arc AD, were there not a
counteracting force. But by Galileo's Dialogue, the distances traversed in
accelerated motion are as the squares of the times, and by Euclid 111.36, AB1 =
DB·BE. From these propositions Newton deduces that the acceleration
produced by the "endeavor to recede" is given by:
lim[Bn]= lim[ 2AB' ] = v' oc v' oc.!...'
2
rz
t •BE
2r
r
p
where the limit is to be taken as t or AB goes to zero, and P is the period.
Figure reprinted with permission from john Herivel, The Background to NewtonS
Principia (Oxford at the Clarendon Press, 1965).
�36
1HE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
How can I deny that what Newton is doing here is testing the
hypothesis that inverse-square terrestrial gravity is holding the Moon in its
orbit? My answer is simple.
Keep in mind that the most celebrated question in 17th century
astronomy was whether there was some way to choose between the
Copernican and Tychonic systems, where the latter (see Figure 3) has the
five planets going around the Sun and the Sun and Moon going around the
Earth. (By a simple relative motion argument, these two systems seem to be
observationally indistinguishable, for every object in each system will be in
the same position relative to all the others at all times.) Newton had read
Galilee's argument for the Copernican over the Tychonic system in the
Fourth Day that culminates the Dialogue and Descartes's argument for the
same in his Principia, and we can be confident that he found both wanting.
I
i
I
Fig. 3. Copernican vs. Tychonic World Systems
A Possible Line of Argument for the Copernican system: (I) The Earth conforms
perfectly with the 3/z power rule around the Sun. (2) The Sun does not
conform at all with the 3/z power rule around the Earth. Therefore, the Earth is
in orbit about the Sun, and not the Sun about the Earth. Lacuna: Why should
the 3/2 power rule hold around the Earth? Response: It does hold if the
endeavor of the Moon to recede is inverse-square! But is it?
Figure reprinted with permission from N.M. Swerdlow and 0. Neugebauer, Mathematical
Astronomy in Copernicus's De Revolutionibus, Part 2 (Springer-Verlag, 1984).
The 3/2 power rule, which Newton had learned from reading Streete, offers a
prospect of settling this issue, for the Earth fits in perfectly if it is going
around the Sun, while the Sun and Moon definitely do not conform with the
rule if they are going around the Earth. The trouble is, why should the 3/2
�SMIT1I
37
power rule hold around the Earth? I submit that with the "Moon test" of the
late 1660s Newton was trying to show that the 3/z power rule has to hold
around the Earth as well, by showing that the endeavor of the Moon to
recede is inverse-square. In other words, Newton was looking for a decisive
argument for Copemicanism. The fact that the other main calculation in the
tract shows that the endeavor of objects to recede from the surface of a
rotating Earth is small compared with the force of gravity, thereby answering
a prominent objection to Copernicanism, gives supporting evidence that
Newton was preoccupied in this tract with Copernicanism, not gravity.
I hope you noticed that all the talk in the "Moon test" tract was of the
endeavor to recede from the center, and not of centripetal forces. Newton
appears to have shifted to thinking in terms of centripetal forces only
following the correspondence with Hooke at the end of 1679. In his initial
letter of 24 November, Hooke asks
particularly if you will let me know your thoughts of that [hypothesis of
mine] of compounding the celestial motions of the planets of a direct
motion by the tangent and an attractive motion towards the central body.
(Correspondance 2:297)
In his subsequent letter of 6 January, after calling attention to his
supposition that the attraction is inverse-square, Hooke adds
not that I believe there really is such an attraction to the very center of
the Earth, but on the contrary I rather conceive that the more the body
approaches the center, the less will it be urged by the attraction .... But
in the celestial motions the Sun, Earth, or central body are the cause of
the attraction, and though they cannot be supposed mathematical points,
yet they may be conceived as physical and the attraction at a
considerable distance may be computed according to the former
proportion as from the very center. This curve truly calculated will show
the error of those many lame shifts made use of by astronomers to
approach the true motions of the planets with their tables. (2:309)
And finally, in the last letter of the exchange (dated 17 January
1679/80), Hooke says,
It now remains to know the properties of a curve line (not circular nor
concentrical) made by a central attractive power which makes the
veloCities of descent from the tangent line or equal straight motion at all
distances in the duplicate proportion to the distances reciprocally taken. I
doubt not that by your excellent method you will easily find out what
this curve must be, and its properties, and suggest a physical reason of
this proportion. (2,313)
The "excellent method" alluded to here is what we call the calculus.
�38
TilE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
Newton himself coined the term "centripetal force," adapting it from
Huygens's "centrifugal force." Huygens used this term to designate the
tension in the string holding a ball in uniform circular motion, or equally the
static force exerted on the wall of a spinning surface restraining the ball. It
was a trivial step from that force to the balancing static force on the ball,
normal to the spinning surface.
A natural thought when trying to generalize uniform circular motion to
motion describing other curves is to treat it as involving an instantaneous
uniform circular component and a second component that displaces the
object from one such circle to another (see Figure 4). Huygens's theory of
evolutes, published in 1673, displayed the power of this approach. Newton
explored it further in the 1670s, developing a significant fragment of the
differential geometry of curves in terms of normal and tangential
components, but without getting anywhere on orbital motion. The difficulty
with this approach for that purpose is that it allows two seemingly
independent degrees-of-freedom, making the problem of determining a
specific motion underspecified. The shift to the idea that every departure
from inertial motion that an orbiting body makes always has to be directed
toward a single point in space in effect eliminates one degree-of-freedom.
?-·:::....:._:_:_:_:_:~- c
I
.. -
._._:-.:~.
G
Huygens's Centrifugal Force (a)
Huygens's Centrifugal Force (b)
Reprinted with permission from Joelle G. Yoder,
Unrolling Time (Cambridge University Press,
1988), p. 21, Fig. 3.2
Reprinted with permission from Oeuvres
Completes de Christiaan Huygens, T. 16
(LaHaye: M. Nijhoff, 1929) p. 308.
~p
iI
•
s
The Natural Generalization
Centripetal Force
Fig. 4. Centrifugal Force vs Centripetal Force
�SMITI!
39
Hooke almost certainly deserves credit for leading Newton into this shift.
One can think of the orbiting body as held in orbit not by a string, but by a
spring-for example, one obeying Hooke's law of elasticity. Newton himself
thought of the orbiting body, at least initially, as being pushed by impulses
toward the central point.
The Public Version of De Motu
We are now getting into the more documented part of the story. We
know that while he was visiting Newton in the summer of 1684, young
Halley told him of discussions in London about the trajectory described by
an orbiting body governed by an inverse-square force directed toward a
central body. Newton told Halley that the answer is an ellipse and that he
had proved this earlier. Unable to find the proof among his papers, he
promised Halley that he would forward it. The 1 0-sheet tract De Motu
Corporum in Gyrum was sent to Halley in November 1684. 3 It ·prompted
Halley to make a second visit to Cambridge, where he saw what was later
called a further "curious treatise," for Newton was continuing his efforts.
Halley had the initial tract entered into the Royal Society's Journal Book in
early December, in anticipation that more would be coming from Newton.
This registered version of the tract (see Document 1, Appendix) opens with
the coining of the term "centripetal force" followed by two other definitions
and four hypotheses. For my purposes here, the main thing to notice about
these is the absence of the second law of motion. In its place are two weaker
principles: the parallelogram rule for changes of motion resulting from two
forces compounded and the Galilean rule that in the very beginning of any
change of motion the displacement of the body from where it would have
been had it continued in uniform motion in a straight line is proportional to
the square of the elapsed time.
Newton derives 11 propositions from these hypotheses, the last two of
which reach beyond motion under centripetal forces to consider motion in
resisting media. The first proposition (see Document 2, Appendix) in effect
says that, if the only forces causing changes of motion of a body are always
directed toward a single point in space, then that body sweeps out equal
areas in equal times with respect to that point. In other words, centripetal
forces imply Kepler's area rule. This does not license an inference from the
area rule to centripetal forces. De Motu is throughout stipulating that the
forces are centripetal. What it does license is that, of the several ways in
which time can be represented geometrically in uniform circular motion-for
example, by angle or arc length-the preferred one for generalizing beyond
such motion to motion under varying centripetal forces is area. While the
�40
THE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
point remains implicit, it also shows that the stipulation of centripetal forces
eliminates what I was calling a degree-of-freedom in the problem of
curvilinear motion. (The figures in Documents 2-4, Appendix, by the way,
are facsimiles of Newton's own hand-drawn figures.)
The second proposition gives results for uniform circular motion,
emphasizing in Corollary 5 the tie between the 3/2 power rule and the
inverse-square, stated now for centripetal forces. A scholium (or
commentary) immediately following announces that this corollary holds true
in the case of the heavenly bodies-that is, the major planets orbiting the
Sun and the minor ones orbiting Jupiter and Saturn.
The third proposition then provides the basis for generalizing beyond
uniform circular motion by establishing a rule for inferring how the
magnitude of the centripetal force must vary along a curvilinear path from
the geometric features of that path. It is a beautiful proposition, combining
the approach Newton took to inferring the magnitude of force in the uniform
circular case with the use of area to represent time in the general centripetal
case. It is the crucial theorem, opening the way to a general theory of motion
under centripetal forces.
After giving a couple of examples of application of this theorem,
Newton turns to the case of a body orbiting in an ellipse with the centripetal
forces directed toward a focus (see Document 3, Appendix). He concludes
first that the centripetal force acting on such a body has to be inverse-square
and second that the 3/2 power rule holds as well for any system of bodies
held in such orbits by inverse-square forces directed toward the same point.
In a scholium between these propositions Newton announces that
the major planets orbit, therefore, in ellipses having a focus at the center
of the Sun, and with their radii drawn to the Sun describe areas
proportional to the times, exactly as Kepler supposed.
Newton has been criticized for sloppy reasoning here on the grounds that he
has not really proven that the planetary orbits have to be perfect ellipses,
even under the assumption of centripetal forces. Still, he has answered an
important question under discussion at the time. From the near circularity of
the planetary orbits, Newton and several others had concluded that, at least
to a first approximation, an inverse-square force is governing these orbits.
The question was whether some secondary force superposed on the inversesquare force is then displacing the body from circular into elliptical or
otherwise oval orbits. Newton has shown that no such secondary force is
needed for the case Kepler laid out; the same inverse-square forces inferred
from the 3/2 power rule for circular orbits can yield Keplerian orbits as well.
The Keplerian circle is just a special case of the Keplerian ellipse.
�SMITH
41
Newton next takes advantage of the 3/2 power result to provide two
ways of determining the specific ellipses (see Document 4, Appendix). The
first, presented in a scholium, determines the ellipse from a sequence of
observations. One important feature of this method, evident in the figure, is
that it locates the other focus by taking the mean of several determinations.
The advantage ... [Newton says] is that to elicit a single conclusion a
large number of observations, no matter how many, may be employed
and speedily compared one with another.
An even more important feature is that it uses the 3/2 power rule to
determine the length of the major axis from the more accurately known
period-a controversial practice that theretofore had been adopted only by
Horrocks, and Streete following him.
The 3/z power rule plays an even more crucial role in the other
method, which determines the ellipse, given only a position and. velocity of
the body. The obvious further .ingredient needed for the solution is the
magnitude of the centripetal force acting on the body at this location. As the
figure suggests, Newton uses a second orbiting body to determine this force
(Document 4, Appendix). Specifically, his method, when reformulated
algebraically, amounts to using the semi-major axis and period of the
reference orbiting body to determine the value of th~ invariant quantity
[a3/P'] for the center of force about which the motion is taking place, and
then to obtain the force at the location a distance r from this center as
[a'/P']/r'. In other words, Newton has taken the step of using [a'/P'] as a
measure of the strength of the centripetal forces associated with any center
of inverse-square forces.
He adds that this method can be used to determine the trajectories and
then the periods of comets. So, at this point, late in 1684, he seems to have
abandoned his reservations of three years earlier about comets buttonhooking around the Sun. I have no idea what has changed his mind.
De Motu goes on to treat the problem of vertical fall under inversesquare forces and then motion under resistance, but these results have little
to do with the question of how he discovered universal gravity. What is
striking about De Motu when considered with this question in mind is how
few of the ingredients of universal gravity are to be found in it. There is no
sign of interactive gravity; the only things treated are what we now call "onebody" problems. All that he says about gravity is that his vertical fall solution
is "in accord with the hypothesis that gravity is reciprocally proportional to
the square of the distance from the Earth's center," adding that "gravity is one
species of centripetal force." More dramatically, mass is entirely absent. The
one place he categorically needs it is for resistance forces, where, after giving
�42
1HE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
a method for measuring the ratio of the force to the force of gravity-more
precisely, the ratio of the deceleration from resistance to the acceleration of
gravity-for a single body, he says that the resistance force on any other
body can be obtained by compounding the ratios of the surface areas with
the density of the two mediums; he then adds that "the force of gravity is
ascertainable from its weight." He is in effect telling the reader to let the
deceleration from the resistance of the medium vary not inversely with mass,
but inversely with weight, from one body to another:
v .
reSISt OC
Pmedium Asurface V
WEIGHT
(where I am using his dot notation from five years later to denote the
decelerative effect of the resistance). Here force amounts to nothing more
than departure from uniform motion in a straight line. Further, in the earlier
centripetal force propositions, just as in the resistance propositions, his talk
of forces is somewhat superfluous, for he employs only what he
subsequently came to call the accelerative measure offorce. In other words,
everywhere Newton speaks of centripetal forces in this tract, he might just as
well have spoken of "centripetally directed departures from uniform motion
in a straight line." If you will let me speak anachronistically, the 11
propositions involve only what we now call "kinematics," putting them
totally within the tradition of Galileo and Huygens.
In sum, if we ask the question, how much of universal gravity had
Newton discovered as of November 1684, and we take the registered version
of De Motu at face value, then the answer is, not much at all-the first three
of the ten propositions I listed earlier and perhaps the fourth, but not any of
the others. Mind you, in saying this I do not mean to be denigrating De
Motu. Had Newton published just it and stopped, it would have been the
most important contribution to a~tronomy in the 70 years of the 17th century
following Kepler. Saying this, however, is just to call your attention in still
another way to how remarkably monumental the Principia truly was.
One last point about the registered version of De Motu. It gives rise to
some obvious questions that it neither addresses nor even acknowledges. Its
propositions refer the motion of an orbiting body to a single point in space,
the point toward which the centripetal forces governing the motion are
always directed. But the point to which the forces governing the satellites of
Jupiter are directed, the center of Jupiter, is not a single point in space, for
Jupiter is orbiting the Sun. Our planetary system, with its multiple centers of
orbiting motion, thus invites the question, to what point in space should all
�SMITI!
43
these motions be referred? Remember, this was what the issue between the
Copernican and Tychonic systems was all about.
Worse, since Jupiter and Saturn are centers of force, as well as the Sun,
what happens when a comet comes close to one of them? Do the centripetal
forces directed toward each of them affect it? For that matter, do the forces
directed toward each of these two planets affect the motion of the other?
Even further, do the centripetal forces directed toward, say, Jupiter extend all
the way to the Sun, and if they do, is the Sun put into motion, interacting
with Jupiter? If all the different centers of force in our planetary system are
contributing to the motions of every other body, then indeed to what single
immobile point in space should the motions be referred? Members of the
Royal Society reading the registered version of De Motu would have required
no prompting to raise these questions.
The Augmented Version of De Motu
De Motu was entered into the Journal Book in December 1684. The
manuscript of Book 1 of the Principia was delivered to London in April of
1686, with the manuscripts of Books 2 and 3 following in March and April, a
year later. To examine how Newton got from De Motu to universal gravity,
we will have to consider some documents that did not become fully public
until long after Newton died. The most important of these is an augmented
version of De Motu. This document is written in the hand of Humphrey
Newton with deletions and insertions by Isaac, the most famous of which is
the change from "hypothesis" to "law" on the first page. The precise date of
the document cannot be established. I am going to put it in later 1684, with
the suggestion that Newton, like so many of the rest of us, had a flood of
further thoughts as soon as the manuscript of the earlier version left his
hands. The eleven proved propositions of De Motu remain the same in this
augmented version, as do their proofs. The augmented version has three
important changes: (1) the opening section has been recast, with a new set
of hypotheses; (2) a paragraph now known as "the Copernican scholium"
has been added to the scholium in which the first method for determining
the ellipse is given; and (3) the very short scholium leading into the section
on resistance forces has been replaced by three paragraphs, which I will call
the "resistance scholium."
Let me start with it. It opens,
Thus far I have explained the motions of bodies in non-resisting
mediums, in order that I might determine the motions of the celestial
bodies in the aether. For I think that the resistance of pure aether is
either non-existent or extremely small. Quicksilver resists strongly, water
�44
THE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
far less, and air still less. These mediums resist according to their density,
which is almost proportional to their weights, or rather (one could almost
say) to the quantity of their solid matter. Therefore the solid matter of air
may be made less, and the resistance of the medium will be diminished
nearly in the same proportion until it reaches the tenuousness of aetber ..
. . If air flowed freely between the particles of bodies and thus acted not
only on the external surface of the whole, but also on the surfaces of the
single parts, its resistance would be much greater. Aether flows between
very freely, and yet does not sensibly resist. All those sounder
astronomers think that comets descend below the orb of Saturn, who
know how to compute their distances from the parallax of the Earth's
orbit, more or less; these therefore are indifferently carried through all
parts of our heaven with an immense velocity, and yet they do not lose
their tails nor the vapour surrounding their heads, which the resistance of
the a ether would impede and tear away. Planets persevere in their
motion for thousands of years, so far are they from experiencing
resistance .... [emphasis added} (Math. Papers 6:79, Prelim. Man., 22-23)
What Newton seems to be invoking here is Descartes's conception of
density and weight, according to which gravity arises from the pressure
exerted by aethereal particles on bodies, with density corresponding to the
extent of the impediment which the larger "solid" particles put up against the
free flow of the aethereal matter through the body. In particular, Descartes
expressly denied that density reflects the total quantity of matter in a body,
for included in this matter are all the aethereal particles. I will come back to
this point in a moment.
In the second paragraph of the "resistance" scholium, Newton repeats
the assumption of the earlier version that terrestrial gravity is inverse-square,
and now mentions a re-performance of the "Moon test" of the late 1660s:
Motion in the heavens, therefore, is ruled by the laws demonstrated. But
if the resistance of our air is not taken into account, the motions of
projectiles in it are known from Problem 4 and the motions of bodies
falling perpendicularly from Problem 5, assuming indeed that gravity is
reciprocally proportional to the square of the distance from the center of
the Earth. For one kind of centripetal force is gravity, and from my
computations it appears that the centripetal force by which our Moon is
kept in its monthly motion about the Earth is to the force of gravity on the
sutface of the Earth reciprocally as the squares of the distances from the
center of the Earth, more or less. From the slower motion of pendulum
clocks on the summits of high mountains than in valleys it is clear also
that gravity diminishes with increase of distance from the center of the
Earth, but in what proportion has not yet been observed. [emphasis
added] (6: 79-80; 24)
�SM!lli
45
Newton's remark about the slowing of pendulum clocks on mountains
-undoubtedly alluding to observations Halley had made at St. Helena, of
which Newton first learned more from Hooke in the correspondence at the
end of 1679-is mistaken, the effect being undetectably small. But the key
point is the new and successful result for the "Moon test." If in fact Newton
used Picard's value for the circumference of the earth, the number he would
have ended up comparing with 3600 is 3611.8, reducing the greater than 20
percent difference between the two he had found in the late 1660s to 0.3
percent.
The third paragraph of the resistance scholium opens with the
sentence:
The motions of projectiles in our air, moreover, are to be referred to the
immense and indeed motionless space of the heavens, not to the moving
space which is revolved along with our Earth and our air, and is naively
regarded as immobile. (6;80; 24)
This takes me back to the new laws, nee hypotheses, at the beginning
of the augmented tract (see Document 5, Appendix).
Newton has now changed the parallelogram and Galilean rules that
served as hypotheses in the registered D~ Motu into lemmas, replacing them
with a version of his second law of motion:
A change of state of motion or rest is proportional to the impressed force
and occurs along the straight line in which that force is impressed. (6:76;
13)
He gives no definition here of "motion," but from earlier unpublished
work and various work published by others on impact, we can infer that he
means the product of the bulk of the moving body and its velocity. (The
terminology, "laws of motion," at the time generally referred to laws
governing motion before and after impact of bodies, usually spheres; these
spheres were typically taken to be of the same material, so that bulk
amounted to their volume. The law Newton gives here, as stated, would not
have seemed new or unusual to anyone familiar with earlier papers on the
subject published by Wallis, Wren, and Huygens.)
Following this are two very different laws;
Law 3. The relative motions of bodies contained in a given space are
the same whether that space is at rest or whether it moves perpetually
and uniformly in a straight line without circular motion.
Law 4. The common center of gravity does not alter its state of motion
or rest through the mutual actions of bodies. (6,76; 13)
�46
THE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
These two, which are never referred to in any of the demonstrations of
the proved propositions, are obviously responsive to the questions I posed a
little way back. The relativity principle is the same as Huygens had used in
his investigations of motion under impact. Newton himself had come upon
the center of gravity principle in his unpublished work on impact. It would
not have caused any consternation, for what it amounts to is a generalization
of the law of inertia to apply to a group of interacting bodies.
The only place where these two new laws make a difference is in the
added paragraph we may call "the Copernican scholium." The first part of
this reads:
Moreover, the whole space of the planetary heavens either rests (as is
commonly believed) or moves uniformly in a straight line, and hence the
common center of gravity of the planets (by Law 4) either rests or moves
along with it. In either case the motions of the planets among themselves
(by Law 3) are the same, and their common center of gravity rests with
respect to the whole space, and thus can be taken for the immobile
center of the whole planetary system. Hence in truth the Copernican
system is proved a priori. For if in any position of the planets their
common center of gravity is computed, this either falls in the body of the
Sun or will always be close to it. (6:78; 20)
The obvious question is, hasn't Newton now discovered universal gravity, for
how else can he be saying this? Let me answer by showing how else he can
be saying it.
Consider, for simplicity, the case of Jupiter moving uniformly in a
circular orbit, interacting with the Sun (see Figure 5). (The generalization to
the case of an ellipse can be found in Book I, Section 11 of the Principia.)
Now, as those at the time thought of it, the distance of two bodies from their
common- center of gravity formed a ratio, r1 to rH in the diagram, where the
former is the distance of Jupiter and the latter, the distance of Helios, that is,
the Sun, from their center of gravity. The center of gravity principle
expressed by Newton's Law 4 entails that this ratio must remain constant as
the two bodies move and interact with one another. (This is what Newton
had discovered in his early work on impact.)
The only way this ratio can remain constant and Jupiter be moving in a
circular orbit is for the Sun to be moving in a circular orbit as well, the center
of both orbits be their center of gravity, and Jupiter and the Sun always be
on directly opposite sides of this center (see Figure 6). Newton had already
shown that the force retaining Jupiter in such a circular orbit is proportional
to r/P/. Now, if this force is stemming from an inverse-square centripetal
force directed toward the Sun, then this last quantity must be proportional to
�47
SMITI!
;
;
/
,
.,. _.
....
----- ........... '
''
/
'\
I
\
I
\
I
Hellos
\
i 0 ~
r."'""'
I~~
r
..!!.._ =
I
I
\
constant
~
I
\
I
\
I
\
''
/
' ',
....... ____ .......... , ,
/
/
Fig. 5. Jupiter Interacting with the Sun.
the invariant quantity, [a3/P 2]H, characterizing the strength of the centripetal
forces directed toward the Sun, divided by the square of the distance
between Jupiter and the Sun, r,". Analogous reasoning holds for the Sun in its
circular orbit, so that rH/Pn 2 must be proportional to [a3 2 1 where the
/P ]/r l,
bracketed quantity with subscript J characterizes the centripetal forces
directed toward Jupiter.
For ease of exposition, I am now going to proceed algebraically where
Newton would likely have used Eudoxian reasoning. Dividing these two
proportions into one another, and taking into account that Law 4 requires the
periods of Jupiter and the Sun to be the same in this "two-body" problem,
we obtain the conclusion that the fixed ratio r./r1 must be equal to
, .......
....
----- .... ........ ....
/
/ /
''
\
/
\
I
, - - ...,
I
@:Hello;/
:
'
I
\
\\
'\
6)
I
/
I
'--""
\
loml
I
\
''
v.
11
rml
........ .......
_____ .... ... ... ,
~
[a'!P']"
2
~
r ;11
r,
[a /P'L
p~
r;ll
I
/
'
~)_
P'
J
I
\
~
\Jupiter
~rJ
'
\
v.
\
II
/
/
Fig. 6. Determination of ru
r,
PJ
3
2
[a'/P']J
[a 3/P']H
----
�48
1HE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
[a3/P']/[a3/P'ln. Now both of the bracketed terms on the right were known in
astronomical units, that is, units in which the mean distance from the Earth to
the Sun is 1.0---the bracketed term in the numerator from the satellites of
Jupiter and the one in the denominator from Venus, Mars, or whichever
planet you prefer. So, Newton could now just calculate the ratio of rH to ~11
finding that it is around 1 in 1000, so small that their common center of
gravity has to lie more or less within the body of the Sun. In other words, he
could reach this conclusion not only without having the law of gravity, but
without even having yet expressly formed the concept of mass.
It is a short step from this two-body case to his so-called a priori proof
of the Copernican system (see Figure 7). Suppose, for the worst case, that
there are inverse-square centripetal forces directed toward each of the five
planets and the Earth. The greatest distance between the Sun and the
common center of gravity of all these bodies will occur when the Earth and
the planets all lie in a single straight line on the opposite side of this center
of gravity from the Sun. Saturn's satellite Titan could be used to determine
[a3/P 2] for it in astronomical units, from which Newton could conclude that its
effect on the Sun is only a fraction of that of Jupiter. Similarly, even though
he did not have an accurate value in as.tronomical units for the distance of
our Moon from the Earth, using the estimated value he had at the time to
obtain [a'/P'] for the Earth would have shown him that the effect of the Earth
on the Sun is much smaller than that of Jupiter. Even if, to be on the safe
side, one were to multiply the value of rH obtained from the Jupiter-Sun case
by 6 to obtain an upper bound on the distance of the center of gravity from
the center of the Sun, the result would be only around 3 Sun diameters, less
than 10 percent of the distance between the Sun's center and Mercury. Given
the much smaller values for Saturn and the Earth, Newton could conclude, as
he says, that the common center of gravity "either falls in the body of the
Sun or will always be close to it." Moreover, the reasoning just presented is
neutral between the Copernican and Tychonic systems insofar as the Sun and
Hello~
M
J
S
(){) Ct
Fig. 7. Generalizing to the "Proof."
The worst case: ru is at most 6 times the value obtained from the Jupiter-Sun case.
Thus Newton may fairly conclude that "... if in any position of the planets their
common center of gravity is computed, this either falls in the body of the Sun or will
always be close to it .... "
�SMITII
49
the other bodies can all line up in the manner shown in Figure 7 in either
system. So the reasoning is not question-begging; it does give a proof of
Copernicanism.
The glaring lacuna in this reasoning is that the effect on the Sun of any
centripetal forces directed toward Mercury, Venus, and Mars is no larger than
the effect of the centripetal forces directed toward Jupiter. There were no
known satellites of these three planets, and hence [a 3/P'] could not be
directly calculated for any one of these three. An upper bound for it,
however, could be determined. If you fully carry out the two-body problem
for Jupiter and the Sun that I outlined before, you find that the relationship
between the period and the mean distance between the two bodies is
slightly different when the two are interacting from what it is in the one-body
case. In other words, Kepler's 3/2 power rule requires a small correction
when the orbiting body is interacting with the central body. The correction
factor in the particular case of Jupiter interacting with the Sun is shown in
the following expression:
1
[a 3/P'lJ
1 +-::--::--::[a3/P')H
P'J = rJ"
'
Although the fraction [a3/P']/[a3/P']" is small in the case of Jupiter, it is not
negligible. Now, if any of Mercury, Venus, or Mars is interacting with the Sun
and the effect of this interaction on the Sun is greater than the effect on it of
an interaction with Jupiter, then a comparison of the numerical values for
this planet's period and mean distance with the numbers for the other
planets' periods and distances should show a small, but not negligible
discrepancy. The comparison shows no such discrepancy. Hence, it can be
concluded that if Mercury, Venus, and (or) Mars are interacting with the Sun,
then the effect of this interaction is less than that of Jupiter.
Did Newton already know this in December 1684? We have strong
evidence that he did. In late December, he initiates a brief correspondence
with Flamsteed, asking for various astronomical data, including the mean
distances and periods of the orbits of the satellites of Jupiter and Saturn. In
thanking Flamsteed for the data in his last letter in the sequence, dated 22
January 1685, Newton asks for
the long diameters of the orbits of Jupiter and Saturn assigned by yourself
and Mr. Halley in your new tables, that I may see how the sesquiplicate
proportion fills the heavens together with a small proportion which must
be allowed for. (Correspondence, z, 413)
�so
THE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
The only small proportion which must be allowed for that shows up in
any of Newton's subsequent writings is the one I have just presented. The
reasoning I have attributed to Newton was therefore entirely within his
command.
So much for the first part of the "Copernican scholium." The remainder
of it is no less remarkable.
By reason of the deviation of the Sun from the center of gravity, the
centripetal force does not always tend to that immobile center, and hence
the planets neither move exactly in ellipses nor revolve twice in the same
orbit. There are as many orbits of a planet as it has revolutions, as in the
motion of the Moon, and the orbit of any one planet depends on the
combined motions of all the planets, not to mention the actions of all these
on each other. But to consider simultaneously all these causes of motion
and to defme these motions by exact laws admitting of easy calculation
exceeds, if I am not mistaken, the force of any human mind. Omit those
minutiae, and the simple orbit and mean among all the deviations will be
the ellipse of which I have already treated. If any one tries to determine
this ellipse by trigonometrical computation from three observations (as is
customary), he will have proceeded with less caution. For those
observations will share in the minute irregular motions here neglected and
so make the ellipse deviate a little from its just magnitude and position
(which ought to be the mean among all the deviations), and so will yield
as many ellipses differing from one another as there are trios of
observations to be employed. Therefore there are to be joined together
and compared with one another in a single operation a great number of
observations, which temper each other mutually and yield the mean ellipse
in both position and magnitude. (Math. Papers, 6:78, Prelim. Man., 20)
Suppose, then, we take the augmented version of De Motu at face
value, dating it just before the correspondence with Flamsteed, and ask, how
much of universal gravity had Newton discovered by the end of 1684? He
had completed a successful "Moon test" and so presumably had concluded
that the Moon is retained in orbit by terrestrial gravity. Insofar as he still
spoke of gravity as one kind of centripetal force, he may not yet have
equated celestial centripetal forces with terrestrial gravity. But he surely had
developed the idea that orbiting bodies can be interacting with the central
body; and his remark about the actions of all the planets on each other
indicates that he had extended this to interactions of the orbiting bodies with
each other. (Indeed, as we shall see in a moment, one of the topics in the
correspondence with Flamsteed was the action of Jupiter on Saturn.) The key
point, however, is that he has not gone beyond this in my list of claims
comprising universal gravity. Nothing in the augmented version of De Motu
�SMITII
51
gives evidence that he had discovered the law of gravity, or even had yet
singled out the concept of mass, given his remark about density being almost
proportional to the quantity of solid matter. The audience for whom Newton
wrote this tract would have found it perfectly intelligible without their having
any inkling of the law of gravity, or his concept of mass.
I should add that, however struck we may be by Newton's discouraging
remark about the actual orbits being beyond the force of the human mind,
his contemporaries would have been neither surprised nor dismayed by it.
Galileo and Descartes had argued that a science of resistance is impossible,
and hence, so too is a science of real motions of objects near the surface of
the Earth. Huygens had discovered that a cycloidal pendulum is perfectly
isochronous if the bob is a mere point, but then found himself unable to
define mathematically the isochronous curve when the bob is a real physical
body. The general view within the tradition of Galileo and Huygens-the
tradition in which, as I said before, De Motu falls-was to pursue a
mathematical science of the ideal case and then live with the fact that the
real world is not ideal. Some, like Kepler and Horrocks, had expressed
hopes for the perfectibility of orbital astronomy, but Descartes had suggested
to the contrary that planetary trajectories were sure to be subject to
intractable irregularities. Newton's expression of resignation was par for the
course at the time.
The Law of Gravity
Nevertheless, Newton himself had good reasons not to be so
comfortable conceding that the exact motions are beyond human reckoning.
The proved propositions of De Motu were opening the way to a bold
sequence of reasoning from Kepler's findings to a knockdown argument for
Copernicanism. The fact that our Moon, whatever its orbit may be, definitely
does not conform with Kepler's rules and hence poses a prima facie
counterexample undercutting this reasoning was bad enough. To concede
that the planetary trajectories are all incomprehensibly irregular is to invite
suspicions that the account of orbital motion in De Motu, while a pretty story,
is but one of any number of possible stories. Insofar as this was the very sort
of objection that Newton had raised against hypotheses in science generally,
he had good reason to look for some way of getting beyond just resigning
himself to the incomprehensibility of the motions.
When you think of the problem as one of finding the simultaneous,
coordinated adjustments that the six planets and the Sun have to make in
order to satisfy the global constraint imposed by the center of gravity
principle, the problem really does seem intractable (see Figure 8). But there
is another way of thinking of the problem: you can consider the motion of
�52
THE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
\
.);i·'"'"
Fig. 8. From a Global Restraint to Individual Forces
"... In my last I made an allowance for the distance of Jupiter and Saturn one from
another diminishing their virtue in a duplicate proportion of the distance. But yet I
spake there but at random not knowing their virtues till I had your numbers for
Jupiter, by which I understand his virtue is less than I supposed. But I am still at a
loss for Saturn .... Now I am upon this subject I would gladly know the bottom of it
before I publish my papers .... " Newton to Flamsteed, 12 Jan 1685
any one planet under forces directed toward the other bodies. The degree to
which the planetary orbits approximate Kepler's rules shows that the other
forces have to be small in comparison to the centripetal force toward the
Sun. If these forces are small, however, the deviations from Keplerian motion
they produce must be small. Consequently, when considering the forces on
any one planet directed toward the others at any one moment, little error
will result from t.reating the other planets as in their Keplerian location at that
moment. Assuming all the forces are inverse-square with distance, this
approach will enable values of their magnitudes to be determined at least to
a high approximation. At a minimum, then, this approach should allow the
principal secondary force on each planet to be determined and the
circumstance in which it reaches a maximum, and from this, estimates of the
maximum deviation from the Keplerian ideal, and perhaps insights into the
pattern of the deviations, can be obtained for any one planet.
The clearest evidence that Newton was thinking this way at the end of
1684 comes from the correspondence with Flamsteed. One of Newton's
principal questions in initiating this correspondence was whether "you ever
observed Saturn to err considerably from Kepler's tables about the time of his
conjunction with Jupiter." Newton had clearly made a calculation of the
relative magnitudes of the Sun's and Jupiter's force on Saturn at their
conjunction and was looking for confirmation that the latter was large
�SMITI!
53
enough to have an observable effect. In response to Flamsteed's negative
response, Newton remarks,
In my last I made an allowance for the distance of Jupiter and Saturn one
from another diminishing their virtue in a duplicate proportion of the
distance. But yet I spake there but at random not knowing their virtues
till I had your numbers for Jupiter, by which I understand his virtue is
less than I supposed. But I am still at a loss for Saturn .... Now I am
upon this subject I would gladly know the bottom of it before I publish
my papers.
The remark about Saturn, which is in response to Flamsteed's having
been unable to observe the newly discovered satellites of Saturn, points to a
problem with this force approach. In contrast to the Earth and Jupiter,
Newton had no way of confirming that the centripetal force holding the one
fully established satellite of Saturn in orbit is inverse-square. Worse, the
absence of satellites around Mercuty, Venus, and Mars left him with no
effective way even to resolve the question of centripetal forces toward these
three, much less to assign values to their magnitudes. Is there some way
besides relying on [a'/P'] to get at their forces?
One way to attack this question is to revert to the two-body problem of
Jupiter and the Sun, asking what feature of each of these bodies their
respective [a~/P 1 l's are proportional to. The center of gravity principle
provides a second relationship that we have ignored so far: the product of
the weight and the distance of the two objects from their center of gravity
must balance one another. Applying this to the Jupiter-Sun case (see Figure
9) would then yield the conclusion that their [a3/P'l's are proportional to their
respective weights. The obvious problem with this, especially in the light of
···-- ....
',
/
/
,
r"
[a 3/P']"
/P']3
/P']
=_:__:_--"'-)
[a 3
[a 3/P']"
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r,
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....
I
--
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'
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\
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'
r
I
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'
�54
TilE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
Newton's conclusion that gravity diminishes above the Earth's surface in an
inverse-square proportion, is that weight is a parochial quantity; thinking in
terms of what Jupiter and the Sun would weigh at the Earth's surface is not
going to accomplish much. This raises the question, what besides the
acceleration of gravity, which seems to be the same for all bodies, is weight
proportional to? The Cartesian answer, the quantity of solid marter in the
body, was not very promising, for how is one to determine how much solid
matter is in Saturn or Mars?
How Newton proceeded beyond the augmented version of De Motu
and the correspondence with Flamsteed is not so clear. The only document
we have before the first draft of Book 1 of the Principia is a fragment,
entitled "The Motion of Bodies in Regularly Yielding Mediums." It consists of
very worked-over drafts of some 18 definitions, 6 laws, and the two lemmas
from the augmented De Motu. This fragment, which opens with definitions of
absolute time, space, and motion, reflects very careful thought that Newton
must have been giving to concepts of motion and force, especially for
purposes of inferring forces from motions. Three of these definitions are
important for our purposes (see Document 6, Appendix). Quantity of motion
is now expressly defined as the product of velocity and the "quantity of the
body," which he says "is to be estimated from the bulk of corporeal matter
which is usually proportional to its gravity," indicating how a pendulum
experiment can serve this purpose. The term "corporeal matter" here
presumably contrasts with "aethereal matter." Next, the internal or innate
force of a body to preserve its state of motion or rest is said to be
"proportional to the quantity of the body." Newton appears to have thought
back through prior work by himself and others, most notably Huygens, on
motion under impact and conical pendulums in reaching these
pronouncements, and he is now equating the change of motion referred to
in the second law with the change in the product of velocity and the total
quantity of matter in the body. The definition of centripetal force is the usual
one, though notice that he is here still not identifying celestial force with
terrestrial gravity.
Finally (see Document 7, Appendix), the laws include a new one, "as
much as any body acts on another so much does it experience in reaction,"
the version of the third law of motion from his earlier work on impact. As
then, he does not expressly equate action with the product of quantity of
matter and change in velocity. When he restates this law in the first draft of
Book 1, he does expressly add, "By these actions the changes not in their
velocities but in their 'motions' (momenta) will come to be equal." In giving
�55
SMITil
Laws 3 and 4 of the augmented De Motu after this new law, he adds that
these three "mutually confirm each other."
On a separate page are two further definitions to be inserted into the
tract, forcing a renumbering of the original definitions. The first, Def.6, is for
density, which is defined as "the quantity or bulk of matter compared with
the quantity of space occupied." The second, Def.7, reads as follows:
By the heaviness of a body I understand the quantity or bulk of matter
moved apart from considerations of gravity as often as it is not a matter
of gravitating bodies. To be sure the heaviness of gravitating bodies is
proportional to their quantity of matter by which it can by analogy be
represented or designated. And the analogy can actually be inferred as
follows. The oscillations of two equal pendulums of the same weight are
counted and the bulk of the matter in each case will be inversely as the
number of oscillations made in the same time. But careful experiments
made on gold, silver, lead, glass, sand, common salt, water, lignite and
twill led always to the same number of oscillations. On account of this
analogy and Jacking a more convenient word I represent and designate
quantity of matter by heaviness, even in bodies in which there is no
question of gravity.
Newton shortly thereafter switched to the word "mass." The important
point here is that he has taken the trouble to carry out an experiment to
establish that weight is precisely proportional to quantity of matter, the
quantity entering into the second law and hence entering into the inference
from a change of motion to the magnitude of the force responsible for this
change.
Newton could have proceeded in either of two ways from this point to
the mathematical statement of the law of gravity. On the one hand, he could
have now concluded that the [a3/P'l's of Jupiter and the Sun are proportional
to their respective masses:
[a 3/P']1
W1
[a'/P']H
WH
Then the accelerative effect of the centripetal force on Jupiter toward the Sun
is proportional to the mass of the Sun and inversely proportional to the
square of the distance between the two:
MH
oc - - ,
r'
JH
�56
THE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
and analogously the force on the Sun toward Jupiter is proportional to the
mass of Jupiter, etc. But then, in accord with the second law, the force on
each is proportional to the product of their masses and inversely
proportional to the square of the distance between them:
MH
Jrl
"" M-,F
M,
M __.:_, thatis
2
oc
Hf
Hcem
JH
JH
mM
'
foe--·
r
Alternatively, he could have first used the second law to conclude that
the force on each is proportional to its mass, the [a3/P'l of the other, and
inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them:
F
lcetl/
oc
M
[a 3/P']"
J
f2
JH
ocM
,p
Hce1ll
[a 3/P'] 1
H
•
f2
JH
He could have then invoked the third law to equate these two forces,
F
11cem
~F
lcen/
,
allowing him to conclude that their [a 3/P']'s are proportional to their
respective masses,
[a 3/P']1 ~ M1
[a'/P']"
M" '
again yielding, when generalized, the law of gravity,
mM
F"" - - ·
r'
The second of these two ways is the one he follows in the Principia,
while the first fits in with the attention he had given in early 1685 to the
question whether weight is exactly proportional to quantity of matter. Of
course, he may well have played these two ways off against one another,
using each to support the other.
Regardless, Newton would then have had the law for the inversesquare centripetal forces governing motions of the planets. By the same
reasoning as above, but now applied to the two-body problem of the Sun
and the Earth, he could conclude that the accelerative effect of the
centripetal force around the Earth is proportional to its mass, and hence the
centripetal force on the Moon must be proportional to the product of its and
the Earth's mass divided by the square of the distance between them. In
other words, the very same relationship that characterizes the centripetal
forces on the planets characterizes terrestrial gravity. But then no reason
remains for maintaining a verbal distinction between the centripetal forces on
�SMITII
57
the various celestial bodies and terrestrial gravity. That is, in all cases the
force in question is one in kind with terrestrial gravity, giving license to call
the governing relationship simply "the law of gravity." In saying this,
however, you need to understand that what we have so far is an account of
inverse-square celestial gravity, not inverse-square universal gravity. Many of
Newton's contemporaries who objected strenuously to universal gravity were
at least prepared, subject to empirical confirmation, to grant him his account
of inverse-square celestial gravity. Still remaining, then, in the discovery of
universal gravity is the step from the first eight theses to the last two.
Universal Gravity
Consider what the law of gravity is saying: if even so much as one tiny
particle of the Sun were removed from it, then the centripetal acceleration
Jupiter experiences toward it would be different, however slightly. This
suggests that the centripetal forces directed toward the Sun are somehow
composed out of forces directed toward the individual particles of matter
comprising it. Moreover, every particle of Jupiter must experience a
centripetal acceleration toward the Sun, and assuming they are interacting,
every particle of the Sun must experience a centripetal acceleration toward
Jupiter. It is a small step now to conjecture first that the mutual gravitational
force between Jupiter and the Sun is actually the resultant of mutual
gravitational forces between every pair of particles of matter comprising
these two bodies. But then, if other bodies experience centripetal forces
toward the Sun and Jupiter, the same conclusion extends to them, resulting
in the remarkable-and at the time exceedingly controversial--claim that the
law of graviry holds between every pair of particles of matter in the universe.
As was evident to everyone at the time, Newton included, this step involved
a much larger conjectural component than any of those preceding.
The last step-to the suggestion that the force of gravity is one of the
fundamental forces in nature (which occurs only in the Preface to the first
edition of the Principia, not in the text)--<:an be thought of as a corollary to
the universality of gravity. If indeed there are mutual gravitational forces
between every pair of particles of matter in the universe, then it is hard to
see how these forces can be resulting from the action of matter of some sort,
aethereal or otherwise, on these particles. The very universality of the force
of gravity is testament to its being more fundamental than other kinds of
force then known.
Such, then, is a step-by-step line of investigative reasoning that could
have led Newton from the first couple of theses about inverse-square
centripetal forces, which he had come to appreciate following the
�58
THE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
correspondence with Hooke at the end of 1679, to the full complement of
theses comprising universal gravity, which he had command of a few months
into 1685.
In saying this, I do not want you to underestimate how many loose
ends there are in this extended line of reasoning. First of all, the nonKeplerian character of the lunar orbit still poses a potential counterexample
standing in the way of the increasingly wide generalizations Newton is
reaching with each new step. Also, the step from celestial to universal gravity
is assuming that the celestial forces can, as a mathematical fact, be composed
out of forces directed toward individual particles. Newton himself later said
that he was not confident that the law of gravity is anything more than just
approximate until he had proved that, in the case of spheres, the combined
action of all the individual particles is exactly the same as if all the mass
were concentrated at the center of the sphere-something that is not
generally true, but is so in the special case of inverse-square forces.
In addition to these are several empirical loose ends. Newton preferred
to have what he called, following Hooke, an experimentum crucis or crossroads experiment to select among alternative physical possibilities. The
trajectories of comets provided such a crossroads for the question of whether
the centripetal force directed toward the Sun acts on bodies other than the
planets; but he had yet to confirm this by successfully calculating actual
comet trajectories. The small correction to the ,;, power rule that he had
mentioned to Flamsteed provided a crossroads between Jupiter simply being
drawn toward the Sun and the two of them interacting with one another; and
similarly an appropriate perturbation in the motion of Saturn would
distinguish between pairwise interaction only, between the central and
orbiting bodies, on the one hand, and interaction among the planetary
bodies as well, on the other. On both of these Flamsteed had reported that
the data then available did not show the indicated effect. Finally, Newton
surely felt he needed an experimentum crucis separating universal gravity
from inverse-square celestial gravity. The one he came up with in the
Principia concerns the nonspherical shape of the Earth and the variation of
surface gravity with latitude. Even a century later, however, at the time
Laplace was writing his Celestial Mechanics, there were still residual
difficulties in the data on this question.
Newton had said to Flamsteed that he wanted to know the bottom of
the subject before he published his papers. In fact, however, he had not
really gotten to the bottom of it when he published the first edition of the
Principia in 1687, or even the third edition in 1726, the year before he died.
Empirical results that went a long way toward tying up the loose ends
�SMITH
59
continued to emerge throughout the 18th century, but as I just indicated
there were still residual difficulties in some areas at the beginning of the 19th
century. Even as late as 1875, when the American G. W. Hill was embarking
on his seminal researches in lunar theory, he remarked:
None of the values hitherto computed from theory agrees as closely as
this with the value derived from observation. The question then arises
whether the discrepancy should be attributed to the fault of not having
carried the approximation far enough, or is indicative of forces acting on
the moon which have not yet been considered.
And, of course, the theory of gravity in general relativity shows that we are
still in the process of gelling to the bottom of it. What Newton did was to see
with extraordinary clarity an evidential pathway along which remarkable
progress in getting toward the bottom of it might be possible.
Given Newton's deep distrust of conjecture, he was surely fully aware
of the loose ends when he published the Principia. Nevertheless, he
published it. This was more remarkable than you may realize. Here he was
in his mid-forties. He had carried out research in mathematics, optics, and
chemistry and alchemy for two decades, and had started several books, only
to abandon them unfinished or to limit the manuscripts to private circulation
among a few people. The only thing he had published was his "Light and
Colors" paper covering a tiny handful of the experiments in optics he had
conducted, plus his replies to correspondence elicited by this paper. With the
Principia, for the first time he finished and published a large-scale work.
Why the Principia, when nothing earlier? I submit that a large part of the
answer was the scope and majesty of the line of reasoning that I have laid
out in the present essay.
�60
TilE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
Appendix
Documentl
De Motu Corporum in Gyrum
Definition 1. Centripetal force I call that by which a body is impelled or attracted
towards some point regarded as its center.
Definition 2. And the force of-that is, innate in-a body I call that by which it
endeavours to persist in its motion following a straight line.
Definition 3. While 'resistance' is that which is the property of a regularly impeding
medium.
Hypothesis 4. In the ensuing nine propositions the resistance is nil; thereafter it is
proportionally jointly to the speed of the body and to the density of the
medium.
Hypothesis 2. Every body by its innate force alone proceeds uniformly into infinity
following a straight line, unless it is impeded by something from
without.
Hypothesis 3. A body is carried in a given time by a combination of forces to the
place where it is borne by the separate forces acting successively in
equal times.
Hypothesis 4. The space which a body, urged by any centripetal force, describes at
the very beginning of its motions is in the doubled ratio of the time.
Document2
De Motu Corporum in Gyrum
Theorem 1. All orbiting bodies describe, by radii
drawn to their center, areas proportional to the times.
Theorem 2. Where the bodies orbit uniformly in
the circumferences of circles, the
centripetal forces are as the squares of
arcs simultaneously described, divided
by the radii of their circleS.
Corollary 5. If the squares of the periodic times are
as the cubes of the radii, the
centripetal forces are reciprocally as
the squares of the radii. And
conversely so.
Theorem 3. If a body P in orbiting around the
center S shall describe any curved line
APQ, and if the straight line PR
touches that curve in any point P and
to this tangent from any other point Q
of the curve there be drawn QR
Figures from DoGUments 3 and 4 reprinted by permission from Tbe Preliminary Manuscripts for
Isaac Newton's 1687Principia 1684-1685, (Cambridge University Press, 1989)
�61
SMITII
parallel to the distance SP, and if QT
be let fall perpendicular to this
distance SP: I assert that the
centripetal force is reciprocally as the
"solid" SP' x QT'/QR, provided that
the ultimate quantity of that solid
when the points P and Q come to
coincide is always taken.
Document3
De Motu Corpornm in Gyrnm
Problem 3. A body orbits in an ellipse: there is
required to find the law of
centripetal force tending to a focus
of the ellipse.
Scholium. The major planets orbit, therefore,
in ellipses having a focus at the
center of the Sun, and with their
radii drawn to the Sun describe
areas proportional to the times,
exactly as Kepler supposed.
Theorem 4. Supposing that the centripetal force
be reciprocally proportional to the
square of the distance from the
center, the squares of the periodic
times in ellipses are as the cubes of
their transverse axes.
Document4
De Motu Corpornm in Gyrnm
Scholium.
Hereby in the heavenly system from the
periodic times of the planets are
ascertained the proportions of the
transverse axes of their orbits. It will be
permissible to assume one axis: from that
the rest will be given. Once their axes are
given, however, the orbits will be
determined in this manner.
Problem 4. Supposing that the centripetal force be reciprocally proportional to the
square of the distance from its center, and with the quantity of the force
known, there is required the ellipse which a body shall describe when
Figures from Documents 4 and 5 reprinted by permission from Tbe Mathematical Papers of Isaac
Newton, 6. ed. D.T. Whiteside (Cambridge University Press, 1974)
�TilE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
62
released from a given position with a given
speed following a given straight line.
Scholium. A bonus, indeed, of this problem, once it
is solved, is that we are now allowed to
define the orbits of comets, and thereby
their periods of revolution, and then to
ascertain from a comparison of their
orbital magnitude, eccentricities, aphelia,
inclinations to the ecliptic plane, and their
nodes whether the same comet returns
with some frequency to us.
[a'/P'ls
DocumentS
De Motu Spbaericornm Corpornm in Fluidis 4
Law 1.
Law 2.
Law 3.
Law 4.
Law 5.
Lemma
Lemma
A body always goes uniformly in a straight line by its innate force alone if
nothing impedes it.
A change of the state of motion or rest is proportional to the impressed
force and occurs along the straight line in which that force is impressed.
The relative motions of bodies contained in a given space are the same
whether that space is at rest or whether it moves perpetually and uniformly
in a straight line without circular motion.
The common center of gravity does not alter its state of motion or rest
through the mutual actions of bodies. This follows from Law 3.
The resistance of a medium is as the density of that medium and as the
spherical surface of the moving body and its velocity conjointly.
1. A body describes by the action of combined forces the diagonal of a
parallelogram in the same time as it would describe the sides by the action
of separate forces.
2. The space described by a body urged by a centripetal force at the
beginning of its motion is as the square of the time.
Document6
De Motu Corpornm in Mediis Regulariter Cedentibus'
Definition 11. The quantity of motion is that which arises from the velocity and
quantity of a body conjointly. Moreover, the quantity of a body is to be
estimated from the bulk of the corporeal matter which is usually
proportional to the gravity. The oscillations of two equal pendulums
with bodies of equal weight are counted, and the bulk of the matter in
both will be inversely as the number of oscillations made in the same
time.
Definition 12. The internal and innate force of a body is the power by which it
preserves in its state of rest or of moving uniformly in a straight line. It
is proportional to the quantity of the body, and is actually exercised
proportionally to the change of state, and in so far as it is exercised it
can be said to be the exercised force of the body, of which one kind is
the centrifugal force of rotating bodies.
�SMITI!
63
Definition 16. I call centripetal force that by which a body is impelled or drawn
towards a certain point regarded as its center. Of this kind is gravity
tending toward the center of the earth, magnetic force tending to the
center of the magnet, and the celestial force preventing the planets
from flying off in the tangents to their orbits.
Document7
De Motu Cotporum in Mediis Regulariter Cedentibus 6
Law 3. As much as any body acts on another so much does it experience in reaction.
Whatever presses or pulls another thing by this equally is pressed or pulled. If
a bladder full of air presses or carries another equal to itself both yield equally
inward. If a body impinging on another changes by its force the motion of the
other then its own motion (by reason of the equality of the mutual pressure)
will be changed by the same amourit by the force of the other. If a magnet
attracts iron it is itself equally attracted, and likewise in other cases. In fact this
law follows from Definitions 12 and 14 in so far as the force exerted by a
body to conserve its state is the same as the impressed force in the other body
to change the state of the first, and the change in the state of the first is
proportional to the first force and the second to the second force.
Law 4. The relative motion of bodies enclosed in a given space is the same whether
that space rests absolutely or moves perpetually and uniformly in a straight
line without circular motion. For example, the motions of objects in a ship are
the same whether the ship is at rest or moves uniformly in a straight line.
Law 5. The common center of gravity of bodies does not change its state of rest or
motion by reason of the mutual actions of the bodies. This law and the two
above mutually confirm each other.
Notes
1. Imre Lakatos, The Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes. Philosophical
Papers, Vol. 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978) 201-222.
2. The Correspondence of Isaac Newton, 2 ed. H.W. Turnbull. (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1960)
3. The Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton 6: 74-80 (abridged) and Preliminary
Manuscripts for Isaac Newton's Principia, 1684-85 (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1989) 12-27.
4. A. Rupert Hall and Marie Boas Hall, The Unpublished Scientific Papers of Isaac
Newton (Cambridge at the University Press, 1962) 267-68.
5. John Herivel, The Background to Newton's Principia (Oxford at the Clarendon
Press, 1965) 311.
6. Ibid. 312'13.
�·.~ REe-dbol~nhg. Newthonp's Exp~rime_nt fofr
1
sta 1s mg t e roportlona 1ty o
~ Mass and Weight
~
'
Curtis Wilson
Introduction
Newton was the first to draw an operationally verifiable distinction between
mass and weight. In the earliest manuscript in which he describes his
experimental confirmation of their proportionality (it is probably assignable
to the spring of 1685), he uses for mass the word pondus, which is Latin for
heaviness, but immediately says he means by it the bulk or quantity of
matter, independently of its weight. 1 Later he introduces the word inertia,
which is Latin for slothfulness, to characterize the quantity of matter. Kepler
had used this word in his Epitome astronomiae Copernicanae to describe the
tendency of a body to stay put; Newton instead means by it the resistance of
a body to changing its state of rest or uniform rectilinear motion. Just at the
time he was imagining and canying out the experiment that our title refers
to, Newton was in the process of formulating his second law of motion,
generally expressed now as F = Ma. For a given force F, the acceleration
produced is inversely as the mass M. This relation characterizes the action of
all motive forces, electrical, magnetic, gravitational, and so on.
But gravitational force, weight, is peculiar. A ball bearing and a boy's
marble of equal size and shape, weighed on a spring balance, have different
weights. But dropped from a height, they fall side by side, and reach the
ground simultaneously, or would do so in a vacuum. Here the weight is the
force in Newton's second law: W = Mg, where g is the acceleration of
gravity. For the accelerations of the two bodies to be the same, the weight
must be proportional to the mass.
Newton had noted that the same thing happens with the planets. By
Kepler's third planetary law, the accelerations of the planets toward the Sun
Curtis Wilson is Tutor Emeritus at St. John's College. In the planning and execution of the
experiment here described, the author was assisted by Howard Fisher and Adam Schulman of St.
John's College; the design and construction of the pendulums and other equipment was carried
out by Otto Friedrich and Alfred Toft of the laboratory shop; and Mark Daly, Superintendent of
Laboratories, assisted in both the planning and set-up of the experiment.
�WILSON
65
are inversely as the squares of their solar distances, independent of whatever
their masses may be. Thus a body placed at any given distance from the Sun
has an acceleration toward the Sun that is determined simply by its distance
from the Sun, and is independent of its mass.
This proportionality of weight to mass, fundamental in Newton's System
of the World, is also fundamental in Einstein's theory of General Relativity,
where it is referred to as the equivalence of gravitational and inertial mass.
The inertial mass is the M that appears in the above equation W - Mg, and
the gravitational mass is a factor to which W is proportional. Since 1890, tests
employing the torsion balance have repeatedly confirmed the equivalence,
with ever improving precision; the most recent confirmation (in 1971)
achieved a precision of one part in 9 x 10n.
The empirical confirmation of the proportionality of mass and weight
constitutes a pivotal step in Newton's argument for universal gravitation.
Newton describes the experiments he uses for this purpose at the beginning
of Proposition 6 of Book III of his Principia:
That the descent of all h.eavy bodies toward the Earth (allowing for the
unequal retardation arising from the very small resistance of the air) is
made in equal times, others for a long time have observed. The equality
of times can be observed most accurately by means of pendulums. I tried
the thing with gold, silver, lead, glass, sand, common salt, wood, water,
and wheat. I prepared two wooden boxes, round and equal. One I filled
with wood, and the same weight of gold I suspended (as exactly as I
could) in the center of oscillation of the other. The boxes, hanging by
equal threads of 11 feet, constituted pendulums altogether equal as to
weight, figure, and the resistance of the air. Placed side by side, they
went back and forth together, with equal oscillations, for a very long
time. Therefore (by Corollaries 1 and 6 of Proposition 24 of Book II) the
quantity of matter in the gold was to the quantity of matter in the wood
as the action of the motive virtue on all the gold to its action on all the
wood; that is, as the weight to the weight. And similarly in the other
cases. By these experiments, in bodies of the same weight, a difference
in mass of even less than the thousandth part of the whole could clearly
have been detected. [My translation]
Newton regarded these experiments as deeply significant. Earlier, for
instance, in a paper he sent to the Royal Society in December, 1675, he had
imagined gravity as due to an aether rushing into the Earth, and pressing
down each body it passed through, by impinging on the surfaces that the
internal parts of the body presented. Such a hypothesis was in accord with
the mechanical philosophy put forward by Descartes, Huygens, and others,
and for a time adopted by Newton himself. But by the spring of 1685,
�66
1BE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
Newton had reached a new understanding. Gravity, for him, had become a
force acting on the very innards of matter so as to be proportional to a
body's inertia; it was an immechanical force, its cause unexplained. At the
same time, it had become quantitatively tractable-measurable-even in its
action on celestial bodies. The very masses of those bodies, millions of miles
away, had become measurable.
In the spring of 1998 the committee planning the conference on
Newton decided to seek an answer to the question: Can the experiment
described by Newton in the foregoing passage be carried out with the
precision he claims for it, using only such means as were available to him
(no stopwatches!)?
The Experimental Setup.
To replace Newton's round wooden boxes, we purchased plastic
containers, all of a size, such as are used for kitchen storage of flour and
sugar. For materials, in the trials reported here we chose three from Newton's
list of nine: sand, lead (Pb) in the form of lead shot, and glass in the form of
glass beads. (Originally we tried copper shot, but the shot was not uniform
in size, and the smaller pieces could sift down betwixt the others, so that the
center of gravity was not securely fixed.)
We wanted the bobs to have an inertia sufficient to keep them going
against the resistance of the air for a half hour or so. Filling one of the
containers with glass beads, we found we had some 7 kilograms. The next
problem was how to position equal weights of sand, lead shot, and glass
beads so that their centers of gravity would be similarly situated in their
respective containers. To our rescue came Alfred Toft, a retired engineer and
machinist, and Otto Friedrich, a retired carpenter, of the laboratory shop;
they have given many hours and much thought to our project. Their design
for the pendulum bobs is shown in Plates I and II. Each plastic container is
closed at top and bottom by two circular plywood plates. Within each
container are two additional circular plywood plates, placed symmetrically
from the ends, to position the material. The plates are held in position by
three carriage bolts supplied with nuts.
The pendulums were erected on the auditorium stage, where the
ceiling is about 5.9 meters from the floor. Each bob is supported by two
suspension wires, so as to prevent the bobs from rotating. As Plate II shows,
the suspension wires are not kinkless.
Now for a simple pendulum 5.8 meters long, a millimeter's difference
in vertical position of the center of gravity makes a difference in periO<;l that
is easily detectable, adding up in 25 minutes to about an eighth of a period,
�WILSON
67
or making a difference in the period of
each swing of one part in about 2500.
The lengths of the four suspension
wires were determined by stretching
them tightly between the same two
bolts, fixed in place; but we could not
be sure that they agreed to less than a
millimeter. Similarly, we could not
guarantee that the centers of gravity of
the three materials were similarly
situated in their containers to within
less than a millimeter. Newton left no
clue as to how he dealt with this
difficulty. To achieve the greatest
possible prectston, it appeared
important to avoid dependence on
length measurements.
Plate I. The lead (Pb) bob
The solution that we eventually
settled on was twofold. First, each
pendulum bob was made invertible,
with hooks at top and bottom, so that it
could be hung rightside up or upside
down. By averaging the period
determinations for a bob in these two
positions, we would obtain the period
for an ideal pendulum with center of
gravity in the center of figure exactly
midway between the endplates.
Secondly, we designated one bob,
hung on the downstage suspension, as
a standard clock; the periods of the
other two bobs, hung rightside up and
upside down on the upstage
suspension, could then be determined
Plate II. The lead and sand bobs
in comparison with the standard.
swinging together.
Because the clock bob was always
hung on one suspension, and the bobs
under test on the other, we could ignore the difference, whatever it is, in the
lengths of these two suspensions.
In making the bobs invertible, it was important to ensure that, when a
bob was upended, the contained material (glass beads, lead shot, or sand)
�68
THE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
did not shift position. Messrs. Friedrich and Toft achieved this condition by
inserting a thin pad of styrofoam on top of the material, and compressing it
with the inner plywood plates. All three bobs were adjusted to the same
weight of 7150.5 gm, accurate to a tenth of a gram.
To set the pendulums (the standard and the one under test) in motion
simultaneously, we used a gate built by Messrs. Friedrich and Toft. The gate
was so placed that the swings would have an initial amplitude less than 10%.
Before a given run, we marked on the floor the shadows of the rest positions
of the two bobs, cast in each case by a light source directly above.
The Mathematics Involved
L
Figure 1.
Newton refers to
Corollaries 1 and 6 of
Proposition 24 of Book II
for the mathematics he requires in order to conclude,
from the equality of the
periods of two pendulums
of equal length with bobs of
equal weight, to the
proportionality of the
masses and weights of the
bobs. The essential argument is as follows.
Imagine two pendulums with suspensions of
nearly equal
length.
Consider these pendulums
when they have exactly the
same amplitude, and let this
amplitude be divided into
small equal segments (see
Fig.l). In each segment, the
driving force will be the
component of the weight W
acting along the bob's path;
if the distance of the bob
from the vertical line passing
through its rest position is x,
and the length of the
�69
WILSON
suspension is L, then this component is Wx/L. By Newton's second law, this
force will be proportional to the mass of the bob multiplied by its change of
speed in the segment considered divided by the time to traverse the
segment:
w~
L
oc
Mllv.
Llt
(1)
For corresponding segments in the paths of the two pendulums, x will
be exactly the same. The quantity t varies as the period T of each pendulum,
and the quantity /l,v varies inversely as T. We thus deduce from (1) that the
period squared varies as the length and the mass, and inversely as the
weight:
(2)
Suppose that our knowledge of the quantities T, L, M, W is uncertain or in
error by the quantities liT, oL, oM, and oW, which can be either positive or
negative. Now the uncertainty in a product or quotient, expressed as a
fraction of the whole, is the sum of the respective fractional uncertainties of
the individual factors. Thus the fractional uncertainty in T' is 2oT/f, and the
fractional uncertainty in L• MfW~• is the sum of SL/L, oM/M, and oW/W.
(These results can be obtained algebraically by substituting for each quantity
in (2) its supposed value augmented by the uncertainty, then ignoring
quantities that are the products of uncertainties.) Hence
(3)
Thus, the fraction 2ST/T is at most the sum of the terms on the
righthand side of (3). In our experiment, oW!W is 1 part in 71505, or about
.000014, and our procedure eliminates the more controllable causes of
variation of oL/L. Hence we can expect that
Z~T = 0~
+ .000014.
(4)
Thus if oM/M is .001, then ST/f will be (.001 + .000014)/2, or about
one part in 2000. Conversely, if pendulums whose weights are equal to
within .000014 of the whole weight agree in period to better than 1 part in
2000, we can infer that their masses are equal to within better than one part
in 1000.
�70
THE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
Experimental Results
Mark Daly, Director of Laboratories, attached the suspension wires and
shadow-casting lights to the ceiling; he had also to let down the wires for
each experimental session, and take them up afterwards, since the stage was
used for other purposes between times. We held experimental sessions in
August and November, 1998, and in January and March, 1999. The idea of
making the bobs permanently invertible emerged only after the sessions in
March; it was carried out by Messrs. Toft and Friedrich during April and May.
Finally, on June 1, 1999, we determined the differences in period between
the redesigned bobs, as reported below.
In the first set of measurements the lead (Pb) bob was hung upright
from the downstage suspension, to serve as our clock. The task was then to
determine the difference between the periods of the downstage and upstage
pendulums, with the upstage pendulum carrying either the sand (Sa) or glass
(Gl) bob, hung in either upright or inverted position; this difference was to
be expressed as a fraction of the period of the Pb bob. Before beginning the
trials, we marked the rest position of each bob, indicated by one edge of the
shadow of the bob cast by the overhead light, on a sheet of paper taped to
the floor.
In each trial, the two bobs (the standard and the bob under test) were
released simultaneously from the gate, and the oscillations of the clock
pendulum were counted. When a measurable difference had built up
between the two pendulums, one observer barked out "Pip!" as the bob
under test crossed its rest position. (Originally, we had used "Now!" to mark
this moment; Fran(:ois De Gandt, hearing of it, observed that the French
"maintenant" would hardly serve. We then shifted to the more explosive
"Pip!" as our vocable marker.) The two other observers (one at floor level,
the other standing) determined where the standard bob was at this moment;
immediately· before and after this determination, the positions of maximum
amplitude of the standard bob were also determined. In all cases the upstage
pendulum was found to lag the downstage, standard pendulum.
Suppose (as in our first trial, with the sand bob in inverted position) the
lag in phase after 97 oscillations was x ~ 17.75 em of the standard bob's
swing, while the maximum amplitude of the swing just before this
measurement was 52.5 em, and just after, 49.0 em; we used the average of
these numbers as the amplitude (A) when x ~ 17.75 em. Then from the
fraction xJA we needed to deduce the fraction of the period T that it takes
the bob to move x units from its rest position (we will designate this fraction
as tiT).
�71
WILSON
The relation we need is deducible from equation (1). When the
amplitude of the pendulum's oscillation is small, as in our case (it was less
than So/o when this measurement was made), the solution is given by
X
·
--=s1n 21t•t ·
A
T
(5)
We shall not here undertake to derive (5) from (1), but merely remark that it
is an instance of the projection of uniform circular motion onto a diameter
of the circle. Imagine a circle of radius A, with a point moving uniformly
round it; imagine further that a perpendicular is dropped from this moving
point to a given diameter of the circle. At any moment t the projected point
will be x units from the midpoint of the diameter, in accordance with
equation (5). Thus, given measured values of x and A, equation (5) permits
us to solve for t/T.
The difference t has accumulated in the present case in a certain
number N of swings (97 in the particular measurement here used for
illustration). Then
(6)
where ~TIT is the fraction of the standard bob's period by which the test
bob's period exceeds the standard bob's period.
In the first determinations, the Sa bob was run twice in inverted
position and then twice in upright position against the Pb bob, and the
results of the two trials in each position were averaged, with the following
results ("i" stands for inverted, "u" for upright):
Expt. I
x(cm)
A( em)
N
l>T
1. Sa(i)
17.75
50.75
97
.000586T
2. Sa(i)
18.0
55.5
78
.000674T
.000630T
average
1. Sa(u)
5.5
54.5
81
.000199T
2. Sa(u)
6.5
50.75
94
.000217T
average
.000208T
The average of the two above averages is .000419T. This implies that
the period of the Sa bob, if its center of gravity were precisely at the
�1HE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
72
midpoint of the cylindrical container, would be 1.000419 times the period of
our clock.
In a similar set of measurements using the Gl bob, we found:
Expt. II
x(cm)
A(em)
N
t.T
1. Gl(u)
14.0
55.25
79
.000516T
2. Gl(u)
18.0
54.25
84
.000641T
.000579T
average
1. Gl(i)
14.5
55.25
79
.000535T
2. Gl(i)
14.5
53.25
84
.000523T
.000529T
average
The average of the two averages in Experiment II is .000554T. Thus
if the Gl bob had its center of gravity midway within the cylinder, it would
swing with a period equal to 1.000554 times the standard period.
This result differs from the period we found for the (centered) sand
bob (namely l.000419T) by 0.000135, or about 14 parts per 100,000.
In the remaining experiments, we made the sand bob our standard,
identifying its period as T', and used it to compare the glass and lead (Pb)
bobs. For the glass bob we found:
Expt. III
x(cm)
A(em)
N
t.T
1. Gl(i)
18.5
55.25
82
.000663T'
2. Gl(i)
18.5
57.35
75
.000697T'
.000680T'
average
1. Gl(u)
17.0
54.5
80
.000631T'
2. Gl(u)
24
55
81
.000888T'
3. Gl(u)
21.5
55.5
80
.000791T'
4. Gl(u)
21.5
56.25
80
.000780T'
average
.000773T'
The average of the two averages in Expt. III is .000727T'. Thus if the
glass bob had its center of gravity midway within the cylinder, it would
�WILSON
73
swing with a period equal to 1.000727 times the period of the sand bob here
used as standard.
In the final experiment the period of the lead (Pb) bob was compared
with the sand bob as standard:
Expt. IV
x(cm)
A(cm)
N
t.T
1. Pb(u)
20.5
55.25
83
.000729T'
2. Pb(u)
21.0
56.0
81
.000755T'
.000742T'
average
1. Pb(i)
12.0
55.5
83
.000418T'
2. Pb(i)
10.0
56.25
79
.000360T'
average
.000389T'
The average of the two averages is .000566T'. Thus if the Pb bob had
its center of gravity midway within the cylinder, it would swing with a period
equal to 1.000565 times the standard period T'.
This result differs from that for the (centered) glass bob in Expt. III
(namely 1.000727T') by .000162, or by about 16 parts per 100,000.
Thus the periods of the ideal (centered) glass and sand bobs as
determined in Experiments I and II, and the periods of the ideal (centered)
glass and lead (Pb) bobs in Experiments III and IV, agree to within about 1
part in 6000. We can therefore conclude that the masses in these three bobs
agree to within about 1 part in 3000.
How do these results compare with the precision of our individual
trials? The greatest spread of values occurred in the four trials with the
upright glass bob in Experiment Ill. There we found the phase differences
per standard period to be .000631, .000888, .000791, .000780. The standard
deviation of these values is .000092, which suggests a limit of precision of 10
parts in 100,000. The overall performance of this apparatus (including timing
by our "pip" method) seems to be fairly consistent with this specific instance.
Notes
1. john Herivel, 7be Background to Newton's Principia (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1965) 316-317.
2. Hans C. Ohanian, Gravitation and Spacetime(New York: W.W. Norton, 1976) 19.
�The First Six Propositions in Newton's
Argument for Universal Gravitation
William Harper
I'm going to take you through Propositions 1-6 of Book Ill of the Principia,
so I'm going to miss the high point of the whole argument, but I'll leave you
all set to get it from Dana Densmore in the essay following mine.
What I will do will illustrate the feature of Newton's methodology that I
claim makes it so interestingly superior to mere hypothetico-deductive
inference. According to hypothetico-deductive method you make up a
hypothesis and then try to find out whether or not the predictions that follow
from this hypothesis fit the data you can realize in experiment. What backs
up a hypothetico-deductive inference is the fit between the predictions that
follow from the assumed hypothesis and the empirical data. I will be
emphasizing the background assumptions supporting Newton's famous
inferences from phenomena, inferences that open the argument for universal
gravitation. For each of the central inferences-the inference from the arealaw or area-rule behavior for an orbit to the centripetal direction of the force
deflecting a body into that orbit; the inference from the harmonic law for a
system of orbits to the inverse-square relation among those forces; and the
inference from the stability of a single orbit, that is, from the absence of
apsidal precession in that orbit, to the inverse-square variation of the force
maintaining a body in that orbit-! will be stressing the important way in
which it is backed up by systematic dependencies that go beyond the
requirements of hypothetico-deductive inference.
In all three of these classic inferences from phenomena, the theorems
that Newton cites from Book I to back up the inference are always in a
group of theorems. If you look at the whole group of theorems, you'll see
that in every one of these cases, it's not just that a theorem would give you,
say, from the assumption of inverse-square variation the harmonic law for
the system of orbits, or from the assumption of the harmonic law the inversesquare variation. It will turn out that we are getting systematic dependencies
that go beyond just making these equivalent to each other. Thus, if the rule
William Harper is Professor of Philosophy at University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario.
�HARPER
75
relating periods to distances gives less than the 3/2 power, then the force
falls off less rapidly than in the inverse-square relation, and if the rule gives a
power higher than 3/2, then the force falls off more rapidly than in the
inverse-square relation. So you have systematic dependencies that are
making the phenomenal parameters measure corresponding values of the
theoretical parameters that are inferred. This, I will claim, illustrates a kind of
empirical success that informs Newton's applications of his rules of
reasoning-a success stronger than mere prediction. To realize this kind of
success, a theory has not only to predict the phenomena, but also to have
the parameters be accurately measured by those phenomena. And we'll see
in the classic application of the first two rules of reasoning-in the Moon-test
(the first part of a unification of the celestial domain with the terrestrial
domain)-we'll see that the appeal to these rules of reasoning is supported
by a striking example of this kind of empirical success. And then, when we
get to Proposition 6, I will go through the series of phenomena, all of which
are measuring proportionaliry of weight to mass. The first of these was
illustrated for you in the pendulum experiment just presented. And I will
argue that these are all phenomena giving agreeing measurements, bounding
toward zero a single universal parameter which I shall call 11. The
methodology that is used in this argument in the Principia is in fact the
methodology that informs an important part of the testing programs for
General Relativiry. Indeed, I will mention some later experiments that bound
this !1 toward zero far more precisely than the data available to Newton.
We're going to start with Jupiter's moons, then we'll go to the primary
planets, then to the Moon and the Moon-test, then to Proposition 5, and that
most wonderful Rule of Reasoning, the fourth rule of reasoning. And we'll
end with Proposition 6 and the third Rule of Reasoning. That is the order in
which the rules get applied in the Principia, and the order in which I'll be
presenting them.
To begin: here's the first proposition in the argument for universal
gravitation.
Proposition 1
The forces by which the circumjovial planets [or satellites of Jupiter] are
continually drawn away from rectilinear motions and are maintained in
their respective orbits are directed to the center of Jupiter and are
inversely as the squares of the distances of their places from that center.
The first part of the proposition is evident from Phen. 1 and from Prop. 2
or Prop. 3 of Book I, and the second part from Phen. 1 and from Corol. 6
to Prop. 4 of Book I.
The same is to be understood for the planets that are Saturn's
companions (or satellites) by Phen. 2.
�76
lHE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
Ilke the proposition, the cited phenomenon (Pheno. 1) consists of two
parts. According to the first part, "The circumjovial planets, by radii drawn to
Jupiter's center, describe areas proportional to the times." Notice that the first
part of the proposition, the centripetal direction, follows from the first part of
the phenomenon, the area rule. The second part, "And their periodic times,
the fixed stars being at rest, are as the 3/2 power of their distances from that
center," is Kepler's harmonic law. This is the phenomenon from which
Newton is inferring the inverse-square part of the proposition. If you look at
Phen. 2, it's the same combination of the area law and the harmonic law for
Saturn's satellites.
Now we want to look at the argument, and so let's start with the first
part: the area law as a criterion for centripetal force. The proposition that is
referred to explicitly in Prop. 1 of Book III is Prop. 2 of Book I:
EveJY body that moves in some curved line described in a plane, and that
by a radius drawn to a point, either unmoving, or moving uniformly
forward with a rectilinear motion, describes areas around that point
proportional to the times, is urged by a centripetal force tending toward
that point.
If the body is moving in a plane, and by a radius drawn to a point is
sweeping out areas at a constant rate, then the force deflecting that body into
that orbit is directed right at the center.
Proposition 1 of Book I, the very first proposition of the Principia,
reads:
The areas by which bodies made to move in orbits described by radii
drawn to an unmoving center of force lie in unmoving planes and are
proportional to the times.
For an unmoving center, if the force is directed right at the center, then the
body will move in a plane, and will satisfy the area law with respect to radii
from that center. Now notice, Newtoh is talking about unmoved centers here.
His definitions and the scholium on space and time are designed to allow for
absolute rest. But look at Carol. 6 of Proposition 1:
All the same things hold by Coral. 5 of the Laws of Motion when the
planes in which the bodies are moving, together with those centers of
force which are situated in those planes, are not at rest but move
uniformly straight forward.
So Proposition 1 would work for any inertial center. And Carol. 5 of the
Laws of Motion tells us that the motions of bodies in a given space are the
same among themselves, whether the space is at rest, or moves forward in a
straight line with any uniform velocity. This is Galilean relativity.
�HARPER
77
But, the thing I want to focus on here is Corol. 1 to Prop. 2 of Book I:
In nonresisting spaces or mediums, if the areas are not proportional to
the times, the forces do not tend toward the point where the radii meet,
but deviate forward from it in the direction in which the motion takes
place if the description of areas is accelerated ...
So if the rate at which areas are being swept out is increasing, the
center of force is off center in the direction of motion.
But if the description of areas is retarded, the forces deviate backward, in
a direction contrary to that in which the motion takes place.
If the rate at which areas are being swept out is decreasing, then the force
that is deflecting the body is offcenter backwards.
We can sum up our main result as follows. Prop. 1 says that a centripetal force gives you a constant areal rate; Prop. 2 says that a constant
areal rate gives you a centripetal force. And Corol. 1 to Prop. 2 asserts that if
the areal rate is increasing, the force is directed off center in the direction of
motion, and if the areal rate is decreasing, it is directed off center against the
motion. So these results follow from the proposition: The areal rate is
constant if and only if the force is towards the center. If the areal rate is
increasing, the force is off center in the direction of the velocity, and if it is
decreasing, the force is off center backwards. Newton has much more than
just the equivalence between constancy of areal description and the
centripetal direction of the force; he has systematic dependencies, which
make a constant areal rate measure the centripetal direction of the force
maintaining a satellite in its orbit.
These propositions are proved on the assumption that the center can
be treated as inertial. But the application is to Jupiter and Jupiter's moons.
This system is subject to a tremendous centripetal acceleration, as the whole
system revolves around the Sun. So Newton in Prop. 3 extends the results of
Props. 1 and 2 with their corollaries to systems that are not in inertial motion:
Every body, that by a radius drawn to the center of a second body
moving in any way whatever, describes about that center areas that are
proportional to the times, is urged by a force compounded of the
centripetal force tending toward that second body, and of the whole
accelerative force by which that second body is moved.
The proof is based on Corol. 6 of the Laws of Motion, which is a much
bigger generalization than that of Corol. 5, which just extends results to
Galilee invariance.
If bodies are moving in any way with respect to one another, and are
urged by equal accelerative forces along parallel lines, they will all
�78
TI!E ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
continue to move with respect to one another as they would if they were
not acted on by those forces.
So, to the extent that the actions of the Sun on Jupiter and Jupiter's moons
can approximate equal and parallel accelerations, they can be ignored.
Newton gives a way of getting evidence that such things can be ignored. If,
he states in Corol. 2 of Prop. 3, the areas are very nearly proportional to the
times, the remaining forces will tend toward body T very nearly, and
conversely if, he adds in Corol. 3 of the same proposition, the forces tend
very nearly toward T the areas will be very nearly proportional to the times.
(In Prop. 3 the letter T stands for Terra, the Earth, and L for Luna, Earth's
Moon; but of course the proposition and its corollaries apply just as well to
Jupiter and its moons.) So the fact that the motions of Jupiter's moons very
closely approximate area-law motion carries the information that the
accelerative forces on Jupiter and on Jupiter's moons are very nearly equal
and parallel.
Now in stating the first part of the evidence for Phen. 1, Newton says
that the orbits of these planets [satellites] do not differ perceptibly from
circles concentric about Jupiter, and their motions in those circles are found
to be uniform. These are observational results. The fact that this holds shows
that you are not going to go very wrong in treating the Jupiter-system as
though it were inertial. We'll see how close the approximation to circular
orbits is in a moment.
Before we do, I want to talk about the second part, the harmonic law
as a phenomenon carrying information about the inverse-square relation
among the forces maintaining the satellites in their system of orbits. Here is
Corol. 6 of Prop. 4 of Book I:
If the periodic times are as the 3/2 power of the radii, and therefore the
velocities are inversely as the square roots of the radii, the centripetal
forces will be inversely as the squares of the radii, and conversely.
Therefore the harmonic law proportion is equivalent to the inversesquare relation of the accelerations in the various orbits.
But I want to pay even more attention to Corol. 7 of Prop. 4:
And universally, if the periodic time is as any power Rn of the radius R,
and therefore the velocity inversely as the power Rn·l of the radius, the
centripetal force will be inversely as the power Rln- 1 of the radius; and
conversely.
Having the periods vary as R" is equivalent to having the force vary as
R'"'". Corol. 6 immediately follows from this by plugging in 3/2 for n. We are
thus able to infer from the phenomenon-the harmonic law for Jupiter's
�79
HARPER
satellites-that Jupiter's force on the satellites is inverse-square. Now we also
have the systematic dependencies that tell us what happens in alternatives to
the phenomena. The index n could be higher than 3/2, in which case 1 - 2n
would be less than -2, so that the force would fall off more rapidly than in
the inverse-square proportion, while if n were less than 3/2 the forces would
fall off more slowly than in the inverse-square proportion. And so we have
alternative values of this phenomenal magnitude carrying information about
alternative power laws. These systematic dependencies make the harmonic
rule phenomenon (n ~ 3/2) for a system of orbits measure the inverse square
(-2) power rule for the centripetal forces maintaining bodies in those orbits.
These relations may be summarized as in Chart I (where "iff" stands for "if
and only if').
Chart 1:
Harmonic law for a system of orbits measures inverse-square law
Prop.4, Book I, Corals. 7 & 6 are proved for concentric circular orbits,
but can be extended to ellipses; t= period; R = radius of orbit;
Corol. 6 follows from Corol. 7 when n
Harmonic law
3/2.
Accelerative measure
phenomenon
t
<X
RVZ
iff
t
Corol.6
Corol.7
~
oc
R"
iff
of centripetal forces
fac oc Rl
fac
oc Rl·2n
Additional systematic dependencies follow from Corol.7.
Alternative phenomenon
n > 3/2
n < 3/2
iff
iff
Alternative power laws
(1-2n) < -2
(1-2n) > -2
We need to say something about the data available to Newton. First let
me give you, from the most recent Explanatory Supplement to the
Astronomical Almanac, the present-day values for the orbital eccentricities of
the four satellites of Jupiter; in each case these are the distance of Jupiter's
center from the center of the orbit, divided by the orbit's radius. The four
numbers are:
1. Io
0.004
2. Europa 0.009
3. Ganymede
4. Callisto
0.002
0.007
As you see, they are very small; thus the orbits are really close to
concentric circles.
�80
THE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
Next I give you Newton's values for the periods of the satellites
(expressed in decimal form), compared with the periods given by the
Explanatory Supplement, with the differences.
Satellite
Newton's values
E.S.N.A. values
Differences
Io
1.769143518
1.769137786
+0.000005733
Europa
3.551180555
3.551181041
-0.000000485
Ganymede
7.154583333
7.15455296
+0.000030373
Callisto
16.688993055
16.6890184
-0.000025344
The biggest difference here is less than three seconds in a revolution.
Evidently these periods could be established rather precisely by the
techniques available in Newton's time.
Newton gives a table with determinations of the radii of the orbits of
the four satellites; the table below is the one he gives in the second and third
editions of the Principia, with observational results due to Borelli, Townly,
and Cassini. The numbers are in semi-diameters of Jupiter, with the largest
semi-diameter used as unit (Jupiter is visibly flattened). To the table I have
appended the corresponding present-day values from the Explanatory
Supplement, with the differences from Newton's numbers.
1
2
3
4
Borelli
5l/3
8%
14
241
/3
seffii-
Townly by micrometer
5.52
8.78
13.47
24.72
diameters
Cassini by telescope
5
8
13
23
of Jupiter
Cassini by eclipses
5113
9
14~!..
253/m
From the periodic times
5.667
9.017
14.384
25.299
From Explan. Suppl.
5.903
9.386
14.967
26.34
-.236
-.369
-.583
-1.041
Mean distances
From the observations of:
Differences in last two rows
In addition to the data in the table, Newton cites observations by
Pound, carried out in 1719 and 1720, using a 123-foot focal-length telescope,
the lens for which had been presented by Christiaan Huygens's brother
�81
HARPER
I
i"
'
l
'
..
Fig. 1.
Reprinted with permission from King, H.C. 1be History of the Telescope, (New York: Dover, 1979)
Constantin to the Royal Society a number of years before. Newton paid to
have erected a huge maypole in Wanstead Park; the lens was attached at the
top of the maypole, and the micrometer was fixed separately near the
ground. The lens was apparently controlled by wires (see Figure 1). Pound's
data are much more precise than the data given in the above table, as the
comparison shows. Of the earlier data, Cassini's data from eclipses are the
most precise.
Mean distances in
semidiameters
1
2
3
4
From Pound's data
5.965
9.494
15.141
26.63
From Explan. Suppl.
5.903
9.386
14.967
26.34
.062
.108
.174
.29
Differences
�82
THE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
Now I want to look at the fit of the harmonic law to the data. Newton
compares them by just computing distances from the periods, using the
harmonic law. For that he uses a certain constant for the R3/P 2 value; it's the
one that he takes from Cassini's or Townly's estimate for Io, the first satellite.
Suppose, instead, we compute the standard deviation of the values of R3/P'
for the four satellites; this is given by
(J
-~~')
,
where L(x') is the sum of the squares of the deviations of the four values of
R3/P 2 from their mean value, and N is the number of items, 4 in our case. The
standard deviation for the average of the Borelli-Townly-Cassini values is
.079, that for the Pound data is .0003.
Another way to show how the harmonic law fits the data is to plot the
logarithm of the period against the logarithm of the distance measured in
semi-diameters of Jupiter. To have the periods be given by some power-law
of the distance is to have there be a straight line that fits the data when one
log is plotted against the other. To have the law be the three-halves power is
to have the slope of that line be 1.5 (see Figure 2). The first line, to the left,
has slope 1.5. Solid squares stand for Borelli's values, triangles for Townly's
values, diamonds for Cassini's values obtained with eclipses, stars for
Cassini's values obtained with the telescope, hollow squares for Pound's
values. You can see that even the earlier, cruder data in Newton's table fit
the harmonic law very well. In the case of Pound's values, the line with
slope 1.5 is just a line connecting his data-points; and you cannot see that it
is not straight. Also, note how close it is to the three-halves power law.
3.0
2.5
Slope 1.5
2.0
•
,,
Borelli
•
f
~
Townley
Cassin! E
Cassin! T
LO
-e-
Pound
~
0.5
'5
3.0
35
3.0
Fig. 2.
3.5
Log (Distance) (r I Rj}
�83
HARPER
So the empirical support for the harmonic law in the case of Jupiter's
moons was very strong in Newton's day. And the investigation that Newton
got Pound to do improved the precision considerably.
Prop. 2 parallels Prop. 1, but concerns the primary planets.
Proposition 2
The forces by which the primary planets are continually drawn away
from rectilinear motions and are maintained in their respective orbits are
directed to the Sun and are inversely as the squares of their distances
from its center.
The first part of the proposition is evident from Phen. 5 and from Prop. 2
of Book I, and the latter part from Phen. 4 and from Prop. 4 of the same
book. But this second part of the proposition is proved with the greatest
exactness from the fact that the aphelia are at rest. For the slightest
departure from the ratio of the square would (by Book I, Prop. 45, Coral.
1) necessarily result in a noticeable motion of the apsides in a single
revolution and an immense such motion in many revolutions.
Phen. 5 reads as follows:
The primary planets, by radii drawn to the Earth, describe areas in no
way proportional to the times but, by radii drawn to the Sun, traverse
areas proportional to the times.
There is a famous diagram that illustrates this wonderfully; it is from
Kepler's Astronomia Nova (see Figure 3). 1bis gives an Earth-centered view
of the motion of Mars starting in 1580 and ending in 1596. With respect to
the Earth, Mars's motion is sometimes progressive, sometimes ceases
altogether (is stationary), sometimes retrograding: it is not close to the area
law. But with respect to the Sun, the area law is very closely approximated.
Newton provides a separate phenomenon stating that the orbits of the
primary planets-here he does not include the Earth-encircle the Sun.
Phen. 3
The orbits of the five primary
and Saturn-encircle the Sun.
planets~Mercury,
Venus, Mars, Jupiter,
This phenomenon does not beg the question berween the Tychonic
and Copernican systems; it is compatible with either.
Here is Phen. 4:
The periodic times of the five primary planets and of either the Sun
around the Earth or the Earth around the Sun~the fixed stars being at
rest~are as the 3/2 power of their mean distances from the Sun.
�84
TilE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
Let me go directly to the graph, plotting log [periods] against log
[distances] (see Figure 4). Here I am using as unit for the periods the period
that Newton cites for the Eatth, and as distance-unit the distance from the
Eatth to the Sun. In the graph the Earth appears exactly at the origin. You
again see a very nice straight line; we've got data from Kepler and data from
Boulliau.
But we do have a problem with the application of the harmonic law to
the planets: the proof that the inverse-square law follows from the harmonic
law is carried out for concentric circular orbits. For Jupiter's moons, the best
data at the time did not show any departure from uniform motion on
concentric circles. But for the planets there were appreciable eccentricities,
already known. Many commentators have suggested that there is a real
difficulty here: how do you apply a theorem that holds for circular orbits to
the non-circular orbits of the planets?
Fig. 3. This is the accurate depiction of the motions of the star Mars, which it
traversed from the year 1580 until 1596, on the assumption that the earth
stands still, as Ptolemy and Brahe would have it.
Reprinted with permission from Johannes Kepler, New Astronomy (Cambridge University Press,
9 )
�HARPER
85
4
i
"'
'8
3
--Stope 1.5
-~
!0.
a
D Kepler
2
0
~
t Boulliau
-1
2
3
Log (Distance) (AU)
-1
-2
Fig. 4.
The result for circular orbits, however, goes over directly into a result
for elliptical orbits. Figure 5 is derived from a diagram in Newton's De Motu
of November 1684; it shows an elliptical orbit, and a circular orbit with the
same center of force, and a radius equal to the semimajor axis of the ellipse.
Fig. 5.
�86
THE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
At the point P the force maintaining the body in the circular orbit is identical
with the force maintaining the body in the elliptical orbit. The period in any
elliptical orbit having that same focus as center of force and having the same
semimajor axis will be equal to the period of the body moving in the circle.'
So the periods in the ellipse and the circle are the same.
Prop. 11 of Book I shows that the power law for the force that is
directed towards a focus of an elliptical orbit and maintains a body in that
orbit must be inverse-square. This result, however, is compatible with a
system of elliptical orbits about a common focus, where, even though for
each orbit, the force is inverse-square over the distances tested by this orbit,
yet the centripetal forces for the different orbits are not related to one
another inversely as the squares of the distances. Suppose that the periods
for those several elliptical orbits are as some power n of the semimajor axes.
This is equivalent to having the periods in the corresponding concentric
circular orbits as the power n of their radii (see Figure 6). Then we can apply
Coral. 7 of Prop. 4 Book 1: the centripetal forces maintaining bodies in those
corresponding concentric circular orbits will be as the 1-2n power of their
radii. But this, again, is equivalent to having the values of the forces at the
Fig. 6. A circle and corresponding ellipses of eccentricities .2, .4, .6, and .8,
respectively. Given the same inverse-square acceleration field, the periods of all these
elliptical orbits will be the same as the period of the circular orbit having its radius
equal to the common semi-major axes of the ellipses.
�HARPER
87
semi-major axis distances be as the 1-2n power of those semimajor axes.
Thus Carol. 7 of Prop. 4 carries over directly from circles to ellipses, however
eccentric they are.
The second proof of the second part of Prop. 2 of Book III appeals to
the precession theorem, Prop. 45 of Book I. What is orbital precession? If the
planet returns to aphelion after precisely 360° of motion, there is no orbital
precession. But if it returns to aphelion after moving through (360 + pY, that
would be to have p 0 of forward precession in an orbit. Carol. 1 of Prop. 45
of Book I tells us that if the centripetal force is as any power of the radius,
that power can be found from the motion of the apsides, and conversely. If
the whole angular motion with which the body returns to aphelion is to the
angular motion of one revolution, or 360°, as m to n, the force will be as the
power [(n'/m') - 3] of the radius. Now if you have a stable orbit with no
precession, p - 0 and n!m - 1, and that gives exactly the (-2) power. If you
have forward precession, p > 0 and n/m < 1, so that the exponent in the
power law is less than -2, and the centripetal force is falling off faster than an
inverse-square force. If you have backward precession, p < 0 and n!m > 1,
so that the exponent in the power law is greater than -2, and the centripetal
force is falling off more slowly than an inverse-square force. These relations
are summarized in Chart II.
Chart II
Corol. I, Prop. 45 of Book 1: Zero orbital precession measures inverse-square law for
distances explored by orbit. Precission p is expressed in degrees per revolution, x is
equal to 36° - 3. The sketch show positive precession, that is having the same
36O+p
direction as the orbital motion
~
Precession is p degrees
p > 0
p
0
p < 0
iff
iff
iff
iff
Power law is f~, oc Rx
X < -2
-2
X
X > -2
i
Newton proves this result for orbits with negligible eccentricity, but it can be
extended to orbits of arbitrary eccentricity. 2
So again we have systematic dependencies: absence of precession
carries the information that the force toward the central body is inversesquare. As Newton puts it in The System of the World, his earlier version of
Book III of the Principia,
�88
THE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
But now, after innumerable revolutions, hardly any such motions have
been perceived in the orbits of the circumsolar planets. Some
astronomers affirm there is no such motion [e.g. Streete]; others reckon it
no greater than what may easily arise from causes hereafter to be
assigned, which is of no moment in the present question.
If you can account for all of the precession by perturbation (Newton
did not know how to do that), then for any planet for which this can be
done, the zero leftover precession measures inverse-square variation of the
centripetal force. The only planet for which such an outcome has failed has
been Mercury. In 1859 Le Verrier found that some 38 arcseconds per century
of the precession of Mercury's apse could not be accounted for on the basis
of Newton's inverse-square law, and in 1882 Simon Newcomb revised this
estimate upward to 43 arcseconds per century. The unaccounted for 43" per
century of precession would measure a -2.00000016 for the exponent of the
force.
We now turn to the Moon. Prop.3 of Book III reads:
The force by which the Moon is maintained in its orbit is directed toward
the Earth and is inversely as the square of the distances of its places from
the center of the Earth.
On average there is about 3°3' of precession per revolution. Thus, the
inference in Prop. 3 is made somewhat problematic by the known orbital
precession. Newton says that it can be neglected since it is caused by the
action of the Sun. We know that he never actually succeeded in showing that
the whole 3°3' of forward precession resulted from solar perturbation; it was
first demonstrated by Clairaut in a work published in 1752.
Newton uses the Moon-test (Prop. 4) not just to identify the force that
maintains the Moon in its orbit with terrestrial gravity, but as additional
evidence for the inverse-square proposition (Prop. 3). In the Moon-test he is
comparing two phenomena. The first of these is the length of a seconds
pendulum at the surface of the Earth as determined by Huygens in Paris.
From this value, Huygens showed that you could derive a value for the
distance fallen by a body in one second. Huygens's determination of this
distance was so stable over repetitions that his measured value for the onesecond-fall at Paris of 15.096 Paris feet could be trusted to about ±.01 Paris
feet. (The Paris foot, we note, is somewhat bigger than our English foot.)
The second phenomenon is the value of the Moon's centripetal
acceleration, calculated for the distance R of the Moon from the Earth's
center. Here Newton introduces a correction for the action of the Sun on the
Moon; the centripetal component of this action is on average subtractive
from the acceleration due to the Earth's action. Newton takes the subtractive
�HARPER
89
component to be 1/178.725 of the Earth's centripetal attraction, just enough
to cause the precession of 3°3' per revolution, in accordance with Carol. 2 of
Prop.45. In fact, as Newton knew, the centripetal component of the Sun's
action is only half as great as this.
If we take Newton's several estimates for the Moon's distance, and
introduce the correction, then, assuming the inverse-square law, we get an
incredible agreement with Huygens's value for the one-second distance of
fall at the Earth's surface. I want to claim that the outcome does not depend
on Newton's correction. If we do not apply that correction, and use all six of
Newton's cited lunar distances (59, 60, 60, 60 •;,, 60 '/,, 60 1 together with
h),
his cited circumference of the Earth (123,249,600 Paris feet) and lunar period
(39,343 seconds), we find
15.041 ± .429 Paris feet
as the measured value of the one-second fall at the surface of the Earth
corresponding to the centripetal acceleration in th<j lunar orbit. The
Huygens's value is well within these error bounds.
Thus the crude data for distances, yielding values for the Moon's
acceleration toward the Earth, back up Huygens's measurement of the
acceleration of gravity. They do this not by improving the precision of
Huygens's measurement, but by showing that big deviations from Huygens's
result are more improbable than they would be on Huygens's data alone.
The agreement in these measurements is an example of a kind of empirical
success that comes from having agreeing measurements of the same
parameter from two separate phenomena. The data from the two
phenomena reinforce each other, and increase what we might call the
resilience of the measurement, its resistance to large deviations.
Newton now appeals to his first two rules of philosophizing to infer
that the force maintaining the Moon in its orbit is terrestrial gravity.
According to Rule 1,
No more causes of natural things should be admitted than are both true
and sufficient to explain their phenomena.
And according to Rule 2,
Therefore, the causes assigned to natural effects of the same kind must
be, so far as possible, the same.
Newton's conclusion is then:
And therefore the force by which the Moon is kept in its orbit, in
descending from the Moon's orbit to the surface of the Earth, comes out
equal to the force of gravity here on Earth, and so (by Rule 1 and Rule 2)
is that very force which we generally call gravity.
�90
TilE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
I want to claim that this application of these rules is not an appeal to a
general commitment to simplicity. The application is a very particular kind of
simplicity: two phenomena count as agreeing measurements of the same
parameter. And that result exhibits a kind of empirical success: the theory is
succeeding empirically by having its parameters be accurately measured by
the phenomena it purports to explain.
I now turn to Prop. 5:
The circumjovial planets [or moons of Jupiter] gravitate toward Jupiter,
the circumsaturnian planets [or satellites of Saturn] gravitate toward
Saturn, and the circumsolar [or primary] planets gravitate toward the Sun,
and by the force of their gravity they are always drawn back from
rectilinear motions and kept in curvilinear orbits.
Thus, according to Newton, the inverse-square centripetal forces directed to
Jupiter, Saturn, and the Sun are, all of them, gravitation. He goes on to
extend this result to the planets that do not have satellites,
for, doubtless, Venus, Mercury, and the rest, are bodies of the same sort
with Jupiter and Saturn.
The following scholium is offered in support of this generalization:
Scholium. Hitherto we have called "centripetal" that force by which
celestial bodies are kept in their orbits. It is now established that this
force is gravity, and therefore we shall call it gravity from now on. For
the cause of the centripetal force by which the Moon is kept in its orbit
ought to be extended to all planets, by Rules 1, 2, and 4.
Here is Rule 4:
In experimental philosophy, propositions gathered from phenomena by
induction should be considered either exactly or very nearly true
notwithstanding any contrary hypotheses, until yet other phenomena
make such propositions either more exact or liable to exceptions.
This rule should be followed so that arguments based on induction may
not be nullified by hypotheses.
To understand this rule we need to know what is the difference between a
legitimate rival and a mere hypothesis that can be dismissed and should
carry no weight. I want to suggest that a mere hypothesis is an alternative
proposal that does not realize the ideal of empirical success sufficiently to
count as a serious rival, where the ideal of empirical success is accurate
measurement of the parameters of the theory by the phenomena that the
theory explains.
�HARPER
91
Finally, I want to illustrate this ideal of empirical success at work in the
case of Prop. 6, which reads:
All bodies gravitate toward each of the planets, and at any given distance
from the center of any planet the weight of any body whatever toward
that planet is proportional to the quantity of matter which the body
contains.
Let Q - f/m be the ratio of the gravitational force on a body to its
inertial mass, so that the acceleration will be equal to Q. The question is
whether, at a given distance from the center of a planet, Q is the same for all
bodies.
The first thing we have here is the pendulum experiment, to
demonstrate the proportionality of mass to weight in terrestrial bodies. For
pairs of samples of nine different materials, used as the equal-weighted bobs
of equal-length pendulums, Newton claims to find the periods equal to a
precision of .001. The equality of the periods counts as a phenomenon
measuring the equality of the ratio of weight to mass for laboratory-sized
bodies near the surface of the Earth to a precision of .001.
Next we have the Moon-test, which argues that-the Moon's acceleration
toward the Earth is such that, if the Moon were brought down to the surface
of the Earth, it would (by the inverse-square law) have the same acceleration
as other terrestrial bodies. Consider Huygens's pendulum measurement as
giving a value Q 0 , and take differences /!, from that. The six estimates of the
Moon's distances used in the third edition yield a bound on /!,of .03.
If we turn to the harmonic law for Jupiter's moons, and use the inversesquare law to adjust their accelerations to the distance of one of the moons
from Jupiter's center, from the data in the table we get about the same
bound on /!,(namely .03). If we use Pound's data, the bound is enormously
· more precise.
From the harmonic law for the primary planets, adjusting all the
accelerations to the Earth-Sun distance, we find a bound on /!,of .004.
Newton then cites bounds on the polarizations of the orbits of Jupiter's
moons. If the Sun's gravitational force on a moon of Jupiter has to that
moon's mass a ratio different from the corresponding ratio for Jupiter, then
the orbit of that moon will be polarized either away from or toward the Sun.
Newton claims to limit A in this case by a calculation which he does not
describe for us; no one has found the actual details of his calculation. The
numbers here are due to Kenneth Nordved~ who showed that the correct
results go in the opposite direction from Newton's results, and are
considerably less sensitive than Newton claimed.' Applying Nordvedt's
calculation to the tolerances for distance estimates exhibited by the data in
�92
1HE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
Newton's table we get a bound on 11 of .034; applying tolerances estimated
from comparing Pound's data with distances from the Explanatory Supplement
we get a bound of .004. We could do the same with Saturn's moons.
Our moon is a great example to use for this. Laplace, it turns out,
carried out a calculation in 1825 to limit 11 to a few parts in 10·'; his
calculation has recently 0997) been defended by Damour, a present-day
celestial mechanician. And today we can determine the Moon's distance by
lunar laser-ranging; by this method Dickey et al. have shown that 11 is less
than (2±5)x1Q-". Thus the results obtained from celestial objects are now in
the same ball park as, or even slightly better than the Moscow experiment,
which is the best result achieved by using torsion balances on laboratorysized objects. So you can see that the calculations on astronomical bodies
and the experiments on terrestrial bodies are going in lockstep, pinning
down what we call the weak equivalence principle.
Chart III (see next page) summarizes the chief results obtained for 11
from Newton onward. As before let Q - f/m. For any given center c toward
which any given bodies 1 and 2 gravitate, let 11(c,1,2) - Q1 - Q2, where the
fs involved in the g·s are inverse-square adjusted to the same distance from
c. Following Newton's third rule of philosophizing, we can interpret the
phenomena listed in Chart III as agreeing measurements bounding toward
zero a single universal parameter A representing differences between ratios
of passive gravitational to inertial mass that would be exhibited by any
bodies at any similar space-time locations.
All these phenomena count as agreeing measurements bounding
toward zero a single general parameter representing differences between
bodies of the ratios of their inertial masses to their weights (inverse-squareadjusted if necessary) toward planets.
In Coral. 2 to Prop. 6 Newton generates his last rule of reasoning, a
rule that is directed precisely at this kind of investigation and this kind of
empirical success. Coral. 2 reads:
All bodies universally that are on or near the Earth are heavy (or
gravitate) toward the Earth, and the weights of all bodies that are equally
distant from the center of the Earth are as the quantities of matter in
them. This is a quality of all bodies on which experiments can be
performed and therefore by Rule 3 is to be affirmed of all bodies
universally.
So all bodies, however far from the Earth, are gravitating toward it with
weight proportional to their masses. And here is Rule 3:
Those qualities of bodies that cannot be intended and remitted [that is,
qualities that cannot be increased and diminished] and that belong to all
�HARPER
93
bodies on which experiments can be made should be taken as qualities
of all bodies universally.
Rule 3 is explicitly applied to the terrestrial case, but it also applies more
generally to the constraints on A. Thus an ideal of empirical success of a
certain kind-agreeing accurate measurements of parameter values from
phenomena-is the centerpiece of the methodology that Newton's work
started. And it still guides science today-guides gravitation-theory
experiments that are testing General Relativity.
Chart III: Constraints on A
1. Pendulum
experiments
Newton 0685)
Bessel 0827)'
Eotvos 0922)'
Moscow 0972)'
I!.<
lQ·!l.
I!.<
.03
Newton"'"'
I!.<
Pound
A<
.03
.0007
I!.<
.004
I!.<
.034
.004
2. Moon test
3. Harmonic Law
1
Qupiter s moons)
4. Harmonic Law
(primaty planets)
5. Bounds on
Polarization
of satellite orbits
I!.< .001
A< 2 X }Q·S
I!.< 2 X 10-9
Jupiter's moons
Newton*"
Pound
A<
Our moon
Laplace 0825)"
Lunar laser ranging 0994)"'"'"'
0.54 X 10·'
/!.< (25) X 10"
A<
~wm, C.M., Theory and Experiment in Gravitational Physics (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2d revised edition, 1993), 27
•• Isaac Newton, Pbi/osopbie Natura/is Principia Matbematica, Phenomenon I, Book Ill.
...Damour, T. And Vokrouhlicky, D., "Equivalence principle and the Moon," Pbys. Rev. D, vol.S3,
no.8, 1996, 4198-4199
.... Dickey et al., "Lunar Laser Ranging: A Continuing Legacy of the Apollo Program," Science,
vol.265, 1994, 485.
Notes
1.]. Bruce Brackenridge, Tbe Key to Newton's Dynamics (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1995) 119-23
2. Valluri, Wilson, Harper, journal for the History of Astronomy, 27 0997), 13-27.
3. Kenneth Nordvedt, "Testing Relativity with Laser Ranging to the Moon," Physical
Review 170 0968), 1186.
�94
THE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
Cause and Hypothesis:
Newton's Speculation About the Cause
of Universal Gravitation
Dana Densmore
Introduction
Isaac Newton (1642-1727) demonstrates in Principia' that gravity operates
on and between all bodies, terrestrial and celestial. The gravitational force is
found to be directly proportional to the quantity of matter in what we might
call the "attracting" body and directly proportional to the quantity of matter
in what we might call the "attracted" body, as well as inversely as the square
of the distance between the bodies. Furthermore, when one body "attracts"
another, the geometrical center of force is found to be at the center of mass
of the "attracting" body (assuming spherical bodies). Finally, Newton shows
that every particle of one body "attracts" every particle of every other body.
These are the elements of universal gravitation.
These characteristics of the phenomenon, and the fact that Newton is
no more able than we to avoid speaking of "attraction," suggest that the
power of gravitation lies in the bodies themselves, that it is an innate.quality
of matter. Thus, when two bodies "attract each other," that is, are impelled
each toward the other, as Newton shows they are, it seems to be a mutual
action of particle upon particle.
Newton says he would would like to keep any assumptions of cause
out of Principia. But he must repeatedly apologize for using the language of
gravity-as-an-innate-property-of-matter, and repeatedly warn the reader that
he means no such assumption. And, indeed, one can hardly imagine how we
could speak about the behavior of bodies and their motions and the forces
acting on them without using the language of some mechanism.
Dana Densmore, a graduate of St. John's College, is a scholar and author of Newton's Principia,
Tbe Central AJ8ument. She is Chief Editor at Green LiOO Press.
�DENSMORE
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But does he manage to keep the question open when it comes to the
actual demonstrations? As he develops his crucial propositions showing the
properties of universal gravitation in Book III, can we continue to keep the
open mind he advocates, or must we at some point abandon that bit of
principled naivete and settle on one particular hypothesis?
I'm going to invite you to think through with me whether Newton does
leave all these options open in his demonstrations by looking at the
culminating, or at least penultimate, proposition in the sequence that derives
what we now call universal gravitation. But first let's look more closely at
what range of mechanisms he seems to be allowing for, and also at what his
own speculations might have been.
Hypotheses on the Cause of Gravity
Tbe Range of Mechanisms Newton Mentions. What are the hypothetical
mechanisms Newton claims to keep open?
In the General Scholium which ends Principia (added in the Second
Edition, in 1713), Newton states that he does not "contrive hypotheses" about
the cause of gravity. By "contriving hypotheses" Newton means making up
something without a basis in the observed phenomena.
The reason for these properties of gravity, however, I have not yet been
able to deduce from the phenomena, and I do not contrive hypotheses.
(764)
We may infer from this that Newton found nothing in the phenomena
which suggested to him the mechanism of the operation of gravity; we can
infer that, could he have found such evidence, he would have put it forward
and built upon it.
In the Scholium following Book I Proposition 69, he spells out what
one may understand when he says "attraction":
By these propositions we are led by the hand to an analogy between
centripetal forces and the central bodies towards which those forces are
apt to be directed. For it is in conformity with reason that the forces
which are directed towards the bodies depend upon the nature and
magnitude of the same bodies, as it is in magnetic bodies. And whenever
instances of this sort occur, the attractions of the bodies are to be
estimated by assigning the appropriate forces to their individual particles
and gathering together the sums of the forces. (298)
This is a critical place: he has just demonstrated the proposition which
introduces the effect that the mass of the central body has on the quantity of
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THE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
centripetal force. But lest we get the wrong idea about the word "attraction,"
which, in addition to his use just above in this Scholium, he has used
repeatedly in the proposition, he immediately continues:
The word "attraction" I here use generally for any attempt whatever of
bodies to approach one another, whether that attempt arise from the
action of the bodies (whether mutually seeking one another or of setting
each other in motion by emitted spirits), or whether it arises from the
action of the aether, or of air, or of any medium whatsoever (corporeal
or incorporeal) in any way pushing bodies floating in it towards each
other. (298)
We are being told, and not for the first time, to keep our minds open to
encompass all of these possibilities whenever Newton speaks about
attraction, or, as he is often careful enough to put it, when a body is
impelled toward another body or toward a center of force or forces. In the
commentary after Definition VIII, for example, he says:
I use the words "attraction," "impulse," or [words denoting] any tendency
whatever towards a center, indifferently and promiscuously for each
other, in considering these forces, not physically, but only
mathematically. Therefore the reader should beware of thinking that
through words of this kind I am anywhere defining a form or manner of
action, or a cause or a physical account, or that I am truly and physically
attributing forces to the centers (which are mathematical points), if
perchance I should say either that the centers attract, or that the forces
belong to the centers. ( 46)
He says that he is speaking of the centers and forces mathematically,
and the mechanisms behind them may be whatever they happen to be. The
forces may belong to the centers, or they niay belong to some other agency;
he does not define the form or manner of the action.
Here Newton gives us a range of mechanisms. The tendency of bodies
to approach each other may come from the actions of the bodies themselves.
This could be some innate property of matter that operates directly on other
matter as they mutually seek each other. We might call this category where
the tendency to approach comes from the action of the bodies themselves
the "occult power of matter," since some hidden virtue of the bodies is
operating. In this case the bodies are operating on each other at a distance.
It could also be, according to Newton in this Scholium, matter
operating on other matter indirectly, for example setting each other in
motion by emitted spirits. Here, a power of matter is operating indirectly
through physical, quasi-physical, or incorporeal agents.
Or perhaps the action does not originate in the matter but outside it. It
might be pushes from behind. One could imagine gremlins there pushing or,
�DENSMORE
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with Newton, pushes from particles of the medium in which both bodies
move. This medium also, Newton says, could be either corporeal or
incorporeaL
Newton's Own Speculations About the Cause of Gravity Before and Around
the Time of the First Publication of Principia. Let's look into Newton's
indications of his own ideas about the cause of gravity. This could be our
best evidence about what he was thinking when he wrote both the
disclaimers about cause which we find in Principia, and the proofs which do
or don't make assumptions about cause.
We find two interesting things. First, Newton repeatedly put forward
hypotheses that fell squarely into the mechanism of impulsion by direct
contact, including one offered not long before the publication of Principia
And second, he claimed to be adamantly opposed to any supposition of
physical action at a distance.
Newton's writings before Principia show his attempts to explain gravity
by the collision of material particles.
His student notebook from the 1660s shows a thoroughgoing
mechanistic philosophy following Descartes and Boyle. Every action can be
understood as motions of matter, of a matter which fills space. A material
aether provided the explanation for all apparent actions at a distance. His
explanation of gravity from around 1664 consisted of a descending wind of
aether particles flowing into the earth and pushing heavy bodies down
with it.
The matter causing gravity must pass through all the pores of a body ...
For it must descend very fa~t and swift as appears by the falling of bodies
and the great pressure toward the Earth . . . The stream descending will
grow thicker as it comes nearer the earth .... 2
In 1675 Newton sketched out another aether theory of gravitation, in
"Hypothesis on Light," a document transmitted to Henry Oldenburg for the
Royal Society of London. The mechanical action of the aether is basically the
same: a wind of the aether particles drives the heavy bodies down.
For if such an aetheriall Spirit may be condensed in fermenting or
burning bodies, the vast body of the Earth, wch may be every where to
the very center in perpetuall working, may continually condense so much
of this Spirit as to cause it .from above to descend with great celerity for a
supply. In wch descent it may beare downe with it the bodyes it
pervades with force proportionall to the superficies of all their parts it
acts upon .... 3
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TilE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
In a letter to Robert Boyle three years later, Newton speculates on the
cause of gravity. The mechanism has changed, but it is still entirely material
and mechanical: now, instead of the pressure of a downward flow of aether
particles, he pictures a pressure arising from a density gradient and a
transition from finer to grosser particles.
And, first, I suppose that there is diffused through all space an aethereal
substance, capable of contraction and dilation, strongly elastic; and, in a
word, much like air in all respects, but far more subtle ... When two
bodies, moving toward one another, come nearer together, I suppose the
aether between them to grow rarer than before ....
I shall set down one conjecture more ... it is about the cause of gravity.
For this end I will suppose aether to consist of parts differing from one
another in subtility by indefinite degrees: that in the pores of bodies,
there is less of the grosser aether in proportion to the finer, than in open
spaces; and consequently, that in the great body of the earth there is
much less of the grosser aether, in proportion to the finer, than in the
regions of the air and that ... from the top of the air to the surface of the
earth, and again from the surface of the earth to the centre thereof, the
aether is insensibly finer and finer. Imagine, now, any body suspended in
the air, or lying on the earth; and the aether being, by the hypothesis,
grosser in the pores which are in the upper parts of the body, than in
those which are in the lower parts; and that grosser aether, being less apt
to be lodged in those pores, than the finer aether below; it will
endeavour to get out, and give way to the finer aether below, which
cannot be, without the bodies descending to make room above for it to
go out into. 4
This speculation was written eight years before the publication of Principia.
We may draw this conclusion from these proposed theories. Before
writing Principia, at least at some time before, Newton himself looked to a
mechanical explanation as being the natural and plausible and scientific one.
The material impact mechanism is thus one that must be taken seriously
among the options, one that he would want to leave open. However, he
seems to mean Principia to be more general, allowing for these hypotheses
and others as welL
Our second piece of evidence for Newton's views comes from letters
written to Richard Bentley five years after publication of Principia In these
letters Newton expressed horror that, when the first edition of the book was
published in 1687, some attributed to him the hypothesis that gravity is an
innate property of matter acting at a distance. We saw that he had difficulty
avoiding that language in Principia and often fell into it, albeit usually
followed sometime soon by a disclaimer.
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You sometimes speak of gravity as essential & inherent to matter: pray,
do not ascribe that notion to me; for ye cause of gravity is what I do not
pretend to know, & therefore would take more time to consider of it. 5
'Tis inconceivable, that inanimate brute matter, should (without ye
mediation of something else web is not material) operate upon & affect
other matter without mutual contact; as it must be if gravitation in the
sense of Epicurus be essential & inherent in it. And this is one reason
why I desired you would not ascribe innate gravity to me. That gravity
should be innate inherent & essential to matter so yet one body may act
upon another at a distance through a vacuum wthout the mediation of
any thing else by and through web their action and force may be
conveyed from one to another is to me so great an absurdity that I
believe no man who has in philosophical matters a competent faculty of
thinking can ever fall into it. Gravity must be caused by an agent acting
constantly according to certain laws, but whether this agent be material
or immaterial I have left to ye consideration of my readers. 6
Newton here asserts that there must be some agent acting directly on
the attracted body; he seems willing to leave open the possibility of that
agent being incorporeal; but he says that the action at a distance of a
gravitational power innate in the attracting body strikes him as absurd.
One result of this statement of his view for our understanding of
Principia is to warn us away from jumping to the conclusion that innateforce-action-at-a-distance was his secret opinion, a covert hypothesis, and
that his protestations about keeping the question open were mere rhetorical
smokescreen, falsely pretending an open-mindedness he did not in fact bring
to the work.
But perhaps he did want to leave that option open as well. His many
disclaimers in Principia about meaning by attraction whatever impels bodies
together suggest that he intends a completely general demonstration.
Now we're ready to look at Newton's development of universal
gravitation and see whether he really was able to carry it all the way through
without resorting to any hypotheses about cause, explicit or implicit.
Development of the Principle of Universal Gravitation
The first part of this job was done by William Harper (see the preceding
essay). He wasn't looking particularly at this matter of the mechanisms, but
in fact, through those propositions, through Proposition 6 of Book III, there
was no step that eliminated any of the mechanisms or assumed any. I am
satisfied with that, and probably for each of you to be satisfied with that you
would want to yourself work through those propositions with this questions
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TilE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
in mind. I am going to start with Proposition 7, which is where things get
interesting in terms of looking at whether he assumed any mechanisms.
Proposition III.? asserts:
That gravity is given in bodies universally, and is proportional to the
quantity of matter in each.
We will look carefully at the steps of this proof.
III. 7 calls upon Proposition 69 of Book I.
Let's see what 1.69 requires and proves. The proposition postulates a
system of many bodies in which every body "pulls" every other body, but for
the purposes of the proof he is looking at two bodies in particular. So he
says that A attracts all the other bodies and B attracts all the other bodies. He
says "pulls." And the proposition speaks of an "accelerative attraction" of all
bodies toward each body. We are also given that the accelerations produced
by that pulling are inversely as the squares of the distances from the pulling
body. These are all things that we are given. They are hypothetical in the
sense that all the propositions in Books I and II are hypothetical. They are
not grounded in the phenomena of our world. They are part of the
mathematical toolbox that can be used to be applied when we have
phenomena and experimental observations from our world. So we can't
complain about any of these assumptions. They are explicitly assumptions.
What 1.69 proves is that, given these stated conditions, the absolute
forces of the pulling bodies will be to one another as are the bodies
themselves. That is, the forces will vary as the quantity of matter in the
attracting bodies.
III.6 had shown that the motive forces, or weight, varied as the quantity
of matter in the attracted bodies. 1.69 is setting up another dimension for us
by bringing in the quantity of matter in the attracting body.
We have already noted the Scholium following I.69, which goes on at
length in asserting that when Newton says "attraction" he doesn't mean to
suggest a particular mechanism. We want to continue reminding ourselves of
that:
The word "attraction" I here use generally for any attempt whatever of
bodies to approach one another, whether that attempt arise from the
action of the bodies (whether mutually seeking one another or of setting
each other in motion by emitted spirits), or whether it arises from the
action of the aether, or of air, or of any medium whatsoever (corporeal
or incorporeal) in any way pushing bodies floating in it towards each
other. (298)
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Therefore, despite the strong suggestion in the wording of the
proposition that the condition being set up here is one of attraction, one at
least of pulling, if not of full-fledged "occult power of matter," Newton is
claiming to be using this word only for the observed effect of tendency
towards the center of force or forces. (He starts out in Book I talking about
"forces"; in Proposition 1 he was referring to a "center of forces." As he goes
along he drops that plural and starts talking about "center of force," but I
think it's worth keeping in mind that, at least originally, he meant to make it
general enough that it was not necessarily a single force.)
The disclaimer about the mechanisms is not contradicted by the
condition also made explicit in !.69 that the "attractions" appear in some
sense mutual. It is simply given as one condition that A pulls B with an
accelerative force inversely proportional to the square of the distance to B,
and as another condition that B pulls A with an accelerative force inversely
proportional to the square of the distance to A. (The Scholium that
immediately follows makes it clear that "A pulls B" means only that B tends
toward A.)
No mechanism for this pulling is presented, and no claim suggested
that there is a mutuality inherent in the mechanism. We will return to this
difficult question of mutuality very soon, and consider what it is, or rather,
what different things mutuality means to us in different contexts.
For now, we continue carefully stepping through Newton's argument.
Having mentioned 1.69, we must hasten to remind ourselves that 1.69 is a
hypothetical proposition. Before we can use it we must prove that its
conditions hold in our world.
That is the first piece of work in III.7. We must prove that all bodies
attract all other bodies inversely as the square of the distance between them.
Step 1:
That all the planets are mutually heavy towards each other, we have now
already proved ....
The first condition for I.69 is that each body attracts all other bodies.
III.6 established that all planets gravitate towards each other: that is, if we are
to use "attraction" for "any attempt whatever of bodies to approach one
another," III.6 established that each body is attracted to all other bodies. If
each body is attracted to all, the bodies to which it is attracted must be
"attracting," whatever that might mean. Thus all bodies must be "attracting."
If all bodies are attracting, then A attracts B and B attracts A. We have
fulfilled the first condition of I.69.
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TilE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
Step 2:
... as well as that gravity in any one of them, considered separately, is
inversely as the square of the distance of places from the center of the
planet.
The second condition for invoking !.69 is that these attractions be all
taking place according to an inverse square force law. We got that from
Book III Proposition 1 for Jupiter and Saturn with their respective moons,
from III.2 for the circumsolar planets, and from Ill. 3 for the moon to the
earth.
So putting these things together, we have established that the
accelerative force of gravity towards each one of the planets varies inversely
as the square of the distances from the centers of the "attracting" planets.
Thus we have the required force law for Jupiter in relation to its
moons, Saturn in relation to its moons, the primacy planets in relation to the
sun, and the earth in relation to its moon. By the third Rule of
Philosophizing,
The qualities of bodies ... upon which experiments can be carried out,
are to be taken as qualities of bodies universally.
This reasoning applies equally to the universality of heaviness in bodies
and to the universality of the inverse square force law. Thus we have met the
two conditions of 1.69.
We've gone from what we can observe about Jupiter and Saturn and
the circumsolar planets and what we deduced about the moon (with a little
more difficulty, because there's only one body there), and we're now saying
that it is true of all bodies, or any potential planet that we might have.
Step 3:
And the consequence of this (by Book I Prop. 69 and its corollaries) is
that gravity in all is proportional to the matter in the same bodies.
The first Corollary of !.69 extends the proposition to any number of
bodies. Applying the proposition, we can conclude that gravity tending
towards any planet is proportional to the matter contained by the body at the
center of force.
We still haven't assumed a mechanism, although we must now wonder
how, under the various hypotheses, the size of the central body might affect
the amount by which the "attracted" body is impelled. By some mechanisms,
you might imagine that it wouldn't make a difference. It seems that we might
be learning something about what mechanisms are possible by the fact that
the attracting power is proportional to the quantity of matter there.
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Step 4:
Further, since all the parts of any planet you please A are heavy towards
any planet you please B ....
This is established in III.6. We use this in Step 7.
Step 5:
... and the gravity of any part is to the gravity of the whole as the matter
of the part is to the matter of the whole ....
This is also established in III.6 and is used in Step 8.
Step 6:
... and to every action there is an equal reaction (by the Third Law of
Motion).·...
Assuming that the gravitation of A towards B and B towards A are
mutual actions in the sense of Law 3, "the mutual actions of two bodies upon
each other are always equal and directed to contrary parts" by that law.
This is a crucial step and we will return to it. Here in this step he has
only made a statement of the law, and he has stated it accurately.
Step 7:
... [therefore] the planet B will in turn gravitate towards all the parts of
the planet A ....
Now he's drawn some conclusion from Step 6. Hidden between Step 6
and Step 7, there's something lying in that bracketed [therefore]. We'll have
to return to it, but let's take it provisionally for now.
Step 4 told us that all parts of any planet A will gravitate towards any
other planet B. By Law 3 and Step 6 we conclude that any planet B will
gravitate towards all the parts of planet A.
Step 8:
. and its gravity towards any particular part will be to its gravity
towards the whole as the matter of the part to the matter of the whole.
By Step 5, the gravity of a part of planet A towards any other planet B
is to the gravity of the whole of A towards B as the matter of the part of A is
to the matter of the whole of A.
By Law 3, the gravity of the whole of B toward each of the parts of A is
equal and opposite to the gravity of each part of A towards the whole of B.
Therefore the gravity of B towards any part of A will be to B's gravity
towards the whole of A as the matter of A's part to the matter of A's whole.
That is what was to have been proved.
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1HE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
We have used Law 3 to go from the quantity of matter in the attracted
body to the quantity of matter in the attracting body. But we did leave an
assumption hidden between Steps 6 and 7 of III. 7 to be looked into more
closely. That assumption was that the gravitation of A towards B and B
towards A are mutual actions in the sense of Law 3. To evaluate the
legitimacy of that assumption, we must look carefully at the Third Law.
Mutuality and Attraction
The Third Law says "That to an action there is always a contrary and equal
reaction; or, that the mutual actions of two bodies upon each other are
always equal and directed to contrary parts."
What does this mean? The law speaks about actions which are mutuali
it is these which are equal and directed to contrary parts. So we must look at
what we mean by mutuality.
Furthermore, we need to understand what attraction is, generally and in
the particular case that concerns us here, so as to assess whether this law
may be applied to gravitational attractions.
Mutuality. Let's start with mutuality.
In Book III Newton proves that every body is attracting every other
body (or, more generally expressed, every body is impelled toward every
other body; or, as he also puts it, there is a power of gravity towards every
body). Newton uses the word "mutual" for this situation: "all planets are
mutually heavy towards each other." A is attracted towards B, and B is
attracted towards A. There is a simultaneity, a symmetry, and a kind of
reciprocity.
Let us think what we mean by "mutual." It's important to get clear for
ourselves how we understand this word, in order to be alert to the way we
are interpreting it when we read the wording of proposition III. 7 and of the
third law of motion. Being clear about our common sense understanding of
the word is the first step to clarifying what may be a technical meaning for
Principia.
A series of thought experiments may help here.
I say, "I like you." You say, "The feeling is mutual." You mean, "I hear
that you like me, and it is also the case that I like you, and I recognize that
this means there is a symmetry. We like each other."
When things are mutual, they are reciprocal, but reciprocity can come
after the fact, and it can refer to only one side of the transaction. You do me
a favor, and I then feel an obligation (or a grateful desire) to do you a favor.
When I see an opportunity, I reciprocate and return the favor. The exchange
is then completed and we are mutual benefactors. But there may have been
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a cause and effect relationship. Perhaps I reciprocated because you did me
the favor.
This was not necessarily the case in our first mutual relation, in which I
said I liked you and you pronounced the feeling mutual. Let's assume that
this was not the case in which my liking you stimulates your gratitude or
sense of obligation to reciprocate. I liked you independently of anything you
felt. You similarly liked me not because I liked you, but because something
in your soul moved towards me. The mutual liking was simultaneous and the
one feeling was not caused by the other feeling. The relation is mutual,
reciprocal, simultaneous, symmetrical. But it is not mutual cause-and-effect.
Now let's say that I am attracted by the strawberries in the refrigerator.
As a consequence of this attraction, I move towards the refrigerator. My
moving towards the refrigerator is caused by the strawberries, but not by
anything the strawberries did. They may not even be in the refrigerator;
someone else might have gotten there first. My moving is caused by the
strawberries in the sense that something in my soul yearned towards them
and made me move in what I supposed to be their direction. This case is
clearly not mutual. The strawberries feel no inclination to move towards me;
in fact, should they be imagined to have any inclination, it would probably
be against being eaten.
But now suppose my husband and I see each other across the placita.
We each feel attracted to the other. We move towards each other as a
consequence of the attraction each feels inwardly. Nothing the other does
causes this movement; it is caused by our own inner inclinations. If one
paused, the other might still move under the influence of the attraction
which sprang up in his or her soul. But suppose neither pauses; we meet in
the middle. In common language, this is a mutual attraction and the coming
together is a mutual action.
Now suppose two billiard balls on a table are tapped by two agents
with sticks such that the balls approach each other in the middle of the table
and meet. Ball A has been impelled towards ball B, and ball B towards ball
A. The cause of the approach of one was different from the cause of the
approach of the other, and the motion of one did not cause the motion of
the other. But they approach each other in a simultaneous, symmetrical way.
In common language, we would say that they mutually approached.
Attraction. Now let's look more closely at what we mean by the word
"attraction."
We have seen that in Principia Newton stretches the term to cover any
tendency whatever of one body to move towards another. This of course is a
technical meaning which requires our constant attention to keep stretched.
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THE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
Once we slacken the tension on the term, it snaps back to cover a much
smaller area. Let's look at its coverage in its relaxed state, that is, how we
mean the term in comrilon language.
Attraction is most comfortably understood in relation to besouled
entities. Its original sense is that of a movement of the soul towards
something the soul sees as good. We may be attracted to another soul, or to
a material thing, or to an idea. Any of those things can move us, that is,
cause a motion in our soul, and that motion in the soul may result in some
other motion, as when I move to the refrigerator because of the attraction I
feel for the strawberries.
It is rather by analogy that we speak of attraction among inanimate
things (such as "inanimate brute matter"). We see that the sttawberries seem
to attract with no mechanical mediation. By analogy, when we see no
mediating cause, we use the term attraction. So when the horse pulls a stone
using a rope, we don't call that attraction, we call it pulling. But if the horse
just stood there, and the stone approached, we might say the horse had
attracted the stone. Of course, we don't see that, but we do see iron filings
moving toward a loadstone with no visible means of pulling, and we call that
attraction.
Aristotle did not consider stones besouled, but by analogy with the
workings of souls, he said that stones had within themselves a tendency to
seek the center of the earth. They are not animate, and yet in a certain sense
they have a goal, and are heavy until they reach that goal. [They are active in
the sense of energein and not prattein; see Physics 255a28-30.l
Similarly, we can speak of attraction in the narrower sense as a possible
cause of gravity in Principia. In this narrower sense, it is a tendency of the
bodies, whether possessing souls or not (and I believe Newton did not think
of them as possessing souls, but that may be something for further
consideration), to seek to move towards other bodies, without being pushed
or pulled by a material mechanical mediating agent. This is the mechanism I
earlier called "occult power of matter."
Third Law of Motion. So let's now look at the 1bird Law of Motion and see
what it might mean in connection with attractions.
Law3
That to an action there is always a contrary and equal reaction; or, that
the mutual actions of two bodies upon each other are always equal and
directed to contrary parts.
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Commentary:
Whatever pushes or pulls something else is pushed or pulled by it to the
same degree. If one pushes a stone with a finger, his finger is also
pushed by the stone. If a horse pulls a stone tied to a rope, the horse will
also be equally pulled (so to speak) to the stone; for the rope, being
stretched in both directions, will by the same attempt to slacken itself
urge the horse towards the stone, and the stone towards the horse, and
will impede the progress of the one to the same degree that it promotes
the progress of the other. If some body, striking upon another body,
should change the latter's motion in any way by its own force, the same
body (because of the equality of the mutual pushing) will also in turn
undergo the same change in its own motion, in the contrary direction, by
the force of the other. These actions produce equal changes, not of
velocities, but of motions-that is, in bodies that are unhindered in any
other way. For changes in velocities made thus in opposite directions, are
inversely proportional to the bodies, because the motions are equally
changed. This law applies to attractions as well, as will be proven in the
next Scholium. (55-56)
This last sentence is the one we need to be concerned about. It was
added in the second edition.
The Third Law has two parts. The first is that every action has an equal
and opposite reaction. The second is that in all mutual actions of two bodies,
the two actions will be equal and directed to contrary parts.
One might think that the second is merely a restatement of the first, but
it will help to recognize them as independent. The first part applies to every
action. The second speaks about particular pairs of actions.
First, every physical action has an equal and opposite reaction. If I
walk, I push backwards against the earth, and as much motion as I gain
forward the earth gains backwards. "Motion," or Newton's "action" (motus)
is defined in Definition 2. "The quantity of motion is the measure of the
same, arising from the velocity and the quantity of matter conjointly."
Therefore my small mass gets a noticeable velocity forward, while the great
mass of the earth gets an imperceptible velocity backwards. These opposite
directions are the "contrary parts."
Or suppose we are walking not on the earth but on a small boat whose
bow we have just rowed up to the dock. As we walk to the bow of the boat,
the boat moves back away from the dock. In the water with a friend and a
rope, we see that when we pull on the rope, our friend starts moving
towards us, but we also start moving towards the friend. Not only are these
examples consistent with our experience, but in addition we can understand
�108
THE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
them mechanically. The Third Law seems true, at least for actions which
involve mutual contact.
And we notice right away that in the Law's statement and in the bulk of
its commentary, all the descriptions and examples do involve mutual contact.
It is only the last sentence that suggests anything other than pushes and
pulls. We will come back to consideration of that tacked-on last sentence,
and the question of attractions as Third Law mutual actions, in a moment.
The second part of the Third Law says that the mutual actions of two
bodies upon each other are always equal and directed to contrary parts. Here
we are given two actions which are said to be mutual. In light of the first
part of the Law, we know what sort of actions Newton is talking about when
he says mutual: they are the actions which are each other's reactions. When I
walk, the mutual actions are my being propelled forward and the earth (or
the boat) being propelled backwards. When I pull you with the rope the two
actions are our actions in moving towards each other.
Nowhere does the Third Law state or suggest that any two actions we
might select in the world are each other's equal and opposite reactions.
Indeed, such an idea is absurd. Even where there is some formal symmetry,
we have explored cases where there is clearly no cause and effect action and
reaction.
Let's go back to our billiard table with the two wielders of cue sticks
hitting two balls towards each other. Although, when we see the two balls
approach each other, we would say in common speech that they are
mutually approaching, we cannot say that the balls' two actions in so
approaching are "mutual" in the sense of the second part of the Law. They
are approaching each other, they are even directed to contrary parts; but,
impelled by independent taps of the different sticks, they are unlikely to be
approaching with equal quantities of motion. Even if the quantities of motion
are equal, it is by accident, or because the tappers have agreed to tap
equally, not because the approaches are each other's reactions.
We see that the word "mutual" in Law 3 is a very specialized sense of
the term, defined by the law itself as those pairs of actions which result from
each other and are equal and opposite. Many pairs of actions which are
"mutual" in the common language sense are not mutual in the Law 3 sense.
Not only are the two approaching billiard balls not displaying mutual
actions in this sense, neither are my husband and I when we walk towards
each other across the placita, attracted by each other and each desiring a
meeting. Every action, by the first part of the Law, has an equal and opposite
reaction, and so do these. The actions of the billiard balls have produced
their equal and opposite reactions in the cue sticks and arms of the human
agents. My walking towards my husband has had its equal and opposite
�DENSMORE
109
reaction in a motion of the earth, as does his movement towards me. But our
approaches, however simultaneous and symmetrical, are not mutual in the
sense of the second half of Law 3.
Gravitation Attractions as Third Law Actions. Well, do we assent to the
proposition that gravitational attractions are 1bird Law actions and reactions?
Or, perhaps more to the point, what could Newton be picturing as a
mechanism for these "attractions" that would make them fall under the Third
Law along with the pushes and pulls resulting from material contact?
Our first thought might be that including gravitational attraction under
the Third Law suggests that Newton is thinking that gravitational impulsion is
indeed mechanical, that he is picturing the mechanism as somehow,
somewhere, a result of something pushing or pulling.
Well, perhaps it is. Perhaps the planets are being pushed from behind
towards the sun. And perhaps the sun is being pushed towards the planets.
But is this mutual in the sense of Law 3? Not a bit: it's our two billiard balls
again.
Since to every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, the
gremlin pushing the sun will rebound back with a change in its quantity of
motion equal to that by which the sun's motion changes. The gremlin
pushing the planet will also move back with a change in its motion equal to
that change of motion with which the planet moves towards the sun. But
there is no reason to expect that the motion of the planet towards the sun
will be equal to the motion of the sun towards the planet, any more than to
expect the two billiard balls to have the same quantity of motion after being
tapped.
Even if a causal chain were postulated that went directly from the
action behind the sun to the action behind the planet, it would still not make
the resulting approaches Third Law mutual actions. In fact, no interaction we
might trace among successive aether particles connecting the sun to the back
of the planet is going to make those final actions mutual.
It does seem that the pushes of gremlins, or the impact or differential
pressure of aether particles (such as the two hypotheses mentioned above
which he had put forward earlier, before writing Principia), it does seem
that any of those mechanisms are simply inconsistent with the inclusion of
an appeal to the Third Law in the propositions on gravity.
Conclusion
Let's now tum back to the steps of Book III Proposition 7.
�110
THE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
The first step of Ill.? showed that all planets are mutually heavy in the
common language sense. The sixth step of III. 7 asserts that to every action
there is an equal reaction by the Third Law. These assertions are both
unexceptionable.
Step 7 says "[therefore] the planet B will in tum gravitate towards all
parts of planet A".
This conclusion seems to be expressed a bit carelessly, conflating the
two parts of the statement of the Third Law. It is not because every action
has an equal reaction that Step 7 follows, since each could have its reaction
elsewhere, as in recoil of its pusher-gremlin or in aether particles bouncing
back. Rather, Step 7 follows (if it does) because the mutual actions are each
other's reactions.
This has not actually been proved, but we see from its invocation that
Newton believes it to be true of the mutual actions of gravitational tendency.
The proposition depends in another way on the applicability of the
Third Law to gravitational attractions: it invokes Book I Prop. 69, which
includes an application of the Third Law in its own proof.
Furthermore, Newton asserted the applicability of the Third Law to
gravitational attractions in IlLS cor 1 as the justification for the gravitation of
the sun towards the planets. This is not part of the main line of the
argument, but adds to the evidence that he believed the Third Law to apply
to gravitational attractions.
This is yet further supported by his arguments in the Scholium after the
Laws of Motion, combined with the final sentence of his Law 3 commentary.
Newton believed that whatever caused gravity was a mutual action
between the two bodies in the sense of Law 3. His use of this assumption in
Step 7 of Ill. 7 is not a fluke or a slip.
And yet aether pressure, as well as, it seems, any other strictly
mechanical explanation, depends on third party actions such that the two
movements cannot be each other's mutual Law 3 reactions.
In fact, what about our "proofs" that gravitational attraction obeys the
Third Law from the Scholium after the Laws? They depend on the First Law
of Motion and Corollary 4 of the Laws (that the center of gravity of a
collection of bodies will remain at rest or move uniformly), and that corollary
explicitly states that "external actions and impediments are excluded." Only
then will the system remain at rest, that is, only then will the forces look
equal and opposite. (That is what those thought experiments in the Scholium
deal with, that a system will remain at rest and therefore, he concludes, the
forces must be equal and opposite.) This requires that, in talking about "the
actions of the bodies among themselves," only the two bodies may be
�DENSMORE
111
considered. No gremlins, no bungees, no Cartesian vortices, no Newtonian
aether pressure.
We seem compelled to conclude that, by the time of Principia, Newton
had completely rejected the possibility that there was a material aether
impelling the bodies together.
Furthermore, he could not, or at least did not, derive his principles of
universal gravitation allowing that, or any other mechanical intermediation,
as a possibility. He may have declined to offer an hypothesis about cause of
gravity, but he could not, or at least did not, leave the full range of options
open.
So I leave you with the question to ponder: What might Newton have
speculated could make a Third Law interaction between two bodies (or
particles) once mechanical intermediation and action at a distance have both
been ruled out?
Notes
1. Isaac Newton, Phi/osophice Natura/is Principia Mathematica, (first edition,
1687). References are to the third Latin edition (1726) with variant readings
edited by Alexandre Koyne and I. Bernard Cohen, (Harvard University
Press, 1972). I will refer to this work throughout as Principia. All English
translations are by William H. Donahue.
2. University Library, Cambridge, MS 3996, ff 97, 121. Published in Certain
Philosophical Questions: Newton's Trinity Notebook, ].E. McGuire and
Martin Tamny, (Cambridge University Press, 1983). Transcription of
Newton's notes entitled "Of gravity and levity," 362-365 and 426-427.
3. Newton to Oldenburg, 7 Dec 1675, Correspondence of Isaac Newton, Vol I,
365, (Cambridge University Press, 1960). Hereafter this will be cited as
Correspondence.
4. Letter to Boyle, 28 February 1678/9, Correspondence, Volume II, 288-295.
5. Newton to Bentley, 17 January 1692/3. Correspondence, Volume Ill.
6. Newton to Bentley, 17 January 1692/3. Correspondence, Volume III.
�112
THE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW
�
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<em>The St. John's Review</em><span> is published by the Office of the Dean, St. John's College. All manuscripts are subject to blind review. Address correspondence to </span><em>The St. John's Review</em><span>, St. John's College, 60 College Avenue, Annapolis, MD 21401 or via e-mail at </span><a class="obfuscated_link" href="mailto:review@sjc.edu"><span class="obfuscated_link_text">review@sjc.edu</span></a><span>.</span><br /><br /><em>The St. John's Review</em> exemplifies, encourages, and enhances the disciplined reflection that is nurtured by the St. John's Program. It does so both through the character most in common among its contributors — their familiarity with the Program and their respect for it — and through the style and content of their contributions. As it represents the St. John's Program, The St. John's Review espouses no philosophical, religious, or political doctrine beyond a dedication to liberal learning, and its readers may expect to find diversity of thought represented in its pages.<br /><br /><em>The St. John's Review</em> was first published in 1974. It merged with <em>The College </em>beginning with the July 1980 issue. From that date forward, the numbering of <em>The St. John's Review</em> continues that of <em>The College</em>. <br /><br />Click on <a title="The St. John's Review" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=13"><strong>Items in the The St. John's Review Collection</strong></a> to view and sort all items in the collection.
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The St. John's Review, 1999/2
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Kraus, Pamela
Brann, Eva T. H.
Carey, James
Ruhm von Oppen, Beate
Sachs, Joe
Van Doren, John
Williamson, Robert B.
Zuckerman, Elliott
McShane, Anne
Wilson Curtis
Fisher, Howard
Sachs, Joe
Flaumenhaft, Harvey
De Gandt, Francois
Donahue, William H.
Smith, George E.
Harper, William
Densmore, Dana
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The_St_Johns_Review_Vol_45_No_2_1999
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Annapolis, MD
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pdf
St. John's Review
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•
ST
JoHN's CoLLEGE
P.O. BOX 2800
ANNAPOLIS/ MARYLAND 21404
November 1991
fOUNDED 1696 AS KING WILLIAM' S SCHOOL
LECTURE/CONCERT SCHEDULE - 1991-92
August 30, 1991
Ms. Eva T. H. Brann, Dean
St. John's College
Annapolis
What is a Book?
September 6
Mr. Michael Dink, Tutor
St . John's College
Annapolis
The Wrath of Achilles
September 13
Ms. Judith Seeger, Tutor
and Professor Anthony Seeger
St. John's College
Annapolis
The Anatomy of Shame:
A Shameless Excursion
from Athens to the Amazon
September 20
Professor Lucius outlaw
Department of Philosophy
Haverford College
Haverford, PA
'Race' and Social Justice :
On W.E.B. DuBois' 'The
Conservation of Races'
September 27
Professor Ellen Davis
New York, New York
Story-Telling With
Pictures: A Greek
Invention
October 11
Concert
October 16
(Wednesday)
Mr. Howard Fisher, Tutor
St. John's College
Annapolis
The Body Electric
October 25
Professor Gregory Nagy
Department of Classics
Harvard University
Cambridge, MA
Myth as Exemplum
in Homer
November 1
Professor Amy Kass
Chicago, IL
The Education of
Telemachos
November 8
Ms. Dorothy Guyot, Tutor
St. John's College
Annapolis
Are Police Officers to
American Cities as the
Auxiliaries are to the
Platonic Republic
November 15
Ms. Linda Wiener, Tutor
St. John's College
Santa Fe
Shark Dissection as
Poetry and Philosophy:
The Practice of Science
TELEPHONE 301-263-2371
�The Ecology of Human
Reproduction
November 22
Professor Peter Ellison
Department of Biology
Harvard University
Cambridge, MA
December 6
King William Players
January 10, 1992
Is Thinking Spontaneous?
Professor Stanley Rosen
Department of Philosophy
Pennsylvania state University
University Park, PA
January 17
Mr. Leo Pickens
Director, Athletics
St. John's College
Annapolis
'Box Where Sweets Compacted
Lie': An Explication of
Donne's "Nocturnal Upon
st. Lucies Day"
January 24
Mr. Andre Barbera, Tutor
St. John's College
Annapolis
An Account of Musical
Taste
February 5
(Wednesday)
Ms. Lila Luce, Tutor
St. John's College
Annapolis
Logic After Aristotle
February 7
Mr. Peter Seeger
Concert
February 14
Professor Edward C. Smith
School of Education
The American University
Washington, D.C.
Frederick Douglass's
Influence on the War
Strategy of Abraham
Lincoln
February 21
Mr. Harvey Flaumenhaft, Tutor Reluctance, Risk, and
st. John's College
Reputation:
George
washington Decides to
Annapolis
Preside
March 20
Mr. Mortimer J. Adler
Institute for Philosophical
Research
Chicago, IL
March 27
Professor Don E. Fehrenbacher Lincoln and the American
Department of History
Literary Figures of
stanford University
His Time
Stanford, CA
April 3
Mr. Joe Sachs, Tutor
St. John's College
Annapolis
War and Peace
The Battle of the Gods
and the Giants
�April 10
Professor Tu Weiming
East Asian Languages
Harvard University
Cambridge, MA
An Interpretive Reading
of the Great Learning
April 15
(Wednesday)
Mr. Erik Sageng, Tutor
St. John's College
Annapolis
A Baconian Mathematics:
MacLaurin's Motivation
for His Adherence to
'Ancient Standards of
Evidence and Certainty'
April 24
King William Players
May 1
Professor Ray Coppinger
Hampshire College
Amherst, MA
The Domestication
of Evolution
May 8
Mr. John E. Pfeiffer
New Hope, PA
Paleolithic Painting:
The Origins of Art
and Religion
�
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Items in this collection are part of a series of lectures given every year at St. John's College. During the Fall and Spring semesters, lectures are given on Friday nights. Items include audio and video recordings and typescripts.<br /><br />For more information, and for a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <strong><a href="http://www.sjc.edu/programs-and-events/annapolis/formal-lecture-series/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">St. John's College website</a></strong>. <br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="Formal Lecture Series" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5">Items in the St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection.<br /><br />A growing number of lecture recordings are also available on the St. John's College (Annapolis) Lectures podcast. Visit <a href="https://anchor.fm/greenfieldlibrary" title="Anchor.fm">Anchor.fm</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/st-johns-college-annapolis-lectures/id1695157772">Apple Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy84Yzk5MzdhYy9wb2RjYXN0L3Jzcw" title="Google Podcasts">Google Podcasts</a>, or <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/6GDsIRqC8SWZ28AY72BsYM?si=f2ecfa9e247a456f" title="Spotify">Spotify</a> to listen and subscribe.
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Lecture/Concert Schedule - 1991-92
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Schedule of lectures and concerts for the 1991-1992 Academic Year.
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Brann, Eva T. H.
Dink, Michael
Seeger, Judith Leland, 1944-
Outlaw, Lucius T., 1944-
Davis, Ellen
Fisher, Howard
Nagy, Gregory
Kass, Amy
Guyot, Dorothy
Wiener, Linda F., 1957-
Ellison, Peter
Rosen, Stanley
Pickens, Leo
Barbera, André
Luce, Lila
Seeger, Peter
Smith, Edward C.
Flaumenhaft, Harvey, 1938-
Adler, Mortimer Jerome, 1902-2001
Fehrenbacher, Don E. (Don Edward), 1920-1997
Sachs, Joe
Weiming, Tu
Sageng, Erik Lars
Coppinger, Raymond
Pfeiffer, John E., 1915-
King William Players
Relation
A related resource
August 30, 1991. Brann, Eva, T. H. <a href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/show/1242" title="What is a book?">What is a book?</a> (typescript)
March 6, 1992. Sachs, Joe. <a href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/show/3719" title="Battle of the gods and giants">Battle of the gods and giants</a> (audio)
March 6, 1992. Sachs, Joe. <a href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/show/3720" title="Battle of the gods and giants">Battle of the gods and giants</a> (typescript)
Friday night lecture
Lecture schedule
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Text
I
•
ST
JoHN's CoLLEGE
ANNAPO LI S. MARYLAND 2140 4
Fou N D LO
September 16
!• ·'~~> A ~ K 1
Nc; WilliAM\
S<
H<>O I
FORMAL LECTURE/CONCERT SCHEDULE 1983-84
Mr. Samuel S. Kutler, Dean
St . John's College, Annapolis
On Freedom
September 23
Mrs . Mera Flaumenhaft, Tutor
St . John's College, Annapolis
Looking Together in
Athens: The Dionys ian
Tragedy and Festival
September 30
Mr. Robert Goldwin
American Enterprise Institute
James Madison and the
Bill of Rights:
Something More Than a
Change of Mind
October 7
Mr . Charles Bell, Tutor
St . John's College, Santa Fe
The Axiomatic Drama of
Classical Physics
October 14
Long Weekend
No Lecture
October 21
Mr. Carey Stickney, Tutor
St. John's College, Santa Fe
The Tears of Odysseus
October 28
Miss Eva Brann, Tutor
St. John's College, Annapolis
Intellect and Intui tion
November 4
The Fine Arts Quartet
Concert
November ll
Professor Jose Benardete
Philosophy Department
Syracuse University
November 18
All College Seminar
Death in Venice
November 25
Thanksgiving Holiday
No Lecture
December 2
Professor Ray Coppinger
Hampshire College
The Evolution of Behavior
in Humans and Dogs
December 9
Mr. Samuel S . Kutler, Dean
St . John's College, Annapolis
(POSTPONED)
,
TELEPHONE 301 • 263 • 2171
Infinity
On Comp lex Number s
�January 6
Maryland Heritage Concert
January 13
Professor Richard Morris
Columbia University
How the Great Peace of
1783 Was Made and Ratified
January 20
Mr. William Mullen, Tutor
St. John's College, Annapolis
The Dances of Plato
and Pindar
January 27
Judith Gray, Soprano
Concert
February 3
Mr. James Beall, Tutor
St. John's College, Annapolis
February 10
Long weekend
February 17
Mr. John Bremer
On Plato's Polity
Trotter Institute of Philosophy,
Management, and Education, Houston, Texas
February 24
Mr. Mortimer J. Adler
Institute for Philosophical Research
March 2
Professor Ernest L6 Fortin
Department of Theology
Boston College
Political Philosophy as
Prophesy: Dante's Comedy
March 30
Leo Smit, Piano
Concert
April 6
Mr. Howard Fisher, Tutor
St. John's College, Annapolis
A Grecian Urn
April l3
Mr. Peter Kalkavage, Tutor
St. John's College, Annapolis
The Song of Timaeus
April 20
Mrs. Wendy Allanbrook, Tutor
St. John's College, Annapolis
Don Giovanni's Proper
Music
Galactic Nuclei, Active
Galactic Nuclei, and Quasars
No Lecture
Parts of Life
April 27
Mr. William Banks
Pomona College
Claremont California
May 4
Mr. Elliott Zuckerman, Tutor
St. John's College, Annapolis
May 11
Professor Paul Barolsky
Delartment of Art
University of Virginia
Botticelli's - - - Vera:
Prima - The Anatomy of a
Masterpiece
May 18
Dr. Peter Arnott
Winchester, Massachusetts
~1arionette
May 25
Commencement Weekend
Perceptual Experience and
the Mechanisms of Human
Vision
On the Opening Chord of
Wagner's Ring
of Clouds
No Lecture
Performance
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Description
An account of the resource
Items in this collection are part of a series of lectures given every year at St. John's College. During the Fall and Spring semesters, lectures are given on Friday nights. Items include audio and video recordings and typescripts.<br /><br />For more information, and for a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <strong><a href="http://www.sjc.edu/programs-and-events/annapolis/formal-lecture-series/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">St. John's College website</a></strong>. <br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="Formal Lecture Series" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5">Items in the St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection.<br /><br />A growing number of lecture recordings are also available on the St. John's College (Annapolis) Lectures podcast. Visit <a href="https://anchor.fm/greenfieldlibrary" title="Anchor.fm">Anchor.fm</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/st-johns-college-annapolis-lectures/id1695157772">Apple Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy84Yzk5MzdhYy9wb2RjYXN0L3Jzcw" title="Google Podcasts">Google Podcasts</a>, or <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/6GDsIRqC8SWZ28AY72BsYM?si=f2ecfa9e247a456f" title="Spotify">Spotify</a> to listen and subscribe.
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St. John's College Greenfield Library
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St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
formallectureseriesannapolis
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Page numeration
Number of pages in the original item.
2 pages
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
paper
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Office of the Dean
Title
A name given to the resource
Formal Lecture/Concert Schedule 1983-84
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1983-1984
Description
An account of the resource
Schedule of lectures and concerts for the 1983-1984 Academic Year.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Lecture Schedule 1983-1984
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Annapolis, MD
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
St. John's College
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
text
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
St. John's College owns the rights to this publication.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
pdf
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Kutler, Samual S.
Flaumenhaft, Mera J.
Goldwin, Robert A., 1922-2010
Bell, Charles
Stickney, Carey
Brann, Eva T. H.
Benardete, José A. (José Amado)
Coppinger, Raymond
Morris, Richard
Mullen, William
Gray, Judith
Beall, James
Bremer, John
Adler, Mortimer Jerome, 1902-2001
Fortin, Ernest L.
Smit, Leo
Fisher, Howard
Kalkavage, Peter
Allanbrook, Wendy
Banks, William
Zuckerman, Elliott
Barolsky, Paul, 1941-
Arnott, Peter
King William Players
Relation
A related resource
April 13, 1984. Kalkavage, Peter. <a href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/show/3809" title="The song of Timaeus">The song of Timaeus</a>
Friday night lecture
Lecture schedule
-
https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/d3c8853da4ea88c12ca2842ede8c34fe.pdf
b2f2d4ec5e5d663b296189b78ab1a7d3
PDF Text
Text
~
ST
JoHN's Co LLE GE
ANNAPOLIS, MARYLAND 21 404
FouN oLo IW6 As KING W i LLI AM's ScHOOL
Lecture Schedule 1 975 -76
Sept . 1 2, 1975
Curtis Wilson, Dean
St. John's College Annapolis
Homo loquens from a Biological
Standpoint
Sept. 19
The App l e Hill Chamber Players
Concert
Sept. 26
Charles Bell, Tutor
St. John'sCollege, Santa Fe
Rome
Oct. 3
Laurence Richardson
Duke University
Pompeii
Oct. 1 0
Douglas Allanbrook, Tutor
St. John ' s College, Annapolis
Power and Grace
Oct. 17
Long Weekend
No Lecture
Oct. 24
Alumni Weekend
Tom Simpson
St. John's College, Santa Fe
Newton and the Libera l Arts
Oct. 31
Wolfgang Lederer
How One Cures the Soul
Nov . 7
All College Seminar
No Lecture
Nov. 14
Douglas Allanbrook, Tutor
St. John ' s College, Annapolis
Concert
Nov . 16
James Ack erman
Fogg Art Museum
Harvard University
Miche langelo's Religion
Nov. 2 1
Duane Rumbaugh, Chairman
Dept . Psychology
Georgia State University
The Learning of Language
by The Chimpanzee
Nov. 28
Thanksgiving
No Lecture
Dec . 5
King William Players
Play
Dec . 12
Mortimer Adler
Institute for Phi losophical
Research
The American Testament
Jan. 9, 1976
Robert L. Spaeth, Tutor
St. John's College, Annapolis
The Connection of Physical Science
With Philosophy and Re l igi on in
the Thought of Sir Arthur Eddington
Jan . 16
Howard Fisher , Tutor
St. John ' s College, Annapolis
The Great Electrical Philosopher
T[L[I'HONE 301 -l61- 2"371
�Page 2
Lecture 1975-76
Father Colman Barry, Dean
Catholic University
The Church Divided:
Question
George Anastaplo
Rosary College
Piety, Prudence and the
Mayflower Compact
Feb. 3
Joseph Tydings
Cancelled
Feb. 6
Long Weekend
No Lecture
Feb. 13
Annapolis Brass Quintet
Concert
Feb. 15
Joseph Alsop
Medici Art Collecting in the
15th Century
Feb. 20
Robert A. Goldwin
Special Consultant to the
President
Of Men and Angels:
In Search
for Morality in the Constitution
Feb. 27
Steven Crockett, Tutor
St. John's College, Annapolis
Webern, Symmetry, and Time
March 5
Herbert Storing
University of Chicago
The Founders' Views on Slavery
March 14-29
Spring Vacation
No Lecture
April 2
Ray Williamson, Tutor
St. John's College, Annapolis
How Far is Up (On the Size of
the Universe)
April 9
Leonard Lutwack
University of Maryland
The American and His Land:
The Literary Record
April 13
Charles Segal
Brown University
Euripides' Bacchae
April 23
Max Isenbergh
University of Maryland
School of Law
A Serious Citizen's Guide to
Reading the Constitution and
Judging the Supreme Court
April 30
Eva T. H. Brann, Tutor
St. John's College, Annapolis
The Declaration of Independence
May 5
Reality
No Lecture
May 14
Paul Tobias
Cellist
May 16
(Sun)
Thomas 0 'Brien
Keats and Nature
May 21
Benjamin Milner, Tutor
St. John's College, Annapolis
Jan. 23
Jan.
30
A
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Description
An account of the resource
Items in this collection are part of a series of lectures given every year at St. John's College. During the Fall and Spring semesters, lectures are given on Friday nights. Items include audio and video recordings and typescripts.<br /><br />For more information, and for a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <strong><a href="http://www.sjc.edu/programs-and-events/annapolis/formal-lecture-series/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">St. John's College website</a></strong>. <br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="Formal Lecture Series" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5">Items in the St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection.<br /><br />A growing number of lecture recordings are also available on the St. John's College (Annapolis) Lectures podcast. Visit <a href="https://anchor.fm/greenfieldlibrary" title="Anchor.fm">Anchor.fm</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/st-johns-college-annapolis-lectures/id1695157772">Apple Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy84Yzk5MzdhYy9wb2RjYXN0L3Jzcw" title="Google Podcasts">Google Podcasts</a>, or <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/6GDsIRqC8SWZ28AY72BsYM?si=f2ecfa9e247a456f" title="Spotify">Spotify</a> to listen and subscribe.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
St. John's College Greenfield Library
Title
A name given to the resource
St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
formallectureseriesannapolis
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Page numeration
Number of pages in the original item.
2 pages
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
paper
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Office of the Dean
Title
A name given to the resource
Lecture Schedule 1975-76
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1975-1976
Description
An account of the resource
Schedule of lectures and concerts for the 1975-1976 Academic Year.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Lecture Schedule 1975-1976
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Annapolis, MD
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
St. John's College
Language
A language of the resource
English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
text
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
St. John's College owns the rights to this publication.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
pdf
Relation
A related resource
September 12, 1975. Wilson, Curtis. <a title="Homo loquens from a biological standpoint" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/show/3652"><em>Homo loquens</em> from a biological standpoint</a> (typescript)
September 12, 1975. Wilson, Curtis. <a href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/show/3670" title="Homo loquens from a biological standpoint"><em>Homo loquens</em> from a biological standpoint</a> (audio)
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Wilson, Curtis
Bell, Charles
Richardson, Laurence
Allanbrook, Douglas
Lederer, Wolfgang, 1912-2003
Ackerman, James
Rumbaugh, Duane M., 1929-
Adler, Mortimer Jerome, 1902-2001
Spaeth, Robert L.
Fisher, Howard
Barry, Fr. Colman
Anastaplo, George, 1925-2014
Tydings, Joseph D. (Joseph Davies), 1928-
Alsop, Joseph, 1910-1989
Goldwin, Robert A., 1922-2010
Crockett, Steven
Storing, Herbert J., 1928-
Williamson, Ray
Lutwack, Leonard, 1917-2008
Segal, Charles
Isenbergh, Max
Brann, Eva T. H.
Tobias, Paul
O'Brien, Thomas
Milner, Benjamin
King William Players
Friday night lecture
Lecture schedule
-
https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/fbd81987bada9cd1e1370ed18cfcd3b5.pdf
cf28a496df6962be09124d65f62e14c1
PDF Text
Text
•
SJC
LECTURE/CONCERT SCHEDULE 2016-2017
FffiST SEMESTER
Date
Title
Speaker
August 26, 2016
Mr. Joseph Macfarland
Dean
St. John's College
Annapolis
"Two Good Men in
Aristotle's Ethics, or does
a liberal education
improve one's
character?"
September 2
Mr. Elliott Zuckerman
Retired Tutor
St. John's College
Annapolis
All in C Major: On the
beginning of Bach's WellTempered Clavier
September 9
Mr. Robert Abbott
Tutor
St. John's College
Annapolis
"The Horses of Achilles"
September 16
Mr. Steven Crockett
Tutor
St. John's College
Annapolis
"Who should elect the
President?"
September 23
(Homecoming Weekend)
The Parker Quartet
Concert
September 30
Dr. Leon Kass
Professor Emeritus
University of Chicago and
Madden-Jewett Chair
American Enterprise Institute
"The Ten
Commandments"
October 7
Long Weekend
No Lecture
October 14
Dr. Matthew Crawford
Senior Fellow and author
University of Virginia's
Institute for Advanced Studies
in Culture
"Attention as a Cultural
Problem and the Possibility
of Education"
60 College Avenue I Annapolis, Maryland 21401
I 410-263-2371 I www.sjc.edu
�Lecture/Concert Series - First Semester 2016-2017
Date
Speaker
Title
October 21
(Parents' Weekend)
Faculty Panel on Iliad
Book 24
October 28
All College Seminar
November 4
Folger Consort
"Songs of Shakespeare"
November 11
Dr. Jan Blits
Professor
School of Education
University of Delaware
"Deadly Virtue:
Shakespeare's Macbeth"
November 18
King William Players
Perfonnance
November 25
Thanksgiving Holiday
December 2
Michael Grenke
Tutor
St. John's College
Santa Fe
"The Meaning of Rome"
December 9
Dr. Shobita Satyapal
Associate Professor
Department of Physics &
Astronomy
George Mason University
"The Connection between
Supermassive Black
Holes and Galaxies"
December 16 January 8
Winter Vacation
No Lectures
Book 24 of Homer's Iliad
�•
SJC
LECTURE/CONCERT SCHEDULE 2016-2017
SECOND SEMESTER
Date
Title
Speaker
January 13, 2017
Julian Lage - guitar
Fred Hersch - piano
Jazz Concert
January 20
Matthew Linck
Tutor
St. John's College
Annapolis
"Thinking about Nature"
January 27
All College Seminar
February 3
Long Weekend
No Lecture
February 10
Howard Fisher
Tutor
St. John's College
Santa Fe
"In Praise of Caloric"
February 17
Richard DeMillo
Mellon Grant Speaker Digital Technology
"A Revolution in Higher
Education: Tales from
Unlikely Allies"
February 24
Elizabeth Yale
University of Iowa
"The Books of Nature"
March 3March 20
Spring Break
No Lectures
March 24
Chester Burke
Tutor
St. John's College
Annapolis
"Does a Single Photon
Exist?"
March 31
(Steiner Lecture)
Lydia Polgreen
Steiner Lecturer
The Huffington Post
"American Identity in the
Age of Trump"
60 College Avenue I Annapolis, Maryland 21401
I 410-263-2371 I www.sjc.edu
�Lecture/Concert Series - Second Semester 2016-2017
Date
Speaker
Title
April 7
St. John's College Orchestra
Concert
April 14
Fawn Trigg
NEH Chair
Tutor
St. John's College
Annapolis
with Nicolas Pellon - piano
"On Some Silences in
Beethoven's Piano
Sonatas"
April 21
(Croquet Weekend)
Steven Hancoff (Alumnus)
Johann Sebastian Bach
and The Six Suites for
Cello Solo -A Fanciful
and Extravagant Allegory
April 28
King William Players
Performance
May 5
Reality Show
No Lecture
May 12
Commencement Weekend
No Lecture
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Description
An account of the resource
Items in this collection are part of a series of lectures given every year at St. John's College. During the Fall and Spring semesters, lectures are given on Friday nights. Items include audio and video recordings and typescripts.<br /><br />For more information, and for a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <strong><a href="http://www.sjc.edu/programs-and-events/annapolis/formal-lecture-series/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">St. John's College website</a></strong>. <br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="Formal Lecture Series" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5">Items in the St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection.<br /><br />A growing number of lecture recordings are also available on the St. John's College (Annapolis) Lectures podcast. Visit <a href="https://anchor.fm/greenfieldlibrary" title="Anchor.fm">Anchor.fm</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/st-johns-college-annapolis-lectures/id1695157772">Apple Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy84Yzk5MzdhYy9wb2RjYXN0L3Jzcw" title="Google Podcasts">Google Podcasts</a>, or <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/6GDsIRqC8SWZ28AY72BsYM?si=f2ecfa9e247a456f" title="Spotify">Spotify</a> to listen and subscribe.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
St. John's College Greenfield Library
Title
A name given to the resource
St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
formallectureseriesannapolis
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
pdf
Page numeration
Number of pages in the original item.
4 pages
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Lecture/Concert Schedule 2016-2017
Description
An account of the resource
Schedule of lectures and concerts for the 2016-2017 Academic Year.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Office of the Dean
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
St. John's College
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Annapolis, MD
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-2017
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
St. John's College owns the rights to this publication.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
text
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
pdf
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Macfarland, Joseph C.
Zuckerman, Elliott
Abbott, Robert Charles, Jr.
Crockett, Steven
The Parker Quartet
Kass, Leon
Crawford, Matthew
Folger Consort
Blits, Jan H.
Grenke, Michael W.
Satyapal, Shobita
Lage, Julian
Hersch, Fred
Linck, Matthew S.
Fisher, Howard
DeMillo, Richard A.
Yale, Elizabeth
Burke, Chester
Polgreen, Lydia
St. John's College Orchestra
Trigg, Fawn
Hancoff, Steven
King William Players
Relation
A related resource
August 26, 2016. Macfarland, Joe. <a href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/show/2403" title="Two good men in Aristotle's Ethics"><span>Two good men in Aristotle's </span><em>Ethics </em></a>(typescript)
September 2, 2016. Zuckerman, Elliott. <a href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/show/967" title="All in C Major">All in C Major</a> (audio)
September 9, 2016. Abbott, Robert. <a href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/show/1078" title="The horses of Achilles">The horses of Achilles</a> (audio)
September 9, 2016. Abbott, Robert. <a href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/show/1139" title="The horses of Achilles">The horses of Achilles</a> (typescript)
September 16, 2016. Crockett, Steven. <a href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/show/1097" title="Who should elect the President?">Who should elect the President?</a> (audio)
September 30, 2016. Kass, Leon. <a href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/show/1254" title="The ten commandments">The ten commandments</a> (audio)
December 2, 2016. Grenke, Michael. <a href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/show/1500" title="The meaning of Rome">The meaning of Rome</a> (audio)
January 20, 2017. Linck, Matthew. <a href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/show/1798" title="Thinking about nature">Thinking about nature</a> (audio)
January 20, 2017. Linck, Matthew. <a href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/show/1784" title="Thinking about nature">Thinking about nature</a> (typescript)
February 10, 2017. Fisher, Howard. <a href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/show/1799" title="In praise of Caloric, part one">In praise of Caloric, part one</a> (audio)
February 12, 2017. Fisher, Howard. <a href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/show/1800" title="Entropy, the new Caloric, part two">Entropy, the new Caloric, part two</a> (audio)
February 17, 2017. DeMillo, Richard. <a href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/show/1928" title="A revolution in higher education">A revolution in higher education</a> (audio)
February 24, 2017. Yale, Elizabeth. <a href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/show/1946" title="Books of nature">Books of nature</a> (audio)
March 24, 2017. Burke, Chester. <a href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/show/2042" title="Does a single photon exist?">Does a single photon exist?</a> (audio)
March 31, 2017. Polgreen, Lydia. <a href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/show/2043" title="American identity in the age of Trump">American identity in the age of Trump</a> (audio)
April 21, 2017. Hancoff, Steven. <a href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/show/2657" title="Johann Sebastian Back and The Six Suites for Cell Solo">Johann Sebastian Back and <em>The Six Suites for Cello Solo</em></a> (audio)
Friday night lecture
Lecture schedule
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