âpercussionâ, and to solution and crystallisation.
This stance has been taken over by todayâs innocents of rigorousthinking, the New Agers, who find spiritual inspiration in crystals and anodised metals, spherical spark-machines and Newtonâs pendulums, but do not ask the deeper questions that lie behind these toys. We find the very real awe inspired by scienceâs quest for understanding to be considerably more spiritual than New Age attitudes.
Today there are mystic massage-therapists, aromatherapists, iridologists, people who believe that you can âholisticallyâ tell whatâs wrong with someone by examining their irises or the balls of their feet â only â and who root their beliefs in the writings of Renaissance eccentrics like Paracelsus and Dee. But those men would have been horrified to be cited as authorities, especially by such closed-minded descendants.
Prominent among those who refer back to Paracelsus for authority are homeopathists. A basic belief of homeopathy is that medicines become more powerful the more they are diluted. This stance lets them promote their medicine as being totally harmless (itâs just water) but also extraordinarily effective (as water isnât). They notice no contradiction here. And homeopathic headache tablets say âTake one if mild, three if painfulâ. Shouldnât it be the other way round?
Such people see no need to think about what they are doing, because they base their beliefs on authority. If a question is not raised by that authority, then itâs not a question they want to ask. So, in support of their theories, homeopaths quote Paracelsus: âThat which makes disease is also the cure.â But Paracelsus built his entire career on not respecting authority. Moreover, he never said that a disease is always its own cure.
Contrast this modern spectrum of silliness with the robust, critical attitude of most Renaissance scholars to the idea that arcane practices can lay bare the bones of the world. People such as Dee, indeed Isaac Newton, took that critical position very seriously. To a great extent, so did Paracelsus: for example he repudiated the idea that the stars and planets control various parts of the human body. The Renaissance view was that Godâs creation has mysterious elements, but those elements are hidden, 3 implicit in the nature of the universe, rather than arcane.
This view is very close to Antonie van Leeuwenhoekâs marvelling at the animalcules in dirty water, or semen: the astonishing discovery that the Wonders of Creation extended down into the microscopic realm. Nature, Godâs Creation, was much more subtle. It provided hidden wonders to marvel at as well as the overt artistic vision. Newton was taken with the implicit mathematics of the planets in just this way: there was more to Godâs invention than was apparent to the unaided eye, and that resonated with his Hermetic beliefs (a philosophy derived from the ideas of Hermes Trismegistos). The crisis of atomism at the time was the crisis of pre-formation: if Eve had within her all her daughters, each having within her her daughters like a set of Russian dolls, then matter must be infinitely divisible. Or, if not, we could work out the future date of Judgement Day by discovering how many generations there were until we got to the last, empty daughter.
A characteristic of Renaissance thinking, then, was a degree of humility. It was critical about its own explanations. This attitude contrasts favourably with such modern religions as homeopathy or scientology, creeds that arrogantly claim to offer a âcompleteâ explanation of the Universe in human terms.
Some scientists are equally arrogant, but good scientists are always aware that science has limitations, and are willing to explain what they are. âI donât knowâ is one of the great, though admittedly under-utilised, scientific principles. Admitting
This stance has been taken over by todayâs innocents of rigorousthinking, the New Agers, who find spiritual inspiration in crystals and anodised metals, spherical spark-machines and Newtonâs pendulums, but do not ask the deeper questions that lie behind these toys. We find the very real awe inspired by scienceâs quest for understanding to be considerably more spiritual than New Age attitudes.
Today there are mystic massage-therapists, aromatherapists, iridologists, people who believe that you can âholisticallyâ tell whatâs wrong with someone by examining their irises or the balls of their feet â only â and who root their beliefs in the writings of Renaissance eccentrics like Paracelsus and Dee. But those men would have been horrified to be cited as authorities, especially by such closed-minded descendants.
Prominent among those who refer back to Paracelsus for authority are homeopathists. A basic belief of homeopathy is that medicines become more powerful the more they are diluted. This stance lets them promote their medicine as being totally harmless (itâs just water) but also extraordinarily effective (as water isnât). They notice no contradiction here. And homeopathic headache tablets say âTake one if mild, three if painfulâ. Shouldnât it be the other way round?
Such people see no need to think about what they are doing, because they base their beliefs on authority. If a question is not raised by that authority, then itâs not a question they want to ask. So, in support of their theories, homeopaths quote Paracelsus: âThat which makes disease is also the cure.â But Paracelsus built his entire career on not respecting authority. Moreover, he never said that a disease is always its own cure.
Contrast this modern spectrum of silliness with the robust, critical attitude of most Renaissance scholars to the idea that arcane practices can lay bare the bones of the world. People such as Dee, indeed Isaac Newton, took that critical position very seriously. To a great extent, so did Paracelsus: for example he repudiated the idea that the stars and planets control various parts of the human body. The Renaissance view was that Godâs creation has mysterious elements, but those elements are hidden, 3 implicit in the nature of the universe, rather than arcane.
This view is very close to Antonie van Leeuwenhoekâs marvelling at the animalcules in dirty water, or semen: the astonishing discovery that the Wonders of Creation extended down into the microscopic realm. Nature, Godâs Creation, was much more subtle. It provided hidden wonders to marvel at as well as the overt artistic vision. Newton was taken with the implicit mathematics of the planets in just this way: there was more to Godâs invention than was apparent to the unaided eye, and that resonated with his Hermetic beliefs (a philosophy derived from the ideas of Hermes Trismegistos). The crisis of atomism at the time was the crisis of pre-formation: if Eve had within her all her daughters, each having within her her daughters like a set of Russian dolls, then matter must be infinitely divisible. Or, if not, we could work out the future date of Judgement Day by discovering how many generations there were until we got to the last, empty daughter.
A characteristic of Renaissance thinking, then, was a degree of humility. It was critical about its own explanations. This attitude contrasts favourably with such modern religions as homeopathy or scientology, creeds that arrogantly claim to offer a âcompleteâ explanation of the Universe in human terms.
Some scientists are equally arrogant, but good scientists are always aware that science has limitations, and are willing to explain what they are. âI donât knowâ is one of the great, though admittedly under-utilised, scientific principles. Admitting
Similar Books
