The seventeenth century marked the beginning of a new era of scientific pursuit which began under several circumstances. In 1543 the West recovered the works of Greek scientist Archimedes which gave a stimulus to further inquiry. But this body of knowledge, though spectacular, was faulty because its conclusions which were based on incomplete observations and the physical world was often described in terms of philosophic qualities like heaviness or wetness. Only when these propositions were rejected by European scientists was real scientific progress made possible. As well the Christian tradition of the Middle Ages which said the universe, made by God, was explicable by rational analysis. The scientists of the seventeenth century believed much of the same and sought out the right answers by asking the right questions. Third, they inherited the scholastic tradition of careful and precise thought but rejected the emphasis on complex reasoning in favor of a closer examination of physical facts. Fourth, their more careful examination was made possible by the development of European technology and therefore scientific instruments. Finally, the scientists were driven by a sense of revolt against authority and chose to seek out new explanations of natural phenomena.
To aid them in approaching questions and problems in an orderly fashion, these seventeenth century scientists produced a scientific method which rejected authority as a guide to knowledge. Additionally, all philosophical speculation on qualities was rejected and they focused on measurable quantities and any relationships between them.
One of the greatest thinkers and scientists of this time was Francis Bacon, 1561-1626. He believed that what he perceived through his senses could be accepted as scientifically proved. Bacon raised the respectability of science by his prediction that science as a whole would allow man to better understand and control the forces of nature.
Another significant figure at this time was Rene Descartes who developed the system of mathematics we know today as analytical geometry which expressed the space relationships of geometry in algebraic terms. He also developed a variation of the scientific method name after himself, as Cartesian. In it he sought to reason out the entire structure of the universe from a few basic principles. He tested each new concept rigorously but neglected to gather observations and experiment to confirm the conclusions produced by his chain of reasoning.
During this time mathematics was thrust forward with such achievements as symbols for addition, multiplication, subtraction, and division, the decimal point, a way to represent fractions and powers which is still used today, and a much more convenient and flexible system of notation. William Oughtred invented a slide rule in the 1620s and Blaine Pascal developed the first calculating machine in 1642. Differential and integral calculus were nearly simultaneously invented by Gottfried Leibnitz and Isaac Newton.
Much was achieved at this time in the field of astronomy. One of the hardest things to accomplish was getting over the generally accepted notion that the universe was a finite sphere with the earth at the center, called the geocentric theory. This was challenged and in turn began a revolution in western man’s interpretation of nature. Copernicus was the first to make this challenge. In his work, On the Revolution’s of the Heavenly Bodies, Copernicus posited that the earth was not the center of the universe, but one of many heavenly bodies that revolved around the sun. Giordano Bruno claimed that the universe was not a finite body, but infinite in extent and contained numberless suns and planets resembling our own in each God was equally present. For this he was burned at the stake in 1600.
Gaileo Galilei agreed with Copernicus’ concept of a heliocentric universe and is most known for his invention of the telescope which ended the notion of a finite universe. Kepler made the next pivotal step by correctly inferring that the planets moved in ellipses and not circles.
The greatest scientist produced by England, Newton, is known for his law of gravitation which asserted that bodies in the universe attract one another with a force which varies in proportion to the product of their masses but inversely as the square of the distance between them. He developed calculus and laid it out in his book The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy.
In medicine, William Harvey published an account of the circulation of the blood in 1628 and Athanasius Kircher speculated that bacteria could cause disease and decay. In Biology, Antony van Leeuenhoek wrote the first complete description of the red blood cells and was the first to see bacteria. Linnaeus made progress in classification, later termed taxonomy. In Chemistry, Robert Boyle defined the terms of chemical element, compound, and reaction.
Of course a reaction came out of the church in response to the scientific revolution. The Catholic Inquisition opposed science because it reached conclusions contrary to traditional Christian beliefs as the heliocentric theory for example. Because of this, Galileo was forced to repudiate the Copernican theory and spent nine years under house arrest.
Despite claims to the contrary, the new science did not destroy traditional religion, but compelled them to consider the religious significance of this greatly expanded and complicated universe we lived in.
Due to the scientific revolution, an intellectual revolution occurred in the eighteenth century which saw the rise of a new religion called Deism as a reaction against traditional Christianity. Both the Cartesian and Newtonian schools of thought saw the universe as operating according to very fixed mathematical laws, almost like a clock. These Deists followed this train of thought and generally ignored the Bible, sought knowledge in a direct study of nature, and believed that virtue consisted of falling these natural laws. They were additionally influenced by the anti-clerical movement of the Middle Ages and the disgust they felt for the religious persecutions carried out by established churches. All agreed that the existence of this clock presupposed a Great Mechanic to maintain it. The difference came in the role of this Mechanic. Descartes said God kept the cosmos up and even recreated it. Newton said God’s duties were to keep the fixed stars in their place and to repair the machine when necessary. Most deists just asserted that God created the universe but does not interfere with its perfect mechanical operation. Miracles did not occur since this would involve the breaking of a natural law and finally said God remained visible except as a type of constitutional monarch ruling by eternal laws.
The end of the seventeenth century saw the rise of a number of reformers called philosophies. These men were more than philosophers, but rationalists, who attempted to apply the new scientific method to all human institutions, rebuild society by making it conform with God’s natural laws, and reform each part to make it just, efficient, and reasonable. Many adopted deist attitudes and attacked all traditional and authoritarian institutions. They saw the end to be happiness, not salvation, and fought against cruelty and torture. Finally, they were the first sizable group to believe in progress which was in man’s hand, not God’s.
Men like John Locke led the way in this endeavor by asserting that no innate ideas existed but knowledge came from the senses. He said the mind was a tabula rasa, or blank slate, at birth on which our sense-experiences were imprinted gradually. Rousseau believed man in a state of nature had a free life and proposed a revision of the law in which the will of the community would be in harmony with the will of the individual in his work The Social Contract. Denis Diderot was a co-editor of a huge Encyclopedia that attempted to sum up all human knowledge.
Other noteworthy accomplishments was the founding of Methodism by John Wesley, prose which focused on description and narrative as evidenced by Jonathan Swift’s writing of Gulliver’s Travels, and musicians as Bach, Handel, and Mozart whose oratorios, symphonies, chamber groups, choruses, string quartets, and concertos have entertained people ever since.
This final section will focus on early American beliefs on Witchcraft and the reactions of the colonists to it. Most Americans held a wide variety of occult beliefs. For example, floods, comets, hailstorms, lightning, thunder, earthquakes, and hurricanes were all seen as a harbinger of destruction or illness, and reports of strange dreams, visions, or even unseen voices were made frequently. Additionally, New Englanders, the focus of this section, used charms; read almanacs for astronomical data necessary in astrology; practiced divination, fortune telling, and sorcery; and pursued the mysteries of alchemy.
The Europeans saw witchcraft as a treat that need to be dealt with swiftly and severely. The Malleus Maleficarum or Witch Hammer, produced by Heinrich Kramer and Jacob Sperenger, both Dominican inquisitors, exposed witchcraft beliefs and led to the declaration of it as a capital crime in governments all across Europe. Due to trials, roughly 110,000 were accused and over half of these men and women died. In England, concern was not over whether or not the person was a witch, but if they had harmed someone.
This feeling in England carried over to New England. The concern was if the witch posed a threat to another’s farm and family. But by 1647 all New England colonies outlawed witchcraft and punished any conviction with death. In all, 80% of the accused were women. Charges were filed by mostly by men, but also by women who distrusted the accused or disliked nonconformity. The accused were often in their forties and from the lower classes, although all levels of society came to be affected. Many were not well-liked and often were said to have special healing powers.
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