But Seneca the Philosopher, having consider'd the Phenomena of Two remarkable Comets of his Time, made no Scruple to place them amongst the Coelestial Bodies: believing them to be Stars of equal Duration with the World, tho' he owns their Motions to be govern'd by Laws not as then known or found out. And at last (which was no untrue or vain Prediction) he foretells, that there should be Ages sometime hereafter, to whom Time and Diligence shou'd unfold all these Mysteries, and who shou'd wonder that the Ancients cou'd be ignorant of them, after some lucky Interpreter of Nature had shewn; in what Parts of the Heavens the Comets wander'd, what, and how great they were. Yet almost all the Astronomers differ'd from this Opinion of Seneca; neither did Seneca himself think fit to set down those Phenomena of the Motion, by which he was enabled to maintain his Opinion: Nor the Times of those Appearances, which might be of use to Posterity, in order to the Determining these Things. E. Halley A Synopsis of the Astronomy of Comets translated (1705)*
Yesterday, I noted that at the start of chapter 7 (on comets) of her (1749) Commentary on Newton's Principia, Émilie du Châtelet writes that "Seneca seemed to have had an inkling of what would one day be discovered about these celestial bodies, but the seeds of the true principles that he had sown were not allowed to grow by the doctrine of the Peripatetics, who, transmitting from century to century the errors of their master, maintained that comets were meteors and temporary fires." (Translated by Isabelle Bour & Judith P. Zinsser, 337-8) I suggested that the point of the passage seems less designed to give credit to Seneca as it is to castigate the Scholastics. I went on to discuss Seneca, who seems to have invented the very idea of open-ended scientific progress within a division of intellectual labor.
Now, it's possible, of course, that Du Châtelet's remark was inspired by her own reading of Seneca. But because her mention of Seneca lacks detail and seems primarily to designed to castigate slavish following intellectual authority, I wondered if she was not relying on another source. I first checked Newton's Principia, but he does not mention Seneca. As the quote paragraph above suggests, I had better luck with Halley's (1705) Astronomiae Cometicae Synopsis. Given that she discusses the comet named after Halley, it is likely she looked at this work in Latin (or in English, which she knew well). One reason to suspect this, is that in Halley's treatment Seneca is indeed paired with Aristotle, who is blamed that the study of comets "lay altogether neglected." But Halley does not blame the Scholastics (or if he does only be implication), although later in his narrative he does make fun of the Schoolmen (but unrelated to Seneca). Nor is her treatment of Aristotle's account of comets as 'meteors and temporary fires' really identical to Halley's treatment of Aristotle's doctrine on comets as sublunary or "airy meteors," that is, "vapours floating in the ether." (Both are fair but by no means complete treatments of Aristotle's Metereology (1.7).) So, it is also unlikely that Du Châtelet is following Halley on Seneca.
The observational start of this science, Halley dates to back to 1337 (crediting the observations by the Byzantine astronomer Nicephorus Gregoras). Halley anticipates many of the points I made about Seneca in yesterday's blog post: he also treats Seneca as a philosophical prophet who is committed to the idea that (a) with time and (b) the division of labor (c) lots more such knowledge will be attained, including (d) entirely unforeseeable knowledge, that (e) will seem entirely obvious to future generations so that (f) they will look back at Seneca's time as ignoramuses. But, (g) there is no reason to think the enterprise of knowledge ever comes to an end.
So far so good, except that Halley rejects (g), the open-ended nature of science. That is, Halley treats Newton as having completed the science of comets ("unfold all these Mysteries;" see also his evaluation of his own table at the end of the Synopsis: "it might come forth perfect, as a Thing consecrated to Posterity, and to last as long as astronomy it self." ) That Halley rejects (g) is surprising because in his original preface to the Principia, Newton signals his own commitment to (g): "I hope that the principles set down here will shed some light on either this mode of philosophizing or some truer one." (Translated by I.B. Cohen & Anne Whitman.) To later readers the point is underlined in the third (1726) edition of Principia, as George Smith has emphasized in his scholarship, by the fourth rule of reasoning (first published in the third edition): "In experimental, 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 exception." Other Newtonians were quick to embrace (g), but they would do so in a manner very different from Seneca and Halley.
*"But Seneca the Philosopher having considered the Phenomena of two remarkable Comets of his own Time, makes no scruple to rank them among heavenly Bodies, affirming they are Planets which will endure as long as the Universe; tho' he acknowledges their Motions are regulated by Laws then unknown ; and prophesies far from falsely, that the diligence and experience of some future Age would discover these Mysteries ; and wonder that the Antients were ignorant of them : After that some Interpreter of Nature should demonstrate in what Regions of the Firmament Comets move, shewing both their Magnitudes and Qualities. Yet the greatest part of Astronomers have thought differently from Seneca; and he himself has not transmitted to us the Phenomena of the Motions on which his Opinion is grounded, nor the Time when he observ'd them, all which would have been of Use to the Moderns to determine this Controversy." E. Halley A Compendious View of the Astronomy of Comets, translated by T. Gent (1747)
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