Abstract
While preparing this review, I found myself not only annotating Yeo’s book, with my usual range of marginal notes, but also writing comments in the back. (One complaint: this beautifully produced volume lacks blank pages in which to make such comments.) I also created a separate document in which to begin writing my own reflections. In doing so, I was enacting the practice the book discusses: that of note-taking. The note-taking being discussed in this book was that of the English virtuosi (as they were sometimes known). These were a group of early modern scholars engaged in a wide range of pursuits, but which included some of the best-known figures in the history of early modern science.
The practice of note-taking was, of course, no novelty. As Yeo notes, “common-place” books were much valued by Renaissance humanists. The phrase “common places” was a translation of the Latin loci communes, which in turn reflected one use of the Greek term topoi. For Aristotle, a topos was a heading under which different types of argument could be gathered (Rhetorica 1403a18–19). Aristotle had also recommended annotating works and collecting notes. One should, he writes, select common opinions (endoxa): from the written handbooks of argument, and … draw up sketch-lists of them upon each several kind of subject, putting them down under separate headings, e.g. “On Good,” or “On Life” … In the margin, too, one should indicate also the opinions of individual thinkers, e.g. “Empedocles said that the elements of bodies were four.” (Topica 105a12–19)
The common-place books of Renaissance humanists, however, differed from what Aristotle prescribed, being not so much philosophical as literary and moral. They gathered together passages from classical authors on topics such as “honor, virtue, beauty, friendship” (p. 14), as well as on more directly Christian themes, collected under “Heads,” that is to say, subject headings.
Such practices not only had ancient roots; they also had medieval precedents. A fascinating example (which predates the scope of Yeo’s study) is that of Robert Grosseteste (1175–1253), Bishop of Lincoln. Grosseteste undertook the task of annotating his collection of theological works with about 400 different symbols, each representing a particular subject, compiling an index of such marks, and creating a bibliography that would enable one to find the works in which the subjects were treated. Like many an overly ambitious scholar, Grosseteste seems never to have completed this project. Early modern natural philosophers were quick to dismiss the work of their medieval forebears, and too many historians have taken their descriptions of medieval learning at face value. Grosseteste’s project reminds us (if we still need reminding) not to overstate the novelty of what was happening in early modern Europe.
There were, however, some novelties in the period this book is discussing. The first of these is a shift from literary sources to notes made on the basis of observation. Again, we should not overstate this novelty, for Aristotle was also a great collector of observations, in the realm of what became known as “natural history.” But the early modern virtuosi were much impressed by the ideal of science put forward by Francis Bacon. In his De augmentis scientiarum (1623), Bacon had called for the careful use of lists, inventories, and tables as an aid to the accumulation of particular facts. It was only from the patient accumulation of first-hand observations, he believed, that scientific conclusions could safely be drawn.
Twentieth century philosophers have been very critical of Bacon’s apparently naïve belief in the power of inductive reasoning. But there is no doubt that the program he outlined was influential. John Locke, for instance, was an obsessive collector of observations, and pioneered a complex system of note-taking and indexing, published (in French translation) in 1686 as a “Methode Nouvelle” (p. 175). There was, of course, a tension here regarding the use of such material. While Robert Boyle resisted too orderly an arrangement of the observations collected, to avoid jumping to conclusions (p. 153), Robert Hooke was anxious to systematize them as soon as possible, eliminating reports from unreliable sources or material that was unhelpful for the purpose at hand (p. 243).
The need to organize the information being collected led to some technological innovations. Thomas Harrison, an Oxford graduate and schoolteacher, created a new means of amassing and organizing such extracts and reports. This took the form of an arca studiorum (Ark of Studies), a cabinet on which material could be housed on small slips of paper, organized topically by means of hooks on the interior walls. This allowed for flexibility: material could be moved from one place to another or temporarily removed, perhaps to be lent out to others (p. 113). These flexible means of collecting information anticipate some twentieth-century developments. One thinks, for instance, of Vannevar Bush’s 1945 call for a way of organizing data that reflect the way we actually think (flexibly, by association), or Ted Nelson’s 1974 invention of the idea of hypertext, which paved the way for Tim Berners-Lee’s invention of the World Wide Web in 1989.
Despite the Baconian ideal to which early modern natural philosophers adhered, the observations they made were not always first hand. The Baconian ideal rejected a simple reliance on authority. The motto of the newly founded Royal Society—nullius in verba (Take no one’s word for it)—expressed the idea that opinions and reports were to be tested, not merely accepted. But as Steve Shapin and Simon Schaffer have emphasized, experimental science necessarily involves reliance on testimony. Not every observation or experiment can be witnessed, or reproduced, by every scientist. So a major issue for early modern natural philosophers was, “What constitutes reliable authority? Whose testimony was to be trusted?”
This inevitable reliance on testimony reminds us of another feature of early modern thought, namely, its collective character. Recent work in the history and philosophy of science has suggested that a distinctive mark of the sciences is their collective dimension: the fact that claims made by one person are assessed and tested by others. It is this, rather than any method of inquiry practiced by individuals, that makes the sciences a reliable way of attaining knowledge. Early modern natural philosophers already thought of themselves as involved in a collective process, of note-taking as well as of inquiry. This involved both the collection of material already available and the setting up of systems that would orchestrate the collection of new information (p. 221). They also began to think of this collective enterprise as intergenerational: it extended beyond the lifetime of any one participant. Bacon, for instance, had echoed Hippocrates’ complaint that life is short, while the art is long (vita brevis, ars longa), but suggested that it be remedied by a return to the “serious diligence” of Hippocrates in recording observations (p. 92).
What may be of more interest to readers of this journal is the tension we find in the thinking of these scholars between memory and writing. Again, this has a long history, going back to Plato, who places in the mouth of Socrates an Egyptian story of the invention of writing. When presented with this innovation, the Egyptian king laments that it “will create forgetfulness in the learners’ souls because they will not use their own memories,” but “will trust to the external written characters” (Phaedrus 275a–b). Chi scrive non ha memoria (Who writes, has no memory), wrote Giovanni Torriano in 1666, reporting an Italian proverb (p. 37). The virtuosi, however, claimed that writing could assist rather than replace memory, acting as an aid to recollection. More importantly, written notes could be an aid to thought, particularly when combined with new forms of technology, such as the arca studiorum. Boyle, for instance, argued that keeping information on loose sheets that could be shuffled around “could help to generate hypotheses” (p. 173). Once again, this idea anticipates more recent discussions of what has come to be known as “extended cognition.” Thinking does not occur merely “in the head”: it occurs by manipulating symbols and by means of external tools.
Set in a slightly broader historical context, these are some of the key observations to emerge from Yeo’s meticulously researched book. Those who wish to better understand the world of early modern thought will find much to reflect on in these pages. A modern philosopher, however, may be a little disappointed not to find any one big idea emerging from this work. Yeo’s volume is not “one long argument” in support of a grand thesis, but an accumulation of observations loosely gathered around a central theme. One can, however, only marvel at the scholarship of its author and (like the early modern repositories of which it speaks) it will surely serve as a treasure-trove of material to be mined by later scholars.