Chapter 7 Chapter 5 The Scientific Revolution: The First Recognition of the Scientific Revolution

Many historians, including Roger B.Merriman (1938), H. R．Trevor Robb (1959), E.Hobsbawm (1954), and J. M．Gulimt (1975), among others, has noted almost simultaneous uprisings, riots in different parts of Europe in the mid-seventeenth century—the United States, France, the Netherlands, Catalonia, Portugal, Naples, and a few others. or revolution.Clearly, this was a period of crisis and instability, and it seemed that there was a general revolution of which the events in different regions were only specific manifestations.At that time, as Trevor-Roland pointed out, there was a "universal crisis" that was obvious to the quick minds of the time. Jeremiah Whitaker declared in a sermon in the House of Representatives on January 25, 2011: "These days are the days of shuddering," and that this "shuddering is world-wide: it appears in Palatine, Bohemia, Germany, Catalonia, Portugal, Ireland, and England" (cf. Trevor-Roper 1959, 31, 62n.1).

The 17th century was also the era of the scientific revolution. The first civil war in England began in 1642, just four years after the publication of Galileo's "Two New Sciences," the founding work on kinematics, and five years after the publication of Descartes' Discourses and Geometry.Newton's Principia, the most significant and influential work of the Scientific Revolution, was published in 1687, a year before the Glorious Revolution; in fact, the book was dedicated to James II and the Royal Society.The Scientific Revolution was in many ways more thorough and innovative than the political revolution of the seventeenth century, and it has proven to be more far-reaching.But, so far as I know, no one has ever connected the scientific revolution with other revolutions of the same century, nor speculated that the revolutionary spirit at work in the political sphere may be the same as that which caused the great changes in science. same.

The best way to determine the depth and breadth of the scientific revolution is to compare the established scientific disciplines of the seventeenth century with their closest relatives at the end of the Middle Ages.Let's consider the important question of motion (because "to ignore motion is to ignore nature").Medieval scholars, following the usual Aristotelian point of view, understood motion as any change from the possible to the actual.Therefore, the laws of motion are not limited to displacements (changes in position), but to any change that can be quantified as a function of time, including weight gain or loss over time, or even weight gain. gains and losses.In the fourteenth century, when scholars gave special consideration to displacement, they were fully aware that motion could be accelerated uniformly or non-uniformly, and they were able to prove mathematically that if the velocity of uniform motion If the size is equal to the average value of the acceleration velocity, then, in a given time, the uniform acceleration motion is completely equivalent to the uniform motion in the same time.However, the mathematical philosophers of the fourteenth century, and those discussing their work in the fifteenth century, never applied these mathematical principles to physical events such as the motion of falling bodies in order to test them.On the other hand, Galileo did not regard these principles and other principles as pure mathematical abstractions in his discussion of this issue, but regarded them as laws that restrict actual physical processes and events in experiments.Galileo even tested and confirmed the law of free fall with his famous inclined plane experiment, which he described in Two New Sciences.Galileo's formulation of these laws was not mathematically different from that of his 14th-century predecessors, but his mathematics was stated in the context of physics and tested with physical experiments.Stillman Drake (1978) discovered that some of Galileo's incomprehensible notes turned out to be a set of experiments done at the time that led Galileo to discover these laws.

Such examples show us how new and revolutionary it is to discover principles by experiment combined with mathematical analysis, to establish scientific laws in the relational domain of experience, and to examine the validity of knowledge by experimental testing what.Knowledge has traditionally been based on belief and intuition, reason and revelation.The new science no longer uses all of these as means to understand nature, but uses experience—experiment and critical observation—as the basis and ultimate test of knowledge.Inferences are as revolutionary as doctrines themselves.This is because not only does the new method build knowledge on a completely new basis, but it also means that no matter who is concerned, the words of famous people are not necessarily trustworthy; experience to test any kind of proposition and theory.Thus, the new science of the seventeenth century was not concerned with the identity of the author or the presenter.not so much his status or learning, but his accuracy in his presentation, his sound understanding of the scientific method, and his skill in experimentation and observation.Now even the humblest and humblest student can test (and even point out their errors) the theories and theorems of the greatest scientists.Knowledge is thus democratic rather than hierarchical, and depends less on the insight of a few elites than on the application of a suitable method by which anyone intelligent enough can easily It is easily understood and can be used to master new principles of experimentation and observation, and to understand ways to draw appropriate conclusions from the data.So it should come as no surprise that a lot of attention should be paid to those who sorted out this approach during the scientific revolution.These men, together with Bacon, Descartes, Galileo, Harvey, and Newton, wrote books describing the methods of scientific research.

The scientists of the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were fully aware of the novelty of their method of thinking, which appealed directly to nature.This way of thinking is evident in writings on plants and animals at the end of the sixteenth century.These works not only present a new view of realism derived from the use of observation, but also make it clear that the explanations in the book are based on biological examples.Fuchs's 1542 herbarium, for example, contains a full page of illustrations showing artists and woodcarvers working with the plants placed before them.In Vesalius' great work, On the Structure of the Human Body (1543), there is an illustration showing all the necessary tools for performing an anatomy.The dedication to the book is unpretentious: "Do it yourself." Vesalius not only hoped that his pupil-readers would reproduce his results and confirm his findings, thus enriching our knowledge; he also showed that his revolutionary Works are based on experimental and testable facts.

This sixteenth-century fascination with nature was evident in the responses to the discovery of the New World, especially South and North America.It is not precisely the shape of the land or the geological deposits that are of interest, but the various forms of life such as plants and animals.Were these animals carried there by the flood of Noah's day, or were they distinct from the animals of Europe?Perhaps, they were not related to those animals, but special creations after the flood?Both of these questions can be confusing because their answers seem to run counter to the Bible.The question of the origin of the peoples born in America is still more puzzling.

During the first decade of the seventeenth century, Galileo's telescopes gave people the first glimpse of what the sky looked like, and this excited the world.Marjorie Nicholson tells us how eagerly people all over Europe waited for each new discovery of Galileo's telescope, and he also described, with the help of poets' metaphors, how quickly Galileo made a discovery. In 1620 Ben Jonson published a work entitled "Messages from the New World" but not on the American continent, it was on the sky, especially on the moon, it was on the telescope - and always with Galileo's name is linked together to illustrate Linley's discovery, and the book also refers to the "Interstellar Message" or "Messenger".Jonsson's book is a work of communication of the new, and it is as humorous as Monard's work entitled "Happy News from a Newly Discovered World" describing the medicinal flora of America.There were harbingers of something new and revolutionary in science to come.For Galileo not only announced new facts, new information, but quickly concluded that new observations obtained through the telescope disproved the Ptolemaic system (which it did) and confirmed the Copernican system. system (which was not done).

The word "new" has been used in the titles of many books on creative scientific revolutions.Kepler (1609) published a work based on the principles of physics entitled The New Astronomy.The title of Galileo's last work (1638) was "Two New Sciences"; although, perhaps, he did not choose this title, he did refer to the many new and noteworthy things he had discovered. Been to this third book on sports.Tartaglia titled his book New Science (1537).Von Curic titled the work he used to explain the revolutionary experimental results obtained with the newly invented air pump New Experiments at Magdeburg (1672).Boyle used the word "new" in the titles of many of his books. In 1600, William Gibb published a work entitled "On the Magnet... A New Physiology Confirmed by Many Arguments and Experiments", the title of this book can be described as meaningful.In his dedication, he wrote: "I dedicate this almost new and unheard-of work on "natural knowledge" to "you, you alone, true philosophers, noble men, who can not only learn from people who are in books and who can acquire knowledge from things themselves." Gilber knew that at the time, only a small number of people were devoted to "this new philosophical inquiry."

A scientific revolution produces a new kind of knowledge and new ways of acquiring it, as well as new institutions for promoting, documenting, and disseminating that knowledge.Such institutions are associations or academies of like-minded scientists (and those who are deeply interested in science).They get together and do experiments together, they go to see experimental work done elsewhere and tests of experiments, they listen to reports on scientific work done by their members, and they learn about what other scientific organizations or other countries are doing.The emergence of the scientific community is one of the notable signs of the scientific revolution.By the 1760s there were permanent national academies in both France and England, and both had official journals in which their respective members published their research.

In the case of Isaac Newton we can see how important it is to be elected to such an academy. In 1671, Isaac Barrow (Professor of the Lucas Chair and predecessor of Newton) brought a sample of Newton's newly invented reflecting telescope to London and presented it to the Royal Society.Newton's invention was "praised" and it wasn't long before Newton was elected a fellow of the Royal Society.Newton was so pleased with his fellow scientists in London that he wrote shortly afterward asking when the society would meet so that he could give a report on a series of experiments he had made relating to light and colour. Experiments, this series of experiments are the basis for new telescope inventions.Newton, young and vigorous, wrote to the society that had done all he could to make him a member, telling its steward that his discoveries were the "most wonderful" explorations of the workings of nature hitherto made.Newton's eagerness to immediately reveal his discoveries to his new scientific colleagues, in contrast to his later reluctance to publish (or reluctantly agree to publish) any of his discoveries, suggests to us that the How important it is for a scientist to be formally admitted to membership in a permanent scientific community.

Newton's paper on light and color had several firsts: it was Newton's first published scientific work; it was the first or foundational treatise on the physics of color; it was the first published as an article in a scientific journal Published important scientific discoveries.Moreover, it is remarkable because it describes Newton's experiments and his resulting theoretical results, without defending a system of cosmology or theological dogma; it is pure science, which is why From then until today we understand the meaning of the word. A revolutionary feature of the emerging scientific community is the creation of formal information networks.The establishment of this information network partly relies on personal visits and mutual correspondence, but mainly relies on scientific journals and scientific reports.The short-lived Academy of Galileo's Cimento (Experimental Academy) published the work of its members in Italian in the one-volume Saggi (1667). An English edition was published in 1684, with a symbolic frontispiece in the one-volume English edition to show how the Italian Academy of Sciences transmitted its tradition to the Royal Society in London.The Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society publishes articles in both English and Latin.For the convenience of readers in continental Europe, a journal that translated all articles published in English into Latin soon appeared. The abstracts or summaries of the Philosophical Acta were published in English, but they were soon translated into French, and the discoveries of the French Academy of Sciences can also be learned from the English version of the materials. The number of great scientific works published in the seventeenth century is astonishing, but they were not all published in Latin, as is often assumed, but in the languages ​​of their respective countries.For example, Galileo's Dialogue Concerning the Two Great World Systems (Italian edition, 1632; English translation, 1661; Latin translation, 1635), Descartes' Geometry (French edition, 1637; Latin translation, 1649 , 1659), Newton's Optics (English edition, 1704; Latin translation, 1704), etc.Other such examples are Descartes' Refraction (1637), Huygens' Theory of Light (1690), and Hooke's Microscopy, or the Physiological Description of Microscopic Organisms (1665 ). The role of the information network can be seen in the extensive correspondence of Henry Oldenberg, the first secretary of the Royal Society. In 1668, in a letter to Huygens who was in Paris at the time, Oldenburg expressed the desire of the society to establish a correspondence with him, and hoped that he would introduce to the society "his work on sports issues." "even if he" considers it not yet appropriate to publish [results] in written form".Oldenburg also asked Huygens if he "would like to reveal to them his relevant theories, and the relevant experiments on which it was based." Huygens agreed, "There is no doubt that when his results arrive, The societies will enter in their registers so that their rights of discovery are protected." A few months later Huygens' original text arrived, and Christopher Wren worked on parts of it.Then "experiments were carried out" to test Huygens' and Wren's theories, and because the experimental equipment did not work satisfactorily, the experiments were arranged to be repeated at the next week's meeting.Before long, the question of which of the discoveries of Huygens and Wren came first arose.Huygens sent to the Royal Society for registration a statement of new research results written in "code or anagrams" as "a means of protecting his invention or discovery for the future" until "he Explain them in ordinary language as you think fit." More than 20 years later, Edmund Halley urged Newton to file an account of his discoveries with the Royal Society in order to protect his preemption.Today, Newton’s pamphlet “On Motion” written in the autumn of 1684 can still be found in the register. Newton’s famous “Principles” was later expanded on the basis of this book. The role of the scientific society and the Academy of Sciences in establishing a system of records for the leadership of discoveries and inventions is another important hallmark of the Scientific Revolution.The scientific revolution was the first of its kind in history to be devoted to a continuous process of development rather than to a single goal.As mentioned earlier, both political and social revolutions have a definite purpose of establishing some form of state power or social system, although such a state may not be expected to be established in the near future.The new science, however, is seen as a process of discovery, a never-ending process of research.Preparations were made for the publication and dissemination of discoveries, for the establishment of laboratories and observatories, zoological and botanical gardens from which discoveries could be made.A continuous process of change is institutionalized through the publication of journals to publish new results, the establishment of a record-keeping system to protect the lead of discoveries, and the rewarding of the most revolutionary advances.I do not know of any other revolution or revolutionary movement that has so institutionalized the ongoing revolutionary process to come.Indeed, there is still something new under the sun. While science may be a never-ending search for truth, it is generally hoped that scientific progress will lead to practical inventions and improvements in the effective treatment of human disease.Such accounts appeared in the early seventeenth century, as did Bacon's and Descartes' treatises on methodology.Descartes wrote in his Discourses: It would be nice if a rich man could prove to him that in medicine and health care, a practical technology similar to that of agricultural mechanization can be developed.Bacon repeated the same question, arguing that science—knowledge of nature—would lead to control over our environment and would give us new powers.Bacon wisely went on to point out that this practical application is not so much a means of increasing the comfort of daily life as having more value in "predicting truth and defending truth".What Bacon meant by this is that since the new scientific revolution is based on experience, its principles may also be reflected in actual design work.The machines in operation, which embody or are based on new principles, furnish unambiguous evidence of the truths contained in those principles. All these revolutionary features aside.What made the scientific revolution actually come true through basic scientific progress?We have seen that the abstract laws of motion were replaced by Galileo's law of free fall.Going a step further, combining free fall—a typical accelerated motion—with the process of uniform horizontal motion, it is possible, as Galileo pointed out, to outline the trajectory of the parabolic motion of a projectile.Magnetism sprouted in the 17th century.Kepler discovered the three laws of planetary motion, and these laws were named after him. He also comprehensively expounded the modern heliocentric system of the universe, which is what we usually call the Copernican theory.Newton not only created the science of color, but also created a mathematical system that embraces both geophysics and astrophysics.His principle of universal gravitation can not only explain Kepler's law and the law of free fall, but also explain the tidal movement in the ocean and the formation of the earth.It can even provide the basis, so that the prediction can be made successfully forty or fifty years before the appearance of tube stars.In the simplicity of its explanations, and in the depth and breadth of its applications, Newtonian physics was undoubtedly revolutionary. Of course, physics is not alone in experiencing revolutions in the understanding of nature.The life sciences were also very dynamic, and because of this, Harvey's discovery of the circulation of the blood led to a revolution in physiology.Here, as in kinematics, revolution has a decidedly indisputable disproving quality.If not Aristotle himself then someone of the Aristotelian line predicted that in air, heavier bodies move faster than lighter ones, and that their speed of motion is proportional to their weight.It is easy to prove experimentally that this is wrong.Similarly, Galen had thought that blood rose and fell in the veins and could flow from one side of the heart to the other through tiny holes in the ventricular septum, or septum.However, just as the above predictions proved to be false, so Galen was completely wrong. Contemporaries' view of the scientific revolution Although it is difficult to deny that significant scientific advances have taken place between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, some commentators prefer to see these developments as improvements rather than revolutions, and some even deny them at all. Such truly great advances have taken place.An example is those published in the polemics of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, known as the Book War or the Controversy between Ancient and Modern.Works by Fontenelle, Granville, Perrault, Swift, Temple, and Wharton, even in science and medicine, tend to use the concept of "improvement" of knowledge rather than Use "revolution".Even more surprising is the fact that Fontenelle and Swift used the word revolution in other writings, and Fontenelle also used this word and this concept in the new mathematics.All but one of these authors avoid the word "revolution" when speaking of the greater "present" and less "ancient" and the great achievement of what we call the Scientific Revolution. Thomas Spratt for the Royal Society Apology (1667), written almost identically, is a book devoted to showing what the new science has achieved and what it will bring—even to language. It's a matter of innovation and improvement, not revolution. At the end of the seventeenth century, the scientific revolution began to be recognized.Although Gilber, Galileo, Kepler, Harvey, and others have emphasized the novelty of their writings, I have not seen anything before the end of the century that explicitly and clearly discusses the existence of revolutions in science.One letter, written in Italian in 1637, however, makes striking reference to the revolutionary nature of Harvey's work. The letter is indeed an extraordinary document for the study of the history of the scientific revolution.It clearly shows how new discoveries in science are found to be revolutionary, but it also shows how difficult it is to describe this revolutionary with a single word.This letter was written in the year Descartes' Discourses and Geometry were published.The letter was written by Raffaello Maggioti, a priest and scientist in Rome.He sent this letter to one of his fellow priests, Famiano Michellini of Florence, who informed his friends, including the aged Galileo, of Harvey's work and the 1628 Publishing new discoveries in physiology, he wrote, "This is how blood circulates in our bodies".This discovery "was sufficient to overthrow the whole system of medicine, as the invention of the telescope has turned upside down the whole of astronomy, as the compass (has) done to commerce, and artillery has done to military technology" (Galileo 1890, 17:65). In 1637 it was too early to describe the radicality of Harvey's discovery with just the word or concept of "revolution."Perhaps after more than half a century, it can be said that the discovery of blood circulation will start a "medical revolution".The verb Maggiotti uses is "rivolgere", which means "to turn", "to mull over" (as in "to think twice"), and sometimes to "overthrow".To make sure his readers got the point, he explained what he meant by using the word, since at the time it was not common for discoveries to have such a "destructive (that is, revolutionary) effect on a science" So, Maggioti compares its impact to two important technological breakthroughs—the invention of black powder and the compass. Bacon once said that this group of technological innovations, together with movable type printing, has made the modern world The most fundamental change has taken place. (We can see that Bacon does not use the word "revolution" right away, nor does he use the concept of revolution in the accepted sense of the word.) Maggioti is actually saying, put A scientific discipline has neither a proper name nor a clear concept for this new phenomenon, which is not an established event, much like the one that has brought world trade, exploration those extraordinary inventions in which conditions, such as wars and wars, etc. have been changed. Single most dramatic, and most revolutionary in the sense of overthrowing old doctrines, of any discovery made in any branch of science up to 1637 The discovery of Galileo is the new celestial phenomenon revealed by Galileo. In order to effectively clarify his point of view, Magioti compared Harvey's discovery with that of Galileo. Galileo gave the Ptolemaic system a fatal blow , he proved that the Ptolemaic system was wrong, and that, in the works written by astronomers on the sky for thousands of years, there is no concept of celestial bodies that is correct. Similarly, Harvey pointed out that Galen's system is wrong, and therefore all systems of medicine based on Galen's physiology should be replaced. Because of this, Maggioti said, the discovery of the circulation of the blood is comparable in its role to "the invention of the telescope," the invention of which has turned "astronomy upside down. "In this instance Maggioti did not (as he had just done) use the verb "rivolgere" but "rivoltare", which means not only "betrayal" but also "reversal", "Turn over" to "go to the opposite side", "abandon" and so on. What really connects the word "revolution" to Harvey's discovery is a treatise written by Sir William Temple in the second half of the seventeenth century.In the way the author uses the word, we can see the early days of the modern concept of revolution.Temple's treatise, written about 1686 before (see Woodbridge 1940, 212), is entitled "On Health and Longevity," in which the author speaks of the ancient system of medicine founded by Hippocrates and Galen, After discussing Paracelsus' attempt to "abolish the entire Galenic model" and his work in introducing "chemomedicine," he discusses Harvey and the circulation of the blood.Temple (his para, I: 73) calls this series of events the "great change or revolution" in "the empire of physiology", that is, "the art of medicine" or in the empire of medicine. The use of the word "empire" suggests that what Temple meant here was not the new meaning of the occurrence of a unique dramatic event, but the same meaning of the word "revolution" in the phrase "imperial revolution." a traditional meaning.It is quite possible that Temple, elsewhere (The Heroic Virtues, 1821, 1:104) imagined the imperial revolutions as unfolding or sequential events.Moreover, Temple himself did not really believe in the Harvey Revolution, arguing that, with regard to the circular theory, "it was expected to revolutionize the whole medical enterprise," but in reality it "did not do so." In "On Ancient and Modern Learning" [1690 (1963), 71], generally speaking, Temple held a kind of ancient view.Old books are the best, he argues, and that, in the words of Alfonso El Sabio, the only things worth pursuing in life are "burning dead wood, drinking old wine, meeting old friends, and reading old books," he asked , "What are the sciences in which we think we are superior?" In 1500 years, "except Descartes and Hobbes can probably call themselves philosophers," there have been no new prominent philosophers.He found that in astronomy "there was nothing to compete with the ancients... except the Copernican system. There was nothing new, and the same was true in medicine except Harvey's new discovery of the circulation of the blood." Temple Convinced that, "even if they were true," "these two great discoveries would not have changed the conclusions of the enterprise of astronomy or medicine." Thus, although these discoveries "brought high honor to their discoverers," the They are "not very useful to the world." (pp. 56-57, 71) Fontenelle also discussed the question of revolution in medicine in his 1683 book, New Conversations of the Dead.The book includes a conversation between the late ancient Greek physician and physiologist Erasistrata and William Harvey (known in the book as Herve).The conversation began with Erasistrata speaking first, who briefly outlined the miracle Harvey reported: blood circulates in the body, veins carry blood from the extremities to the heart, and then the blood leaves the heart and enters the arteries , which sends blood to the extremities through the arteries.He admits that generations of doctors thought blood was just a very slow motion from the heart to the extremities of the body, which was terribly wrong; and he recounts how grateful the world is to Harvey for "getting rid of that ancient error." Next Erasistrata admits in the dialogue that modern man can be a better scientist than the ancient man, and that he can acquire more knowledge of nature; however, he declares that they "cannot be better Doctor", because ancient doctors can treat people's diseases just like modern doctors. Harvey countered that many patient deaths were due to ignorance of the circulation of the blood.Erasistrata replied, "You believe that your new discovery is indeed useful, so what is the use?" When Harvey answered in the affirmative, Erasistrata asked, why is it still the same as before? How about so many dead people walking into the Land of Ultimate Bliss? "Oh!" said Harvey, "if they die, it's their fault, not the doctor's." At the end of his answer, Harvey gave an optimistic explanation for the future, saying that by then The world would then "have the leisure to take full advantage of recent discoveries," because "huge benefits" would be discovered over time.In the English translation by John Hughes (Fontenelle 1708), Erasistrata has this harsh comment: "There will be no such revolution in the future, take my word for it." This is Mankind, he said, had previously had "a certain standard by which useful knowledge is judged," and though small additions were made to it, it could never be surpassed.Fontenelle concluded the conversation with a pessimistic explanation: no matter what discoveries scientists make about the human body, it is futile because "nature is invincible" and people will continue to Die at the given moment. Judging from the current situation, this dialogue is extremely meaningful.First, Fontenelle compares a discovery like Harvey's ("a new conduit found in the human body") to astronomers' discovery of "a new star in the sky"—a discovery that rarely Or have no practical use at all.Second, although Fontenelle was a strong believer in Descartes' philosophy, he directly opposed Descartes' big claim in the Discourses that, if funded, medical research would extend the life cycle indefinitely.Finally, we will note that Fontenelle's assertion (through the mouth of Erasistrata) that there is no revolution in medicine is not the same as Fontenelle's own recognition that there is a revolution in mathematics. totally different.In this light, the denial of the possibility of revolution may perhaps be said to be a sign of the general opposition of French physicians to Harvey's great discovery (cf. Roger 1971, 13, 169).While Descartes was an ardent supporter of the circulation of the blood, Fontenelle probably did not consider the discovery to be a great achievement for the medical enterprise.In fact, Fontenelle does not seem to believe that there has been a revolution in medicine.Erasistrata's statement that "there will be no such revolution" undoubtedly expressed Fontenelle's conviction, but he himself said something slightly different.In John Hughes' translation, Erasistrata says: "There will be no such revolution, take my word for it." And Fontenelle writes: "Surmaparole, riennechangera" ( "Take my word for it, nothing will change"). The chemist and physicist Robert Boyle also mentioned the revolution in a letter he wrote in November 1656: I'll tell you a very common thing, and you'll see how maddened a fool's thoughtless inferences can be: some unscrupulous people attribute unthinkable absurdities to the gods, and do nothing. blush.As for the publicity of the news, news of recent complete and complete successes has been confined within the walls of Parliament, so that I can now only copy the papers, or at best guess from them in advance.对于我们新的代表们将会证实什么、或者我们将会得到什么，我不敢妄加猜测，更不敢白纸黑字地写下来；我不会有所顾忌的只是承认，我的希望和恐惧都是有非常特别的动因的；我还可以无所顾忌地说，我据以预计会有时雨或猛烈的暴风雨来临的云彩，尚不是看不见的未凝结的水气。至于我们的思想方面，我的确可以信心十足地预计，会有一场革命，通过它，神将会成为一个失败者，而真正的哲学繁荣也许会出乎人们的意料之外。 〔British Library Harley MS7003，fols．179／80］ 在科学范围内，我没有发现玻意耳有过什么类似的陈述〔在詹姆斯·雅各布把玻意耳看作是革命者的那部著作（1979）中，也没有提到这类情况〕。不过，综观玻意耳那些行文繁冗的论著，如果有人断言说，这些书连提都没有提过这类问题，那么他一定是一个冒尖的学者。 我已经指出，许多17世纪的科学家都意识到了他们的成果具有的创新性，而且在他们自己著作的标题中都表明了这一点，一些17世纪最伟大的科学家们（吉伯、开普勒、笛卡尔、哈维、牛顿）对他们各自著作的非传统的特性作了明确的陈述，他们指出了古代和中世纪的作者的错误，并采取了革命的态度。亨利·鲍尔在其所著的《实验哲学》（1664）的结尾部分，对新的应用科学作了丰富的阐述。 "这是这样的一个时代，"他写道，"哲学伴随着一场大潮来了。""消遥学派的信徒们也许希望阻挡这一潮流"，就像"阻止自由哲学的泛滥哪样。他断言，"一定要抛弃所有陈腐的垃圾，推翻腐朽的建筑，"这是因为，"不得不为一个更为宏伟的、永远不会被推翻的哲学专业奠定一个新的基础的时刻来到了。 "他说，这种新的哲学，"将以经验和感知为基础，详细讨论自然界的各种现象，从自然界事物的本源那里推究其原因，就像我们所观察的事物可以被艺术再创造出来和力学证明确实可靠那样。 " 我发现，在18世纪初的数年中，丰特奈尔的著作中就有了相当早的关于数学革命的陈述，此陈述完全是现代式的而且十分清晰。当时，丰特奈尔正在伏案撰写论述微积分的著作，微积分是牛顿和莱布尼兹发明的，它无疑是17世纪最富有革命性的知识成果。丰特奈尔在其著作中一而再再而三地借用革命这个新的概念，以此来说明这种数学理论是多么不同凡响。它给予科学家的力量，远远超出了前人"难以想象"的范围。革命只是刚刚开始，但这已经使那些开创者们与在此不久之前还可谓是最聪明最有经验的数学家们相比，能够更巧妙地解决数学问题。 在医学领域中我们发现，1728年牛顿去世后不久，W．科伯恩医学博士在谈到帕拉切尔苏斯时，曾明确地在新的意义上使用了"革命"这一术语，甚至还暗示，革命的发生是医学体系发展的一个特征。 三十多年以后，数学家克雷洛为牛顿在理论力学领域中开始的一场革命而欢呼，理论力学是一门边缘学科，它包含了数学和物理学两个领域。值得注意的是，牛顿为纯数学和数学物理学做出的伟大贡献，其革命方面那样明确地得到了承认，这是因为，牛顿的成就标志着科学革命的顶峰。现在的证据证明了我们的判断，而且更加强调了这一点：17世纪最富有革命成果的领域是纯数学和理论力学领域。