During
the sixteenth century, several writers challenged not just the science of the
day, but more importantly its method. They rejected the unqualified authority
of Scholasticism and what they saw to be its abstract reasoning ungrounded in observation.
One of the most important of these Renaissance philosophers of nature was BernardinoTelesio (1509–1588). Below are the introductory words to his treatise, On the Nature
of Things According to Proper Principles,
the first two volumes of which were published in 1565.
On
the Nature of Things According to Proper Principles, Book One, Prooemium
The arrangement of the world and
the magnitude and nature of bodies contained in it are not to be sought by
means of reason, as was done by the ancients, but should be perceived through
sense and obtained from things themselves.
Those before us pored over the
arrangement of the world and the nature of things contained in it. But although
they were seen to explore it with great and constant care, they did not
actually examine it. For how could the world be regarded as known by people
whose writings all disagree with what is observed and are even
self-contradictory? Therefore it is right to say it happened with them, that
because they were much too confident of themselves and did not observe things
themselves and the virtues of those things, they did not assign to the things
the magnitude, character, and faculties which the things can be seen to have
been given. But as if competing and fighting with God over wisdom, they dared
to seek by reason the principles and causes of the world itself, and, wishing
and believing they had found what they had not, dared to fashion the world
according to their own thinking. Thus they assigned to the bodies from which
the world is seen to be composed, neither the magnitude and position that they
can be seen to have been given, nor the character and virtues with which they
can be seen to have been furnished, but instead whatever reason says these
bodies properly should have. It is not right for men to so charm themselves and
for the mind to so elevate itself (as if placing oneself before nature and even
God himself, claiming not merely God’s wisdom but his potency as well) as to
give to things themselves that which cannot be observed in them and which
should be obtained only from the things themselves. Yet we, not being as
self-confident, being endowed with a less hasty temperament and more moderate
spirit, and being lovers and cultivators of all human science (which must now
be seen to have reached a new height as it examines what has been revealed by
the sense and what can be obtained from the similarity of things perceived by
the sense) have proposed to observe the world itself and each of its parts, and
also the passions, actions, operations, and species of the parts and things
contained in it. For the former, if looked at correctly, will manifest the
magnitude proper to each, and the latter will show the character and virtues of
each. So even if nothing divine, nothing worthy of admiration, nothing very
penetrating will come with our looking, nevertheless this treatise will never
contradict either things or itself. One can see that we followed nothing but
sense and nature, which, always agreeing with itself, is always the same and always acts and operates in one and the same way. We do
not, however, assert and contend, if any of what we posit does not comply with
the sacred scriptures of the Catholic Church, that it should be held and not
thoroughly rejected. For not only any human reasoning, but also the sense
itself must be subject to the scriptures; if it does not agree with them, sense
itself must assuredly be denied.
Latin source: Bernardino Telesio, De Rerum Natura, ed. Vincenzo Spampanato
(Modena: A. F. Formiggini, 1910), 5–6. Translation © 2007John P. McCaskey
and Elena Lemeneva
Permission is granted for
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permission is granted for commercial use.
This text is part of the Internet History
Sourcebooks Project. The Sourcebook is a collection of public domain and
copy-permitted texts for introductory level classes in modern European and
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Paul Halsall, September 2007
