John Aubrey and the Realm of Learning

Abstract

It is now generally agreed that science took strong root for first time seventeenth century, and then perhaps especially England. To put matter more pre cisely, a certain view of Nature, which has been described as the mechanization of world picture, gradually became widespread among educated people.1 The practice of sicence was not itself new; but popular mind it had often been linked with occultism, and medieval times had indeed tended to attract persons who held heterodox religious beliefs and were committed to a perilous association with magicians, sorcerers, and alchemists.2 The occult links were hard to shake off,3 however, as science moved towards centre of social stage, came under royal and aristocratic protection, and began to rival classical scholarship as a gentlemanly pastime, naturalistic conceptions of physical universe slowly became intellectually fashionable. This belief a new philosophy of nature owed more to rejection of an intellectual past that was seen, often unfairly, as superstitious, impractical, and bookridden than to intellectual victories of scientists (according to Ravetz, in most fields outside Newtonian mechanics heritage of eighteenth century was of fields rather a rudimentary state both their materials and their social organization4). Indeed, until appearance of Principia even known astronomical facts were as well explained by ancient system of Ptolemy as by newer system of Copernicus.5

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