74 THE ANATOMY OF SCIENCE 



Archimedes, the pneumatics of Hero, and the astronomy of a Ptolemy 

 we find what are for us the most important advances made by ancient 

 science. But as long as a great system like Aristotle's is not obviously 

 bankrupt, it is by far the most impressive; and so diverts eflFort from 

 the apparently more pedestrian endeavors ice see as having been 

 better ad\'ised. 



Almost two millennia after Aristotle his system is reconstructed by 

 Aquinas with no reduction in scope of correlation. Even well after 

 the beginning of the modern era Descartes supposes that he himself 

 can build (or, later, could have built) a complete and final system. 

 But in this same period, and even earlier, a newly modest conception 

 of the principle of intelligibility was slowly gaining ground. Only as 

 it did gain ground does modern science become possible. 



Copernicus must brush aside the gigantic system of Aquinas to 

 create a new system for astronomy only. To make a gain in local 

 correlation, he is prepared to pay the price of an enormous loss of 

 general correlation, produced when astronomy is thus separated from 

 physics, metaphysics, and the like. Galileo also pays that price when 

 he studies kinematics as a separate subject— distinct from others with 

 which it had been allied by Aristotle. The study of the atmosphere, 

 and of pneumatics in general, becomes similarly an area in which 

 local correlation is sought, and won, as a prize for which one paid 

 by relinquishing the general correlation afforded by the Aristotelian 

 conception of horror vacui. Men learn to content themselves with 

 local correlations of data, and to regard a general system as the 

 remote goal of a long and difficult journey. The Newtonian synthesis 

 clinches this approach by showing that, from tight local correlations, 

 one can, ultimately, journey on to a system of great comprehensive- 

 ness. 



Autonomous science and sciences. Grasping the principle of in- 

 telligibility, science emerges as a fully self-conscious endeavor to find 

 rational order in experience. This is a science clearly affiliated with 

 philosophy. Greek science was indeed closely (and disastrously?) 

 associated with Greek philosophy. Even on its first appearance in the 

 modern world, science is still "natural philosophy." Yet if the noun 

 implies participation in the concerns of philosophy, the adjecti\'e al- 

 ready reflects a partial separation which, in time, is widened. "Natu- 

 ral philosophy" gives way to "science." If, as Bacon supposed, science 



