Point Atomism, Space and God, 1760–80

Abstract

This paper compares and contrasts the main metaphysical and religious ideas of the eighteenth-century political theorist and chemist Joseph Priestley (1733–1804) with those of his correspondent Ruder Boscovic (1711–1787), astronomer, poet, mathematician, diplomat and Jesuit priest. It points out the theological differences between the two thinkers resulting from the divergent ontological and metaphysical implications of the theory of point atomism that they shared. This theory they placed in a wider context, considering both its limits and its value as a contribution to ongoing speculations concerning the nature of space and time, theological conundrums such as free will and the mind-body problem. Where they differed, however, was that Priestley, a chemist rather than a mathematician, used point atomism mainly to support his campaign to further materialism and discredit Christianity. Boscovic, on the other hand, carefully distinguished the truths of faith and reason and was therefore indignant at Priestley's misuse of his speculations. Boscovic's protest was probably motivated in part by the materialism of atheists such as the Baron d’Holbach (1723–1789). Priestley was no atheist, however. Interestingly, François Arouet de Voltaire (1698–1778), unaware of the works of either Boscovic or Priestley, devised a theistic materialism in his last years that in many respects resembled Priestley's. I begin with brief biographies of the two thinkers, and outline their intermittent relationship.

Notes

NOTES

1.  See Zarko Dadic, Boskovic, trans. Janko Paravic (Zagreb: Skolska Knjiga, 1990), 24–41, 54; L. L. Whyte, “R. J. Boscovich, SJ, FRS (1711–1787), and the Mathematics of Atomism,” Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London, 13.1 (June 1958): 38–48; L. L. Whyte, Roger Boscovich, SJ, FRS: Studies of His Life and Work in the Anniversary of His Death (London, 1961); Henry Gill, Roger Boscovich SJ (1711–1787) Forerunner of Modern Physical Theories (Dublin: Gill and Son, 1941); The Philosophy of Science of Ruder Boskovic, Proceedings of the Symposium of the Institute of Philosophy and Theology (Zagreb: Croatian Province of the Society of Jesus, 1987); J. Brooke Spencer, “Boscovich's Theory and Its Relation to Faraday's Researches: An Analytical Approach,” Archives of the History of the Exact Sciences 14 (1967–68): 187–94; Branko Franolik, “Rudjer Boskovic (1711–1787), Physicist, Astronomer and Mathematician in England,” Croatian Times (London), 16 (April 1997). I am grateful for comments made at a lecture on this topic given at the Boskovic Institute, Zagreb, in 2004, and for comments made by Thomas Mautner, Philosophy Department, ANU.

2.  On Priestley, see J. G. McEvoy, “Joseph Priestley: Philosopher, Scientist and Divine” (Ph.D. diss., University of Pittsburgh, 1973); H. G. McEvoy and J. E. McGuire, “God and Nature: Priestley's Way of Rational Dissent,” Historical Studies in the Physical Sciences 6 (1975): 325–404; Robert E. Schofield, The Enlightenment of Joseph Priestley, A Study of his Life and Works from 1733 to 1773 (Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997), 247–48; A. J. Saunders, “Be Candid Where You Can: The Rational Dissent of Joseph Priestley” (Ph.D. diss., ANU, 1989); P. M. Harman, After Newton: Essays on Natural Philosophy, Variorum (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1993); Alan Tapper, “Reid and Priestley on Method and the Mind,” The Philosophical Quarterly 52.209 (October 2002); Henri Laboucheix, “Chimie, matérialisme et théologie chez Joseph Priestley,” Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century 183 (1976): 1219–44.

3.  On Michell, see Clyde L. Hardin, “The Scientific Work of the Reverend John Michell,” Annals of Science 22.1 (March 1966): 27–47; and, Richard Crossley, “Mystery at the Rectory: Some Light on John Michell,” Yorkshire Physics News 17 (January 2000), 18 (April 2000), 20 (January 2002); the revised, collated version was put on the Internet in 2001, at http://www.yorksphilsoc.org.uk/files/michell.pdf

4.  Joseph Priestley, “Disquisitions Relating to Matter and Spirit” (1777), in Theological and Miscellaneous Works of Joseph Priestley, ed. J. T. Rutt, 25 vols. (London: Smallfield, 1817–31, reprint by Kraus Reprint, New York, 1972), vol. 3; subsequent references to “Disquisitions” are cited parenthetically in the text.

5.  Robert E. Schofield, A Short Autobiography of Joseph Priestley (1733–1804) (Harvard, MA: MIT Press, 1966), from Priestley to Boscovic, 19 August 1778, no. 79; from Boscovic to Priestley, 17 October 1778, no. 80.

6.  Ivo Slaus, “Forces in Modern Physics and in Boscovic's Theoria,” in The Philosophy of Ruder Boscovic (Zagreb, 1987), 110; Mirko Grmek, “L’explication des phénomènes vitaux dans l’œuvre de Boscovich,” in R. J. Boscovich, Vita e Attivita Scientifica (Rome: Instituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, 1993), 321; Ante Kadic, “A Literary and Spiritual Profile of Boscovich,” in idem, 16–17.

7.  Branko Franolik, “Rudjer Boskovic (1711–1787): Lasting Influence on British Scientists,” Croatian Times (London) 19 (August/September 1997).

8.  H. G. Alexander, ed., Leibniz-Clarke Correspondence (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1956); R. Arthur, “Space and Relativity in Newton and Leibniz,” British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 45:1 (1994): 219–40.

9.  Immanuel Kant, “The Inaugural Dissertation, 1770,” in Selected Pre-Critical Writings (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1968); Ronald Calinger, “Kant and Newtonian Science: The Pre-Critical Period,” ISIS 70. 3 (September 1979): 349–62.

10.  David Walford, “Kant's 1768 Gegenden im Raume Essay,” Kant Studien 92.4 (November 2001): 387–407.

11.  Dale Jacquette, “Hume on Infinite Divisibility and the Negative Idea of a Vacuum,” British Journal of Philosophy 10.3 (2002): 413–35; L. Falkenstein, “Hume on Manners of Disposition and the Ideas of Space and Time,” Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 79.2 (1997): 179–201; T. M. Lennon, “Sources et signification de la théorie lockienne de l’espace,” Dialogue (Kingston) 22.1 (1983): 3–14; G. B. Herbert, “Hobbes's Phenomenology of Space,” Journal of the History of Ideas 48.4 (1987): 709–17.

12.  Title of an article by Carl Hoefer in the British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 49.3 (1998): 451–67. See, for example, Andrew Newman, “A Metaphysical Introduction to a Relational Theory of Space,” Philosophical Quarterly 39.155 (April 1989): 200–20; John Earman, World Enough and Space-Time: Absolute versus Rational Theories of Space and Time (Harvard, MA: MIT Press, 1992); Hans Reichenbach, Philosophy of Space and Time (New York: Dover, 1958).

13.  S. d’Agostino, “Boscovic's Reception of Newton's Legacy,” in The Bicentennial Commemoration of R. G. Boscovic (Milan: Edizioni Unicopoli, 1988), 27–45; Richard Olson, “The Reception of Boscovich's Ideas in Scotland,” Isis 1(1) (Spring, 1969): 91–103.

14.  Childs translates sententia as sensibility. A phrase such as “what will be observed through our senses” or “sensory experiences” would better convey the author's meaning here.

15.  A. T. Winterbourne, “On the Metaphysics of Leibnizian Space and Time,” Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science 13 (1982): 201–14.

16.  See Dadic, Boskovic, 71–72, 77–83.

17.  See, for example, Tim Crane and Sarah Patterson, The History of the Mind Body Problem (London: Routledge, 2000); Paul MacDonald, History of the Concept of Mind (Ashgate: Aldershot, 2003); Nicholas Humphrey, Journal of Consciousness Studies 7 (2000); Alex Byrne, “What Mind Body Problem?” Boston Review (May-June 2006): 5–20.

18.  See McEvoy, “Joseph Priestley, Philosopher, Scientist and Divine,” 127–28.

19.  Wolfgang Malzkorn, “Leibniz's Theory of Space in the Correspondence with Clarke and the Existence of Vacuums, Paideia, no date, at http://www.bu.edu/wcp/Papers/ModeMalz.htm

20.  Priestley, Institutes of Natural and Revealed Religion (1772–24), ed. J. T. Rutt, 2nd ed. (1782), vol. 2, 15.

21.  For a discussion of the Design argument from the eighteenth century to the late twentieth century, see, for example, J. H. Hick, Arguments for the Existence of God (London: Macmillan, 1970), 1–17.

22.  Anon, “An Essay on the immateriality and immortality of the soul and its instinctive sense of good and evil, Appendix in answer to Dr Priestley's Disquisitions on matter and spirit” (1778), 420.

23.  Zarko Dadic, “Boskovic and the Question of the Earth's Motion,” in The Philosophy of Science of Ruder Boskovic (New York: Fordham University Press, 1987), 136. R. Taton, “Les relations entre R. J. Boscovich et Alexis-Claude Clairaut (1759–1764),” Revue de l’histoire des sciences 49.4 (1996): 415–58.

24.  See John Pappas, “R.J. Boscovich et l’Académie des sciences de Paris”, Revue de l’Histoire des Sciences 49.4 (1996): 401–14.

25.  Roger Hahn, “The Ideological and Institutional Difficulties of a Jesuit Scientist in Paris,” in R. G. Boscovich, His Life and Scientific Work (Rome: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, 1988), 1–13.

26.  Tapper, “Priestley's Metaphysics,” 33.

27.  Paul-Henri Thiry Baron d’Holbach, Système de la Nature, ou des Loix du monde physique and du monde moral (Geneva: Slatkine Reprints, 1973), 1.2.26–32, 99–105; 1.3.29–31; 1.7.94–101; 2.5.191.

28.  See Besterman, D3201, 21 August 1745, vol. 93, 314; D3420, 15 June 1746, vol. 94, 47; D3452, vol. 94, 94.

29.  Voltaire, Le philosophe ignorant, ed. J. L. Carr, p. 60; Il faut prendre un parti ou le principe d’action (1772), ed. T. Moland, vol. 28, 518–25; Lettres de Memmius à Cicéron (1771), vol. 28, 453; Dialogues d’Evhémère (1777), vol. 30, 471–75. See also E. D. James, “Voltaire and Malebranche: From Sensationalism to Tout en Dieu,” MLR 75 (1980): 282–90, and “The Concept of Emanation in the Later Philosophy of Voltaire,” Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century 284 (1991): 199–209.

30.  See, for example, Dadic, Boskovic, 111–30; Robert Kargon, “William Rowan Hamilton, Michael Faraday and the Revival of Boscovichean Atomism,” American Journal of Physics 32.10 (October 1964): 792–95.