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ABSTRACT
In trying to develop their respective theories of generation, Jean Fernel and William Harvey both drew repeatedly on Aristotle's suggestion that something “analogous to the element of the stars” was involved. The analogy with the stars suggested something celestial or divine, and both thinkers subscribed to the dominant assumption that God is the primary cause of generation, but, as natural philosophers, they were expected to develop theories based on secondary causes. Fernel simply defined “divine” as “hidden” or “occult”, and developed a sophisticated occult explanation of how generation takes place. Harvey, by contrast, rejected occult explanations, and, although offering tentative alternatives, ultimately failed to discover any convincing naturalistic account. It is the contention of this paper that Harvey resorted, therefore, to the direct intervention of God in the process of generation.
Acknowledgements
I wish to thank Professor Thomas Ahnert for his helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper. I owe special thanks also to my supervisor, Professor John Henry, for encouragement and helping me to turn what began as an MSc dissertation into this article. I am very grateful also to the Charles Schmitt Prize Committee.
Notes on contributor
Xiaona Wang studied at Peking University, China, before moving to Edinburgh. She received her PhD from Edinburgh University in April 2019. She is currently the Susan Manning Postdoctoral Fellow at Edinburgh's Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities, which she combines with a Society for Renaissance Studies Postdoctoral Fellowship, over the same period (2019–2020).
Notes
1 On Fernel, see Henry and Forrester, “Jean Fernel and the Importance of His De abditis rerum causis”, in Fernel, On the Hidden Causes of Things, 3–65.
2 It became known as Physiologia when it was included under that title, along with Pathologiae and Therapeutice, in Fernel's Medicina (Paris, 1554). For a complete bibliography, see Sherrington, The Endeavour of Jean Fernel, 187–207.
3 Fernel, On the Hidden Causes of Things. On the sisterhood of philosophy and medicine, see Henry and Forrester, “Jean Fernel and the Importance of His De Abditis Rerum Causis”, 3–4; Schmitt, “Aristotle among the Physicians”; Temkin, Hippocrates in a World of Pagans and Christians, 8–17.
4 French, William Harvey's Natural Philosophy; Pagel, William Harvey's Biological Ideas; Pagel, New Light on William Harvey.
5 Webster, “Harvey's De Generatione”.
6 Harvey, Exercitationes de Generatione Animalium; Lennox, “The Comparative Study of Animal Development”, 21–46.
7 That Harvey's work was unfinished is clear from the dedicatory epistle to the College of Physicians of London (written by George Ent), and from its final paragraph. See Harvey, Disputations Touching the Generation of Animals, 3–6, 453. In what follows, I quote from Whitteridge's translation (cited simply as “Harvey, Generation”, followed by the chapter or exercise number, and the page number, e.g. 71: 381). Occasionally, I provide comparisons with the earlier translations: Harvey, Anatomical Exercitations, Concerning the Generation of Living Creatures, henceforth cited as “1653”, and Harvey, The Works of William Harvey, 143–586 (this is available online at: http://fadedpage.com/books/20130911/html.php), henceforth cited as “Willis”. I have checked the Latin but prefer to present the reader with previously produced translations. I offer here a potentially controversial interpretation of Harvey's De generatione animalium and I wish to avoid imputations that I have deliberately translated his Latin in a way that suits my interpretation.
8 Aristotle, De generatione animalium, II, 3, 736b–7a; I have used the translation from Aristotle, Generation of Animals, 171.
9 Fernel, On the Hidden Causes of Things, 257.
10 Harvey, Generation, 28: 150.
11 French, William Harvey's Natural Philosophy; Lennox, “The Comparative Study of Animal Development”, 21–46. See also Harvey, Generation, Preface, 20.
12 Henry and Forrester, “Jean Fernel and the Importance of His De Abditis Rerum Causis”; Linda Deer Richardson, “The Generation of Disease”, 175–94; Copenhaver, “Astrology and Magic”, 264–300. On Harvey's emphasis upon eggs and the role of the female in procreation, see, for example, Harvey, Generation, 38 and 39: 175–80. See also Needham, A History of Embryology.
13 Fernel, On the Hidden Causes of Things, Preface.
14 Fernel, On the Hidden Causes of Things, 117, 123.
15 Fernel, On the Hidden Causes of Things, 119.
16 Fernel, On the Hidden Causes of Things, 335.
17 Fernel, On the Hidden Causes of Things, 323.
18 Fernel, On the Hidden Causes of Things, 355. For fuller discussion, see Henry and Forrester, “Jean Fernel and the Importance of His De Abditis Rerum Causis”, 28–38.
19 Fernel, On the Hidden Causes of Things, 495.
20 Sherrington, in his Endeavour of Jean Fernel, tries to make Fernel more modern by denying that he believes in astrology. For the correct view, see Walker, “The Astral Body in Renaissance Medicine”, 119–33; Henry and Forrester, “Jean Fernel and the Importance of His De Abditis Rerum Causis”; Henry, “Jean Fernel on Celestial Influences”.
21 Fernel, On the Hidden Causes of Things, 281.
22 Fernel, On the Hidden Causes of Things, 297, 307. See also Aristotle, De generatione et corruptione, 2, 10, 336b 25–35, 337a 20–25.
23 Fernel, On the Hidden Causes of Things, 305.
24 Fernel, On the Hidden Causes of Things, 321.
25 Fernel, On the Hidden Causes of Things, 257.
26 There were attempts to explain astrological influence in terms of the four manifest qualities. But there was always a strong tendency to accept that the influence of the stars was occult. See Rutkin, “Astrology”.
27 Harvey, Generation, 28: 150.
28 Copenhaver, Magic in Western Culture. See also Lovejoy, The Great Chain of Being.
29 Harvey, The Works, 116. See also Harvey, Generation, 71: 375.
30 Harvey, Generation, 47: 219.
31 Harvey, Generation, 40: 182, see also 183.
32 Harvey, Generation, 52: 248; see also 46: 211.
33 On the use of analogy in Harvey, see Whitteridge, “Introduction”, lvii–lix; Goldberg, “A Dark Business”, 419–32.
34 Harvey, Generation, 71: 377.
35 Harvey, Generation, 71: 377; Aristotle, De generatione animalium, II, 3, 736b 30.
36 Harvey, Generation, 71: 377.
37 Harvey, Generation, 71: 378.
38 Harvey, Generation, 71: 379. See White, “William Harvey and the Primacy of the Blood”, 239–55.
39 Harvey, Generation, 71: 379.
40 Harvey, Generation, 40: 183. Willis has (315): “he introduces his semen, imbued as it is with the spirit and the virtue of a divine agent”.
41 Harvey, Generation, 11: 65. 1653 has (52): “they doe not reach that which is chiefly concerned in the Operations of Nature, and in the Generation, and Nutrition of Animals: namely, the Divine Agent, and God of Nature, whose operations are guided with the highest artifice, providence, and wisdome, and doe all tend to some certain end, and are all produced, for some certain Good”.
42 Harvey, Generation, 27: 146.
43 See Whitteridge, “Introduction”, lx–lxiii; Bates, “Machina Ex Deo”, 577–93.
44 Harvey, Generation, 46: 211. Willis has (343): “vicar of the Almighty”. 1653 has (234): “this divine Vicar, and Vice-Roy of the deity”.
45 Harvey, Generation, 41: 188, 189.
46 Harvey, Generation, 41: 190. Willis has (322): “In the generation of things is seen the most excellent, the eternal and almighty God, the divinity of nature”. 1653 has (207): “In the generation of things, the best, eternal, and omnipotent God, or Natures deity, is evidently seen”.
47 Harvey, Generation, 47: 216–17.
48 Harvey, Generation, 71: 381.
49 Harvey, Generation, 72: 388. Willis (517) renders “ceu effato divino” as “as by a Divine fiat”. 1653 (468) has “as by the divine Mandat”. “Effatus” means “having spoken”, so suggests a divine command, and note that the Latin “fiat” appears immediately after.
50 Aristotle, De generatione et corruptione, 2, 10, 336a 33–336b10; Harvey, Generation, 50: 235.
51 Harvey, Generation, 50: 236.
52 Harvey, Generation, 50: 235.
53 Harvey, Generation, 50: 237.
54 Harvey, Generation, 50: 236. Willis (368) renders this as “no more than an instrumental efficient”.
55 Harvey, Generation, 50: 234.
56 Harvey, Generation, 50: 234.
57 Harvey, Generation, 50: 234. Willis (367) has: “subservient in all respects to the Supreme Creator, or father of all things”. The Latin reads (192): “rerum omnium Creatori, sive progenitori summo subserviens.”
58 Harvey, Generation, 72: 388.
59 Harvey, Generation, 71: 379, 381.
60 Harvey, Generation, 71: 381.
61 Harvey, Generation, 50: 236.
62 Harvey, Generation, 50: 236. Goldberg, “Epigenesis and the Rationality of Nature in William Harvey”, 8.
63 Harvey, Generation, 50: 236. Willis has (369): “but operate in conformity with [ … ] fate or special commandments”. 1653 has (268): “but work by a certain Destiny, and Mandat”. Note that the vegetative soul is “not undirected by foresight, art and divine intelligence”.
64 Harvey, Generation, 54: 269. Willis has (402): “and at whose will and pleasure all things are and were engendered”. 1653 has (311): “and at whose Beck, or Mandat, all things are created, and begotten”.
65 Harvey, Generation, 46: 211.
66 Harvey, Generation, 54: 268–9.
67 Harvey, Generation, 50: 237. The 1653 translation has (268): “Wherefore (in my opinion) he is the right and pious Philosopher, who deduceth the generations of all things from that eternal and Omnipotent Deity, upon whose pleasure the Universe dependeth”.
68 Harvey, Generation, 49: 225.
69 See, for example, Keynes, The Life of William Harvey, 339–40; Whitteridge, “Introduction”, lvi, lix.
70 Harvey, Generation, 49: 225.
71 Whitteridge, “Introduction”, lx. She quotes, for support in this conclusion, the passage just quoted above at footnote 65: Harvey, Generation, 50: 237.
72 Bates, “Machina Ex Deo”, 589.
73 Goldberg, “A Dark Business”; he refers to a supposed equivocation between natural and supernatural at 420, 428, and 430–2.
74 Goldberg, “A Dark Business”, 431. In his final section on “Theology”, Goldberg seems to suggest that Harvey believes God only acts through secondary causes. See also Goldberg, “Epigenesis and the Rationality of Nature in William Harvey”, in which he again takes the standard line that Harvey believed God acts through secondary causes.
75 Harvey, Generation, 54: 269; see also 49: 228.
76 Des Chene, “Life after Descartes”.
77 Funkenstein, Theology and the Scientific Imagination, 3.
78 Gaukroger, Emergence of a Scientific Culture, 507.
79 Harrison, Territories of Science and Religion.
80 Ford, When Did I Begin?
81 Newton, The Principia, 943; Westfall, Never at Rest, 495.
82 Lee, “Occasionalism”.
83 Harvey, Generation, Appendix, 465. Quoted from Harvey's annotations, written in 1653, to a copy of his De generatione animalium.