Toby E. Huff

Huff begins with one of the great questions in Global History: Why were Europeans first to undertake the practice of modern science, when both the Arabs and the Chinese were more technologically advanced during the medieval period? Huff’s argument, devoid of ethnocentric triumphalism, is that early modern Western Europe was distinguished by a culture which created social and institutional forums that legitimated and standardized the analysis of man, mind, consciousness, and the natural world. Huff digs deep into that culture to reveal the seedbed of conditions that allowed for the flowering of modern science. Such conditions were absent in Arab-Muslim regions and in China.

To understand the evolution and development of systems of scientific thought, writes Huff, we have to consider the broader metaphysical picture within which intellectual discourse occurred. By Huff’s account, that metaphysical picture began to take shape in Western Europe no later than the 12th & 13th centuries, with the intellectual discourse among Christian theologians. Christian thinkers constructed an image of man as possessing two key attributes—a capacity for reason, and conscience (or moral self-consciousness), against which moral and legal precepts had to be weighed.

Besides contributing to the formulation of a uniquely Western conception of human reason (with help from the classical Greeks), the Christian Church also helped create a new legal order that would result in the development of new institutions that provided the crucial space for the emergence of modern science. The investiture controversy and the papal revolution of Gregory VII—by asserting the right to jurisdiction, the right to hear cases within a specified domain, the right to legislate new laws, and a commitment to conduct affairs according to law—made possible the split between religious and secular authority and the recognition of autonomous, self-governing entities, from guilds and professional association to towns and universities.

It was the unfettered study and public discussion of philosophy and natural science in the medieval universities of Western Europe, writes Huff, which gave rise to the ethos of modern science, centered on the values of universalism, communalism, organized skepticism, and disinterestedness. Many churchmen were proto-scientists, motivated by the Christian view of rationality and inspired to investigate the natural world so as to better understand divine purpose. They also undertook the arduous task of compiling and critiquing the centuries’ accumulation of frequently obscure or contradictory ecclesiastical texts so as to reconcile distinct traditions of canonical law. The organized skepticism associated with modern science began with an assertion of the superiority of rational thought over biblical literalism by such scholars of canonical law as William of Conches, Thierry of Chartres, and Abelard of Bath. “If one could exercise reason and conscience in the domain of the inherently sacred,” writes Huff, “then the metaphysical bonds which declared that there was only one interpretation of the sacred law were destroyed.” In the wake of the work of the churchmen, the breakthrough to modern science came with the freedom of non-ecclesiastical elites to describe and explain the known world—freely, publicly and completely—in terms radically at variance with the received religious wisdom.

Why did Arab-Muslim civilization not make the leap to a modern scientific ethos? In Arab civilization, there was no lack of talent, dedication or inventive genius, no mathematical deficiencies or lack of theoretical imagination or experimental techniques; the problem was sociological and cultural, says Huff. Within the Muslim world of the late Middle Ages, the utility and usefulness of knowledge was narrowly construed to mean knowledge useful in a strictly religious context. Islam declined to endorse the idea that human reason could be an independent source of law and ethics. Whereas Western legal systems had adopted reason and conscience as well as the idea of natural law as the ultimate standards for accepting or rejecting a specific legal practice or principle, Islamic law opted for tradition and scholarly consensus. The Islamic root of law designated by tradition meant precisely that: a tradition of the Prophet, authenticated by the isnad (the names of the transmitters back to the originator), no matter how illogical or inconsistent it might be with respect to other practices, principles or traditions. It was unthinkable that anyone could come up with a new principle of law; Allah’s command had been given once and for all—a perfect, complete, uncorrupted work—and man’s task was to understand it, not add to it. The idea of innovation in general implied impiety, if not outright heresy.

Islamic scholars rejected the idea of a cosmological system animated by natural forces, just as they denied that humanity was capable of comprehending the inscrutable ways of Allah. The Islamic system of higher education (the madrasas) also failed to develop the ethos necessary for the rise of modern science. It was impossible to achieve the necessary level of moral and ethical neutrality in the realm of thought because developments in Islamic law served to reinforce a variety of particularisms, preventing the development of a universal level of discourse. There were four distinct and separate traditions of legal thought, for instance, and no effort was made to integrate them, to overcome the ‘discord of discordant texts’ and to fashion a single uniform system of law. A strong bias toward elitism discouraged access to knowledge by non-specialists, and various techniques of dissimulation were used by legal-religious scholars to conceal the meaning of their pronouncements. When the printing press arrived in Europe in the 14th century, it was banned by Muslim leaders.

Institutional and attitudinal impediments to the rise of modern science also existed in China. China’s technological advantage over the West did not include a mastery of geometry, trigonometry, physics or optics. There was no coherent natural philosophy, but a heterogeneous mixture of enquiries, and no conception or word for the overarching sum of them all. Chinese thought tended toward correlative thinking (light & darkness, heat & cold, yin & yang, etc) rather than causal thinking. The cosmological outlook presumed correspondence between the conduct of the emperor and the patterns of heaven, and legal traditions emphasized public decorum and deference to authority. The penal character of Chinese legalism and the absence of a distinction between public and private meant that there was little interest in private matters of right and wrong or abstract questions of justice per se, but great concern for the consequences any disruption implied for the social order.

The late 10th c. Sung Dynasty laid the foundation for the centralized, bureaucratic rule of modern China, and thereafter all positions of elevated learning in Chinese civilization were officially controlled by the Chinese state through the examination system. Because Confucian literary studies focused on the moral and ethical issues of governing and disallowed scientific education (other than a carefully controlled curriculum in astronomy and mathematics), the standardized civil examination system effectively killed off natural philosophy as a coherent account of the world. Chinese thought placed a cultural premium on yielding to the priority of the classics and avoiding vigorous public debate; the result was the absence of daring innovation and an orientation toward preserving the past. Chinese authorities neither created not tolerated independent institutions of higher learning within which disinterested scholars could pursue their insights. Only in Western Europe, writes Huff, was there an institutional setting that “animated and authorized scholars over the centuries to speak freely their deepest thoughts about the world and its ontologies.”

The Rise of Early Modern Science is an impressive accomplishment by an academic specialist. Huff’s references to both primary and secondary sources are broad and deep, his explication of key concepts systematic and thorough, and his conclusions rich with implications for comparative history and cultures.… (altro)