How Did Universities Change During the Scientific Revolution?
Resistance to the old curriculum, the marginalization of Aristotelian physics, the medical faculties and anatomy, the teaching of Copernican and Newtonian ideas, and the rise of new chairs.
How Did Universities Change During the Scientific Revolution?
The universities of early modern Europe were among the most conservative institutions of European life. Most were still organized around the medieval curriculum of arts, theology, law, and medicine, and most taught natural philosophy from Aristotle’s Physics, De caelo, and De generatione, often as filtered through the commentaries of Aquinas or the late-scholastic manuals of the Jesuits. The new science entered these institutions slowly, often against the resistance of the established faculty, and usually at the margins before becoming part of the mainstream. The story of the transformation is one of the most important chapters in the history of European education. The transformation was not uniform. The Italian universities, traditionally strong in medicine and natural philosophy, absorbed some new ideas but remained nominally Aristotelian in their formal teaching for decades. The Spanish universities, under tight royal and ecclesiastical control, were particularly resistant. The German universities, weakened by the Thirty Years’ War and the fragmentation of the Holy Roman Empire, varied widely; the Protestant universities in particular proved more open to the new natural philosophy. The Dutch universities, especially Leiden, became important centers of the new science. The English universities, Oxford and Cambridge, were dominated by the established Church and resistant to the new science, with the consequence that much of the most innovative work of the seventeenth century was done outside the universities. For a broader account of the role of education in the Scientific Revolution, see Education, Universities, and the New Science. For the role of Latin in scientific publishing, see Why Was Latin So Important in Scientific Publishing?. And for the broader social impact of the revolution, see The Impact of the Scientific Revolution on Society. For the philosophical background to the new science, see Bacon’s Scientific Method.
The Resistance of the Old Curriculum
The medieval university curriculum, which had been established in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries and had changed only slowly in the centuries since, was a serious obstacle to the reception of the new science. The curriculum was based on a set of authoritative texts — Aristotle in natural philosophy, Galen in medicine, Justinian in law, the Bible and the Church Fathers in theology — and on a set of established methods of reading and interpreting those texts. The new science, with its reliance on observation, experiment, and mathematical demonstration, did not fit easily into the established pattern. The resistance to the new science was particularly strong in the philosophy faculty, which was the faculty responsible for the teaching of natural philosophy. The philosophy faculty was often dominated by Aristotelians who had been trained in the old methods, and who were not disposed to abandon those methods in favor of the new. The resistance was also strong in the theology faculty, which was often dominated by confessional authorities who were suspicious of the religious implications of this new approach. And the resistance was strong in the medical faculty, which was often dominated by Galenists who were suspicious of the new anatomy. The resistance was overcome slowly, over the course of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, by a combination of internal and external pressures. The internal pressures included the increasing inadequacy of the Aristotelian natural philosophy, the increasing prestige of the reformed natural philosophy, and the increasing demand from students for instruction in the new subjects. The external pressures included the patronage of the experimental science by the state, the competition from the new scientific societies, and the increasing international prestige of the new philosophy of nature.
The Marginalization of Aristotelian Physics
The marginalization of Aristotelian physics was one of the most visible signs of the transformation of the universities. Aristotelian physics, with its doctrine of the four elements, its qualitative changes, its horror vacui, and its geocentric cosmos, was the centerpiece of the medieval natural-philosophical curriculum. The new science, with its corpuscular philosophy, its quantitative methods, its experimental demonstrations, and its heliocentric and eventually Newtonian cosmology, gradually displaced the Aristotelian physics in the universities, but the process was slow and contested. The first major breach in the Aristotelian physics was the new astronomy. The Copernican system, even after the condemnation of 1616 and the trial of Galileo in 1633, gradually became part of the natural-philosophical curriculum, with the result that the geocentric cosmos was slowly displaced. The second major breach was the new mechanics. Galileo’s Two New Sciences (1638), which laid the foundations of the modern science of motion, gradually became part of the natural-philosophical curriculum, with the result that the Aristotelian doctrine of natural and violent motions was slowly displaced. The third major breach was the new chemistry. The chemical revolution of the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, in which the phlogiston theory was replaced by the oxygen theory of combustion, gradually displaced the Aristotelian chemistry of the four elements. The marginalization of Aristotelian physics was not a single event. It was a long process, in which the Aristotelian physics was gradually displaced from the central position it had occupied in the medieval curriculum, and was eventually replaced by the new natural philosophy. The process was contested at every stage, and the resistance was sometimes strong. But the process was eventually successful, and by the early nineteenth century, the Aristotelian physics was no longer being taught in any major European university, except as a historical curiosity.
The Medical Faculties and Anatomy
The medical faculties were among the most receptive parts of the universities to the new learning. The recovery of the anatomical works of Galen and Hippocrates in the Renaissance, the new anatomy of Vesalius, and the new physiology of Harvey had laid the foundations for a substantial transformation of the medical curriculum. The new chemistry of the iatrochemists — Paracelsus, Van Helmont, and their successors — had laid the foundations for a substantial transformation of the medical treatment. And the new botany of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, with the growth of the botanical garden and the herbarium, had laid the foundations for a substantial transformation of the medical materia medica. The medical faculties were also among the most international parts of the universities. The medical faculty at Padua, where Vesalius had taught and where Harvey had studied, was a major center of the new anatomy. The medical faculty at Leiden, where the new clinical method was developed, was a major center of the new medicine. The medical faculty at Montpellier, which had a long tradition of independent medical teaching, was a major center of the new chemistry. The medical faculty at Edinburgh, which was established in 1726, was a major center of the new medical education. The transformation of the medical faculties, in short, was a major part of the larger transformation of the universities. The new anatomy, the new physiology, the new chemistry, and the new botany were all parts of the larger transformation of the natural sciences, and they all had a major impact on the medical curriculum. The transformation of the medical faculties, in turn, was a model for the transformation of the other faculties. The new methods of observation, experiment, and demonstration that were developed in the medical faculties were eventually to be applied to the other faculties as well.
The Teaching of Copernican and Newtonian Ideas
The teaching of the new astronomy was one of the most visible signs of the transformation of the universities. The Copernican system, even after the condemnation of 1616 and the trial of Galileo in 1633, gradually became part of the natural-philosophical curriculum. The teaching was often cautious, with the new system presented as a hypothesis rather than as a claim about the real structure of the cosmos, but it gradually became the standard teaching in the Protestant universities, and it became the standard teaching in the Catholic universities as well. The teaching of the Newtonian system was similarly gradual. Newton’s Principia of 1687 was a difficult book, and it was not easily incorporated into the university curriculum. The teaching of the Newtonian system, in the early eighteenth century, was largely the work of popularizers — Voltaire, s’Gravesande, Pemberton, Maclaurin, ‘s Gravesande — who summarized the new system in textbooks that were suitable for use in the universities. The teaching of the Newtonian system, in the universities, gradually displaced the teaching of the Cartesian system, which had been the principal alternative to the Aristotelian system in the late seventeenth century. The teaching of the new astronomy, in short, was a major part of the larger transformation of the universities. The new astronomy, the new mechanics, the new optics, and the new chemistry were all parts of the larger transformation of the natural sciences, and they all had a major impact on the university curriculum. The transformation, in turn, was a major part of the larger transformation of European culture.
The Rise of New Chairs
The rise of new chairs in natural philosophy, mathematics, and the experimental sciences was one of the most visible signs of the transformation of the universities. The new chairs were established in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, often with the support of the state, and they were filled by men who had been trained in the seventeenth-century science. The new chairs, in turn, became the principal venues for the teaching of the new natural knowledge in the universities. The Lucasian Chair of Mathematics at Cambridge, established in 1663 with money left by Henry Lucas, was the first major new chair in the English universities. The chair was held by Isaac Barrow and then by Isaac Newton, and it became one of the most prestigious positions in the English scientific world. The chairs of natural philosophy, mathematics, and astronomy at the Scottish universities — St Andrews, Glasgow, Aberdeen, Edinburgh — were established in the seventeenth century, and they became important centers of this new approach. The chairs of experimental physics at the German universities — Halle, Göttingen, Berlin — were established in the eighteenth century, and they became important centers of the new experimental science. The rise of new chairs, in short, was a major part of the larger transformation of the universities. The new chairs provided venues for the teaching of the reformed natural philosophy, they provided positions for the natural philosophers who had been trained in the experimental science, and they provided models for the further reform of the universities. The chairs, in turn, were a major part of the larger transformation of European science, and they were one of the principal mechanisms by which the new philosophy of nature was incorporated into the European university system.
The Role of the Baconian Program
The Baconian program, with its emphasis on empirical investigation, useful knowledge, and the systematic collection of facts, was a major influence on the transformation of the universities. Francis Bacon, in The Advancement of Learning (1605) and Novum Organum (1620), had insisted that the new knowledge should be made public and applied to the improvement of human life, and he had proposed a program of empirical investigation that would systematically collect the facts of nature and use them to develop a comprehensive science. The full account of the Baconian program is given in Bacon’s Scientific Method. The Baconian program was influential in the English universities, where it tookn up by a number of natural philosophers in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The program was also influential in the French and Italian scientific societies, and in the German and Dutch universities. The program, in its various forms, was a major influence on the transformation of the universities, and it was one of the principal intellectual resources on which the new scientific education was based.
The Long-Term Legacy
The long-term legacy of the transformation of the universities, in the period of the Scientific Revolution, was the establishment of a system of higher education in which the new learning was a central part of the curriculum. The reformed universities of the nineteenth century — the research universities of Germany, the technical schools of France, the polytechnics of Britain, the research institutes of the United States — were all, in significant part, the product of the long process by which the seventeenth-century science gradually displaced the old. The transformation, in short, was one of the most important cultural changes of early modern Europe, and it was one of the principal legacies of the Scientific Revolution. See How Did Universities Change During the Scientific Revolution?. The role of Latin in scientific publishing is examined in Why Was Latin So Important in Scientific Publishing?. And the broader social impact of the revolution is set out in The Impact of the Scientific Revolution on Society.