The Eighteenth-Century Origins of the Concept of Scientific Revolution
Author(s): I. Bernard Cohen
Source: Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 37, No. 2 (Apr. - Jun., 1976), pp. 257-288
Published by: University of Pennsylvania Press
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THE EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY ORIGINS
OF THE CONCEPT OF SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION1
BY I. BERNARDCOHEN
Many historians of science, like their fellow general historians,
believe that the concept of revolution in science is of fairly recent origin,
even
and that it has been superimposed anachronously-and
for
three
of
In
some
events
the
fact, however,
past.2
harshly-on
centuries there has been a more or less unbroken tradition of viewing
scientific change as a sequence of revolutions. In the eighteenth century,
when this tradition appears to have taken its first rise, there was still
some confusion and ambiguity about the sense of the word "revolution":
in relation not only to science but to political events. Although "revolution" came into general usage during the eighteenth century to denote a
breach of continuity or a secular change of real magnitude, there also
remained current the older sense of "revolution" as a cyclical
phenomenon, a continuous sequence of ebb and flow, a kind of circula'This article, based on research supported by a grant from the Spencer Foundation,
is taken from a larger and more general survey of the origins and development of the
concept and name, "scientific revolution," presented at the semicentennial meeting of
the History of Science Society (Oct. 1974) and-in a somewhat altered version-at the
Boston Colloquium for the Philosophy of Science (Feb. 1975).
2 In the past decade or more, the discussions of revolutions in science have pivoted on
Thomas S. Kuhn's bold and challenging tract, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
(Chicago, 1962; also issued as vol. 2 of the International Encyclopedia of Unified
Science; 2nd ed., enlarged, 1970). For a response to Kuhn's analysis, see Imre Lakatos
and Alan Musgrave (eds.), Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge (Cambridge, 1970),
comprising a primary paper by T. S. Kuhn, followed by critical discussions by J. W. N.
Watkins, S. E. Toulmin, L. Pearce Williams, K. R. Popper, Margaret Masterman, I.
Lakatos, P. K. Feyerabend, plus a final "Reflections on my Critics" by Kuhn. Among
many reviews and review articles, particular attention may be called to those by Gerd
Buchdahl, Dudley Shapere, and Israel Scheffler. The propriety of using the word and
concept of "revolution" in relation to science is discussed by Stephen E. Toulmin, in the
course of a lengthy historical narrative of, and critique upon, Kuhn's views, in Human
Understanding (Princeton, 1972), I, 100-30, esp. 117-18. The reaction to Kuhn's thesis
of social dynamics of scientific change in terms of a sequence of revolutions (alternating
with what he calls "normal science") has been either to apply or to challenge some features of his analysis, or to question the meaning (or meanings) of the technical terms he
uses, or to raise doubts as to the propriety of using the concept of revolution in relation
to scientific change. Thus the secondary literature on the philosophy and history of
science has become saturated with books and articles using the word "revolution" in almost every possible context, and dealing with almost every aspect of scientific revolutions, save one: there has been no adequate study of what the particular uses of this
word and concept may have been in successive past ages. (But see note 19 infra.)
257
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258
I. BERNARD
COHEN
tion and return, or a repetition.3 After 1789, the new meaning came to
predominate and, ever since, "revolution" has commonly implied a
radical change and a departure from traditional or accepted modes of
thought, belief, action, social behavior, or political or social organization. Thus in early modern times there occurred a double transformation of "revolution" and the concept for which it is the name. First, a
scientific term, taken from astronomy and geometry, came to be applied to a general range of social, political, economic, and intellectual or
cultural activities; and, second, in this usage the term gained a new
meaning that was radically different from-if not diametrically opposite
to-the original and strict etymological sense of "revolution" (revolution, revoluzione), which is derived from the mediaeval Latin revolutio, a
rolling back or a return, usually with an implied sense of revolving in
time.4
During the eighteenth century, the point of view emerged that
scientific change is characterized by an analog of the revolutions that
alter the forms of society and the political affairs of the state. Whereas
earlier, science had contributed "revolution" to the discourse of social
3An example is Colin Maclaurin: An Account of Isaac Newton's Philosophical Discoveries (London, 1748); a facsimile edition, with an introduction by L. L. Laudan (New
York, 1968). Here it is said (39) to be "not worth while ... to trace the history of learning thro' its various revolutions in the later ages." Maclaurin also referred to a comparison made by Aristotle of the "revolutions of learning" and "the rising and setting of
the stars." Maclaurin obviously had in mind a cyclical phenomenon, or ebb and flow. In
another passage (ibid., 42), he referred to the return of learning to the "western parts of
Europe," observing that "the period which commenced upon the revolution we have
mentioned, has already continued some hundred years." He also wrote that with the dispelling of the cloud of mediaeval darkness, "the liberal arts and sciences were restored,
and none of them has gained more by this happy revolution than natural philosophy"
(ibid., 41).
4Some historical studies of the concept and name of "revolution" are: Felix Gilbert,
"Revolution," Dictionary of the History of Ideas, ed. Philip P. Wiener, 5 vols. (New
York, 1973), IV, 152-67; Karl Griewank, Der neuzeitliche Revolutionsbegriff Enstehung und Entwicklung (Weimar, 1955); Arthur Hatto, "Revolution: An Enquiry into
the Usefulness of an Historical Term," Mind, 58 (1949), 495-517; Melvin J. Lasky,
"The Birth of a Metaphor. On the Origins of Utopia & Revolution," Encounter, 34
(Feb. 1970), 35-45, 34 (Mar. 1970), 30-42; Eugen Rosenstock [=Rosenstock-Huessy],
"Revolution als politische Begriff in der Neuzeit," Abhandlungen der Schlesischen
Gesellschaft fur vaterlandische Cultur (Geisteswissenschaftliche Reihe), 5. Heft:
"Festgabe der rechts- und staatswissenschaftlichen Fakultat in Breslau fur Paul Heilborn zum 70. Geburtstag 6. Februar 1931" (Breslau, 1931), 83-124, of which the main
points are given in summary in Hatto's article; Vernon F. Snow, "The Concept of
Revolution in Seventeenth-Century England," The Historical Journal, 5 (1962), 167-74.
Useful as first guides to the history and successive meanings of "revolution" are E. Littr6, Dictionnaire de la languefrancaise, 4 vols. and suppl. (Paris, 1881-83), and A New
English Dictionary on Historical Principles, ed. James A. H. Murray, Henry Bradley,
W. A. Craigie, C. T. Onions, and reissued as The Oxford English Dictionary, 12 vols.
and suppl. (Oxford, 1933).
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CONCEPT
OF SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION
259
and political change, now social and political thought gave back to
science the concept of revolution in the newly established sense, no
longer as a term serving in the scientific explanation of natural
phenomena, but rather an expression to be used in the social or intellectual explanation of scientific change itself-now visualized as a
series of secular discontinuities of such magnitude as to constitute definite breaks with the past. The rejection of the older and more traditional
opinions in which scientific change was seen as a cyclical continuous
process, and the rise of the doctrine that science progresses by radical
revolutions has occurred by degrees ever since the opening years of the
eighteenth century, and has been continuously influenced by the
development of concepts and theories of political and social (and
cultural) revolution. Accordingly, an understanding of the rise of the
idea of revolutions in science (and of the existence of the Scientific
Revolution) requires some knowledge of the general history of the concept and name "revolution."6
The history of the idea of revolution in the sciences is of real importance for our understanding of the development of the sciences. For
example, we today conceive Galileo to have been a revolutionary figure
and write about the "intellectual revolution" that he wrought; but did he
consider himself to have been a revolutionary?7Did Newton? When did
the value of progress become linked to the concept of change by revolution? Such questions illuminate the nature of scientific change by mak5 An example of the ways in which political and social events may affect the image of
revolution in science occurs in the acceptance by today's scholars of the conception that
the Scientific Revolution was not an event or a set of events that occurred in a narrow
compass of time (as was the case for the American and French Revolutions), but may
have lasted through two or even three centuries. Such a notion of a continuing revolution
appears to have been one of the innovative features of the Russian Revolution, which
went so far as to reckon the calendar in years of the Revolution, rather than years since
the Revolution; so that the revolution itself became an era. Students of revolution point
out that all previous revolutions had been (or had been conceived as) events in a limited
time-span that produced a change-violent, dramatic, even cataclysmic-or a rapid
series of such events. The acceptable title of a book such as A. R. Hall's The Scientific
Revolution 1500-1800 (London, 1954), thus reflects a general point of view concerning
revolutions that has become common-place in recent decades, but would itself have been
revolutionary a century ago. Eugen Rosenstock has discussed the ways in which such
phrases used in Russia as "the next two decades of the Revolution" imply an institutionalizing of the revolution; cf. loc. cit., 84.
6This relation of the changing concept of revolution (in the political, social, and economic domains) to the successive ways in which scientists, philosophers, and historians
of science have conceived the so-called Scientific Revolution (and revolutions in science)
is one of the main themes of a more general inquiry I have undertaken into the origins
and history of the concept of revolution in science. The results shall eventually be
published in book form by Science History Publications, a division of Neale Watson
Academic Publications, New York.
7Such a question has both historical and philosophical components. Historical research tells us that the noun "revolutionary" had not yet come into being, and that at
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260
I. BERNARD COHEN
ing precise the scientist's image of himself, which is directly related to
the public image of the scientist, a factor in the type of creative individual attracted to the pursuit of science.8 In some of his scientific work,
notably in physics, Newton saw himself as only rediscovering some of
the knowledge of nature and of her laws that had been current among
certain ancient sages;9 but in mathematics he was so jealous of his proprietary rights in the invention of the calculus that he concluded that
Leibniz could have produced similar results only by plagiarism from the
Newton mathematical manuscripts then in circulation. Furthermore,
the present enquiry clarifies such fundamental historical issues as the
special defining features of the Newtonian revolution in science by
enabling us to distinguish between what Newton's contemporaries and
immediate successors held to be his signal achievement and what seems
to us-some two and a half centuries later-to have been so remarkable
and innovatory in Newtonian science.10 In recent discussions, historians
and philosophers have expressed doubts as to whether it is proper to use
"revolution" to describe scientific change, and whether in any event
there ever was a Scientific Revolution;l1 yet in all writings on this subject with which I am familiar, the question is never raised as to whether
the scientists allegedly participating in such supposed revolutions may
or may not have considered themselves to be active in a revolution or to
have been immediate heirs to a revolution. For these and other reasons,
the present enquiry may transcend the value of a mere chronicle of an
idea, and shed some illumination on the nature of science and of scientific change in the age of Newton.
that time the word "revolution" had not yet been applied to the description of scientific
change. But there is an open philosophical question as to whether the foregoing historical fact would actually have inhibited Galileo from so considering himself.
8This topic is explored in the work cited in note 6 supra.
90n this aspect of Newton's thought see J. E. McGuire and P. M. Rattansi, "Newton
and the 'Pipes of Pan'," Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London, 21 (1966),
108-43; I. B. Cohen, "'Quantum in se est': Newton's Concept of Inertia in Relation to
Descartes and Lucretius," ibid., 19 (1964), 131-55.
"?Thisquestion is discussed in my forthcoming book, The Newtonian Revolution in
Science, with Illustrations of the Transformation of Scientific Ideas (Cambridge: at the
University Press, to be published in 1977).
11The Scientific Revolution is the name commonly given today to the particular
scientific revolution (or set of revolutions) of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, by
means of which our modern science was established, associated with such figures as
Copernicus and Vesalius, Bacon and Descartes, Galileo and Kepler, Harvey, Huygens,
and Newton. In the eighteenth century, and in the seventeenth century, a revolution was
conceived as a single event (e.g., the Glorious Revolution) or a composite event (e.g., the
French Revolution). Thus it is hardly likely that any analyst would then have thought of
a revolution in science extending over more than a century of time, say from Copernicus
(1543) to Newton (1687). The writers on science in the eighteenth century developed the
notion of revolutionary scientific events, comparable to political events and usually
associated with the work of a single individual:Copernicus, Descartes, Newton. Never-
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CONCEPT
OF SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION
261
in the preceding
During most of the eighteenth century-as
centuries-the primary signification of "revolution" was astronomical,
and thus-associatively or derivatively-astrological. The revolutions
observed in the diurnal motion of the heavens12and the apparent diurnal
and orbital motions of the "planetary" bodies (or of their spheres) had
been recorded over centuries in the works of Chaucer, Dante, Alfraganus (who was a major source of astronomical knowledge for Dante),
Messahala, Sacrobosco, and countless others. This term appears boldly
in the title of Copernicus's celebrated book, De revolutionibus orbium
coelestium (1543), and it occurs not infrequently in Galileo's Dialogue
concerning the Two Chief World Systems.13 It may be found in
almanacs and in such popular works as Leurechon's La Recreation
mathematique (which was Englished by William Oughtred), and in
Vincent Wing's popular compendiums of astronomy and astrology
theless, there are also some implications of larger-scale revolutions in science than
would be represented by any one treatise or a single discovery or invention, however
monumental. The historian of mathematics, Montucla, thus wrote of "l'heureuse revolution" that, soon after Copernicus, "6prouva la philosophie." Bailly, in his history of
astronomy, though asserting that Newton's Principia was to create a "revolution dans
l'astronomie," observed that this revolution "ne se fit pas tout-a-coup." Bailly, as we
shall see below, extended the revolutionary concept to a series of events that could
extend over the greater part of a century, including the stage of destruction of a received
system as a necessary prior condition for the construction and acceptance of a new one.
For him Descartes did not achieve revolutionary status, although he was of the utmost
importance in preparing the Newtonian revolution to come. Furthermore, in the
eighteenth century, there seems to have been a widely held opinion that the special features of the science that emerged between Copernicus and Newton did not merely
constitute an "improvement" of ancient knowledge, but were revolutionary, in the sense
of being new and unprecedented. The inaugural century of modern science, in other
words, had produced the foundation for the future scientific revolutions and for those
that had occurred in the eighteenth century. In the post-Principia decades, the events of
the primary century of revolution were not called "the Scientific Revolution," as is done
today, but this distinction between the conceptions of that era and of ours may have less
real fundamental difference than may at first sight appear.
12Throughout most of modern times there has not been a clear distinction between
revolution and rotation, such as is generally made today: rotation being the turning of a
body about an axis and revolution the motion of a body in an orbit. In the case of the
heavenly bodies, the planets revolve about the sun while rotating on their axes. But their
revolutions would actually be rotations if the planets were conceived to be attached to
large rotating spheres. Hence there is a lack of clarity in the title of Copernicus's De
revolutionibus orbium coelestium (1543), since the heavenly spheres in question are
presumably not the planets but the rotating spheres that carry the planets around the
sun in their revolutions. The two words are used somewhat interchangeably in Newton's
Principia (1687). And even today we still refer to a solid generated by the rotation of a
plane figure about an axis in that plane as a "solid of revolution."
'3The Dialogo sopra i due massimi sistemi (Florence, 1632), was published in an
English version in 1661. A facsimile of the latter was published in 1967 by Dawsons of
Pall Mall (London) and Zeitlin and Ver Brugge (Los Angeles), with an introduction by
Stillman Drake.
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262
I. BERNARD
COHEN
(1651, 1669) and Streete's Astronomia Carolina (1661, 1663, 1710),
from which the youthful Newton recorded Kepler's third law.
In the late Middle Ages, "revolution" came to signify not only the
moving of a celestial body throughout a complete closed orbit (or the
time in which the circuit of the orbit is completed), but also any turning
or rolling back or around-ranging from the circular turning of a wheel
to the figurative sense of turning over in the mind or considering. By the
time of the Renaissance, "revolutions" had a wider signification-including any periodical (or quasiperiodical) occurrences, and
eventually any group of phenomena that went through an ordered set of
stages-a cycle (in the sense of "coming full circle").14Even the rise and
fall of civilizations, or of culture, as a kind of tidal ebb and flow, was
called a revolution. All of these usages are obviously linked to the
primary sense in which this word occurs in astronomy and geometry. It
shall be seen below how these several meanings were applied to science
and the sciences during the Scientific Revolution.
One possible link between the original cyclical meaning and today's
common usage of "revolution"-for a "complete change of affairs" or a
"reversal of conditions," an overthrowing (usually accompanied by violence) of established government or society or institutions-lies in the
close association of a cyclical "turning-over" and a secular "overturning." Today, the associated verb used to denote cyclical phenomena is
"revolve"; whereas the verb "revolt" implies an uprising against the
political state or social order. Both "revolve" and "revolt" come from
the same verb: revolvere, revolutus. In the eighteenth century, prior to
1789, these two distinct and very different senses of "revolution" are apt
to occur together in discussions of history and politics as well as the
course of development in literature, the arts, and the sciences. It is, accordingly, not always a simple task to discover whether a given
eighteenth-century author may have had in mind a cyclical return (an
ebb and flow) or a secular change of a significant magnitude (often, but
not necessarily, accompanied by violence). This ambiguity was particularly a feature of the years between the English revolutions of the
seventeenth century and the American and French revolutions-the era
'4See Arthur Hatto, "Revolution . ." (1949, cited in note 4 supra). A cyclical view of
history was propounded in antiquity by Plato and Polybius, and discussed by Cicero. A
major modern cyclical concept of history occurs in Giambattista Vico's Scienza nuova
(1725); see The New Science of Giambattista Vico, revised translation of the third edition (1744) by Thomas G. Bergin and Max H. Fisch (Ithaca, 1968). Among the many
works on cycles, particular attention may be called to Mircea Eliade, The Myth of the
Eternal Return, trans. from the French by Willard R. Trask (Princeton, 1954, 1965);
Stephen G. Brush, "The Development of the Kinetic Theory of Gases. VIII. Randomness and Irreversibility," Archive for History of Exact Sciences, 12 (1974), 1-88, esp. ?
7, "The Recurrence Paradox," 67-77; Abel Rey, Le retour eternel et la philosophie de
la physique (Paris, 1927).
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CONCEPT
OF SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION
263
of the Newtonian revolution in science and of the emergence of the concept of revolution as a mode of scientific change.
There is one term, however, whose usage generally enables the
modern (i.e., post-1789) reader to distinguish between the two senses of
"revolution," that is, the use of the word "epoch." Thus there is no ambiguity whatsoever in Alexis Clairaut's blunt assertion in 1747: "Le
fameux livre des Principes mathematiques de la Philosophie naturelle
[de Newton] a ete l'epoque d'une grande revolution dans la Physique."15
Here "epoch" is not used in the presently current meaning of an era or
an age (the primary sense in American English), but rather signifies an
event that inaugurates an age or that is the initial or major occurrence
of or in a revolution: the beginning of a new era. Often, in the late
seventeenth and in the eighteenth century, this word appears in its late
Latin form as epocha, in historical and political writings and in scientific
works.16
The sixteenth century knew no full-scale or national revolutions in
the sense in which we use the word today in social and political contexts;
but the seventeenth century was witness to the Glorious Revolution
(1688)17and to an earlier series of events and political and social move15Alexis-ClaudeClairaut: "Du systeme du monde, dans les principes de la gravitation
universelle," Suite des memoires de mathematique, et dephysique, tires des registres de
l'Academie Royale des Sciences de l'annee M.DCCXL V (Amsterdam, 1754), II, 465;
Clairaut's paper was read "a l'Assemble publique du 15 Nov. 1747."
16This is still the first definition of "epoch" in British and French dictionaries: an
event that begins an era in history, in life, or in science. It is thus closely akin to "epochmaking." On "epoch," see Bossuet's Discours sur l'histoire universelle, "Dessein
general de cet ouvrage" (Edition augmentee des nouvelles additions et des variantes de
texte, Paris, 1823), I, 5-6.
'7The primary image of revolution in the eighteenth century was The Glorious Revolution, cited in the general article on "Revolution" in the Diderot-d'Alembert Encyclopedie, and in fact the chief example there given. The Glorious Revolution grew
greater and greater in importance in the development of the concept of revolution up to
1789, as it gradually became evident to both Englishmen and Continentals that there
had been a revolution in England, possibly the first true revolution in the modern era. In
Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language (1755), this revolution appears in
the third definition of "revolution": "Change in the state of a government or country. It
is used among us . . . for the change produced by the admission of king William and
queen Mary." The Glorious Revolution may not seem as revolutionary to us-with our
outlook so determined by such greater cataclysms as the French, Russian, and Chinese
revolutions-as it did to the men and women of the eighteenth century. But to thinkers
of so different a political stripe as Joseph Priestley and David Hume, it was indeed a
revolution, and a rather glorious one at that. In Priestley's judgment, "the most important period in our history is that of the revolution under king William. Then it was
that our constitution, after many fluctuations, and frequent struggles for power by the
different members of it (several of them attended with vast effusion of blood), was finally
settled. A revolution so remarkable, and attended with such happy consequences, had
perhaps no parallel in the history of the world, till the still more remarkable revolutions
that have lately taken place in America and France. This it was, as Mr. Hume says, that
cut off all pretensions to power founded on hereditary right; when a prince was chosen
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264
I. BERNARD
COHEN
ments that we have lately come to call the English Revolution.18There
were thus no political or social events of the sixteenth century, or of the
seventeenth century before 1688, that could provide examples or conceptual models for revolution (in the sense of a drastic or even a sudden
secular change) in the areas of human creative effort; this fact is mirrored in the failure to find an example of a coupling of "science" and
"revolution" dating earlier than about 1700.19 About a half-century
after the Glorious Revolution, however, just at the time when the fullness of Newton's achievement had become recognized, the new concept
of revolution was being applied to science, and specifically to Newton's
Principia.20 And even earlier, the new infinitesimal calculus of Newton
and of Leibniz had been judged to have constituted a revolution in
mathematics.
Those who wrote of "revolutions" in political affairs in the late
seventeenth century most often had in mind some kind of restoration, a
form of return to a former or original state, or at least the completion of
a cycle. If this meant the end of a condition that was found to be intolerable, then the act of completing that cycle could be a kind of revolution in the post-1789 sense. In this way the concept of a revolution as a
who received the crown on express conditions, and found his authority established on the
same bottom with the privileges of the people .. ." Hume referred specifically to "that
famous revolution, which has had such a happy influence on our constitution, and has
been attended with such mightly consequences." See Joseph Priestley, Lectures on History and General Policy (London, 1826), Lect. 36, 286-87; David Hume, A Treatise of
Human Nature, ed. L. A. Selby-Bigge (Oxford, 1967, reprint; first ed., 1888), 563; Book
III, "Of Morals," part 2, sect. 10. Guizot, calling for a new attitude toward British
eighteenth-century history, observed that Hume had "formed ... the opinion of
Europe" but that his "narrative and opinions . . . had ceased to satisfy the imagination
and reason of the public." See his History of the English Revolution from the Accession
of Charles I, trans. Louise H. R. Coutier (Oxford, 1838), "Author's Preface," xxi-xxii.
'8The so-called English Revolution was not generally conceived to have been a revolution until the twentieth century, although a few historians of the nineteenth century
(notably F. P. G. Guizot and Samuel R. Gardiner) had supposed the events of the 1640's
to have been a revolution. (Gardiner wrote of a Puritan Revolution.) See, on this topic,
J. R. Jones, The Revolution of 1688 in England (London, 1972), 9; R. C. Latham,
"English Revolutionary Thought, 1640-60," History, 30 (1945), 38-59.
"9Theearliest such instance that I have found cited in the secondary literature is Diderot's essay, "Encyclopedie" (1755), in the great encyclopaedia associated with his
name; this occurs in Lewis S. Feuer, Einstein and the Generations of Science (New
York, 1974), 241. But Diderot was preceded in this usage by Fontenelle, Clairaut, and
d'Alembert (and perhaps others), as shall be seen below. Feuer's book, which appeared
as I was completing this study, contains some notes on the history of "The Idea of
Scientific Revolution" (239-52), as a section of part 3 dealing with "Generational Movements and 'Scientific Revolutions'," in which the main topic appears to be "The Disanalogy of Scientific Revolution: The Absence of Revolutionary Situations" (252-68).
Feuer's brief historical r6sum6 of this topic is impaired by errors of fact and omissions;
e.g., he mistakenly states that William Whewell did not refer to revolutions in science.
20See note 15 supra.
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CONCEPT
OF SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION
265
radical change could be compatible with the ancient cyclical view of history, and did not necessarily imply a secular (non-cyclical) or linear concept of historical change-even in the political sphere. Revolution thus
could and did mean a dynastic change or a dynastic restoration or a
change in the actual form or system of government or rule, as well as a
cyclical change, "in administration, economics and the social life of a
people."21
The ordinary usage at the end of the seventeenth century may be
illustrated by the writings of Hobbes and Locke. Hobbes was perfectly
familiar with the traditional scientific sense of "revolution" and he used
this expression in his writings on geometry and on natural philosophy.
He wrote of "a contrary revolution," of "epicycles," and of revolutions
in the sense of completed circular motions. But apparently he did not
transfer this scientific term to politics, where to "describe a sudden
political change Hobbes-like Bacon, Coke, Greville and Seldon-used
such words as 'revolt', 'rebellion' and 'overturning'."22Locke, in both
his Elements of Natural Philosophy and Some Thoughts Concerning
Education, used "revolution" in reference to the Earth's annual
motion about the Sun (her "annual revolutions") and referred to the
Sun as the "Center" of our planet's "Revolutions."23 In the political
sphere, Locke followed Francois Bernier (whose Histoire de la derniere
revolution des etats du Grand Mongol he had studied in close detail) in
his use of "revolution" in the sense of completed dynastic change.24 In
his famous Second Treatise, notable for its defense of the Glorious
Revolution and for its presentation of the theory of government based
on compact, Locke used "revolution" only twice-each time referring
to a political cycle in which there was a return to a previous state with
regard to some constitutional points. Thus he mentioned the "slowness
and aversion in the people to quit their old constitutions," which "has in
the many revolutions that have been seen in this kingdom, in this and
former ages, still kept us to, or after some interval of fruitless attempts,
still brought us back again to our old legislative of king, lord, and commons."25
Rather early in the eighteenth century, when "revolution" began to
gain currency in the meaning of a radical or significant change, there
were seen to have been revolutions in many domains of human activity.
21V. F. Snow, "The Concept of Revolution," op. cit., 172.
22Ibid.,169.
23Ibid., 172. Cf. Peter Laslett, "The English Revolution and Locke's'Two Treatises
of Government'," The Cambridge Historical Journal, 12 (1956), 40-55; esp. 55. A
similar expression occurs in the Essay Concerning Human Understanding.
24Snow,op. cit., 173.
25Ibid., 173. Cf. Peter Laslett's critical edition of Locke's Two Treatises of Government (2nd ed., Cambridge, 1967), 432 (II, ? 223). Locke also wrote that "such Revolutions happen not upon every little mismanagement in publick affairs"; ibid., 433 (II, ?
225).
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I. BERNARD COHEN
It was then that an interest became expressedin two aspects of possible
revolutionsin science: the scientific revolutionsthat mighthave occurred in the past (associatedwith Copernicus,Bacon, Descartes, Galileo)
and those that were actuallyin progress.In the extreme, in the decade
or so before the French Revolution,possibly two scientists concluded
that theirownworkwas revolutionary.2
I have not been able to find any references to revolutionsin the
sciences earlierthan 1700.27One source that had held promiseof possible usage of "revolution"was the literature concerningthe Battle of
the Books(the Quarrelbetweenthe Ancientsandthe Moderns),sincein
the sciences the superiorityof the modernsmight seem to have implied
breakwith the past.28But a close examinationof
an order-of-magnitude
26They were Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier and (possibly) Jean-Paul Marat; see notes
78-82 infra.
27Shouldany reader have encountered a pre-1700 occurrence of "revolution" in relation to the growth of science, I should be grateful for the reference. I myself have not
found any in the writings of Galileo, Kepler, Descartes, Bacon, Leibniz, Huygens,
Wallis, Newton, Halley, Flamsteed, Hooke, or Duhamel (although there may be one
that I have missed); nor have I had any better luck in perusing the seventeenth-century
volumes of the Journal des Scavans, or the Philosophical Transactions, or the volumes
of Histoire (and Memoires) of the Paris Academy of Sciences; and a variety of other
works by seventeenth-century authors. I have kept on the look-out for such an occurrence for many years and I have asked more colleagues than I would care to mention as
to whether they have ever encountered the use of the term "revolution" in relation to
scientific change. Accordingly, may I be allowed to presume that such a usage (should
any ever turn up) would probably be rather obscure or uncommon?
28For this purpose I have carefully examined-in vain-the writings of Fontenelle,
Glanvill, Perrault, Swift, Temple, and Wotton. On this topic see Ferdinand Brunetiere,
Etudes critiques sur l'histoire de la litterature francaise, cinquieme sdrie (Paris, 1893),
183-250, "La formation de l'idee de progres au XVIIIe siecle," and also Richard Foster
Jones, Ancients and Moderns: A Study of the Rise of the Scientific Movement in
Seventeenth-Century England (2nd. ed., St. Louis, 1961); the first edition (Washington
University Studies, New Series, Language and Literature, No. 6, St. Louis, 1936) was
entitled: Ancients and Moderns: A Study of the Background of the Battle of the Books.
One of the reasons why the Quarrel between the Ancients and the Moderns seemed so
promising is that one of the late books (possibly the latest) in this controversy has a
postil to its second paragraph, reading: "Revolution dans les sciences." This work is
Louis Dutens: Recherches sur l'origine des decouvertes attributes aux modernes, oiu.
I'on demontre que nos plus celebres philosophes ont puise les ouvrages des anciens..., 2
vols. (Paris, 1766). A second edition was published in Paris in 1776, a third in London in
1796, and a fourth in Paris in 1812. This phrase occurs also in the index to the second
edition (and the later editions) in the "Table des matieres," where we find: "Revolution
dans les sciences, 1.3; des astres; v. Proportion; des planetes sur elles-memes, 1,228, v.
Rotation. Revolution particuliere & gnedrale des astres, 1.231: des cometes, 1.241; v.
Seneque." There is no other occurrence of the phrase "Revolution dans les sciences" in
Dutens' book, and in context it is evident that he was referring to a return, a finding
again of the truths known-at least in principle-in antiquity. Some of the major
publications in the Battle of the Books, or the Quarrel between the Ancients and the
Moderns, in modern editions, are: Bernard Le Bouyer (or Bovier) de Fontenelle,
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CONCEPT
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267
the main writers disclosed that apparently they never used the term
"revolution"29 and rather tended to invoke "improvement" of
knowledge, although two of the protagonists (Fontenelle and Swift) did
write of "revolutions" in other contexts and one of them (Fontenelle)
applied this very word to the development of mathematics. Nor did I
find any explicit reference to a revolution in Thomas Sprat's defence of
the Royal Society of 1667.30The fact that the term "revolution" does
not appear in relation to scientific change prior to the eighteenth
century is not unexpected, since "revolution" did not begin to come into
general use-even in the discourse of politics-until after the Glorious
Revolution of 1688.31
An unambiguous reference to a revolution in the sciences as a
radical change occurs in Bernard Le Bouyer (or Bovier) de Fontenelle's
preface to his Elements de la geometric de 'in fini (1727). Fontenelle
has been discussing the newly discovered (or invented) infinitesimal calculus (le calcul de l'infini) of Newton and Leibniz, and the several ways
in which "Bernoulli, le marquis de l'Hopital, Varignon, tous les grands
geometres" carried the subject forward "a pas de geant." Then he said:
L'infinieleva tout a une.. facilitd,dont on n'eut os6 auparavantconcevoir
l'esperance;et c'est la l'epoqued'une rdvolutionpresquetotale arriveedansla
geometrie.32
Digression sur les anciens et les modernes, edited together with Fontenelle's Entretiens
sur la pluralite des mondes, by Robert Shackleton (Oxford, 1955); Joseph Glanvill, Plus
Ultra: or, the Progress and Advancement of Knowledge since the Days of Aristotle. In
an Account of Some of the Most Remarkable Late Improvements of Practical, Useful
Learning (London, 1668; facsimile reprint with an intro. by Jackson I. Cope: Gainesville,
1958); Charles Perrault, Paralelle des anciens et des modernes en ce qui regarde les arts
et les sciences, 4 vols. (Paris, 1688-97; facsimile reprint "mit einer einleitenden Abhandlung von H. R. Jauss und kunstgeschichtlichen Exkursen von M. Imdahl," Miinchen,
1964); Jonathan Swift, A Full and True Account of the Battel fought last Friday
between the Antient and the Modern Books in St. James's Library (1704), available in
Herbert Davis (ed.), The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift (Oxford, 1939), I, 137-65; Sir
William Temple, Five Miscellaneous Essays, ed. Samuel H. Monk (Ann Arbor, 1963);
William Wotton, Reflections upon Ancient and Modern Learning (London, 1694; a
"third edition, corrected" was printed 1705). The only one of these authors cited by
Dutens in his "liste des principaux Auteurs cites dans cet Ouvrage .. ." is Wotton.
29Again, I should be grateful to any reader who may know of such an occurrence that
I may have missed.
30Thomas Sprat, The History of the Royal Society of London, for the Improving of
Natural Knowledge (London, 1667; facsimile reprint with a critical apparatus by
Jackson I. Cope and Harold W. Jones, Saint Louis, 1958).
31See note 17 supra.
32Elements de la geometrie de l'infini.Suite des memoires de L'Academie Royale
des Sciences (Paris, 1727), "pr6face," a4 verso; a variant edition or issue differs in title
only in the first word (ELEMENS for ELEMENTS), and has the same publisher and
date (although it was apparently published some decades later). The preface is included
in the CEuvresde Fontenelle (nouvelle edition, 1790), VI, 43.
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268
I. BERNARD
COHEN
The conjunction of words "epoque" and "revolution" leaves no doubt
that Fontenelle had in mind a change of such an order of magnitude as
to alter completely the state of mathematics. And Fontenelle went on at
once to emphasize that this revolution was progressive or beneficial to
mathematical science, although not unaccompanied by several problems.33
Fontenelle used the term "revolution" in the eloge of the mathematician, Michel Rolle, which he wrote in his capacity ofsecretaireperpetuel of the Royal Academy of Sciences. But "revolution" does not here
occur in relation to the work of Rolle himself, but rather in an aside; on
the Analyse des infiniment petits (Paris, 1696; later eds., 1715, 1720,
1768) of the Marquis de l'H6pital, the first textbook on the new infinitesimal calculus:
En ce temps-lale livre du marquisde l'H6pitalavoit paru, et presquetous les
mathematicienscommengoienta se tournerdu c6te de la nouvelleg6ometriede
l'infini,jusques-lapeu connue. L'universalitesurprenantedes methodes,1'elegante brievetedes demonstrations,la finesseet la promptitudedes solutionsles
plus difficiles,une nouveautesinguliereet imprevue,tout attiroitles esprits,et
il se faisoitdansle mondegeometreune revolutionbienmarquee.34
Fontenelle also used "revolution" in the eloge of l'H6pital (d. 1704),
again in relation to his textbook, and the avidity with which "I'Analyse
des infiniment petits a ete saisie par tous les G6ometres naissans."
L'Hopital's aim had been "principalement de faire des Mathematiciens," Fontenelle wrote, and he had the satisfaction of seeing that
"des Problemes reservez autrefois a ceux qui avoient vieilli dans les
epines des Mathematiques, devenoient des coups d'essai de jeunes
gens":
Apparemmentla revolutiondeviendraencoreplus grande,& il se seroittrouve
avec le temps autantde Disciples,qu'ily eut eu de Mathematiciens.35
These latter two uses of "revolution" in relation to l'Hopital's textbook
33Ibid.;"Cette revolution, quelque heureuse qu'elle ffit, a pourtant ete accompagnee
de quelques troubles." A succinct appraisal of this work of Fontenelle's is given by Suzanne Delorme in the Dictionary of Scientific Biography, ed. Charles C. Gillispie (New
York, 1972), V, 61b; a review by the Abbe Terrasson appeared in Journal des scavans,
July-Oct. 1728, 387-403, 608-25.
34"Eloge de Rolle," CEuvresde Fontenelle (nouvelle ed., Paris, 1792), VII, 67. This
eloge was first published in the Histoire de l'Academie Royale des Sciences (1719).
Fontenelle was the author of the anonymous preface to l'Hopital's book, which was written in a style that would lead the unsuspecting reader to suppose it had been written by
l'Hopital himself.
35"Eloge de M. le Marquis de l'H6pital," Histoire du renouvellement de l'Academie
Royale des Sciences en M. DC.XCIX. et les eloges historiques de tous les academiciens
morts depuis ce renouvellement (Amsterdam, 1709), 105-06. In the "Eloge du Marquis
de l'H6pital," published in CEuvresde Fontenelle (Paris, 1790) VI, 131, the word "revolution" is misprinted as "resolution."
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CONCEPT
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269
differ from the former instance, in that the calculus inaugurated a conceptual revolution in mathematics, whereas the Analyse des infiniment
petits consolidated the achievements of that revolution and made its
methods and achievements so readily available as to revolutionize the
profession of mathematician; that is, I'Hopital was (according to
Fontenelle) primarily responsible for attracting young mathematicians
("geometres") to the new analysis and endowing them with new powers.
Fontenelle would thus seem to have made a distinction between "une
revolution presque totale . . . dans la geometrie"36 and "une revolution
bien marquee," such as l'Hopital's book produced "dans le monde
geometre."37
The revolution within the sciences to which Fontenelle referred was
the discovery or invention of the calculus by Newton and by Leibniz.38
Another eighteenth-century reference to Isaac Newton and a revolution
in science is found in Clairaut's statement of 1747 that Newton's Principia had marked "l'epoque d'une grande revolution dans la Physique."39 The fact that these earliest references to a revolution in
science occur in relation to Newton is worthy of notice, since it was
Newton's achievement in pure mathematics coupled with his analysis of
36A "revolution presque totale" would seem more fitting an expression for a cyclical
phenomenon than for the kind of revolution Fontenelle had in mind.
37 In his "Eloge du Czar Pierre," Fontenelle used the word "revolution" in two ways,
neither of them in relation to science. Thus he wrote that "La revolution, arriv6e en
Perse par la revolte de Mahmoud, attira de ce cote-la les armes du Czar et du grand
Seigneur." Again, he mentioned "[la] nation Moscovite, peu connue que de ses plus
proches voisins, . . . presque une nation a part, qui n'entroit point dans le systeme de
l'Europe, . . . et dont a peine 6toit-on curieux d'apprendre de tems en tems quelques
revolutions importantes." This eloge is printed in CEuvresde Fontenelle, nouvelle ed. op.
cit., VII, 166, 188. This second quotation appears to have cyclical overtones of the ebbs
and flows of ordinary history, and as such may resemble a statement in Fontenelle's
"Preface sur l'utilit6 des mathematiques et de la physique, et sur les travaux de l'Academie des Sciences," Histoire de l'Academie Royale des Sciences. Annee M. DC.XCIX.
Avec les memoires de mathematique & de physique, pour la meme annee. Tires des
registres de cette Academie. Seconde edition, revue, corrigee & augmentee (Amsterdam, 1734), I, v-xxvi. In this form, the essay is merely entitled "Preface"; the above
title comes from the somewhat truncated reprint in CEuvresde Fontenelle, nouvelle 6d.
op. cit., VI, 59-75. An English version was published in Miscellanea Curiosa, vol. 1
(London, 1705; 2nd ed., London, 1708; 3rd ed., London, 1726). Here Fontenelle says:
"L'Histoire ne fournit pas dans toute son 6tendue, des examples de vertu, ni des regles
de conduite. Hors de la, ce n'est qu'un spectacle de revolutions perpetuelles dans les
affaires humaines, de naissances, de chuites d'empire, de mceurs, de coutumes,
d'opinions, qui se succedent incessament; enfin de tout ce mouvement rapide,
quoiqu'insensible, qui emporte tout, et change continuellement la face de la terre."
38In the "Preface" to the Elements de la geometrie de l'infini, loc. cit., Fontenelle
said of the calculus: "Newton trouva le premier ce merveilleux calcul, Leibnitz le publia
le premier. Que Leibnitz soit inventeur aussi bien que Newton, c'est une question dont
nous avons rapport6 l'histoire en 1716, et nous ne la r6epterons pas ici."
39See note 15 supra. This statement was repeated almost verbatim by Joseph-Louis
Lagrange, John Playfair, and Thomas Henry Huxley.
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270
I. BERNARD
COHEN
the system of the world on the basis of gravitational dynamics that
actually set the seal on the "Scientific Revolution" and caused scientists
and philosophers to recognize that a revolution had in fact taken place.40
In this sense, Newton's Principia of 1687 would have played the same
r6le in the recognition of the occurrence of a scientific revolution that
the Glorious Revolution of 1688 apparently did for political revolution.
The great Encyclopedie of Diderot and d'Alembert contains a notable entry on revolution. The concept of revolution was, in fact, introduced at the very start of this collective work, since it occurs in a dramatic fashion in d'Alembert's Discours preliminaire, as well as later on
in his article "Experimental." In the Discours preliminaire (published in
1751), d'Alembert introduced the concept of revolution in a thumb-nail
sketch of the rise of modern science or, rather, of a philosophy
associated with modern science. The aim of the essay was to sketch out
a methodological and philosophical analysis of all knowledge (including
science which occupies a central place in his scheme41) and not to
portray the sciences themselves. d'Alembert begins his historical
presentation with "le Chancelier Bacon," who occupies an avuncular
position, and then moves on to a brief resume of Descartes's radical innovations. Fully appreciative of the significance of the Newtonian
natural philosophy, which in fact had just overthrown and replaced the
Cartesian, d'Alembert nevertheless felt the need to say some kind
words for Descartes, a fellow Frenchman and fellow mathematician. He
thus called particular attention to the great "revolte" of Descartes, who
had shown "intelligent minds how to throw off the yoke of scholasticism,
of opinion, of authority...." d'Alembert had in mind a clear image of
the action of political revolutionary forces, and he portrayed Descartes
"as a leader of conspirators who, before anyone else, had the courage to
rise against a despotic and arbitrary power and who, in preparing a
resounding revolution, laid the foundations of a more just and happier
government, which he himself was not able to see established."42
Descartes's role in thus "preparing" the "revolution" or his "revolt"
was "a service to philosophy perhaps more difficult to perform than all
40Thistheme is developed in the work cited in note 10 supra.
41Ronald Grimsley, Jean d'Alembert (1717-83) (Oxford, 1963); Thomas L. Hankins,
Jean d'Alembert: Science and Enlightenment (Oxford, 1970), 8.
42All of the following references are to the first edition, available in a facsimile reprint: Encyclopedie, ou Dictionnaire raisonne des sciences, des arts et des metiers. Nouvelle impression en facsimile de la premiere edition de 1751-1780 (Stuttgart-Bad
Cannstatt, 1966). See vol. 1 (Paris, 1751), xxvi. Quoted from the English translation
made by Richard N. Schwab (with the collaboration of Walter E. Rex), available in Jean
LeRond d'Alembert, Preliminary Discourse to the Encyclopedia of Diderot (Indianapolis, 1963-The Library of Liberal Arts), 80-81. It should be observed that
d'Alembert used the metaphor of political life in describing Descartes' rl6e in the revolution.
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CONCEPT
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those contributed thereafter by his illustrious successors."43 Although
d'Alembert does not say so specifically, he then implies that the revolution prepared by Descartes was achieved by Newton. For d'Alembert
not only proceeds at once to spell out at length the accomplishments of
Newton in general physics, celestial mechanics, and optics, in the most
praiseworthy terms imaginable, but he specifically says that when
Newton "appeared at last," he "gave philosophy a form which apparently it is to keep." Thus, in science Newton brought to fulfillment
the revolution that Descartes had prepared but had never actually
achieved. Furthermore, after pointing out that this "great genius [Isaac
Newton] saw that it was time to banish conjectures and vague
hypotheses from physical science," d'Alembert observed that Newton
"abstained almost totally from discussing his metaphysics in his best
known writings." The significance of this remark is that it led
d'Alembert to conclude his presentation of Newton by observing,
"Therefore, since he has not caused any revolution here, we will abstain
from considering him from the standpoint of this subject [i.e.,
metaphysics]." The implication seems to be that from other
standpoints-gravitation, celestial mechanics, the system of the world,
optics, the nature and limits of scientific explanation44-Newton had
made a revolution.
The latter view appears more explicitly in an article written by
d'Alembert for the Encyclopedie, entitled "Experimental," which explicitly invokes the concept of revolutions in science. Here, as in the Discours preliminaire, d'Alembert included a brief history of the subject,
once again starting with Bacon and Descartes and ending with Newton.
First of all, d'Alembert observes that Bacon and Descartes had introduced "l'esprit de la physique experimentale"; then the Accademia
del Cimento, Boyle, Mariotte, and others took up the work. Then,
... Newton parut, & montra le premierce que ses predecesseursn'avoient
fait qu'entrevoir,l'art d'introduirela Geometriedansla Physique,& de former,
en reunissantl'experienceau calcul, une science exacte, profonde,lumineuse,
& nouvelle:aussi grand du moins par ses experiencesd'optiqueque par son
systeme du monde,il ouvritde tous c6tes une carriereimmense& siure;l'Angleterresaisit ses vues;la societe royaleles regardacomme siennesdes le moment de leur naissance:les academiesde Frances'y pretOrentplus lentement
& avec plus de peine, par la meme raisonque les universitesavoienteue pour
43R. N. Schwab points out (op. cit., 80, n.26) that in the revised edition of 1764,
d'Alembert replaced "more difficult to perform .. ." by "more essential than all those
contributed .. ."
44According to d'Alembert (R. N. Schwab's trans., 83), Newton "has doubtless deserved all the recognition that has been given him for enriching philosophy with a large
quantity of real assets. But perhaps he has done more by teaching philosophy to be judicious and to restrict within reasonable limits the sort of audacity which Descartes had
been forced by circumstances to bestow upon it."
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272
I. BERNARD COHEN
rejetter durantplusieursannees la physiquede Descartes:la lumiere a enfin
prevalu:la generationennemiede ces grandshommes, s'est eteinte dans les
academies& dans les universites,auxquellesles academiessemblentaujourd'
huidonnerle ton:unegenerationnouvelles'est elevee;car quandles fondemens
d'une r6volutionsont une foisjettes, c'est presquetoujoursdans la generation
suivanteque la revolutions'ach~ve....45
In this notable passage, d'Alembert not only has expressed a philosophy
of historical development in science according to generations; he has
also centered the great revolution in science on the work of Isaac
Newton.
Volume VI, containing d'Alembert's article, "Experimental," was
published in Paris in 1756. The previous volume (V: Paris, 1755)
contains a discussion by Diderot of a revolution in science; it occurs in
his article, "Encyclopedie." Diderot was interested in the fact that
changes were occurring in the sciences, so that a dictionary of the previous century would be lacking in the new words which science had
either invented or brought to the fore with new meanings or new significance. Thus under "aberration" the older dictionaries would not give
the current astronomical meaning (associated with Bradley's discovery), and "electricity" would have only a line or two giving "false notions and ancient prejudices." Even so, Diderot observed, "La revolution peut etre moins forte & moins sensible dans les Sciences & dans les
Arts liberaux, que dans les arts m6chaniques; mais il s'y en fait une." A
second invocation of revolution occurs in a presentation of Diderot's
general theory of scientific revolutions:
45Ed.cit. (Paris, 1756), VI, 299; also J. Lough, ed., The Encyclopedie of Diderot and
d'Alembert. Selected articles (Cambridge, 1954), 73-74. In another work, a brief"Tableau de l'esprit humain au milieu du dix-huitieme siecle," d'Alembert stated a general
theory of revolutions in the realms of the mind: "II semble que depuis environ trois cents
ans, la nature ait destine le milieu de chaque siecle a etre l'6poque d'une revolution dans
l'esprit humain." Thus, "La prise de Constantinople, au milieu du quinzieme siecle, a
fait renaitre les lettres en Occident. Le milieu de seizieme a vu changer rapidement la
religion et le systeme d'une grande partie de l'Europe .... Enfin, Descartes, au milieu
du dix-septieme siecle, a fonde une nouvelle philosophie...." Quoted from "Pensees"
("Philosophie, I"), Jean Marie de Caritat de Condorcet, ed.,CEuvresde d'Alembert. Sa
vie-ses oeuvres-sa philosophie (Paris, 1853), 216-18. Diderot also used the concept of
a revolution in the sciences in his essay, De l'interpretation de la nature (1753). Paragraph IV contains the famous statement, "j'oserais presque assurer qu'avant qu'il soit
cent ans, on ne comptera pas trois grands geometres en Europe." Diderot introduced
this bold prediction, by saying: "Nous touchons au moment d'une grande revolution
dans les sciences." The revolution was to be nothing else than a complete rejection of
geometry. See Diderot, Selected Philosophical Writings, ed. J. Lough (Cambridge,
1953), 33. This essay first appeared in 1753 under the title, De l'interpretation de la nature. In an enlarged form, it was republished (in 3 eds.) in 1754 with a new title, Pensees
sur l'interpretation de la nature. The text may be found in CEuvresde Denis Diderot,
tome premier, ire partie (Paris, 1818), 419-58.
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Cependantles connoissancesne deviennent& ne peuvent devenir communes, que jusqu'd un certain point. On ignore, a la verite, quelle est cette
limite. On ne sait jusqu'outel homme peut aller. On sait bien moins encore
jusqu'oul'espece humaineiroit, ce dont elle seroit capable,si elle n'etoitpoint
arretee dans ses progres.Mais les revolutionssont necessaires;il y en a toujours eu & il y en auratoujours;le plus grandintervalled'une revolutiona une
autreest donne:cette seule cause bornel'etenduede nos travaux.IIy a dansles
Sciences un point au-deladuquelil ne leur est presquepas accordede passer.
Lorsquece pointest atteint,les monumensqui restentde ce progres,sont a jamaisl'etonnementde l'espece entiere.46
In these two passages, Diderot has left no doubt as to the significance of
"revolution" (or of "revolutionary change"). Like d'Alembert, he
conceived that the progress of science was marked by a succession of
revolutions, but the concept of a "maximum interval between one revolution and another" being a "fixed quantity" was apparently original
with him. Although it seems that Diderot was conceiving of revolutions
primarily as radical secular changes, the foregoing passage has also
some overtones of a cyclical process of "revolutionary changes," in
which the "maximum interval" even has suggestive overtones of the period of revolution in the cyclic phenomena of nature. And it should be
observed that although the cyclical sense of revolution in the political
realm does not appear at all in the Encyclopedie in the entry "Revolution," this very sense does appear in d'Alembert's "Discours
preliminaire," where he wrote of the "principaux fruits de l'etude des
empires et de leurs revolutions."47
This cyclical view of revolutions is to be found in many writings of
the eighteenth century, for example, in Condillac's general statement
about history: "Les revolutions des opinions suivent les revolutions des
empires."48 But Condillac also made use of a clearly noncyclical in46Ed.cit.(Paris,1755), V, 636v, 637r; J. Lough, ed. The "Encyclopedie," 50, 53-54. A
translation, sometimes a little free, is available in Denis Diderot, Rameau's Nephew and
Other Works, trans. Jacques Barzun and Ralph H. Bowen, with an intro. by Ralph H.
Bowen (Indianapolis, 1964-The Library of Liberal Arts), 286, 289; an earlier edition of
this translation was published in 1956.
47Ed. cit., I, xi. Later on in the Discours preliminaire, d'Alembert also wrote of revolutions as moments of radical change, but with overtones of the concept of the ebb and
flow of empires, a succession of decay followed by rebirth. He began (xx) by referring to
the Middle Ages as "those dark times," when "one of those revolutions which make the
world take on a new appearance was necessary to enable the human species to emerge
from barbarism." Then (R. N. Schwab's trans., 62), he continued: "The Greek
[Byzantine] empire was destroyed, and its ruin caused the small remainder of knowledge
to flow back into Europe. The invention of printing and the patronage of the Medici and
of Francis I revitalized minds and enlightenment was reborn everywhere." The cyclical
overtones of this passage, the sense of ebb and flow, come all the more to mind since, at
that time, this would have been a more common usage of the word "revolution."
48CEuvres
de Condillac, revues, corrigees par 'auteur, imprimees sur ses manuscrits
autographes, et augmentees de la langue des calculs, ouvrage posthume (Paris, 1798),
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274
I. BERNARD
COHEN
terpretation of revolutions in his shrewd observation that "Bacon proposait une methode trop parfaite pour etre l'auteur d'une revolution;
Descartes
devoit mieux reussir...."49
A somewhat
similar use of
"revolution" is found in some early works of Turgot. In an essay of the
1750's, "On Universal History," Turgot included a brief history of
scientific thought ("philosophie"); he referred to Aristotle, Bacon, and
then "Galileo and Kepler, [who] as a result of their observations, laid
the true foundations of philosophy. But it was DESCARTESwho, bolder
than they, meditated and made a revolution."50 This attribution of a
revolution to Descartes is far from common among eighteenth-century
writers. And, in another essay, "A Philosophical Review of the Successive Advances of the Human Mind," read at the Sorbonne in 1750,
Turgot exclaimed: "Great Descartes, if it was not always given to you to
find the truth, at least you have destroyed the tyranny of error."51As we
shall see below, Turgot was invoking here a rather commonly held
eighteenth-century theory of a two-stage revolution, in which first an
existing or accepted system (whether of knowledge or of government)
had to be destroyed, and then a new system had to be erected in its
place.
By the time of the publication of the Encyclopedie, "revolution" had
gained currency-at least in French-in its new meaning of a secular,
rather than a cyclical, change of great magnitude.52During the second
half of the eighteenth century, this concept, and the word to express it,
were notably applied to realms of the mind, and in particular to writings
about science. Various authors, however, dated the revolutions at
different times, according to their subject. Thus in 1764, Joseph Jer6me
"Cours d'6tudes pour l'instruction du Prince de Parme. Histoire Ancienne. Tome VI,"
XIV, 7.
49Georges Le Roy, ed., CEuvresphilosophiques de Condillac (Paris, 1947-Corpus
General des Philosophes Franqais: auteurs modernes, tome 33), "De l'art de penser," I,
part 2, sect. 7, p. 776.
50Quoted from Ronald L. Meek, Turgot on Progress, Sociology and Economics, an
annotated translation of three of Turgot's essays (Cambridge, 1973), 94; for the French
version, see CEuvresde M. Turgot, ed. Pierre Samuel Du Pont de Nemours (Paris,
1808), II, 277: "A sa suite, Galilee et Kepler jettent par leurs observations les vrais
fondemens de la philosophie. Mais ce fut DESCARTES
qui, plus hardi, medita et fit une
revolution."
5'CEuvres,ed. cit., II, 89; Meek trans., 58. "Grand Descartes! s'il ne vous a pas ete
donn6 de trouver toujours la v6rit6, du moins vous avez d6truit la tyrannie de l'erreur."
This may also be found in Gustave Schelle, ed., CEuvresde Turgot et documents le
concernant (Paris, 1913), I, 234; but Schelle has not included the earlier extract (see
note 50 supra).
52Vol. I-XVII, A-Z, were published from 1751 to 1765, followed by eleven volumes
of plates (1762-72). A four-volume Supplement and a volume of additional plates and a
two-volume Table generale were published from 1776 to 1780. The fact that I have
found more mid-century references to the new meaning in French sources than in
English ones may have no significance. I have not made an equally systematic search of
the German or Italian writings.
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CONCEPT
OF SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION
275
Le Franqais de Lalande [La Lande] saw a revolution in astronomy in the
era after Hevelius, when
toutes les nations se disputoientla gloire de decouvrir& de perfectionner;
l'Academiedes Sciences de Paris, la Societe Royale de Londres,eurent surtout la plus grandepart a cette revolution:le nombredes gens Illustres& des
Astronomescelebresqu'ellesont produitest immense ....53
But Lalande did not use the word "revolution" for Copernicus's revolt
against the authority of Ptolemy, nor for the radical novelties discovered or introduced by a Galileo or a Kepler; he apparently reserved
the designation of "revolution" for the process of discovery and
improvement that he conceived to have been part and parcel of the establishment and elaboration of the subject of astronomy in more recent
times.54
The writings of Jean Sylvain Bailly, published in the decade before
the French Revolution, show the degree to which the concept of revolution in the sciences had achieved the form in which, with variations, it
continued well established during the nineteenth century. In his Histoire
de l'astronomie moderne,55 Bailly introduced revolutions of several
sorts and magnitudes. These range in scope all the way from revolutionary innovations in the design and use of telescopes56 to the elaboration of the Copernican system of the world and the Newtonian natural
philosophy. They include revolutions of the past and of the recent
present, and even forecasts of revolutions to come.57 There is a clearly
worked out concept of a two-stage revolution, applicable to revolutions
in science on a grand scale, in which there is first a destruction of an accepted system of concepts, followed by the establishment of a new
53JosephJerome Le Francais de La Lande, Astronomie (Paris, 1764), I, 131.
54We must, of course, be wary of assuming that the distinction that appears in Lalande's text must have originated in a conscious and clear-cut decision as to usage.
Perhaps what is most significant is only that Lalande does introduce the notion of revolution in science.
55Histoire de l'astronomie moderne depuis la fondation de l'ecole d'Alexandrie,
jusqu' a l'epoque de M.D.CC.XXX [M.D.CC.XXXII], 3 vols. (Paris, 1779-82; nouvelle
ed., 1785). Bailly was also the author of other volumes on the history of astronomy,
including Histoire de l'astronomie ancienne, depuis son origine jusqu'a l'etablissement
de l'ecole d'Alexandrie (Paris, 1775; 2nd ed., Paris, 1781). In the following references,
all the page references are the same for both editions.
56Bailly had in mind the improvement of telescopes by the addition of cross-hairs,
and especially of micrometers: "Cette perfection ajoutee aux instrumens, cette
exactitude dans la pratique, influa sur toutes les observations, & d'une manidre assez
marquee pour produire une revolution." And, "Cette revolution, I'idee de cette application heureuse fut, selon les uns, le bienfait de Picard & d'Auzout." Quoted from Histoire
de l'astronomie moderne, II, bk. 6, ?XVII, 272, 273.
57 Bailly did not predict any revolutions on a large scale, but smaller ones, primarily
the introduction of new instruments and new methods of computing (without approximations) and of integrating; also a replacement for the pendulum clock.
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276
I. BERNARD COHEN
system. But even in Bailly's writings, the older concept of revolutionary
change in cycles is present along with the new use of the term "revolution" to indicate a radical and dramatic change in science, most often
the effect of the work and thought of a single individual.
Although Bailly does not use the actual expression "Copernican
Revolution," he leaves no doubt that one of the major revolutions in
science was inaugurated (if not, however, accomplished) by Copernicus.
Copernicus, according to Bailly, was responsible for the introduction of
the true system of the world, just as Hipparchus was to be credited with
the true system of astronomy.58Bailly said that a radical step had to be
taken at the time of Copernicus: it was necessary for man to forget the
apparent motions that can actually be seen, in order to be able to believe
in those motions that cannot be known to man directly through the
senses.
I1 faut oublierle mouvementque nous voyons,pourcroirea celui que nous ne
sentons pas. C'est un hommeseul qui ose le proposer.... Ce n'est pas tout:il
falloit detruire un systeme reu. .. & renverser le trone de Ptolemee....
Un
esprit seditieuxdonnele signal& la revolutions'opere.Copernicavoitappersu
la vrai semblancedu systeme, il osa secouerle joug de l'autorite,& il debarrassal'humanited'unlong prejugequiavoitretardetous les progres.59
Copernicus thus fulfilled the two necessary functions that-according to
Bailly's implied standards-made his work qualify as a revolution. He
undermined the authority of the old or accepted system and he set up a
better one in its place. It made little difference to Bailly that the
Copernican system itself might have been a revival of an older system of
Aristarchus;60what mattered was only that Copernicus overthrew the
yoke of authority and established a different system of the universe than
the one that "avoit recu les hommages de quatorze siecles."61
Bailly's concept of a two-stage revolution is even more pronounced
in another of his presentations of the work of Copernicus. Bailly had
been describing briefly the transition of astronomy from the Greeks to
the Arabs, and from the Arabs to the Europeans, who began to cultivate
this science:
58Baillycalled Copernicus "le restaurateur de l'astronomie physique, & l'auteur du
vrai systeme du monde" (Histoire de I'astronomie moderne, I, bk. 9, ?IV, 337). For him,
"Hypparque seroit le fondateur de la veritable astronomie, si cette science n'avoit pas
est au moins le restaurateur de
deja ete perdue & retrouvee.... Hypparque...,
l'astronomie; il en est meme pour nous le fondateur" (I, bk. 3, ?11, 78).
59I, bk. 9, ?III, 337.
60Bailly pointed out, "Son systeme n'6toit pas une creation, ce n'etoit qu'une adoption" (I, bk. 9, ?XXI, 363). Earlier in the volume, Bailly had referred to the "opinion qui
place le soleil en repos au centre du monde, & notre globe en mouvement autour de lui"
as having been "transmise par Philolaus" and "adoptee par Aristarque" (vol 1, bk. 1,
?XIX, 23).
61I, bk. 9, ?III, 337.
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CONCEPT
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277
Waltherus,Regiomontanus,an Allemagne, construisirentdes instrumens&
renouvelerentles observations.A chaque nouveaudomicile,la science etoit
assujettie a un nouvelexamen;les connoissancestransmisesetoient verifiees:
mais a cette epoqueil se fit unegranderevolutionquichangeatout. Le geniede
l'Europese fit connoitre& s'annongadansCopernic.62
In declaring, furthermore, that "Copernic avoit fait un grand pas vers la
verite," Bailly pointed out that "[la] destruction du syst.me de
Ptolemee etoit un preliminaire indispensable, & cette premiere revolution devoit preceder toutes les autres."63
In more than one chapter of his history, Bailly referred to the
Newtonian natural philosophy in terms of revolution. Thus, after having
praised Newton for his modesty (a propos of the preface to the first edition of the Principia), Bailly said:
Newton, plus qu'aucunhomme,eut besoinde se fairepardonnerson elevation;
it avoitprisun vol si extraordinaire,il redescendoitavec des veritessi nouvelles,
qu'ilfalloit menagerles esprits, qui auroientpu repousserces verites. Newton
renversoitou changeoittoutes les idees. Aristote& Descartespartageoientencore l'empire, ils etoient les precepteursde l'Europe:le philosopheAnglois
detruisitpresquetous leurs enseignemens,& proposaune nouvellephilosophie;
cette philosophiea opere une revolution.Newton a fait, maispar des voies plus
douces& plusjustes, ce qu'onttente quelquefoisen Asie les conqueransquiont
usurpele tr6ne;ils ont voulueffacerle souvenirde regnesprecedens,pourque
leur regneservitd'epoque,pourque tout commengatavec eux. Mais ces entreprises de l'orgueil& de la tyrannieont ete le plus souventsans fruit;elles ne
reussissentqu'a la raison & a la verite, qui obtiennentcet avantagesans y
pretendre!64
The use here of a full panoply of political metaphor is most striking:
conquerors usurping the throne and wiping out all trace of their
predecessors, and the contrast between violence or tyranny and reason
or truth. But, again, it is to be noted that for Bailly a revolution in
science is a two-stage action.65Bailly warned his readers, however, that
62III, Discours VI ("R6sume g6neral"), premiere partie "Des progres que l'astronomie a faits"), 320.
63Ibid., 321. Although Bailly does not say expressly that Copernicus created or
started a revolution, there is no doubt from his text that this was the thrust of his argument. This is the earliest reference I have found to a revolution associated with
Copernicus.
64II, bk. 12, ?XLII, 560-61.
65These two phases or stages occur in Bailly's presentations of the grand revolutions
associated with Copernicus and Newton, but not of the revolution associated with the
micrometer (see note 31 supra), nor other innovations, such as those predicted in III of
his history (see note 57 infra). It would seem as if the two-stage revolution was a requirement only for revolutions on a large scale, such as the introduction of a new system of
the world (Copernicus), or a new natural philosophy or dynamics and celestial
mechanics (Newton). But Bailly did not attribute a "revolution"-expressis verbis-to
the work of Hipparchus or Galileo or Kepler.
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I. BERNARD COHEN
278
although"[le] livredes Principesmathematiquesde la philosophicnaturelle [de Newton] etoit destine a faire une revolutiondans l'astronomie,"it was neverthelesstrue that "cette revolutionne se fit pas touta-coup."66
Baillydid not apparentlyhave a consistentlyappliedstandardfor attributingthe designation"revolution"to major radicalinnovationsin
astronomy.Two outstandingexamplesof innovatorsof the first rankin
astronomywho seem not to have quite meritedthe accoladeof "revolution"were Keplerand Galileo.67Keplerfulfilledthe qualificationsof the
two stages, sincehe had first to destroy"tousles epicyclesque Copernic
avoitlaisses subsister,"beforeintroducinghis own conceptsof elliptical
orbits and motion accordingto the law of areas. As to his significance:
"Le privilegedes grands hommes est de changer les idees recues, &
d'annoncerdes v6rit6s, qui repandentleur influence sur le reste des
siecles. A ces deux titres Kepler merite d'etre regardecommel'un des
plus grands hommes, qui ait paru sur la terre." In fact, Kepler is "le
veritablefondateurde l'astronomiemoderne."68For all that, however,
Baillydoes not considerKepler'swork to have constituteda revolution.
And the same is true of Galileo, who had first to destroy the accepted
Aristotelian notions of motion-including the artificial distinction
between natural and violent motion, and the "ridiculous"distinction
between naturally light and naturally heavy bodies-before he introducedhis own laws of acceleratedmotionand fallingbodies,and the
resolutionand compositionof motion(so as to findthe parabolicpath of
projectiles).69But this too did not apparentlymerit the designationof
"revolution."70
66Vol.2, bk. 13, ?I, p. 579.
67Baillyseems to have delighted in historico-political metaphors and images. After a
vivid description of Kepler's achievements, he turned to Galileo: "Tous deux honores
par des d6couvertes fondamentales, tous deux 6galement bienfaiteurs de l'esprit humain, ils s'elevoient a la meme hauteur & se partageoient l'admiration des hommes,
comme jadis les Cesars de Rome, places sur deux tr6nes semblables, partageoient
l'empire de monde" (Vol. 2, bk. 1, ?XLIX, pp. 75-76).
68II, bk. 1, ??I, II, III, pp. 2-5.
69II, bk. 2, ?II, p. 79.
70It is worthy of note that while Bailly fully appreciated the remarkable contributions of Descartes, he did not find the Cartesian innovations revolutionary. Bailly said
that astronomical observations naturally set the question as to causes: "C'est une idee
sublime d'avoir os6 ramener les loix du mouvement general de l'univers aux lois du
mouvement des corps terrestres. Cette entreprise appartient exclusivement a nos
siecles modernes; elle est due a Descartes." Of course his vortices were a bad explanation of heaviness (or weight) and the system of the world, but Bailly insisted that they did
provide a mechanical explanation. Further, "II a d6couvert que le meme mechanisme
devoit faire mouvoir les corps dans les espaces celestes, & a la surface de la terre; s'il
n'a pas saisi ce mechanisme, on ne doit pas oublier que cette pensee neuve & grande est
le fruit de son genie. Ce que Descartes s'6toit propose, Newton l'ex6cuta. Nous ne
derobons rien a la gloire de ce grand homme, en rendant justice a Descartes." Quoted
from Histoire de l'astronomie ancienne, "Discours preliminaire," xi. According to
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CONCEPT
OF SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION
279
On several occasions, Bailly expressed his belief in a cyclical
process in the development of astronomy. Thus a revolution might, on
occasion, signify a return to an older idea or concept, or an older principle. But Bailly shrewdly observed that one must not assume that there
had been no real change simply because an idea or concept now in current use may have occurred once before. The example he gives is a curious one: "La theologie paienne supposoit que le monde etait sorti d'un
oeuf; ce n'est pas la premiere fois que l'ignorance & le profond savoir,
par les chemins opposes, sont arrives aux memes resultats."71 A more
complete expression of change by cyclical revolution occurs at the beginning of the second volume of his history:
... En ecrivant cette histoire, nous appercevonsd'un c6te que les hommes,
persuadesde la simplicitydu mecanismede l'univers,tendentconstammenta
cette id6e, mCmeen s'en ecartant:nousvoyonsde l'autreque cette idee est une
des plus antiquesqui nous ait ete conservees.La conclusionnaturelleest que
nous retournonsau terme d'ou nous sommes partis: telle est notre marche,
nousparcouronstoujoursun cercle. Mais ce terme, ce premiercommencement
des travauxconnusdevoitetre lui-memela fin d'unerevolution.72
The fact that Bailly was aware of the possible cyclical process in revolutions, so obvious to any practicing astronomer, does not diminish the
thrust of his use of "revolution" and the concept of revolution as a
phenomenon characterized by a secular rather than a cyclical change of
considerable magnitude. Since Bailly not only expressed a concept of
revolution as a radical change in science (in the sense that d'Alembert
and Diderot had done), but actually used both the word and the concept
throughout his three-volume history of modern astronomy, we may conclude that by this time the word and the concept had become fully acBailly, "Si Descartes a ouvert la route aux plus belles decouvertes par ses inventions
geometriques, Kepler a entrevu, a laisse plus de verites physiques que lui. Descartes a
ose davantage, & son audace est la mesure de sa force, il ne lui a manque que d'etre plus
savant; il parolt ignorer bien des faits connus de son tems." Quoted from Histoire de
I'astronomie moderne, II, bk. 4, ?XI, p. 192.
71II, bk. 12, ?XXVI, 519.
72Ii, bk. 1, ?I, 3-4. An ebb and flow of astronomical science, following the rise and
fall of civilizations (or empires), appears again and again in Bailly's history, e.g., I, bk. 8,
?I. Bailly believed that the astronomy of the Chaldaeans, the Indians, and the Chinese
was the "debris" of a science of "un peuple ant6rieur . . . dont nous ignorons la plus
grande partie. Ce peuple a ete d6truit par une grande revolution" (Histoire de l'astronomie ancienne, bk. 1, ?XII, pp. 18, 19). The loss of the astronomical ideas of this
civilization could only have occurred "par quelque grande revolution qui d6truit les
hommes, les villes, les connoissances, & ne laisse que des debris. Tout concourt a
prouver que cette revolution a eu lieu sur la terre . . ." (ibid., bk. 2, ?XXVI, 59). In the
"Table g6enrale des matieres" or index, covering the three volumes of the Astronomie
moderne and the single volume of the Astronomie ancienne, the references to these two
revolutions (s.v. "Revolution") precede the references to revolutions of stars and
planets.
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280
I. BERNARD
COHEN
cepted into the discourse of the history of science and of the analysis of
the growth of scientific concepts, methods, and systems of thought.73
By the 1780's, there is no difficulty in finding French authors who
refer explicitly to one or another revolution in the sciences.74 But the
case of Condorcet may especially attract our attention since he is said to
have been an originator of the term "revolutionnaire."75The concept of
a revolution in science (and the use of "revolution" to express it) occurs
frequently in the eloges of deceased academicians which it was
Condorcet's duty to write and read, in his capacity of secretaire perpetuel. Thus, of Duhamel du Monceau (1783): "I1 fera epoque dans cette
histoire des sciences, parce que son nom s'est trouve lie avec cette revolution dans les esprits qui a dirige plus particulierement les sciences vers
l'utilite publique." Of Haller (1778): "L'ouvrage ou M. de Haller publia
ces decouvertes fut l'epoque d'une revolution dans l'anatomie." Of
d'Alembert (1783): "Ce principe ... a ete l'epoque d'une grande revolution dans les sciences physico-mathematiques." Of Euler (1783): "I1doit
cet honneur a la revolution qu'il a produite dans les sciences
mathematiques."76 And so on. In three of these examples, we see
Condorcet using the term "epoque" along with "revolution" in a
century-old tradition that unambiguously defines the noncyclical sense
of "revolution."
The major work of Condorcet's in which the term and the concept of
revolution figure most prominently is his Sketch for a Historical Picture of the Progress of the Human Mind, first published in 1795.
Condorcet wrote here of the recent American Revolution, and of the not
yet completed revolution in France, with shrewd comments on the
causes of the differences between the two. Of special interest in the
present context is his discussion of Descartes, who is said to have given
"men's minds that general impetus which is the first principle of a revolution in the destinies of the human race." In the account of the rise of
chemistry, Condorcet introduced some of the improvements in that subject that "affecting, as they do, a given scientific system in its entirety by
73 Even earlier than Bailly, Turgot had applied the concept and name "revolution" to
science, in much the same way; see notes 50-51 supra.
74For example, revolutions in science and in mathematics are mentioned in Jean
Etienne Montucla, Histoire des mathematiques, 2 vols. (Paris, 1758) and in the revised
edition, 4 vols. (Paris, 1799; facsimile reprint, Paris, 1960); in the Dictionnaire encyclopedique des mathematiques par MM. d'Alembert, l'Abbe Bossut, de la Lande, le
Marquis de Condorcet, &c., tome premier (Paris, 1789); and in Charles Bossut: Histoire
generale des mathematiques, depuis leur origine jusqu'a l'annee 1808, 2 vols. (Paris,
1810), "Recapitulation succincte," 497.
75The first citation for "revolutionnaire" given by Littre (see note 4 supra) is in a
statement of Condorcet's.
76These Nloges are reprinted in A. Condorcet O'Connor and M. F. Arago, eds.,
CEuvresde Condorcet (1847), II, 300 (Haller), 641 (Duhamel), III, 58 (d'Alembert), 40
(Euler), and 7, 8, 9, 28.
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CONCEPT
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281
extending its methods rather than by increasing its truths, foretell and
prepare a successful revolution." Condorcet had in mind the "discovery
of new methods" of collecting and analyzing gases; "the formation of a
[new] language" for chemical substances; the "introduction of a scientific notation"; "the general law of affinities"; the use of "methods and
instruments" from physics for "calculating the results of experiments
with rigorous precision"; and the "application of mathematics to the
phenomena of crystallization." Here Condorcet also spelled out his
scientific version of the hotly-debated topic of our own times: the "preconditions" of a revolution.77
Condorcet's special use of "revolution" in relation to chemistry,
rather than physics or astronomy or the life-sciences, was a natural
result of the fact that he had actually been witness to the recent
Chemical Revolution. This revolution had been invented by Lavoisier in
a double sense, for he both gave the Chemical Revolution its name and
was its chief architect. Lavoisier referred to his own work in terms of
"revolution" in at least three manuscripts-two letters and an entry in
his laboratory register. The publication of the latter by Marcelin
Berthelot in 1890, in a book on Lavoisier entitled La revolution
chimique: Lavoisier, fixed the name "Chemical Revolution" on the historical record.78
Lavoisier's own statement is notable. In writing out his plans and
hopes for research, he could not help but be conscious of their ultimate
significance. "L'importance de l'objet m'a engage a reprendre tout ce
travail," he wrote in 1773, "qui m'a paru fait pour occasionner une revolution en physique et en chimie."79 The same concept and image of a
77These references to science all occur in the "Ninth Stage," 147, 153-54 of
Antoine-Nicolas de Condorcet, Sketch for a Historical Picture of the Progress of the
Human Mind, trans. June Barraclough (New York, 1955). In addition to the reprint in
Condorcet's CEuvres(op. cit., n. 59 supra), there is a convenient edition, Esquisse d'un
tableau historique des progres de l'esprit humain, texte revu et pr6sente par 0. H. Prior
(Paris, 1933); see 173, 180-81.
78 Marcelin Berthelot, La revolution chimique: Lavoisier. Ouvrage suivi de notices et
extraits des registres inedits de laboratoire de Lavoisier (Paris, 1890). Berthelot referred again and again to "r6volution"-not only in chemistry, but in the sciences in
general (e.g., "la revolution scientifique", 25). He also held that Lavoisier's "revolution"
by far transcended the narrow confines of chemistry: "A cette epoque, en effet, la
science a ete transform6e par une revolution considerable dans les idees jusque-la
regnantes, je ne dis pas seulement en chimie, mais dans l'ensemble des sciences physiques et naturelles"(l). The name later appears prominently in other monographs,
notably Andrew Norman Meldrum, The Eighteenth Century Revolution in
Science-The First Phase (Calcutta, Bombay, 1930).
79Quoted by Berthelot, op. cit., 48. Although Berthelot first printed (1890) the complete memorandum from Lavoisier's laboratory notebook, the sentence about "une
revolution en physique et en chimie" had been published two years before by Grimaux
(104 of the work cited in note 80 infra). Meldrum (op. cit., note 78 supra, 8-10) has given
a translation of this memorandum. He points out (10) that the memorandum occurs in
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282
I. BERNARD
COHEN
revolutionwithinchemistry appearsin a letter he wrote to Chaptalin
1791, in which he concluded:"Toute la jeunesse adopte la nouvelle
theorie et j'en conclus que la revolution est faite en chimie." The
political events at the time of this letter would naturallyhave brought
the concept of revolutionto mind-even in chemistry.80A year earlier,
he had writtena remarkableletter to BenjaminFranklin(2 Feb. 1790),
in whichhe gave his Americanfrienda succinctaccountof his chemical
revolutionand then wrote aboutthe politicalrevolution-thus definitely
provinghow the two revolutionswere associated in his mind. He announcedto Franklinthat the French scientists were dividedinto two
camps: those who clung to the ancient doctrine and those on his side,
includingM. de Morveau,M. Berthollet,M. de Fourcroy,M. de Laplace, M. Monge, "et en general les physiciens de l'acadEmie."81
Reportingon the situationin Englandand in Germanyhe concluded:
"Voila donc une revolutionqui s'est faitte dans la chimiedepuis votre
depart"; and he added: "je ...
tiendrai [cette revolution] pour bien
the opening pages of a laboratory notebook of 1773, but "there it is dated the 20th February, 1772," and "plainly '1772."' Berthelot, accordingly, dated this document as of 20
Feb. 1772, whereas Grimaux had assigned the date of 20 Feb. 1773. Meldrum (10-13)
drew up an argument favoring the date of 1773, but this date was not universally accepted. More recently Henry Guerlac has presented some additional evidence in support of Meldrum's emendation.
80Lavoisier to Jean Antoine Chaptal, quoted in Edouard Grimaux, Lavoisier
1743-1794 (Paris, 1888), 126. Whereas in 1791, when Lavoisier was writing to Chaptal,
the pressure of political events would naturally and immediately give rise to the metaphor or image of a revolution, even in science, in 1773 the use of the word "revolution"
by Lavoisier is merely an instance of the tradition we have seen developing during the
eighteenth century of conceiving scientific change as a series of revolutions.
81The quoted portions of this letter have been synthesized from a rough autograph
draft, with many cancellations and emendations. I have, for the ease of reading, introduced capital letters, division into sentences, and accents, but I have kept the orthography of the original. The second sentence in the extract was cancelled and replaced
by another, apparently reading: "Nous la regardons comme faitte et comme faitte sans
retour." This letter has been published by Rene Fric, "Une lettre in6dite de Lavoisier a
B. Franklin," Bulletin Historique et Scientifique de l'Auvergne, 9 (1924), 145-52. Fric's
text was based on Lavoisier's rough draft of the letter; this "was last in the possession of
Mile de Chazelles (a distant relative of Madame Lavoisier) who was shot by the
Germans in 1944"-according to Denis I. Duveen and Herbert S. Klickstein: "Benjamin
Franklin (1706-1790) and Antoine Laurent Lavoisier (1743-1794). Part I. Franklin and
the New Chemistry," Annals of Science, 11 (1955), 103-28 (n.144 on 127). Cf. Rene
Fric, "Catalogue preliminaire de la correspondance de Lavoisier," Archives Internationales d'Histoire de Sciences, 28 (1949), 619-70, esp. 620, 640. In the third and final
part of their study (". .. Part. III. Documentation," op. cit., 13 (1957), 30-46), Duveen
and Klickstein print (37-40) the complete text of Lavoisier's "rough autograph draft,"
using a "photostatic copy in the Edgar Fahs Smith Collection, University of Pennsylvania" (32). See Edgar F. Smith, Old Chemistries (New York, 1927), 30-31.
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CONCEPT
283
OF SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION
avancee et meme complettement
faitte si vous vous rangez parmi nous."
And then he turned at once to the political revolution:
Apresvous avoirentretenude ce qui se passe dansla chimie,ce sera bienle cas
de vous parlerde notre revolutionpolitique.Nous la regardonscomme faite et
sans aucunepossibilitede retoura l'ancienordre...
In 1790/91, with a revolution well launched in the political sphere, it is
not surprising to find Lavoisier thinking about a revolution in chemistry;
and we have seen that by 1773 (even before the American and French
Revolutions), a tradition had arisen of conceiving significant scientific
change to have occurred by a process of revolution. Hence the most
remarkable aspect of Lavoisier's note of 1773 is that it was-so far as I
have been able to find-the first time any scientist had ever referred to
his own work in such terms of revolution.82
It is still all too commonly believed that Immanuel Kant compares
"his own philosophical revolution with that initiated by Copernicus,"
allegedly in the preface to the second edition of the Kritik der reinen
Vernunft (1787).83 In fact, however, Kant nowhere refers to a
Copernican revolution. But in that preface to the second edition, Kant
does discuss two revolutions in science: in mathematics and in physics,
both being subjects "in which reason yields theoretical knowledge."
These two sciences, according to Kant, "have to determine their objects
a priori, ... [mathematics] doing so quite purely,... [physics] having to
reckon, at least partially, with sources of knowledge other than reason."
It was difficult for mathematics, however, "to light upon, or rather to
construct for itself, that royal road." Mathematics
"long remained,
especially among the Egyptians, in the groping stage," and then there
occurred a "transformation [that] must have been due to a revolution
brought about by the happy thought of a single man." Kant held "this
82In
an article in the Journal de Litterature, des Sciences et des Arts, 1 (1781), 371,
the optical contributions of Jean-Paul Marat are described in terms of the highest
praise, including such encomiums as this: "La revolution que M. Marat vient de
produire dans l'optique, a fait une si forte sensation sur les Physiciens qui cultivent cette
science, qu'ils ne sont pas encore revenus de leur etonnement"; cited and quoted in
Joseph Fayet, La revolutionfrancaise et la science 1789-1795 (Paris, 1960), 31 and note
17. According to Fayet, "Plusieurs des articles publiEsen ce journal ont la forme de lettres non signees, et nous ne sommes pas eloigne de croire que c'est Marat lui-meme qui
les a ecrites."
83The quoted statement, and others of a similar nature, may be found in Norwood
Russell Hanson, "Copernicus' R61e in Kant's Revolution," JHI, 20 (1959), 274-81, in
which evidence is marshalled to show that Kant did not refer to his own innovations as a
Copernican revolution. Two double units of the Open University's second-level course in
"The Age of Revolutions" are entitled Kant's Copernican Revolution: Speculative
Philosophy and Kant's Copernican Revolution: Moral Philosophy (these volumes have
been published in 1972 by The Open University Press, A202, units 15-16, 17-18).
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284
I. BERNARD COHEN
intellectual revolution" to be "far more important than the discovery of
the passage round the celebrated Cape of Good Hope," and lamented
that its history and the name of "its fortunate author" had "not been
preserved."84 In physics, Kant found a "beneficent revolution in its
point of view."85 Thus, while Kant neither invoked the image of a
Copernican revolution nor stated directly that he had himself produced
such a revolution, he did (in the preface to the second edition of his Critique of Pure Reason, but not in the first) explicitly refer to two major
revolutions that had fundamentally altered the nature of science.
Not unexpectedly, Joseph Priestley-an ardent supporter of the
American and French Revolutions-was among those who transferred
the concept of revolution from the political realm to science.86 In a work
on phlogiston and the decomposition of water, published in 1796, he
began by saying that there had been "few, if any, revolutions in science
so great, so sudden, and so general, as the prevalence of what is now
usually termed the new system of chemistry, or that of the Antiphlogistians, over the doctrine of Stahl...." And then, having described how
successfully the new chemistry had routed the old, he linked political
and scientific events in lamenting that he "hardly [knew] of any person"
other than himself and his friends of the Lunar Society of Birmingham,
who adhere to the doctrine of phlogiston." And then he added that
"what may now be the case with them, in this age of revolutions, philosophical as well as civil, I will not at this distance answer for."87Having
suffered personally for his open support of the French Revolution,
Priestley was all too aware of the dangerous consequences of the use of
the word "revolution." Writing from exile, in Northumberland, Pennsylvania, on 24 Oct. 1799, he congratulated Robert R. Livingston on his
84Norman Kemp Smith, trans., Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason (London,
1973; reprint of second impression (1933) with corrections), pp. 18-19. In the original
German, this is referred to as a "Revolution" and a "Revolution der Denkart." See Immanuel Kant, Kritik der reinen Vernunft, nach der ersten und zweiten Original-Ausgabe, neu herausgegeben von Raymund Schmidt (Leipzig, 1926-Der Philosophischen
Bibliothek, Band 37a), 16.
85Smith edition, 20.
86In his Lectures on History and General Policy ... (a new edition, London, 1826),
Priestley summarized his finds as follows (407): "Few observations remain to be made
on the subject of science, as an object of attention to an historian, after the account
which has already been given of the progress and revolutions of it." This use of the word
in a cyclical sense differs from those cited below.
87JosephPriestley, Considerations on the Doctrine of Phlogiston and the Decomposition of Water, ed. William Foster (Princeton, 1929), 19-20. This edition is a reprint of
Priestley's book with the same title (Philadelphia, 1796), together with "Two Lectures
on Combustion and an Examination of Doctor Priestley's Considerations on the Doctrine of Phlogiston" by John Maclean. The above extracts occur in a selection from
Priestley's essay, printed in Henry Guerlac, ed., Selected Readings in the History of
Science (Ithaca, 1953), II, 279-80.
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CONCEPT
OF SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION
285
"most valuable discovery relating to the fabrication of paper." If there
were success "in bleaching it, of which I have little doubt, you will
produce a complete revolution in the whole manufacture." But then he
warned that this great innovation "must not be called a revolution in
these times. That alone would discredit it, tho ever so useful," he concluded. "It is not, however, the less acceptable to me."88
Priestley differed from most of his contemporaries in that he did not
believe that revolutions in science were always progressive, always causing a more rapid advance in the state of knowledge. "Nothing," he
wrote, "is more common, in the history of all the branches of experimental philosophy, than the most unexpected revolutions of good or bad
success." He explained his point of view as follows:
... In general,indeed,whennumbersof ingeniousmen applythemselvesto one
subject, that has been well opened, the investigationproceeds happily and
equably.But, as in the historyof electricity,andnowin the discoveriesrelating
to air, lighthas burstout fromthe most unexpectedquarters,in consequenceof
whichthe greatest masters of science have been obligedto recommencetheir
studies, from new and simpler elements; so it is also not uncommonfor a
branchof scienceto receivea check, evenin the most rapidandpromisingstate
of its growth.89
A review of Priestley's Memoirs, published in 1806 in The Edinburgh
Review, enables us to see how widely accepted the concept of revolutions in science (and other intellectual pursuits) had become. The anonymous reviewer, actually Francis Jeffrey, noted that Priestley had "confidently expected his name to go down to posterity, as a great reformer
in religion and philosophy; and had no doubt that a place would be
assigned to him in the Temple of Immortality, at least as distinguished
as those of Luther and Newton." This led to the following indictment:
It has often occurred to us, indeed, that there is universallysomething
presumptuousin provincialgenius, and that it is a very rare felicity to meet
with a manof talents out of the metropolis,who does not overratehimselfand
his coterie prodigiously.In the West of Englandin particular,there has been a
succession of authors, who . . . have fancied that they were born to effect some
88Quoted from Robert E. Schofield, ed., A Scientific Autobiography of Joseph
Priestley (1733-1804). Selected Scientific Correspondence, Edited with Commentary
(Cambridge, Mass., 1966), 300.
89Preface to Joseph Priestley, Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of
Air, and Other Branches of Natural Philosophy ... (Birmingham, 1790), I, xxv. I have
not found any occurrences of the actual word "revolution" in relation to the development of the sciences in either Priestley's historical study of electricity or the one dealing
with optics and vision; but possibly there may be one such, that does not appear prominently.
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286
I. BERNARD COHEN
mighty revolution in the different departments to which they applied
themselves.90
Such extravagance, Jeffrey believed, was due to the "want of that
wholesome discipline of derision to which every thing is subjected in
London," and which represses "presumption and extravagant vanity."
Here, however, we are less interested in Jeffrey's views of "provincial
philosophers" than in his use of the term "revolution" for an advance in
natural philosophy, or experimental science.
At the century's end, the concept of revolutions in science had become firmly established. The first over-all review of the intellectual acMiller's Brief
complishments of the eighteenth century-Samuel
Retrospect, published in 1803-stated in its title that it contained "A
Sketch of the Revolutions and Improvements in Science, Arts, and
Literature, during that Period." Miller's use of "revolution" to denote
gigantic progressive steps is all the more notable in that he was an
American clergyman with an anti-French bias. His work was more a
compilation than an original essay, as he himself admitted;91 accordingly, he would have encountered the concept of revolution in science
and in the arts in the course of his readings (including works in French,
which are prominent among his footnotes and references).
In his "Recapitulation" at the end of the second volume, Miller
characterized the eighteenth century as "pre-eminently an age offree
inquiry." Men learned, to a greater degree than had ever been known
before, to "throw off the authority of distinguished names .. .to discard
all opinions, to overturn systems which were supposed to rest on everlasting foundations." Men pushed their inquiries to the utmost extent,
awed by no sanctions, restrained by no prescriptions, effecting a "revolution in the human mind." The image thus conjured is one of intellectual sans-culottes running rampant; and Miller was at pains to
point out that this "revolution ...has
been attended with many ad-
vantages, and with many evils," both of which he then spelled out.92
90Priestley's Memoirs had been published in London in 1805, with a supplement by
his son, and some observations on Priestley's writings by Thomas Cooper; the review appeared anonymously in The Edinburgh Review or Critical Journal, 9 (Oct. 1806-Jan.
1807), 136-61. The comment on revolutions occurs on 147. Jeffrey held that the extravagant views of provincial savants about themselves came from the lack of "the perpetual
presence of the more permanent aristocracies of wealth, office, and rank," since such a
presence "tends to humble the pretensions of genius, and teaches to measure their own
importance by a more extended standard." Robert E. Schofield, The Lunar Society of
Birmingham (Oxford, 1963), 5.
91"Though the greater part of this work consists of compilation; yet the writer claims
to be something more than a mere compiler. He has offered, where he thought proper,
opinions, reflections, and reasonings of his own ...." Quoted from Samuel Miller, A
Brief Retrospect of the Eighteenth Century. Part First; in two volumes: containing a
Sketch of the Revolution and Improvements in Science, Arts, and Literature, during
92Ibid.,11, 411.
that period (New York, 1803), II, Preface, ix.
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CONCEPT
OF SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION
287
A little later on, he returned to "the revolutions and progress of
science," observing that the "last age was remarkably distinguished by
REVOLUTIONS IN SCIENCE":
Theorieswere more numerousthan in any formerperiod,their systems more
diversified,and revolutionsfollowedeach other in more rapidsuccession.In almost every departmentof science, changesof fashion,or doctrine,and of authority,have troddenso closely on the heels of each other, that merelyto rememberandenumeratethem wouldbe an arduoustask.93
Miller set himself the problem of accounting for this "frequency and
rapidity of scientific revolutions." His solution is a most modern one,
since he saw the primary cause to be what we would call today the
emergence of a "scientific community." Miller pointed in particular to
the "extraordinary diffusion of knowledge"; the "swarms of inquirers
and experimenters every where"; and-above all-"the unprecedented
degree of intercourse which men of science enjoyed," the consequence
of which was "the thorough and speedy investigation which every new
theory was accustomed to receive," resulting in "the successive erection
and demolition of more ingenious and splendid fabrics than ever previously." Thus "the scientific world [was kept] more than ever awake
and busy" by a "rapid succession of discoveries, hypotheses, theories
and systems." With an insight that shows how far Miller surpassed the
bounds of a mere compiler, he concluded his "Recapitulation" by
observing: "The eighteenth
century was pre-eminently
THE AGE OF
LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC INTERCOURSE."94
Within a decade of Miller's book, there was a further recognition of
the existence of revolutions in science. In the fifth edition of the Dictionnaire de l'Academie Franfoise, revu, corrige et augments par l'Academie elle-meme (1811), we find the primary definition to be
astronomical:
Le retourd'unePlanete,d'unAstre au meme pointd'ot il etoit parti.La revolution des Planetes. Les revolutionscelestes. Revolutionperiodique.On dit
dansle mdmesens, La revolutiondes siecles, des temps,des saisons.
There is also mentioned a "Revolution d'humeurs," and the article concludes with "changemens memorables et violens qui ont agite ces
Pays"-in reference to "Les Revolutions Romaines, les Revolutions de
93Ibid.,II, 413.
94Ibid., II, 438. As would be expected, Miller not only uses the word "revolution" in
his general summary, but in his analysis or description of specific scientific advances;
e.g., "the signal revolution in chemical theory" (I, 92).
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I. BERNARD COHEN
288
Suede, les Revolutions d'Angleterre."95 It is noted that in speaking of
the revolution,one has in mindthe establishmentof a neworder.
In the present context, however,what is of greatest interest is the
paragraphdevoted to the ways in whichthe word "revolution"is used
figuratively:"Du changement qui arrive dans les affaires publiques,
dans les choses du monde,dans les opinions,etc." The examplesgiven
are:
Prompte,subite,soudaine,merveilleuse,etonnante,heureuserevolution.
Laperte d'unebataillecausesouventde grandesrevolutionsdans un Etat.
Le tempsfait d'etrangesrevolutionsdansles affaires.
Les chosesde ce mondesont sujettesa de grandesrevolutions.
Revolutiondansles arts, dansles sciences, dansles esprits,dansles modes,
etc.96
Thus formallyenteredinto the lexigraphicrecord,the expression"revolution" in science attained official recognitionas the name of an acceptedconceptto characterizescientificchange.
HarvardUniversity.
95It may be observed that these three revolutions are the ones mentioned in the
article on revolution in the Diderot-d'Alembert Encyclopedie. In this (1811) edition of
the Dictionnaire with its reference to a revolution in science, no mention is made of the
French Revolution or of the American Revolution, although (see note 96 infra) the
French Revolution had been given as an example in the edition of 1793. The lexicographers of the Academie observe that "quand on dit simplement, La Revolution, en
parlant De l'histoire de ces Pays, on designe la plus memorable, celle qui a amene un
autre order. Ainsi, en parlant De l'Angleterre, La Revolution designe celle de 1688."
96The foregoing quotations are taken from the cinquieme edition, 2 vols. (Paris,
1811). In the previous edition (Paris, & Lyon, 1793), the opening paragraph is all but
identical (only "Revolution periodique" being missing). The paragraph just quoted is
likewise all but identical in the two editions, save for a few details and the fact that the
final example, including "Revolution dans . . . les sciences" is not present in the early
edition. Furthermore, where the 1811 edition lists the Roman, the Swedish, and the
English Revolutions as instances of "changemens memorables et violens qui ont agite
ces Pays," the 1793 edition referred rather to "un changement subit et violent dans le
gouvernement d'un peuple," with examples being "La revolution Francoise de 1789,"
"Les revolutions d'Angleterre," and "Les revolutions Romaines."
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