An Incomplete Education - 3,684 Things You Should Have Learned but Probably Didn't

know? Maybe what looks like disorder to us is real
fact (don't slow down now or you're lost) that the
operate the same way on the subatomic level, whe
directions, if it flows at all. Oh, there's a lot more t
the Third Law of Thermodynamics, but by now,
the First Law again. A s for us, we're smart enoug
once we're up to our eyeballs in it.

EVOLUTION, THE LAW O
SELECTION, AND WHY Y

BEEN FEELING STRESSE
PARANOID LAT

Evolution—literally, "unrolling"—wasn't Charles D
his personal property (see page 564). In fact, the En
before, had celebrated the notion of progress, a ba
evitability of gradual human change. Hegel had in
losophy, and Marx brought it into politics. Eve
biologists—had been speculating, since 1800 or so,
ment of the earth and of the things that lived on
make evolution come off as science—first, in his
1859; later, in his Descent of Man, published in 187

By evolution Darwin meant that all plant and
very nature mutable, able (and, more than that,
dergo small changes in their makeup; and that al
have developed in such a fashion from others that
all life is interrelated and subject to the same laws
ing things is a unified one, unfolding continuousl
of years.

Here is how Darwin said evolution worked: Giv
that more daisies and starfish and foxes are "produc
there must in every case be a struggle for existence,
other of the same species, or with the individuals o
physical conditions of life." Constantly embroiled in
thus, in Tennyson's famous formulation, "red in too
to provide any "artificial increase in food" or "pruden
Darwin's conclusion: "Any being, if it vary however
itable to itself, under the complex and sometimes v
have a better chance of surviving, and thus be nat

SCIENCE 557

lly order. And then there's the
Second Law doesn't seem to

ere time flows in at least two
to think about, including, yes,
you're probably mulling over
h to know maximum entropy

OF NATURAL
OU MAY HAVE
ED OUT AND
TELY

Darwin's invention, much less
nlightenment, a whole century
asically upbeat take on the in­
ntroduced evolution into phi­
en scientists—geologists and
, on the evolutionary develop­

it. What Darwin did was to
Origin of Species, published in
71.
d animal species are by their
under some pressure) to un­
ll existing plants and animals
went before them. Also, that
s; and that the history of liv­
ly over millions and millions

ven that nature is competitive,
ced than can possibly survive,
either one individual with an­
of distinct species, or with the
n fights to the finish, nature is
oth and claw." Nor is it about
ntial restraint from marriage."
r slightly in any manner prof­
varying conditions of life, will
turally selected" There's more:

55? AN I N C O M P L E T

"From the . . . principle of inh
its new and modified form."
domly, and not just new spec
new orders will be evolved.

About this thing called "
with conscious, intelligent, o
in that sense, nobody's "sele
choice or will, but through
useful characteristic—speed
turn-on-a-dime savvy if you'
set up to eat, compete, and
Thus useful traits tend, more
the next generation, which p
species takes a slight turn to
ronment, not through carefu
draw. This is survival-of-the
it's without self-consciousnes
part of God.

About Darwinism. It's true
put it, the great span of evolut
OK, the circumstantial evide
plant and animal structure, em
ligious fundamentalists of the
the earth was round had felt
that nature had gone from b
wresding match; that everyth
ing something else; that ther
adaptation; and that there w
good or even for being right.

Darwinian evolution steam
choanalysis and socialism, an
straits of Victorian England
America. In fact, in the Twent
furbished (but not structurall
member genetics. Derived ini
Mendel, the pea-planting mo
heritance, it crystallized aroun
ity), which, within fifty years,
itself to be made up of D N A .

Fitted out with genetics,
couldn't "prove" the theory of
actly how evolution worked. N

E EDUCATION

heritance, any selected variety will tend to propagate
Let such a process go on long enough, even ran­

cies, but new genera, new families, and even whole

natural selection." First off, it has nothing to do
or purposeful behavior on the part of an organism;
ecting" anything. A species changes, not through

chance, through the "play" of heredity. Inherit a
if you're a cheetah, strength if you're an oak tree,
're a virus or a human being—and you'll be better
mate; in short, to pass that characteristic along.
e than useless ones, to be successfully passed on to
profits from them in turn, until, in time, a whole
the right or left, adapting itself better to its envi­
l planning but through the cumulative luck of the
e-fittest stuff; the "natural" simply points up that
ss on the part of the species, or intervention on the

e that Darwin couldn't prove his theory since, as he
tionary time was simply unrecoverable. But that was
ence—in the form of fossils, species distributions,
mbryology—was pretty good. And, except to the re­

day, the basic setupfelt right, just as the theory that
right. What was upsetting were evolution's vibes:
being a sun-kissed harmony to being a tag-team
ing was always in flux, always on its way to becom­
e was no such thing as virtue, just more and more
were greater rewards for being "fit" than for being

med intact into the twentieth century, alongside psy­
intellectual tall ship that had made it through the
and would make it over the shoals of Scopes-trial

ties and Thirties, it was to be both bolstered and re­
ly altered) by the new science of genetics. You re­
itially from the nineteenth-century work of Gregor
onk who first came up with the laws of genetic in­
nd the discovery of the first gene (or unit of hered­
would be shown to make up each chromosome and
.

Darwinism passed into Neo-Darwinism. It still
evolution, but now it could at least demonstrate ex­
Neo-Darwinism is considered a scientific up for two

reasons: First, it gracefully ushered evolution into t
it showed that the Master's basic hypothesis had s
but technology. After genetics, as before it, natural
the evolution game.

Ten Burning Questio
History of Sci

POSED AND FIELDED BY C
MARK ZUSSMA

WERE THE ANCIENTS REALLY
DID THEY JUST MAKE SOME L

Unlike the Scholastic Aptitude Test and the Gra
gives credit not just for the right answers but for
method," by which the right answers are arrived
wants to see your worksheet. And by worksheet st
to the same ancient scientists who appear to hav
Democritus, who articulated an atomic theory, an
that something more or less like evolution occurr
comparable to the survival of the fittest. Face-to-
science throws up its hands.

Now, Aristotle rarely made a good guess. Arist
generation (e.g., that a fly might arise out of a dung
Dad). He believed that heavenly bodies were atta
spheres. (Think clear plastic). H e believed that ter
by a principle of inertia such that all bodies desired
the earth. He believed that the chemistry of things
of the four elements: earth, air, fire, and water. By w
Aristotle gets reasonably high grades for empirica

SCIENCE 552

the twentieth century; second,
stood the test not only of time

selection was still the name o f

ons in the
ience

ONTRIBUTOR
N

Y SCIENTISTS OR
LUCKY GUESSES?

aduate Record Exam, science
the method, as in "scientific
at. Science, in other words,
andards, the lowest grades go
e been the most on the ball:

nd Empedocles, who believed
red by a process more or less
-face with poetic insight, real

totle believed in spontaneous
heap, no help from M o m and
ached to rotating mechanical
rrestrial motion was regulated
d to be at rest at the center of
s could be explained in terms
worksheet standards, however,
al observation in zoology (he

«6. AN I N C O M P L E T E

classified some 540 animal sp
ticularly for his chicken embr

If you want to speak well o
with is Archimedes, whose vi
ples of buoyancy (see page 543
fore Newton but a whole l
metaphysics.

IS IT TRUE T
SCIENCE ALIV

AGES, WHILE

Strictly speaking, this is not
was the Arabic language, wh
Spain to India that Latin pla
great switching station—or t
tional. Here's what the medie
Aristotle, Euclid, Hippocrate
wrote The Comprehensive Boo
fort: It summed up everythi
India, and the Middle East a
China.

At the battle of Samarkand
Chinese papermakers. They
and at Baghdad, and they pa
another medieval switching s
borrowed our numeral system
gebra, without which the co
probably couldn't have been p
duced Arabic numerals into E

Europe, meanwhile, sat on
gownies, things were crackin
Northerners had substituted
skis and the stirrup and the sp
chanical clocks, and they had

E EDUCATION

pecies, at least 50 of which he'd dissected) and par­
ryology.
of an ancient scientist, though, the one always to go
irtues include not just the formulation of the princi­
3) and the lever and the finest mathematical mind be­
lot of method in the absence of any system or

THAT THE ARABS KEPT
VE DURING THE MIDDLE
E EUROPE SLUMBERED?

true. It wasn't the Arabs who kept science alive: it
hich played the same role in the vast spaces from
ayed farther to the north. Arabic was in effect the
to put it another way, Islam made science interna­
eval Muslims did: They translated Galen, Ptolemy,
es, and Dioscorides. Al-Razi, a Persian physician,
ok, whose title suggests the overall range of the ef­
ng that had been known of medicine in Greece,
and some of what had been known of medicine in

d in A . D . 704, the Muslims got their hands on some
then built paper mills of their own at Samarkand
ssed the process along to Europe by way of Spain,
station. Al-Khwarazmi, a Baghdad mathematician,
m from the Hindus and then went on to develop al­
omplex weight distribution of Gothic cathedrals
pulled off. Someone called Leonardo of Pisa intro­
Europe in 1202.
its thumbs only in the universities. Away from the
ng; even before the Renaissance happened along,
trousers for the Roman toga. They had invented
pinning wheel and the heavy-duty plough and me­
figured out how to cast iron and harness horses and

make a barrel. This was the practical, nonacademi
or later give the world the Connecticut Yankee, the
better living through chemistry.

DID GALILEO REALLY DR
OF LEAD WEIGHTS F

LEANING TOWER OF PIS
PROVING SOMETHING

By common consent, this most famous of all exp
ments (or, more properly, demonstrations) was a n
one, if it occurred. Aristotle had claimed that obj
of different weights fall at different speeds—so, a
way, the sixteenth-century Aristotelians believed
claimed; and anyone with a little equipment at the
of the Leaning Tower could have shown that the A
totelians were wrong as usual. Whether or not Gal
did drop the weights, however, has been in dispute
most of this century.

T h e story was first told by Galileo's last pupil, V
cenzo Viviani, who said that Galileo dropped
weights in front of an audience of the entire fac
and student body of Pisa University. But if Galileo
done so and if Aristotelian mechanics had been sho
up for the fantasy it was, why isn't there a single in
pendent account of the event in university records o
letters or memoirs? This is the question as mod
scholarship puts it.

And it leads to a corollary question. If Galile
n't drop weights from the L e a n i n g Tower, what
propagandize for the Copernican view that the
sun, not vice versa, and, what was worse, he di
in Latin, thereby stirring up trouble. In The D
Chief Systems of the World, the Ptolemaic and th
made the Ptolemaic lunkhead Simplicius sou
Urban VIII.

As it happens, Galileo also constructed a teles
covered spots on the sun, mountains on the mo

SCIENCE 561

ic tradition that would sooner
e Wizard of Menlo Park, and

ROP A COUPLE
FROM THE
SA, THEREBY
G OR OTHER?

peri­
nice
jects
any­
he'd
top
Aris­
ileo
e for

Vin- Galileo
the

culty
had
own
nde­

or in
dern

o did­
did he do? What he did was
e earth voyages around the
id so in modern Italian, not
Dialogue Concerning the Two
he Copernican, moreover, he
und suspiciously like Pope

scope through which he dis­
oon, satellites in the orbit of

562 AN I N C O M P L E T E

Isaac Newton Jupiter, and phases of Venus
chanics. But if you want to r
that he was the first scientist
mathematically, by quantifyin
creeps at the thought of colo
be nonquantifiable.

DID NEWTON R
FALL—A
(AND I

He
Ga
Bre
rap
app
of
yea
suc
how
pre
Ro
fall
uni
kno
Ne
wro
the
goo
spe
tec
it is that the apple story is pr
barrel along with the one tha
shot off his son's head and th
the goddess of discord, tossed
the other hand, how importan
Plenty of people other than N
versal gravitation didn't occur
The theory of gravitation,
seven-year-old today, is on the

E EDUCATION

s; and he laid the groundwork for a modern me­
remember just one thing about Galileo, remember
t-philosopher who routinely approached problems
ng them—and also the first to get a bad case of the
ors, tastes, odors, and anything else he believed to

REALLY WATCH AN APPLE
ND IF SO, SO WHAT?
F NOT, SO WHAT?)

ere, obviously, we are onto another one of those
alileo-and-the-lead-weight questions. Sir David
ewster, one of Newton's nineteenth-century biog­
phers, claims actually to have visited the tree the
ple fell from and to have walked away with a piece

the root. Brewster also claims that in 1820, six
ars after his pilgrimage, the tree had decayed to
ch an extent that it was chopped down, the wood,
wever, like any other holy relic, being "carefully
eserved"—in this case, by a Mr. Turnor of Stoke
ocheford. T h e story of course is that it was the
ling apple that suggested to Newton the theory of
iversal gravitation, and the story, as Brewster ac­
owledges, was spread by Voltaire, who got it from
ewton's niece, Catherine Barton. Voltaire, who
ote about Newton in detail, in fact never got to see
e elderly mathematician-physicist, though, like any
od journalist assigned to a palace press room, he did
end a lot of time hanging out in his subject's an­
chambers gathering scabrous anecdotes. The net of
robably false and that the apple itself belongs in a
at Eve gave to Adam and the one that William Tell
e golden one, inscribed "For the fairest," that Eris,
d in the direction of Juno, Venus, and Minerva. On
nt is it whether he did or didn't watch an apple fall?
Newton watched apples fall, and the theory of uni­
r to them.
by the way, however obvious it may seem to every
e face of it no less implausible than the much earlier

theory that the planets and the stars are attached
make music (if only we could hear it); and, when yo
a lot less occult. You know, what is this spooky stuff
thing in place without glue, paste, screws, nails, or e

That gravity should be innate, inherent, ess
one body may act upon another at a distance
out the mediation of anything else, by and th
and force may be conveyed from one to anot
absurdity that I believe no man who has in
competent faculty of thinking can ever fall in

Newton's F = G was nevertheless the E = mc2

the force of attraction between any two bodies will

product of their masses and inversely proportional

between them.

HOW COME CHEMISTRY T
TO COME UP FROM T H E

Chemistry took so long to come up from the Da
Ages because even after physics and astronomy a
anatomy had assumed something vaguely like th
modern contours, instruments didn't exist to isol
gases and no one troubled much to weigh or me
sure anything. Then a German named Stahl cam
along and carried the science down the dark, lone
dead-end road of the phlogiston theory. This theo
held that all combustible substances had a physi
component—namely, phlogiston—that was releas
on burning; new findings were wrenched about
fit the theory (for example, the discovery that t
ash of a piece of firewood weighed more than t
unburnt firewood led to the conclusion not th
oxygen had been absorbed, but that phlogiston h
negative weight). Which is to say that at the time
chemists still believed that of the four elements of
and water1—all but earth were irreducible. H 2 0 ?

SCIENCE 5*3

to clear rotating spheres that
ou think about it, it's not really
called gravity that holds every­
even spit? Newton himself said:

sential to matter, so that
through a vacuum, with­
hrough which the action
ther, is to me so great an
philosophical matters a
nto it.

of its day. W h a t it says is that
be directly proportional to the
l to the square of the distance

TOOK SO LONG
E DARK AGES?

ark
and
heir
ate
ea­
me
ely
ory
cal
sed

to
the
the An eighteenth-century chemistry lab
hat
had
e of the American Revolution,
f the ancients—earth, air, fire,
Not yet. Water.

AN I N C O M P L E T

It was Antoine Lavoisier w
implications of the findings o
Both Joseph Priestley, an En
isolated oxygen, but they fail
and either fire or water (Priest
saw that air was made up of t
tion and one, nitrogen, did n
hydrogen and oxygen to get w
phlogiston. Lavoisier came
school chemistry teacher.

WHO GOT TO
FIRST, DARWIN
WALLACE? AND

THAT ONE, W
MODERN PERSO

POOR V

Darwin
The first of these questions w
kind of thought that the evol

E EDUCATION

who got chemistry out of the fix. Lavoisier saw the
f other men and worked them into a unified system.
nglishman, and Karl Scheele, a Swede, had already
led to get straight the relationship between oxygen
tley, in fact, never gave up on phlogiston). Lavoisier
two elements of which one contributed to combus­
not. Henry Cavendish, an Englishman, combined
water but concluded that water was hydrogen minus
up with the conclusion that satisfied your high-

THE EVOLUTION THEORY
N OR THIS ALFRED RUSSEL
D ONCE YOU'VE ANSWERED
WHAT'S AN ENLIGHTENED
ON SUPPOSED TO THINK OF
VILIFIED LAMARCK?

Wallace
was somewhat baffling to Darwin himself. Darwin
lution theory was his own intellectual property, but

at home one day in June 1858, tinkering away at t
received from Wallace (who was in Malaya, reco
setting forth not just a theory of evolution but a t
selection. And talk about spooky: The evolutionar
to both men in exactly the same way. They had bot
ulation, according to which an expanding human
on food supply with the result that poverty and d
133). N.B.: It was neither Darwin nor Wallace
Spencer who coined the Victorian catchphrase "s
fred Tennyson, the poet laureate, who added the c
one with rapine, a harm no preacher can heal."

Actually, what was at issue between the two natu
theory first, but who had title to it. Darwin had st
Transmutation of Species in 1837. H e had a first in
tion in early 1838, and he added Malthus to his st
didn't begin to think of the transmutation of spec
Chambers' Vestiges of the Natural History of Cre
nounced his theory to Darwin before Darwin had
tion anywhere. This, then, would probably have b
both men not done honor to science by behaving
praised each other.

As for poor Jean-Baptiste-Pierre-Antoine de M
the pity is he's remembered for his zany ideas abou
its neck often enough to get at leaves on high bra
come a giraffe and—why stop there?—the acq
neckedness will be passed along to its offspring. I
the idea of evolution out into the intellectual atm
categories "vertebrate" and "invertebrate" and he tu
nineteenth-century buzzword.

HONEST, NOW, WAS LOBA
GREATEST MATHEMATIC
GET CHALK ON HI

This, to be sure, is what Tom Lehrer alleged of Lo
that also advises, "Plagiarize, plagiarize, why do yo
your eyes?" Nikolai Lobachevsky not only ran the
found time to squeak through Euclid's undefend

SCIENCE 565

the future Origin of Species, he
overing from malaria) a paper
theory of evolution by natural
ry process had been suggested
th read Malthus' Essay on Pop­

population is always pressing
death are inevitable (see page
but the philosopher Herbert
urvival of the fittest," and Al­
cheerful chorus, "For nature is

uralists was not who got to the
tarted keeping his Notebook on
timation of the role of adapta­
tewpot later that year. Wallace
cies until 1845, after he'd read
eation. Wallace, however, an­
published anything on evolu­
been one for the lawyers, had
like gentlemen. They actually

Monet, chevalier de Lamarck,
ut how an animal that stretches
anches will sooner or later be­
quired characteristic of long-
In fact, Lamarck not only got
mosphere, he also invented the
urned "biology" into an early-

ACHEVSKY THE
CIANEVER TO
S COAT?

bachevsky in the famous song
ou think the good Lord made
e University of Kazan, he also
ded window of vulnerability,

AN I N C O M P L E T E

name

point

draw

never

ther

Lo

the f

clid,

geom

pass

gle w

appa

real u

as Eu

great

later

and

thoug

Th

Nikolai Ivanovitch Lobachevsky chev

had

concluding that geometry, "th

arithmetic, the latter being e

cal. M o s t people, in fact, wil

Newton, who invented calcu

lus with less to go on. Archim

test. Archimedes didn't work

olive oil.

WHAT DOES PL
TO DO W
UN

In a mutable world where yest
$13-a-radicchio-salad waterin
on; and Planck's, though it w
tific public in 1900, has turned
ages that you can tie up a
represented by the letter h, is

E EDUCATION

ely, the fifth axiom, which states that through a
t Py not on a given Une /, only one line I1 can be
wn so that / and I1 are parallel and so that they will
r meet no matter how far they are extended in ei­
direction.
obachevsky demonstrated that if you throw out
fifth axiom, which was never proven, even by E u ­
who didn't try, you can construct a non-Euclidian
metry in which more than one parallel line will
through the point P and all the angles of a trian­
will add up to less than 180°. Lobachevsky did not
rently mean his geometry as a description of the
universe, yet it is not only as internally consistent
uclid's, it also has implications for geodesies and
t circle navigation. In any case, as Einstein was

to demonstrate, the real universe is both weird
non-Euclidean, regardless of what Lobachevsky
ght.
here is just one problem with naming Loba-
sky the greatest mathematician, etc. Carl Gauss
gotten to non-Euclidian geometry before him,
he theory of space," was no longer on a level with
exclusively a product of mind, the former, empiri­
ll tell you that not only was Gauss greater, so was
ulus, and Archimedes, who almost invented calcu­
medes, though, doesn't pass the chalk-on-his-coat
in chalk. H e worked in sand, ash, or, occasionally,

LANCK'S CONSTANT HAVE
WITH HEISENBERG'S
NCERTAINTY?

terday's $l-a-slice pizza parlor becomes tomorrow's
ng hole, a constant is always a nice thing to happen
was scoffed at when it was first offered to the scien­
d out over the years to be one of those rare harbor­
at with confidence. Its numerical value, always
0.000000000000000000000000006547—a mite of

a thing, to be sure; but it has been confirmed by ma
in a world like this one, you take what constants y
arms around them. What Max Planck discovered i
off in particles or, as he called them, quanta; it is no
want to find the energy quantum of light, for examp
multiply h by the frequency of the radiation, rep
voilà—there you've got it. Historians have taken t
dividing line between "classical" and "modern" phys

Now, constancy is a lot less modern than unce
that, come 1927, Werner Heisenberg took Planck'
vate uncertainty beyond mere pose: Heisenberg m
principle of the cosmos. He observed that the close
locity of a particle, the further you inevitably get fro
vice versa. Indeterminacy of velocity times indeterm
roughly—you guessed it—the famous h. For this
Nobel Prize. But, because it seemed like a mockery
even Einstein didn't like it much, and he went on re
never believe that G o d plays dice with the universe

WAIT, YOU'RE F O R G E T T I N
DIDN'T THEY CONTRIBUT

It's hard to know exactly how you mean this, but l
fact, the Danes are not just blue cheese and break
even have been the first country to have somethin
icy. King Frederick II, in order to avoid brain drai
tronomer Tycho Brahe as feudal lord of the island
with the wherewithal to establish what in effect w
tory and think tank. Brahe spent twenty-odd y
complete and precise survey of the heavens since
But when the new administration of Christian IV
ing, he migrated anyway, to Bohemia, where he ma
He provided the data on the basis of which Johann
successor as Imperial Mathematician, calculated
planets.

Let's raise a tankard to the memory of Olaus Ro
tradition, traced the path of the planet Jupiter care
calculate the speed of light, thereby beating out Ar

SCIENCE 567

any hundreds of methods, and
you can get and you put your
is that radiant energy is given
ot given off continuously. You
ple—namely, the photon? You
resented by the letter v, and
the quantum theory to be the
sics.
ertainty, so it's not surprising
's constant and used it to ele­
made uncertainty into a basic
er you get to observing the ve­
om measuring its position, and
minacy of position will equal
s, Heisenberg won the 1932
of the law of cause and effect,
ecord with the remark: "I shall
e."

NG THE DANES.
TE ANYTHING?

let's assume you're serious. In
kfast pastries. Denmark may
g like a national science pol­
in to Germany, set up the as­
d of Hveen and provided him
was the world's first observa­
ears there making the most
e the Greeks closed up shop.
came along and cut off fund­
ade his greatest contribution:
nes Kepler, a German and his
d the elliptical orbits of the

oemer. Roemer, in the Tycho
efully, then used his results to
ristotle, who thought that the

S68 AN I N C O M P L E T E

speed of light was infinite, an
trading lantern signals with a

Hoist another tankard for
system, and one more for his
fraction of light through a pie
tian Oersted, who brought a
stumbling on electromagnetis

Niels Bohr won the Nobel
hydrogen atom. Then—anoth
ence policy—he opened the C
theoretical physicists from a
tronomers. Whereas Tycho's o
ever, the Bohr Institute was f

IS SCIENCE

This is a good question, and
probably no. Life is sweet, a
can't kill a good idea whose t
strongly suggests that the ave
scientist with a good idea (t
such a way that laymen can
better yet, him.

In favor of dying for scienc
Bruno. The Inquisition gave h
the stake anyway. Since Socra
at least that's the way Victori
adherent of Copernicanism (
was also of a mystical stripe (
indistinguishable from infinite
fore, this can be thrown out
wasn't a scientist at all. Rathe
hermetic magic. And, in any
canism; they indicted him fo
Trinity.

In 1633, thirty-three years
have a look at the Inquisition
to legend, he also said in an
moves, even if you and I say

E EDUCATION

nd Galileo, who tried to calculate a finite speed by-
an assistant on a nearby hilltop.

Thomas Bartholin, who discovered the lymphatic
s brother Erasmus, who discovered the double re­
ece of Icelandic crystal. And "skoal" to Hans Chris­
compass needle close to an electrical wire, thereby
sm.
l Prize in 1922 for developing a new model for the
her forward march in the evolution of Danish sci­
Copenhagen Institute for atomic studies and drew
all over the world, as Tycho had once drawn as­
operation had been bankrolled by the Crown, how­
unded by the Carlsberg brewery.

E WORTH DYING FOR?

though the evidence is inconclusive, the answer is
and over the long haul the truth outs anyway. You
time has come, etc. Be that as it may, the evidence
erage ecclesiastic does enjoy getting his hands on a
this is particularly true if the idea is expressed in

understand it) and wringing the life out of it or,

e, partidans of martyrdom used to invoke Giordano
him a chance to recant, but he wound up burning at
ates, no man had fought less to save his own life. Or
ian press agentry told the story. Bruno had been an
(the earth moved; the universe was infinité) but he
(other worlds were inhabited; infinite universe was
e G o d ) . A s a case for martyrdom for science, there­
on technical grounds: By modern criteria, Bruno
er, he used scientific ideas to dress up a system of
case, the Inquisition didn't indict him for Coperni­
or his lukewarm acceptance of the doctrine of the

s after Bruno took the torch, Galileo was invited to
n's instruments of torture, and abjured. According
n aside, Eppur si muove: It—that is, the earth—
it doesn't. But this doesn't make Galileo a martyr,

only a brinkman. When it came to actually dying
ing any.

As for Lavoisier, his head did roll in Robespierr
him wasn't that he had invented modern chemistry
collector under the ancien régime. Like Galileo, Lav
worth living for, not dying for, and so informed his
famous response, "The Republic has no need of scie
has not been the view of scientists themselves.

SCIENCE 569

for ideas, Galileo wasn't hav­

e's terror, but the case against
y, only that he had been a tax
voisier believed that ideas were

accusers, thereby evoking the
entists." But this, by and large,

CHAP

"WS>RLD

TER

HIST0RY

TWEL

Contents

The WorldAccording to Whom ? 572
Fun Couples 588
Vintage Years: For Those Who've Already Sav
1789 593
Louis, Louis 598
Special Souvenir-Program Section: You Can't
Cases, the Innings—Without One 606
Reds 616
Four Cautionary Tales: Each of Them Consid
Ones Maury Povich andJerry Springer Try to

The old history-as-cosmic-juggling-act theory
nineteenth-century French caricaturist Gran

VE

vored 1066, 1588, and
Tell the Players—or, in Some
derably More Sobering Than the
o Scare You With 626'

y, illustrated here by the
ndville

52* AN I N C O M P L E T E

The World

osh, so much has happ
V_Xand référendums, dynas
You'd think we'd have learned
all, as the turn-of-the-century
ished, "Those who cannot re
how do you decide whose v
should begin by realizing that
which is the writing down o
the philosophy of history, wh
ing down accomplishes and/
leads; and that most "historia
doing both. Beyond that, don
ebrated account of one or mo
fectly obvious that everybody

SPO

Ten guys, two each from fiv
them and you'll find out how
for the past 2,500 years.

The Greeks: Herodotus a

The Greeks got history—fro
same way they got philosophy
losophy and drama, hits the g
events accumulated and that th
future. For the Greeks, the bi
and it was to wars that the t
Herodotus (c. 484-c. 425 B.C
still going on when he was gr
Peloponnesian one (likewise),

Both men are clear-eyed, g

E EDUCATION

According to Whom?

ened over the years. Wars and revolutions, edicts
sties and one-night stands, rebuffs and embraces.
d something from the whole business by now; after
y Harvard philosopher George Santayana admon­
member the past are condemned to repeat it." But
version of things you're going to buy? Well, you
t there's history (or, more formally, historiography),
f everything that ever happened, and then there's
hich attempts to say what, exactly, that act of writ­
/or where, eventually, the historical process itself
ans" do one or the other, although some wind up
n't look at us: We've just examined everybody's cel­
ore of the world's great moments and it seems per­
y's lying.

OKESPERSONS

ve different history-minded civilizations; listen to
w the world—and the history biz—has been going

and Thucydides

om their word histor, "learned man"—started, the
y and drama started, and their history, like their phi­
ground running. Suddenly, it seemed obvious that
he past connected not only to the present but to the
ig deal was war, with a tip of the hat to revolution,
two great Greek historians addressed themselves:
C . ) to the Persian ones (see page 606), which were
rowing up; Thucydides (c. 460-c. 400 B.C.) to the
, which ended in 404 B . C . , shortly before he died.
go-with-your-instincts observers, but there the re-

W

semblance ends. Although only a generation older
mon with Thucydides than he does with Home
centuries already. Expansive, digressive, myth-min
gossipy, capable of repeating anything anybody tel
ily believes it himself), with, as Macaulay put it,
his lisp," Herodotus comes across like Truman
other hand, is Gore Vidal: concentrated, critical, c
methodology and limited in his interests, cold, ar
Herodotus, who claimed in his History to want on
wonderful actions of the Greeks and the Barbarian
of glory," is the good read—the one you could ge
trip, where his anthropologist's impulses would s
ides, who was more the political-scientist type and
nesian War "would be judged useful by those in
knowledge of the past as an aid to the interpretation
of assistant professors, junior senators, op-ed-pag
who requires a little status along with his relevance

The Romans: Livy and Tacitus

It was one thing after another in that burg, and g
took priority over figuring out what the hell it mea
concerned the state and the men who ran it, and th

ORLD HISTORY 573

r, Herodotus has less in com­
er, who'd been dead for five
nded, insatiably curious, and
lls him (not that he necessar­

"an insinuating eloquence in
Capote. Thucydides, on the
linical, obsessed with his own
ristocratic, grave. O f the two,
nly "to preserve the great and
ns from losing their due meed
t into on a cross-country bus
eem right at home. Thucyd­
d who hoped his The Pelopon-
nquirers who desire an exact
n of the future," is the choice
ge writers, and anybody else
e.

etting it all down on papyrus
ant. The top stories invariably
hey went from being exercises

574 AN I N C O M P L E T

in glorification and myth-m
started (and still smelling like
mere hundred years later. Liv
ployed by various governmen
with the Ancient Rome acco
city," through Romulus and R
et al., up to his own Augustan
now, in power, next to the im
at the disposal of patriotism,
contemporary, Virgil—also, i
worth, the only other history
destiny, tradition, election, an

Tacitus (c. A . D . 5 5 - c. 117
the Roman historians, gives
its decline, without a scrap o
part bordello, part reign of te
who, in the Annals, provides
and Agrippina, complete wit
the night.) Against a backgr
doing his last-moral-man ro
details. "This I regard as hist
action go uncommemorated,
terror to evil words and deed

The Germans: Ranke an

Not exactly household name
rigorous and new—and pointe
day, it was the Germans, who
(so glib, so self-involved, so F
to the university library a
(1795-1886) is not only the m
be the most important of all
every epoch in its own terms
searched for the "ideas" and
than passing judgment, apply
manistic ones had prevailed—
memorable phrase "wie es eige

E EDUCATION

making in the days when Rome was still getting
e a rose), to displays of outrage and breast-beating a
vy (c. 59 B . C . - C . A . D . 17), who was reportedly em­
nt agencies, winds up sounding like the P R person
ount: From Aeneas and "the founding of this great
Remus, the Sabine women, Cincinnatus, Hannibal,
n A g e and "the establishment of an empire which is
mmortal gods," his History of Rome is historiography
even more full of drum rolls than the Aeneid of his
it turns out, on the imperial payroll. (For what it's
with as many plugs for divine providence, manifest
nd generation is the Old Testament.)
7), the most readable as well as the most reliable of
us just as one-sided a view. His Rome is well into
offides, pietas, or dementia to its name, a city that's
error, and part George Romero movie. (It's Tacitus
us with the lowdown on Tiberius, Claudius, Nero,
h poisoned mushrooms and ships that fall apart in
round of evil like you wouldn't believe, Tacitus—
outine—inveighs, exposes, and pours on the lurid
tory's highest function," he says, "to let no worthy

and to hold out the reprobation of posterity as a
ds." With the emphasis on the latter.

nd Mommsen

s. Still, if anyone turned history around—made it
ed it roughly in the direction it's still moving in to­
o, beginning around 1800, left the Enlightenment
French) doing its nails and marched purposefully off
nd the archeological dig. Leopold von Ranke
most important of these German historians, he may
nineteenth-century historians. Determined to see
(as opposed to the terms dictated by his epoch), he
"tendencies" that ruled it, comprehending rather
ying "scientific" principles where, before, murky hu­
—a methodology he summed up in the somewhat
entlich gewesen, " how it really was. N o t that the old

W

boy was as clinical and impartial as he'd have yo
who depended on the support first of Metternich
believed that Germany had a mission to develop a
all its own; a Lutheran who, in his History of the
Luther the benefit of every doubt; a mystic who cl
human affairs—he didn't travel light or bias-free.

Theodor Mommsen (1817-1903), his colleagu
tees, is, by contrast, one of those inspiration-to-
practitioner of the new objective history, he was a
scholarship, and of saying what he meant. H i s Hi
old legends and myths, but on coins, inscriptions,
Mommsen literally dug up himself. Modest, wise,
a more vivid knowledge of classical antiquity to w
side to Ranke on the Days-of-Prussia L P : a frus
with the protesters in 1848, who deeply resented
beginnings of anti-Semitism in Germany, and w
Prize for Literature in 1902, asked everyone not
were too grave.

The Victorians: Macaulay and Carlyle

Don't make the mistake of writing Victorian
satisfied, all eight-course dinners and back-slapp
well things were going in the Punjab. In fact, the
vided down the middle by issues as unwieldy an
form, Darwinism, industrialization (already run
women. Which means, before you read any hist
know which team he's playing on. Thomas Babin
is self-satisfied, at peace with his age (though an o
an influential politician, and in favor of peace, l
ence, progress, and the Industrial Revolution.
Whigs of the previous century and their descend
day. H e announces to a nation o f Englishmen th
most highly civilized people that ever the world sa
going to get better. (A lot of them listened: His H
cession of fames II has gone through more printing
glish but the Bible.) And if he's a little philistine,
of the Establishment, he could still tell the kind
paced, easy to read—that made his constituents
times they were living through.

Not so Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881), a Scot wit

WORLD HISTORY 575

u think: An archconservative,
h, then of Bismarck, and who
a culture and a political system
Reformation in Germany, gave
laimed to see "God's finger" in

ue and chief among his lega­
-us-all people. Like Ranke a
a model of professionalism, of
istory of Rome is based, not on
, and artifacts, many of which
and good, he sought "to bring
wider circles." And he's the flip
strated liberal who had sided
d Bismarck, who deplored the
ho, when awarded the Nobel
t to clap. The times, he said,

England off as simply self-
ping conversations about how
e place was schizophrenic, di­
nd unsettling as economic re­
amok), and what to do about
orian of the era, you'd better
ngton Macaulay (1800-1859)
outspoken critic of its culture),
liberty, property, applied sci­

He's in sympathy with the
dants, the Liberals of his own
hat they are "the greatest and
aw"—and that things are only
History of Englandfrom the Ac­
gs than any other book in E n ­
, a little too much the bellow

of good story—upbeat, well-
feel better about the wacky

th a sense of mystery, a fetish

for imagination, and the con
which 400 editions could not
self-appointed prophet, also i
the Spirit of Progress, and th
French Revolution—"A wild
as he put it—which features a
there, docudrama quality tha
of whatever century, gets. He
rehabilitated) and Frederick
thesis—which would be share
ner, and which would, rightly
Fascism—was that the Hero,
to evolve, that "Universal H i s
who have worked here."

Meanwhile, Back at the R

You realize, of course, that t
they're stunted and jaded an
(1861-1932) realized it, and s
from the Old World but from
middle of his own upper Mis
cutting edge of American civi

nviction that Macaulay's History was "a book to
t lend any permanent value." Carlyle was the era's
its scourge, the sworn enemy of the Establishment,
he looking-out-for-number-one middle class. His
savage Book, itself a kind of French Revolution,"
an imaginary reporter as its narrator, has a you-are-
at is as riveting, and as off-the-wall, as history,
ere, as in his biographies of Cromwell (whom he

the Great (whom he adored), Carlyle's central
ed by Nietzsche, Shaw, D. H. Lawrence, and Wag­
y, be cited as a contributing factor in the rise of

not the Establishment or the State, causes things
t o r y . . . is at bottom the History of the Great Men

Ranch: Turner and Beard

there's an ocean between us and them, and that
nd on their way out. Frederick Jackson Turner
singlehandedly wrested American history not only
m New England too, relocating it smack-dab in the
ssissippi Valley. For Turner, the frontier was "the
ilization," and American democracy and the Amer-

W

ican character the products of "the existence of an
ous recession, and the advance of American sett
Whitman, part Mr. Chips, Turner now stands for
tional and regional values he swore by. I f moder
stopped subscribing, they still remove their hats.

Charles A. Beard (1874-1948) is a tougher nut
(who established a whole school of history) and m
and nonconformist, even before he studied his Mar
interpretation of American history: The Constitu
ment drawn with superb skill by men whose proper
at stake" and there was something hokey about i
had nothing to do with slavery or states' rights, bu
the old agrarian culture with the new industrial on
it turned out, most unsound: Beard had manipulate
looked evidence in order to prove his theory. It
preached isolationism during World War II—"A
his term—and accused F D R of staging Pearl Ha
thinking, he was a useful prototype for young activ
ously loved what he did. "The history of a civilizati
he says in the introduction to a bestselling textb
Mary, "may be an instrument of civilization."

THINK TANKE

You know the type—reclusive but bossy. These ar
care less about documents, artifacts, and eyewitnes
reconstruct the past, but to let us in on what it, pl
mean.

S T . A U G U S T I N E (354-430): Forget the Persian War
The big events in human history have been the F
Resurrection, with the Second Coming next on the
cal (Christ died only once for our sins), but a g
melody of some ineffable composer." The earth is m
History rests her feet, the existence of man a sub
And, through thirteen centuries and a succession o
as Dante and Milton, that's simply the way it was—

ORLD HISTORY

area of free land, its continu­
lement westward." Part Walt
r the turn-of-the-century na­
rn historians have long since

t, less influential than Turner
more controversial. Irreverent
rx he'd arrived at an economic
tion was "an economic docu­
rty interests were immediately
its ratification; the Civil War
ut was instead the collision of
ne. All very stimulating. And,
ed facts and deliberately over­
t didn't help, either, that he
American continentalism" was
arbor. Still, he got everybody
vist intellectuals, and he obvi­
ion, if intelligently conceived,"
book he wrote with his wife,

ERS

re the historians who couldn't
ss accounts. They're not out to
lus the present and the future,

rs and the founding of Rome:
Fall, the Incarnation, and the
e agenda. History is not cycli­
glorious unfolding, "the great
merely the footstool on which
bplot in the Divine Comedy.
of anchorpersons as persuasive
—night after night after night.

5Z? AN I N C O M P L E T E

vico (1668-1744): A poor sc
anybody who'd listen that his
of the millennium's top storie
box-office manager, or even p
tion—of men, men like you a
(unlike nature, which will alw
created it. Not content with o
human intelligence, undergo
initial primitive stage through
nally civil (or adult) ones. The
History is not a great unfoldi

V O L T A I R E (1694-1778): Fed u
(whose Histoire Universelle pa
faces at, and attempted to re
them, in his Essay on the Cus
thanks just the same; opined
design; and proposed a new
ters), based on the notion tha
in, endowed with the same
along the same path of reaso
And mainstream history is, fo

H E R D E R (1744-1803): T h e fi
wash over the nineteenth cen
the world isn't all that small,
tion arises from native roots:
national character, the Volks
English ones—not necessari
evitable. And one more thing
present's slightly retarded old

H E G E L (1770-1831): Not on
better. They're also the next s
upcoming stage in its develop
to the Absolute Idea (the h
mony, and obviously Prussia)
seem to embody the very na
thing, but the State is the im
invites it to fill the tall-and-b
you may already have heard,
process he outlined is called th

E EDUCATION

cholar in dusty, provincial Naples, he announced to
story was not a succession of great men, a wrap-up
es, or a grade-school pageant with G o d as director,
prompter. It was, rather, the work—and the reflec­
and me, men who can love and understand history
ways remain a mystery to us) precisely because we've
one bombshell, Vico dropped another: Nations, like
o an ordered and predictable progression, from an
h divine (or childish), heroic (or adolescent), and fi­
en they die, and the process begins somewhere else.
ng; it is, rather, cyclical.

up with Augustine, with their own bishop Bossuet
arroted him), and with G o d , the philosophes made
efute, all three. Voltaire, the most unstoppable of
stoms and the Spirit of Nations, rejected Providence,
that events have more to do with chance than with
kind of histoire universelle (note the lowercase let­
at men are alike, no matter what country they live
natural rights and faculties, destined to proceed
on and enlightenment. It's a small world, after all!
or the first time, worldly in spirit.

rst wave in the German intellectual tide that would
ntury. According to this earnest Protestant pastor,
or people all that much alike. Rather, true civiliza­
It is the common people, the Folk, who engender a
sgeist. German ways are different from French or
ily better, just different—and nationalism is in­
g: It's a mistake to treat the past as if it were the
der brother, even if it does dress funny.

ly are German ways different, they're a whole lot
sure thing, how history will be carried through the
pment from Pure Being (that was China) all the way
highest unity of thought, all integration and har­
). World-Historical Individuals—heroic types who
ature of the transition to come—count for some­
mportant thing; in his Philosophy of History, Hegel
big-men's shoes recently vacated by the Church. As
, the mechanism underlying the whole historical
he dialectic, and it, at least, isn't hard to grasp: The

W

dominant idea, or "truth," of an epoch (its thesis),
tion (its antithesis); out of their sparring emerges
brid "truth," or synthesis. (This was Marx's favor
the very disunity of Germany, the fact of its being
tle principalities and duchies, summons up the ide
bring about the creation of a German state. That i
the institutional embodiment of reason and liberty
the world."

S P E N G L E R (1880-1936): Surprise! The state isn't th
the real action is all in the "culture," which passes
(just like Vico said), eventually falling into com
we're no exception, according to Spengler, who, in
saw imminent Asiatic domination. Doom, gloom,
it's always been and always will be thus. Toynbee
So, in a way, would the Nazis, to whom all this
come mat. In fact, as early as 1918, Spengler was
firm step."

LEGENDS

Two major reputations—one still in vogue, one al
ply have to deal with.

Edward Gibbon (1737-1794)

It was at Rome, on the 15th of October, 1
musing amidst the ruins of the Capitol, wh
footed friars were singing vespers in the
Jupiter, that the idea of writing the decline a
city first started to my mind.

The various modes of worship, which prevail
man world, were all considered by the peop

WORLD HISTORY m

brings with it its precise nega­
a brand new, more or less hy­
rite part; see page 616). Thus
g fragmented into all those lit­
ea of unity, and must ultimately
is, State—according to Hegel,
y, "the march of G o d through

hat big a deal, after all. In fact,
through four historical phases
mplete, irreversible decay. And
n The Decline of the West, fore­
, and the dubious comfort that
e (see page 581) would agree.
pessimism looked like a wel­
s claiming to hear their "quiet

lready in mothballs—you sim­

1764, as I sat
hile the bare­
e Temple of
and fall of the

from Memoirs
led in the R o ­
ple as equally

58o AN I N C O M P L E T

true; by the philosopher
useful.

I have described the triu

Six volumes. Three thousand
for fourteen hundred years (fr
A . D . , to the stirrings of the R
to Palestine, including both h
on it, with special attention
the eventual "fall" of Rome in
greatest history ever written
heavy-duty scholarship and h

B e that—be all that—as it
to keep in mind about The H
First, that Gibbon believed
the collapse of Roman civil
fifteenth and sixteenth cha
"useless multitudes who co
chastity" is how he puts it—
dermined the rational pursu
the Empire's defenses again
now-or-never approach to li
imperial corruption, for ins
tries, and sends up the river.

Second, that the book rea
people, even at the time; as
damned, thick, square book!
bon?" For most everybody e
against a big backdrop, with
subtle by comparison; a mod
with irony and spiced with
notes, where, somebody once
life.) And if it's sheer sonority
the speeches of Winston Chu

Third, that there are imp
special connection between
had, after all, just passed thr

E EDUCATION

r, as equally false; and by the magistrate, as equally

from The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

umph of barbarism and religion.

from The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

pages. A million and a quarter words. Accounting
rom "the Age of the Antonines," in the first century
Renaissance) in the lives of three continents, Britain
halves of the Empire and all the nations that border

to the rise of Christianity and of Islam and to
nto the "superstitious" Middle Ages. Considered the
n in the English language, a glorious melding of
high style.
t may, there are really only three things you've got
History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

Christianity was the central destructive force in
lization. (Watch him excoriate it in the infamous
apters.) By offering a lot of non-self-starters—
ould only plead the merits of abstinence and
—the promise of a life after death, Christianity un­
uit of both virtue and reward, thereby weakening
nst the barbarians, who took a more pragmatic,
ife. There were compounding factors, of course—
stance—but it's Christianity that Gibbon nabs,
.
ally reads. Granted, it proved a bit much for some
the then Duke of Gloucester remarked, "Another
! Always scribble, scribble, scribble! Eh, Mr. Gib­
else, though, Decline and Fall is a great story told

a cast of characters who make ethnic sitcoms look
del of balance, precision, wit, and malice, veined
innuendo. (Check out, especially, Gibbon's foot­
e remarked, it was clear he lived out most of his sex
y you're after, there's at least as much of it here as in
urchill—himself a Gibbon freak.
plications. Gibbon believed that there existed a
Rome at its height and his own England (which
rough its Augustan A g e and which was about to

W

enter its imperial heyday), and that everybody w
connection analyzed, complete with it-can-happen
it now seems clear—as far as ancient-modern
Britain really played was Greece, leaving to Amer
and totally grandiose role of Rome. Which is preci
deserves a place on the old bookshelf right next to

Arnold Toynbee (1889-1975)

Civilization is a movement and not a conditio
and not a harbor.

Readers Digest, Oc

Successive Occurrences of the War-and-Peac
Modern & Post-Modern Western History: P
Wars (the Prelude), The General War, The
space, Supplementary Wars (the Epilogue), T
Peace—Overture and four Regular Cycles, 14

Title of chart, with colum
A Study of His

In London, in the southern section of the B
Palace Road, walking southward along the
skirting the west wall of Victoria Station, the
not long after the end of the First World War
munion, not just with this or that episode in H
been, and was, and was to come. In that inst
the passage of History flowing through him in
own life welling like a wave in the flow of thi

fro

The historian as vicar, out to provide a little comfor
in the face of a couple of world wars, the demi
progress, and a universe gone all relative and weak
out to solace his reader with his own special com
faith-of-our-fathers piety, and three-ring eruditio
ment of his twelve-volume A Study of History (193
sult, the only theory of history ever to hit the ma
come away from the enterprise less reassured than f
ing doom, there's always the Durants.

ORLD HISTORY 581

would surely like to see that
n-here overtones. O f course,
analogies go—that the role
rica the somewhat thankless
isely why The Portable Gibbon
Animal Farm and 1984.

on, a voyage

ctober 1955

ce Cycle in
Premonitory

Breathing-
The General
494-1945

mn headings,
story, Vol. 9

Buckingham
e pavement
e writer, once, one afternoon
r . . . , found himself in com­
History, but with all that had
tant he was directly aware of
n a mighty current, and of his
is vast tide.

om A Study of History, Vol. 10

rt (admittedly, cold comfort),
ise of the doctrine of social
k-in-the-knees. Toynbee sets
mbination of cosmic rhythm,
on. The one-volume abridg­
4-1961) is, evidently as a re­
ass-market racks. And if you
filled with a sense of impend­