The Copernican Revolution

I just started reading Lewis Mumford’s awesome book The Pentagon of Power, which from what I can tell is not actually about the Pentagon itself, but a more general historically rooted critique of well, of everything. Or that’s what I’ve gotten from it out of the first thirty pages. In any event, I want to save for posterity a passage from page 29 that deals with the philosophical roots of the modern scientific worldview, which I’ve been exploring here a great deal lately. This section talks about how Copernicus’ transmutation of the universe from a geocentric to heliocentric model paved the way for later scientific developments:

The usual way of interpreting the Copernican revolution is to assume that its most shattering effect was to break down the theological assumption that God had made the earth the center of the universe and that man was the ultimate object of his attention. If the sun was actually the center, then the whole structure of dogmatic Christian theology - with its unique act of creation, with the human soul as the central interest of God, and man’s moral probation on earth in preparation for eternity as the divine consummation of God’s will - threatened to collapse.

Viewed through the new glasses of science, man shrank in size: in terms of astronomical quantities the human race counted for little more than an ephemeral swarm of midges on the planet itself. By contrast, science, which had made this shattering discovery by the mere exercise of common human faculties, not divine revelation, became the only trustworthy source of authentic and reputable knowledge.

He then goes into a big thing about how science therefore is a return to the pure form of the Sun God, as practiced by ancient civilization such as Egypt. The scope of his historical knowledge is stunning and his writing is really fantastic. Definitely will be including more quotes from him over the coming weeks.


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This entry was written by happy thanksgiving, y'all!, posted on August 6, 2006 at 5:40 pm.

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2 Comments

  1. Tim Boucher
    Posted August 6, 2006 at 6:17 pm | Permalink

    P. 33-34

    [T]he cosmos itself was primarily a mechanical system capable of being fully understood by reference solely to a mechanical model. Not man but the machine became the central feature in this new world picture…

    Though the religion of the Sun God, which shaped the new power complex, was to have immense practical consequences – political, military, economic – it would be an error to believe that these were the motives originally in view: it was the numinous and luminous aspects of astronomy, achieved by its very detachment from pressing human concerns, that seemed to offer a new promise of salvation, not tainted by corrupt human motives. In a world embattled in relentless theological controversy and enmeshed n ideological confusions, the new astronomy brought a clarifying order that in itself evoked – to use a then-current phrase - “the music of the spheres. …

    Unfortunately, just as behind the terrestrial exploration stalked demonic and criminal impulses that crippled its utopian hopes, so behind the benign order and geometric beauty of the new science an ancient power system had begun to re-establish itself, on a scale never before conceivable. … [T]he new cult paradoxically promoted an immense concentration on the mastery of earthly life: exploration, invention, conquest, colonization, all centered on immediate fulfillment. Now, not the hereafter, was what counted.

  2. alistair
    Posted August 6, 2006 at 8:53 pm | Permalink

    well, sun worship makes so much more practical sense. it warms us, provides food for us, welcomes us each day and leaves to sleep all night knowing he will return again……(get it?) to get the sun thing we just have to look up and see for ourselves. no great leap of faith or scriptural understanding. here comes the sun, or good-day sunshine, or i`ll follow the sun by the beatles could be seen as thier religious works.

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