Galileo's Theory of Indivisibles: Revolution or Compromise?

Author(s): A. Mark Smith

Source: Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 37, No. 4 (Oct. - Dec., 1976), pp. 571-588
Published by: University of Pennsylvania Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2709025
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GALILEO'S THEORY OF INDIVISIBLES:

REVOLUTION OR COMPROMISE?
BY A. MARK SMITH

E. A. Burtt would have us believe that Galileo stripped matter of all

but "being" and "being in motion," thus banishing man from a determinist Democritean world into a sensory limbo of secondary qualities.'
Because Galileo's commitment to atomism led him to view Nature as a
purely kinetic reality comprehensible in mathematical terms alone,2 he
made of the world a "vast, self-contained, mathematical machine."3 So
"at the price of a sort of denaturing of nature,"4 he supposedly destroyed the Aristotelian plenum, denying metaphysics its traditional
wealth of qualities and relationships.
Alexander Koyre certainly followed Burtt's lead to some extent but
shifted emphasis to Galileo's radical esprit de geometrie. In his view
Galileo broke the stranglehold of Aristotelian metaphysics with his bold
"substitution of the abstract space of Euclidean geometry for the
concrete space of pre-Euclidean physics."5 And by ruthlessly
geometrizing space (and time) he left himself no choice but to adopt
Democritean atomism as the ontological basis for his kinetic worldview. The stage had thus been set by Galileo for the culminating
Newtonian concept of an a priori space-time continuum to which matter
was in a sense merely accidental.
Such an hypostasis of Euclidean space is the central issue in this
metaphysical evaluation of Galileo's science. Implicit in Burtt's study,
explicit in Koyre's, the notion of Pure Space as a real geometrical backdrop for the new kinetic analysis of Nature explains Galileo's total defection from the Aristotelian camp. But just how total was this defection? While it is undeniable that he devoted a great portion of his life to
undermining Aristotelian physics, Galileo seems never to have felt the
same compulsion to uproot traditional metaphysics. Quite the contrary,
he demurred when faced with the crucial and potentially wrenching
'Edwin A. Burtt, The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Science (Garden City,
3lbid., 104.
2Ibid., 99.
N.Y., 1954).
4G. Gusdorf, La Revolution Galileenne, Vol. I (Paris, 1969), 95-my translation.
5Koyre, Etudes Galileennes, Vol. I, "A l'aube de la science classique," Actualites
Scientifiques et Industrielles, no. 852 (Paris, 1939), 9-my translation. Cf. also A.
Koyre, "The Significance of the Newtonian Synthesis," Newtonian Studies (Chicago,
1965), 6-7. It is interesting to note that, in dealing with Galileo's analysis of accelerated
motion, Koyre states that "space is only a result, an accident, a symptom of an
essentially temporal reality." Etudes Galileennes, Vol. II, in Actualites ... no. 853, p.
75-my translation.
571

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572

A. MARK SMITH

problem of possible material discontinuity within the traditional worldplenum. And it was precisely his reliance on geometry in neutralizing
the problem that permitted him to preserve, essentially intact, the Aristotelian view of the continuum that he is supposed by Burtt and, more
especially, Koyre to have supplanted.
To support this contention I shall offer a brief analysis not only of
Galileo's theory of indivisibles in the "First Day" of the Discorsi6 but of
its implications with regard to both Aristotelian metaphysics and the application of Euclidean geometry in interpreting the world. In so doing I
hope to demonstrate three basic points:
1. that Galileo's theory of indivisibles did not take on the radical hue
of Epicurean atomism;
2. that his much-touted devotion to geometrical analysis, far from
leading him to reject the essential Aristotelian view of the world-plenum
or continuum, was totally compatible with it;
3. and, consequently, that his metaphysics, though undoubtedly
influenced by developing mathematical and scientific trends away from
the Aristotelian tradition, offered no substantial break with that tradition.
Although Galileo's recorded speculations on atomism, spanning a
period of some thirty years, appear to fall into three phases,7 we shall
concern ourselves only with the final one developed in the "First Day"
of the Discorsi. The choice is deliberate. Not only is this Galileo's last
word; it represents his most extensive and metaphysical treatment of a
topic in which "his interest

...

was derivative"8 and consequently

spurred only by specific problems within larger issues. Bearing this in

mind, let us turn to the "First Day" and pick up the thread of argument
with Sagredo's conclusion that a vacuum can indeed exist "at least for a
very brief time."9
This caps the discussion provoked by Salviati's distinction between
the resistance due to the "repugnance that nature has against allowing a
void to exist" (adhesion) and that which "tenaciously connect[s] the
particles" of any body (cohesion).10 In this instance adhesion is the
natural resistance to the formation of a void that prevents polished
plates when joined from separating easily under force. In opposing the
6Discorsi e dimostrazioni matematiche intorno a due nuove scienze in Le Opere di
Galileo Galilei (Edizione Nazionale, Vol. VIII), ed. Antonio Favaro (Florence,
1898)-henceforth referred to as Ed. Naz. For my English citations I have relied almost
exclusively on Two New Sciences, trans. Stillman Drake (Madison, 1974). In subsequent footnotes I shall first cite the Drake translation followed by the Ed. Naz. page
reference in brackets.
7Cf. William R. Shea, "Galileo's Atomic Hypothesis," Ambix, 17 (1970), 13. 8Idem.
9Two New Sciences, 20 [Ed. Naz., 60].
'0Ibid., 19 [59]-my parentheses. I have inserted the terms "adhesion" and "cohesion" to sort out Galileo's conceptions more easily.

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GALILEO'S THEORY OF INDIVISIBLES

573

creation of such a vacuum between the surfaces, each plate, as a sort of

occupying medium, clings to its mate to forestall what Nature so
abominates. Yet when the force of separation is large enough, the surrounding air rushes almost immediately to fill any intervening space,
breaking the resistance and allowing the plates to fall apart." How else
can we explain this, asks Salviati, without admitting the actual
existence, however short-lived and problematical, of a vacuum? But in
accounting for adhesion in such a general way Galileo opens up the
possibility of a broader application to cohesion. Why may we not reject
Salviati's distinction and assume, with Sagredo, that the cause offered
by the "void, which surely does exist, suffice[s] also for all resistances"
to separation?12 In other words, why not explain both forms of
resistance through the same causal mechanism?
In terms of the conditions already established for adhesion the
proposition is absurd; the macroscopic force that holds smooth plates
together is simply not powerful enough to account for the cohesion of
homogeneous solids like copper. To demonstrate, Salviati cites the "adhesive" property of water,13 arguing that it is by this alone that a column
of water will support itself to a height of eighteen cubits before "it
breaks, just as if it were a rope."14Taken generally, the adhesive force
in a column of any material whatever is equivalent only to the weight of
eighteen cubits of water in a column of equal diameter.15 Obviously a far
stronger internal cement than this must be sought.
In fact, Sagredo has anticipated the direction of search in an apparent non sequitur that Salviati now puts to good use. If a general levy
of farthings suffices where a fortune in gold does not, why not by analogy
accept the notion of "tiny voids operating on the most minute particles
1Ibid., 19-20 [59]. This inrush takes time; hence, contrary to Aristotle's contention,
not only can a vacuum exist (as a receptacle for incoming air), but motion through it
cannot be instantaneous. Actually, this conclusion is not quite as unequivocal as it may
at first appear, for Aristotle-via his notion of causality-is allowed the parting shot. "I
cannot see," says Sagredo, "how the cause of adherence of the two slabs and their repugnance to being separated-effects that are actual-can be a void that does not exist
[first], but which must follow" (21 [60]-author's brackets). Simplicio offers the solution
that, "since void space is self-refusing, nature prohibits any action in consequence of
which a void would follow, and such is the separation of the two surfaces" (Idem). In
short, the vacuum exists as a potential, the actualization of which Nature is constantly
on guard to thwart. Now, with this hedging compromise-apparently acceptable to all
three disputants-the critical analysis is abruptly dropped. Henceforth "vacuum" is to
be accorded a strictly essential (as opposed to existential) status only insofar as it
denotes "resistance to separation"; but no matter-it is merely thefact, not the "how"
of its existence that Galileo is so eager to establish. See also 71 [112].
'3lbid., 23-25 [62-64].
'2Ibid., 21 [61].
'4Ibid., 25 [64]. In short, the particles of water have no cohesive bonds whatever.
'5Idem. Without the special notion of atmospheric pressure, Galileo is forced to view
this "adhesion" as a universal property-a force constantly added to that of "cohesion."

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A. MARK SMITH

574

[of matter] so that the same coinage as that with which the parts are
joined is used throughout"?16Like countless farthings, these tiny interstitial vacua, so insignificant singly, might still add up to gargantuan
sums. 17

So far we have been gently and cogently drawn by experience and

reason through a train of apparently valid conclusions to precisely this
understanding of cohesion. After all, adds Sagredo (who is rarely slow
to seize the point):
A numberof ants might bring to land a ship loaded with grain, for our eyes
daily showus that an ant can readilytransporta grain,andit is clear that in the
ship there are not infinitelymany grains, but some limited number.We can
take a numberseveraltimes as great, andput that numberof ants to work;and
they will bringto land not only the grain, but the ship along with it. It is true
that the numberwouldhave to be large, but in my opinionso is thatof the voids
that holdtogetherthe minimumparticlesof a metal.'8
But Salviati, at his Socratic best, turns reason to unreason; "if an infinitude [of voids] were required you would perhaps hold this to be impossible?"19And with this query he sets us all to chasing the infinite and
the infinitesimal through a tortuous course of not-quite logic.
Such an unexpected break in pursuit of two concepts that are
"inherently incomprehensible to us"20seems to signal a drastic switch in
Galileo's approach. Yet there is method in his radical departure from
the moderate path of experience, for, like the paradoxes he will attempt
to unravel, Nature offers apparent dichotomies. On the one hand, matter acts and reacts in ways that strongly suggest structural discontinuity
while, on the other, it presents a facade of seemingly perfect continuity.
The problem is the age-old one of saving the phenomena without
transgressing rational limits; to solve it Galileo will invoke the linear and
"spatial" continuum of Euclidean geometry.
What must be done is to effect a smooth transition between the
asymptotic approach of reason and its goal of infinity; somehow the
actuality of composition, of an infinite aggregation of voids and indivisibles subsumed within a material continuum, must be rendered logical.21
So, "since paradoxes are at hand," as Salviati observes, "let us see how
"Ibid., 27 [66].
'7This is especially true as the effective surface area of solids vastly increases in proportion to the volume and, consequently, the weight as those solids diminish in size.
Ibid., 93-95 [133-34].
20Ibid.,38 [76].
'9Idem.
18Ibid., 27 [67].
21"Itwill be precisely in attempting to solve the intrinsic contradiction of a world, in
which the ideal of resolving the continuum into elementary component parts is
constantly undermined by the need to recognize the infinitude of those very parts, that
Galileo will submit the coherence of his conception to the test of a semi-mathematical,
semi-logical analysis." Maurice Clavelin, "Le probleme du continu et les paradoxes de
l'infini chez Galilee," Thales, 10 (1959), 8-my translation.

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GALILEO'S

THEORY OF INDIVISIBLES

575

it might be demonstrated that in a finite continuous extension it is not

impossible for infinitely many voids to be found."22The geometrical
demonstration will center on the well-known phenomenon of Aristotle's
wheel.
Let us begin with concentric polygons rolling and jouncing along
their respective paths, the larger carrying the smaller. Regardless of the
number of sides, the smaller polygon by jumping will always mark out a
path approximately equal to that laid off by the larger. Take however
many sides as you please, the situation remains invariant. So far the reasoning remains faultless. Now, let us add just one side more than "as
many as you please"; let us make the conceptual shift to "polygons of
infinitely many sides."23 Let us, in short, conceive of circles. By extension, the inner polygon/circle will still trace out a path "approximately
equal" to that of the outer by an alternation of sides and spaces, for
after all, "how . . . without skipping, can the smaller circle run through

a line so much longer than its circumference?"24And since these skips

must always be commensurate to the sides, they must be infinite in
number and so small as to be unquantifiable.
Thus, granted his assumption of a real transition from finite to infinite, Galileo has led us to concur that a determinate path, an Euclidean
line ostensibly continuous, can yet consist of "infinitely many points,
part of them filled points and part voids."25Moreover, he has shown it
to be equal and, to all appearances, perfectly similar to that fully
continuous line traced by the larger circle. Briefly, he has demonstrated
the existence of composition in a linear continuum, doing only the
subtlest violence to reason in preparing the way for a final step into dimensionality:
Whatis thus saidof simplelinesis to be understoodalso of surfacesandof solid
bodies, considering those as composed of infinitely many unquantifiable
atoms.... In this way there would be no contradictionin expanding,for
instance, a little globe of gold into a very great space without introducing
quantifiablevoid spaces-provided, however,that gold is assumedto be composedof infinitelymanyindivisibles.26
In applying the paradox of Aristotle's wheel, in extending his conclusions to the material world, Galileo will account for a host of phenomena
like expansion, contraction,27gross impenetrability, subtle permeability,
liquefaction and solidification-all within the context of a compositional
continuum. However, for those of us like Simplicio to whom "this composing the line of points, the divisible of indivisibles, and quantified of
New Sciences, 28 Ed. Naz. [68].
23Ibid.,33 [71].
25Ibid.,33 [71].
24Ibid.,31 [70].
26Ibid.,33-34 [72].
27In"contraction" the circles switch roles, the smaller carrying the larger, while the
larger traces out a path "approximately equal" to the circumference of the smaller.
Ibid., 55-57 [93-96].
22Two

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A. MARK SMITH

unquantifiables" constitutes a "reef... hard to pass,"28 Galileo must

first undertake a more profound and abstract theoretical analysis.
At Galileo's behest, Simplicio is laboring under the gross, but highly
instructive, misapprehension that infinity is operationally extensive and
that it represents a goal to be won either by division or addition. To the
contrary, the infinity about which Galileo is concerned is never to be
reached or built; it is fully contained within determinate bounds. For infinity is the measure of indivisibles; and, like points in lines, indivisibles
cannot be juxtaposed to create what "cannot be constructed out of two
or ten or a hundred or a thousand ... but requires an infinite number."29
Like the totality of points in a line or indivisibles in a body, infinity is
"equally" and always contained without thereby rendering its container
extensively infinite.
The obstacle to Simplicio's understanding lies in his inability to think
in other than extensional terms; his is a frame of mind that will always
prompt misapplications of finite criteria, such as comparatives, to the
infinite. As Salviati warns:
These are someof the difficultiesthat derivefromreasoningaboutinfiniteswith
our finite understanding,givingto them those attributesthat we give to finite
and bounded things ... for I consider that the attributes of greater, lesser, and

equaldo not suit infinities,of whichit cannotbe said that one is greater,or less
than,or equalto, another.30
To illustrate, he offers a proposition:
....

If I say that all numbers, including squares and non-squares, are more

[numerous]than the squaresalone, I shall be sayinga perfectlytrue proposition; is that not so?31

Without the slightest hesitation Simplicio agrees, leaving Salviati to

continue:
But if I were to ask how manyroots there are, it couldnot be deniedthat those
are as numerousas all the numbers,beause there is no numberthat is not the
rootof some square.32
The point is this: although operational analysis may reveal that in a
passage to greater and greater whole numbers the proportion of perfect
squares diminishes, logic demands that the totality of such squares be
equal to the totality of whole numbers.33Consequently, while progress
through the whole-number series may seem to draw us ever closer to infinity, it actually carries us away by pushing the ultimate limit of the
succession of perfect squares always further beyond reach. Ironically,
28Ibid.,34 [72-73].
29Dialogues Concerning Two New Sciences, tr. Henry Crew and Alfonso de Salvio
(New York, 1914), 31 [Ed. Naz., 77].
30TwoNew Sciences, 39-40 [Ed. Naz., 77-78].
32Idem.
31Ibid.,40 [78]-translator's brackets.
33Ibid.,40-41 [78-79].

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GALILEO'S THEORY OF INDIVISIBLES

577

by imposing extensional criteria any process aiming at infinity will only

guarantee its own deflection from the target. Just so, the search for a
lower limit by division into ever-decreasing but finite parts will prove to
be a futile chase after the indeterminate. The very act of approach vitiates its own purpose, rendering its object-infinity-a
potential rather
than an actual quantity, exactly as Aristotle would have it.34In granting
therefore "to the distinguished philosophers that the continuum
contains as many quantified parts as they please," Salviati is merely
allowing that "the quantified parts in the continuum ... [are] neither finite nor infinitely many, but so many as to correspond to every specified
number."35 Thus an indefinite "intermediate term" (every assigned
number), neither finite nor infinite, must serve to describe the Aristotelian continuum of spatial and temporal process.
Having shown that addition and division bring us not to the infinite
but rather to the indefinite, Galileo has cleared the path for one last
paradox: that infinity, insofar as it is number, is a kind of unity.
Unity-"a square, and a cube, a fourth power, and all the other
powers"36containing an infinite process without containing parts-is yet
contained within all number. And by analogy infinity, insofar as it is a
magnitude or quantity, cannot contain; it must be contained. For only in
being contained or defined within a determinate whole can infinity make
the "transition" from potency to act. Indeed, while "we understand well
that there cannot be an infinite circle . . . that still less can a sphere be

infinite; nor can any other solid or surface having a shape be infinite,"37
we must also understand that every circle, sphere, body, and surface
contains infinity by virtue of its unity or completeness. And understanding this, we now know why Galileo so readily forsakes lofty speculation
to reveal, by the simple manipulation of a line into a circle, "the method
... of distinguishing and resolving the whole infinitude at one fell
swoop."38At this point he has, for all intents and purposes, taken us methodically full circle back to the physical world; henceforth he will apply
the theory that he has derived and vindicated with such art.39
34Ibid.,42-45 [80-82].
35Ibid.,43 [81].
37Ibid.,47 [85].
36Ibid.,45 [83].
38Ibid.,54 [93].
39It is clear that, taken at face value, the hypothesis of indivisibles has given Galileo
what he deems the best of two worlds. While, on the one hand, saving the continuum in
order to avoid an embarrassing consequence of grape-shot atomism-undue penetrability of bodies-his theory still offers the advantage of ultimate material discreteness, subtle permeability. Furthermore, it accounts for a wide variety of apparent quantitative and qualitative changes in Nature without recourse to a welter of explanatory
devices tailored to specific problems. So, for example, melting of metals is accomplished
by the "subtle fire-particles [which] ... by filling the minimum voids distributed
between . . . minimum particles [of metal], free them from that force . . . forbidding
their separation" (27 [66]). In this way solids become liquids, being perfectly "resolved
into indivisibles, infinitely many," (p. 47 [p. 85]) without thereby truly losing quality or
quantity. And, by the same token, liquids become solids, gaining consistency and
increasing solidity with the interposition of cohesive vacua.

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578

A. MARK SMITH

To preserve the heterogeneity of experience in a peculiarly homogeneous world Galileo has been, to some extent, "traveling along the
road of those voids scattered around by a certain ancient philosopher"40
in an itinerary that has often been difficult to follow. And up to now our
task has been to analyze this journey and its terminus, the theory of indivisibles, from an internal vantage, attempting to understand it in its
own terms without meanwhile searching for ulterior significance. But
now the time has come to pose the "why" where formerly we had asked
the "how" of Galileo's theory, to explore its implications in terms of
possible intellectual as well as historical precedents and motivations.
Historically atomism represented a major response to the Eleatic
challenge of reconciling fixity and flux, Same and Other, in a world so
often subject to lawless shift and variation. Conferring "being" on Void
or "non-being" and filling it with indivisible particles, the first atomists
attempted reconciliation by exploiting change, not by explaining it away.
Thus a kinetic reality of myriad particulate contacts was created out of
featureless space-"that within which"-and primordial, discontinuous
substance-"that which"-to form a cosmos that accorded rather well
with that of the Pythagoreans whose "number atomism had run itself
into a dead end."4' In short, the atomists reduced the Many, if not to
One, at least to three-matter, space, and motion-in a system that
ought to have appealed to anyone willing to denude the world of real
qualities to get at an underlying consistency.
But there were problems. Not only did the ontological status of the
void present logical difficulties; the concept of extended material indivisibles was due to suffer, by association, the fate of the Pythagorean
monads.42For Greek philosophy still bore the scars of what Santillana
calls "the crisis of the irrational."43What once had been a bold foray
into the metaphysics of numerical discreteness had turned by now into a
discretionary retreat to geometry. And there was no place in the new
geometry for spatial, material, or conceptual discontinuity.
Thus, within the new metaphysical pale of geometrical continuity the
Parmenidean challenge was subjected to a fresh attack that midwifed
two monumental solutions. Platonism, from its essentially static perch,
opted to abandon the quest for a real, invariant material substratum in
favor of a formal superstratum by virtue of which all worldly "images"
might possess a modicum of participative being.44Aristotelianism, far
40Ibid.,34 [72].
41Giorgiode Santillana, The Origins ofScientific Thought (New York, 1961), 70.
42Although "Democritus seems to have discriminated clearly between physical and
mathematical atoms-as did his later follower, Epicurus," Aristotle apparently failed to
note or credit the distinction and lumped him with the number atomists. See Carl B.
Boyer, The History of the Calculus and its Conceptual Development (New York, 1949),
22.
43Santillana,The Origins ..., 69-73.
44"By all that is, this is a world of image and unreality, a world given not to reason
but to sense. Hence, in view of the assumption that the world of sense experience is

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GALILEO'S THEORY OF INDIVISIBLES

579

less ethereal in its vantage, attempted to confront the problem by turning directly to the mire of worldly flux and sounding for a bottom. Each
"system" manifested a necessary response to the "crisis of the irrational," but the respective forms of that response were literally worlds
apart. On the one hand, Platonism sought to make the irrational, the incommensurable, reasonable but in so doing got bogged down in a
geometrical conceptualism that, in many ways, matched the arithmological mystique of the Pythagoreans. The world might well be reflective
of geometry; yet, after all was said and done, it was only an imperfect
reflection of that higher perfection. But the Aristotelian response-and
this is what makes it so germane to our analysis-was to regard
geometry as reflective of the world and its processes.45 Rather than
permit geometry to divert him irremediably from sensible experience,
Aristotle used it in a very fundamental way to interpret that experience.
This point is so crucial that it warrants some discussion.
There is little question that Aristotle was well aware, at least in a
general way, of contemporary mathematical trends46 without being
seduced into speculative flights by their theoretical implications. His
down-to-earth attitude forced him to regard geometry as a mere "paradigm of knowledge" to be used for ulterior analyses, not as an end in itself.47 However, in spite of his tendency to shun pure mathematics, he
seems to have exerted some, if not a great deal of, influence on the
procedural formation of Euclid's Elements.48 Hence, despite its
ostensibly Platonic cast,49 the Elements bears witness to a demonstrative rigor, not to mention an axiomatic and definitional concern that
springs directly from Aristotle's work with deductive logic. And, more
important, it faithfully, albeit abstractly, reflects his view of the real
world of extension and process.
Points, lines, and planes-from the Aristotelian point of view these
characterized by intrinsic instability and non-permanence, by imaging, Plato's approach
to the principles which account for the world cannot be inductive. There is no potential
intelligibility to be actualized from that which always becomes and never is, nothing
within image-beings which the mind can draw out, no possible content in terms of which
human reason can be able to organize them into the unity of science." Leonard J. Eslick,
"The Material Substrate in Plato," The Concept of Matter in Greek and Medieval
Philosophy, ed. Ernan J. McMullin (Notre Dame, 1963), 40.
45Carl B. Boyer, The History of The Calculus . . ., 38. Barring the assumption of
perfect circular motion in the super-lunary region and perfect straight-line motion in the
sub-lunar sphere, Aristotle, unlike Plato, tended to shy away from mystical geometrical
or arithmetical apriorism.
46CarlB. Boyer, A History of Mathematics (New York, 1968), 108.
47G. E. R. Lloyd, Aristotle: The Growth and Structure of His Thought (Cambridge,
1968), 125. Mathematics was for Aristotle the analytic key to a clear conception of deductive reasoning.
48Euclid's Elements, trans. T. L. Heath (New York, 1956), "Introduction," I,
49Ibid.,2.
119-24 and 146-48.

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A. MARK SMITH

are Euclidean abstractions of the reality manifested in this world of material relations and limits. "A line is a breadthless length,"50 but so is
the actual boundary of any body. "A point is that which has no part,"'5
but so is any true intersection of lines. The world of Euclidean geometry
can be regarded as a disembodied replica retaining bounds without the
bounded. It is, in a way, our world with many of the kinks ironed out,
possessing "perfections" like straightness, circularity, and equality that
are rarely, if ever, reached in material reality. And, like this world, the
Euclidean world is based on definition; it is not laboriously created by
composition but is uncovered by the ever-widening light of definition and
subsequent demonstration. Lines may be defined by moving points,
planes by moving lines and solid figures by moving planes; but they can
never be built or composed of one another. Euclidean Space? There can
be no true Space in a geometrical system that unfolds itself so strictly
by definition into a continuum of lines, planes, and figures. Wherever
this "figurative" continuum does not reach is by definition (or, rather,
the virtual lack of it) "nowhere."
Euclid's Elements represents the culmination of an inexorable
geometrical shift in Greek mathematical thought occasioned by the full
appreciation of incommensurability. Composition-be it in terms of
points, lines, planes, or bodies-had been rendered logically insupportable; so the world of absolute limit, of true infinity as an upper or lower
boundary, had necessarily to be replaced by a strict definitional continuum.52From now on there would be the finite and the indefinite, nothing more. And of course this exemplary caution in approaching the
problem of extension, the hallmark of Euclidean geometry, carried over
to physical thought, ultimately revealing itself in the common-sense
metaphysics of Aristotle.
Instead of the conceptual Euclidean continuum, Aristotle fell back
upon a continuum of prime matter which represents the unvarying,
though purely potential, substratum over which the spirit of change is
always moving.53Nothing in itself, it is nonetheless fundamental to the
qualitative and quantitative actualization of material reality. Given
essential formative principles, transformed into "second substance" by
primary individuating factors, it gives stability to reality while allowing
for a world of differences.54 In short, it plays potential Same to the
world's actual Other. Therefore the world of quality and quantity is ultimately to be understood by following its process of actualization
through increasing formal individuation, because, like the figurative
50Ibid.,Bk. I, Def. 1, 153.
5Ibid., Bk. I, Def. 2, 153.
52Boyer, The History of the Calculus ..., 23-27.
53Joseph Owens, "Matter and Predication in Aristotle," The Concept of Matter
...

92.
54E. J. Dijksterhuis, The Mechanization of the World Picture (Oxford, 1961), 19-20.

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581

GALILEO'S THEORY OF INDIVISIBLES

continuum of Euclidean geometry, the material continuum of Aristotelian metaphysics is given reality only by actual definition. While
Euclidean "space" is defined by the existence of conceptual form,55
Aristotelian "space" is defined by the existence of actualized form or individuated substance. Thus wherever the actual does not reach is
"nowhere."56

This physical conception of a quality-substrate continuum, which, to

an almost exclusive extent, dominated the natural philosophy of the
Middle Ages and the Renaissance, endured because it was so brutally
sensible in spite of its shortcomings, because it meshed so well with the
common-sense experience of material permanency and qualitative
transience. But neither Aristotle nor his commentators after him could
entirely avert the insidious entrance of composition into their material
continuum. Vague Aristotelian references to "smallest parts" of organic substances57formed the exegetical basis for an almost immediate
theoretical development of minima naturalia which, with Averroes, took
on the character of doctrine. No longer would "natural minima mean
...

a theoretical

limit of divisibility";

they would henceforth

be

considered "something like physical realities" in all substances.58

Moreover, as the fourteenth century witnessed a reawakened
interest-concomitant with the rise of critical logic-in the problem of
the continuum, indivisibles, and infinites, atomist positions were
variously proposed, defended, and assailed with typical scholastic
55Notice, then, that Euclidean "space" can be no-dimensional, one-dimensional, twodimensional or three-dimensional, depending on whether it is being conceptually defined
by a point, line, plane, or figure.
56Thisnotion, reflective of the Aristotelian concept of "place," is what underlies his
assertion that there can be no "outside" of the world sphere. De Caelo, I, 9, 279a,
12-13.
57Physics, I, 4, 187b, 14-23 and 28-36. "Since every body must diminish in size when
something is taken from it, and flesh is quantitatively definite in respect both of greatness and smallness, it is clear that from the minimum quantity of flesh no body can be
separated out; for the flesh left would be less than the minimum of flesh." Physics, I, 4,
187b, 36-38 and 188a, 1-2, from The Works of Aristotle, Vol. II, trans. W. D. Ross (Oxford, 1930). "The natural minima, therefore, are purely potential parts. Nowhere do we
find any indication that Aristotle conceives them as actualized by some process such as
chemical reaction." A. G. Van Melsen, From Atomos to Atom, trans. H. J. Koren
(Pittsburgh, 1952), 43.
58Idem. "It is worth noting that this Aristotelian-Averroist theory of minima
naturalia differs fundamentally from ... Democritean-Epicurean atomistics. There are
four essential differences: (1) the minima naturalia of different substances are qualitatively different from one another ... (2) for every substance the minima have a characteristic size . . . (3) no supposition is made with regard to ...

geometrical

form ...

(4)

according to the Aristotelian conception, the different minima that have become juxtaposed act upon one another, as a result of which they undergo internal alterations and
together produce the qualitas media . . ." E. J. Dijksterhuis,

The Mechanization

205.

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...

582

A. MARK SMITH

gusto.59 Whether, in fact, the ensuing controversy which originated in

England eventually found its way with any force or integrity beyond
France into Italy is at present unclear.60 Yet it is certainly noteworthy
that the Mertonians, especially Thomas Bradwardine, took an active
and highly significant part in the debate.61
59Medieval atomists, while sometimes paying lip-service to Democritus, seem to
have been unaware of the radical metaphysical aspects of the separation between Space
and Matter in his theory. And the resulting scholastic positions (far from unequivocally
atomist) as well as their refutations were often motivated by totally non-metaphysical
considerations rooted in a wide variety of sources. Foremost, naturally, are the Aristotle
commentaries; but Sentence commentaries figured in the debate as well. Furthermore,
discussions of the general problem, though subsidiary, were often broached in the
context of entirely different problems like, for instance, that of potencies-maximum
quod sic and minimum quod non-which inevitably raised questions about actual bounds
for discrete (thus medially divisible) sets or potentially (and thus infinitely continuously)
merging, common termini ad quem. Yet perhaps the most significant trend in sources
during this fourteenth century debate was the increasing appearance of treatises
expressly devoted to the problem of the composition or non-composition of the continuum. See the following works by John E. Murdoch: 'Rationes mathematice:' un
aspect du rapport des mathematiques et de la philosophie au moyen age (Paris,
1961); "Mathesis in Philosophiam Scholasticam Introducta: The Rise and Development
of the Application of Mathematics in Fourteenth Century Philosophy and Theology,"
Actes du IVieme Congres International de Philosophie Medievale (Montreal, 1968),
215-54; "Superposition, Congruence and Continuity in the Middle Ages," L'Aventure
de la science: Melanges Alexandre Koyre (Paris, 1964), 416-41; "Two Questions on the
Continuum: Walter Chatton (?), O. F. M. and Adam Wodeham, O. F. M.," Franciscan
Studies, 26 (1966), 212-88; also Curtis Wilson, William Heytesbury: Medieval Logic
and the Rise of Mathematical Physics, Chap. 3 (Madison, 1960).
60Clearly the debate reached Paris not only with Nicolaus of Autrecourt, an atomist
who had a singular capacity for arousing spirited opposition, but with others like Gregory of Rimini who, during his Paris sojourn, broached the subject in his Sentence commentary. The question, however, is not so much the existence of speculation on the continuum etc. but rather the status and pedigree of the problem as a truly live issue in late
medieval Italy. Cf. Julius R. Weinberg, Nicolaus of Autrecourt. A Study in Fourteenth
Century Thought (Princeton, 1948) and Murdoch, "Mathesis in Philosophiam ...."
61It is with the Mertonian mathematicians that a truly sophisticated application of
geometry to the problem of continua and indivisibles-in terms of intensive-remissive
motions and qualities as well as physical quantities-gained currency. And among these
mathematicians it was Bradwardine who, according to Murdoch, offered the most
devastating geometrical refutation of atomism in the Middle Ages. In fact, it seems that
the anti-indivisiblists quickly gained the upper hand precisely because they were able to
employ geometry so much more facilely and cogently than their atomist opponents. The
potential significance of the Mertonian contribution, in regard to Galileo's work, can
hardly be overstated, for the mathematical analysis of kinematics reached Padua, via
Paris, in a number of direct as well as indirect ways. And it seems probable that Galileo
was quite familiar with this general kinematic approach if not with specific first-hand
sources. In fine, while it is not clear whether he actually read such works as
Bradwardine's Tractatus de continuo, he nonetheless had access to a vital current of
mathematical "physics" stemming from the Merton school. See John E. Murdoch,
Geometry and the Continuum in the Fourteenth Century: A Philosophical Analysis of
Thomas Bradwardine's "Tractatus de continuo," (Doctoral Dissertation: University of
Wisconsin, 1957) and Marshall Clagett, The Science of Mechanics in the Middle Ages
(Madison, 1959), 251-416.
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GALILEO'S THEORY OF INDIVISIBLES

583

Meanwhile, within the Italian university tradition, above all perhaps

at Padua, the evolution of minima theories crested with commentators
like Agostino Nifo in the sixteenth century.62 But Nifo was merely the
harbinger of an interpretive trend that spread within Italy and well beyond into the rest of Europe to culminate in the chemical thought of the
early seventeenth century.63Clearly, within both the lifetime and the intellectual ambit of Galileo, the struggle for a chemical appreciation of
Nature was provoking speculation about integral components and continuity. Whether it impinged effectively on him, through the school of
Padua for instance, is an open question,64 but it is only plausible to
assume that he was at least aware of it.
Obviously, in view of its many scholastic and extra-scholastic accretions and emendations, the Aristotelianism to which Galileo was heir
could hardly be called pristine. Quite the contrary, it was a patchwork
system of ad hoc sub-theories like that of the minima naturalia designed
around a central core of Peripatetic physics and metaphysics. But still
there was this central core, and it played a decisive role in determining
the world-view of the time. To expect therefore that Galileo was not
inevitably aware of that world-view would be to demand his total intellectual withdrawal from a milieu in which he was passionately involved.
For Galileo was not out to overthrow Aristotelian metaphysics but
to tidy it up. Fully certain, like Aristotle, that the real world consisted in
a material plenum-an essential substrate-continuum-he allowed that
certitude to dictate in spite of almost insuperable difficulties. Knowing
full well that atomism offered the simplest explanation for many hydrostatic phenomena,65he still clung obstinately to the notion of continuity
in his theory of indivisibles because, like Aristotle, he viewed the world
in a fundamentally geometrical way. And, like Aristotle, he recognized
the need to face the problem of the irrational. Consequently, if he was to
treat the world as truly geometrical, while at the same time meeting the
Euclidean requisite of absolute continuity, he had to accept the basic
62VanMelsen, From A tomos to Atom, 60.
63Ibid., 65-73 and Dijksterhuis, The Mechanization ..., 277-84. Not only was the
school of Padua a supposed breeding-ground for such speculation, but on the periphery
of this new speculative movement thinkers like Zabarella also considered the composition of matter according to indivisibles. Thus, within Italy (and in Germany as well)
there was developing a new awareness of the problem of composition of the material
continuum, partly as a result of a heightened interest in chemistry, that led invariably to
compromise measures approaching atomism. However, we must interpret this trend
with caution; as Van Melsen echoes Dijksterhuis' warning: "Although this obviously will
put the minima in the foreground, nevertheless there is no question of an atomist conception, especially not in the sense of Democritus . ." From A tomos to A tom, 72.
64Neal W. Gilbert, "Galileo and the School of Padua," Journal of the History of
Philosophy, 1 (1963), 223-31. Gilbert makes a telling case against J. H. Randall's uncompromising thesis concerning the intellectual contribution of the school of Padua to
Galileo and, thus, modern science in the way of methodology.
65Shea, "Galileo's Atomic Hypothesis," 13-15.

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A. MARK SMITH

584

Aristotelian position. However, unlike Aristotle, he could tap the

mainstream of medieval physics which had, in its treatment of intension
and remission, passed beyond the static geometrical formalism of Aristotle's world-view to an inchoate notion of formalized process.66 The
possibility of geometrizing change, of submitting temporal process to
quantitative analysis, that was thus held out to Galileo may well have inclined him toward a slightly different tack. The notion of growing temporal increments of speeds in accelerated motion may have led him to
seek a valid compromise, demonstrable by means of Euclidean
geometry, that would paradoxically permit of a substantial discontinuity.67And, unlike Aristotle, he was able to avail himself of a current
of mathematical thought that made this compromise ostensibly feasible.
It was a current started in the late Renaissance by a virtual deluge
of Greek-more especially Archimedean-mathematical texts68 which,
like the works of Aristotle some centuries before, created a stir of
reverent commentary and emulation. But lacking the cultural heritage
that drove the Greeks to a punctilious methodology in mathematics,
Renaissance scholars often took the substance of Euclidean and
Archimedean geometry without taking fully to heart the demonstrative
rigor that went with it. Perhaps, as Boyer claims, it was a "pervasive
Platonism [that] allowed to geometry what Aristotle's philosophy and
Greek mathematical rigor had denied," but whatever the catalyst there
was obviously a new and "free use of the concepts of infinity and the infinitesimal...."69

Circumventing

the cumbersome

but logically supe-

rior "method of exhaustion,"70many European mathematicians forsook

nicety for convenience in postulating indivisibles as the foundation of
geometrical demonstrations despite an inadequate logical basis.71Thus
66It is worthwhile reiterating the fact that this sort of endeavor, especially at the
hands of Galileo, was absolutely world-based; it did not smack of the theoretical in any
Platonic sense whatever: "The student of today thinks of analytical geometry and the
function concept [i.e., intension and remission of forms] as almost inseparable, but historically their origins were scarcely related, as a study of Galileo's work clearly shows.
Descartes' geometry was essentially an outgrowth of pure mathematics, whereas the
function concept was more directly related to problems in dynamics which first
crystallized in medieval discussions ... concerning the application of geometry to the
study of change. Galileo was involved only in the latter evolution." Carl B. Boyer,
"Galileo's Place in the History of Mathematics," Galileo: Man of Science, ed. Ernan J.
McMullin (New York, 1967), 234.
67Clavelin,"le probleme du continu .. .," 6.
68The Works of Archimedes, ed. Thomas Little Heath (New York, 1912), pp.
xxiii-xxx for a list and brief account of manuscripts and printed editions of Archimedes'
works available in the Renaissance.
69Boyer, The History of the Calculus ..., 89.
70The "method of exhaustion" was a Greek limit-approach method for comparing
the areas of rectilinear and curvilinear figures. For details see The Works of Archimedes, pp. cxlii-cliv and Boyer, The History of the Calculus .. ., 32-38.
7'Apparently even Archimedes was given to relaxing standards, to developing
theorems through the use of actual infinitesimals in order to arrive more easily at the

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GALILEO'S THEORY OF INDIVISIBLES

585

well before Galileo's academic advent, the mathematical and philosophical precedent had been set for toying with actual infinites and infinitesimals.72 And, considering the appeal this precedent held for so
many of his contemporaries, it is small wonder that Galileo should so
readily have turned to it in dodging the many logical quandaries that
confronted him.73
All in all, it seems that a confluence of powerful physical,
metaphysical, and mathematical currents must have impelled Galileo
toward his doctrine of indivisibles. At bottom it was an Euclidean-based
world-view, founded on the notion of a substantial continuum, that so
assured him of the inherent mathematical nature of the world that he
regarded geometry not as a mere tool of application or as a perfectibility gauge of Platonic reality but as an absolute formal reality. And he
may well have taken this essentially Aristotelian position, occupied so
long ago against the mathematical and metaphysical onslaughts of Parmenides and Zeno, almost automatically.
conclusion. However, in his formal demonstrations of those conclusions he reverted to
the rigorous "method of exhaustion" and a double reductio ad absurdum. See Boyer, A
History of Mathematics, 140-54.
72A striking example of such a "precedent" very much in the Galilean style is
Thomas Hariot. Sharing to a remarkable extent (although somewhat earlier) many of
Galileo's bents-e.g., an interest in hydrostatics and free-fall-he also employed much
the same mathematical reasoning as later (and presumably independently) did Galileo
to arrive at a justification for atomism. However, while Hariot seems to have been more
radically Democritean than Galileo, he was commensurately more discreet in airing his
views. Hence, the chances of Galileo's having been thereby influenced seem accordingly
slim. See Robert H. Kargon, Atomism in England from Hariot to Newton (Oxford,
1966), 23-28 for a fuller account of Hariot's views and his socio-scientific ambience.
73It should be noted that mathematically Galileo departed somewhat from the older
conception of indivisibles as equidimensional with, though incomparably smaller than,
the figures containing them by adumbrating the notion, later more fully developed by his
disciple Cavalieri, that mathematical indivisibles are of one less dimension than their
containers. However, it should also be noted that it was with Cavalieri, Torricelli,
Fermat, Roberval (to mention only a few) that this new view took firm shape. Thus it
was only as a catalyst for Cavalieri's later thought that Galileo played any real part in
this trend which, evolving through the middle and late decades of the 17th century,
eventually influenced both Leibniz and Newton. On the other hand, as a philosopher
Galileo did accept equidimensionality for his physical indivisibles and, consequently, had
to admit a paradoxical conceptual dichotomy between the physical and the purely
mathematical continuum, an admission that reflects his basic ambivalence toward
mathematics and physics. For a good thumbnail sketch of Cavalieri's role in the
development of mathematical indivisiblist theory, see Ettore Carruccio's article, "Cavalieri," Dictionary of Scientific Biography (New York, 1971), III, 149-53; for more
detailed analyses of various aspects of Cavalieri's work and influence: Carl B. Boyer,
"Cavalieri, limits and discarded infinitesimals," Scripta Mathematica, 8, (Dec. 1941),
79-91; A. Koyre, "Bonaventura Cavalieri et la geometrie des continus," Eventail de
l'histoire vivante: Hommage a Lucien Febvre, I, 319-40; and G. Cellini, "Gli indivisibili
nel pensiero matematico e filosofico di Bonaventura Cavalieri," Periodico di Matematiche, 44, Ser. 4 (1966), 1 -21.

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A. MARK SMITH

586

However,as we have seen, the Aristotelianand Euclideantraditions

underwentgradualmodificationsover the almosttwo millenniathat saw
them into the Renaissance. In the first place, metaphysics had suffered logical dilutionthroughscholastichalf-measures,like the minima
naturalia, that reflected an increased attraction for the notion of ma-

terial composition. But brought to the verge of atomism, most

Renaissance theorists ultimately balked, as did Galileo some years
later, at the final Democriteanstep.74In the second place, a spate of
mathematical discoveries, textual as well as original, had aroused
intense theoretical interest during the Renaissance. Eventually this
interest stimulatedan ostensibly Archimedeanapproachto many new
problemswhile, unfortunately,provokingover-eagerLatins to impose
actual limits-indivisibles-where none by logic belonged.And finally,
the fourteenth-century adumbration of the function concept had
signalleda highlysignificantdeparturefrom the eminentlystatic Greek
approachto Nature-a departurethat Galileo almost singlehandedly
transformedinto a scientificmainstream.
So Galileo had availableto him a complex set of precedents from
whichto draw.Witha full appreciationof Archimedeanhydrostaticsfor
example,he was early led to recognizethe advantagesof materialdiscontinuityin explainingapparentqualitieslike density,fluidity,material
resistance, etc. And he had a long-standingtradition of "minima"
theoriesto offer him support.Yet at the same time he couldonly demur
at any atomist solutionwhich failed to preservethe actual geometrical
continuityof the world,for therewas absolutelyno questionof abandoning his deepest convictionsfor the sake of explanatoryease or elegance.
Nonetheless he managedto find salvationin the very geometryhe was
so scrupulousto save. And havingestablisheda geometricalbasis for indivisibles,having shuntedoperationallyextensionalinfinity-the Aristotelian nemesis-into the limbo of indeterminacy,he returnedto the
substantialworld with a slightly altered view of continuity.His final
task, then, was to prove the actual existence of vacua (no matter how
fleetingor small) in order to introducethe groundsfor materialdiscontinuity.The result was a highly equivocalatomismthat fully reflected
Galileo's ambivalence.Rather than take the bold Democriteanplunge
into a space disrupted by matter, he clung to the notion of matter
disruptedby space, for "hisidea of the cosmos ... was too vividfor him
to be satisfiedby the notionof an infiniteworldin whichfrom the whirling motionof an infinitenumberof atoms worldsarise and perishagain
in endless succession.'75
74EvenFrancis Bacon seems to have flirted with atomist theory for several years (ca.
1603-1612) in the hope of finding metaphysical coherency; but, ultimately recoiling from
the a priorist connotations of atomism, he returned to a more conservative view of the
material continuum. Ibid., 43-47.
75Dijksterhuis,The Mechanization ..., 419.

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GALILEO'S THEORY OF INDIVISIBLES

587

Is Galileo's theory of indivisibles the manifestation of revolution or

merely another in a long series of metaphysical half-measures taken
within an inescapable Aristotelian tradition? This question of course
brings the analytical focus back to the notion of the reification of space,
back to the validity of the "metaphysical interpretation" of early
modern science and Galileo's relation to it. At the very outset it is obvious that Galileo's atomic hypothesis offers little or no systematic foundation for a fully coherent kinetic interpretation of Nature.76 The basic
spatial freedom requisite for such an approach is entirely lacking, and in
its stead is a vestigial concern for preserving continuity and matter-medium intimacy, a concern that may well find its inspiration in hydrostatics. Behind it all lies the Aristotelian-Euclidean conception of
"place," of the strict equivalence between "body" and "definitive being" in the world-plenum. Still bound to the Archimedean notion of
displacement, Galileo was apparently unable to conceive logically the
Epicurean view of totally free movement within an independently existing void. At any rate, whatever his reasons he obviously took a middling
course in the theory of indivisibles, a course that by itself hardly
signalled a metaphysical revolution.
Furthermore, since space (except in the most restricted sense of
"vacuum") was non-existent for Galileo, there is precious little reason
to uphold the contention that he geometrized it in a revolutionary access
of Platonism. For, unlike Plato, he regarded mathematics as reflective
of the world, not the converse. Geometry was real and worthwhile only
insofar as it served a formal function abstractable from, but not imposed upon, physical reality. But, unlike Aristotle, Galileo had a knack
for rendering the "book of nature" geometrically intelligible through a
clear-sighted exclusion of irrelevant chapters:
Just as the computer. .. mustdiscountthe boxes,bales, andotherpackings,so
the mathematicalscientist... mustdeductthe materialhindrances,andif he is
able to do so, I assure you that things are in no less agreement than
arithmeticalcomputations.The errors, then, lie not in the abstractnessor
concreteness,not in geometryor physics,but in a calculatorwhodoes not know
howto make a true accounting.77
761 say this despite the few passages from Galileo's writings that might be (and have

been) adduced in support of the contention that Galileo was a dedicated "mechanical
philosopher" who viewed Nature in terms of particles in various "qualitative" states of
motion [e.g., "The Assayer," Discoveries and Opinions of Galileo, ed. Stillman Drake
(Garden City, 1957), 274-76; and Dialogues Concerning the Two Chief WorldSystems,
trans. Stillman Drake (Berkeley, 1967), 40.]. Actually these passages are not only highly
conjectural, but in context they are absolutely unconnected with any systematic
development of kinetic theory. Furthermore, it is clear that Galileo did not postulate the
infinitesimal pockets of interstitial "space" to provide for atomic motions in wide variety. Therefore, to infer (as did Burtt) a full-fledged, coherent system of world mechanization from such meager evidence is totally unwarranted.
77Dialogues Concerning the Two Chief WorldSystems, 207-08.

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588

A. MARK SMITH

There is no questionof existential supremacyin a geometry that is so

solidly rooted in, and dependentupon, physical reality as is Galileo's.
Thus, to pretendto find Platonicovertonesin such a functionalabstraction merelybecauseit happensto be geometricalis somewhatforced;to
pretendto finda metaphysicalrevolutionthereis totallyimplausible.
The long and shortof it is that manyhistorianshave tendedto misinterpret Galileo's genius, to overrate his modernityin relation to his
epoch.78Because he did what he did so much better, so much more
clearlyand astutelythandid his contemporaries,we haveoften been led
to expect more of him thanwe can fairlydemand.And consequentlywe
have been broughtto regardhim as a prodigycomprehensibleonly in
terms of upheaval or revolution. Because he underminedthe Aristoteliancelestial/terrestrialdichotomywith suchwit andvigor,because
he made such a clear transitionfrom traditionalto "modern"dynamics
and kinematics,we have even sought his intellectualmotivationsin an
utter metaphysicaloverthrowof barrenAristotelianscholasticism.But
in such a quest there is always the attendantdangerof doing unintentionalviolence to a definitivecontext. It shouldalways be remembered
that Galileo,in practicallyeveryendeavorhe undertook,attaineda "not
quite"pointin approachingmoderntheory.
If, then, Koyreis correct in his conviction"that the rise andgrowth
of experimentalscience is not the source, but, on the contrary, the
result of [a] new metaphysical approach to nature that forms the
content of the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century,"79
Galileo'srole as a bellwetherof the revolutionis at best questionable.If,
on the other hand, Galileodid indeedinauguratea scientificrevolution,
the metaphysicalgenesisof that revolutionis equallyquestionable.
Universityof Wisconsin.
78A prime example of this zeal for anachronism is the following: "The curvature of
inertial motion does not yet mean that Galileo enunciated the notion of curved, homogeneous space, [but] if we compare the Galilean idea to the current notion of the
homogeneity of space, Galileo's idea will correspond to the notion of curved, homogeneous space." Boris G. Kuznetsov, "L'Idee d'homog6enite de l'espace dans le 'Dialogo' de Galilee et son evolution posterieure," Actes du Symposium International des
Sciences Physiques et Mathematiques dans la Premiere Moitie du XVIIieme Siecle
(Pisa, 1958; Paris, 1960), 136-my translation.
79Koyre,"The Significance of the Newtonian Synthesis," 6.

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