DICTIONARY OF

THE HISTORY OF IDEAS

 DICTIONARY
-- --.--:'
..

OF THE HISTORY
OF IDEAS
Studies \ oj Selected Pivotal Ideas

PHILIP P. WIENER
EDITOR IN CHIEF

VOLUME I

Abstraction in the Formation of Concepts

TO

Design Argument

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS . NEW YORK

Copyright 1968, 1973 Charles Scribner's Sons

The Publishers are grateful for permission to quote from

previously published works in the following articles:

"Agnosticism"
from Language, Truth and Logic, by A. J. Ayer, copyright 1935,
by permission of Victor Gollancz Ltd.

"Ambiguity as Aesthetic Principle"

from Virgil, Aeneid, trans. H. R. Fairclough, Loeb Classical
Library, by permission of Harvard University Press
from Camoens: The Lusiads, trans. W. C. Atkinson, copyright
1952, by permission of Penguin Books, Ltd.
from The Odes of Pindar, trans. Richmond Lattimore, copyright
1947 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved.
from Richard of Saint Victor, ed. Clare Kirchberger, 1957,
by permission of Harper & Row, Publishers

"Catharsis"
from The Oxford Translation of Aristotle, trans. W. D. Ross,
copyright 1925, by permission of The Clarendon Press, Oxford

"Cosmology"
from Early Science in Oxford, by R. T. Gunther, copyright
1931, by permission of The Clarendon Press, Oxford

THIS BOOK PUBLISHED SIMULTANEOUSLY IN

THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA AND IN CANADA-

COPYRIGHT UNDER THE BERNE CONVENTION

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. NO PART OF THIS BOOK

MAY BE REPRODUCED IN ANY FORM WITHOUT

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PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 72-7943

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EDITORIAL BOARD

Isaiah. Berlin

George Boas

Salomon Bochner

Felix Gilbert

Frank E. Manuel

Ernest Nagel

Rene Wellek

MANA CINC EDITORS

Charles E. Pettee

.Laurie Sullivan
CONSUL TING EDITORS

Harold Cherniss

Wallace K. Ferguson

E. H. Gombrich

PaulO. Kristeller

Peter B. Medawar

Meyer Schapiro

Harry A. Wolfson
 PREFACE
Artists, writers, and scientists do nothesitate in their
creative efforts and researches to borrow ideas outside
their own special fields whenever their themes reach
beyond established forms, styles, or traditional methods.
The languages of the arts will often show the impact
of literary themes, scientific discoveries, economic
conditions, and political change. The physical, biologi-
cal, psychological, and social sciences have branched
out from ancient mythical and metaphysical ideas of
nature and man, andin their historical development
have utilized the results of analyses and experimental
methods that have emerged from the cross-fertilization
of tested ideas and methods. This outward reaching of
the-mind motivates the historian of ideas to explore the
pivotal clues to man's artistic and scientific achieve-
ments in diverse fields. While respecting the integrity
and need for specialized departments of learning, the
historian of ideas makes his particular contribution to
knowledge by tracing the cultural roots and historical
ramifications of the rnajor and minor specialized con-
cerns of the mind,
The editors have invited contributions from scholars
of many countries, especially those scholars who have
shown a particular awareness of the cultural and his-
torical affiliations of their respective disciplines with
other allied fields. Departmental and national bound-
aries have thus been crossed in the cooperative ex-
change of ideas and cultural perspectives among editors
and contributors.
We cannot emphasize too strongly the point ex-
pressed in the subtitle of our work, that we are pre-
senting a varied array of selected pivotal topics in
intellectual history and of methods of writing about
such topics. Although the number of topics discussed
is large, we do not pretend that these volumes represent
the entire range of intellectual history. To attempt a
complete history of ideas would be to attempt (of
course, in vain) to exhaust the history of the human
mind; hence, the limited number of topics dealt with,
and even these contain lacunae which we hope will
encourage further studies. Students of the history of
ideas should profit from the substance and methods of
interpretation contained in the scholarship of our con-
tributors, and in future research the cross-references,
bibliographies, and index should be valuable aids.
The topics chosen are intended to exhibit the in-
triguing variety of ways in which ideas in one domain
tend to migrate into other domains, The diffusion of
these ideas may be traced in three directions: hori-
zontally across disciplines in a given cultural period,
vertically or chronologically through the .ages, and "in
depth" by analysis of the internal structUl~eof pervasive
and pivotal ideas. Internal analysis is needed if one is
to discover the component ideas that have become
elements of newer and larger thoughts or movernents.
A now classic model is Arthur O. Lovejoy's historical
study and internal analysis of the Great Chain of Being
into its component "unit-ideas" of continuity, grada-
tion, and plenitude. These unit-ideas are not descrip-
tions of the whole organic cultural and historical setting
of thought, but products of analysis, which Lovejoy
proposed as aids to the unravelling of complex ideas ..
and of their roles in different contexts. However, no
single method or model hasbeen prescribed or adopted
as exclusive by either editors or contributors. We have,
therefore, studies of three different sorts: cross-cultural
studies limited to a given century or period, studies that
trace an idea from antiquity to later periods, and studies
that explicate the meaning of a pervasive idea and its
development in the minds of its leading proponents.
Minor figures cannot be neglected since they often
reflect the prevailing climate of opinion of their times.
The cross-references appended to each article have
been carefully prepared to direct the reader to related
articles in which the same or similar idea occurs within
a different domain, often modified and even trans-
formed by the different context. But despite our inter-
disciplinary aim, we do not ignore the fact that de-
partments of study are established in academic and
'other specialized institutions. The Dictionary will fa-
cilitate the reader's transition from the ideas familiar
to him in his special area of study to those very ideas
operative in, and transformed by, related ideas in other
fields with which he is less familiar. Vll
PREFACE
In some cases the same word will have entirely
distinct meanings in different disciplines, so that it is
important not to confound words with ideas; for exam-
ple, it is a sophistic confusion to draw inferences from
the theory of relativity in physics to relativism in
morals, or to impose seventeenth-century mechanical
models on organic or social phenomena. But it is
germane to the history of thought and culture to record
the historical role of such pervasive models in diverse
fields. Consequently, we did not seek to collect topics
for articles at random, but organized an analytical table
of contents into a seven-fold grouping of topics, thus
discovering important relationships which might oth-
erwise have been overlooked. The following domains
and disciplines, of course, involve unavoidable over-
lapping, but form the basic framework of the selected
topics contributed.
I. The history of ideas about the external order of
nature studied by the physical and biological sciences,
ideas also present in common usage, imaginative liter-
ature, myths about nature, metaphysical speculation.
II. The history of ideas about human nature in
anthropology, psychology, religion, and philosophy as
well as in literature and common sense.
III. The history of ideas in literature and the arts
in aesthetic theory and literary criticism.
IV. The history of ideas about or attitudes to history,
historiography, and historical criticism.
V. The historical development of economic, legal,
and political ideas and institutions, ideologies, and
movements.
VI. The history of religious and philosophical ideas.
VII. The history of formal mathematical, logical,
linguistic, and methodological ideas.
Few of the pivotal ideas presented fall squarely and
only within anyone group. Even the ancillary topics
VIll
will lead outward to still other clusters of ideas. The
"Faust Theme," for example, is an illustration of the
more general idea of "Motif" in the history of litera-
ture, but the Faust theme is itself pregnant with sym-
bolic references to the problem of evil, to the ideas of
tragedy, of macrocosm and microcosm.
Although the intensive synchronic study of any
"period" of cultural or intellectual history may reveal
the predominance of certain artistic, scientific, indus-
trial, political, religious, or philosophical ideas, there
is no a priori ranking of these groups of ideas. Nor can
it be presumed that they are all of equal importance
through all periods of cultural development viewed
diachronically. The Dictionary's emphasis on jnter-
disciplinary, cross-cultural relations is not intended as
a substitute for the specialized histories of the various
disciplines, but rather serves to indicate actual and
possible interrelations.
The purpose of these studies of the historical inter-
relationships of ideas is to help. establish some sense of
the unity of human thought and its cultural manifesta-
tions in a world of ever-increasing specialization and
alienation. These cumulative acquisitions of centuries
of work in the arts and sciences constitute our best
insurance against intellectualand cultural bankruptcy.
Taking stock of the ideas that have created our cultural
heritage is a prerequisite of the future growth and
flourishing of the human spirit.
The editors are indeed grateful for the cooperation
of so many scholars, including advisers and readers as
well as contributors and the staff of the publisher.
Without the unstinting aid and constant encouragement
of Mr. Charles Scribner, who initiated the idea of this
Dictionary, the project would not have come to fruition.
PHILIP P. WIENER
 ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. The history of ideas about the external order of nature studied by the physical and biological sciences, ideas
also present in common usage, imaginative literature, myths about nature, metaphysical speculation.

Alchemy Genetic Continuity

Astrology Health and Disease

Atomism: Antiquity to the Seventeenth Century Indeterminacy in Physics

Atomism in the Seventeenth Century Inheritance of Acquired Characteristics (Lamarckian)

Biological Conceptions in Antiquity Inheritance through Pangenesis

Biological Homologies and Analogies Longevity

Biological Models Changing Concepts of Matter from Antiquity to

Newton
Conservation of Natural Resources
Nature
Cosmic Images
Newton and the Method of Analysis

Cosmic Voyages
Optics and Vision

Cosmology from Antiquity to 1850 Organicism

Cosmology since 1850 Recapitulation

Entropy Relativity

Environment Space

Spontaneous Generation
Environment and Culture

Technology
Evolutionism
Time and Measurement
Experimental Science and Mechanics in the Middle
Ages Uniformitarianism and Catastrophism IX
ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS

II. The history of ideas about human nature in anthropology, psychology, religion, and philosophy as well as
in literature and common sense.

Association of Ideas Psychological Ideas in Antiquity

Behaviorism Psychological Schools in European Thought

Empathy Psychological Theories in American Thought

Imprinting and Learning Early in Life Renaissance Idea of the Dignity of Man

Types of Individualism Theriophily

Love Universal Man

Man-Machine from the Greeks to the Computer Virtu in and since the Renaissance

Pre-Platonic Conceptions of Human Nature Virtuoso

Primitivism Wisdom of the Fool

Primitivism in the Eighteenth Century Witchcraft

III. The history of ideas in literature and the arts in aesthetic theory and literary criticism.

Allegory in Literary History Demonology

Ambiguity as Aesthetic Principle Evolution of Literature

Ancients and Moderns in the Eighteenth Century Expressionism in Literature

Art and Play Form in the History of Aesthetics

Art for Art's Sake Genius from the Renaissance to 1770

Baroque in Literature Genius: Individualism in Art and Artists

Theories of Beauty to the Mid-Nineteenth Century Musical Genius

Theories of Beauty since the Mid-Nineteenth Century Concept of Gothic

Catharsis Harmony or Rapture in Music

Chance Images Iconography

Classicism in Literature Impressionism in Art

Classification of the Arts Irony

sens~:;} the Comic Literature and Its Cognates

Creativity in Art Literary Paradox

X Literary Criticism Millenarianism

 ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS

Mimesis Periodization in Literary History

Motif Rhetoric and Literary Theory in Platonism

Motif in Literature: The Faust Theme Poetry and Poetics from Antiquity to the Mid-
Eighteenth Century
Literary Attitudes Toward Mountains
Realism in Literature
Music and Science
Rhetoric after Plato
Music as a Demonic Art
Romanticism in Literature
Music as a Divine Art
Romanticism (ca. 1780-ca. 1830)
Myth in Antiquity
Satire
Myth in Biblical Times
Victorian Sensibility and Sentiment
Myth in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance
Style in Literature
Myth in English Literature: Seventeenth and Eigh-
teenth Centuries Sublime in External Nature

Myth in the Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centu- Symbol and Symbolism in Literature
ries
Taste in the History of Aesthetics from the Renaissance
Myth in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries to 1770

Naturalism in Art Temperance (Saphrosyne) and the Canon of the Cardi-

nal Virtues
Neo-Classicism in Art
Sense of the Tragic
Newton's Opticks and Eighteenth-Century Imagina-
tion Ut pictura poesis

IV. The history of ideas about or attitudes to history, historiography, and historical criticism.

China in Western Thought and Culture Freedom of Speech in Antiquity

Crisis in History Historicism

Cultural Development in Antiquity Historiography

Culture and Civilization in Modern Times The Influence of Ideas on Ancient Greek Historiog-
raphy
Cycles

Humanism in Italy
Determinism in History

Enlightenment Oriental Ideas in American Thought .

The Counter-Enlightenment Periodization in History

Fortune, Fate, and Chance Progress in Classical Antiquity Xl

ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS

Progress in the Modern Era Renaissance Literature and Historiography

Idea of Renaissance Volksgeist

Renaissance Humanism Zeitgeist

V. The historical development of economic, legal, and political ideas and institutions, ideologies, and movements.

Academic Freedom Ideology of Soviet Communism

Alienation in Hegel and Marx Justice

Analogy of the Body Politic Ancient Greek Ideas of Law

Anarchism Ancient Roman Ideas of Law

Authority Common Law

Balance of Power Concept of Law

Causation in Law Due Process in Law

The City Equal Protection in Law

Civil Disobedience Natural Law and Natural Rights

Class Legal Precedent

Conservatism Legal Responsibility

Constitutionalism Liberalism

Democracy Loyalty

Despotism Machiavellism

Economic History Marxism

Economic Theory of Natural Liberty Marxist Revisionism: From Bernstein to Modern Forms

Education Medieval and Renaissance Ideas of Nation

Equality Nationalism

Equity in Law and Ethics International Peace

Legal Concept of Freedom Philanthropy

General Will Property

Historical and Dialectical Materialism Protest Movements

i'
xii \1deology Revolution
 ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS

Romanticism in Political Thought Utopia

Social Contract Vox populi

Social Democracy in Germany and Revisionism War and Militarism

Socialism from Antiquity to Marx Welfare State

~ate Social Attitudes Towards Women

Totalitarianism Work

Utility and Value in Economic Thought

VI. The history of religious and philosophical ideas.

Abstraction in the Formation of Concepts Cynicism

Agnosticism Death and Immortality

Alienation in Christian Theology Deism

Analogy in Early Greek Thought Design Argument

Analogy in Patristic and Medieval Thought Determinism in. Theology: Predestination

Antinomy of Pure Reason Double Truth

Appearance and Reality Dualism in Philosophy and Religion

Baconianism Epicureanism and Free Will

Buddhism Eschatology

Causation in the Seventeenth Century Problem of Evil

Causation in the Seventeenth Century, Final Causes Existentialism

Certainty in Seventeenth-Century Thought Faith, Hope, and Charity

Certainty since the Seventeenth Century Free Will and Determinism

Chain of Being Free Will in Theology

Christianity in History Gnosticism

Church as an Institution Idea of God from Prehistory to the Middle Ages

Modernism in the Christian Church Idea of God, 1400-1800

Cosmic Fall Idea of God since 1800

Creation in Religion Happiness and Pleasure Xlli

ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS

Hegelian Political and Religious Ideas Positivism in Latin America

Heresy in the Middle Ages Positivism in the Twentieth Century (Logical Empiri-
cism)
Heresy, Renaissance and Later
Pragmatism
Hermeticism
Prophecy in Hebrew Scripture
Hierarchy and Order
Prophecy in the Middle Ages
Holy (The Sacred)
Pythagorean Doctrines to 300 B.C.
Idea
Pythagorean Harmony of the Universe
Ideal in Philosophy from the Renaissance to 1780
Ramism
Impiety in the Classical World
Rationality among the Greeks and Romans
Irrationalism in the History of Philosophy
Reformation
Islamic Conception of Intellectual Life
Relativism in Ethics
Macrocosm and Microcosm
Origins of Religion
Metaphor in Philosophy
Ritual in Religion
Metaphor in Religious Discourse
Religion and Science in the Nineteenth Century
Metaphysical Imagination
Religious Enlightenment in American Thought
Moral Sense
Religious Toleration
Necessity
Right and Good
N eo-Platonism
Romanticism in Post-Kantian Philosophy
Ethics of Peace
Sin and Salvation
Perennial Philosophy
Skepticism in Antiquity
Perfectibility of Man
Skepticism in Modern Thought
Pietism

Ethics of Stoicism
Platonism in Philosophy and Poetry

Platonism in the Renaissance Theodicy

Platonism since the Enlightenment Time

Positivism in Europe to 1900 Utilitarianism

XIV
 ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS

VII. The history of formal mathematical, logical, linguistic, and methodological ideas.

Anthropomorphism in Science Linguistics

Axiomatization Linguistic Theories in British Seventeenth-Century

Philosophy
Casuistry
Relativity of Standards of Mathematical Rigor
Causation
Mathematics in Cultural History
Causation in History
Number
Causation in Islamic Thought
Probability: Objective Theory
Chance
/ Formal Theories of Social Welfare
Classification of the Sciences
Structuralism
Continuity and Discontinuity in Nature and Knowl-
edge Symmetry and Asymmetry

Game Theory Uniformitarianism in Linguistics

Infinity Unity of Science from Plato to Kant

Study of Language

xv
 LIST OF ARTICLES

Abstraction in the Formation of Concepts I 1 Atomism in the Seventeenth Century I 132

Academic Freedom I 9 Authority I 141

Agnosticism I 17 Axiomatization I 162

Alchemy I 27 Baconianism 1172

Alienation in Christian Theology I 34 Balance of Power I 179

Alienation in Hegel and Marx I 37 Baroque in Literature I 188

Allegory in Literary History I 41 Theories of Beauty to the Mid-Nineteenth

Century I 195
Ambiguity as Aesthetic Principle I 48
Theories of Beauty since the Mid-
Analogy in Early Greek Thought I 60 Nineteenth Century I 207

Analogy in Patristic and Medieval Thought I 64 Behaviorism I 214

Analogy of the Body Politic 167 Biological Conceptions in Antiquity I 229

Anarchism I 70 Biological Homologies and Analogies I 236

Ancients and Moderns in the Eighteenth
Biological Models I 242
Century I 76
,
Buddhism I 247
Anthropomorphism in Science I 87

Antinomy of Pure Reason I 91 Casuistry I 257

Appearance and Reality I 94 Catharsis I 264

Art and Play I 99 Causation I 270

Art for Art's Sake I 108 Causation in History I 279

Association of Ideas lUI
Causation in Islamic Thought I 286
Astrology I 118
Causation in Law I 289
Atomism: Antiquity to the Seventeenth
Century I 126 Causation in the Seventeenth Century I 294 xvii
LIST OF ARTICLES

Irony II 626 Marxist Revisionism: From Bernstein to

Modern Forms III 161
Irrationalism in the History of Philosophy II 634
Relativity of Standards of Mathematical
Islamic Conception of Intellectual Life II 638 Rigor III 170

Justice II 652 Mathematics in Cultural History III 177

Study of Language II 659 Changing Concepts. of Matter from

Antiquity to Newton III 185
Ancient Greek Ideas of Law II 673
Metaphor in Philosophy III 196
Ancient Roman Ideas of Law II 685
Metaphor in Religious Discourse III 201
Common Law II 691
Metaphysical Imagination III 208
Concept of Law III 1
Millenarianism III 223
Due Process in Law III 6
Mimesis III 225
Equal Protection in Law III 10
Moral Sense III 1i!30
Natural Law and Natural Rights III 13
Motif III 235
Legal Precedent III 27
Motif in Literature: The Faust Theme III 244
Legal Responsibility III 33
Literary Attitudes Toward Mountains III 253
Liberalism III 36
Music and Science III 260
Linguistics III 61
Music as a Demonic Art III 264
Linguistic Theories in British Seventeenth-
Century Philosophy III 73 Music as a Divine Art III 267

Literary Paradox III 76 Myth in Antiquity III 272

Literature and Its Cognates III 81 Myth in Biblical Times III 275

Longevity III 89 Myth in the Middle Ages and the

Renaissance III 286

Love III 94
Myth in English Literature: Seventeenth
and Eighteenth Centuries III 294
Loyalty III 108
Myth in the Eighteenth and Early
Machiavellism III 116 Nineteenth Centuries III 300

Macrocosm and Microcosm III 126 Myth in the Nineteenth and Twentieth
Centuries III 307
Man-Machine from the Greeks to the
Computer III 131 Medieval and Renaissance Ideas of Nation III 318

XX Marxism III 146 Nationalism III 324

 LIST OF ARTICLES

Vox populi IV 496 Witchcraft IV 521

War and Militarism IV 500 Social Attitudes Towards Women IV 523

Welfare State IV 509 Work IV 530

Wisdom of the Fool IV 515 Zeitgeist IV 535

xxiii