This chapter outlines important theoretical and methodological facets of elite medicine in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and traces some developments in each, highlighting their significance for the history and philosophy of the Scientific Revolution. The chapter looks first at “theoretical” questions (centered on medical physiologia), tracing interactions between various Galenic, chymical, and mechanical streams of thought. It then turns to “methodological” issues, examining changing understandings of and roles for observation, experience, and experiment, with some special attention on method in anatomy. Throughout the Scientific Revolution, these theoretical and methodological developments interacted in complex and productive ways. Indeed, it is perhaps best to see medical efforts to develop the science of the living body in this period as an exploration of the changing space of possibilities defined by varying theoretical commitments and a broadening commitment to, expectation of, and attention to discovery by experience and experiment.

An essential feature of the Scientific Revolution was the institutionalization and professionalization of the new science, especially in national societies like the Royal Society of London and the French Académie des Sciences, but also in less formal institutional structures, such as correspondence networks, journals, salons, and private spaces. On the one hand, this provided new spaces and new demographics of knowledge production, especially an increased participation by women. On another, it raised a variety of issues related to socially-embedded epistemology, such the proper means of reporting observations and results, and the grounds for witnessing and testimony. This is an area of research that has rapidly expanded in recent years, as this chapter discusses by focusing on the cases of Johanna Stephens and Émilie Du Châtelet.

In the last thirty years, both the belief that the mechanical philosophy is an adequate historical category and the conviction that it made a positive contribution to the sciences were deconstructed. Hence the question addressed in this chapter: What to do with the mechanical philosophy? The chapter begins with a terminological enquiry about ‘mechanical philosophy’ as an emic category, and compares the use of the term on the Continent and across the Channel. It is then suggested that we examine controversies in which mechanical philosophers, having defined themselves in opposition to other natural philosophers, made explicit their expectations with regard to physical explanations. Three such controversies are discussed: one about the motion of the heart (Descartes versus Plempius); one about the elasticity of the air (Boyle versus More); and one about the universal attraction of bodies (Huygens and Leibniz versus Newton). Finally, to counter negative evaluations of the mechanical philosophy, the chapter points out the cognitive advantages of structural explanations, to which the mechanical explanations belonged.

Through the 1600s, the fundamental laws of mechanics served as bridge principles to ontology and confirmation theory. By the mid-eighteenth century, the laws came to lose their former bridging function. As a result, the metaphysics and epistemology of classical mechanics became opaque. The chapter diagnoses several factors that catalyzed the changed status of basic laws.

Historiography concerning the relationship (or non-relationship) between magic (or the “occult”) and “science” was dominated in the 1960s-1980s by the “Hermetic” thesis of Frances Yates and its critics (including Robert Westman and Brian Vickers). Vickers in particular argued that the “occult” and the “scientific” are separate “mentalities” or paradigms. This chapter considers an alternative view. By tracing the fortunes of the theory of radiative virtue advanced by the ninth-century Arabic philosopher al-Kindi, which began as a “theory of the magical arts” providing a physical basis for magical operations, we can see that some “magical” ideas connected with the astrological theory of “celestial virtues” influenced later natural philosophy. Al-Kindi’s suggestion that all causation in the elemental world was effected by means of rays was taken up in the medieval perspectiva tradition, and elaborated into a theory of astral magic by John Dee, but continued to provide a model for action at a distance in the mechanist theories of seventeenth-century natural philosophers, such as Kenelm Digby, Walter Charleton, and—ultimately—Isaac Newton, who believed that the corpuscles of all bodies acted at a distance by “certain Powers, Virtues, or Forces” in a similar way to the rays of light.

William Harvey’s demonstration of the circulation of the blood is one of the Scientific Revolution’s most influential and lasting achievements. But in spite of Harvey’s innovation, and paradoxically given the extent to which he came to be represented as a founder of modern science, he tied himself to ancient authorities and sought to insulate natural philosophy and the art of medicine from the new mechanical-corpuscular and chemical philosophies of the period. The reception of Harvey’s work, both in physiology and later in embryology, shows that Harvey’s research program won numerous early converts, who used his program for their own ends, including support for the new philosophies, in the cases of René Descartes and Robert Boyle. Untethered from his preferred Scholastic framework, Harvey’s conceptual foundations, techniques, and conclusions led to new discoveries, and unresolved questions in Harvey’s account about the movement of the heart, nature of the blood, and respiration would motivate intense inquiry. The circulation of the blood and later physiology therefore provide an essential perspective for the examination of early modern disputes about experimentation and its limits, the rhetoric of novelty, the unity of nature, and the very notion of life.

The discovery and implementation of telescopy and microscopy extended the power of the senses, with often surprising results. The discoveries made with these instruments challenged existing theories of nature, while simultaneously demanding new theories to account for their operation, especially of vision. Moreover, early modern epistemology had to accommodate experiential evidence made by these “artificial” means. The chapter also address advances in the literature since the twenty-year-old classic, The Invisible World by Catherine Wilson.

Nature in the New World

The conquest of the New World was not completed at sea. Arriving at the islands or coasts of the mainland of the Western Indies was the start of a new challenge. After the solitude of the sea and confinement of the ships, the travelers then had to confront lands of an undreamt expanse and an exuberant nature that was beautiful and hostile at the same time. As we have seen, the transatlantic route was a challenge full of obstacles, but once on land the Christians had to deal with the resistance of the natives who occupied those territories and the conquest of America turned into a violent invasion. The penetration of the continent entailed sailing along unknown and complex rivers, long journeys of exploration in tropical climates, and interminable treks through jungles, deserts, and long mountain chains. Despite the obvious natural wealth of the New World, Europeans lacked the know how that was needed to navigate the torrential rivers of America, to find food, fight off animals, and protect themselves from tropical climates. On land, many explorers, obsessed with gold, silver, and other riches of the New World, lost their lives or their minds.

The explorer needed to acquire new kinds of knowledge in order to survive, but he had a mission that was even more difficult: to take the riches of the New World to Europe. In America, Christians came across a part of the Creation for which there were no testimonies and a nature that could be only dominated with very hard work.

Portugal and Spain

In the 15th century, Western traders, particularly the Italians, needed new and better routes for the trading of products from the Orient, for which very high prices were paid in Europe. Since the days of Ancient Rome, luxury products from the Orient, which were generally known as ‘spices’, were a powerful incentive for the exploration of better commercial routes. Routes such as those traveled by Mediterranean merchants like Niccolò Polo and his son Marco and which had been recorded in the technical manuals of Western merchants since the start of the 14th century had to be explored again. The Italian merchants traveled along what was known as the ‘Mongol route’, from the Black Sea to Cathay, without difficulties. In the second half of the 14th century the silk route was consolidated, which allowed Chinese silk to be transported to Italian manufacturers at accessible prices. This large-scale traffic gave birth, in Genoa and Venice, to an industry of sumptuous textiles, brocades, and velvets, which left its mark on an epoch and formed part of a lively commercial activity. Thus, the Italians, who were adamant about profits, created a market of products that were manufactured in Italy with raw material brought from the East, as well as an ample market of condiments and aromatic substances.

However, the Italians lost their direct access to China and the Mongol route was affected by hostility to Christians. It became necessary to go back to ancient itineraries, with stopovers in Syria and Egypt, which were places controlled by Muslims and which entailed longer and more expensive routes, often in the hands of unstable and hostile states.

While it is not the purpose of this book to study the political organization of the empire, which others have done in some detail, it may be useful to go over the juridical structure of the colonial administration that was constructed in the 16th century. A description of this legislation is opportune here because, like navigation, cartography, or natural history, political administration and commercial organization were technical challenges that shared the same aim of proclaiming dominion and control. The following section presents a general panorama of the normative and institutional development that took place in Spain for that aim.

The ‘Capitulations de Santa Fe’, the agreement signed between Columbus and the Catholic Monarchs in 1492, granted him the title of viceroy, but the Crown could not imagine the implication this agreement would have. After he returned, the first regulation for the administration of the Indies was the ‘[i]nstruction of our lords the king and queen for don Cristóbal Colón’, signed by the monarchs in Barcelona in May 1493. That ‘instruction’ already gave one a glimpse of the magnitude of the Spanish Crown's aims in the New World. On the one hand, it insisted on the importance of converting the indigenous people to the Catholic faith and, on the other, it was obvious that the New World was seen as a new field for commercial development.

The admiral himself was granted the powers of viceroy and governor of the Indies and, as such, was made responsible for their administration and the appointment of judges (alcaldes) and sheriffs (alguaciles) who would be in charge of civil and criminal justice.

The New World and the problem of Eurocentrism

‘The greatest thing after the creation of the world, except for the incarnation and the death of he who gave birth to it, is the discovery of the Indies’. Francisco López de Gómara wrote those words in the Introduction to his Historia General de las Indias (General History of the Indies), published in 1552. Far from being an extravagant idea at the time, the providential notion that God wanted Spain to conquer the New World for the spread and final triumph of Christianity was widely shared by the chroniclers and cosmographers of the Spanish Crown in the 16th century. As the Spaniards saw it, 1492 was the year that split the history of the world in two; five centuries later, we are still trying to understand what happened and the world has not finished adjusting itself to the changes that began in the Atlantic.

In the abovementioned introduction to his book, López de Gómarawrote that ‘every history, even if is not well written, delights’, this may be a questionable statement but it is a convenient way to raise your spirits when you set out to write an incredible history of the European Renaissance. Here, is yet another attempt. This time, the account will deal with personages and regions which are little seen in the historiography of modern science: the Iberian Catholics in the Atlantic world.

Many have called the 16th century the century of discoveries. Equating European expansion with the ‘age of discoveries’ forms part of a view of history that is centered on Europe and that is only possible when the great explorers who preceded Columbus are forgotten. One might mention, for example, the Polynesians’ maritime explorations of the Pacific, the Nordic navigators in the Atlantic, and, naturally, the Chinese who, led by admiral Zheng, crossed the Indian Ocean.

The uses of maps are varied: they may serve as navigational aids, charters of ownership, symbolic forms of appropriation, or tools for political administration. They are also useful for the defense of diplomatic interests or serving military or commercial purposes, or may be valuable possessions and saleable goods in their own right. Likewise, they may be appreciated as works of art since they are often objects with an undeniable aesthetic appeal, and because mapmaking rests on complex technical skills.

The Spanish cartography of the New World has been studied in depth and is well documented. Some recent investigations offer a fairly complete account of their history. This chapter deals with a scientific project of great scope, closely linked to the Casa de Contratación, navigation, and the post of the pilot major: the drafting of a new map of the world or a Master Map. As indicated by its name in Spanish, it was a singular cartographic representation that was meant to serve as a point of comparison for all maps and as a model for all navigational charts. The idea was that, either in Seville or Madrid, the Crown would have a register and a faithful representation of the New World.

When the Crown appointed Amerigo Vespucci as the first pilot major, despite his lack of experience as a navigator, it ordered him to:

Plus ultra

For the frontispiece of his Instauratio Magna (London, 1620), Francis Bacon chose the picture of a ship returning from the Atlantic and crossing the Pillars of Hercules at the Strait of Gibraltar, a symbolic representation of going beyond the limits of what medieval Europe regarded as the known world. At the bottom of the illustration, the phrase ‘Multi pertransibunt and augebitur Scientia’ stood out, a quotation from the Biblical Book of Daniel (12:4), which means ‘many shall run to and for, and knowledge shall increase’. The choice of this saying from the Bible seemed highly appropriate as a motto for his great work of philosophy, which dealt with the foundations of a new and powerful science since, by means of science, it would be possible ‘to extend human power over the universe’ in a new world in which ‘nothing will be impossible for mankind’. Those powerful galleons are the emblem of the power of human arts and that picture clearly represents the English philosopher's view of the sixteenth-century voyages of exploration and their relation to the history of modern science. The idea of associating the increase of knowledge with voyages and the exploration of the unknown perfectly complemented Bacon's philosophical approach to science because, from his standpoint, the advance of knowledge was the result of new experiences.