The Sleepwalkers (2 page)

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Authors: Arthur Koestler

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IX
CHAOS AND HARMONY

1.
Dioptrice
.
2.
Disaster
.
3.
Excommunication
.
4.
The
Witch
Trial
.
5.
Harmonice
Mundi
.
6.
The
Third
Law
.
7.
The
Ultimate
Paradox
.

X
COMPUTING A BRIDE

XI
THE LAST YEARS

1.
Tabulae
Rudolphinae
.
2.
The
Tension
Snaps
.
3.
Wallenstein
.
4.
Lunar
Nightmare
.
5.
The
End
.

PART
FIVE THE PARTING OF THE WAYS

I
THE BURDEN OF PROOF

1.
Galileo's
Triumph
.
2.
The
Sunspots
.
3.
The
Shifting
of
the
Burden
.
4.
The
Denunciation
.
5.
The
Refusal
to
Compromise
.
6.
The
"Secret
Weapon"
.
7.
The
Decree
of
the
Holy
Office
.
8.
The
Injunction
.

II
THE TRIAL OF GALILEO

1.
The
Tides
.
2.
The
Comets
.
3.
Dangerous
Adulation
.
4.
The
Dialogue
.
5.
The
Imprimatur
.
6.
The
Trial
.

III
THE NEWTONIAN SYNTHESIS

1.
'Tis
all
in
Pieces
.
2.
What
is
"Weight"?
3.
The
Magnetic
Confusion
.
4.
Enter
Gravity
.
5.
The
Final
Synthesis
.

Chronological
Table to Parts Four and Five

EPILOGUE

1.
The
Pitfalls
of
Mental
Evolution
.
2.
Separations
and
Reintegrations
.
3.
Some
Patterns
of
Discovery
.
4.
Mystic
and
Savant
.
5.
The
Fatal
Estrangement
.
6.
The
Vanishing
Act
.
7.
The
Conservatism
of
Modern
Science
.
8.
From
Hierarchy
to
Continuum
.
9.
The
Ultimate
Decision
.

Notes

Selected
Bibliography

Index

INTRODUCTION

No
field
of
thought
can
be
properly
laid
out
by
men
who
are
merely
measuring
with
a
ruler.
Sections
of
history
are
liable
to
be
transformed

or,
even
where
not
transformed,
greatly
vivified

by
an
imagination
that
comes,
sweeping
like
a
searchlight,
from
outside
the
historical
profession
itself.
Old
hunches
are
then
confirmed
by
fresh
applications
of
the
evidence
or
by
unexpected
correlations
between
sources.
New
matter
emerges
because
things
are
joined
together
which
it
had
not
occurred
to
one
to
see
in
juxtaposition.
New
details
are
elicited,
difficult
details
become
relevant,
because
of
a
fresh
turn
that
the
argument
has
taken.

We
are
constantly
finding
that
we
have
been
reading
too
much
modernity
into
a
man
like
Copernicus,
or
have
merely
been
selecting
from
Kepler
(and
plucking
out
of
their
context)
certain
things
which
have
a
modern
ring;
or,
in
a
similar
manner,
we
have
been
anachronistic
in
our
treatment
of
the
mind
and
life
of
Galileo.
The
present
author
carries
this
particular
process
further,
picks
up
many
loose
ends,
and
gives
the
whole
subject
a
number
of
unexpected
ramifications.
Looking
not
only
at
the
scientific
achievements
but
at
the
working-methods
behind
them,
and
at
a
good
deal
of
private
correspondence,
he
has
illuminated
great
thinkers,
putting
them
back
into
their
age,
and
yet
not
making
them
meaningless

not
leaving
us
with
anomalies
and
odds-and-ends
of
antiquated
thought,
but
tracing
the
unity,
recovering
the
texture
and
showing
us
the
plausibility
and
the
self-consistency
of
the
underlying
mind.

It
is
particularly
useful
for
English
readers
that
Mr.
Koestler
has
concentrated
on
some
of
the
aspects
of
the
story
that
have
been
neglected,
and
has
paid
great
attention
to
Kepler,
who
most
required
exposition
and
most
called
for
historical
imagination.
History
is
not
to
be
judged
by
negatives;
and
those
of
us
who
differ
from
Mr.
Koestler
in
respect
of
some
of
the
outer
frame-work
of
his
ideas
or
who
do
not
follow
him
in
certain
details,
can
hardly
fail
to
catch
the
light
which
not
only
modifies
and
enlivens
the
picture
but
brings
out
new
facts,
or
makes
dead
ones
dance
before
our
eyes.

It
will
be
surprising
if
even
those
who
are
familiar
with
this
subject
do
not
often
feel
that
here
is
a
shower
of
rain
where
every
drop
has
caught
a
gleam.

HERBERT
BUTTERFIELD

PREFACE

IN
the
index
to
the
six
hundred
odd
pages
of
Arnold
Toynbee's
A
Study
of
History
,
abridged
version,
the
names
of
Copernicus,
Galileo,
Descartes
and
Newton
do
not
occur.
1
This
one
example
among
many
should
be
sufficient
to
indicate
the
gulf
that
still
separates
the
Humanities
from
the
Philosophy
of
Nature.
I
use
this
outmoded
expression
because
the
term
"Science",
which
has
come
to
replace
it
in
more
recent
times,
does
not
carry
the
same
rich
and
universal
associations
which
"Natural
Philosophy"
carried
in
the
seventeenth
century,
in
the
days
when
Kepler
wrote
his
Harmony
of
the
World
and
Galileo
his
Message
from
the
Stars
.
Those
men
who
created
the
upheaval
which
we
now
call
the
"Scientific
Revolution"
called
it
by
a
quite
different
name:
the
"New
Philosophy".
The
revolution
in
technology
which
their
discoveries
triggered
off
was
an
unexpected
by-product;
their
aim
was
not
the
conquest
of
Nature,
but
the
understanding
of
Nature.
Yet
their
cosmic
quest
destroyed
the
mediaeval
vision
of
an
immutable
social
order
in
a
walled-in
universe
together
with
its
fixed
hierarchy
of
moral
values,
and
transformed
the
European
landscape,
society,
culture,
habits
and
general
outlook,
as
thoroughly
as
if
a
new
species
had
arisen
on
this
planet.

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