The Sleepwalkers (49 page)

This
blindness
to
the
fact
that
moving
bodies
tend
to
persist
in
their
movement
unless
stopped
or
deflected,
prevented
the
emergence
of
a
true
science
of
physics
until
Galileo.
⁷
The
necessity
for
every
moving
body
to
be
constantly
accompanied
and
pushed
along
by
a
mover,
created
"a
universe
in
which
unseen
hands
had
to
be
in
constant
operation".
⁸
In
the
sky,
a
host
of
fifty-five
angels
were
needed
to
keep
the
planetary
spheres
moving
around;
on
earth,
each
stone
rolling
down
a
slope,
and
each
drop
of
rain
falling
from
the
sky,
needed
a
quasi-sentient
purpose
functioning
as
its
"mover",
to
get
from
"potency"
to
"act".

There
was
also
a
distinction
between
"natural"
and
"violent"
motion.
Heavenly
bodies
moved
in
perfect
circles,
because
of
their
perfect
nature;
the
natural
motion
of
the
four
elements
on
earth
was
along
straight
lines
–
earth
and
fire
along
vertical,
water
and
air
along
horizontal
lines.
Violent
motion
was
everything
that
departed
from
the
natural.
Both
types
of
motion
needed
movers,
spiritual
or
material;
but
the
heavenly
bodies
were
incapable
of
violent
motion;
hence
objects
in
the
sky,
such
as
comets,
whose
motion
was
not
circular,
had
to
be
placed
in
the
sub-lunary
sphere
–
a
dogma
to
which
even
Galileo
conformed.

How
is
it
to
be
explained
that
a
view
of
the
physical
world,
so
fantastic
to
the
modern
mind,
could
survive
even
the
invention
of
gunpowder,
into
an
age
when
bullets
and
cannon-balls
were
flying
about
in
obvious
defiance
of
the
prevailing
laws
of
physics?
Part
of
the
answer
is
contained
in
the
question:
the
small
child,
whose
world
is
still
closer
to
the
primitive
than
to
the
modern
mind,
is
an
unrepentant
Aristotelian
by
investing
dead
objects
with
a
will,
a
purpose,
an
animal
spirit
of
their
own;
and
we
all
revert
to
Aristotle
in
moments
when
we
curse
an
obstinate
gadget
or
a
temperamental
motor
car.
Aristotle
regressed
from
the
abstract-mathematical
treatment
of
physical
objects
to
the
animistic
view,
which
evokes
so
much
deeper,
primordial
responses
in
the
mind.
But
the
days
of
primitive
magic
were
then
past;
Aristotle's
is
a
highbrow
version
of
animism,
with
quasiscientific
concepts
like
"embryonic
potentialities"
and
"degrees
of
perfection"
imported
from
biology,
with
a
highly
sophisticated
terminology
and
an
impressive
logic-chopping
apparatus.
Aristotelian
physics
is
really
a
pseudo-science,
out
of
which
not
a
single
discovery,
invention
or
new
insight
has
come
in
two
thousand
years;
nor
could
it
ever
come
–
and
that
was
its
second
profound
attraction.
It
was
a
static
system,
describing
a
static
world,
in
which
the
natural
state
of
things
was
to
be
at
rest,
or
to
come
to
rest
at
the
place
where
by
nature
they
belonged,
unless
pushed
or
dragged;
and
this
scheme
of
things
was
the
ideal
furnishing
for
the
walled-in
universe,
with
its
immutably
fixed
Scale
of
Being.

So
much
so,
that
Aquinas'
celebrated
First
Proof
of
the
existence
of
God
was
entirely
based
on
Aristotelian
physics.
Everything
that
moves
needs
something
else
that
moves
it;
but
this
regress
cannot
go
on
to
infinity;
there
must
be
a
limit
to
it,
an
agency
which
moves
other
things
without
itself
being
moved;
this
unmoved
mover
is
God.
In
the
following
century,
William
of
Ockham
(1300-49),
the
greatest
of
the
Franciscan
schoolmen,
made
mincemeat
of
the
tenets
of
Aristotelian
physics
on
which
Aquinas'
First
Proof
rested.
But
by
that
time
scholastic
theology
had
completely
fallen
under
the
spell
of
Aristotelianism
–
and
particularly
of
the
most
sterile,
pedantic,
and
at
the
same
time
ambiguous
elements
in
Aristotle's
logical
apparatus.
Another
century
later
Erasmus
cried
out:

"They
will
smother
me
beneath
six
hundred
dogmas;
they
will
call
me
heretic
and
they
are
nevertheless
Folly's
servants.
They
are
surrounded
with
a
bodyguard
of
definitions,
conclusions,
corollaries,
propositions
explicit
and
propositions
implicit.
Those
more
fully
initiated
explain
further
whether
God
can
become
the
substance
of
a
woman,
of
an
ass,
of
a
pumpkin,
and
whether,
if
so,
a
pumpkin
could
work
miracles,
or
be
crucified...
They
are
looking
in
utter
darkness
for
that
which
has
no
existence
whatever."
⁹