Wonders and the order of nature, 1150-1750

Winner of the History of Science Society's Pfizer Prize"This book is about setting the limits of the natural and the limits of the known, wonders and wonder, from the High Middle Ages through the Enlightenment. A history of wonders as objects of natural inquiry is simultaneously an intellectual history of the orders of nature. A history of wonder as a passion of natural inquiry is simultaneously a history of the evolving collective sensibility of naturalists. Pursued in tandem, these interwoven histories show how the two sides of knowledge, objective order and subjective sensibility, were obverse and reverse of the same coin rather than opposed to one another."-- From the IntroductionWonders and the Order of Nature is about the ways in which European naturalists from the High Middle Ages through the Enlightenment used wonder and wonders, the passion and its objects, to envision themselves and the natural world. Monsters, gems that shone in the dark, petrifying springs, celestial apparitions--these were the marvels that adorned romances, puzzled philosophers, lured collectors, and frightened the devout. Drawing on the histories of art, science, philosophy, and literature, Lorraine Daston and Katharine Park explore and explain how wonder and wonders fortified princely power, rewove the texture of scientific experience, and shaped the sensibility of intellectuals. This is a history of the passions of inquiry, of how wonder sometimes inflamed, sometimes dampened curiosity about nature's best-kept secrets. Refracted through the prism of wonders, the order of nature splinters into a spectrum of orders, a tour of possible worlds. Front Cover......Page 1 Front Flap......Page 2 Half-Title......Page 5 Title Page......Page 7 Copyright......Page 8 Dedication......Page 9 Contents......Page 11 Preface......Page 13 Introduction: At the Limit......Page 17 I. The Topography of Wonder......Page 25 Marvels on the Margins......Page 29 Wonders of Creation......Page 43 Prodigious Individuals and Marvelous Kinds......Page 52 Wonder and Belief......Page 64 II. The Properties of Things......Page 71 Collecting Wonders......Page 72 Artificial Marvels......Page 92 Wonders at Court......Page 104 III. Wonder Among the Philosophers......Page 113 The Philosophers Against Wonder......Page 114 Curiosity and the Preternatural......Page 124 Making Wonders Cease......Page 130 IV. Marvelous Particulars......Page 139 Marvelous Therapeutics......Page 141 Preternatural History......Page 150 Preternatural Philosophy......Page 163 V. Monsters: A Case Study......Page 177 Horror: Monsters as Prodigies......Page 181 Pleasure: Monsters as Sports......Page 194 Repugnance: Monsters as Errors......Page 205 VI. Strange Facts......Page 219 Baconian Reforms......Page 224 Strange Facts in Learned Societies......Page 235 The Sociability of Strange Facts......Page 244 The Credibility of Strange Facts......Page 250 VII. Wonders of Art, Wonders of Nature......Page 259 Art and Nature Opposed......Page 265 The Wonders of Art and Nature Displayed......Page 269 The Wonders of Art and Nature Conjoined......Page 280 Nature as Artist, Nature as Art......Page 294 VIII. The Passions of Inquiry......Page 307 Ravening Curiosity......Page 309 Wonder and Curiosity Allied......Page 315 Gawking Wonder......Page 320 IX. The Enlihtenment and the Anti-Marvelous......Page 333 The Unholy Trinity: Enthusiasm, Superstition, Imagination......Page 338 Vulgarity and the Love of the Marvelous......Page 347 Nature's Decorum......Page 354 The Wistful Counter-Enlightenment......Page 364 Epilogue......Page 369 Photo Credits......Page 373 Introduction......Page 377 I. The Topography of Wonder......Page 378 II. The Properties of Things......Page 387 III. Wonder among the Philosophers......Page 396 IV. Marvelous Partiiculars......Page 403 V. Monsters: A Case Study......Page 412 VI. Strange Facts......Page 421 VII. Wonders of Art, Wonders of Nature......Page 429 VIII. The Passions of Inquiry......Page 437 IX. The Enlightenment and the Anti-Marvelous......Page 443 Captions......Page 451 Bibliography......Page 455 A......Page 503 B......Page 504 C......Page 505 E......Page 506 G......Page 507 I......Page 508 L......Page 509 M......Page 510 O......Page 511 R......Page 512 S......Page 513 W......Page 514 Z......Page 515 Colophon......Page 516 Back Flap......Page 519 Back Cover......Page 520 Historians of science Daston (Harvard) and Park's (Max Planck Inst.) sweeping investigation into the place of wonder and wonders in natural philosophy and history--from the High Middle Ages to the Enlightenment--is dense with erudition and pleasingly light on its scholarly feet. The era covered here starts with the gathering abundance of travel narratives and bestiaries and lapidaries, and goes through the ontological gerrymanderings of Bacon, Newton, and Descartes. It was during the 12th century, Daston and Park make abundantly clear, when early travel narratives and encyclopedias spread the word of strange and wondrous things to be found in the outlands, that unfamiliar objects and counterintuitive phenomena--visceral and vertiginous--began to hover at the edge of scientific inquiry, defining borders, goading further study. And for the next six centuries, except for a few moments of ridicule and rejection, wonders were embraced by natural philosophers and historians as sources of pleasure and delight, as wellsprings for curiosity; treasured by royalty and the court as unmediated contacts with another world, possession of which meant one was noble and cultivated, as rare and marvelous as the objects themselves. The authors situate wonders in the circular mental map of medieval geography, which had the wildest of the wilds at the margins and the Mediterranean at the center. They also detail the contexts that set the tone for the reception wonders had from the powers that were--the court, the Christian religious orders, the universities. That reception modulated between adulation and disdain as first rational explanation and then the search for universals, regularity, and causal knowledge took hold in a world that now took its cues from the secular and the empirical. An informed and original look at the role of wonder during a time when there was a whole lot to wonder about. Wonders and the Order of Nature is about the ways in which European naturalists from the High Middle Ages through the Enlightenment used wonder and wonders, the passion and its objects, to envision themselves and the natural world. Monsters, gems that shone in the dark, petrifying springs, celestial apparitions -- these were the marvels that adorned romances, puzzled philosophers, lured collectors, and frightened the devout. Drawing on the histories of art, science, philosophy, and literature, Lorraine Daston and Katharine Park explore and explain how wonder and wonders fortified princely power, rewove the texture of scientific experience, and shaped the sensibility of intellectuals. Discusses How European Scientists From The High Middle Ages Through The Enlightenment Used Wonders, Monsters, Curiosities, Marvels, And Other Phenomena To Envision The Natural World. The Topography Of Wonder -- The Properties Of Things -- Wonder Among The Philosophers -- Marvelous Particulars -- Monsters: A Case Study -- Strange Facts -- Wonders Of Art, Wonders Of Nature -- The Passions Of Inquiry -- The Enlightenment And The Anti-marvelous. Lorraine Daston, Katharine Park. Includes Bibliographical References (p. 451-497) And Index. Preface Introduction: At the Limit The Topography of Wonder The Properties of Things Wonder Among the Philosophers Marvelous Particulars Monsters: A Case Study Strange Facts Wonders of Art, Wonders of Nature The Passions of Inquiry The Enlightenment and the Anti-Marvelous Epilogue Photo Credits Notes Bibliography Index This book began some twenty years ago when we were enrolled in a graduate seminar on seventeenth-century metaphysics.