Abstract
Hooke did not write a treatise on the origins of the physical qualities of bodies; rather he contributed theories and hypotheses to what we consider today as different, sometimes distant, disciplines. In these contributions, however, his ideas on the fundamental constitution of matter emerged. Although far from being systematic and consistent, these ideas nonetheless led to a theory of matter that sometimes played the role of premise to his experimental and speculative work, but was often reshaped by new evidence which emerged from his manifold researches. Matter theory, in short, was part of Hooke’s wider image of nature.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Chapman (2005), 44.
- 2.
- 3.
- 4.
- 5.
- 6.
- 7.
- 8.
- 9.
Ward (1654), 2.
- 10.
Clericuzio (1993), 318.
- 11.
Willis (1659), 3–4, 13–4.
- 12.
Henry (2013), 116–35.
- 13.
For a different opinion see Rees (1977), 29.
- 14.
Rees (1980), 553.
- 15.
- 16.
- 17.
- 18.
Giglioni (2011), 65, 73.
- 19.
Hooke (1678), 1, 6.
- 20.
- 21.
Birch (1756–57), vol. I, 384; vol. II, 58–61; vol. III: 109.
- 22.
- 23.
Boyle (1999), vol. I, 350–3.
- 24.
Hooke (1665), 14, 32, 99–100.
- 25.
Id. (1661), 7–8, 25–6.
- 26.
cf. Fracastoro (1584), 58–65.
- 27.
- 28.
- 29.
Gassendi (1658), vol. I, 450.
- 30.
- 31.
Hooke (1661), 9–10.
- 32.
Hooke (1665), 12–3, 15–6.
- 33.
Boyle (1999), vol. III, 42.
- 34.
Clericuzio (1998), 70, 75.
- 35.
Boyle (1999), vol. III, 83–6.
- 36.
Huygens (1888–1950), vol. IV, 172.
- 37.
Boyle (2001), vol. II, 26–7.
- 38.
Id. (1999), vol. III, 44–5, 61.
- 39.
Id. (2001), vol. II, 30.
- 40.
- 41.
- 42.
Boyle (1999), vol. III, 44, 89.
- 43.
Drabkin (1950), 162–3.
- 44.
- 45.
Boyle (1999), vol. III, 92–3.
- 46.
- 47.
- 48.
Hooke (1665), 114.
- 49.
- 50.
- 51.
Royal Society MS/847, f. 397; British Library Sloane MS 1039, f. 114r; cf. Hooke (1726), 209.
- 52.
Birch (1756–57), vol. II, 284; vol. III, 509; Royal Society MS/847, f. 667.
- 53.
Royal Society Classified Papers, vol. XX, f. 169v; British Library Sloane MS 1039, f. 114r; cf. Birch (1756–57), vol. IV, 6; Journal Book of the Royal Society, vol. VIII, 262–68.
- 54.
Birch (1756–57), vol. I, 18, 25.
- 55.
Cushing/Whitney Medical Library, Yale University Towneley MS, ff. 1–2; cf. Webster (1976), 445.
- 56.
Webster (1966), 75–6; Henry (1982), 211–2.
- 57.
Cushing/Whitney Medical Library, Yale University Towneley MS, ff. 1, 2, 4, 5, 13.
- 58.
- 59.
- 60.
Hooke (1665), 86–8, 90–1, 124–5.
- 61.
Royal Society Classified Papers, vol. XX, f. 183v.
- 62.
Hooke (1665), 93, 204.
- 63.
Huygens (1888–1950), vol. IV, 171–2, 432.
- 64.
Ibid., vol. VII, 204.
- 65.
Birch (1756–57), vol. I, 310.
- 66.
Shapin and Schaffer (1985), 250–5.
- 67.
- 68.
Hooke (1705), 365.
- 69.
Birch (1756–7), vol. III, 58–61.
- 70.
Wallis (1673), 5161–2.
- 71.
Hooke (1705), 366–7.
- 72.
Id. (1665), 16, 31–2.
- 73.
Id. (1705), 366–7.
- 74.
Id. (1661), 26–7; Id. (1665), 21, 31, 96–7.
- 75.
Birch (1756–57), vol. III, 371; vol. IV, 83.
- 76.
Hobbes (1682), 35–6, 40–1; cf. Bibliotheca Hookiana, 48 n.191.
- 77.
Hooke (1661), 20–1.
- 78.
Cushing/Whitney Medical Library, Yale University Towneley MS, f. 5.
- 79.
Birch (1756–57), vol. III, 109, 156.
- 80.
Register Book of the Royal Society, vol. IV, f. 246.
- 81.
Kargon (1965), 64–5.
- 82.
Register Book of the Royal Society, vol. IV, ff. 247–67.
- 83.
McCormick (2009), 217.
- 84.
Mayow (1674), 87–9.
- 85.
Birch (1756–57), vol. III, 179.
- 86.
Hooke (1676), 29–31.
- 87.
Birch (1756–57), vol. III, 429–30.
- 88.
Hooke (1678), 1, 4–5, 13–4.
- 89.
- 90.
- 91.
- 92.
Hooke (1678), 349.
- 93.
- 94.
Hooke (1678), 355.
- 95.
Id. (1677), 34.
- 96.
Birch (1756–57), vol. II, 328, 333.
- 97.
Hooke (1677), 32–3.
- 98.
Id. (1678), 338.
- 99.
Koyré (1968), 223 n.2.
- 100.
Hooke (1678), 341–4.
- 101.
Gassendi (1658), vol. I, 258.
- 102.
- 103.
Huygens (1888–1950), vol. XXI, 473.
- 104.
Clericuzio (1997), 228.
- 105.
Boyle (1999), vol. II, 151,165, 230; vol. V, 305, 316.
- 106.
- 107.
Id. (1678), 341–4.
- 108.
Id. (1705), 172–3.
- 109.
Id. (1678), 339–42.
- 110.
Id. (1705), 172–3.
References
Aït-Touati, Frédérique. 2011. Fictions of the cosmos: Science and literature in the seventeenth century. Chicago/London: Chicago University Press.
———. 2012. “Give me a telescope and I shall move the earth”: Hooke’s attempt to prove the motion of the earth from observations. History of Science 50: 75–91.
Bacon, Francis. 1857–74. Works, 7 vols., ed. Robert L. Ellis, James Spedding, Douglas D. Heath. London: Longman.
———. 2004. The Instauratio magna. In Part II: Novum organum, ed. Graham Rees with Maria Wakely. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Bertoloni Meli, Domenico. 2006. Thinking with objects: The transformation of mechanics in the seventeenth century. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Birch, Thomas. 1756–57. The history of the Royal Society of London, 4 vols. London.
Boas, Marie. 1952. The establishment of the mechanical philosophy. Osiris 10: 412–541.
Boas Hall, Marie. 1991. Promoting experimental learning: Experiment and the Royal Society 1660–1727. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Boyle, Robert. 1999. The works of Robert Boyle, 14 vols., ed. Michael Hunter and Edward Davies. London: Pickering and Chatto.
———. 2001. The correspondence of Robert Boyle, 6 vols., ed. Michael Hunter, Antonio Clericuzio and Laurence Principe. London: Pickering and Chatto.
Centore, Floyd. 1970. Robert Hooke’s contributions to mechanics. The Hague: Martinuus Nijhoff.
Chapman, Alan. 2005. England’s Leonardo: Robert Hooke and the seventeenth-century scientific revolution. Bristol/Philadelphia: Institute of Physics Publishing.
Clarke, Desmond. 1989. Occult powers and hypotheses: Cartesian natural philosophy under Louis XIV. Oxford: Clarendon.
Clericuzio, Antonio. 1993. From Van Helmont to Boyle. The British Journal for the History of Science 26: 303–334.
———. 1997. L’atomisme de Gassendi et la philosophie corpuscolaire de Boyle. In Gassendi et l’Europe, ed. Sylvia Murr, 226–235. Paris: Vrin.
———. 1998. The mechanical philosophy and the spring of air: New light on Robert Boyle and Robert Hooke. Nuncius 13: 69–74.
———. 2000. Elements, principles and corpuscles: A study of atomism and chemistry in the seventeenth century. Dordrecht: Kluwer.
———. 2010. “Sooty empiricks” and natural philosophers: The status of chemistry in the seventeenth century. Science in Context 23: 329–350.
Clucas, Stephen. 1997. The infinite variety of forms and magnitudes: 16th and 17th-century English corpuscular philosophy and Aristotelian theories of matter and form. Early Science and Medicine 11: 251–271.
Dee, John. 1570. Mathematicall preface. In The elements of geometrie of the most ancient philosopher Euclide of Megara, Trans. Henry Billingsley. London.
Descartes, René. 1964–74. Oeuvres, 12 vol., ed. Charles Adam and Paul Tannery. Paris: Vrin.
———. 1983. Principles of philosophy, Trans. Valentine Rodger Miller and Rees P. Miller. Dordrecht: Reidel.
Drabkin, Israel. 1950. Aristotle’s wheel: Notes on the history of a paradox. Osiris 9: 162–198.
Ehrlich, Mark. 1992. Interpreting the scientific revolution: Robert Hooke on mechanism and activity. PhD dissertation ., University of Wisconsin. University Microfilms Internationals, Ann Arbor, MI.
———. 1995. Mechanism and activity in the scientific revolution: The case of Robert Hooke. Annals of Science 52: 127–151.
Emerton, Norma. 1984. The scientific reinterpretation of form. Ithaca/London: Cornell University Press.
Fracastoro, Girolamo. 1584. Opera omnia. Venice.
Gabbey, Alan. 1993. Between ars and philosophia naturalis: Reflections on the historiography of early modern mechanics. In Renaissance and revolution: Humanists, scholars, craftsmen and natural philosophers in early modern Europe, ed. J.V. Field and Frank A. James, 133–145. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Gal, Ofer. 2002. Meanest foundations and nobler superstructures: Hooke, Newton and the “compounding of the celestial motions of the planetts”. Dordrecht: Kluwer.
Gal, Ofer, and Raz Chen-Morris. 2012. Nature’s drawing: Problems and resolutions in the mathematization of motion. Synthese 185: 429–466.
Galilei, Galileo. 1890–1909. Opere, 20 vols., ed. Antonio Favaro.Florence: Barbera.
———. 1974. Two new sciences, including Centres of gravity and Force of percussion, Trans. Stillman Drake. Madison/London: University of Wisconsin Press.
Gassendi, Pierre. 1658. Opera omnia, 6 vols. Leiden.
Gemelli, Benedino. 1996. Aspetti dell’atomismo classico nella filosofia di Francis Bacon e nel Seicento. Florence: Olschki.
Giglioni, Guido. 2011. Francesco Bacone. Rome: Carocci.
———. 2013a. Francis Bacon. In The Oxford handbook of British philosophy in the seventeenth century, ed. Peter Anstey, 41–72. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
———. 2013b. How Bacon became Baconian. In The mechanization of natural philosophy, ed. Daniel Garber and Sophie Roux, 27–54. Dordrecht: Springer.
Giudice, Franco. 2006. Newton e la tradizione dei principi attivi nella filosofia naturale inglese del XVII secolo. In Scienza e teologia fra Seicento e Ottocento, ed. Chiara Giuntini and Brunello Lotti, 39–55. Florence: Olschki.
Gouk, Penelope. 1980. The role of acoustic and music theory in the scientific work of Robert Hooke. Annals of Science 37: 573–605.
———. 1999. Music, science and natural magic in seventeenth-century England. New Haven/London: Yale University Press.
Henry, John. 1982. Atomism and eschatology: Catholicism and natural philosophy in the interregnum. British Journal for the History of Science 15: 211–239.
———. 1986. Occult qualities and the experimental philosophy: Active principles in pre-Newtonian matter theory. History of Science 24: 335–381.
———. 1989. Robert Hooke, the incongruous mechanist. In Robert Hooke: New studies, ed. Michael Hunter and Simon Schaffer, 149–180. Woodbridge: Boydell Press.
———. 2013. The reception of Cartesianism. In The Oxford handbook of British philosophy in the seventeenth century, ed. Peter Anstey, 116–143. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hesse, Mary. 1966. Hooke’s vibration theory and the isochrony of springs. Isis 57: 433–441.
Hobbes, Thomas. 1682. Seven philosophical problems and two propositions of geometry. London.
Hooke, Robert. 1661. An attempt for the explication of the phaenomena. London.
———. 1665. Micrographia. London.
———. 1676. A description of helioscopes. London.
———. 1677. Lampas. London.
———. 1678. Lectures de potentia restitutiva. London.
———. 1705. Posthumous works, ed. Richard Waller. London.
———. 1726. Philosophical experiments and observations. ed. William Derham. London.
———. 1935. In The diary of Robert Hooke 1672–1680, ed. Henry W. Robinson and Walter Adams. London: Taylor and Francis.
Huygens, Christiaan. 1888–1950. Oeuvres completes, 22 vols., ed. Société hollandaise des sciences, The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff.
Kargon, Robert. 1965. William Petty’s mechanical philosophy. Isis 56: 63–66.
Kassler, Jamie, and David Oldroyd. 1983. Robert Hooke’s Trinity College ‘Music Script’, his music theory and the role of music in his cosmology. Annals of Science 40: 559–595.
Koyré, Alexandre. 1968. Newtonian studies. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Lolordo, Antonia. 2007. Pierre Gassendi and the birth of early modern philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Lynch, Michael. 2005. A society of Baconians? The collective development of Bacon’s method in the Royal Society of London. In Francis Bacon and the refiguring of early modern thought: Essays to commemorate the advancement of learning (1605–2005), ed. Julie Robin Salomon and Chaterine Gimelli Martin, 173–202. Aldershot: Ashgate.
Machamer, Peter, J.E. McGuire, and Hylarie Kochiras. 2012. Newton and the mechanical philosophy: Gravitation as the balance of the heavens. The Southern Journal of Philosophy 50: 370–388.
Malet, Antoni. 1996. From indivisibles to infinitesimals: Studies on seventeenth-century mathematization of infinitely small quantities. Bellaterra: Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona Servei de Publicacions.
Manzo, Silvia. 2006. Entre el atomismo y la alquimia: la teoria de la materia de Francis Bacon. Buenos Aires: Editorial Biblos.
Massignat, Corinne. 2000. Gassendi et l’élasticité de l’air: une etape entre Pascal et la loi de Boyle-Mariotte. Revue d’histoire des sciences 53: 179–204.
Mayow, John. 1674. Tractatus quinque medico-physici. Oxford.
McCormick, Ted. 2009. William Petty and the ambitions of political arithmetic. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
McLauglhlin, Peter. 2006. Mechanical philosophy and artefact explanation. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 37: 97–101.
Mormino, Gianfranco. 1993. Penetralia motus: la fondazione relativistica della meccanica in Christiaan Huygens. Florence: La Nuova Italia.
———. 1994. Atomismo e meccanicismo nel pensiero di Christiaan Huygens. Rivista di Storia della Filosofia 4: 829–863.
Moyer, Albert. 1977. Robert Hooke’s ambiguous presentation of Hooke’s Law. Isis 68: 266–275.
Newman, William. 2006. Atoms and alchemy: Chemistry and the experimental origins of the scientific revolution. Chicago/ London: University of Chicago Press.
Newman, William, and Lawrence Principe. 1998. Alchemy vs chemistry: The ethymological origins of a historiographical mistake. Early Science and Medicine 3: 32–65.
Palmerino, Carla Rita. 2000. Una nuova scienza della materia per la Scienza Nova del moto. La discussione dei paradossi dell’infinito nella prima giornata dei Discorsi galileiani. In Atomismo e continuo nel XVII secolo, ed. Egidio Festa and Romano Gatto, 275–319. Naples: Vivarium.
———. 2001. Galileo’s and Gassendi’s solutions to the Rota Aristotelis paradox: A bridge between matter and motion theories. In Late medieval and early modern corpuscular theories of matter, ed. Christoph Lüthy, John Murdoch, and William Newman, 381–422. Leiden: Brill.
Power, Henry. 1664. Experimental philosophy. London.
Pumfrey, Stephen. 1987. Mechanizing magnetism in restoration England: The decline of magnetic philosophy. Annals of Science 44: 1–22.
Pyle, Andrew. 1995. Atomism and its critics: Problem areas associated with the development of atomic theory of matter from Democritus to Newton. Bristol: Thoemmes.
Recorde, Robert. 1551. The pathway to knowledge. London.
Rees, Graham. 1977. The fate of Bacon’s cosmology in the seventeenth century. Ambix 24: 27–38.
———. 1980. Atomism and ‘subtelty’ in Francis Bacon’s natural philosophy. Annals of Science 37: 549–571.
Rogers, Graham Allen. 1997. Charleton, Gassendi et la réception de l’atomisme épicurien en Angleterre. In Gassendi et l’Europe, ed. Sylvia Murr, 213–225. Paris: Vrin.
Sacco, Francesco G. 2019. Bacon and the virtuosi: Experimental contingency and mechanical laws in the early Royal Society. In Contingency and natural order in early modern science, ed. Pietro Daniel Omodeo and Rodolfo Garau, 219–237 Chem: Springer.
Savile, Henry. 1621. Praelectiones tresdecim in principium elementorum Euclidis. Oxford.
Schaffer, Simon. 1987. Godly men and mechanical philosophers: Souls and spirits in restoration natural philosophy. Science in Context 1: 55–85.
Shapin, Steven, and Simon Schaffer. 1985. Leviathan and the air pump: Hobbes, Boyle, and the experimental life. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Truesdell, Clifford. 1960. The rational mechanics of flexible or elastic bodies 1638–1788. Zurich.
Wallis, John. 1673. An extract of letters … concerning the suspension of quicksilver well purged of air. Philosophical Transactions 7: 5160–5170.
Ward, Seth. 1654. Vindiciae academiarum. Oxford.
Wardhaugh, Benjamin. 2008. Formal causes and mechanical causes: The analogy of the musical instrument in late seventeenth-century natural philosophy. In Philosophies of technology: Francis Bacon and his contemporaries, ed. Claus Zittel, Gisela Engel, Romano Nanni, and Nicole Karafyllis, vol. II, 411–428. Leiden: Brill.
Webster, Charles. 1976. Richard Towneley (1629–1707). In Dictionary of scientific biography, ed. Charles Gillispie, vol. XIII, 444–445. New York: Scribner.
Westfall, Richard. 1971. Force in Newton’s physics: The science of dynamics in the seventeenth century. New York: American Elsevier.
Williams, E. 1956. Hooke’s law and the concept of elastic limit. Annals of Science 12: 74–83.
Willis, Thomas. 1659. Diatribae duae medico-philosophicae. The Hague.
Wren, Stephen. 1750. Parentalia or memories of the family of the Wrens. London.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2020 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Sacco, F.G. (2020). A Larger Scheme. In: Real, Mechanical, Experimental. International Archives of the History of Ideas Archives internationales d'histoire des idées, vol 231. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44451-8_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44451-8_4
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-44450-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-44451-8
eBook Packages: HistoryHistory (R0)