Agricola, Georgius, De re metallica, 1912/1950

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            <pb pagenum="xii"/>
            <p type="head">
              <s>AGRICOLA'S INTELLECTUAL ATTAINMENTS AND
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              POSITION IN SCIENCE.</s>
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            <p type="main">
              <s>Agricola's education was the most thorough that his times afforded in
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              the classics, philosophy, medicine, and sciences generally. </s>
              <s>Further, his writings
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              disclose a most exhaustive knowledge not only of an extraordinary range of
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              classical literature, but also of obscure manuscripts buried in the public libraries
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              of Europe. </s>
              <s>That his general learning was held to be of a high order is amply
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              evidenced from the correspondence of the other scholars of his time—Erasmus,
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              Melanchthon, Meurer, Fabricius, and others.</s>
            </p>
            <p type="main">
              <s>Our more immediate concern, however, is with the advances which were due
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              to him in the sciences of Geology, Mineralogy, and Mining Engineering. </s>
              <s>No
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              appreciation of these attainments can be conveyed to the reader unless he
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              has some understanding of the dearth of knowledge in these sciences prior
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              to Agricola's time. </s>
              <s>We have in Appendix B given a brief review of the
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              literature extant at this period on these subjects. </s>
              <s>Furthermore, no appreciation
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              of Agricola's contribution to science can be gained without a study of
                <emph type="italics"/>
              De
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              Ortu et Causís
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              and
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              De Natura Fossílíum,
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              for while
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              De Re Metallíca
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              is of much
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              more general interest, it contains but incidental reference to Geology and
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              Mineralogy. </s>
              <s>Apart from the book of Genesis, the only attempts at funda­
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              mental explanation of natural phenomena were those of the Greek Philosophers
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              and the Alchemists. </s>
              <s>Orthodox beliefs Agricola scarcely mentions; with the
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              Alchemists he had no patience. </s>
              <s>There can be no doubt, however, that his
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              views are greatly coloured by his deep classical learning. </s>
              <s>He was in fine to a
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              certain distance a follower of Aristotle, Theophrastus, Strato, and other leaders
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              of the Peripatetic school. </s>
              <s>For that matter, except for the muddy current
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              which the alchemists had introduced into this already troubled stream,
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              the whole thought of the learned world still flowed from the Greeks. </s>
              <s>Had he
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              not, however, radically departed from the teachings of the Peripatetic school,
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              his work would have been no contribution to the development of science.
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              </s>
              <s>Certain of their teachings he repudiated with great vigour, and his
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              laboured and detailed arguments in their refutation form the first battle in
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              science over the results of observation
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              versus
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              inductive speculation. </s>
              <s>To use
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              his own words: “Those things which we see with our eyes and understand
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              by means of our senses are more clearly to be demonstrated than if learned
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              by means of reasoning.”
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              15
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              The bigoted scholasticism of his times necessi­
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              tated as much care and detail in refutation of such deep-rooted beliefs, as would
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              be demanded to-day by an attempt at a refutation of the theory of evolution,
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              and in consequence his works are often but dry reading to any but those
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              interested in the development of fundamental scientific theory.</s>
            </p>
            <p type="main">
              <s>In giving an appreciation of Agricola's views here and throughout the
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              footnotes, we do not wish to convey to the reader that he was in all things
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              free from error and from the spirit of his times, or that his theories, constructed
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              long before the atomic theory, are of the clear-cut order which that
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              basic hypothesis has rendered possible to later scientific speculation in these
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              branches. </s>
              <s>His statements are sometimes much confused, but we reiterate that </s>
            </p>
          </chap>
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