Читать книгу On the Philosophy of Discovery, Chapters Historical and Critical - William Whewell - Страница 10

I have noticed certain additions to Physical Science made by the Arabians; namely, in Astronomy45. The discovery of the motion of the Sun's Apogee by Albategnius, and the discovery of the Moon's Variation by Aboul-Wefa; and in Optics46 the assertion of Alhazen that the angle of refraction is not proportional to the angle of incidence, as Ptolemy had supposed: and certain steps in the philosophy of vision. We must also suppose, as the Arabic word alkali reminds us, that the Arabians contributed to lay the foundations of chemistry. The question which we have here to ask is, whether the Arabians made any steps beyond their predecessors in the philosophy of discovery. And to this question, I conceive the answer must be this: that among them as among the Greeks, those who practically observed nature, and especially those who made discoveries in Science, must have had a practical acquaintance with some of the maxims which are exemplified in the formation of Science. To discover that the Apogee of the Sun was 17 degrees distant from the point where Ptolemy had placed it, Albategnius made careful observations, and referred them to the theory of the eccentric, so as to verify or correct that theory. And when, in the eleventh century, Arzachel found the Apogee to be less advanced than Albategnius had found it, he proceeded again to correct the theory by introducing a new movement of the equinoctial points, which was called the Trepidation. It appeared afterwards, however, that, in doing this, he had had too much confidence in the observations of his predecessors, and that no such movement as the Trepidation really existed. In like manner to correct Ptolemy's law of refraction, Alhazen had recourse to experiment: but he did not put his experiments in the form of a Table, as Ptolemy had done. If he had done this, he might possibly have discovered the law of sines, which Snell afterwards discovered.

But though the Arabian philosophers thus, in some cases, observed facts, and referred those facts to general mathematical laws, it does not appear that they were led to put in any new or striking general form such maxims as this: That the progress of Science consists in the exact observation of facts and in colligating them by ideas. Those of them who were dissatisfied with the existing philosophy as barren and useless (for instance Algazel47), were led to point at the faults and contradictions of that philosophy, but did not attempt, so far as I know, to substitute for it anything better. If they rejected Aristotle's Organon, they did not attempt to construct a new Organon for themselves.

Indeed they do not appear even to have had sufficient confidence in the real truth of the astronomical theories which they had adopted from the Greeks, always to correct and extend those where their observations showed that they required correction and extension. Sometimes they did this, but not generally enough. When Arzachel found by observation the Apogee of the Sun to be situated too far back, he ventured to correct Ptolemy's statement of its motion. But when Aboul-Wefa had really discovered the Variation of the Moon's motion, he did not express it by means of an epicycle. If he had done so, he would have made it unnecessary for Tycho Brahe at a later period to make the same discovery.

The moral of this incident is the same moral which we have perpetually to note as taught us at every step by the history of Science:—namely, the necessity of constant, careful and exact observation of Facts; and the advantage of devising a Theory, (even if it have to be afterwards rejected,) by which the Facts shall be bound together into a coherent whole.