xii.

AGRICOLA’S INTELLECTUAL ATTAINMENTS ANDPOSITION IN SCIENCE.

Agricola’s education was the most thorough that his times afforded inthe classics, philosophy, medicine, and sciences generally. Further, his writingsdisclose a most exhaustive knowledge not only of an extraordinary range ofclassical literature, but also of obscure manuscripts buried in the public librariesof Europe. That his general learning was held to be of a high order is amplyevidenced from the correspondence of the other scholars of his time—Erasmus,Melanchthon, Meurer, Fabricius, and others.

Our more immediate concern, however, is with the advances which were dueto him in the sciences of Geology, Mineralogy, and Mining Engineering. Noappreciation of these attainments can be conveyed to the reader unless hehas some understanding of the dearth of knowledge in these sciences priorto Agricola’s time. We have in Appendix B given a brief review of theliterature extant at this period on these subjects. Furthermore, no appreciationof Agricola’s contribution to science can be gained without a study of DeOrtu et Causis and De Natura Fossilium, for while De Re Metallica is of muchmore general interest, it contains but incidental reference to Geology andMineralogy. Apart from the book of Genesis, the only attempts at funda-mental explanation of natural phenomena were those of the Greek Philosophersand the Alchemists. Orthodox beliefs Agricola scarcely mentions; with theAlchemists he had no patience. There can be no doubt, however, that hisviews are greatly coloured by his deep classical learning. He was in fine to acertain distance a follower of Aristotle, Theophrastus, Strato, and other leadersof the Peripatetic school. For that matter, except for the muddy currentwhich the alchemists had introduced into this already troubled stream,the whole thought of the learned world still flowed from the Greeks. Had henot, however, radically departed from the teachings of the Peripatetic school,his work would have been no contribution to the development of science.Certain of their teachings he repudiated with great vigour, and hislaboured and detailed arguments in their refutation form the first battle inscience over the results of observation versus inductive speculation. To usehis own words : “ Those things which we see with our eyes and understand“ by means of our senses are more clearly to be demonstrated than if learned“ by means of reasoning .” 15 The bigoted scholasticism of his times necessi-tated as much care and detail in refutation of such deep-rooted beliefs, as wouldbe demanded to-day by an attempt at a refutation of the theory of evolution,and in consequence his works are often but dry reading to any but thoseinterested in the development of fundamental scientific theory.

In giving an appreciation of Agricola’s views here and throughout thefootnotes, we do not wish to convey to the reader that he was in all thingsfree from error and from the spirit of his times, or that his theories, constructedlong before the atomic theory, are of the clear-cut order which thatbasic hypothesis has rendered possible to later scientific speculation in thesebranches. His statements are sometimes much confused, but we reiterate that

15 De Ortu et Causis, Book III.