ART, SCIENCE,

andHISTORY1
RENAISSANCE
EDITED BY CHARLES S. SINGLETON

THE JOHNS HOPKINS PRESS BALTIMORE

 f there is any characteristic by which the Renaissance can
be recognised it is, I believe, in the changing conception of
M a n s relation to the Cosmos.1 T h a t is a quo tatio n from
a fairly recent book on Science and the Renaissance, the
w riter of which proceeds to in q u ire where we should look
for the origins of a change in the clim ate of opinion in
western E urope which could have produced this changed relatio n to the
cosmos. H e looks, naturally, first of all in the m ovem ent know n as R enais
sance N eo-Platonism , originating in the renew ed study of Plato and the
Platonists in the F lorentine circle of M arsilio Ficino, b u t he dismisses this
m ovem ent as useless for his search. T h ere is no evidence, he thinks, th at the
F lorentine academicians had any b u t an incidental interest in the problem
of knowledge of the external world or of the structure of the cosmos.2 Yet
the m ovem ent loosely known as Renaissance N eo-Platonism " is the move
m ent w hichcom ing in tim e between the M iddle Ages and the seventeenth
centuryought to be the originator of the changed clim ate of opinion, the
change in m a n s attitu d e to the cosmos, which was to be fraught with such
m om entous consequences. T h e difficulty has been, perhaps, that historians
of philosophy may have somewhat misled us as to the n atu re of that move
ment. W hen treated as straight philosophy, Renaissance N eo-Platonism
may dissolve into a rath e r vague eclecticism. B ut the new work done in
recent years on M arsilio Ficino and his sources has dem onstrated that the
core of the m ovem ent was H erm etic, involving a view of the cosmos as a
network of magical forces w ith which m an can operate. T h e Renaissance
magus had his roots in the H erm etic core of Renaissance N eo-Platonism , and
it is the Renaissance magus, I believe, who exemplifies th a t changed attitu d e
of m an to the cosmos which was the necessary prelim inary to the rise of
science.
T h e w ord H erm etic has m any connotations; it can be vaguely used
as a generic term for all kinds of occult practices, or it can be used more
particularly of alchemy, usually thought of as the H erm etic science par
excellence. T h is loose use of the word has tended to obscure its historical
meaningand it is in the historical sense alone that I use it. I am n o t an

1W. P. D. Wightman, Science and the Renaissance (Aberdeen, 1962), I. 16.

2 Ibid., p. 34.
 FRANCES A. YATES

occultist, nor an alchem ist, nor any kind of a sorceress. I am only a hum ble
historian whose favorite p u rsu it is reading. In the course of this reading
and reading, I came to be imm ensely struck by the phenom enonto which
scholars in Italy, in the U n ited States, and in my own environm ent in the
W arb u rg In stitu te had been draw ing attention, nam ely the diffusion of
H erm etic texts in the Renaissance.3
I m ust very briefly rem in d you th at the first work which Ficino trans
lated into L atin at the behest of Cosimo d e Medici was not a work of P latos
b u t the Corpus H erm eticu m , the collection of treatises going u n d er the
nam e of H erm es T rism egistus. A nd I m ust also rem ind you th at Ficino
and his contem poraries believed th at H erm es T rism egistus was a real
person, an Egyptian priest, almost contem porary with Moses, a G entile
pro p h et of C hristianity, and the sourceor one of the sources w ith other
prisci theologiot the stream of ancient wisdom which had eventually
reached Plato and the Platonists. It was mainly, I believe, in the H erm etic
texts that the Renaissance found its new, or new-old, conception of m a n s
relation to the cosmos. I illustrate this very briefly from two of the H erm etic
texts.
T h e P im ander,4 the first treatise of the Corpus H erm eticu m , gives
an account of creation which, although it seems to recall Genesis, with which
Ficino of course com pared it,5 differs radically from Genesis in its account
of the creation of m an. T h e second creative act of the W ord in the P im
ander, after the creation of light and the elem ents of nature, is the creation
of the heavens, or m ore particularly of the Seven G overnors or seven planets

3 The fundamental bibliographical study of Ficinos translation of the Corpus Hermeticum

and its diffusion is P. O. Kristellers Supplementum Ficinianum (Florence, 1937), I, lvii-
lviii, cxxix-cxxxi; see also Kristellers Studies in Renaissance Thought and Letters (Rome,
1956), pp. 221 ff. The Hermetic movement is studied by E. Garin in his Medioevo e
Rinascimento (Bari, 1954), pp. 150ff., and in his La cultura filosofica del Rinascimento
italiano (Florence, 1961). The volume Testi umanistici su Iermetismo, ed. by E. Garin
(Rome, 1955), publishes some Renaissance texts containing Hermetic influence. The
importance of the prisca theologia tradition in establishing Hermetic influence in the
Renaissance is brought out by D. P. Walker in his article The Prisca Theologia in
France, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, XVII (1954), 204-59. D. P.
Walkers book Spiritual and Demonic Magic from Ficino to Campanella (London, 1958),
analyzes Renaissance magic particularly in relation to Ficino. In the first ten chapters
of my book Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition (Chicago, 1964), I have en
deavored to give an outline of the Hermetic tradition in the Renaissance before Bruno.
The best modern edition of the Corpus Hermeticum and the Asclepius is that by
A. D. Nock and A.-J. Festugiere, with French translation (Paris, 1945 and 1954).
* Corpus Hermeticum, ed. Nock and Festugiere, I, 7-19. A precis of this work is given
in my Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition, pp. 22-25.
- 5 In the Argumentum before his Latin translation of the Corpus Hermeticum (Opera
omnia [Bale, 1576], pp. 1837-39). Ficino gave his translation the collective title of
Pimander though this is really the title of only the first treatise.

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 T H E H E R M E T IC TRAD ITIO N

on w hich the lower elem ental w orld was believed to depend. T h e n followed
the creation of m an who when he saw the creation which the dem iurge
had fashioned . . . wished also to produce a work, and perm ission to do this
was given him by the Father. H aving thus entered in to the dem iurgic sphere
in which he had full power, the G overnors fell in love w ith m an, and each
gave to him a p art of their rule. . . .
C ontrast this H erm etic A dam w ith the Mosaic Adam, form ed o u t of
the dust of the earth. It is tru e that G od gave him dom inion over the crea
tures, b u t w hen he sought to know the secrets of the divine power, to eat
of the tree of knowledge, this was the sin of disobedience for which he was
expelled from the G arden of Eden. T h e H erm etic m an in the P im an d er
also falls and can also be regenerated. B ut the regenerated H erm etic m an
regains the dom inion over n atu re which he had in his divine origin. W hen
he is regenerated, brought back in to com m union with the ru ler of the all
through magico-religious com m union w ith the cosmos, it is the regeneration
of a being who regains his divinity. O ne m ight say that the P im an d er
describes the creation, fall, and redem ption n o t of a m an b u t of a magusa
being who has w ithin him the powers of the Seven G overnors and hence is
in im m ediate and most pow erful contact with elem ental nature.
H erein the H erm etic core of Ficinian N eo-Platonism there was in
deed a vast change in the conception of m a n s relation to the cosmos. A nd
in the H erm etic A sclepius ,6 the work which had been know n all through
the M iddle Ages b u t which became most potently influential at the R enais
sance through the respect accorded to the Egyptian H erm es Trism egistus
and all his works, the magus m an is shown in operation. T h e Egyptian
priests who are the heroes of the Asclepius are presented as know ing how to
capture the effluxes of the stars and through this magical knowledge to
anim ate the statues of their gods. H ow ever strange his operations may seem
to us, it is m an the operator who is glorified in the Asclepius. As is now well
known, it was upon the magical passages in the Asclepius that Ficino based
the magical practices which he describes in his D e vita coelitus comparanda.7
A nd it was w ith a q u otatio n from the Asclepius on m an as a great m iracle
th at Pico della M irandola opened his O ration on the D ignity of M an.
W ith th at oration, m an as magus has arrived, m an with powers of operating
on the cosmos through magia and through the num erical conjurations of
cabala.s

6 Corpus Hermeticum, ed. Nock and Festugiere, II, 296-355. Precis in Yates, Giordano
Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition, pp. 35-40.
7 As demonstrated by Walker, Spiritual and Demonic Magic, pp. 40ff.
s On Picos yoking together of Magia and Cabala, see Yates, Giordano Bruno and the
Hermetic Tradition, pp. 84ff.

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 FRA N C ES A. YATES

I believe that the trad itio n which has seen in Pico della M irandolas
oration and in his n in e h u n d red theses a great tu rn in g p o in t in E uropean
history has not been wrong, though sometimes wrongly interpreted. It is not
as the advocate of h u m an ism in the sense of the revival of classical studies
th at he should be chiefly regarded b u t as the spokesman for the new attitu d e
to m an in his relatio n to the cosmos, m an as the great m iracle w ith powers
of acting on the cosmos. From the new approach to them , Ficino and Pico
em erge not prim arily as hum anists, n or even prim arily, I w ould say, as
philosophers, b u t as magi. F icinos operations were tim id and cautious;
Pico came ou t m ore boldly w ith the ideal of m an as magus. A nd if, as I
believe, the Renaissance magus was the im m ediate ancestor of the seven
teenth-century scientist, then it is tru e that N eo-Platonism as in terp reted
by Ficino and Pico was indeed the body of thought which, in tervening be
tween the M iddle Ages and the seventeenth century, prepared the way for
the em ergence of science.
W hile we may be beginning to see the outlines of a new approach to
the history of science through Renaissance magic, it m ust be em phasized that
there are enorm ous gaps in this history as yetgaps w aiting to be filled in
by organized research. O ne of the most u rg en t needs is a m odern edition
of the works of Pico della M irandola, an edition w hich should n o t be merely
a re p rin t b u t w hich w ould trace the sources of, for example, the nin e h u n
dred theses. T h o u g h laborious, this w ould not be an impossible task, and
u n til it is done, the historian of tho u g h t lacks the foundation from which
to assess one of its most vital tu rn in g points.
I t is convenient to consult the practical com pendium for a would-be
magus com piled by H en ry Cornelius A grippa as a guide to the classifications
of Renaissance magic.9 Based on Ficino and the Asclepius, and also m aking
use of one of F icinos m anuscript sources, the P icatrix,10 and based on Pico
and R euchlin for C abalist magic, A grippa distributes the different types of
magic un d er the three worlds of the Cabalists. T h e lowest or elem ental world
is the realm of n atu ral magic, the m an ip u latio n of forces in the elem ental
w orld through the m an ip u latio n of the occult sympathies ru n n in g through
it. T o the m iddle celestial world of the stars belongs w hat A grippa calls
m athem atical magic. W hen a m agician follows n atu ral philosophy and
m athem atics and knows the m iddle sciences which come from them a rith
metic, music, geom etry, optics, astronom y, m echanicshe can do marvelous
things. T h e re follow chapters on Pythagorean num erology and on world

9 H. C. Agrippa, De occulta philosophia (1533); see Yates, Giordano Bruno and the
Hermetic Tradition, pp. 130ff.
10 The Picatrix is a treatise on talismanic magic, originally written in Arabic, a Latin
translation of which circulated in the Renaissance in manuscript.

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 T H E H E R M E T IC TRADITION

harm ony, and on the m aking of talismans. T o the highest or supercelestial

world belongs religious magic, and here A grippa treats of magical rituals
and of the conjuring of angels.
T h e magical world view here expounded includes an operative use of
n u m b er and regards mechanics as a branch of m athem atical magic. T h e
H erm etic m ovem ent thus encouraged some of the genuine applied sciences,
including mechanics, w hich C am panella was later to classify as real artificial
m agic.11 M any examples could be given of the prevalent confusion of th ought
betw een magic and mechanics. Jo h n Dee, for exam ple, branded as the great
co n ju ro r for his angel-sum m oning magic, was equally suspect on account
of the m echanical Scarabaeus w hich he constructed for a play at T rin ity
College, C am bridge.12 In his preface to H en ry Billingsleys translation of
Euclid, Dee b itterly protests against the rep u tatio n for con ju rin g which his
skill in mechanics has brough t him :

A nd for . . . m arueilous Actes and Feates, N aturally, M athem atically, and

M echanically w rought and contriued, ought any honest Student and Modest
C hristian Philosopher, be counted 8c called a C oniuror?13

Yet there is no d o u b t that for Dee his mechanical operations, w rought by

n u m b er in the lower world, belonged in to the same world view as his a t
tem pted conjuring of angels by C abalist num erology. T h e latter was for
him the highest and most religious use of num ber, the operating w ith n u m
ber in the supercelestial world.
T h u s the strange m ental fram ew ork o u tlin ed in A grippas De occulta
philosophia encouraged w ithin its purview the growth of those m athem atical
and m echanical sciences which were to triu m p h in the seventeenth century.
O f course it was through the recovery of ancient scientific texts, and p ar
ticularly of Archim edes, th a t the advance was fostered, b u t even here the
H erm etic outlook may have played a p art which has not yet been exam ined.
Egypt was believed to have been the hom e of m athem atical and m echanical
sciences. T h e cult of Egypt, and of its great soothsayer, H erm es T rism egistus,
may have helped to direct enthusiastic atten tio n toward newly recovered
scientific texts. I can only give one exam ple of this.
In 1589 there was published in Venice a large volum e by Fabio Paolini
entitled H ebdom ades. D. P. W alker has said of this work th at it contains

11 Tommaso Capanella, Magia e Grazia, ed. R. Amerio (Rome, 1957), p. 180; see Yates,
Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition, pp. 147-48.
12 See Lily B. Campbell, Scenes and Machines of the English Stage during the Renais
sance (Cambridge, 1923), p. 87.
13 H. Billingsley, The Elements of Euclid (London, 1570), Dees preface, sig. A i verso.

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 FRANCES A. YATES

no t only the theory of F icinos magic b u t also the whole com plex of theories
of w hich it is a part: the N eo-Platonic cosmology and astrology on which
magic is based, the prisca theologia and magia1* and so on. It represents the
im p ortation of the F lorentine m ovem ent in to Venice and into the discus
sions of the V enetian academies. T h e m ovem ent has n o t yet been adequately
studied in its V enetian phase, in which it und erw en t new developments.
W hen speaking of the magical statues of the H erm etic Asclepius, Paolini
makes this rem ark: we may refer these to the m echanical art and to those
m achines w hich the Greeks call autom ata, of w hich H ero has w ritten .1415
P aolini is here speaking in the same breath of the statues described by H erm es
T rism egistus in the Asclepius, which the Egyptian magicians knew how to
anim ate, and of the work on autom ata by H ero of A lexandria which ex
pounds m echanical or pneum atic devices for m aking statues move and
speak in theaters or temples. N or is he in ten d in g to deb u n k the magic
statues of the Asclepius by showing them u p as m ere mechanisms, for he
goes on to speak w ith respect of how the Egyptians, as described by T ris
megistus, knew how to com pound th eir statues o u t of certain world materials
and to draw into them the souls of demons. T h e re is a basic confusion in
his m ind betw een mechanics as magic and magic as mechanics, which leads
him to a fascinated interest in the technology of H ero of A lexandria. Such
associations may also account for passages in the H ebdom ades, to which
W alker has draw n atten tio n , in which Paolini states th at the production
of m otion in hard recalcitrant m aterials is n o t done w ithout the help of the
anim a m undi, to w hich he attributes, for exam ple, the invention of clocks.16
T h u s even the clock, w hich was to become the suprem e symbol of the m ech
anistic universe established in the first phase of the scientific revolution,
had been integrated in to the anim istic universe of the Renaissance, with
its magical interpretatio n s of mechanics.
A m ong the great figures of the Renaissance who have been hailed as
initiators of m odern science, one of the greatest is L eonardo da Vinci. W e
are all fam iliar w ith the traditional rep u tatio n of L eonardo as a precursor,
throw ing off the au th o rity both of the schools and of rhetorical hum anism
to w hich he opposed concrete experim ent integrated with m athem atics. In
two essays on Leonardo, published in 1965, Professor Eugenio G arin argues,

14 Walker, Spiritual and Demonic Magic, pp. 126-27.

15 Fabio Paolini, Hebdomades (Venice, 1589), p. 208. See also Agrippas listing of the
speaking statues of Mercurius among mechanical marvels, quoted in Yates, Giordano
Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition, p. 147; and Dees citation of the works of Hero
followed by mentions of the brazen head made by Albertus Magnus and of the Images
of Mercurie (preface to the Euclid, sigs. A i recto and verso).
16 Paolini, Hebdomades, p. 203, quoted in Walker, Spiritual and Demonic Magic, p. 135,
n. 1.

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with his usual subtlety, th at Vasaris presentation of the great artist as a

magus, a div in e m an, may be nearer the tru th .17 G arin points to Leo
nardos citation of H erm es the philosopher and to his definition of force
as a spiritual essence. A ccording to G arin, L eonardos conception of spiritual
force has little to do w ith ratio n al mechanics b u t has a very close relatio n
ship to the Ficinian-H erm etic them e of universal life and an im atio n .18 If
as G arin seems to suggest, it is after all w ithin the Renaissance H erm etic
tradition th at L eonardo should be placed, if he is a d iv in e artist whose
strong technical b ent is n o t unm ixed w ith magic and theurgy, whose m e
chanics and m athem atics have behind them the anim ist conception of the
universe, this w ould in no way dim inish his stature as a m an of genius. W e
have to get rid of the idea th at the detection of H erm etic influences in a
great Renaissance figure is derogatory to the figure. L eonardos extraordinary
achievem ents w ould be, on the hypothesis p u t forw ard by G arin, one more
proof of the potency of the H erm etic impulses tow ard a new vision of the
world, one m ore dem onstration th at the H erm etic core of Renaissance Neo-
Platonism was the generator of a m ovem ent of which the great Renaissance
magi represent the first stage.
In the case of Jo h n Dee, we do n o t have to get rid of a rep u tatio n for
enlightened scientific advance, b u ilt u p by nineteenth-century adm irers, in
order to detect the H erm etic philosopher beh in d the scientist. D ees re p u
tation has no t been at all of a kin d to attract the enlightened. T h e p u b li
cation in 1659 of D ees spiritual diaries, w ith their strange accounts of
conferences w ith the spirits supposedly raised by Dee and Kelly in their
conjuring operations, ensured that it was as a conjuror, necrom ancer, or
deluded charlatan of the most horrific kin d that D ees rep u tatio n should go
down to posterity. T h ro u g h o u t the n in eteen th century this image of Dee
prevailed, and it w arned off those in search of precursors of scientific en
lightenm ent from exam ining D ees o th er works. T h o u g h D ees rep u tatio n
as a genuine scientist and m athem atician has been gradually grow ing d u rin g
the present century, some survival of the traditional prejudice against him
may still account for the extraordinary fact that D ees preface to Billingsleys
translation of E uclid (1570), in which he fervently urges the extension and
encouragem ent of m athem atical studies, has n ot yet been rep rin ted . W hile
I suppose that practically every educated person either possesses one of the
many m odern editions of Francis Bacons A dvancem ent of L earning or has
had easy access to them in some library, D ees m athem atical preface can
still only be read in the rare early editions of the Euclid. (Fortunately this
17 Eugenio Garin, Scienza e vita civile net Rinascimento italiano (Bari, 1965), pp. 57-108.
18 Ibid., p. 71. See also Garins Cultura filosofica del Rinascimento italiano, pp. 397ff., for a
similar approach to Leonardo.

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 FRA N C ES A. YATES

situation will not long continue, for a long-awaited edition of the E uclid
and its preface is planned for p ublication in the near future.) Yet D ees
preface is in English, like Bacons A dvancem ent, and in a nervous and origi
nal kind of English; and as a m anifesto for the advancem ent of science it
is greatly superior to Bacons work. For Dee most strongly emphasizes the
central im portance of m athem atics, w hile the neglect or relative depreciation
of m athem atics is, as we all know, the fatal b lin d spot in Bacons outlook
and the chief reason why his inductive m ethod did not lead to scientifically
valuable results.
I t is n o t for me here to go through the m athem atics of the preface nor
to discuss D ees work as a genuine scientist and m athem atician, consulted
by technicians and navigators. T h e work done on these m atters by E. G. R.
T ay lo r19 and F. R. Jo h n so n 20 is well known, and there is a rem arkable thesis
on Dee by I. R. F. C alder21 which is u nfortunately still unpublished. My
object is solely to emphasize the context of D ees m athem atical studies
w ithin the Renaissance trad itio n which we are studying. T h a t Dee goes
back to the great F lorentine m ovem ent for his inspiration is suggested by
the fact th at he appeals, in his plea for m athem atics, to the noble Earle
of M iran d u la and quotes from Picos nin e h u n d red theses the statem ent in
the eleventh m athem atical conclusion that by num bers, a way is to be had
to the searching o u t and u nderstanding of euery thyng, hable to be
know en.22 A nd it was certainly from A grippas com pilation with its classi
fication of magical practices u n d er the three worlds that he drew the discus
sion of nu m b er in the three worlds with which the preface opens. It may
be noticed, too, th at it is w ith those m athem atical sciences which Agrippa
classifies as belonging to the m iddle celestial world that the preface chiefly
deals,23 though there are m any other influences in the preface, particularly
an im p o rtan t influence of V itruvius. T h is may raise in o ur m inds the curious
thought th at it was because, u nlike Francis Bacon, he was an astrologer and
a conjuror, attem p tin g to p u t into practice the full Renaissance tradition of
Magia and Cabala as expounded by A grippa, th at Dee, unlike Bacon, was
im bued with the im portance of mathem atics.

19 Late Tudor and Early Stuart Geography (London, 1934), pp. 75ff.
20 Astronomical Thought in Renaissance England (Baltimore, 1937), pp. 135ff.
211. R. F. Calder, John Dee Studied as an English Neoplatonist (unpublished Ph.D.
thesis, University of London, 1952).
22 Dees preface to the Euclid, sig. *i verso. See Yates, Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic
Tradition, p. 148; also my note in LOpera e il Pensiero di Giovanni Pico della Miran-
dola nella storia dellumanesimo (Convegno internazionale, Mirandola 15-18 Settembre
1963), Institute Nazionale e di Studi sul Rinascimento (Florence, 1965), I, 152-54.
23 Thynges Mathematicall, he says in the preface (sig. *verso), are middle betwene
thinges supernatural! and naturall.

262
 I should like to try to persuade sensible people and sensible historians
to use the word Rosicrucian. T h is word has bad associations ow ing to the
uncritical assertions of occultists concerning the existence of a secret society
or sect calling themselves Rosicrucians, the history and m em bership of
which they claim to establish. T h o u g h it is im p o rtan t that the argum ents for
and against the existence of a R osicrucian society should be carefully and
critically sifted, I should like to be able to use the word here w ithout raising
the secret society question at all. T h e word baroque is used, rath e r vaguely,
of a certain style of sensibility and expression in a rt w ithout in the least
im plying th at there were secret societies of baroquists, secretly propagating
baroque attitudes. In a sim ilar way the word Rosicrucian could, I suggest,
be used of a certain style of th in k in g w hich is historically recognizable w ith
o u t raising the question of w hether a R osicrucian style of thinker belonged
to a secret society.
I t w ould be valuable if the word could be used in this way as it m ight
come to designate a phase in the history of the H erm etic tradition in rela
tion to science. A very generalized attem p t to define two such phases m ight
ru n somewhat on the follow ing lines. T h e Renaissance magus is very closely
in touch w ith artistic expression; the talism an borders in this period on
painting and sculpture; the incantation is allied to poetry and music. T h e
R osicrucian type, though n o t o u t of touch w ith such attitudes, tends to
develop m ore in the direction of science, m ixed with magic. T h u s though
the R osicrucian type comes straight o u t of the Renaissance H erm etic tra
dition, like the earlier magi, he may orien tate it in slightly different direc
tions or p u t the emphasis rath er differently. T h e influx of Paracelsan
alchemy and m edicine, itself originally stim ulated by Ficinian influences,
is im portant for the latter or R osicrucian type, who is often, perhaps always,
strongly influenced by Paracelsus. T h e tradition in its later or Rosicrucian
phase begins to become im bued w ith p hilanthropic aims, possibly as a result
of Paracelsan influence. Finally, the situation of the Rosicrucian in society
is worse and m ore dangerous than that of the earlier magi. T h e re were
always dangers, which Ficino tim idly tried to avoid and from which Pico
della M irandola did no t escape. B ut as a result of the w orsening political
and religious situation in Europe, and of the strong reactions against magic
in both C atholic and Protestant countries, the Rosicrucian seems a more
hunted being than the earlier magi, some of whom seem able to expand q u ite
happily in the atm osphere of the early Renaissance N eo-Platonism, feeling
themselves in tu n e w ith the age. T h e artist Leonardo or the poet Ronsard
m ight be examples of such relatively happy expansion of great figures who
are not u n tin c tu red with the H erm etic core of N eo-Platonism . T h e R osicru
cian, on the other hand, tends to have persecution m ania. T h o u g h usually

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of an intensely religious tem per, he avoids identifying him self w ith any of
the religious parties and hence is suspected as an atheist by them all, while
his rep u ta tio n as a m agician inspires fear and hatred. W h eth er or n o t he
belongs to a secret society, the R osicrucian is a secretive type, and has to be.
His experience of life has confirm ed him in the H erm etic belief th at the
deepest tru th s cannot be revealed to the m u ltitude.
Jo h n Dee seems obviously placeable historically as a Renaissance magus
of the later R osicrucian type. Paracelsist and alchemist, a practical scientist
who wished to develop applied m athem atics for the advantage of his country
m en, full of schemes for the advancem ent of learning, b randed in the public
eye as conjuror and atheist, Dee felt him self to be an innocent and a per
secuted m an. O u n th an k fu ll C ountrey m en, he cries in the preface to the
Euclid, O Brainsicke, Rashe, Spitefull, and D isdainfull C ountrey men. W hy
oppresse you me, thus violently, w ith your slaundering of me. . . . A nd he
goes on to com pare himself, significantly, w ith Ioannes Picus, Earle of
M irandula, who also suffered from the raging slander of the M alicious
ignorant against him .24
In the so-called R osicrucian m anifesto published in G erm any in 1614
in the nam e of the F ratern ity of the Rosy Cross,25 the characteristics of what
I have called the R osicrucian type of th in k in g are perceptible. T h e breth ren
are said to possess the books of Paracelsus, and the activity to which they are
said to bind themselves is the philan th ro p ic one of healing the sick, and
th at gratis. T h e m anifesto states that the founder of the society based his
views and activities on Magia and C abala, a m ode of th in k in g w hich he
found agreeable to the harm ony of the whole world. It expresses a wish for
closer collaboration betw een magician-scientists. T h e learned of Fez, says
the w riter, com m unicated to one an o th er new discoveries in mathem atics,
physics, and magic, and he wishes th at the magicians, cabalists, physicians,
and philosophers of G erm any were equally co-operative. T h u s w hether or
not this m anifesto really em anates from a secret society, it sets forth a Rosi
crucian type of program , w ith its devotion to Magia and Cabala, its mixed
scientific and magical studies, its Paracelsan m edicine.
T h e utopias of the Renaissance show m any traces of H erm etic influences
which can even be discerned, I believe, in T hom as M ores foundation work.
C am panellas City of the Sun, which he first w rote in prison in Naples in
the early years of the seventeenth century, is a u topian city governed by
priests skilled in astral magic who know how to keep the population in health
and happiness thro u g h th eir understanding of how to draw down beneficent

24 Dees preface to the Euclid, sig. A ii recto.

25 Fama Fraternitas, dess Loblichen Ordens des Rosencreutzes etc. (Cassel, 1614). See
Yates, Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition, pp. 410-11.
 T H E H E R M E T IC TR AD ITIO N

astral influences.26 T h is is after all a p h ilan th ro p ic use of magical science,

though somewhat arb itrarily applied. A nd the Solarians were in general
greatly interested in applied magic and science; they encouraged scientific
inventions, all inventions to be used in the service of the com m unity. T h ey
were also healthy and well skilled in m edicine, th at is in astral m edicine of
the F icinian or Paracelsan type. I w ould classify the City of the Sun as be
longing to the later or R osicrucian phase of the H erm etic movem ent.
T h e R osicrucian flavor is also clearly discernible in a less well-known
work, the description of the ideal city of Christianopolis by Jo h an n V alentin
A ndreae, published at Strasbourg in 1619.27 A ndreaes C hristianopolis is
heavily influenced by C am panellas City of the Sun. Its inhabitants, like
C am panellas Solarians, are practicers of astral magic and at the same tim e
are deeply interested in every kin d of scientific research. C hristianopolis is
busy w ith the activity of scientists who are applying th eir know ledge in
inventions which are to im prove the happiness and well-being of the people.
W hen, after a course of reading of this type, one retu rn s once again
to the so m uch m ore famous N ew A tla n tis of Francis Bacon (w ritten in 1624),
it is im possible not to recognize in it som ething of the same atm osphere. T h e
N ew A tlantis is ru led by m ysterious sages who keep the citizens in tu n e w ith
the cosmos; and in this late u topia the wisdom trad itio n is tu rn in g ever m ore
and m ore in the direction of scientific research and collaboration for the
b etterm en t of m a n s estate. Yet there are significant differences as com pared
w ith the earlier R osicrucian utopias w hich I have m entioned; the priests
of the New A tlantis do n o t practice astral magic and are n o t exactly magi;
its scientific institutions are draw ing closer to some fu tu re Royal Society.
B ut to me it seems obvious th at the New A tlantis has its roots in the H er-
m etic-Cabalist trad itio n of the Renaissance, though this is becom ing ra tio n
alized in a seventeenth-century direction. T h e magus had given place to the
R osicrucian, and the R osicrucian is giving place to the scientist, b u t only
very gradually.
Francis Bacon is, in my opinion, one of those figures who have been
m isunderstood and th eir place in history distorted by those historians of
science and philosophy who have seen in them only precursors of the fu tu re
w ithout exam ining th eir roots in the past. T h e only m odern book on Bacon
w hich makes, or so it seems to me, the rig h t historical approach is Paolo
Rossis Francesco Bacone, published in Italian in 195728 and now trans-

26 See Yates, Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition, pp. 370ff.
27 J. V. Andreae, Reipublicae Christianopolitanae Descriptio (Strasbourg, 1619); English
translation by F. E. Held, Christianopolis, an Ideal State of the Seventeenth Century
(New York, 1916). Andreae was the author of the Chemical Wedding of Christian
Rosencreutz [Chymische Hochzeit Christiani Rosencreutz], (Strasbourg, 1616).
28 English translation to be published shortly by Routledge and Kegan Paul, London.

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lated into English. T h e significant su b title of Rossis book is Dalla Alagia

alia Scienza [From M agic to Science]. Rossi begins by o u tlin in g the R enais
sance H erm etic tradition, p o in tin g o u t th at Bacons emphasis on the im
portance of technology cannot be disentangled from the Renaissance H er
m etic tradition in which magic and technology are inextricably m ingled. H e
emphasizes those aspects of Bacons philosophy which show traces of R enais
sance anim ism , and he argues that the two m ain planks of the Baconian
positionthe conception of science as power, as a force able to work on and
modify nature, and the conception of m an as the being to whom has been
entrusted the capacity to develop this pow erare both recognizably deriv
able from the Renaissance ideal of the magus. W hile urging th at the ap
proach to Bacon should take full cognizance of his roots in the Renaissance
H erm etic tradition, Rossi emphasizes th at such an approach does n ot d i
m inish Bacons great im portance in the history of th o u g h t b u t should enable
the historian to analyze and b rin g o u t his tru e position. In Rossis opinion.
Bacons suprem e im portance lies in his insistence on the co-operative natu re
of scientific effort, on the fact th at advance does n o t depend on individual
genius alone b u t in pooling the efforts of m any workers. H e emphasizes,
and this second po in t is related to the first one. Bacons polem ic against
the hab it of secrecy which was so strongly ingrained in the older tradition,
his insistence that the scientific w orker m ust not veil his knowledge in
inscrutable riddles b u t com m unicate it openly to his fellow workers. And
finally he draws atten tio n to Bacons dislike of illum inism and of the pre
tensions of a magus to knowledge of divine secrets, his insistence that it is
not through such proud claims b u t through hum ble exam ination and ex
p erim ent th a t n atu re is to be approached.
I believe that Rossi has indicated the rig h t road for fu rth er research
on Bacon, who should be studied as a R osicrucian type b u t of a reform ed
and new kind, reform ed on the lines indicated by Rossi, through which
the R osicrucian type abandons his secrecy and becomes a scientist openly
co-operating w ith others in the fu tu re Royal Society, and abandons also
his pretensions to illum inism , to being the d iv in e m an adm ired in the
H erm etic tradition, w ith its glorification of the magus, for the attitu d e of
a hum ble observer and experim entalist. T h e interesting point emerges
here th at the hum ble re tu rn to n atu re in observation and experim ent ad
vocated by Bacon takes on a moral character, as an attitu d e deliberately
opposed to the sinful p rid e of a Renaissance magus w ith his claims to divine
insights and powers.
Yet Bacons reactions against the magus type of philosopher or scientist
themselves belong into a curious context. Rossi has emphasized that Bacon
regarded his projected Instauratio Magna of the sciences as a retu rn for
 T H E H E R M E T IC TRADITION

m an of that dom inion over n atu re which A dam had before the Fall b u t
which he lost through sin. T h ro u g h the sin of pride, A ristotle and G reek
philosophers generally lost im m ediate contact w ith n atu ra l tru th , and in a
significant passage Bacon emphasizes that this sin of pride has been repeated
in recent times in the extravagances of Renaissance anim ist philosophers.
T h e proud fantasies of the Renaissance magi represent for Bacon som ething
like a second Fall through which m an s contact w ith n atu re has become even
m ore distorted than before. O nly by the hum b le methods of observation
and experim ent in the G reat In stau ratio n will this newly repeated sin of
pride be redeem ed, and the rew ard will be a new redem ption of m an in his
relation to n atu re .29 T h u s Bacons very reaction against the magi in favor
of w hat seems a m ore m odern conception of the scientist contained w ithin
it curious undercurrents of cosmic mysticism. T h o u g h Bacons attitu d e
w ould seem to dethrone the H erm etic Adam, the divine man, his conception
of the regenerated Mosaic Adam, who is to be in a new and m ore im m ediate
and m ore pow erful contact with n atu re after the G reat In stau ratio n of the
sciences, seems to b rin g us back into an atm osphere which is after all not
so different from that in which the magus lived and moved and had his
being. In fact, C ornelius A grippa repeatedly asserts that it is the power
over n atu re which A dam lost by original sin that the purified soul of the
illum inated magus will regain.30 Bacon rejected A grippa w ith contem pt, yet
the Baconian aim of power over n atu re and the Baconian Adam mysticism
were both present in the aspirations of the great magician. T h o u g h for
Bacon, the claim of the magus to Illum inism would itself constitute a sec
ond Fall through pride.
Bacons reaction against the anim ist philosophers as proud magi who
have b rought abo u t a second Fall is extrem ely im p o rtan t for the u n d er
standing of his position as a reform ed and hum ble scientific observer, and
I w ould even go fu rth er than Rossi and suggest that some of Bacons mis
takes may have been influenced by his desire to rationalize and make re-

29 See F. Bacon, Historia naturalis et experimentalis, quae est Instaurationis Magna pars
tertia (London, 1622) in the Works, ed. Spedding et al., 1857 edition, II, 13-16. Bacon
constantly repeats the statement that it was not his pure and direct knowledge of nature
which caused Adams fall, but his proud judging of good and evil; see Advancement of
Learning, ibid., Ill, 264-65; Instauratio Magna, Praefatio, ibid., I, 132, etc. See Rossi,
Francesco Bacone, pp. 321ff., 392ff., etc.
30 See De occulta philosophia, III, 40; and see C. G. Nauert, Agrippa and the Crisis of
Renaissance Thought (Urbana, 1965), pp. 48, 284.
Nauert in this book makes interesting comparisons between Agrippas theory of
the magus as possessing power through his magical knowledge and Bacons promises that
man will be lord and master of nature; but he does not know of Rossis book with its
analysis of the difference between the outlook of the magus and that of Bacon.

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 FR A N C ES A . YATES

spectable a trad itio n which was heavily suspected by its opponents, by the
A ristotelians of the schools and by the hum anists of the rhetoric tradition.
Bacons adm irers have often been puzzled by his rejection of C opernican
heliocentricity and of W illiam G ilb e rts work on the m agnet. I w ould like
to suggest, though there is hardly tim e to work this o u t in detail, th at these
notions m ight have seemed to Bacon heavily engaged in extrem e forms of
the magical and anim ist philosophy or like the p ro u d and erroneous opinions
of a magus.
In the sensational works published by G iordano B runo d u rin g his visit
to England, of which Bacon m ust have been well aware, B runo had m ade use
of heliocentricity in connection w ith the extrem e form of religious and
magical H erm etism which he preached in England. B ru n o s Copernicanism
was bound up with his magical view of n atu re; he associated heliocentricity
w ith the F icinian solar magic and based his argum ents in favor of earth
m ovem ent on a H erm etic tex t which states th a t the earth moves because it
is alive.31 H e had thus associated C opernicanism w ith the anim ist philosophy
of an extrem e type of magus. W hen Bacon is deploring the sinful pride of
those philosophers who have bro u g h t ab o u t the second Fall, who, believing
themselves divinely inspired, invent new philosophical sects which they
create o u t of th e ir individual fantasy, im p rin tin g th eir own image on the
cosmos instead of h u m bly approaching n atu re in observation an d experi
m ent, he m entions B runo by nam e as an exam ple of such m isguided Illu m i
nati, together w ith Patrizi, W illiam G ilbert, and C am panella.32 Is it possible
that Bacon avoided heliocentricity because he associated it w ith the fantasies
of an extrem e H erm etic magus, like Bruno? A nd is it fu rth e r possible that
W illiam G ilb e rts studies on the m agnet, and the m agnetic philosophy of
n a tu re w hich he associated w ith it, also seemed to Bacon to em anate from
the anim istic philosophy of a magus, of the type which he deplored?
T h e m agnet is always m entioned in textbooks of magic as an instance
of the occult sympathies in action. G iovanni Baptista Porta, for example,
in his chapters on the occult sympathies and how to use them in n atu ral
magic constantly m entions the loadstone.33 T h e anim ist philosophers were
equally fond of this illustration; G iordano B ru n o w hen defending his an i
mistic version of heliocentricity in the Cena de le ceneri brings in the
m agnet.34 I think that it has n o t been sufficiently em phasized how close to
31 See Yates, Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition, pp. 241-43.
32 Historia naturalis; Works, ed. Spedding et al., II, 13.
33 G. Porta, Natural Magick, ed. D. J. Price (New York, 1957), (reprint of the English
translation of Portas Magia Naturalis), pp. 10, 14, etc. As is well known, this book was
the source of a large part of Bacons Sylva sylvarum.
34 G. Bruno, Cena de le ceneri, dialogue III; see G. Bruno, Dialoghi italiani, ed. G.
Aquilecchia (Florence, 1957), p. 109.
 T H E H E R M E T IC TR ADITION

B ru n o s language in the Cena de le ceneri is G ilb e rts defense of heliocen-

tricity in the D e m agnete. G ilbert, like B runo, actually brings in H erm es
and oth er prisci theologi who have stated th at there is a universal life in
n atu re when he is defending earth m ovem ent.35 T h ere are passages in the
De m agnete w hich sound alm ost like direct quotations from B ru n o s Cena
de le ceneri. T h e m agnetic philosophy which G ilb ert extends to the whole
universe is, it seems to me, most closely allied to B ru n o s philosophy, and it
is therefore n o t surprising th a t Bacon should list G ilb ert with B runo as one
of the proud and fantastic anim ist philosophers36 or that notions about
heliocentricity or m agnetism m ight seem to him dangerous fantasies of the
Illum inati, to be avoided by a h u m ble experim entalist who distrusts such
proud hypotheses.
Finally, there is the suggestion at which I h in ted earlier. Is it possible
that the rep u ta tio n of Jo h n Dee, the conjuror, con ju rin g angels w ith n u m b er
in the supercelestial world w ith a magus-like lack of hum ility of the kind
which Bacon deplored, m ight have m ade the L ord V erulam suspicious also
of too m uch operating w ith n u m b er in the lower worlds? Was m athem atics,
for Bacon, too m uch associated w ith magic and w ith the m iddle w orld of
the stars, and was this one of the reasons why he did not emphasize it in
his m ethod? I am asking questions here, obviously somewhat at random ,
b u t they are questions which have never been asked before, and one object
in raising them is to try to startle historians of science into new attitudes
to that key figure, Francis Bacon. T o see him as em erging from the Renais
sance H erm etic tradition and as anxious to dissociate him self from w hat he
thought were extrem e and dangerous forms of that trad itio n may eventually
lead to new adjustm ents in the treatm en t both of his own th ought and of his
attitu d e tow ard contem poraries. It w ould be valuable if careful com parisons
could be organized betw een the works of Dee, Bacon, and Fludd. T h e
extrem e R osicrucian types, Dee and Fludd, m ight come o u t of such an
exam ination w ith better m arks as scientists than Bacon. Dee certainly would,
and even F ludd m ight do b etter than expected.
Nevertheless, all this does n o t do away with Bacons great im portance.
33 Against the monstrous opinion of Aristotle that the earth is dead and inanimate,
Gilbert cites Hermes, Zoroaster, Orpheus, who recognize a universal life; see W. Gilbert,
On the Magnet, ed. D. J. Price (New York, 1958), p. 209.
E. Zilsel, The origins of William Gilberts scientific method, Journal of the History
of Ideas, II (1941), 4ff., emphasizes that Gilberts philosophy of magnetism is animistic
and belongs into the same current as that of Bruno.
36 Marie Boas, Bacon and Gilbert, Journal of the History of Ideas, XII (1951), 466-67,
has suggested that it was primarily Gilberts expansion of his work on the magnet into a
magnetic philosophy of nature to which Bacon took exception, having studied these
ideas, not only in De magnete, but perhaps primarily in Gilberts posthumous work,
De mundo nostro sublunari philosophia nova.

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As com pared w ith Dee and Fludd, Bacon has unquestionably moved into
ano th er era in his conception of the role of the scientist and of the character
of the scientist. T h o u g h Bacon descends from the magus in his conception
of science as pow er and of m an as the w ielder of that power, he also banishes
the old conception of the magus in favor of an outlook which can be recog
nized as m odern, if the Adam ic mysticism beh in d the G reat In stau ratio n is
not emphasized. Bacon obviously qualifies as a m em ber of the fu tu re Royal
Society, though one w ith surviving affiliations w ith the occult trad itio n as
was the case w ith m any early m em bers of the Society. T h e figure of Bacon is
a striking exam ple of those subtle transform ations through which the R en
aissance tradition takes on, almost imperceptibly, a seventeenth-century
tem per and moves on into a new era.
1 w ould thus urge th at the history of science in this period, instead
of being read solely forwards for its prem onitions of w hat was to come,
should also be read backwards, seeking its connections w ith what had gone
before. A history of science may em erge from such efforts which will be
e x a g g e r a te d a n d p a r tly w ro n g . B u t th e n th e h is to ry o f scie n ce fro m the
solely forw ard-looking p o in t of view has also been exaggerated and partly
wrong, m isinterp retin g the old thinkers by picking o u t from the context of
their thought as a whole only w hat seems to p o in t in the direction of m od
ern developm ents. O nly in the perhaps fairly distant fu tu re will a proper
balance be established in which the two types of inquiry, both of which are
essential, will each co n trib u te their qu o ta to a new assessment. In the m ean
tim e, let us con tin u e o u r investigations in which the detection of H erm etic
influences in some great figure and acknow ledged precursor should be a
parallel process to the detection of genuine scientific im portance in figures
who have h ith e rto been disregarded as occultists and outsiders.
A nd we m ust constantly bew are of giving an impression of debunking
great figures w hen we expose in them unsuspected affiliations to the H e r
m etic tradition. Such discoveries do n o t m ake the great figures less great;
b u t they dem onstrate the im portance of the Renaissance H erm etic tradition
as the im m ediate antecedent of the em ergence of science. T h e exam ple of
this which I m ade the subject of a book is G iordano Bruno. Long hailed as
the philosopher of the Renaissance who bu rst the bonds of medievalism and
broke o u t of the old world view into C opernican heliocentricity and a vision
of an infinitely expanded universe, B runo has tu rn ed o u t to be an E gyptian
magus of a m ost extrem e type, nourished on the H erm etic texts. B ru n o s
vision of an infinite universe ru led by the laws of magical anim ism with
w hich the magus can operate is n o t a m edieval or a reactionary vision. It
is still the precursor of the seventeenth-century vision, though form ulated
w ithin a Renaissance fram e of reference. As I have tried to suggest in this

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paper, even the m athem atical and m echanical progress w hich m ade possible
the seventeenth-century advance may have been encouraged by H erm etic in
fluences in the earlier m ovem ent. T h e em ergence of m odern science should
perhaps be regarded as proceeding in two phases, the first being the H erm etic
or magical phase of the Renaissance w ith its basis in an anim ist philosophy,
the second being the developm ent in the seventeenth century of the first
or classical period of m odern science. T h e two m ovements should, I sug
gest, be studied as in ter related; gradually the second phase sheds the first
phase, a process which comes o u t through the double approach of detecting
intim ations of the second phase in the first and survivals of the first phase
in the second. Even in Isaac N ew ton, as is now well known, there are such
survivals, and if Professor G arin is right, even in G alileo,37 while K epler
provides the obvious exam ple of a great m odern figure who still has one
foot in the old w orld of universal harm ony which sheltered the magus.
Renaissance and early seventeenth-century literatu re abounds in vast
tomes which it is beyond the power of any one scholar to tackle unaided.
T h ey sleep u ndisturbed on library shelves or are only dipped into at random ,
w hile people tu rn to the easier and m ore lucrative occupation of w riting
little books ab o u t the Renaissance and seventeenth century and the great
nam esKepler, N ew ton, G alileoru n easily off all o ur pens. Yet do we
really understand w hat happened? Has anyone really explained where
Kepler, N ew ton, G alileo, came from? I wish th at a concerted effort could
be made, less on the published w ritings of the great in th eir m odern and
accessible editions than on the vast sleeping tomes. I think of two in p ar
ticular w ith which I have often tried to struggle: Francesco G iorgis De
harm onia m u n d i and M arin M ersennes H arm onie universelle. G iorgis
H arm ony of the W orld is full of H erm etic and Cabalist influences; the
Franciscan friar who w rote it was a direct disciple of Pico della M irandola.
T h is tome represents the Renaissance H erm etic-Cabalist trad itio n w orking
on the ancient them e of world harm ony. M ersenne is a seventeenth-century
monk, friend of Descartes. A nd ju st as Bacon does in his sphere, M ersenne
attacks and discards the old Renaissance world; his Universal H arm ony
will have n othing to do with the anim a m u n d i and n o th in g to do w ith F ran
cesco G iorgi, of whom he sternly disapproves. M athem atics replaces n u m er
ology in M ersennes harm onic world; magic is banished; the seventeenth
century has arrived. T h e em ergence of M ersenne out of a banished G iorgi
seems somehow a parallel phenom enon to the em ergence of Bacon o u t of
the magus. I t is perhaps somehow in these transitions from Renaissance to

37 On survivals in Newton, see J. E. McGuire and P. M. Rattansi, Newton and the

Pipes of Pan, Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London, XXI (1966), 108-43;
on survivals in Galileo, see Garin, Scienza e vita civile nel Rinascimento, p. 157.

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seventeenth century that the secret m ight be surprised, the secret of how
science happened. B ut to understand M ersenne and M ersennes rejection
of G iorgi, one m ust know w here G iorgi came from. H e came o u t of the
Pythagoro-Platonic trad itio n plus H erm es Trism egistus and the Cabala.
In a review of my book on B runo,38 A llen G. D ebus has suggested that
I have overem phasized the im portance of the d atin g of the H erm etic w ritings
by Isaac Casaubon in 1614 as w eakening the influence of the H erm etic
w ritings after th a t date. H e points o u t th at the first half of the seventeenth
century saw an increased interest in the occult approach to n atu re which
parallels the contem porary rise of m echanical philosophy. T h e real collapse
of the Renaissance magical science only occurs in the period after 1660.
U n til then it rem ained a positive force stim u latin g some scientists to a new
observational approach to n atu re . 39 I w ould accept this criticism as valid;
I th in k th at I may have overestim ated the im portance of C asaubons dating,
w hich was totally ignored by, for exam ple, F ludd and Kircher, and I also
believe, as indeed I have suggested in this paper, th at the late Renaissance
m ovem ent w hich I w ould like to label R osicrucian does co ntinue to exert
a strong influence through the seventeenth century. Nevertheless I still think
that C asaubons d atin g does, as it were, m ark a historical term which helps
to define and d elim it the H erm etic movem ent. T h o u g h the im portance of
Ficinos propagation of the H erm etic w ritings and his adoption of H erm etic
philosophy and practice m ust not be exaggerated to the exclusion of the
m any other influences fostering the m ovem ent, yet it was basic, and the
H erm etic attitu d e tow ard the cosmos and tow ard m an s relatio n to the cos
mos which Ficino and Pico adopted was, I believe, the chief stim ulus of that
new tu rn in g tow ard the world and operating on the w orld which, appearing
first as Renaissance magic, was to tu rn into seventeenth-century science. And
it was the sanction which the m isdating of the H erm etica gave to these w rit
ings that sanctioned procedures and attitudes which St. A ugustine had
severely condem ned and which were p ro h ib ited by the Church. If, as Ficino
believed, the H erm etica were all w ritten m any centuries before C hrist by a
holy Egyptian who foresaw the com ing of C hrist, this encouraged him and
other C hristian souls to em bark on the H erm etic magic. C asaubons dating
of the H erm etica as w ritten after C hrist destroyed an illusion w ithout which
the m ovem ent m ight n o t have gained its original m om entum , though it
could not stop the m ovem ent after it had gained such force and influence.
T h a t is perhaps a b etter way of p u ttin g it.

38 In Isis, LV, No. 180, (1964), 389-91.

39 See also the many observations in Allen G. Debus book The English Paracelsians (Lon
don, 1965), confirming the connections between Renaissance magic and Neo-Platonism
and the rise of science.

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It w ould be absurd of course to suggest th at the H erm etic texts and

F icinos in terp retatio n of them were the only causes of the m ovem ent.
T hese were only factors, though im p o rtan t ones, in dissem inating a new
clim ate of opinion through E urope which was favorable to the acceptance
of magico-religious and magico-scientific modes of thinking. N eo-Platonism
itself was favorable to this clim ate, and m edieval traditions of the same type
revived. If one includes in the trad itio n the revived Platonism w ith the
accom panying Pythagoro-Platonic interest in num ber, the expansion of
theories of harm ony und er the com bined pressures of Pythagoro-Platonism ,
H erm etism , and Cabalism, the intensification of interest in astrology with
which genuine astronom ical research was bo u n d up, and if one adds to all
this com plex stream of influences the expansion of alchemy in new forms, it
is, I think, impossible to deny that these were the Renaissance forces which
tu rn ed m e n s m inds in the direction o u t of which the scientific revolution
was to come. T h is was the trad itio n which broke down A ristotle in the nam e
of a unified universe through which ran one law, the law of magical an i
mism. T h is was the tradition which had to contend with the so m uch more
prom inent and successful disciplines of rhetorical and literary hum anism .
T h is was the tradition which prepared the way for the seventeenth-century
trium ph. B ut it m ust be emphasized th at the detailed work, the great body
of research, necessary for tracing this m ovem ent is not yet done. It lies in the
future.
T h e re is yet another way of regarding this strange history of the R enais
sance H erm etic tradition in its relatio n to science. W e may ask w hether
the seventeenth century discarded notions from the earlier trad itio n which
may have been actually nearer to the views of the universe unfolded by the
science of today than the m ovem ent which superseded it. W as the magically
anim ated universe of B runo, so close to the m agnetic universe of G ilbert,
a better guess abo u t the n atu re of reality than those seemingly so m uch
m ore rational universes of the m echanistic philosophers?

It may be illuminating to view the scientific revolution as in two phases, the

first phase consisting of an animistic universe operated by magic, the second
phase of a mathematical universe operated by mechanics. An enquiry into both
phases and their interactions, may be a more fruitful line of approach to the
problems raised by the science of to-day than the line which concentrates solely
on the seventeenth-century triumph.

Professor D ebus quotes these words of m ine in his review,40 adding, I

heartily agree w ith this opinion, and in essence it is the approach which I

40 In Isis, LV, 390, quoting Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition, p. 452.

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FRANCES A. YATES

have been tak in g in my ow n courses on R enaissance science." I t is m ost

gratifying to m e to learn th a t a p o in t of view w hich I p u t forw ard in some
fear an d trem b lin g is actually already the basis of teach in g in the U n ite d
States. I m ust, how ever, n o t com e before you on false pretenses, an d I m ust
em phasize that, ju st as I was careful to state in th e b eg in n in g th a t I am no
m agician, so I m u st be even m ore careful to state a t th e en d th a t I am no
scientist. T h o u g h w hen I rea d in the O bserver for S eptem ber 26, 1965, th a t
five h u n d re d of the w o rld s m ost expensive scientists, g ath ered a t O xford,
w ere in a m ood of breathless ex p ectatio n because they believed th a t high-
energy physics, b u rro w in g ever d eep er in to m atter, m ay be a b o u t to break
in to q u ite a new level of rea lity , it seem ed to m e th a t I had h eard som e
th in g like this before. In th e R osicrucian m anifesto of 1614 it is an n o u n ced
th a t some g rea t a u ro ra is a t h an d in the lig h t of w hich m an is ab o u t to
u n d ersta n d his ow n nobleness an d w orth, an d why he is called M icrocosmus,
an d how far his know ledge ex ten d eth in to n a tu re . P erhaps these words
are n o t so m uch a prophecy of th e lim ite d vision of the seventeenth-century
rev o lu tio n as of yet an o th e r au ro ra. A n d perhaps th e view of n a tu re of a
R osicrucian like Joh n D ee as a n etw ork of m agical forces w hich can be dealt
w ith by m athem atics is n ea rer to the new a u ro ra n o tw ith stan d in g his belief
in talism ans an d in th e co n ju rin g of angelsth a n an ig n o ran t person like
myself can und erstan d .

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