Futures Volume 4 issue 4 1972 [doi 10.1016%2F0016-3287%2872%2990055-9] I.F. Clarke -- 5. Prelude to prediction- Andreae, Kepler, Campanella.pdf

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358 Prophets and Predictors

Prophets and

A series of articles that expose the

Predictors

theme that utopian and social fiction

has always responded to the society of

its day and its needs.

5. PRELUDE TO PREDICTION:

Andreae Kepler Campanella

I. F. Clarke

TH

course of utopian and predictive

literature during the seventeenth cen-

tury is a convincing demonstration

of the profound and permanent con-

nections between the aspirations and

the anticipations of an age. The hope

of better things to come that marked

Bacon’s jVew Atlantis was also charac-

teristic of the ideal states and imaginary

voyages of the period; for one of the

primary consequences of the unpre-

cedented sequence of scientific and

geographical discoveries - Columbus,

Magellan, Kepler, Galileo, Vesalius,

Harvey-was a change in the way in

which the Europeans regarded their

world. As scientific knowledge advanced

and evidence for the social utility of

the sciences increased, a new climate

of expectation developed.

The episode of Galileo’s

Sidereus

Jfuncius

of 1610 was typical of the

times. It began when Galileo used the

newly invented telescope to observe

the night sky and was astounded by

what he saw: “Stars in myriads which

have never been seen before and which

surpass the old previously known stars

in number more than ten times”.

The shock-waves of Galileo’s twenty-

four page report affected all Europe.

It was in every sense a sudden revela-

tion of a new world; and so the

English ambassador to Venice wrote

at once to James I with: “The strangest

piece of news that he hath ever yet

received from any part of the world

;

Professor Clarke is Head of the English Studies

Department, University of Strathclyde, UK.

which is the annexed book come

abroad this very day) of the Mathe-

matical Professor at Padua, who by

the help of an optical instrument

which both enlargeth and approxi-

mateth the object) invented first in

Flanders and bettered by himself,

hath discovered four new planets

rolling about the sphere of Jupiter,

besides many other unknown fixed

stars; likewise the true cause of the

Via

Lactae so

long searched; and lastly,

that the moon is not spherical but

endued with many prominences, and,

which is of all the strangest, illuminated

with the solar light by reflection from

the body of the earth, as he seemeth

to say”.

In revealing that the moon was

“full of hollows and protuberances just

like the surface of the earth itself”,

Galileo provided information and in-

centive for speculations about the

possibility of life in other worlds. The

Dominican friar,

Tommaso Campa-

nella,

sent Galileo an enthusiastic

letter in which he discussed the

likelihood that the moon and the

planets might be inhabited and that

their inhabitants might be wiser than

the peoples of earth. The German

astronomer, Kepler, went further. He

enlarged on several of Galileo’s theories

in his Dissertatio cum Numcio Sidereo

suggesting that the lunar shadows

might be caused by buildings, arguing

that the moons of Jupiter must be

inhabited,

and thinking forward to

the day when “men not afraid of the

vast emptiness of space” would make

FUTURES December 1972





The ideal city of sixteenth

century science: the view of

Campanefla’s City of the Sun.

The ampfe promenades and

arcades are designed for the

recreation and instruction of

the Solarian inhabitants.




Prophets and Predictors

361

the journey to other worlds. The

process

of extrapolation had com-

menced.

Kepler added the new information

provided by Galileo to his own ideas

about the moon. He started from the

then known facts and deduced a series

of possibilities about the existence of

lunar creatures; and all these were

written into the Somnium the first

truly scientific fantasy of space travel,

composed in 1611 and published post-

humously in 1634 by Kepler’s son.

As the Latin title makes clear, this

brief story was presented in the form

of a dream in which the narrator

describes how benevolent daemons are

able to transport human travellers, “in

four hours at the most”, from our

planet to the lunar world of Levania.

But there the fantasy ends and for the

rest of the story Kepler writes as a

man of science. In one extraordinary

passage he seems to think in terms of

universal gravity half a century before

the publication of Newton’s Principia.

He relates that, when his cosmic

voyagers are well on their way to the

moon,

their passage grows easier,

“because on such a long journey the

body no doubt escapes the magnetic

force of the earth and enters that of

the moon, so that the latter gets the

upper hand”.

When the voyagers reach the moon,

they find an imagined world shaped

by the precise scientific deductions of

Kepler. The long lunar nights and

days alternate between temperatures

“fifteen times hotter than our Africa”

and searing nights of snow and ice.

It is a land of “very high mountains

as well as very deep and wide valleys

Yet it is all porous and, so to say,

perforated with caves and grottoes

everywhere, and) these recesses are

for the inhabitants the principal pro-

tection against heat and cold”. In

keeping with the astronomical know-

ledge of 1611 Kepler had deduced that

there must be an atmosphere on the

moon and that the peculiar lunar

conditions would make for rapid growth

and a short life. It is a world of gigantic

snake-like creatures with “no fixed

abode, no established domicile. In the

course of one of their days they roam

in crowds over their whole sphere.

Some use their legs, which far surpass

those of our camels; some resort to

wings”.

The evidence of the Somnium shows

how fact and fantasy had begun to

interact in the seventeenth century,

how a knowledge of science carried

over into rudimentary extrapolations.

In fact, it is clear that Kepler’s space

story like the science-based ideal

states of Bacon, Andreae, Campanella,

Joseph Glanvill) marked the first

stages in a new technique of pre-

diction that was to develop into the

first forecasts of the future in the

eigheenth century. These ideal states

started from basic assumptions about

the capacity and the utility of the

sciences; and together they signal the

emergence of a hope that, by taking

scientific thought, mankind would

learn to control nature. So, the German

Lutheran minister, Johann Valentin

Andreae, published his Christianopolis

in 1619, convinced that religion and

science would between them ensure a

stable, prosperous and progressive so-

ciety. This vision of the Christian City,

illuminated by right religion and sup-

ported by true science, is a true image

of the future; for Andreae describes

in the here-and-now style of utopian

fiction a pattern of life that had not

yet appeared in Europe. This is most

apparent in the enthusiastic description

of the laboratories for the study of

metals, minerals, animals, and plants.

The end of science is the advantage of

mankind; and this idea appears most

clearly in the pre-eminence given to

the study of mathematics. As Andreae

says

:

“If you consider human need

there is no branch of knowledge to

which the study of mathematics)

does not bear some help of first impor-

tance. If you consider the undertakings




362

Prophets and Predictors

of man’s mind, you will discover that

man struggles almost with infinity, in

this one direction, and worms his

way far into the secrets of progression”.

Those prophetic words found an

echo in the ideal state of another

enthusiast, Tommaso Campanella, who

wrote the first draft of his Cittri de1

Sole in 1602 and published the final

version in 1623. Campanella’s ideal

city is another picture of the future-the

verbal image of an ordered, dedicated

and progressive society. The greater

part “is built upon a high hill, which

rises from an extensive plain; it is

divided into seven rings or huge

circles named from the seven planets,

and the way from one to the other of

these is by four streets and through

four gates that look toward the four

points of the compass”. Level by level

there are arcades and promenades for

the citizens, and the walls of each

circle are covered with instructive

paintings. The designers of ideal states

are always the most thorough of

planners. Campanella made every inch

work for the common good: “On the

interior wall of the first circuit all the

mathematical figures are conspicuously

painted-figures more in number than

Archimedes or Euclid discovered-

marked symmetrically and with the

explanation of them neatly written and

contained in a little verse On the

exterior convex wall is, first, an im-

mense drawing of the whole earth,

given at one view. Following on this

there are tablets setting forth for

every country the customs both public

and private, the laws, the origins, and

the power of the inhabitants”. And

so the work of instruction goes on

from one level to another, ending in

the uppermost circuit “wherein are

painted all the mechanical arts with

the several instruments for each and

their manner of use among the different

nations”.

Facts and objects-paintings and

museums-are typical of the seven-

teenth century utopias. They looked

forward to a better organised world in

which useful knowledge would be

available to those who could use it;

for in a time of increasing scientific

knowledge,

when scientific journals

did not exist and there were no syste-

matic arrangements for the exchange

of scientific information,

the more

prescient could foresee the immense

benefits to be gained from the collec-

tion, collation and dissemination of

useful knowledge. For example, a brief

utopian passage in the Anatomy OJ

Melancholy outlines Robert Burton’s

plan to

“have certain ships sent out

for new discoveries every year, and

certain discreet men appointed to

travel into all neighbour kingdoms by

land, which shall observe what arti-

ficial inventions and good laws are in

other countries”.

The same idea ap-

pears in Abraham Cowley’s

Proposition

for the Advancement of Experimental Philo-

sophy. Cowley would have four itinerant

professors sent to Asia, Africa, and the

Americas,

“there to reside three years

at least, and to give a constant account

of all things that belong to the

learning and especially the Natural

Experimental Philosophy of those

parts”.

The central theory behind these

utopian visions of change and improve-

ment was the argument from the

evidence of things achieved. Men like

Campanella belonged to the new race

of horizon-watchers for whom the

future represented boundless oppor-

tunity. They knew, as Campanella

said, that their age had seen “more

history within a hundred years than

all the world had in four thousand

years before”. And by ‘history’ Cam-

panella meant material progress, for

he went on to talk of ‘ the wonderful

inventions of printing and guns and

the use of the magnet”. Campanella

knew that a new sequence of develop-

ment and discovery had begun. The

great hope was that there would be

new inventions and discoveries and

that one day mankind would break




Alternative Futures 363

free from all burdens and limitations.

For this reason the utopian writers of

the seventeenth century kept close to

the conditions of their times and for

the most part they wrote of desirable

improvements in the major necessities

of life-agriculture, medicine, educa-

tion, industry,

and communications.

In one utopia, the anonymous con-

tinuation of Bacon’s .New Atlantis the

author describes a large agricultural

research ‘college’, attached to a univer-

sity, which works on soil fertility

problems-“the quickening of Nature

by art”. In Andreae’s Christianopolis

the medical profession is far advanced:

the doctors have cures for the worst

diseases and special provision for the

mentally ill. In Campenella’s Cittci

del Sole when the citizens go out to

work in the fields, “they use wagons

fitted with sails which are borne along

by the wind even when it is contrary,

by the marvellous contrivance of

wheels within wheels”. The wish-

fulfilment element comes out even more

clearly in

the description of the

Solarian ships: “They possess rafts and

triremes, which go over the waters

without rowers or the force of the wind

but by a marvellous contrivance”.

Campanella’s

‘marvellous contriv-

ance’ was an act of faith in the power

of science to transform the condition of

mankind. In the Cittri de1 Sole and in

the other utopias there was a common

scheme for the conquest of nature-the

collection of facts, followed by a

vaguely described experimental pro-

cess, ending in valuable technological

improvements. The new attitude of

mind was progressive in the sense that

the utopians looked forward in hope

but without any clear idea of the way

in which their ambitions would be

realised. We know the rest of the story

and we also know what was hidden

from them-that,

said, “Progress is

utopias”.

as Oscar Wilde

the realisation of

Alternative

An occasional Futures

column which

examines current disillusionment with

futures

the generally accepted Western notion

of progress and reports experiments

which indicate alternative directions.

CHINA: A NEW SOCIETY IN THE MAKING

Derek Bryan

AT the “Movement for Survival” semi-

nar held at Imperial College, London

in 1972, one of the speakers said that

the developed countries had set “a

standard of extravagant consumption

that has become a model for the rest

of the world”-a statement that, as far

as China ie, at least one-third of the

rest of the world) is concerned, is the

Mr Bryan is chairman of the Society

or

Anglo-

Chinese Understanding. He served for many

years in the foreign service in China and is now

senior visiting lecturer in Chinese at the

Polytechnic of Central London UK.

exact opposite of the truth

:

thedeveloped

countries’ standard of consumption is

what the Chinese call a ‘negative ex-

ample’. Such conscious or unconscious

omissions of China have for over

twenty years been a commonplace in

the thinking of the Western intellectual

establishment and it is worth consider-

ing why this should have been so.

For over a century before the revolu-

tion of 1949, China-with the biggest

population, longest recorded history

and oldest surviving culture in the


Futures Volume 4 issue 4 1972 [doi 10.1016%2F0016-3287%2872%2990055-9] I.F. Clarke -- 5. Prelude to prediction- Andreae, Kepler, Campanella.pdf

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