36
and discoveries that had arisen after the 1773–1814 suppression, which his professors had learned mostly in non-Jesuit schools and which were foreign to the tradition of scholastic cosmology.
Moreover, like all the scientists of the new Society, Secchi did not have to resort
to a gimmick typical of pre-1773 Jesuit mathematical physicists and astronomers,
that of presenting as mere “hypotheses” any theories that were confirmed by the
phenomena but irreconcilable with the canonical physical doctrines. In his technical
writings, he never introduced metaphysical or theological assumptions, either
explicit or implicit, primary or additional, as a means of validating his theses or
results. His criteria were always inherent to the field of study, and this allowed them
to be accepted by the entire scientific community.
Finally, if to some extent the scientific writings of the old Society had a distinctive “style” (or “substyles” characteristic of different disciplines), this was not true
of those from the post-1814 Society. Philosophical works maintained a certain recognizable Jesuit style, but the terminology and the modes of exposition of scientists
like Caraffa, Pianciani, De Vico, and, even more, of Secchi were those of the scientific communication of the period. Those who read their writings would find no
clues in their content or style that the author was a Jesuit.
Instead, the link between Secchi and the scientific tradition of his order can only
be found in the substrate of his assumptions and objectives. This went beyond the
mere conviction that the study of nature can justify faith; and it was more than just
an attempt to disprove the criticisms of religion derived from the results of science
(which might be expected from every priest-scientist). To recognize these “Jesuit”
assumptions and objectives, however, it is necessary to probe Secchi’s peculiar
apologetic uses of scientific ideas or results; and these are not to be found in his
technical writings, either research or educational.
The synthesis offered in The Unit of Physical Forces is only a partial exception,
because the assumptions that underlie the theme of that work rarely appear on the
surface. For example, in it Secchi expresses his opposition to evolutionism; obviously that had no antecedents in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, but some
of the arguments he used to justify his views were canonical philosophical theses in
the Society. While admitting a purely mechanical origin for material and natural
inorganic processes, he denied it strictly for organic ones, because he believed that
design was intrinsic to them: “to produce such organization requires the intelligent
work of the Eternal Machinist whose work and whose Art we name, for brevity,
with the conventional term Nature.”
2
This strong sense that life demanded an infinite
intelligence as the origin of the phenomena had previously been at the center of the
Jesuit polemics against classical atomism, and then against Descartes, biological
mechanism, and the sensist psychologies of the eighteenth century.
The most marked traces of the Jesuit tradition, however, are found in Secchi’s
later short pieces, which at least outwardly were of a less systematic scope. One
2 “Per produrre l’organizzazione si esige l’opera intelligente dell’Eterno Macchinista il cui lavoro
e la cui Arte con termine convenzionale per brevità chiamiamo Natura”: L’unità delle forze fisiche, p. 427.
U. Baldini
and discoveries that had arisen after the 1773–1814 suppression, which his professors had learned mostly in non-Jesuit schools and which were foreign to the tradition of scholastic cosmology.
Moreover, like all the scientists of the new Society, Secchi did not have to resort
to a gimmick typical of pre-1773 Jesuit mathematical physicists and astronomers,
that of presenting as mere “hypotheses” any theories that were confirmed by the
phenomena but irreconcilable with the canonical physical doctrines. In his technical
writings, he never introduced metaphysical or theological assumptions, either
explicit or implicit, primary or additional, as a means of validating his theses or
results. His criteria were always inherent to the field of study, and this allowed them
to be accepted by the entire scientific community.
Finally, if to some extent the scientific writings of the old Society had a distinctive “style” (or “substyles” characteristic of different disciplines), this was not true
of those from the post-1814 Society. Philosophical works maintained a certain recognizable Jesuit style, but the terminology and the modes of exposition of scientists
like Caraffa, Pianciani, De Vico, and, even more, of Secchi were those of the scientific communication of the period. Those who read their writings would find no
clues in their content or style that the author was a Jesuit.
Instead, the link between Secchi and the scientific tradition of his order can only
be found in the substrate of his assumptions and objectives. This went beyond the
mere conviction that the study of nature can justify faith; and it was more than just
an attempt to disprove the criticisms of religion derived from the results of science
(which might be expected from every priest-scientist). To recognize these “Jesuit”
assumptions and objectives, however, it is necessary to probe Secchi’s peculiar
apologetic uses of scientific ideas or results; and these are not to be found in his
technical writings, either research or educational.
The synthesis offered in The Unit of Physical Forces is only a partial exception,
because the assumptions that underlie the theme of that work rarely appear on the
surface. For example, in it Secchi expresses his opposition to evolutionism; obviously that had no antecedents in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, but some
of the arguments he used to justify his views were canonical philosophical theses in
the Society. While admitting a purely mechanical origin for material and natural
inorganic processes, he denied it strictly for organic ones, because he believed that
design was intrinsic to them: “to produce such organization requires the intelligent
work of the Eternal Machinist whose work and whose Art we name, for brevity,
with the conventional term Nature.”
2
This strong sense that life demanded an infinite
intelligence as the origin of the phenomena had previously been at the center of the
Jesuit polemics against classical atomism, and then against Descartes, biological
mechanism, and the sensist psychologies of the eighteenth century.
The most marked traces of the Jesuit tradition, however, are found in Secchi’s
later short pieces, which at least outwardly were of a less systematic scope. One
2 “Per produrre l’organizzazione si esige l’opera intelligente dell’Eterno Macchinista il cui lavoro
e la cui Arte con termine convenzionale per brevità chiamiamo Natura”: L’unità delle forze fisiche, p. 427.
U. Baldini