Jesuit Science Research Articles

Jesuits and Astrology: Print versus Manuscript

Abstract Astrology played an important part in early modern European culture, as a fundamental part of both mathematical and astronomical traditions. During the same period, the Society of Jesus built their global educational enterprise, which included a proven expertise in mathematical and astronomical study. Although insufficiently acknowledged in Jesuit historiography, astrology formed an important part of this scientific project. Several Jesuit authors engaged in the study, teaching, and practice of astrology. From the mathematics curriculum of the Roman College to the Jesuit astrology classes in Portugal and Spain, the present article discusses astrology’s presence in early modern Jesuit publications. It examines the discussion of astrology in the Society’s scientific works, highlights the sharp contrast between the printed word and the manuscript tradition, and demonstrates how the latter provides a better guide to the role of astrology as part of Jesuit science.

Epistemic Network: The Jesuits and Tropical Cyclone Prediction, 1860–1900

Jesuit scientists played a key role in the establishment of the earliest warning systems for tropical cyclones in the 1870s and 1880s. Jesuit observatories and their cyclone prediction methods were unrivaled in the geopolitically and commercially competitive landscape in the Antilles and the Far East. Even Western governments and local mercantile communities in Cuba, China, and the Philippines entrusted the Jesuits with the direction of national and regional weather services in the 1880s and 1890s, while state observatories and imperial navies often surreptitiously drew on the Jesuits’ forecasts for their own storm warnings. The ability of the Society of Jesus to produce, codify, and disseminate scientific knowledge is here addressed in terms of the formation of an “epistemic network” of actors sharing certain beliefs as well as a common scientific enterprise. This actor-centered network did not mean, however, that there was some center of calculation or production through which Western domination of knowledge over the periphery would take place. Quite the contrary, the case of Jesuit cyclone prediction details a specific networked activity that deepens our understanding of how specific epistemic networks can be actively engaged in the processes of circulation and globalization while also adapting, modifying, and producing prediction methods in local contexts.

Marin Getaldić – preteča novovjekovnog pristupa istraživanju prirode

Marin Getaldić – preteča novovjekovnog pristupa istraživanju prirode

Knowledge Diffusion and Intellectual Change: When Chinese Literati Met European Jesuits

From 1580, the Jesuits introduced European sciences to China―an autarkic civilization whose intelligentsia was dominated by Confucian literati. Drawing upon prefectural distributions of the Jesuits and Chinese scientific works, this paper demonstrates that the Jesuits stimulated Confucian literati to study science. On average, the literati’s scientific works increased four times in prefectures with Jesuit scientists after 1580. But this effect shrank after the Jesuits were expelled by the emperor of China in 1723. Since China’s scholar-official system remained unchanged, the literati’s scientific research aimed to serve the needs of statecraft rather than translating into economic progress.

Jesuit Science in America: The Bulletin of the American Association of Jesuit Scientists (1922–66)

Jesuit Science in America: The Bulletin of the American Association of Jesuit Scientists (1922–66)

The Jesuit Roots of Spanish Naval Education: Juan José Navarro’s Translation of Paul Hoste for the Academia de Guardias Marinas

Abstract From its origins in 1540 to its final expulsion in 1767, the far-flung Jesuit network of schools and scholars influenced the development of scientific and mathematical pedagogy in the Spanish Empire. The most important of these schools was the Colegio Imperial of Madrid where young noblemen and members of the Spanish court learned mathematics. Therefore, when Juan José Navarro, an early eighteenth-century Spanish naval officer and reformer, began to teach at the newly founded Academia de Guardias Marinas, he translated French Jesuit Paul Hoste’s L’Art des armées navales into a Spanish manuscript to serve as the basis of a curriculum on contemporary naval tactics. Navarro’s efforts highlight the continuity between the Jesuit science and mathematics of the seventeenth century and the emerging scientific institutions of the Spanish Enlightenment.

Jesuit Probabilistic Logic between Scholastic and Academic Philosophy

There is a well-documented paradigm-shift in eighteenth century Jesuit philosophy and science, at the very least in Central Europe: traditional scholastic version(s) of Aristotelianism were replaced by early modern rationalism (Wolff's systematisation of Leibnizian philosophy) and early modern science and mathematics. In the field of probability, this meant that the traditional Jesuit engagement with probability, uncertainty, and truthlikeness (in particular, as applied to moral theology) could translate into mathematical language, and can be analysed against the background of the accounts of probability, pre-mathematical Jesuit logic, Wolff's conceptual analysis, and Bernoullian mathematisation. The works of two Jesuit philosophers, Berthold Hauser and Sigismund Storchenau, can be related to this context. The core of their logic of (epistemic) probability is the account of negation (or ‘contradiction’) and implication (or ‘argument’), in particular, the algorithms for computing the reliability of one piece of evidence when compared to the respective counter-evidence and for computing the probability of a conclusion given the probability of its premises.

Jesuit Scientists in Science-Fiction Novels*

The appearance of Jesuit scientists in science-fiction novels, often as the main characters, is an interesting and little-known fact. Some have even suggested that this feature may characterize a specific sub-genre of such novels. The quality and the themes vary greatly, and it is not clear what moves authors to include Jesuits. This article reviews ten of these novels, noting their great variety in plot and approach, as well as the frequent use of space travel and contact with intelligent aliens. In general, the presence of Jesuit characters allows the authors to introduce a religious perspective, but can also be interpreted as a recognition of the Jesuit tradition in scientific fields.

Franz Huberti (1715–1789), Steplingův přítel a korespondent

This contribution presents a brief overview of the life and work of an important representative of eighteenth-century German Jesuit science. Franz Huberti started his academic career in Fulda, but soon moved to Würzburg, where he stayed until the end of his life. Huberti was mainly a teacher and author of numerous textbooks of mathematics and physics. Towards the end of his life, he was also active in the codification of units of measurement. His most important contribution to science, however, was the construction of an astronomic observatory at the Würzburg university. He was a dedicated friend of Josef Stepling of Prague: he corresponded with him for many years and visited him twice. He was helping to acquire instruments for the Prague observatory, which was at the time being furnished. Most of these instruments were imported from England, but the mural quadrant was produced for Stepling by his own mechanist.

The Jesuits and Chinese Science

From 1580, the Jesuits introduced European sciences to China―an autarkic civilization whose intelligentsia was dominated by Confucian literati. Drawing upon prefectural distributions of the Jesuits and of Chinese scientific works between 1501 and 1780, this paper demonstrates that the Jesuits stimulated Confucian literati to study science. On average, the literati’s scientific works increased four times in prefectures with Jesuit scientists after 1580. But this effect shrank after the Jesuits were expelled by the emperor of China in 1723. These findings indicate the importance of an environment open to knowledge flow for intellectual development in pre-industrial times.

Cyclones & Earthquakes: The Jesuits, Prediction, Trade, & Spanish Dominion in Cuba & the Philippines, 1850–1898 by Aitor Anduaga

Reviewed by: Cyclones & Earthquakes: The Jesuits, Prediction, Trade, & Spanish Dominion in Cuba & the Philippines, 1850–1898 by Aitor Anduaga Kerby C. Alvarez Aitor Anduaga Cyclones & Earthquakes: The Jesuits, Prediction, Trade, & Spanish Dominion in Cuba & the Philippines, 1850–1898 Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 2017. 375 pages. Possessing a command of both social and physical science research, Aitor Anduaga writes about the history of meteorology and seismology, institutional scientific networks, and scientific ideologies and discourses in the second half of the nineteenth century, an important period in Spanish contemporary history. Evident in his works, namely, Geofísica, Economía y Sociedad en la España Contemporánea (CSIC Press, 2009), Meteorología, Ideología y Sociedad en la España Contemporánea (CSIC and AEMET, 2012), and Geophysics, Realism and Industry: How Commercial Interests Shaped Geophysical Conceptions, 1900–1960 (Oxford University Press, 2016), are the correlations between scientific development and the greater social and economic milieus. Anduaga demonstrates that science and society do not exist in a vacuum. His latest opus, Cyclones & Earthquakes: The Jesuits, Prediction, Trade, & Spanish Dominion in Cuba & the Philippines, 1850–1898, is a historical assessment of the institutional and bureaucratic transformations in two of the remaining Spanish colonies in the second half of the nineteenth century and of how these scientific makeovers helped institutionalize meteorology and seismology as indispensable bodies of knowledge in advancing colonial [End Page 95] economy and education. In this historical context, Anduaga ventures into a multifaceted, albeit geographically specific, field of the history of science and technology—the development of institutional meteorology and seismology in the Philippines and Cuba. The author guides readers through the complicated nineteenth-century Spanish bureaucracy and details how scientific institutions flourished in the intricate ministerial structure that connected the Madrid government to its colonies. The book's arguments revolve around four aspects: (1) the institutionalization of science, mainly, meteorology and seismology, and the role of Jesuit scientists and Spanish state engineers in scientific advancement in the colonies; (2) knowledge production through experiments, observations, and scientific publications; (3) the engagement of the economic elite in scientific development; and (4) an evaluation of Spanish peninsular and overseas bureaucracy through the lenses of scientific governance and network building by state and nonstate actors. In the late–nineteenth-century Philippines and Cuba most of the scientific accounts and studies about typhoons and earthquakes were made by Jesuits and Spanish colonial state engineers, including military (inginieros militares), civil (inginieros coloniales), and mining (inginieros de minas) engineers. They played active roles in developing the colonial economy, even though Madrid was often hesitant to invest in new and risky scientific projects. The Jesuits and state engineers established their presence as "scientific architects" in the colonies. At the vanguard of the emergence and maturation of modern scientific ideas in the colonies were Philippine and Cuban observatories that generated innovative ideas and instrumentation. These observatories—the Observatorio Meteorológico de Manila (OM), the Observatorio Fisico-Meteorológico de Havana (OFMH), and the Observatorio del Colegio de Belén (OCB) in Cuba—equipped the colonies with the basics of environmental science, particularly meteorology and seismology. These observatories' scientists and engineers mastered the craft of measuring patterns of weather influences and terrestrial movements. Jesuits were behind these institutions during their formative years: Federico Faura and José Algué (OM), Benito Viñes (OCB), and Andrés Poey (OFMH). In the case of state engineers, not only did they help develop seismology as a discipline but they also institutionalized it through the inclusion of scientific knowledge in policies pertaining to building regulations. In the [End Page 96] Philippines, state engineers like Rafael Cerrero Sáenz, José Centeno García, and Manuel Cortés led the production of scientific knowledge. In Cuba, colonial military engineers and officials such as José Gutiérrez de la Concha, Francisco Serrano, Domingo Dulce, and Francisco Lersundi played active roles in the promotion of institutional meteorology and seismology. Anduaga narrates the development of these sciences in the Spanish colonies from the point of view of the state and how state agencies and actors were the protagonists in this nineteenth-century imperial project. On the one hand, the book "highlights the ambiguous role of the state...

Jesuit Science and the End of Nature’s Secrets, written by Mark A. Waddell

Jesuit Science and the End of Nature’s Secrets, written by Mark A. Waddell

For the greater credibility: Jesuit science and education in modern Portugal (1858-1910).

Upon the restoration of the Society of Jesus in Portugal in 1858, the Jesuits founded two important colleges that made significant efforts in the promotion of hands-on experimental teaching of the natural sciences. At the Colégio de Campolide (Lisbon, 1858-1910) and the Colégio de São Fiel (Louriçal do Campo, 1863-1910) the Jesuits created modern chemistry and physics laboratories, organized significant botanical, zoological and geological collections, promoted scientific expeditions with their students to observe eclipses and to collect novel species of animals and plants, and engaged in original research work in physics, botany, and zoology. The successful implementation of modern scientific practices gained these colleges public recognition as the most prominent secondary institutions in nineteenth-century Portugal, and this made a major contribution to countering the widespread and commonly accepted anti-Jesuit accusations of obscurantism and scientific backwardness.

Jesuit Scientists and Mongolian Fossils: The French Paleontological Missions in China, 1923–1928

This essay examines the Mission paléontologique française of the 1920s, a series of scientific expeditions into the Ordos Desert in Inner Mongolia in which a team of Jesuit scholar-scientists worked with local collaborators to provide material for the Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle in Paris. The case study shows that the global and colonial expansion of Western science in the early twentieth century provided space for traditional scientific institutions, such as universalizing metropolitan collections and clerical scholarly networks, to extend their research projects. The linking of approaches, agendas, and geographic regions was facilitated by the concepts and practices of the deep-time sciences of geology, paleontology, and human prehistory. These were based on the interchange of expertise, common projects of unveiling the development of life, and the alignment of different regions and specimens. Moreover, the expeditions did not just conduct research based around global movement and transmission. They also conceptualized the ancient development of life in terms of movement, migration, and exchange. The act of forming research networks that linked Asia and Europe also led scientists to conceive of these regions as bound by deep natural processes. Circulation and transfer became important actors’ categories used to understand the origins and history of life.

Bernardo Cesi (Cæsius) and his Mineralogia (1636): naming a new science from an indiscriminate piling of mineral accounts

The word Mineralogia appears for the first time in print on the title page of the unfinished book on minerals written in Latin by the Jesuit Bernardo Cesi (Bernardus Caesius Mutinensis: 1581–1630), edited by the Modena Jesuit College and published posthumously in Lyon (France) in 1636. In the opening page of this ponderous in-folio book, Cesi states that he coined the word because he did not want to compete with the title De mineralibus given by the publisher to Albert the Great’s book on the same matter. Moreover, he had thought that such a new word is pleasant and would attract readers to learn the miracles of metal concretions and mineral medicaments, the value of the earths, the preparation of colours and pigments, the effectiveness of condensed juices, the grading of common stones and gemstones, and all the metal riches hidden under the earth. In fact, Mineralogia is a meticulous compilation of all accounts on minerals reported from Homer to Giovan Battista Della Porta (both mentioned by name), i.e., over 2000 years of surviving written texts. Cesi discusses all information according to a strict adherence to Scholasticism, as interpreted by the Jesuit Company at the beginning of seventeenth century. Thus, e.g., the twelve gems of the breastplate of the Jewish High Priest refer to the Apostles and those in the Book of Revelation are in connection with the Nicaean symbol. Cesi either denies or discredits all scientific novelties arising from the contemporaneous “scientific revolution”. In particular, for him the Earth is the fixed centre of the universe; Copernicus is as a drunkard and Galileo as a mere builder of instruments. Nevertheless, he questions the equality in number between metals and planets, suggested by Agricola, because Jesuit scientists had confirmed the existence of four additional planets around Jupiter. This ponderous book is valuable only for its enormous collection of ancient information, which is easy to retrieve because the index is extraordinary meticulous. However, its approach is too backward even for the time it was printed. Consequently, the book was not successful and never re-edited. Only a few English scholars took notice of it, and blamed its approach. After one century, the Swedish school of chemically oriented mineralogists re-vitalized the word Mineralogia. von Bromell (1740) was the first, followed by Wallerius (1747). Probably they did not know Cesi’s book, but both liked and used the Latin name of the science. The word became rooted in terminology and nomenclature when d’Holbach translated into French Wallerius’ textbook (1753). Therefore, from the second half of the eighteenth century on, the French word Mineralogie was the actual root name of the science of minerals for most languages, and gave rise to several derivatives, just as Geologie was the root name for the Earth science in general. The original words Mineralogia (in Latin) and Giologia (in Italian) remained only in the memory of few historians.

Jesuit Science and the End of Nature's Secrets by Mark A. Waddell

Jesuit Science and the End of Nature's Secrets by Mark A. Waddell

Jesuit Science and the End of Nature’s Secrets, written by Mark A. Waddell, 2015

Jesuit Science and the End of Nature’s Secrets, written by Mark A. Waddell, 2015

Jesuit Science and the End of Nature's Secrets - by Mark A. Waddell

Jesuit Science and the End of Nature's Secrets - by Mark A. Waddell

Mattheus Greuter's Sunspot Etchings for Galileo Galilei's Macchie Solari (1613)

For the series of etchings that he produced in Rome for Galileo Galilei's 1613 astronomical publication on sunspots, German-born Catholic convert Mattheus Greuter used an experimental copperplate etching technique that subsumed Galileo's observation-based conclusions about the sunspots' quiddity. It adapted an exceptionally subtle linear manner from devotional prints, their fine style inflecting Lucretian mechanics and metaphors of vision and complicating early modern perceptions regarding northern lines as inherently devout and accurate. Greuter's sunspots capture the poignancy of the all-too-brief historical moment in which Galileo, the German diaspora artist, Jesuit scientists, and Roman inquisitors might coexist.

Making the New World Their Own: Chinese Encounters with Jesuit Science in the Age of Discovery, written by Qiong Zhang

Making the New World Their Own: Chinese Encounters with Jesuit Science in the Age of Discovery, written by Qiong Zhang