ABSTRACT

When seventeenth-century natural philosophers put forward their views, many routinely cited classical Greek and Roman sources as well as their contemporaries and near-contemporaries either in a supportive context or to debunk their opinion. Occasionally they mused on the general merits of ‘ancients’ versus ‘moderns’ as cognitive guides. Subsequently, many historians and others who have explored early modern natural philosophy – what has come to be known as the ‘scientific revolution’ of Western Europe – have commented on various aspects of this ‘ancients and moderns’ theme, generally in the context of the decline of scholasticism that occurred during the period.1

Indeed, the subject occurs regularly in university courses dealing with the intellectual history of early modern Europe.