Ideas: A History from Fire to Freud

The paradox of Newton is a useful corrective with which to begin this book. A history of ideas might be expected to show a smooth progression in mankind’s intellectual development, from primitive notions in the very beginning, when early man was still using stone tools, through the gestation of the world’s great religions, down to the unprecedented flowering of the arts in Renaissance times, the birth of modern science, the industrial revolution, the devastating insights of evolution and the technological wizardry that marks our own day, with which we are all familiar and on which so many are dependent.

But the great scientist’s career reminds us that the situation is more complex. There has been a general development, a steady progress much of the time (the idea of progress is discussed more fully in Chapter 26). But by no means all of the time. Throughout history certain countries and civilisations have glittered for a while, then for one reason or another been eclipsed. Intellectual history is very far from being a straight line – that is part of its attraction. In his book, The Great Titration (1969), the Cambridge historian of science Joseph Needham set out to answer what he thought was one of the most fascinating puzzles in history: why the Chinese civilisation, which developed paper, gunpowder, woodblock printing, porcelain and the idea of the competitive written examination for public servants, and led the world intellectually for many centuries, never developed mature science or modern business methods – capitalism – and therefore, after the Middle Ages, allowed itself to be overtaken by the West and then dropped further and further behind (his answer is discussed on pages 439–440).⁴ The same might be said about Islam. Baghdad in the ninth century led the Mediterranean world intellectually: it was here that the great classics of the ancient civilisations were translated, where the hospital was conceived, where al-jabr, or algebra, was developed, and major advances made in falsafah, philosophy. By the eleventh century, thanks to the rigours of fundamentalism, it had disappeared. Charles Freeman, in his recent book The Closing of the Western Mind, describes many instances of the way intellectual life withered in the early Middle Ages, the years of Christian fundamentalism.⁵ In the fourth century Lactantius wrote: ‘What purpose does knowledge serve – for as to knowledge of natural causes, what blessing is there for me if I should know where the Nile rises, or whatever else under the heavens the “scientists” rave about?’⁶ Epilepsy, which Hippocrates described as a natural illness as early as the fifth century BC, was, in the Middle Ages, placed under the care of St Christopher. John of Gaddesden, an English physician, recommended as a cure the reading of the Gospel over the epileptic while simultaneously placing on him the hair of a white dog.⁷

This is perhaps the most important lesson we can learn from a history of ideas: that intellectual life – arguably the most important, satisfying and characteristic dimension to our existence – is a fragile thing, easily destroyed or wasted. In the last chapter some conclusions will be attempted, in an effort to assess what has and has not been achieved in this realm. This Introduction, however, shows how this history differs from other histories, and in so doing helps explain what a history of ideas is. The discussion will be confined to an exploration of the various ways the material for an intellectual history may be organised. A history of ideas clearly touches on a vast amount of material and ways must be found to make this array manageable.