Time in History: Views of Time From Prehistory to the Present Day

by G. J. Whitrow

  10 W. Hartner, "'The principle and use of the astrolabe'", in Oriens-Occidens ( Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1968), 287-318; J. D. North, "'The astrolabe'", Scientific American, 230 ( Jan. 1974), 96-106.

  11 D. J. de Solla Price, "'Mechanical water clocks of the 14th century in Fez, Morocco'", in Proceedings of the Tenth International Congress of the History of Science ( Ithaca, 1962) ( Paris: Hermann, 1964), i. 599-602.

  -199-

  12 D. R. Hill (ed. and trans.), On the Construction of Water-clocks ( London: Turner & Devereux, 1976), 9.

  13 D. R. Hill (ed. and trans.), The Book of Ingenious Devices ( Dordrecht: Reidel, 1974), 271 ft.

  14 D. B. MacDonald, "'Continuous re-creation and atomic time in Muslim scholastic theology'", Isis, 9 ( 1927), 326-7.

  15 M. Maimonides, The Guide for the Perplexed, trans. A. Friedlander ( London: Routledge, 1904), 121.

  16 MacDonald, op. cit. (above, n. 14), 341.

  17 al-Biruni, The Chronology of Ancient Nations, trans, and ed. E. C. Sachau ( London: W. H. Allen, 1879), 34-6.

  18 L. Massignon, "'Time in Islamic thought'", in Man and Time: Papers from the Eranos Yearbooks ( London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1958), 109.

  19 B. Smalley, Historians of the Middle Ages ( London: Thames & Hudson, 1974), 30.

  20 A. J. Gurevich, Categories of Medieval Culture, trans. G. L. Campbell ( London: Routiedge & Kegan Paul, 1985), 122.

  21 N. Cohn, The Pursuit of the Millenium ( London: Secker & Warburg, 1957), 102.

  22 M. Reeves, Joachim of Fiore and the Prophetic Future ( London: SPCK, 1976), 3.

  23 M. Reeves, The Influence of Prophecy in the Later Middle Ages ( Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969), 296.

  24 R. Garaudy, "'Faith and revolution'", Ecumenical Review, 25 ( 1973), 66-7.

  25 R. S. Westfall, Never at Rest: A Biography of Isaac Newton ( Cambridge University Press, 1980), 319 ff.

  26 M. Bloch, Feudal Society, trans. L. A. Manyon ( London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1961), 73.

  27Ibid. 74.

  28 J. U. Nef, Cultural Foundations of Industrial Civilizations ( Cambridge University Press, 1958), 17.

  29 R. Glasser, Time in French Life and Thought, trans. C. G. Pearson ( Manchester University Press, 1972), 17.

  30Ibid. 56.

  31 R. Pernoud, Joan of Arc, trans. E. Hyams (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1969), 31.

  32 A. Murray, Reason and Society in the Middle Ages ( Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985), 107.

  33 R. L. Poole, Medieval Reckonings of Time ( London: SPCK, 1918), 46-7.

  34 J. Gairdner, The Paston Letters 1422-1509 AD. Introduction and Supplement ( Westminster: Archibald Constable, 1901), p. ccclxvi.

  35 R. J. Quinones, The Renaissance Discovery of Time ( Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1973), 110.

  36Ibid. 113.

  -200-

  37 L. White, Medieval Technology and Social Change ( Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1962), 61.

  Chapter 6 Time in the Far East and Mesoamerica

  1 H. Jacobi, "'Atomic theory (Indian)'" in Dictionary of Religion and Ethics ( Edinburgh: Clark, 1909), ii. 202.

  2 A. N. Balslev, A Study of Time in Indian Philosophy ( Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1983), 39 ff.

  3 M. Eliade, Images and Symbols: Studies in Religious Symbolism, trans. P. Mairet ( London: Harvill Press, 1961), 65.

  4 J. Needham and Wang Ling, Science and Civilisation in China ( Cambridge University Press, 1959), iii. 315.

  5 J. Needham, Wang Ling, and D. J. de Solla Price, Heavenly Clockwork: The Great Astronomical Clocks of Medieval China ( Cambridge University Press, 1960).

  6 F. A.B. Ward, "'How timekceping became accurate'", Chartered Mechanical Engineer, 8 ( 1961), 604.

  7 S. A. Bedini, "'The scent of time: a study of the use of fire and incense for time measurement in oriental countries'", Trans. Amer. Phil. Soc., 53 ( 1963), Part 5, 6.

  8 J. H. Plumb, The Death of the Past ( London: Macmillan, 1969), 111.

  9 J. Needham, "'Time and knowledge in China and the West'", in J. T. Fraser (ed.), The Voices of Time ( New York: Braziller, 1966), 96.

  10 J. Needham, Time and Eastern Man (Henry Myers Lecture) ( London: Royal Anthropological Institute, 1965), Occasional Paper no. 21, 8-9.

  11 V. H. Malmstrom, "'Origin of the Mesoamerican 260-day calendar'", Science, 181 ( 1973), 939-41.

  12 R. J. Wenke, Patterns in Prehistory ( New York: Oxford University Press, 1984), 383.

  13 N. Hammond, Ancient Maya Civilization ( Cambridge University Press, 1982), 199 ff.

  14 J. E. S. Thompson, A Commentary on the Dresden Codex: A Maya Hieroglyphic Book ( Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1972), 62-70.

  15 M. Leon-Portilla, Time and Reality in the Thought of the Maya, trans. C. L. Boiles and F. Horcasitas ( Boston: Beacon Press, 1973), 91-2.

  16 J. E. S. Thompson, The Rise and Fall of Maya Civilization ( London: Gollancz, 1956), 145.

  17 S. G. Morley, The Ancient Maya (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1947), 449.

  18 D. S. Landes, Revolution in Time ( Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1983), 24.

  -201-

  Chapter 7 The Advent of the Mechanical Clock

  1 D. J. de Solla Price, "'Gears from the Greeks: the Antikythera mechanism--a calendar computer from ca. 80 BC'", Trans. Amer. Phil. Soc., 64 ( 1974), Part 7, 1-70.

  2 J. V. Field and M. T. Wright, "'Gears from the Byzantines: a portable sundial with calendrical gearing'", Annals of Science, 42 ( 1985), 87.

  3 L. White, Medieval Technology and Social Change ( Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1962), 120.

  4 E. Panofsky, Studies in lconology ( Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1939), 80.

  5 L. Thorndike, "'Invention of the mechanical dock about 1271 AD'", Speculum, 16 ( 1941), 242-3.

  6 C. F. C. Beeson, English Church Clocks 1280-1850 ( London and Chichester: Phillimore (Antiquarian Horological Society), 1971), 13.

  7 J. D. North, "'Monasticism and the first mechanical clocks'", in J. T. Fraser and N. Lawrence (eds.), The Study of Time, ii ( Berlin: Springer Verlag, 1975), 385.

  8 J. D. North, Richard of Wallingford ( Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976), i. 441-526.

  9 A. J. Dudeley, The Mechanical Clock of Salisbury Cathedral ( Salisbury: Friends of Salisbury Cathedral Publishing, 1973).

  10 White, op. cit. (above, n. 3), 124-5.

  11 S. A. Bedini and F. R. Maddison, "'Mechanical universe: the Astrarium of Giovanni de' Dondi'", Trans. Amer. Phil. Soc., 56 ( 1966), Part 5, 60.

  12 J. Le Goff, Time, Work and Culture in the Middle Ages, trans. A. Goldhammer ( Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980), 46.

  13 J. Harthan, Books of Hours and Their Owners ( London: Thames & Hudson, 1977), 39.

  14 F. Hattinger, The Duc de Berry's Book of Hours ( Berne: Hallwag, 1970).

  15 J. Huizinga, The Waning of the Middle Ages, trans. F. Hopman (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1972), 149-50.

  16 K. Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic ( London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1971), 621.

  17 L. Mumford, Technics and Civilization ( London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1934), 14.

  18 I. Origo, The Merchant of Prato ( London: Jonathan Cape, 1957), 177.

  19 H. Tait, Clocks and Watches ( London: British Museum Publications, 1983), 43.

  20 Landes, op. cit. (ch. 6, n. 18), 89.

  21 J. Aubrey, Brief Lives and Other Selected Writings, ed. A. Power ( London: Cresset Press, 1949), 133.

  22 F. M. Powicke and A. B. Emden, The Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages ( Oxford University Press, 1936), iii. 401.

  -202-

  23 A. Palmer, Movable Feasts: Changes in English Eating-habits ( Oxford University Press, 1984).

  24 F. Rabelais, Gargantua ( 1535), i. 23.

  Chapter 8 Time and History in the Renaissance and the Scientific Revolution

  1 L. Pastor, History of the Popes, ed. R. F. Kerr, Vol. 19 ( London: Kegan Paul, 1930), 293.

  2 H. M. Nobis, "'The reaction of astrono
mers to the Gregorian calendar'", in G. V. Coyne, M. A. Hoskin, and O. Pedersen (eds.), Gregorian Reform of the Calendar ( Vatican City: Pontifica Academia Scientiarum, 1983), 250.

  3 R. M. Dawkins, The Monks of Athos ( London: Allen & Unwin, 1936), 198.

  4 J. M. Thompson, Leaders of the French Revolution ( Oxford: Blackwell, 1948), 159.

  5 H. Webster, Rest Days ( New York: Macmillan, 1916), 283.

  6 C. Cipolla, Clocks and Culture: 1300-1700 ( London: Collins, 1967), 42.

  7 J. Drummond Robertson, The Evolution of Clockwork ( London: Cassell, 1931), 54-61.

  8 E. Grant, Nicole Oresme and the Kinematics of Circular Motion ( Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1971), 295.

  9 R. Boyle, The Works of the Honourable Robert Boyle, ed. T. Birch ( London: 1772), v. 163.

  10 A. R. Hall, "'Horology and criticism: Robert Hooke'", Studia Copernicana, XVI, Ossolineum, 1978, 261-81.

  11 Mumford, op. cit. (ch. 7, n. 17), 15.

  12 I. Barrow, Lectiones Geometricae, trans. E. Stone ( London: 1735), Lecture 1, 35.

  13 G. W. Leibniz, Philosophical Writings, trans. M. M. ( London: Dent, 1934), 200.

  14 R. Boyle, The Excellence of Theology Compared with Natural Philosophy, 1665 ( London: 1772), 11.

  15 E. Breisach, Historiography: Ancient, Medieval and Modern ( Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983), 177.

  16 F. Manuel, Isaac Newton Historian ( Cambridge University Press, 1963), 274.

  17 C. Morris, The Tudors ( Glasgow: Fontana-Collins, 1966), 12.

  18 G. J. Whitrow, What is Time? ( London: Thames & Hudson, 1972), 19-20.

  19 A. Kent Hieatt, Short Time's Endless Monument.' The Symbolism of the Numbers in Edmund Spenser's 'Epithalamion' (Port Washington, NY, and London: Kennikat Press, 1972), 81.

  -203-

  20 R. W. Hepburn, "'Cosmic fall'", in P. P. Wiener (ed.), Dictionary of the History of Ideas ( New York: Scribner, 1968), i. 505-6.

  21 D. Seward, The First Bourbon: Henry IV of France and Navarre ( London: Constable, 1971), 133.

  22 M. Tiles, "'Mathesis and the masculine birth of time'", International Studies in the Philosophy of Science, 1 ( 1986), 16-35.

  23 F. Saxl, "'Veritas filia temporis'", in R. Klibansky and H. J. Paton (eds.), Philosophy and History: The Ernst Cassirer Festschrifi ( Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1936). Reprinted as Harper Torchbook ( Harper & Row, 1963), 197-222.

  24 R. V. Sampson, Progress in the Age of Reason: The Seventeenth Century to the Present Day ( London: Heinemann, 1956), 99.

  25 C. Becket, The Heavenly City of the Eighteenth Century Philosophers ( New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968; 1st edn. 1932), 130.

  26 F. Smith Fussner, The Historical Revolution: English Historical Writing and Thought 1580-1640 ( London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1962), 166.

  27 E. L. Eisenstein, "'Clio and Chronos'" in History and Theory, 1966, Suppl. 6 ( "'History and the concept of time'"), 47.

  Chapter 9 Time and History in the Eighteenth Century

  1 R. W. Symonds, Thomas Tompion: His Life and Work ( London: Batsford, 1951), 10.

  2 Journals of the House of Commons, 11 June 1714, 677.

  3 J. Gulliver Swift Travels ( London: Dent, 1940; Everyman edn.), 224.

  4 H. Quill, John Harrison: The Man Who Found Longitude ( London: John Baker, 1966), 59.

  5 R. T. Gould, The Marine Chronometer:. Its History and Development ( London: Potter, 1923), 50 ff.

  6 Quill, op. cit. (above, n. 4), 317.

  7 R. T. Gould, John Harrison and his Timekepeers ( London: National Maritime Museum, 1958), 12.

  8 Gould, Marine Chronometer (above, n. 5), 86.

  9 G. W. Leibniz, The Monadology and other Philosophical Writings, trans. R. Latta ( London: Oxford University Press, 1925), 350-1.

  10 A. O. Lovejoy, The Great Chain of Being ( Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1948), 246.

  11 R. Nisbet, History of the Idea of Progress ( London: Heinemann, 1980), 180.

  12 Sampson, op. cit. (ch. 8, n. 24), 240.

  13 E. Cassirer, Rousseau, Kant, Goethe ( Princeton University Press, 1945), 56.

  14 M. J. Temmer, Time in Rousseau and Kant ( Geneva: Droz and Paris: Minard, 1958), 31.

  15 R. Haynes, Philosopher King: The Humanist Pope Benedict XIV ( Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1970), 178.

  16 I. Berlin, Vico and Herder ( London: Hogarth Press, 1976), 142 n.

  -204-

  17Ibid. 38.

  18 R. G. Collingwood, The Idea of History ( Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1948), 68.

  19 Berlin, op. cit. (above, n. 16), 143 ff.

  20 G. J. Whitrow, Kant's Cosmogony, trans. W. Hastie ( New York and London: Johnson Reprint Corp., 1970), xi-xl.

  21 S. Toulmin and J. Goodfield, The Discovery of Time (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1967), 167.

  22 Berlin, op. cit. (above, n. 16). 150-1.

  Chapter 10 Evolution and the Industrial Revolution

  1 W. Herschel, Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc. ( 1814), 284.

  2 Lovejoy, op. cit. (ch. 9, n. 10), 243.

  3 N. Hampson, The Enlightenment (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1968), 220.

  4 R. Taton (ed.), The Beginning of Modern Science, trans. A. J. Pomerans ( London: Thames & Hudson, 1964), 572-3.

  5 A. Geikie, The Founders of Geology ( London: Macmillan, 1897), 283.

  6 J. D. Burchfield, Lord Kelvin and the Age of the Earth ( London: Macmillan, 1975), 136-40.

  7 J. Perry, "'On the age of the earth'", Nature, 51 ( 3 Jan. 1895), 224-7. See also his letter on the same topic (18 Apr. in the same vol.), 582-5.

  8 G. H. Darwin, The Tides( London: Murray, 1898), 257.

  9 P. Burke, The Renaissance Sense of the Past ( London: Edward Arnold, 1969), 141.

  10 L. Wright, Clockwork Man ( London: Elek, 1968), 128.

  11 F. Klemm, A History of Western Technology, trans. D. W. Singer ( Cambridge, Mas.; MIT Press, 1964), 196.

  12 Wright, op. cit. (above, n. 10), 128.

  13 J. Simmons, The Railway in England and Wales 1830-1914, vol. 1 ( Leicester University Press, 1978), 23.

  14 Wright, op. cit. (above, n. 10), 143.

  15 J. A. Bennett, "'George Biddell Airy and horology'", Annals of Science, 37 ( 1980), 268-85.

  16 Wright, op. cit. (above, n. 10), 147.

  17 Mumford, op. cit. (ch. 7, n. 17), 14.

  18Ibid. 17.

  19 E. Gellner, Times Literary Supplement ( 23 Dec. 1983), 1, 438.

  20 D. Howse, Greenwich Time and the Discovery of Longitude ( Oxford University Press, 1980), 113-14.

  21 S. Kern, The Culture of Time and Space: 1880-1918 ( London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1983), 12.

  22 L. Essen, The Measurement of Frequency and the Time Interval ( London: HMSO, 1973).

  -205-

  Chapter 11 Rival Concepts of Time

  1 G. Poulet, Studies in Human Time, trans. E. Coleman ( New York: Harper, 1959), 200.

  2 Whitrow, Natural Philosophy of Time (Preface n. 1), 103 ff.

  3 G. J. P. Scrope, The Geology and Extinct Volcanoes of Central France ( London: John Murray, 1858), 208.

  Chapter 12 Civilization as Progress?

  1 A. de Toqueville, Democracy in America, trans. H. Reeve ( London: Oxford University Press, 1946), 311.

  2 G. Stent, Paradoxes of Progress ( San Francisco: Freeman, 1978), 27.

  3 Lord W. Kelvin Thomson, "'Nineteenth-century clouds over the theory of heat and light'", in Baltimore Lectures on Molecular Dynamics and the Wave Theory of Light ( Cambridge University Press, 1904), Appendix B, 486-527.

  4 J. David Bolter, Turing's Man: Western Culture in the Computer Age ( London: Duckworth, 1984).

  5 Le Goff, op.cit. (ch. 7, n. 12), 290.

  6 H. Meyerhoff, Time in Literature ( Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1955), 109.