Ideas: A History from Fire to Freud

Contents

Cover

Praise

Title Page

Dedication

Epigraph

Author’s Note

A Chronology of Ideas

Introduction: The Most Important Ideas in History – Some Candidates

Prologue: The Discovery of Time

PART ONE: LUCY TO GILGAMESH

The Evolution of Imagination

1. Ideas Before Language

Scavenging – bipedalism and meat-eating – upright posture – the oldest artefacts – changes in brain size and hand-axes – fire – ochre – burial – Neanderthals – the first ‘abstract’ idea – Berekhet Ram – ‘the cultural explosion’ – cave art – Venus figurines – ‘split houses’ – sexual imagery – textiles – beads and ritual

2. The Emergence of Language and the Conquest of Cold

The size of early groups – hunting tools – ‘tailored’ clothing – proto-languages – Siberia to Alaska: Mal’ta, Afontova Gora, Dyukhtai, Berelekh, Denali – sinodonty – the Neanderthals’ hyoid bone – the language gene – Nostratic and other mother tongues – the first sounds – the first words – the first writing?

3. The Birth of the Gods, the Evolution of House and Home

Domestication of plants and animals – ‘hot spots’ – ‘founder crops’ – increasing control of fire – cultivation of cereals – fertile crescent – drawbacks of agriculture – a more arid world – population crises in pre-history – sedentism – health crisis in pre-history – sedentary foraging – the first houses – Natufian/Khiamian cultures – the Woman and the Bull, the origin of religion – ‘fire-pits’ – first use of clay – female figurines – transition from stone to pottery – megaliths – stone temples of Malta – the Great Goddess – ‘Old Europe’ – copper smelting – bronze – iron – daggers, mirrors and coins – the intellectual impact of money

4. Cities of Wisdom

The first cities – ‘temple cities’ – temple cult – origin of writing – tokens – Vinca marks (Old European scripts) – Indian script – first pictographs – cuneiform at Shuruppak – early names and lists – syllabary and then alphabet – Ras Shamra (Ugarit) – the first schools – the first archives/libraries – the first literary texts – Gilgamesh – the ‘en’ and the ‘lugal’: rival leaders – the wheel – domestication of the horse – horses and war – the first law codes

PART TWO: ISAIAH TO ZHU XI

The Romance of the Soul

5. Sacrifice, Soul, Saviour: ‘the Spiritual Breakthrough’

Sexuality in agriculture – self-denial as the basis of sacrifice – ‘sky gods’ – concepts of the soul – Indo-Aryans and the soul in the Rig Veda – Greek ideas of the psyche and thymos – the afterlife and the underworld – Islands of the Blessed – paradise – napistu/nephesh – the ‘Axial Age’ – stone worship in the Bible – Yahweh becomes the dominant god – the prophets of Israel – Zarathustra – Mithras – Hinduism – the Buddha – Pythagoras – the Orphics – Plato – Aristotle – Confucius – Taoism

6. The Origins of Science, Philosophy and the Humanities

Homer – the Odyssey and the Iliad – myth – ‘hoplite’ infantry – coins and agriculture – Dracon – Solon as tyrant – Athenian democracy – the polis – Pericles and the golden age – the Assembly – Ionian science – Pythagoras and square numbers – the planets as ‘wanderers’ – atomic theory – Hippocrates and Asclepius: early medicine – sophistry – Protagoras and Xenophanes: scepticism leads to philosophy – Socrates – Plato – Aristotle – tragedy – Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides – history – Herodotus and Thucydides – sculpture – the Parthenon – Phidias – Myron – vase painting – Praxiteles and the female nude – Eastern influences on Greece – the birth of Greek individualism

7. The Ideas of Israel, the Idea of Jesus

Israel in exile – the invention of Judaism – circumcision, the Sabbath, the synagogue – Cyrus the Great – the creation of the Old Testament – doubts over Abraham, Noah and Moses – doubts over the Exodus, Solomon and David – pagan Yahwehism – Genesis: E, J and P sources – the Septuagint – Apocrypha – Greek and Hebrew literature compared – Sadducees, Pharisees, Zealots and Essenes – the idea of the Messiah – Herod – the idea of Jesus – discrepancies in the gospels – pagan ideas of virgin birth – the role of Galilee – the Crucifixion – the Resurrection – Jesus never intended to create a new religion – Paul and Mark

8. Alexandria, Occident and Orient in the Year 0

Time in the ancient world – Babylonian astronomy – reconciling lunar time and solar time – shabbatum – Greek aion or sacred time – clepsydras in Rome – Latin months and Roman time – Alexandria as a ‘centre of calculation’ – its great library – Eratosthenes – Euclid – Apollonius – Archimedes – Ptolemy – Orphic mysteries – Platonism and Christianity – Clement – Philo – Neoplatonism – empiricism – time in India – Buddhism and Christianity – Judas Thomas in India – the Maurya era – Chandragupta – the Rock Edicts – Ashoka – Mahabharata and Ramayana – rock-cut temples – yoga – The Lotus of the Good Law – Buddhism in China – time in China – Imperial Confucianism – ‘correspondence and resonance’ – the imperial academy and the five classics – Mahayana/Hinayana Buddhism – Asvaghosa – paradise/Amitabha – ‘ostentatious generosity’ – the water-mill – the wheelbarrow – the rudder – the invention of paper

9. Law, Latin, Literacy and the Liberal Arts

Utilitas and power in ancient Rome – republicanism – magistracy replaces kingship – imperium – the Senate – law and the Twelve Tables – iudices – status, dignitas and patria potestas – paterfamilias – manus – types of Roman marriage – education and the core curriculum – Latin, its history and effects – the golden and silver ages of Latin – rhetoric – literacy – public libraries – papyrus, parchment and early techniques of scholarship – epitomes and compendia – scrolls and codices – Cicero and humanitas – Virgil – Galen – concrete – the idea of the classics

10. Pagans and Christians, Mediterranean and Germanic Traditions

Decline of the Roman empire – Christians in Rome – problems with the gospel of St Mark – Paul – Jewish Christianity – paganism in Rome – early Christian martyrs – Constantine – observation of Sunday – pagan/Christian synthesis – ‘gift of the spirit’ – the idea of bishop – the rise of Rome – monasticism – predecessors of the Bible – Paul’s epistles – Clement of Alexandria – Jerome – Augustine – Gregory the Great – the Easter controversy – BC/AD – ‘barbaros’, early ideas of barbarians – the idea of the Middle Ages – Celtic and Germanic tribes – barbarian gods – the Huns – the division between Latin and Germanic peoples

11. The Near-Death of the Book, the Birth of Christian Art

The effects of barbarian depredations – Christians reject science – Christian view of rhetoric – ‘the closing of the Western mind’ – suspicion of books – atrophy of debate – Rome’s libraries closed – Justinian closes the philosophical school in Athens – Alexandria isolated – decline of translation – preservation of the classics in Byzantium – Themistius – the ‘transmitters’ – Martianus Capella – Boethius – Cassiodorus – Isidore – paper in the West – a new script: cursive miniscule – the Stoudios monastery – beginnings of punctuation – imperial university revived in Constantinople – Photius and his list of lost books – the birth of Christian art – the first churches – catacombs of Rome – Dura-Europos – Ravenna – icons – the iconoclast controversy – new rules for Christian art

12. Falsafah and al-Jabr in Baghdad and Toledo

Pre-eminence of poetry – the Golden Odes – ‘the time of ignorance’ – Mecca and the tribe of Quraysh – Muhammad – the Night of Power – the Qurʾan – five pillars of Islam – origins of Arabic – the caliphate – Shiʾas and Sunnis – hadith – Islamic aesthetics – Dome of the Rock – al-Mansur – Baghdad – Gondeshapur – al-Ma ʿmun – al-Farabi – House of Wisdom – the great translators – hospitals and madrasas – the first pharmacy – early doctors: al-Razi and Ibn Sina – al-Khwarizmi and Hindu-Arabic numerals – al-Jabr – early chemistry – falsafah – al-Kindi – Nizamiyah – Muʿtazilites – al-Ghazali – the foreign sciences v. the Qurʾanic sciences – Cordova and Toledo – Ali ibn-Hazm – Ibn Khaldun – advances in botany – ibn Rushd-Averroës – the Toledo school of translators – Gundisalvi and Gerard of Cremona – the Almagest

13. Hindu Numerals, Sanskrit, Vedanta

Gupta classicism – land charters (sasanas) as a literary form – the Allahabad inscription – Sanskrit and Prakrit – the Astadhyayi – Panini’s Grammar – Kalidasa and Shakuntala – Hindu drama – Hindu iconography – the rock temples of Sanchi, Nalanda, Ellora and Orissa – Harsha Vardhana – Tantrism – the six schools of philosophy – Vedanta – Shankara – Advaita – Sulvasutras, Siddhantas and other forms of Hindu mathematics – Aryabhata and trigonometry – Brahmi characters – gelosia multiplication

14. China’s Scholar-Elite, Lixue and the Culture of the Brush

The Song renaissance – bone books – bamboo books – silk books – paper – ‘whirling books’ and ‘butterfly books’ – woodblock printing – movable type in Korea – the etymology of the Chinese language – writing with a brush – printing and ‘flying money’ – coal mining – saddle and stirrup – gunpowder – porcelain – sailing junks and rudders – the compass – the competitive written examination – Chinese Buddhism – translations of the Buddhist classics – Zen Buddhism – the Neo-Confucian revival and the revolt against Buddhism – Zhu Xi and the five philosophers – lixue and the Great Learning – the Painting Academy and the imperial university – designed gardens – forensic medicine – archaeology – critical history – the novel

PART THREE: THE GREAT HINGE OF HISTORY

European Acceleration

15. The Idea of Europe

Muslim views of European backwardness in the Middle Ages – theories as to why Europe drew ahead – Braudel (geography) – McCormick’s medieval Europe – Abu-Lughod (the plague, politics, the East dropped behind) – Needham (China’s class structure) – Western and Eastern Scholarship compared – North and Thomas (changes in agriculture, economics, market structure) – Southern (changes in Christianity) – Gratian’s changes in law – Grosseteste promotes the experimental approach – Aquinas imagines the secular – Morris (the discovery of the individual)

PART FOUR: AQUINAS TO JEFFERSON

The Attack on Authority, the Idea of the Secular and the Birth of Modern Individualism

16. ‘Halfway Between God and Man’: the Techniques of Papal Thought-Control

Henry IV at Canossa – Henry v. Gregory VII – the Investiture Struggle – medieval ideas of kingship – feudalism – the Benedictine order – monks as intercessors – Cluny – Gregorian reform – the cult of the Virgin – Franciscans and Dominicans – Christianitas – Peter Damian – Humbert of Silva Candida – Gregory VII – Dictatus papae – excommunication – the idea of the crusades – indulgences – the new piety – heretics – Waldensians – Joachim of Fiore – the Antichrist – Cathari, the Albigensian religion and crusade – Innocent III – inquisition – the Fourth Lateran Council and confession – the sacrament of marriage – the Curia and the College of Cardinals – Philip IV v. Boniface VIII – the Great Schism

17. The Spread of Learning and the Rise of Accuracy

Abbot Suger and the innovations at St Denis – God is light – cathedral schools – Paris schools – how they differed from monasteries – Aristotle and the rediscovery of logic – Abelard – the seven liberal arts – trivium and quadrivium – the ban on Aristotle – the ‘double truth’ theory – studium generale – earliest universities – Salerno (medicine) – Bologna (law) – Paris (theology) – Oxford (mathematics, science) – the rise in quantification – measurement, counting, dating, punctuation, musical notation, double-entry book-keeping – the surge in literacy – the invention of printing – italic and roman type – edition sizes – spelling

18. The Arrival of the Secular: Capitalism, Humanism, Individualism

The changing concept of the Renaissance – the role of the Black Death – why the Renaissance began in Italy – schooling in Italy – the crucial role of the abbaco schools – life in Renaissance Florence – the woollen industry, international trade, banking and the origins of capitalism – the marriage of aristocratic and bourgeois values – the change from ecclesiastical to secular patronage in the arts – the improved status of the artist – the rediscovery of classical antiquity and the emphasis on this life – Petrarch and the rediscovery of Plato – the aesthetic aristocracy – pagan values – Erasmus – humanism and the growth of religious tolerance – Vasari – secular art – the humanities in Florence

19. The Explosion of Imagination

Bonfires of the Vanities – the invention of oil painting – perspective – greater realism – allegory – pagan mythology – universalism – universal men – pre-eminence of architecture – painting v. sculpture – Veronese before the Inquisition – opera – ‘imitation’ in music – Willaert – Gabrieli – origins of the orchestra – rabab and lura – gittern – monacordys – Amati’s viols and violins – madrigals – canzon francese – sonatas – concertos – sinfonia – recitativo – harmonic (vertical) music – Monteverdi and the Lament of Arianna – the oratorio – the explosion of London theatres – reasons for it – the Mermaid Tavern – the earliest plays – James Burbage – orators become actors – repertory – Shakespeare – King Lear and Falstaff – Don Quixote

20. The Mental Horizon of Christopher Columbus

The Greeks discover the Atlantic – Pytheas and Ultima Thule – Alexander in the East – Eratosthenes and the circumference of the earth – Ptolemy – St Brendan – the Land of Promise – Vinland – John of Plano Carpinis – William of Rusbruck – Marco Polo and Kublai Khan – Ibn Battuta – mappae mundi – the monstrous races – T-O maps – Columbus’ known reading – Henry the Navigator – the compass – portolan charts – magnetic north and true north – terra incognita – Mercator and ‘waxing latitudes’ – tillers and rudders – lead and line – pilot books – quadrants – almanacs – lateen- and square-rigged ships – the exploration of the west African coast – Vasco da Gama reaches India via the Cape of Good Hope – Columbus finds the Bahamas

21. The ‘Indian’ Mind: Ideas in the New World

America unknown to the scriptures – reactions to Columbus’ discoveries – explanations for the origin of the ‘Indians’ – early anthropology – the Spanish ‘encomienda’ – rationality of the Indians and their ability to receive the faith – descendants of Noah? – dimensions of New World peoples in 1492 – customs and beliefs – food-sharing – tobacco – marriage – agriculture – longhouses – cannibalism – languages (different concepts of nouns and verbs) – different sense of self – different concepts of male and female – the very different economics of death – counting and time – writing and textiles – medical ideas – different ideas about art – effects of the New World on Old World thinking

22. History Heads North: the Intellectual Impact of Protestantism

The sale of indulgences – Johann Tetzel – differences between northern and southern Catholicism – Martin Luther – nails his theses to Wittenberg church – the Knights’ War – the Peasants’ Revolt – Anabaptists – German character of the Reformation – Calvin – Puritan ethic – sack of Rome – book censorship and the Index – the Tyndale affair – Council of Trent – Loyola and the Jesuits – Jesuits in the East – varieties of Protestantism – the cult of the sermon – Protestantism’s effects on literacy, discipline and marriage – Counter-Reformation art – the Baroque style – Bernini

23. The Genius of the Experiment

Was there a scientific revolution? – why the Muslims and Chinese never developed modern science – understanding the heavens as the most important aim of science – Copernicus – Brahe – Kepler – elliptical orbits – Galileo – the telescope – Newton – decimals – logarithms and the calculus – Leibniz – Principia Mathematica – gravity – optics – speed of light – Vesalius – Harvey – Kircher, Leeuwenhoek and microscopic life – Bacon and the philosophy of science – Descartes’ method – the Royal Society and the experiment – universities and science – the rise of scientific instrumentation

24. Liberty, Property and Community: Origins of Conservatism and Liberalism

The rise of the nation-state – absolute monarchy – Machiavelli – The Prince – Mariana and Suárez – Bodin – Hobbes – Leviathan – Locke – Two Treatises of Government – Spinoza – Tractatus Theologico-Politicus – Vico – Scienza Nuova – the invention of ‘the public’

25. The ‘Atheist Scare’ and the Advent of Doubt

The effect of Copernicus’ discovery on belief – vernacular translations of the Bible – discrepancies revealed – atheism in Greece, Rome and medieval Europe – the alternative tradition of unbelievers – Montaigne and the secular world – Galileo and the moons of Jupiter – four stages of doubt – rationalistic supernaturalism – deism – scepticism – atheism – the attack on miracles – second thoughts on the soul – the attack on Jesus – the attack on prophecy – Hobbes – Hume – Bayle – Vanini the first modern atheist – the attack on the Old Testament – the attack on Genesis – the attack on biblical chronology

26. From Soul to Mind: the Search for the Laws of Human Nature

Voltaire in England – Diderot and the Encyclopédie – formation of the French language – rise of reading – rise of middle-class taste – rise of periodical publishing – nature’s harmony = God’s benevolence – the soul reconceived as mind – Locke, language and psychology – ‘neurosis’ – new ideas about the self – Edinburgh – Hume – Ferguson, Robert Adam and civil society – the idea of the economy – Colbert – Petty – cameralistics – Adam Smith – The Wealth of Nations – commercial society – Malthus – Bentham – Linnaeus – Rousseau – Montesquieu – the idea of progress – ancients v. moderns – Condorcet – Godwin – Kant – Hegel – Saint-Simon – Comte

27. The Idea of the Factory and Its Consequences

Hard Times – the first Derbyshire factories – spinning machines – child labour – the steam engine – Watt and Boulton – iron technology – the agricultural revolution – changes in organisation – cotton industry transformed – the factory city and the change in the experience of work – gap between rich and poor – advances in electricity – advances in chemistry – oxygen – Dalton’s atomic theory – crystallography – Lavoisier – Warrington Academy and the Lunar Society of Birmingham – Priestley and Wedgwood – the making of the working class – Smith, Ricardo, Malthus and Bentham – Robert Owen – the Hungry Forties – Engels – Marx – Capital – alienation – the Great Divergence – the hundred years peace

28. The Invention of America

American treasure and the rise of capitalism – the great frontier – Philadelphia, America’s capital of the mind – the first artists, the first doctors, the first philosophers in America – Franklin – Rush – ‘the American Homer’ – Paine – Jefferson – Notes on Virginia – America compared with Europe – the Indian problem – democracy – the federal constitution – the role of law – law as America’s first literature – federalism – de Tocqueville visits America

PART FIVE: VICO TO FREUD

Parallel Truths: The Modern Incoherence

29. The Oriental Renaissance

Portuguese secrecy over the New World – Jesuit–Hindu relations – China’s ‘Society of Renewal’ – Chinamania – Muslim uninterest in the West – theories of Muslim backwardness – William Jones and the Bengal Asiatic Society – link between Sanskrit, Greek and Latin – hieroglyphics deciphered – Shakuntala in the West – Schlegel, Bopp and von Humboldt – Schelling – Schopenhauer and Buddhism – poetry as the mother tongue – Western writers influenced by the East – the Aryan myth – Goethe, Hugo, Flaubert – Wagner’s Buddhism

30. The Great Reversal of Values – Romanticism

Romanticism: the third turning-point in history – Vico’s vision – Herzen – the will – Goethe and Herder – Fichte and the self – the reversal of values – the artist as outsider – Sturm und Drang – Byron, Coleridge, Wordsworth – the romantic ‘moi’ – the second self – Turner and Delacroix – Beethoven – Schubert – the conductor – the piano – the first great virtuosi – Weber – Berlioz – Schumann – Chopin – Liszt – Mendelssohn – Verdi – Falstaff – Wagner – The Ring

31. The Rise of History, Pre-history and Deep Time

Napoleon in Egypt – the beginnings of archaeology in the West – Humboldt’s education reforms in Germany – the PhD – Hegel and the rise of history – philology – textual criticism of the Bible – Schleiermacher – David Strauss’ Life of Jesus – cuneiform deciphered – Neanderthal man identified – birth of geology – Neptunists v. Vulcanists – geology and Genesis – Palaeozoic identified – Lyell’s Principles of Geology – uniformitarianism – Vestiges of Creation – the ice age – Lamarck – Wallace – Darwin – Mendel – Descent of Man – the three-age system – Palaeolithic and Neolithic

32. New Ideas About Human Order: the Origins of Social Science and Statistics

Guillotin and the guillotine – the legacy of the French Revolution – the revolution in measurement – ‘l’art social’ – abbé Sieyès – Condorcet – Saint-Simon and the positive sciences – the industrial cities of England – child labour and disease – Comte – Herbert Spencer – Marx – Weber – Tönnies – Simmel – Durkheim – Suicide – anomie – sociological medicine – epidemiology and statistics – urbanisation and the census – Quetelet – Laplace – Legendre – Gauss – Pearson – l’homme moyen/average man – Chadwick and ‘cause of death’

33. The Uses and Abuses of Nationalism and Imperialism

Britain’s first empire – her second – the impeachment of Warren Hastings – modern slavery – the slave trade – the Vatican’s view of slavery – racism and slavery – Wilberforce – Congress of Vienna – ‘Germanophiles’ – cultural nationalism – patriotic regeneration – the nineteenth-century surge in German creativity – the concept of ‘Innerlichkeit’ – Klimt, Lagarde and Langbehn – anti-Semitism – Virey’s biological racism – Gobineau – Lapouge – Sumner, Fiske and Veblen – Ratzel’s Lebensraum – Nordau’s Degeneration – Royer – Loring Brace – imperialism and culture – Jane Austen – Kipling – Conrad – the history of English

34. The American Mind and the Modern University

The Saturday Club – Emerson – Oliver Wendell Holmes and the common law – William James, Charles Peirce and pragmatism – the New Experimental Psychology – John Dewey – Oxford and Cambridge in the nineteenth century – London and the Irish universities – Newman’s ‘Idea of a University’ – Harvard – Yale – William and Mary – Princeton – Eliot – the age of invention

35. Enemies of the Cross and the Qurʾan – the End of the Soul

Loss of faith, in the nineteenth century – scientists who still believed – spread of secularisation – role of newspapers – Marxism, socialism and atheism – changing views of the Enlightenment – popularisers of Strauss, Lyell and Darwin – changed meaning of dogma – French anticlericalism – church and socialism – Catholic Institutes as a response – papal infallibility and edicts against modernism – reform and science in Muslim Turkey – Islamic modernists – al-Afghani – Muhammad Abduh – Rashid Rida – ‘the constitutional countries’

36. Modernism and the Discovery of the Unconscious

Freud’s ambition – compares himself to Copernicus and Darwin – Freud lionised – the beginnings of the unconscious: Mesmer, Charcot and Urphänomene – Schopenhauer – von Hartmann – Janet – The Interpretation of Dreams – the great revision of Freud – Freud as charlatan and cheat – Van Gogh, Manet and Haussmann’s Paris – the new metropolises and modernism in the arts – Hofmannsthal – Ibsen – Strindberg – Dostoevsky – Nietzsche – the avant-garde

Conclusion: The Electron, the Elements and the Elusive Self

The Cavendish Laboratory and the birth of particle physics – importance of the experiment – experiment as a rival authority to religion – the soul, Europe and the experiment as the three most important ideas – the great ‘turnings-in’ throughout history – Aristotle’s legacy more fruitful than Plato’s – the mystery of consciousness – the inner self elusive

Notes and References

Further Notes

Index of Names and Places

Index of Ideas

About the Author

By Peter Watson

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