(1) Cf. the accounts of Aristotelian and later dynamics in Clagett, M., Greek Science in Antiquity (New York 1955), pp. 64–72, 169–177Google Scholar, in Sambursky, S., The Physical World of the Greeks (London 1956), pp. 92–94Google Scholar and The Physical World of Late Antiquity (London 1962), pp. 62–70Google Scholar.

(2) Popper, K. R., The Open Society and its Enemies (London 1945Google Scholar; 5th edition,1966), vol. II, p. 27.

(3) Δ. […] ἒλεγε ßούλεσθαι μλλον μιανΕύρΕϊν αιτιολογιαν τήν ΠΕρσων οι ßασιλΕíαν γΕνÉσθαι, Diels, H., Die Fragmente der Vor-sokratiker (Berlin 1903Google Scholar; 6th edition, rev. W. Kranz, 1951. Henceforth cited as Diels-Kranz), 68 B 118.

(4) Timaeus, 83e.

(5) De Caelo, 268a14.

(6) Gorgias, 483e.

(7) Diels-Kranz, 68 B 9.

(8) Diels-Kranz, 31 B 9.

(9) De Sophisticis Elenchis, 173a7–18.

(10) Juridical notions do appear among the Presocratics in connection with nature, e.g. in Anaximander (Diels-Kranz, 12 B 1) and Heraclitus (Diels-Kranz, 22 B 94) but the thought is very unlike the later conception. This line of thought, associating justice in nature with balance and harmony, anticipates the science of Aristotle and Archimedes, not of Descartes and Newton.

(11) Newton, Isaac, Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, edited by Koyré, A. and Cohen, I. B. (Cambridge 1972), pp. 55–56Google Scholar. On the early drafts of this section, see Cohen, I. B., An Introduction to Newton's Principia (Cambridge 1971), pp. 62–66CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

(12) The Correspondence of Henry Olden-burg, edited by Hall, A. R. and Hall, M. B. (Madison 1967), vol. V, pp. 103, 117, 125, 167, 193, 221, 319–20, 358Google Scholar.

(13) De Rerum Natura, ii. 719, iii. 687, v.58.

(14) Ibid. i.586, ii.302, v.57, 310, 924, vi.906.

(15) Huygens, Christiaan, Euvres complètes (The Hague 1888–1950), vol. II, pp. 79, 115Google Scholar.

(16) La regola dell'accelerazione ne i gravi cadenti, Discorsi, in Favaro, A. (ed.), Opere di Galileo Galilei (Florence 1929–1939) vol. VIII, p. 374Google Scholar (cf. P. 275).

(17) This is not, of course, to say that all or even most sociologists would find it plausible. Although Zilsel's debt to Marxist thought is obvious, it does not seem appropriate to classify as Marxist the type of explanation he offers. Analogous social explanations are sometimes widely accepted by non—Marxist historians—for example Zeller's explanation of the character of post-Aristotelian thought by reference to the changed political world after the rise of Macedon and the conquests of Alexander.

(18) Zilsel, Edgar, The genesis of the concept of physical law, Philosophical Review, LI (1942), pp. 245–279CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

(19) Nerdham, J., Science and Civilisation in China (Cambridge 1954-), vol. II, ch. 18, esp. pp. 533–543Google Scholar.

(20) Zilsel, , op. cit. pp. 247–249Google Scholar.

(21) Ibid. p. 279.

(22) Ibid. p. 276.

(23) Ibid. pp. 278–279.

(24) Hall, A. R., Ballistics in the Seventeenth Century (Cambridge 1952), esp. pp. 36–56Google Scholar.

(25) Zilsel, , op. cit. p. 276Google Scholar.

(26) Ibid. p. 267.

(27) Contrary to Zilsel's statement (p. 268 n. 83) Descartes did not describe the law of refraction as a law. In the place Zilsel alleges (Dioptrique, ii) Descartes merely said that ‘l'action de la lumière suit en cecy les mesmes loix que le movement de cete bale’—the ball being a tennis ball projected obliquely towards a surface. Des-Cartes, R., Œuvres, edited Adam, C. and Tannery, P. (new edition: Paris 1965), Vol. VI, p. 100Google Scholar.

(28) Ibid. p. 101.

(29) Wittfogel, K., Oriental Despotism (New Haven 1957)Google Scholar, passim.

(30) Zilsel, , op. cit. p. 279Google Scholar.

(31) Zilsel did not read even Aquinas carefully enough. He claims that ‘the metaphorical character of the term “law”, when applied to unreasonable beings was not noticed before Suarez’, op. cit. p. 279. In fact Aquinas explicitly said that the law in which irrational creatures participate non potest did lex nisi per similitudinem, Summa Theologiae, I^a II^ae, q.91 a.2 ad 3. Suarez was following Aquinas, not making an innovation. What innovation there is is in the opposite direction, as when Hooker dropped this qualification and referred quite simply to irrational creatures obeying laws, Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, I. iii. 3–4.

(32) The Institutes of the Christian Religion, III. xxiii. 2.

(33) This appears to be the thesis of Paolo Casini: ‘Pour s’en tenir tout simplement a la terminologie, on s'attendrait de voir apparaitre le mot “loi” en même temps que la chose: c'est-à-dire au moment où les cadres intellectuels de l'ancienne physique sont bouleversés par le nouveau critère de la quantité, par la géométrisation de l'image du monde. En réalité, la chose s'est imposée avant le mot; l'usage du terme “loi” s'est généralisé de façon curieusement tardive'. Casini, P., La loi naturelle: réflexion politique et sciences exactes, Studies on Voltaire and the eighteenth century, CLI (1976), pp. 423–424Google Scholar.

(34) Galileo, , Opere, vol. V, pp. 282–283, 316Google Scholar.

(35) Kepler, J., Gesammelte Werke (Munich 1937–1975), vol. VII, p. 328Google Scholar. I owe this reference to Casini (n. 36 above), who however wrongly attributes it to pp. 326–327.

(36) The Principles of Philosophy, ii. 37ff; Le Monde, ch. vii.

(37) The fullest treatment is in section vii of A Free Enquiry into the commonly Received Notion of Nature, in Works (London, 1772), vol. V, pp. 219–227Google Scholar. See also vol. IV, pp. 161–164, vol. V, pp. 139–140, pp. 413–414 and pp. 520–521.

(38) Boyle, , Works, vol. V, p. 399Google Scholar.

(39) Ibid. vol. I, p. 151.

(40) Hooke, Robert, De Potentia Restitutiva (London 1678)Google Scholar, reproduced in facsimile in Gunther, R., Early Science in Oxford (Oxford 1921–1945), vol. VIII, PP. 334, 336Google Scholar.

(41) Bacon's use of the word ‘law’ is numerous and not obviously consistent. The most apparently modern uses are in De Principiis atque Originibus, in Spedding, J., Ellis, R. L. and Heath, D. D. (eds), The Works of Francis Bacon (London 1874), vol. III, p. 115Google Scholar (English translation, vol. V, p. 496); and in Novum Organum, i. 75, ii. 2, ii.5, ii.17.

(42) Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, I. iii.4.

(43) The Institutes of the Christian Religion, I. xvi.5. Calvin on the whole avoided law terminology, even though he thought of the world as a machine obeying the direct commands of God; the reason appears to be that he thought of all God's commands as special commands regulating particular events. Every single year, month and day is regulated by a new and special providence of God (I. xvi.2). The existence of excep-tionless universal laws would suggest, contrary to Calvin's intentions, that God is more interested in the broad outline of what happens than in particular events.

(44) Francis Oakley, , Christian theology and Newtonian science: the rise of the concept of the laws of nature, Church History, XXX (1961), p. 455 n. 84Google Scholar. This is an invaluable piece of research which deserves to be better known than it apparently is.

(45) Bacon, Francis, The Advancement of Learning, Works, vol. III, p. 429Google Scholar.

(46) Bikl, G., Collectorium super quattuor libros sententiarum, lib. I, d. 17 q. 1 art. 3, than ed. Werbeck, W. and Hofmann, U. (Tübingen 1973-). vol. I, p. 419Google Scholar.

(47) Quoted by Oberman, H., Reformation and revolution: Copernicus' discovery bourg in an era of change, in Murdoch, J. E. and Sylla, E. D. (eds), The Cultural Context of Opus Medieval Learning (Dordrecht 1975), p. 425 n. 25Google Scholar.

(48) Oakley, , op. cit., p. 444 & nGoogle Scholar.

(49) Oresme uses ‘ordenance’ rather than ‘loi’. Livre du Ciel et du Monde, ed. Menut, A. D. and Denomy, A. J. (Madison 1968). P. 228Google Scholar.

(50) Ockham, , Quodlibetae Septem (Strasbourg 1491), VI. q.IGoogle Scholar.

(51) There are numerous references in Opus Maius, part. IV, dist. ii, 4.

(52) The most detailed exposition of Ockham's nominalistic metaphysics is in distinction ii, questions 4–8 of the Ordinatio, the first book of his commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard. Unfortunately no full translation exists, but a critical edition of the Latin text can now be found in his Opera Theologica (St. Bona venture, N.Y., 1967-), vol. II, pp. 99–292Google Scholar.

(53) Ethics, book I, prop, xvii, note.

(54) Ethics, book I, prop, xxxiii.

(55) A System of Logic, III.iv.I.

(56) von Arnim, H., Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta (Leipzig 1903–1924), I. 537Google Scholar. Henceforth abbreviated to SVF.

(57) [Aristotle], De Mundo, 401a10.

(58) Ibid. 400b28.

(59) Ibid. 398b17–23.

(60) Astronomica, i.479.

(61) Metamorphoses, xv. 71.

(62) On Philo see Koester, Helmut, Nomos Phuseós: the concept of natural law in Greek thought, in Neusner, Jacob (ed.), Religions in Antiquity: essays in memory of Erwin Ramsdell Goodenough (Leyden 1968), pp. 530–540Google Scholar.

(63) De Genesi ad Litteram, vi. 15. Quoted by Calvin, , Insitutes, III. xxiii. 8Google Scholar. A less epigrammatic version appears in De Civitate Dei, xxi. 8.

(64) De Civitate Dei, xv.12, xxi.8 (twice).

(65) Metaphysics, 1024b32–34, 1043b23–28; Topics, 104b21.

(66) Antisthenes, , Fr. 50 (Antisthenis Fragmenta, edited Caizzi, F. D. (Milan 1966))Google Scholar.

(67) Laertius, Diogenes, The Lives of the Philosophers, vi. 53Google Scholar.

(68) Plutarch, Adversus Colotem, 1119C–1120B

(69) SVF, I.65, 494.

(70) SVF, I.90, II.387.

(71) Needham, , op. cit. p. 536Google Scholar.

(72) Epicurus's followers took an oath to follow his teachings, and Epicurus (alone) was called the Leader (hêgemôn), Rist, J. M., Epicurus: an introduction (Cambridge 1972), p. 9Google Scholar.

(73) Cicero, , De Natura Deorum, ii. 23–39Google Scholar; Laertius, Diogenes, The Lives of the Philosophers, vii. 134–157Google Scholar.

(74) The influence of Henry More's theory of space should not mislead anyone into considering Newton as a Platonist. The following verdict by R. S. Westfall appears to me to be entirely accurate. ‘Try as I may, I am unable to perceive a neoplatonic hierarchy in the natural philo-sophy of the mature Newton. I perceive instead a sharply dichotomized universe with God Pantocrator, on the one hand, and on the other, inert matter which is moved and activated only insofar as the omnipresent God acts immediately to move and activate it’. The changing World of the Newtonian Industry, Journal for the History of Ideas, XXXVII (1976), p. 179Google Scholar.

(75) Descartes's extreme voluntarism appears most clearly in his correspondence, see especially the letters to Mersenne, 15 April 1630, 6 May 1630, 27 May 1630 and to Mesland a May 1644.

(76) Bloch, Olivier, La philosophie de Gassendi (The Hague 1971), Chs. IV, VGoogle Scholar.

(77) Lenoble, R., Mersenne ou la naissance du mécanisme (Paris 1943), esp. pp. 275–279, 321, 325Google Scholar.

(78) Newton, Isaac, The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, trans. Motte, A., rev. Cajori, F. (Berkeley 1960), p. 455Google Scholar.

(79) Novum Organum, ii. 2.

(80) Boyle, , Works, vol. V, p. 218Google Scholar.

(81) The Principles of Philosophy, ii. 20.

(82) This distinction can be found in earlier writers (e.g. Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I^a q.25 a.5adI); Ockham was however the first philosopher to make extensive use of it.

(83) Ockham, , Ordinatio, d.42 q.I, Opera Theologica, vol. IV, p. 610Google Scholar.

(84) Ockham, , Ordinatio, d.20 q.1, Opera Theologica, vol. IV, p. 36Google Scholar.

(85) Ockham, , Ordinatio, prologue q.8, Opera Theologica, vol. I, p. 221Google Scholar.

(86) Ockham, , Ordinatio, d.1 q. 3, Opera Theologica, vol. I, p. 423Google Scholar.

(87) Ockham, , Ordinatio, prologue q.1, Opera Theologica vol. I, p. 38Google Scholar.

(88) Boyle, , Works, vol. VI, p. 677Google Scholar.

(89) Boyle, , Works, vol. IV, p. 161Google Scholar.

(90) Descartes, , The Principles of Philosophy, ii. 36, 42Google Scholar.

(91) Meditations, iii, Œuvres, Vol. VII, p. 49.

(92) Boyle, , Works, vol. V, p. 185Google Scholar.

(93) Ibid. pp. 167, 169.

(94) SirBrowne, Thomas, Religio Medici, i. 16Google Scholar.

(95) Posterior Analytics, 74b5–13, 83b32–84a6.

(96) Cotes, Roger, Preface to the 2nd edition of Newton's Principia, trans. Motte, A., rev. Cajori, F. (Berkeley 1960), p. xxxiiGoogle Scholar.

(97) A Free Inquiry into the Commonly received Notion of Nature, section ii, Works, vol. V, esp. p. 170.