07.06.2012
Marvels Of Science – Books That Changed The World – Exhibition Opens in Marsh’s Library
A new exhibition entitled ‘Marvels Of Science – Books That Changed The World’ opened in Marsh’s Library, Dublin, this evening. Archbishop Michael Jackson and the Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, Jimmy Deenihan TD, addressed the gathering at the launch of the exhibition. Their speeches are reproduced below.
Speech delivered by Dr Michael Jackson, Archbishop of Dublin, in Marsh’s Library, Dublin 8, on June 7th 2012 at the opening of the Exhibition.
In a world where Googling and Wikipedia seem here to stay and, in many ways, become easier and easier to access, it remains as important as ever for us in the Dublin of 2012 to recognize the sheer breadth of intellectual energy and curiosity displayed by Narcissus Marsh, eighteenth century archbishop of Dublin. Rightly, we honour him as the one who created the public library, out of his personal interest and personal philanthropy. This Exhibition, carefully chosen and beautifully displayed, gives us a perspective on one of his consuming interests: science, and its capacity to explore and unlock what our senses take for granted.
Today so much scientific research is driven by highly–specialized projects and the three–pronged understanding of learning as teaching, research and innovation. The Marvels of Science Exhibition, drawing on the Marsh Collection, shows us that the commercial and the idealistic, the amateur and the downright eccentric all combine to make up: the academic at its most diverse and its most applicable. Much of the experimentation and exploration was driven by the need to navigate and ultimately to trade. This in itself is a strong message at a time of world–wide economic despondency and fiscal collapse. The admirable Introduction to the Catalogue sums it up well, as follows: ‘One can never predict how the arcane, impractical or theoretical knowledge of one age will provide a key to the fundamental challenges of a later period.’ A small but significant example of this is to be found in Blaise Pascal’s Treatise on the equilibrium of liquids, in which he enunciates the Law that the pressure exerted by a confined fluid is exerted equally in all directions. The application of Pascal’s Law to this day is to be found in the operation of siphons, hydraulic presses and hydraulically–assisted braking mechanisms. This is a modernity which today we take completely for granted.
As well as Marsh’s philanthropy and scholarship, we recognize the lasting contribution to this Library of Dr Elie Bouhereau, its first Keeper, and a Huguenot. It is a piece of benign irony that it was through a French Protestant, shopping in London while working for someone later to be Earl of Galway, that Galileo’s Dialogue of Two World Systems, barred by the Roman Catholic Church because it sought to demonstrate the superiority of the heliocentric worldview, came to Ireland and to Marsh’s Library.
Through this Exhibition, we see lots of things at work together. We see church people who are sufficiently confident to experiment radically with the understanding of perceived reality. We see people with the capacity to refute settled ways of understanding and even if, from time to time, they got it ridiculously wrong, they still extended and expanded the boundaries of the known in such a way as to enable us now to know what we do know. The new experimental method of science, introduced and sustained in the seventeenth century mathematicians and natural philosophers, particularly Newton, required sustained courage as it was the overthrowing, in effect, of the Aristotleian system whose description of fire, air, earth and water as continuous and whose rejection of the void, were in their own day a revolution against immaterialist Platonism. To the ancients, and indeed to the overwhelming majority of the works which form this Exhibition, philosophy and theology are of a piece with one another. Their parting company in our era is of course another revolution and, I suggest, a diminishment of both.
The name of the Dublin Philosophical Society, founded in 1683 in Trinity College, features prominently and frequently in this process of exploration and experimentation. The Society was a place where new publications emerging right across Europe were digested and became a stimulus to the undoubted Irish contribution, in which the names of Marsh himself and the Molyneaux family feature large. Marsh and Sir Francis Bacon were not un–scourged by the satirical pen of Jonathan Swift. Bacon’s New Atlantis was satirized in Gulliver’s travels and Marsh’s An Introductory Essay to the doctrine of sounds in Swift’s Tale of a Tub. But Swift had scores to settle with Marsh whom he regarded as blocking his passage to ecclesiastical preferment and – what more decanal route to take than to go into print?
The observation of the Transit of Venus, that is when Venus moves directly between the sun and the earth, as occurred on the early morning of June 6th 2012, was the purpose of the first voyage of Captain Cook in 1768 every bit as much as was the discovery of Australia, that unknown southern land (terra australis incognita). Here we see the fruit, in so many ways, of this whole endeavour: astronomy, navigation, trade. Obstetrics, chemistry, astronomy and the illustration of natural history feature as part of what women in scholarly ways have contributed to this Exhibition. They have a Case of their own (IX).
The presence here tonight of six students from the Grashof Gymnasium in Essen, Germany is no accident but is integral to the living heritage of Marsh’s Library. Marsh’s possesses the only copy of and advertisement for A Series of Curious Experiments for the Amusement and Entertainment of Ladies, as well as Gentlemen to a paying audience in Dublin in 1743. The curious experiments were first performed before the King of Prussia and the Grand Duke of Tuscany by Professor Neuman of Berlin. A professor in the Grashof Gymnasium, Mr Andreas Roth, was shown the original document here in Marsh’s in late 2011 and, on his return, he encouraged his students to reproduce the experiments in their school laboratory. We are delighted they are with us today.
Our deep thanks go to the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany and our most expert in–house team: Sue Hemmes, Muriel McCarthy, indefatigable in retirement, Jason McElligott, indefatigable in post, and Anne Simmons for an Exhibition which deserves not only to be seen but to be commended to everyone.
Floreat Narcissus Marsh!
Speech by Jimmy Deenihan, TD, Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht at the Launch of Archbishop Marsh’s Library 2012 Exhibition: Marvels of Science: Books that changed the world.
Archbishop Jackson, Your Excellency, Chief Justice, Dr. Prendergast, the Dean of St Patrick’s, the Dean of Christchurch, Ladies and Gentlemen, Distinguished Guests, thank you for the kind invitation to join you here this evening to open this wonderful exhibition of early scientific books in Marsh’s Library entitled “Marvels of Science”.
I am aware that the opening of the annual exhibition is the main highlight of the year for Marsh’s Library and I am deeply honoured to have been asked to open this exhibition. I had the great privilege last October, to be able to meet with the now retired Keeper, Muriel McCarthy just before her retirement.
The great love and affection that Muriel has for Marsh’s library was very much in evidence that day and I think it’s fair to say that everyone here this evening would echo that sentiment. Of course you will all be pleased that Muriel was able to pass on the baton to someone as able as Dr. Jason McElligott and I thank Jason for the welcome he has extended to me here this evening.
2012 is of course the year that Dublin became European City of Science and this exhibition: Marvels of Science, an exhibition of early books on the sciences is a wonderful way to showcase the interest and debate that existed in Dublin about matters scientific hundreds of years ago. The level of debate that much of the early scientific discoveries of people like Isaac Newton and Galileo Galilei caused is brilliantly reflected in the books showcased here. Many of these scientists such as Newton and Galileo were challenging deeply held notions and convictions that had their roots in the writings of the ancient Greeks.
The many books on display here show that there was both a strong attempt at rebuttal of many of these new scientific claims, but also that the new knowledge was used to predict, on a scientific basis, future events. For instance Jeremiah Horrocks in a book published in Gdansk in 1662, (somewhere a few Irish people are due to visit soon!), was able to predict the transit of Venus across the face of the Sun. This is quite a rare astronomical event and in fact it took place just on Tuesday last! Unfortunately if you missed it, it will not occur again for over one hundred years (December 2117)
It is also interesting to note that people like Archbishop Marsh were taking a huge interest in the debates provoked by these scientific discoveries. Archbishop Marsh was an early member of the Dublin Philosophical Society where a group of like minded individuals came together to study matters of scientific interest. As a religious man, Archbishop Marsh would have been well aware that Science and Religion were sometimes seen to be at odds with each other.
Of course the importance of events such as Dublin City of Science 2012 cannot be overstated. This exhibition is a great addition to what will be a wonderful celebration of Science not just as it is, but the wide variety of interest evoked by this area a few hundred years ago as well. For those with an interest in Science to be able to see the contemporary publications of famous scientists such as Isaac Newton and probably one of Irelands most famous scientists Robert Boyle, is a wonderful addition to what promises to be a great celebration of Science in 2012.
The wonderful publication that accompanies the exhibition is also something that will be of great interest to many and one that I would very much recommend. Of course the publication would not be possible without the work of Jason McElligott; but also Muriel McCarthy, Sue Hemmons and Ann Simmons.