This article was downloaded by: [82.28.150.9]On: 17 October 2012, At: 16:45Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registeredoffice: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UKIntellectual History ReviewPublication details, including instructions for authors andsubscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rihr20Experimental Religion andExperimental Science in Early ModernEnglandPeter Harrison aa Harris Manchester College, OxfordVersion of record first published: 24 Nov 2011.To cite this article: Peter Harrison (2011): Experimental Religion and Experimental Science in EarlyModern England, Intellectual History Review, 21:4, 413-433To link to this article:http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17496977.2011.623882PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLEFull terms and conditions of use: http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditionsThis article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Anysubstantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing,systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden.The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representationthat the contents will be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of anyinstructions, formulae, and drug doses should be independently verified with primarysources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss, actions, claims, proceedings,demand, or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly orindirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material.EXPERIMENTAL RELIGIONAND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCEIN EARLYMODERN ENGLANDPeter HarrisonThis is properly christian experience, wherein the saints have opportunity to see, by actual experience andtrial, whether they have a heart to do the will of God, and to forsake other things for Christ, or no. As thatis called experimental philosophy, which brings opinions and notions to the test of fact; so is that properlycalled experimental religion, which brings religious affections and intentions to the like test.1For the twenty-rst century reader, one of the striking features of the theological and devotionalliterature of the early modern period is the frequency with which the termexperimental is usedin relation to a variety of religious beliefs and practices. It is common tond among English theo-logical writers and especially those with Puritan sympathies reference to experimental knowl-edgeofGod, experimental prayer, experimental readingofscripture, experimental witnesses,experimentaldivines,andsoon.Indeed,duringthelatesixteenthcenturyandformostoftheseventeenth century, the use of the term experiment and its cognates occurs far more frequentlyin these theological contexts than it does in natural philosophical (scientic) writings.2Moreover,it isclearthat thiswidespreadreligiousvocabularypredatesthebetter-knownterminologyofexperimental natural philosophy in its technical seventeenth-century sense.Thosefamiliar withmedieval andearlymodernvocabularymight ndtheseusages lessremarkable. Historiansofsciencehaveknownforsometimethatexperimentumoftensimplydenotedexperience. Moreover, given that a much greater proportion of early modern writingwas devoted to theological themes, the preponderance of the vocabulary of experimental religionmight appear less surprising than atrst sight. It might simply be that what we encounter here, asIntellectual History ReviewISSN 1749-6977 print/ISSN 1749-6985 online2011 International Society for Intellectual Historyhttp://www.tandfonline.com/journals http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17496977.2011.6238821J. Edwards, ATreatiseconcerningReligionAffections [1746], inTheWorks of JonathanEdwards, editedbyE. Hickman, 2 vols (London, 1834; reprinted Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1998), vol. 1, 333.2As a rough measure, there are 159 occurrences of experimental and its spelling variants in works published in Englandbetween 1553 and 1620, and available in full text on Early English Books Online (EEBO). Of these 159, 125 occur inreligious contexts, compared to 12 inscientic. The latter include medicine (3), natural history (2), and mathematics(5). There are obvious limitations to this methodology, relating to the works available on EEBO, to the preponderanceof religiousworksinthepublicationoutput of theperiod, andtojudgementsabout thecontexts. Nonetheless, thegeneral picture is clear. For early uses of the terms in relation to natural philosophy see F. Bacon, The English TranslationofNovumOrganum, inTheWorksof FrancisBacon, 14vols, editedbyJ. Spedding, R. Ellis, D. Heath(London:Longman and Co., 1860), vol. 4, 71, 81, 93, 95; T. Hobbes, Elements of Law, edited by F. Tnnies (London: Simpkin,Marshall, andCo., 1889), 14. SeealsoR. Lewis, AKindof Sagacity: FrancisBacon, theArsMemoriaeandthepursuit of natural knowledge, Intellectual History Review, 19:2 (2009), 155-75.Intellectual History Review 21(4) 2011: 413433Downloaded by [82.28.150.9] at 16:45 17 October 2012 one commentator has expressed it, is a play on words used in two completely different contexts.3In that case, these apparently odd uses of experimental would be little more than a curious foot-note to the history of ideas, and of genuine interest only to editors of historical dictionaries. In thispaper I will present an alternative view, suggesting that if we pay close attention to the speciccontexts in which these expressions are used, we see in this religious literature an explicit tech-nical vocabularybeginningtoemerge, inwhichexperimentalbecomesmorethansimplyasynonymforexperiential andinwhichthevirtuesofexperimentalknowledgearecontrastedvariously with mere speculative knowledge, with book learning, with second-hand reports of par-ticular religious experiences, and with the doctrinal pronouncements of religious authorities. IntheearlymodernEnglishvocabularyof experimental religion, then, theredevelopedready-made sets ofoppositionsthat could be taken up by promotersofexperimental naturalphilos-ophy anexpressionthat rst beginstocomeintouseinthe1660sasadescriptionofthenewexperimentally-orientatedscienceassociated,althoughnotexclusively, withtheactivitiesof the Royal Society. This, inturn, is suggestive of important connections between earlymodern discussions about the priority ofrst-hand experience in the religious sphere and a cor-respondingemphasis on rst-handobservations, experiments, andhistories inthesphereofnatural philosophy. More generally, these usages also broaden our understanding of the meaningsof experimental natural philosophy in this period, and offer insights into the convergence of cog-nitive values in the spheres of religion and natural philosophy.EXPERIENCE AND EXPERIMENT IN THE MIDDLE AGESAt the beginning of the seventeenth century the termsexperience andexperiment were oftenused interchangeably.4The same had been true for their Latin equivalents in the Middle Ages,although in particular contexts it is possible to discern an inchoate distinction between everydayexperience(experientia)ontheonehand, andarticiallycontrivedorsoughtafterexperience(experimentum) on the other. There were also technical or more restricted uses of the expressionsscientiaexperimentalisandexperimentum. Bestknown, perhaps, isRogerBaconsuseoftheexpression scientia experimentalis. In his early commentaries on Aristotle, Bacon observed a dis-tinction between experientia knowledge of singular things, which humans share with animals and experimentum a science of principles derived from experience.5This was a fairly standard3L. Solt,Puritanism, Capitalism, Democracy, and the New Science, American Historical Review, 73:1 (1967), 18-29(25). SeealsoR.L. Greaves, PuritanismandScience: TheAnatomyof aControversy, Journal of theHistoryofIdeas, 30:3(1969), 345-68; J. Morgan, PuritanismandScience: AReinterpretation, TheHistorical Journal, 22:3(1979), 535-60; J. Morgan, Godly Learning: Puritan Attitudes towards Reason, Learning, and Education (Cambridge:CambridgeUniversityPress, 1988), 59-61. Forarecentassertiontothecontrary, andonethatsupportsanumberofthe contentions of this paper, see J. Picciotto, Labors of Innocence inEarly ModernEngland(Cambridge, MA:Harvard University Press, 2010), especially 1-5, 49, 97, 125.4For a good general account of the categories and the changes which they undergo during the seventeenth century, seeP. Dear, TheMeaningsof Experience, inTheCambridgeHistoryof Science, VolumeIII: EarlyModernScience,edited by K. Park and L. Daston (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 106-131.5R. Bacon, Operahactenus inedita, editedbyR. Steele, 16vols (Oxford: ClarendonPress, 1909-1940), vol. 11.J. Hackett, Experience and Demonstration in Roger Bacon: A Critical Review of some Modern Interpretations, in Erfah-rung und Beweis: Die Wissenschaften von der Natur im 13. und 14. Jahrhundert / Experience and Demonstration: TheSciences of Nature in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries, edited by A. Fidora and M. Lutz-Bachmann (Berlin: Aka-demie Verlag, 2006), 41-58. Peter King discusses a similar distinction as it occurs in Ockham. See P. King,Two Con-ceptions of Experience, Medieval Philosophy and Theology, 11:2 (2003), 203-226.414 P. HARRISONDownloaded by [82.28.150.9] at 16:45 17 October 2012 reading of Aristotle. Later, however, Bacon was to develop a more formal category of scientiaexperimentalis,althoughheusedtheexpressiontorefertoarangeofquitedifferentkindsofexperiences: contrivedtrialsortests, ordinaryexperience, reportsofexperiencesfromothers,andevendivineillumination.6Nevertheless, thereisclearlysomesenseofamorerestrictedandtechnical usefor experimentum. Indirect support for aspecial senseof experiment inBaconsworkcomesfromthefact that, inLatintranslationsoftheoptical andastronomicalworks of Alhazen (965-1040), which exercised an important inuence on Bacon, the term experi-mentum is used to describe certain procedures or contrived experiences, and in a way that suggestsa contrast with simple experience.7Looking forward, it is also possible to discern connectionsbetween Roger Bacons terminology and Descartess uses of experientia and experimentum.8Roger Bacon does not provide the only instance of a more restricted technical understanding ofexperimentuminthemedieval period. We ndsuggestiveparallelsinthemedical literature.During the Middle Ages, lists of cures that lacked justication in terms of received medical doc-trines were known as experimenta. Insofar as there existed a warrant for using these cures, it lay inthe fact that they were known by experience to be efcacious.9This was not necessarily sufcientto recommend them, however, and experimenta were often associated with unreliable folk-cures(empirica), forwhich, similarly, norationalecouldbeofferedintermsofprevailingmedicaltheory. Experiments, in this sense, were typically contrasted with the more genuinely scienticcures, basedonreasoningfromprinciples. As WilliamEamonwrites, the wayof reason(via rationis) was thought to be manifestly superior to the way of experiment (via experimenta-lis).10This prejudice was further reinforced by the link between experimenta and occult secrets,which also lay outside the boundaries of the conventional sciences.11We might conclude that, tothe extent that a distinction between experience and experiment was observed, experiment in this6R. Bacon, Opus Maius VI.1, The Opus Majus of Roger Bacon, edited by J.H. Bridges, revised edition, 3 vols (London:WilliamsandNorgate, 1900), 583. D.C. Lindberg, RogerBaconandtheOriginsof PerspectivaintheMiddleAges(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996),lv; D.C.Lindberg, Light, Vision,and theUniversal Emanation ofForce,inRogerBaconandtheSciences:CommemorativeEssays, editedbyJ. Hackett (Leiden: Brill, 1997), 243-76, especially267.SeealsoJeremiah Hackettsessay inthesamevolume, RogerBacon onScientiaExperimentalis,277-316. The ideaofRogerBacon asaprecociousforerunnerofmodern experimentalsciencewasrstsuggestedbyWilliamWhewell.SeeW.Whewell,HistoryoftheInductiveSciencesfromtheEarliestTimestothePresentTimes,2vols(NewYork,NY, 1859), vol. 1, 245.7A.I. Sabra, TheAstronomicalOriginofIbnal-HaythamsconceptofExperiment, inActesduXIIecongrsinter-national dhistoire des sciences (Paris: Albert Blanchard, 1971) 3, 133136, reprinted in A.I. Sabra, Optics, Astronomyand Logic: Studies in Arabic Science and Philosophy (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1994). See also P. Dear, Discipline and Experi-ence: TheMathematical WayintheScienticRevolution(Chicago, IL: Universityof ChicagoPress, 1995), 51-2;E. Kheirandish,Footprints of Experiment in Early Arabic Optics, Early Science and Medicine, 14:1-3 (2009), 79-104.8D.M. Clarke, Descartes Philosophyof Science(Manchester: Manchester UniversityPress, 1982), 19; J. Hackett,Experientia, Experimentum, and perception of Objects in Space: Roger Bacon, in Raum und Raumvorstellungen im Mit-telalter, edited by J.A. Aertsen and A. Speer (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1998), 101-120. For other early modern uses of this dis-tinction see John Dees Preface to H. Billingsley, The elements of geometrie of the most auncient philosopher Euclide(London, 1570), sig. Aiij verso; F. Bacon, The English Translation of Novum Organum, I.82 in Works, vol. 4, 81. SeealsoC.B. Schmitt, ExperienceandExperiment: AComparisonof Zabarellas ViewWithGalileos inDe Motu,Studies in the Renaissance, 16 (1969), 80-138.9G. Pomata,The Uses of Historia in Early Modern Medicine, in Historia: Empiricism and Erudition in Early ModernEurope, edited by A. Fidora and M. Lutz-Bachmann (Harvard, MA: MIT Press, 2005), 105-146 (126).10W. Eamon, Science and the Secrets of Nature: Books of Secrets in Medieval and Early Modern Culture (Princeton, NJ:Princeton University Press, 1994), 56.11See Eamon, Science and the Secrets of Nature, 58 and N.H. Clulee, John Dees Natural Philosophy: Between Scienceand Religion (London and New York: Routledge, 1988), 170-74.EXPERIMENTAL RELIGION AND SCIENCE 415Downloaded by [82.28.150.9] at 16:45 17 October 2012 morespecicsensewasoftenviewedinanegativelight whencomparedtogenuinescienticknowledge.The merits of the lowly medical experimenta were subject to reappraisal during the Renaissance.Physician and mathematician Girolamo Cardano (1501-1576) was to recommend his own lists ofexperimenta although, admittedly, he had not necessarily tried themall himself. Cardanos praiseof medieval Arabic physicians rested on his belief in the superiority of their experimenta, in whichrespect they were contrasted favourably with those contemporary physicians who remained dog-gedly committed to the principles of Galenic physick.12While experiments, in this sense, were notnecessarily opposed to written authorities as such, indirectly this advocacy of experiment elevateddirect experience over the merely theoretical and speculative. Radical medical reformer Paracelsuswas, similarly, to stress the primacy of experimental cures, going further than Cardano in insistingthat physicians should dispense preparations the efcacy of whichmust be known not only byhearsay but by ones own knowledge and experiment.13While these trajectories of experimentum and its cognates have been traced by a number of his-torians, there are equally important developments in the medieval theological vocabulary relatingto experiment which are less well known. There are three related renements of the meaning ofexperimental in the theological literature which take the term beyond just a synonym for experi-ence. For our present purposes, what is important about these developments is that they will berepeated in seventeenth-century religious and philosophical discussions. First, and most impor-tant,isthedistinctionbetweenspeculativeandexperimentalknowledge.Secondisthenotionof experiment as a trial or test. Third is the opposition between experimental and book knowledgeor knowledge based on authority.Positive appraisalsof experimentalknowledge in these con-texts, I suggest, will be carried over into early modern debates about the appropriate epistemologi-cal foundations of natural philosophy.In contrast to the mixed fortunes of experimental knowledge in the medical sphere, in the reli-gious literature experimental knowledge was almost always viewed in a positive light. This waspartly because religious knowledge, or perhaps more correctly, religious experience, was oftenunderstood in terms of sensory metaphors. Chief amongst these were visual metaphors often relat-ing todivineilluminationandseeingthetruth.But alsoimportantweregustatorymetaphorswhichstressedtheimportanceof anintimateknowledgeof Godthat was likenedtotaste.(Bothaspectsarefound inthebiblicalinjunction toTaste and see thattheLord is good,Ps.34:8.)Aquinas,forexample, wrotethat perceptionimpliesacertainexperimentalknowledgeand this is properly called wisdom, as it were a sweet knowledge.14Aquinas also distinguishesbetween experimental and speculative knowledge of God:There is a twofold knowledge of Gods goodness or will. One is speculative and as to this it is notlawful to doubt or to prove whether Gods will be good, or whether God is sweet. The other knowledge12N. Siraisi, The Clock and the Mirror: Girolamo Cardano and Renaissance Medicine (Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univer-sity Press, 1997), 59-60.13Paracelsus, Von der Krankheiten, so die Vernunfft berauben [1567], in Four Treatises of Paracelsus von Hohenheim,calledParacelsus,edited byH.Sigerist, translated byC.L.Temkin,etal.(Baltimore, MD:JohnsHopkins UniversityPress, 1941), 211.14T. Aquinas, Summa theologiae, 1a. 43, 5: perceptio enim experimentalem quandam notitiam signicat. Et haec propriedicitursapientia, quasi sapidascientia, secundumilludEccli. VI, sapientiadoctrinaesecundumnomeneiusest. StThomas Aquinas. Summa theologiae, translated by English Dominican Fathers, 59 vols (London: Eyre and Spottiswood,1964-81). Cf. 2a.2ae. 45, 2; 2a2ae. 97, 2. See also Alexander of Hales, Summa fratris Alexandri, p. I., q. 1, m. 1; St Bona-venture, Commentaria in Quatuor Libros Sententiarum, III. d. 35, q. 1.416 P. HARRISONDownloaded by [82.28.150.9] at 16:45 17 October 2012 ofGodswill or goodnessiseffectiveor experimental andtherebyamanexperiencesinhimselfthetasteof Gods sweetness, andcomplacencyinGods will, as Dionysius says of Hierotheos(Div. Nom. ii)that helearnt divinethingsthroughexperienceofthem.It isinthiswaythat weare told to prove Gods will, and to taste His sweetness.15Thedistinctionbetweenspeculativeknowledgeandexperimentalknowledge,albeitinamoregeneralsense, playedanimportantroleindebatesabouttherelativemeritsofdifferent kindsofknowledgeintheseventeenthcentury. Inthelaterperiod, however, astwoapproachestonatural philosophy, these were increasingly regarded as alternatives, rather than complementaryways of knowing.Aquinas also introduces here the notion of experimental knowledge as involving tests or trials toprove this kind of knowledge of Gods will. This usage carried over into some of the earliestEnglish occurrences of the wordexperiment and experimental. The 1382 John Wycliffe trans-lation of the Old Testament thus speaks of Josephtaking experiment of the brothers who hadonce sold him into slavery, testing them to see if they had acquired the fraternal loyalty once soconspicuously lacking.16The distinction also applied to the knowledge of Adam in the Gardenof Eden. Adam gained experimental knowledge of the animals when he gave them their propernames. Less happily, Adamand Eve, in spite of a theoretical understanding of moral transgression,gained experimental knowledge of good and evil when they ate the forbidden fruit.17Another division that was strongly represented in seventeenth-century discussions of naturalknowledge was that between experimental knowledge and book knowledge. Again, we encountersomething like this in the medieval theological literature. Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153) thuscontrasted knowledge gained from books with the genuine wisdom derived from direct experi-ence(experimentum): you consultbookswithout purpose;you needexperience instead(sinecausa paginumconsulis; experimentummagis require).18Such knowledge, he contended,resultsintruewisdom. Bernardsreferencetoexperimental knowledgewasaccompaniedbyan unambiguous normative claim: namely that, in theological matters, experimental knowledgewas preferable to speculative knowledge. This elevation of experimental knowledge was consist-ent with the priorities of mystically inclined medieval thinkers and those for whom theology wasmore a practical than a theoretical science. Jean Gerson, Chancellor of the University of Paris inthe 1390s, expressed a desire to reform the university curriculum by shifting the emphasis fromspeculative to experimental theology (cognitio experimentalis Dei).19The terminology of experimental knowledge of God, or experimental wisdom, was taken upbythetwomajor Protestant reformers. Luther spokeof theexperienceof justicationas a15Aquinas, Summa theologiae, 2a2ae. 97, 2: Ad secundum dicendumquod duplex est cognitio divinae bonitatis vel volun-tatis. Una quidem speculativa. Et quantum ad hanc, non licet dubitare nec probare utrum Dei voluntas sit bona, vel utrumDeus sit suavis. Alia autem est cognitio divinae bonitatis seu voluntatis affectiva seu experimentalis, dum quis experitur inseipso gustum divinae dulcedinis et complacentiam divinae voluntatis, sicut de Hierotheo dicit Dionysius, II cap. de Div.Nom., quod didicit divina ex compassione ad ipsa. Et hoc modo monemur ut probemus Dei voluntatem et gustemus eiussuavitatem.16Genesis 42:15. Oxford English Dictionary, svexperience: www.oed.com, downloaded 12 November 2009.17Aquinas, Summa theologiae, 1a. 96, 1; 1a2ae 89, 3; Augustine, Exposition of the Psalms, Psalm 70, Exposition 2.18Bernard of Clairvaux, Ad clericos de conversione, VIII.25, in Sancti Bernardi Opera Omnia, edited by J. Leclercq, C.H. Talbot and H.M. Rochais, 8 vols (Rome: Editiones Cistercienses, 1957-80), vol. 4, 99.19J. Gerson, Sermon on Saint Bernard, in Early Works, translated by B. McGuire (New York: Paulist Press, 1998), 132.Cf. J. Gerson, The Mountain of Contemplation in Early Works, 78f. See also S. Ozment, The Age of Reform: 1250-1550(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1980), 33.EXPERIMENTAL RELIGION AND SCIENCE 417Downloaded by [82.28.150.9] at 16:45 17 October 2012 sapientia experimentalis and explicitly opposed experience (erfarung) to speculation.20He alsofollowed Bernard of Clairvaux in describing mystical theology in these terms: theologia mysticaest sapientia experimentalis et non doctrinalis (mystical theology is experimental and not doc-trinal knowledge).21JohnCalvinobservedadistinctionbetweenknowledgeoffaith(scientiadei) receivedfromtheWordalone, andexperimental knowledge(scientiaexperimentalis).In places, he refers back to Patristic and Scholastic notions of tasting God, and suggests accord-inglythat it isexperience(experimentum)that providestheseal andproofofourknowledgeof God.22Inmanyrespects,then,theProtestantreformersallusionstoexperimentalknowledgewereconsistent with aspects of the medieval Catholic tradition. However, in post-reformation theolo-gical debates, the idea of experimental religion was pressed into the service of religious contro-versy. For its critics, Catholicismwas associated with an Aristotelian scholasticismthatemphasized speculative knowledge as opposed to arst person experience that had practical out-comes. Experimental knowledge was also contrasted with implicit faith knowledge based onauthority alone which again was associated by Protestants with an overly authoritarianRomanreligion.Finally,inthewakeoftheemphasisofLutherandCalvinonpredestination,experimental knowledge was associated with the elect, and speculative knowledge with the repro-bate. These tendencies were important in elevating the status of experimental knowledge moregenerally, and they become incorporated, to some extent, into defenses of experimental naturalphilosophy.EXPERIMENTAL RELIGION IN SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY ENGLANDWhenwesurveythewaysinwhichexperimentandexperimentalareusedinseventeenth-century English literature it becomes immediately apparent that by far the most common contextsin which these terms appear are religious ones.23As noted earlier, in a variety of forms of religiousliteratureweencounternumerousreferencestoexperimentalknowledgeofGod,experimentalprayer,experimentalreadingofscripture, experimentalwitnesses,experimentaldivines.Com-monly, moreover, experimental knowledge or practice is recommended and contrasted favourablywith the alternatives. In particular, contrasts between experimental and speculative knowledge aresharpened, partly as a consequence of contemporary religious controversies.On the distinction between experimental and speculative knowledge in the theological sphere,Anthony Burgess, clergyman and sometime tutor of mathematician John Wallis, is typical: Thereis Theologia rationalia and experimentalis, as Gerson, or Theologia docens and utens. It is this20M. Luther, The Theologia Germanica of Martin Luther, translated by B. Hoffman (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1980),14, cf. xvi. For possible inuences of Gerson on Luther, see S. Ozment, Homo Spiritualis: A Comparative Study of theAnthropologyof Johannes Tauler, JeanGerson, andMartinLuther (1509-16) intheContext of their TheologicalThought (Leiden: Brill, 1969). On experience vs. speculation see B. Gerrish, Grace and Reason: A Study in the Theologyof Luther (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1962), 31.21M. Luther, D. Martin Luthers Werke, 80 vols (Weimar, 1883), vol. 9, 98. See also O. Beyer,Martin Luther, in TheReformationTheologians:AnIntroductiontoTheologyintheEarlyModernPeriod, editedbyC. Lindberg(Oxford:Blackwell, 2001), 51-66 (53).22J. Calvin,Commentary on Zechariah 2:9 in Calvini Opera, in Corpus Reformatorum, edited by E. Baum (Braunsch-weig-Berlin, 1863-1900), vol. 44, 162; Commentary on Joel 3:17, Calvini Opera, vol. 42, 596. See also C. Partee, Calvinand Classical Philosophy (Leiden: Brill, 1977), 29-41.23See note 3 above.418 P. HARRISONDownloaded by [82.28.150.9] at 16:45 17 October 2012 later, viz. an exercised experimental Divinity, that maketh a Divine properly [].24The properformofknowledgefortheDivine, accordingtoBurgess, wasexperimentalknowledge. Mostauthorsrelied upon a straightforward distinctionbetween experimental and speculative knowl-edge and were often explicit about the deciencies of speculative knowledge. Speculative knowl-edge wasbarely conceived in the brain, wrote Puritan Divine William Perkins. It wasa Headknowledge, or an aery, empty, notionall, speculative knowledge, agreed Thomas Hall, who, likeBurgess(d.1664),wasan ejectedclergyman. ConfusedandgeneralwastheverdictofJohnDowname.25Others stressed the connection between speculative philosophy and the derided implicit faithpromotedbythepapists. SpeculativephilosophywasbasedonAuthorityfrommenfor themost part both against nature and experiment. Human reasoning, thus understood, wasnothingbut agreement.26Acommonanalogywasthat speculativeknowledgewasliketheknowledgeofthemathematicalcosmographer,whileexperimentalknowledgewastheknowl-edge of the traveler, who possessed a rst-hand familiarity with foreign lands.27Bringing togethera number of these themes, the Church of England clergyman Francis Roberts thus contended thatexperimental knowledge was the mode of knowledge of the regenerate, and that its superiority ina number of different spheres was evident. Experimental knowledge, he wrote, entailed:a spiritual and experimental sensiblenesse, feeling, and taste of the things of God in our own spirits.This sensediffers fromKnowledge, thinks Zanchy[JeromeZanchius], as theKnowledgeof thesense differs from that of the understanding. This is of generals and universals learned out of Scripture:that of particulars learned by experience. Or as a Physicians Theoretick skill out of his Books, from hisexperimental skill upon his patients. Or as a Schollers knowledge of far countreys, obtained by Mapsand Books, differs from a Travellers knowledge of them, who hath seen them with his own eyes.Roberts thus points out how experimental knowledge, as a category, spans a number of differentelds religion, physick, and geography. He has much more to say about the virtues of exper-imental knowledge, but concludeswithadismissal ofitsalternative, speculativeknowledge,characterised as remote, general, confused, consisting in certain empty, comfortlesse, swimmingnotions, arising from natural or articial abilities, not from spiritual experience.2824A. Burgess, A Treatise of Original Sin (London, 1658), 208; cf. 481. The distinction between logica docens and logicautens is common amongst scholastic writers. See E. Stump, Topics: their development and absorption into consequencesin The Cambridge History of Later Medieval Philosophy, edited by N. Kretzmann, A. Kenny and J. Pinburg (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 1982), 273-99, 281, note 41. For Galileos use of the distinction, see W.A. Wallace,TheInuence of Aristotles Logic on Galileo and its Use in his Science, in The Impact of Aristotelianism on Modern Philos-ophy, edited by R. Pozzo (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2003), 64-83.25W. Perkins, A Declaration of Knowing the True Manner of Christ Crucied (London, 1615), 628; T. Hall, A practicaland polemical commentary, or, exposition upon the third and fourth chapters of the latter epistle of Saint Paul to Timothy(London, 1658), 244; J. Downame, The Christian Warfare (London, 1636), 1116.26Anon, The worlds idol, Plutus a comedy (London, 1659), 43.27A. Dent, A Pastime for Parents contayning the most principall grounds of Christian Religion (London, 1606), sig.[Cvii] recto; Cf. R. Baxter, A Treatise Of Knowledge And Love Compared [1689] (London, 1707), 558: The Pleasure ofthe Speculative Divine in knowing, is but like the Pleasure of a Mathematician or other Speculator of Nature; yea belowthat of the Moral Philosopher: It is but like my Pleasure in reading a Book of Travels or Geography; in comparison of theTrue Practical Christians, and F. Rous, The Heavenly Academie (London, 1638), 68: the highest Schoole, and no other,teacheth the Art of Experimentall Divinitie []. There is great oddes betweene an experienced, and a meerely-contempla-tive Captaine.28F. Roberts, A Communicant Instructed (London, 1659), 100.EXPERIMENTAL RELIGION AND SCIENCE 419Downloaded by [82.28.150.9] at 16:45 17 October 2012 Similarargumentswereadvancedabout therelativemeritsofstudyingthebookofnatureversusthebooksofmen. Speculativeknowledge, accordingtoAnthonyBurgess, was fromBooks only.29Some knowledge, however such as awareness of our sinful condition couldbeprovenonlyhistoricallyorexperimentally. Itisthewantofexperimentaldiscoveriesthatmakes thee question original sinne, Burgess informed those of his readers who may have cher-isheddoubtsaboutthatparticulardoctrine, otherwisethyownheartwouldbeinsteadofallbooks to thee in this particular.30Do we learn of the misery of our condition from books, inquiredPetrusdeWitteNo. Forthat begettethbut aspeculativeandtheoretical knowledgeintheunderstanding; but theremust beanexperimental knowledgebysearching.31Experimentalknowledge was thus not everyday experience, but was explicitly sought. This practical,sought-after, religious knowledge, as Joanna Picciotto has recently argued, was a form of intel-lectual labour that paralleled, tosome extent, the Baconianincursionof practical artisanallabour into the theoretical realm of natural philosophy.32Post-reformation debates about the predestination and the status of the knowledge of the electalso made a signicant difference to the way in which the merits of experimental knowledge wereunderstood. The prolic writer of religious tracts, Richard Younge (. 1636-1673), observed thatnatural andspeculativeknowledge, whichthewickedsharewiththegodly, istobedistin-guishedfromexperimental, andsavingknowledge, whichis supernatural, anddescendethfromabove.33ArthurDent, author ofthepopular Plaine-manspathwaytoheaven(1601) themodelforDouglasAdamssmorerecent HitchhikersGuidetotheGalaxysummarisedthemerits of experimental knowledge, hereassociatedwiththeknowledgeof theelect, inthis way:The knowledge of the reprobate doth puffe vp. The knowledge of the elect doth humble. The knowl-edge of the reprobate is generall and confused. The knowledge of the elect is particular and certaine.The knowledge of the reprobates is onely literall: and historicall. The knowledge of the elect is spir-ituall, and experimentall. The knowledge of the reprobate is speculatiue []. The knowledge of thereprobate is like yeknowledge which a mathematicall geographer hath of the earth and all places init, which is but a generall notion, and speculatiue comprehension of them. But the knowledge of theelect isliketheknowledgeof atraueller whichcanspeakeof experience, andfeling, andhathbene there and sene and knowen the particulars.34Direct witnessing and knowledge of particulars were thus among the hallmarks of experimentalknowledge.Historical examples were also known asexperiments, from which could be drawn importantreligiousandmoral conclusions. TheCalvinist andpassionatelyanti-CatholicArchbishopof29Burgess, Original Sin,To the Christian Reader, sig. [A5] verso.30Burgess,OriginalSin,90,cf.82f.SeealsoA.Burgess,SpiritualRening:or,ATreatiseofGraceandAssurance(London, 1652), 211;J. Everard, TheGospelTreasuryOpened(London, 1657), TotheReader. SeealsoPicciotto,Labors of Innocence, 97.31P. de Witte, Catechizing Upon The Heidelberg Catechism (Amsterdam, 1664), 27.32Picciotto, Labors of Innocence, 4, 125,33R. Younge, No Wicked Man a Wise Man, True Wisdomdescribed. The Excellency of Spiritual, Experimental and SavingKnowledge, above all Humane Wisdom and Learning (London, 1666), 6; cf. R. Younge, An Experimental Index of theHeart (London, 1658), passim. Bynatural knowledge, Younge means knowledge derived from reason or thelight ofnature, which was held to have been dimmed by the Fall.34Dent, A Pastime for Parents, sig. [Cvi]verso-[Cvii] recto.420 P. HARRISONDownloaded by [82.28.150.9] at 16:45 17 October 2012 Canterbury, George Abbot (1562-1633), suggested that from a kind of experimental moral historywe could draw edifying conclusions about the undesirability of Catholicism:Then, in some parts of Christendome, how many men were there in all ages, who loathed both the Seeof Rome, and the whole courses of it, as the Israelites did loath the Aegyptians bondage? Mathew Parisalone giueth as many notable experiments that way, as relating the Acts of the Emperour Frederick,who put out diuers declarations in detestation of the Pope; and adding elsewhere, further of his owne.35Inthesamevein,thePuritanpreacherThomasGoodwin(1600-1679),an associateofSamuelHartlibandJohnDury, spokeofthenecessityof arealandexperimentalknowledgeofourmoral obligations. This was gained, Goodwin suggested, from examplesof godly men whomthey have lived amongst, or the observations of Gods dealings with themselves or others, andnot only from the word notionally. The lives of the godly thus provided experimental historiesfromwhichinductions couldbedrawninorder toarrive at broadmoral principles. Theseexamples of well-lived lives, moreover, would both have more motivating force than speculativeethical notions, and would lead to more certain moral principles. Knowledge got by experimentsofmerciesorjudgments,Goodwinconcluded, isofmoreforceandevidence.36Goodwinscontentions are thus to be seen against the background of ongoing discussions about the relativemerits of history, poetry, and moral philosophy for inculcating moral values.37Finally, there was a sense in which anexperiment was a devised test or a trial. This use ofexperiment was not restricted to the religious sphere, although it found prominent expressionthere.38ThePuritanDivineWilliamAmesthusdescribedtheexperienceof temptationasatriall or experiment. When the devil tempts us, he makes an experiment what we are,whetherweakeorstrong, whetherwebesuchaswill yeild[sic]tohim, orwhethersuchaswill resist him valiantly.39Such trials provide us with an experimental knowledge of our owncharacter. The Israelites were thus experimentally tested by God in the wilderness, wroteSimon Birkbek, in order to:prove them, and to know what was in their heart; that is, to try them, or make them knowne, not tohimselfe, who knew them well enough before (without any experimental trial of them) but to makeit known to themselves, and others, whether afictions or favors would worke them to obedience.40Moreover, such experiments were not restricted to God and Satan. John Preston thus wrote of theneed for the religious community to test the authenticity of purported prophets by experiment andtrial.4135G. Abbot, A Treatise of the Perpetuall Visibilitie, and Succession of the True Church in all Ages (London, 1624), 97f.Matthew Paris (c.1200-1259) was an English chronicler and Benedictine monk whose anti-Papal rhetoric provided ammu-nition for English reformers.36T. Goodwin,Aggravation of Sin [1637], in The Works of Thomas Goodwin, D.D., 12 vols (Edinburgh, 1861-1866),vol. 4, 183.37See, for example, P. Sidney, Defence of Poesy (London, 1595), sig. D3 recto, et passim.38John Brathwait, to take a single example of a general application, recommends that prior to nuptials, prospective bridesmake true triall and experiment of the delity of their intended spouse. J. Brathwait, The English Gentlewoman (London,1631), 136.39W. Ames, Conscience with the power and cases thereof (London, 1639), 49.40S. Birkbek, A Cordiall for a Heart-Qualme (London, 1647), 19f.41J. Preston, An elegant and lively description of spirituall life and death. (London, 1632), 103.EXPERIMENTAL RELIGION AND SCIENCE 421Downloaded by [82.28.150.9] at 16:45 17 October 2012 From this survey of some of the meanings of experiment and experimental in religious con-texts, we can conclude that a number of the putative virtues of what will become known as exper-imental natural philosophy are pregured in the theological writings of the period. In the religiousliterature, experimental knowledge relies upon trials and observations, it places a priority onrst-hand witnessing, it is useful, it provides motivations for practical activities, it is explicitly soughtafter rather than passively received, and,nally, it stands in contrast to knowledge that is merelynotionalandspeculative, orbasedonbooksandauthorities. InthesectionthatfollowsIwillalludetothewayinwhichsomeofthesefeaturesplayedout whenappliedinthesphereofnatural philosophy.EXPERIMENTAL RELIGION AND NATURAL PHILOSOPHYPeter Anstey has recently argued, convincingly in my view, that the distinction between exper-imental natural philosophy and speculative natural philosophy is the fundamental dichotomy indiscussions of the methods of natural philosophy in England from the late 1650s into the earlydecadesoftheeighteenthcentury.42ThecustomofneatlydistinguishingBritishEmpiricistsfromContinental Rationalists is a time-honoured one, and still informs history of philosophycourses. However, itslimitationsarenowtooapparent toignore. Thistraditional dichotomyignorestherelevant actorscategories, undulyprivilegesepistemology, andleadstodistortedstereotypes of keygures such as Descartes. While it is not possible to rehearse all of the argu-ments in favour of Ansteys alternative dichotomy, it is certainly one that is represented in thecontemporary literature and which does less violence to what seventeenth-centurygures ima-gined themselves to be doing. Moreover, it is continuous with my own argument that a similarand important distinction exists in the theological literature. Furthermore, since this dichotomywaswell establishedinreligiouswritings, it isonelikelysourcefor thelater distinctioninEnglish discussionsofcompetingconceptions ofnaturalphilosophy.Beforemakingthiscase,it is worth briey spelling out how this distinction was made in the sphere of natural philosophy.In John Duntons YoungStudentsLibrary, which appeared in 1692, the divisions of philos-ophyareexplainedinthisway: PHILOSOPHYmaybeconsiderdunder thesetwoHeads,Natural andMoral: The rst ofwhich, byReasonofthestrangeAlterationsthat havebeenmade in it, may be again Subdivided into Speculative and Experimental. The former, he goesontosay, waspracticedbytheancientsandwasbasedoncontemplation, whereasthelatter,which entailsan indefatigable and laborious Search into Natural Experiments, isthe Certain,Sure Methodtogather a true Bodyof Philosophy andconduces tobenet the practicallife.43John Sergeant, in his Method to Science (1696) similarly describes two standardapproaches to his topic: that of Speculative, and that of Experimental Philosophers; the42P. Anstey, Experimental versus Speculative Natural Philosophy, in The Science of Nature in the Seventeenth Century,edited by P. Anstey and J. Schuster (Dordrecht: Springer, 2005), 215-42. See also S. Corneanu, Regimens of the Mind:Boyle, Locke and the Cultura Animi Tradition (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2011), ch. 2.43J. Dunton, The Young-Students-Library. Containing Extracts and Abridgments of the Most Valuable Books printed inEngland (London, 1692), vi. Dunton relied on the members of theAthenian Society to produce this work. The groupincluded Dunton, mathematics teacher John Sault, philosopher John Norris, and divine Samuel Wesley. This passage ispossibly the work of Norris, who applies a similar distinction in the moral sphere. J. Norris, A Collection of Miscellanies:Consisting of Poems, Essays, Discourses and Letters, Occasionally Written (Oxford, 1687), 215, 224; J. Norris, Practicaldiscourses to which are added, Reections upon a late Essay concerning human understanding; with a reply to theremarks made upon them by the Athenian Society (London, 1699), 25f. Pagination refers to the Reections.422 P. HARRISONDownloaded by [82.28.150.9] at 16:45 17 October 2012 Former of which pretend to proceed by Reason and Principles; the Later by Induction; and both ofthem aim at advancing Science.44From the 1660s, experimental natural philosophy, thus understood, was increasingly associatedwiththephilosophyof theRoyal Society, andcontrastedwithmorespeculativeapproaches,Cartesianism in particular (despite Descartess own stated aim of providing a practical alternativeto the speculative philosophy of the schools).45As Anstey has shown, the expression experimen-tal philosophy appears as early as 1635 in Samuel Hartlibs Ephemerides, but it was not until themiddleofthecenturythatthedistinctionbetweenthetwoopposedapproachestophilosophybecomecommoncurrency. Fromthe1660s, manymajor gures associatedwiththeRoyalSociety Robert Boyle, Robert Hooke, HenryPower, Thomas Sprat, JosephGlanvill, andHenry Oldenburg employ it and, more than that, use it with a view to vindicating the experimen-tal approach.46With respect to the relative merits of experimental philosophy, some still found a signicantplaceforspeculation.TheutopianwriterSamuelGott,forexample,proposedthatspeculativephilosophy and the mechanical arts needed each other.47In the 1650s, when he was beginningtoworkout thedistinctionbetweenspeculativeandexperimental natural philosophy, RobertBoyle arguedthat experimental learningcouldenhance speculative philosophy.48MargaretCavendish famously expressed a clear preference for the speculative philosophy: And ifreason be above sense, then Speculative Philosophy ought to be preferred before the Experimen-tal, because there can no reason be given for any thing without it.49Later in the century, JohnSergeant elaborateduponthepurporteddecienciesofanexperimental knowledge, whichhecharacterised as utterly Incompetent or Unable to beget Science, because it is meerly Historical,and Narrative of Particular Observations; from which to deduce Universal Conclusions is againstplain Logick, and Common Sense.50Both Cavendish and Sergeant had in mind a traditional con-ceptionofphilosophyandscienceinwhichproperexplanationwasregardedaspropterquidrather than quia. While the idea of an experimental history made sense, the notion of an exper-imental philosophy seemed to traditionalists a contradiction in terms.We are now conscious of the way in which the notion of a mathematical natural philosophywas somewhat novel in the seventeenth century, because it involved a transgression of Aristote-lian conception of the proper relations among the three speculative sciences.51This was equallytrue of the idea of an experimental philosophy. Critics were not slow to point this out. Sergeant44J. Sergeant, The Method to Science (London, 1696), sig. b3 recto.45R. Descartes, Discourse concerning the Method, in The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, edited by J. Cottingham,R. Stoothoff, and D. Murdoch, 2 vols (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), vol. 1, 142.46See Anstey,Experimental versus Speculative Natural Philosophy, 218f.47S. Gott, The Divine History of the Genesis of the World. Explicated & Illustrated (London, 1670), 11f.48Anstey,Experimental versus Speculative Natural Philosophy, 218.49M.Cavendish,ObservationsuponExperimentalPhilosophy.TowhichisaddedTheDescriptionofaNewBlazingWorld (London, 1666), 79f.50Sergeant, Method to Science, sig. d1 recto.51Aristotle had argued that the three speculative sciences theology, mathematics, and natural philosophy dealt withdistinct subject matters, and that the methods of one science could not be applied to another. Posterior Analytics 75a-b; Metaphysics 989b-990a, 1025b-1026a; On the Heavens 299a-299b. For the signicance of this division seeA. Funkenstein, Theology andthe Scientic Imagination(Princeton, NJ: PrincetonUniversityPress, 1986), 35-7;303-7; A. Cunningham, Howthe Principiagot its Name: Or, TakingNatural PhilosophySeriously, History ofScience, 28 (1991), 377-92; Dear, Discipline and Experience, ch. 6.EXPERIMENTAL RELIGION AND SCIENCE 423Downloaded by [82.28.150.9] at 16:45 17 October 2012 thusregardedexperimental philosophyasakintophilosophical enthusiasm.52For their part,advocates of experimental philosophy could concede that experimental natural philosophy wasnot, strictly speaking, scientic. As John Locke expressed it,This way of getting and improving our knowledge in substances only by experience and history, whichis all that the weakness of our faculties in this state of mediocrity, which we are in this world, can attainto; makes me suspect, that natural philosophy is not capable of being made a science.53As should by now be apparent, part of my argument is that the widespread approbation of exper-imental religion helped make the subsequent case for the respectability of an experimental naturalphilosophy.Beyond this, there were several explicit parallels between experimental knowledge in the twospheres. Experimental knowledgeinbothcontexts was understoodas useful knowledge, orknowledgethatyieldedbenecialoutcomes. Allknowledgemustbemeasuredbytheuseorend,wroteThomasJacksonin1615,inhisdefenseofexperimentalreligiousknowledge.Heexplains:[] our knowledge cannot be perfect, unless terminated to a right structure of affections in the heart,answerable to the Idea, or model of truth in our brains; unless it bring forth readiness or promptitude inevery faculty to put such Precepts as require their service, in execution. Of these two parts of Christianknowledge, the one in the head, the other in the heart: much better the former were defective, than thelatter. He that knows rightly to husband the ground he enjoys, what part is good for meadow, what forpasture, what for corn, what for this kind of grain, what for that, how every parcel may be employed tothe best commodity of the owner, may be ignorant in surveying, or drawing a right platform of it, withless loss, than he that could survey it most exactly, but hath no experimental skill at all in tillage, orhusbandry. Now [] our Savior tells us his Father is an husbandman, and is best gloried by suchfruits as we shall bring forth unto salvation, (the true end of Christian knowledge:)54Francis Bacon had already drawn a similar connection between faith and works, or knowledgeand its fruits, in Redargutio philosophiarum (1608), arguing that the same principle of fruitfulnessappliedtobothreligious andphilosophical knowledge.55WhileBacondoesnot distinguishexperimental from speculative philosophy in those terms, he does contrast the way of experimentwithsophistical doctrines andconjecture.56Inhisdiscussionof moral philosophyinThe52M. Heyd, The New Experimental Philosophy: A Manifestation of Enthusiasm or an Antidote to it?, Minerva, 25:4(1987), 423-40;A. Johns, ThePhysiologyofReading, inBooksandtheSciencesinHistory, editedbyM. Frasca-Spada and N. Jardine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 291-314 (301). On Casaubons attitude to exper-imental philosophy see Richard Serjeantsons introduction to Meric Casaubon, Generall Learning: A Seventeenth-CenturyTreatise on the Formation of the General Scholar, edited by R. Serjeantson (Cambridge: Renaissance Texts from Manu-scripts Publications, 1999).53J. Locke, An Essay concerning Human Understanding, IV.xii.10, edited by A.C. Fraser, 2 vols (NewYork: Dover Books,1959), vol. 1, 349. Cf. Essay, IV.iii.29 (vol. 1, 222): But as to a perfect science of natural bodies (not to mention spiritualbeings) we are, I think, so far from being capable of any such thing, that I conclude it lost labour to seek after it. See alsoEssay, III.vi.9 (vol. 1, 64). In this context Locke means science in the Aristotelian sense of knowledge that is certain anddemonstrable. For Lockes views on the nature of natural philosophy see P. Anstey, Locke on method in natural philos-ophy, in The Philosophy of John Locke: New Perspectives, edited by P. Anstey (London: Routldge, 2003), 26-42.54T. Jackson, Justifying Faith [1615] (London, 1673), 65855F. Bacon,Redargutio philosophiarum, in Works, vol. 3, 576f.56Bacon,The English translation of Novum Organum, in Works, vol. 4, 65, 214.424 P. HARRISONDownloaded by [82.28.150.9] at 16:45 17 October 2012 Advancement of Learning (1605), moreover, he had contended that the chief deciency of paganmoralphilosophywasitsconcentrationupontheoreticaldiscussionsofvirtueandduty,ratherthan on the means of attaining them. This latter task he refers to as theRegimen or Culture oftheMind, for whichtheexperimental approachandcasesof conscience of contemporarydivines offered, in his view, a much better model than the abstract theorising of the ancients.57The cultivationof the mind, undertakenonthis experimental/experiential basis, was morelikely to yield fruitful outcomes.Later in the century, Presbyterian minister John Flavell was also to emphasise the importanceof linkingreligiousfaithwithpractical activityandtherestorationof humandominionovernature. Heobservedthat whilethechief andhighest endof manwas toglorifyGodandenjoy him forever, his secondary end wasprudently, soberly, and mercifully, to govern, use,and dispose of other Creatures in the Earth, Sea, and Air, over which God gave Man Dominion.58The purpose of natural philosophy, for the polemicist and schoolmaster John Webster, was notonlytoknownaturescausesandpowers,but tomakeuseofthemforthegeneralgoodandbenetofmankind,especiallyfortheconservationandrestaurationofthehealthofman,andofthosecreaturesthatareusefullforhim.59AnumberofPuritanwriters,particularlyduringthe Interregnum, drew parallels between the qualities of spiritual experience and scientic exper-iment linking, for example the medical traditional of experimenta with the religious. As CharlesWebster has argued,Puritan authors followed Paracelsus in regarding the sound empirical prac-tices of the manual arts as an actual equivalent to spiritual experience or experiment. Accord-ingly they saw a denite relationship between experimental science and religious experience.60The way of experiment thus offered a unitary approach to both a charitable earthly vocation anda disciplined inner spiritual life.A PLAY ON WORDS?It might be objected that, while the respective vocabularies of experimental religion and exper-imental natural philosophy, outlined in detail above, show interesting and suggestive parallels,there is little evidence of the direct and explicit appropriation of the religious terminology by advo-cates of the new experimental philosophy. Indeed, as I noted at the outset, some commentators, inearlier discussions of the merits of the Puritanism and science thesis, dismissed attempts to drawconnections between these two spheres that were based on putative parallels between two senses ofexperimental. Leo F. Solt, for example, suggested that comparisons between puritan experienceand natural philosophical experiment were mere wordplay, premised upon a confusion betweentwoentirelydifferent kinds of activity.61RichardGreaves arguedsimilarlythat religious57Bacon,Advancement of Learning, in Works, vol. 4, 319;De Augmentis, in Works, vol. 5, 6.58The Westminster Larger Catechism, Question 1; J. Flavel, An Exposition of the Assemblys Shorter Catechism (London,1688).59J. Webster, Academiarum Examen, or the Examination of Academies (London, 1654), 19.60C. Webster, The Great Instauration: Science, Medicine and Reform 1626-1660 (London: Duckworth, 1975), 284. Forexamples, seeWebster, AcademiarumExamen, 92; S. Hartlib, AnEssayfor Advancement of Husbandry-Learning(London, 1651), To the Reader. Karen Edwards has similarly pointed to the complementary nature of John Miltons exper-imental reading of scripture and his experimental reading of the book of nature. K. Edwards, Milton and the Natural World:Science and Poetry in Paradise Lost (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 47f., 64-82. See also C. Hill, TheCentury of Revolution: 1603-1714 (Edinburgh: Thomas Nelson, 1961), 108; Picciotto, Labors of Innocence, 431f.61Solt,Puritanism, Capitalism, Democracy, 25.EXPERIMENTAL RELIGION AND SCIENCE 425Downloaded by [82.28.150.9] at 16:45 17 October 2012 phenomena are not signicantly analogous to scientic knowledge, insofar as religious experi-ences cannot ordinarily be examined under rigidly controlled conditions subsequently reproduci-ble almost at will. Greaves also pointed out that a conscious awareness on the part of Puritans and/or scientists that such a parallel in methodology existed has never been established.62By way of an initial response, it should be pointed out that these earlier objections did not takecognisance of the extent of the use of experimental in religious contexts, nor were they informedby any signicant analysis of the more obvious parallels between the two kinds of discourse, reli-gious and natural philosophical, of the kind set out above. Moreover, the rather narrow conceptionofexperiment appealed to here is, in some respects, rather anachronistic. While the repeatablecontrolled experiment is now associated in the popular mind with modern experimental science,in the seventeenth century, as we have seen,experiment had much broader connotations, evenwhen deployedwithinthesphereofthenaturalsciences.Itis alsoworth bearinginmindthatwhiletheexpressionexperimental sciencewasnot unknownintheseventeenthcentury, byfarthemorecommonexpressionswerenaturalandexperimentalhistoriesandexperimentalnatural philosophy. The former natural and experimental histories were records of individualexperiences and observations of various kinds, originally recommended by Francis Bacon as therst stageof the study of nature, and subsequently adopted by the Royal Societyas one of itsinvestigativemethods. Theseexperimentalhistorieshavemuchmoreincommonwithreportsofreligiousexperiencesthandothepracticesoftwenty-rst-centurylaboratoryscience. Theycould, for example, call for the use of imagination and analogy to gain knowledge of invisiblerealitiesasBaconhimselfput it whenthingsnot directlyperceptiblearebrought withinthe reach of sense, not by perceptible operations of the imperceptible body itself, but by obser-vations of some cognate body which is perceptible.63The relevance of the latter expressionexperimental natural philosophy is simply this: that as a philosophical enterprise, experimentalnatural philosophy still aimed, to some extent, at the kind of moral formation that was integral totheclassicalphilosophicalvision.Again,aphilosophicalenterprisethusunderstoodissigni-cantly more akin to religious activity thanscience, as we presently conceive it.Before spelling out in more detail the signicance of these categories, and considering the ques-tion of whether the objects of experiment are in any sense analogous, it is worth making one briefadditional point about the wordplay objection. This relates to the fact that there are other terms, inaddition to experimental, which were taken across from the religious sphere into the natural phi-losophical. Perhaps the best example in this context is the term real, which frequently appears inthe combination real and experimental. We have already seen how Goodwin spoke of a real andexperimental knowledge of our moral obligations. Thereal in this case is contrasted with themerely verbal and notional.64Goodwins use of the conjunction is not an isolated case, and thisparticular combinationisrelativelycommoninthereligiousliterature.65Signicantly, when62Greaves,Puritanism and Science, 354f. See also Morgan, Godly Learning, 58-61.63Bacon, English Translation of the Novum Organum, in Works, vol. 4, 203.64John Wilkins, for example, distinguishes a notional and geometrical contrivance in astronomy, from that which is realand experimental. J. Wilkins, Mathematicall Magick (London, 1648), 142. For an account of some of the meanings oftest, proof, experience, experiment andreal inthetheological context, seeW. Gouge, ALearnedandveryuseful Commentary onthe Whole Epistle tothe Hebrewes (London, 1655), 333-5. Thereal sciences of the medievalquadrivium (music, astronomy, geometry, arithmetic) had traditionally been contrasted with theverbal sciences of thetrivium (grammar, logic, rhetoric).65For examples see W. Perkins, An Exposition of the Symbole or Creed (London, 1595), 300; E. Reynolds, Three Trea-tises of the Vanity of the Creature (London, 1631), 52; J. Preston, An Elegant and Lively Description of Spirituall Life and426 P. HARRISONDownloaded by [82.28.150.9] at 16:45 17 October 2012 experimental iscombinedwithnatural philosophy, asit wasincreasinglyfromthe1640sonwards, the descriptorreal is often carried over with it. Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, JosephGlanvill, John Ray, and others commonly use real and experimental as an expression for describ-ing what is distinctive about the natural philosophy practiced by the Royal Society.66What thedeploymentofthephraserealandexperimentalinbothcontextssuggestsisthatwearenotdealingherewithmerewordplaythatrelieson quitedifferentunderstandingsofexperiment,but rather with common conception of a particular kind of knowledge.Turningtothequestionofwhethertheobjectsofknowledgeinthetwocasesareradicallydifferent, it might be said that, counterintuitive though it might seem, the existence of God andof other spiritual realitieswerethenregardedbysomeaspreciselythekindsof thingsthatcould be supported by an appeal to experiment. One way of seeing the force of this is to considerJoseph Glanvills attempt to marshal empirical evidence in favour of the existence of witches andevil spirits, which he insisted was amatter of Fact, [and] only capable of the evidence of auth-ority and sense. Notoriously, for Glanvill, the existence of witches and diabolical contracts wasnot a matter of mere private experience, but of public record, abundantly conrmed by historiesand the testimony of all ages.67Glanvill rmly believed that this issue concernedthe truth andcertainty of Matters which you know by Experiments that could not deceive.68These experiencesthenconcernedmattersoffactthatcouldberecordedandaccumulated.(TheQuakerwriter,Robert Barclay, was to go as far as to argue that God revealsmatters of fact to men.69) Thisprocedure was consistent with Francis Bacons recommendation that the preternatural be includedintheobservational histories. InthecaseofGlanvillsproofsoftheexistenceofaspiritualworld, a cumulative account of non-repeatable, rst-hand experiences amounts to a natural andexperimental history. It is in keeping with this idea of anexperimental history that JohnWesley, intheeighteenthcentury, sought tocataloguethereligious experiences of variousindividuals from different times and places, with a view to establishing the principles of an exper-imental religion that transcended the personal experiences of the single individual.70A related perspective is offered by Robert Boyle, who argued that the experimental frame ofmind predisposed the individual to credit well-attested miracles which, again, concerned putativematters of fact (albeit ones that were non-repeatable): Experimental Philosophydoes alsoDispose the Minds of its Cultivaters to receive due Impressions from such Proofs, as MiraclesDeath(London,1632),114;Burgess,SpiritualRening,8f.;R.Barclay,AnApologyFortheTrueChristianDivinity(London, 1678), 120, 147.66See, for example, R. Hooke, Micrographia; or Some Physiological Descriptions of Minute Bodies made by MagnifyingGlasses (London, 1665),Preface; R. Hooke, An attempt to prove the Motion of the Earth from Observations made byRobert Hooke, Fellowof the Royal Society (London, 1674), dedicatoryepistle toSir JohnCutler, sig. A2recto;R. Boyle, Certain Physiological Essays, in The Works of Robert Boyle, edited by M. Hunter and E.B. Davis, 12 vols(London: Chatto and Pickering, 1999-2000), vol. 2, 15; J. Glanvill, Essays on Several Important Subjects in Philosophyand Religion (London, 1676), Essay 3, 53; J. Glanvill, Philosophia pia; or, A Discourse of the Religious Temper, andTendencies of the Experimental Philosophy (London, 1671), 71; R. Bohun, A Discourse concerning the Origine and Prop-erties of Wind (Oxford, 1671), 222; J. Ray, The Wisdom of God manifested in the Works of Creation (London, 1691), 125.For an early use of the combination as applied to learning, see W. Petty, The advice of W.P. to Mr. Samuel Hartlib for TheAdvancement of some particular Parts of Learning, (London, 1647), 3.67J. Glanvill, Some Philosophical Considerations Touching the Being of Witches and Witchcraft (London, 1667), 4.68Glanvill, Philosophical Considerations, 1f.69R. Barclay, The Possibility and Necessity of the Inward Immediate Revelation of the Spirit of God (London, 1686), 2-6.70J. Wesley, The Letters of the Rev. John Wesley, edited by J. Telford, 8 vols (London: Epworth, 1931),vol. 8, 295: TheLetters and the Lives [to be published in The Arminian] contain the marrow of practical and experimental religion.EXPERIMENTAL RELIGION AND SCIENCE 427Downloaded by [82.28.150.9] at 16:45 17 October 2012 do, as well as other Topicks, afford the Christian Religion.71There is, therefore, a direct analogybetween these experimental ways of knowing:Some Theological things are capable of proofs,analogoustoexperimentsinPhilosophy.72(Miraclesareusuallytaken, bydenition, tobenon-repeatable.)Indeed,attimes,thisanalogybecomesavirtualidentity.WhenBoyleclaimsthat experimental knowledge of Gods wisdom and other attributes discoverable in his visibleworks, isagreat helptorational pietyanddevotion,73it isnot altogether clear whether hesimply means the genericexperiential knowledge of Gods wisdom, consistent with the stan-dard vocabulary of experimental religion, or something more specic, along the lines of knowl-edge of Gods wisdomgained through experimental natural philosophy. Perhaps Boylesposition is that experimental natural philosophy might be thought of as a specic instance of amoregenericexperimentalreligionhencehissuggestionthatdiscoveringtheperfectionsofGod in the anatomy of creatures constitutesreasonable worship of God.74Following the Restoration, we encounter even more explicit connections between religious andnatural philosophical senses ofexperiment, along with an insistence that the latter, no less thantheformer, promotedmoral edication. Toadegree, this emphasis parallels thecontinuitybetween the Puritan emphasis on useful knowledge and the priority that Restoration Anglicanismwassubsequentlytogivetopractical divinity.75InhisHistoryof theRoyal Society(1667),Thomas Sprat linked the moral self-scrutiny associated with experimental religion to the exper-imental philosophy:The spiritual Repentance is a careful survay of our former Errors, and a resolution of amendment. Thespiritual Humility is an observation of our Defects, and a lowly sense of our own weakness. And theExperimenterforhispartmust havesomeQualitiesthatanswertothese: Hemust judgearight ofhimself; he must misdoubt the best of his own thoughts; he must be sensible of his own ignorance,if ever he will attempt to purge and renew his Reason.Again, this spiritual humility is consistent with experimental, but not speculative, natural philos-ophy: the doubtful, the scrupulous, the diligent Observer of Nature, is neerer to make a modest, asevere, ameek, anhumbleChristian, thanthemanof SpeculativeScience, whohas betterthoughts of himself and his own Knowledge.76Sprat goes so far as to contend that God himself,incarnatein Christ,performedmiraclestoprovideexperimental evidenceof thetruthof theChristianfaith. Christsmiracles arethusdescribed, inapassagethat is rather puzzlingona rst reading, as Divine Experiments.What Sprat seems to have in mind here is the idea that the miracles of the New Testament areakin to the experimentum crucis or instantia crucis; experiments specically designed to adjudi-cate between competing hypotheses.77In full, the relevant passage reads:71R. Boyle,The Christian Virtuoso, part 1, in The Works of Robert Boyle, vol. 11, 322.72Boyle Papers, vol. 1, 65, cit. Boyle on Atheism, edited by J.J. Macintosh (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005),109.73R. Boyle,The Christian Virtuoso, part II, in The Works of Robert Boyle, vol. 12, 432.74R. Boyle, The Usefulness of Natural Philosophy, in The Works of Robert Boyle, vol. 3, 279; cf. Of the High Venera-tion Mans Intellect owes to God, in The Works of Robert Boyle, vol. 10, 195.75For the differences and similarities between Puritans and Anglicans on this issue see Corneanu, Regimens of the Mind,ch. 2; Morgan, Godly Learning, 71.76T. Sprat, History of the Royal Society (London, 1667), 367; cf. 103.77For these different conceptions of experiment see Dear, Discipline and Experience, 21-5.428 P. HARRISONDownloaded by [82.28.150.9] at 16:45 17 October 2012 Had not the appearance of Christ bin strengthend by undeniable signs of almighty Power, no age norplace had bin obligd to believe his Message. And these Miracles with which he asserted the Truths thathe taught (if I might be allowd this boldness in a matter so sacred) I would even venture to call DivineExperiments of his Godhead.78As the context of this passage makes clear, in this instance what has to be decided is whether themessage of Jesus was of divine origin or not. The miracles are experimental trials, the outcome ofwhich establishes the divine mission of Christ. Moreover, these were observed and recorded notbymenofCraftorSpeculation;but ratherbymenofHonesty, Trades, andBusiness.79Thegospel records were thus histories, based upon reliable testimonies, and from which appropriateconclusions could be drawn. It is clear in all of this that Sprat explicitly relies on the religiousvocabulary of the time to argue the respectability of the Royal Societys experimental approach.As John Morgan has pointed out:Inorder tohelpincorporatethesocietyspractices(asrepresented)intoa pre-existingculturalcon-sciousness, Sprat in effect recalibrated the termsexperimental andwitnessing from an individua-listic Christianexperience toaformal methodological tool for assessingandassimilatingsingleexperiences, involving rules and order.80What made such a recalibration possible was the existing afnity between the respective under-standings ofexperiment.OtherfellowsoftheearlyRoyal Societyhadcometosimilarconclusions. JosephGlanvillobservedthat real andexperimental philosophypromotesvirtueandhappinessinawaythatspeculative philosophy does not. Both the reformation of religion and the reformation ofnatural philosophy, he insisted, had been accomplished when notional and speculative knowledgewas replaced by experimental knowledge:Thus the Experimental Learning recties the grandabusewhichtheNotional Knowledgesolongfosterdandpromoted, tothehinderanceofScience, the disturbance of the World, and the prejudice of the Christian Faith.81Also relevanthere is Robert Boyles conviction, set out most explicitly in The Christian Virtuoso, that a com-mitmenttoexperimentalknowledge(in thebroadest sense)makesthemindmorereceptivetoboth scientic and religious truths:HethatisaddictedtoKnowledgeExperimental, isaccustomdbothtoPersue, Esteem,andRelishmany Truths, that do not delight his Senses, or gratie his Passions, or his Interests, but only entertainhis Understanding with that Manly and Spiritual Satisfaction, that is naturally afforded it by the attain-ment of Clear and Noble Truths.82It follows for Boyle thatexperimental Philosophy may greatly Assist a well-disposd Mind, toyield an Hearty and Operative Assent to the Principles of Religion. A man possessed of suchawell-disposdmind,hepointsout,isinclindtomakepiousapplicationsoftheTruthshe78Sprat, History of the Royal Society, 352.79Sprat, History of the Royal Society, 352.80J. Morgan, Sprat, Thomas (bap. 1635, d. 1713), in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press,Sept 2004; online edition, Jan 2008 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/26173, accessed 15 Dec 2009]81J. Glanvill, Plus Ultra: or, The Progress and Advancement of Knowledge Since the Days of Aristotle (London, 1668),148f. See also Glanvill, Essays on Several Important Subjects, 25 and Glanvill, Philosophia pia, 71. Dunton also spokeabout the usefulness of experimental knowledge both in the private Government of mens Minds and of its Advantages inrespect of their publick Practices. See Dunton, Young-Students-Library, vii.82Boyle,The Christian Virtuoso, part 1, in The Works of Robert Boyle, vol. 11, 304.EXPERIMENTAL RELIGION AND SCIENCE 429Downloaded by [82.28.150.9] at 16:45 17 October 2012 discovers.83Thepoint isnot simplythat thewayofexperiment will yielddatathat providefactual premises for a natural theology although Boyle does believe this to be the case butalsothat experimental practices have formative effects that promote bothtrue religionandsound science, each of which has practical outcomes. Natural and experimental histories,broadlyconstrued, werethusgivenacentral placeintheregimenorcultivationofthemind,thought necessary for both true Christian religion and fruitful natural philosophy.84Finally, it is signicant that a number of advocates of the experimental approach point out thatexperimental knowledge best suits our present condition or our present state. The conviction ofthefallenconditionof thehumanrace, anditsconsequent cognitivelimitations, providedacommon anthropological foundation for experimental knowledge generally.85The Quakerwriter Isaac Penington expresses the issue this way:Again, there is a speculative knowledg, and an Experimental knowledg: a knowledg by understanding,and a knowledg by experience: a knowledg by viewing the thing, and a knowledg by trying the thing.This experimental knowledg is the better kind of knowledg in this uncertain state wherein we are, butthe other is the better in its own nature.86Thus,whilespeculativeknowledge(whichistosay,certainanddemonstrativeknowledge)ismore perfectknowledgein itself,it is not a knowledge of which human beingsarecapable intheir present fallen condition. Locke made the same point when he suggested that experimentalknowledgebettersuitstheweaknessofourfacultiesinthisstateofmediocrity.87Thereisanice irony in the fact that Hume will repeat this justication for knowledge based on experience,noting that it better suits limited human beings: speculative orscientic knowledge, he wrote,suits less the imperfection of human nature and is a common source of illusion.88CONCLUSIONWhat I hope to have shown in this paper is that there are signicant parallels between ideas ofexperimental religionandexperimental natural philosophyinseventeenth-century England.This is not to deny that there were other important factors that inuenced the adoption of a voca-bulary of experimental natural philosophy, such as the medical traditions alluded to earlier in thepaper.89Neither is it the case that experimental means precisely the same thing in religious and83Boyle,The Christian Virtuoso, part 1, in The Works of Robert Boyle, vol. 11, 327, 291.84For experimentalnatural philosophy as amedicine of the mind see D. Jalobeanu, Experimental philosophers anddoctors of the mind: the appropriation of a philosophical tradition in Nature et surnaturel: Philosphies de la nature etMtaphysique aux XVIe-XVIIIe sicles, edited by V. Alexandrescu and R. Theis (Hildesheim: Olms, 2010).85On this theme see P. Harrison, The Fall of Man and the Foundations of Science (Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress, 2007).86I. Penington, Divine Essays or Considerations about Several Things in Religion (London, 1654), 2. Penington goes onto say that speculative knowledg alone without practise, without trial, without experience, is not altogether so safe in thisstate of man. (Divine Essays, 3)87Locke,Essay,IV.xii.10, vol. 1,349. Seealso, Harrison,TheFallofManandtheFoundationsofScience,251f,etpassim.88D. Hume, An Enquiry into the Principles of Morals, edited by L.A. Selby-Bigge, third edition, revised by P. H. Nidditch(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975), 174.89It might be argued that the legal background is signicant, too. See R. Sargent, Scientic Experiment and Legal Exper-tise: The Way of Experience in Seventeenth-Century England, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 20:1 (1989),430 P. HARRISONDownloaded by [82.28.150.9] at 16:45 17 October 2012 natural philosophical contexts. But, insofar as there is a common vocabulary relating to exper-imental religion that was both more extensive than, and preceded, discourse about experimentalnatural philosophy, it seems reasonable to conclude that this religious discourse had some inu-ence on the latter.This analysis also offers another perspective on the question of what the expression experimen-tal natural philosophymeant intheseventeenthcentury. Whileit isnatural enoughtothinkprimarily, in this connection, of experimental practices in the sense of the conducting of whatwewouldregardasparticularexperimentsthevarioususagesset out inthispapersuggestthatexperimentalnaturalphilosophyinvolvesamoregeneralcommitmenttocertainkindsofpersonal knowledge, and an advocacy of useful or practical outcomes. Historians of science arenow accustomed to the nuances of the termnatural philosophy.90It is also important to attendto some of the connotations of that crucial qualication,experimental.It would be remiss not to offer a very brief comment on how the considerations set out in thispaper bear on the puritanism and science thesis proposed by R.K. Merton, Charles Webster, andothers. The claim that a puritan emphasis on personal experience might have had a positive impacton the development of experimental science in seventeenth-century science has been much dis-cussed.91It has also been argued in this context that the methods of puritan experimental religiondiffer so signicantly from those of experimental natural philosophy that any direct and positiveinuence of the former on the latter is highly unlikely. My argument in this paper is thatexper-imental religion is not restricted to Puritan authors, but was shared more broadly by those whorejected the speculative approach. Moreover, experimental religion was not grounded in experi-encesthatweremerelysubjectiveandincapable,inprinciple,ofcorroboration.Rather,suchexperienceswereshapedbydevotionaltraditions,mostobviously,butnotsolely,exempliedin formal spiritual exercises.92These regimens were designed to bring disciplineto devotionalpractice and guarantee that religious experiences converged upon a common object.Following on from the previous point, this paper has pointed to a degree of afnity between thecognitive standards of theology and natural philosophy during this period. Not only did the voca-bularyofexperimentalreligionhaveaninuenceondevelopingideasofexperimentalnaturalphilosophy, but fromtheseventeenthcenturyonwards, experimental religionitself begantoundergoasubtletransformation. Formedievalthinkers, experimentalknowledgehadbeenanalmost mystical experience of God, and for the most part restricted to those exceptional individ-ualscapableofdevotingthemselvesfullytothecontemplativelife.Inthisearliercontext,theusefulness of experimental knowledge was understood primarily in terms of personal edica-tion. Whilethisemphasispersistsintheearlymodernliteraturetosomeextent inauthorswho make explicit reference to such medieval writers as Jean Gerson, for example the seven-teenthcenturywitnessesan importantshiftinunderstandingoftheusefulness ofexperimental19-45; B. Shapiro, Testimony in Seventeenth-Century English Natural Philosophy: legal origins and early development,Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 33:2 (2002), 243-63.90See, forexample, A. Cunningham, GettingtheGameRight: SomePlainWordsontheIdentityandInventionofScience, Studies inHistoryandPhilosophyof Science, Part A, 19:3(1988), 365-89. But cf. P. Dear, Religion,Science, andNaturalPhilosophy:ThoughtsonCunninghamsThesis, StudiesinHistoryandPhilosophyofScience,Part A, 32:2(2001), 377-86; J. Heilbron, Natural Philosophy, inWrestlingwithNature: FromOmenstoScience,edited by P. Harrison, R. Numbers and M. Shank (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2011).91Greaves,Puritanism and Science, 354; John Morgan, Godly Learning, 60f.92On the connection between scientic methods and spiritual exercises see M.L. Jones, The Good Life in the ScienticRevolution (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2006), especially ch. 1.EXPERIMENTAL RELIGION AND SCIENCE 431Downloaded by [82.28.150.9] at 16:45 17 October 2012 knowledgeinthespheresofbothreligionandphilosophy.IntheProtestantcontext,thesearelinkedtoCalvinistnotionsoftheinherentworthoftheearthlyvocationandtheideaofsignsof election: experimental knowledge, as we have seen, was regarded as knowledge characteristicof the elect. For their part, Jesuit spiritual directors sought, similarly, to ensure that interior con-templation had a counterpart in external works that promoted the more worldly projects of themission of the Society of Jesus.Related to these developments was the fact that both Catholic and Protestant reformers soughtto extend the requirement of personal piety and direct religious experience from the clergy to thewhole of the laity.93This Christianization of Europe, as Jean Delumeau calls it, peaked in 1700,and it brought in its wake a pressing need to channel and control the religious experience now sosuccessfully enjoined upon all. A specic instance can be seen in the Jesuit attempts to disciplinepotentiallyexcessiveexperimental religionthroughanemphasis ontheexerciseof rationalcontrol inthepracticeof spiritual exercises.94Thepopular spiritual exercisesof IgnatiusofLoyola represent, to some extent, a religious counterpart of contrived or sought-after experienceof experimental natural philosophy, while the purgative elements of the exercises call to mind theregimen of self-examination that Sprat demanded of the natural philosopher. By the same token,the cautious attitude of Jesuit authorities suggests an acute awareness of the potential dangers ofreligious experience untrammeled by some form of corporate control. Even carefully regulatedexperience could thus attract the derogatory label enthusiasm an expression initially deployedinthereligious context for potentiallydestabilizingandantinomianexperience, but quicklyextended to the sphere of natural philosophy. In sum, experimental knowledge in the realms ofreligion and natural philosophy was widely recognized as requiringinstitutionaland methodo-logical control in order for it to yield benecial knowledge.The changing meanings of experimental religion might also be attributed to the growing pres-tige of experimental natural philosophy, and to the beginnings of a reversal of the direction ofinuence. Already Robert Boyle implies in places that it is the experimental philosophy that pro-vides the model for a genuinely experimental religion, rather than the converse.95So, too, whileeighteenth-century theological writers such as John Wesley and Jonathan Edwards note the con-vergence of approaches, to some extent they seem also to imply that the experimental approach inreligion now draws its legitimacy from the sphere of natural philosophy. Edwardss references toexperimental natural philosophy I noted at the outset. Wesley, as we have also seen, sought toconstruct a kind of inductively grounded experimental religion by gathering histories of personalreligious experiences. This wouldserve as a checkagainst enthusiasm.96Not surprisingly,WesleyalsopraisedBaconforhischampioningoftheinductivemethod, andtosomeextent93See, for example, J. Delumeau, Catholicism between Luther and Voltaire: A New View of the Counter-Reformation,translatedbyJ. Moiser(London: BurnsandOats, 1979); J. Delumeau, SinandFear:TheEmergenceof aWesternGuilt Culture, Thirteenth-EighteenthCenturies, translatedbyE. Nicholson(NewYork:StMartinsPress, 1990). Onthe common element of discipline in these approaches see Picciotto, Labors of Innocence, 22.94M. de Certeau, Crise sociale et rformisme spirituel au dbut du XVIIe sicle: Une Novelle Spiritualit chez Jsuitesfranaise, Revue dasctique et de mystique, 41 (1965), 388-86.95This is the beginning of a process described by Stephen Gaukroger, in which, from the seventeenth century onwards,science gradually becomes the model for all cognitive activity in the West. See S. Gaukroger, The Emergence of a Scien-tic Culture: Science and the Shaping of Modernity, 1210-1685 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 1, et passim.96See Wesleys remarks quoted in A History of The Methodist Church in Great Britain, edited by R. Davies, A. R. Georgeand G. Rupp, 4 vols (London: Epworth Press, 1965-1988), vol. 4, 194.432 P. HARRISONDownloaded by [82.28.150.9] at 16:45 17 October 2012 saw himself as its beneciary.97This appropriation of the authority of natural philosophy is evenmore conspicuous in later nineteenth-century comparisons of the methods of theology and naturalphilosophy, although the terminology has shifted away fromexperiment towardsinduction.Princeton theologian Charles Hodge, to take a single example, declared in his Systematic Theol-ogy (1871-3) that the inductive method in theology agrees in everything essential with the induc-tive method as applied to the natural sciences. The theologian, he insisted, must be guided by thesame rules in the collection of facts, as govern the man of science. Hodge even draws the com-parison between the speculative method and the inductive, and contended that former is suitablefor neither science nor theology.98In the next phase of their relations, from the end of the nine-teenth century, the cognitive standards of science came to be regarded either as too stringent forreligious knowledge claims to bear, or as entirely inappropriate for application in the religioussphere. As we have seen, the situation was rather different in early modern England, which wit-nessed a remarkable and positive convergence of the values and epistemic standards of religionand natural philosophy.Harris Manchester College, Oxford97Wesley, OntheGradualImprovementofNaturalPhilosophy, (1784)6, inTheWorksofJohnWesley, editedbyT. Jackson, third edition, 14 vols (London: Wesleyan Methodist Book Room, 1872; reprinted Grand Rapids, MI: Zonder-van 1958-9), vol. 13, 483. Wesley, The Journal of the Rev. John Wesley, 4 vols (London, 1827) vol. 2, 288, 443. ForWesleys own understanding of his inductive method see D. Thorsen,Theological Method in John Wesley, Drew Uni-versity Ph.D. thesis, 1988, 158ff.98C. Hodge, Systematic Theology, 3 vols (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1940), vol. 1, 9, 11, 14f.EXPERIMENTAL RELIGION AND SCIENCE 433Downloaded by [82.28.150.9] at 16:45 17 October 2012