The Act of Creation by Arthur Koestler

Review by: George Gaylord Simpson

Isis, Vol. 57, No. 1 (Spring, 1966), pp. 126-127
Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of The History of Science Society
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126 BOOK REVIEWS- ISIS, 57 1 187 (1966)

Paracelsian and Helmontian texts in detail.' The extent of this influence on

him has yet to be fully assessed.
For contemporary Paracelsians chemistry had a far more sweeping goal than
pharmacy or transmutational alchemy as Dr. Hall implies. Rather, for them this
science was the key to all nature. The universe had resulted from a divine
chemical separation and after the Creation it had continued to operate in a
chemical fashion. The true physician (or chemist, since the terms were inter-
changeable), by his chemical analysis of the microcosm, would benefit both by
learning of the macrocosm and his Creator. This may be a " mystical " approach
to nature, but the macrocosm-microcosm analogy was not yet a dead issue in
the mid-seventeenth century, and it is perhaps no less implausible to think of
the universe and man in terms of chemical analogies than it is to picture the
universe as a giant piece of clockwork as did Boyle and the mechanical philos-
ophers. Actually there were more similarities between the Paracelsians and the
mechanical philosophers than generally has been admitted. They both stood
for an unyielding attack on the blind authority of the ancients. They both
insisted that the secrets of nature would only unfold through an unyielding
observational and experimental approach- and they both claimed that their
method would yield eventually the secrets of the universe. It is true that the
hypothetical bases for their work were incorrect from our viewpoint, but if we
are to understand the scientific revolution we must have a more thorough
knowledge of the Renaissance chemical philosophers.
The present volume is valuable, but within limitations. It is Boyle from a
definite point of view - Boyle's work as it affected later science. What is sorely
needed is a broader reevaluation of Boyle in terms of the earlier philosophical
and chemical currents which affected and influenced him during his most forma-
tive period - as well as a reevaluation of the mechanical philosophy. When this
is done he may appear to have been somewhat less an innovator than a transmitter.

University of Chicago
1 Marie Boas Hall points out Boyle's study
of Paracelsus and van Helmont in this book
on page 16. The general problem of the Hel-
montian-Paracelsian influence in England at
ALLEN G. DEBUS
this time is clarified by the recent papers of
P. M. Rattansi in Ambix, 1963, 11:24-32; 1964,
12:1-23.

differ not only in technical level and

I PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE
Arthur Koestler. The Act of Creation.
751 pp., figs., notes, apps., refs., bibl.,
index. New York: Macmillan, 1964.
$8.95.
This outsize work continues and per-
haps completes inquiries begun by
Koestler in Insight and Outlook (1949).
It is divided into a first book, somewhat
the longer, on The Art of Discovery
and the Discoveries of Art, and a second
on Habit and Originality. The two
style but also in subject matter. They
are addressed, or at least they will
appeal, to different audiences, and the
publisher might have done well to
issue them as what they are: two quite
distinct books.
Koestler's theory on creativity, osten-
sible subject of the whole work, is
treated in relatively nontechnical style
in the first book. Its essence is that
creation involves a sort of collision or
incongruous shift - what he calls a
" bisociation " - between two " habitu-
ally incompatible frames of reference."

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 BOOK REVIEWS-
For those frames of reference he uses
the term " matrices," although with in-
tentional ambiguity he uses the same
term for other concepts in other con-
texts. For the psychologically oriented
reader (and the reader not so oriented
will soon be disoriented) it seems at
once that a matrix in the sense of Book
1 is simply a Gestalt, but Koestler will
not have it so, and in Book 2 he has
some very unkind things to say about
Gestalt psychology.
Book 1 is devoted mainly to applying
that theory successively to humor, sci-
ence (and technology), literature, and
visual art. Koestler begins with humor
because he believes that it produces
the most directly organic, or what
others might call instinctive, reaction
to an act of creation. The reader may
try this for himself and also probe the
meaning of Koestler's term "bisocia-
tion" through such examples as that
"The aging libertine feels his old
Krafft Ebbing." The pun fits into
Koestler's scheme as being to humor
what the word-puzzle is to discovery
and the rhyme to art. That triple classi-
fication is a framework extensively
utilized and illustrated as a triptych,
which looks rather like an astrologer's
chart and provides a Pythagorean refer-
ence that could also be called Pro-
crustean.
Science occupies much of the middle
panel of the triptych and seven chapters
- 167 pages - of Book 1. It is not hard
to see or to agree that scientific creativ-
ity has frequently involved a " moment
of truth," that is, of sudden insight
into a relationship between things pre-
viously held as unrelated, in different
frames of discourse or Gestalten, or, a
la Koestler, matrices. However, when
major discoveries are repeatedly as-
cribed to lucky accident or to a welling
up from the undisciplined subcon-
scious, the discourse sometimes borders
more nearly on vulgar anecdote than
on scholarly historiography. Unless the
term is defined with complete circu-
larity, one cannot accept that " bisocia-
tion" is a full explanation and suffi-
cient condition for creativity in science.
The treatment is not directly histori-
cal, but any discussion of creativity
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ISIS, 57-1-187 (1966) 127
must have relevance to history. As his-
torical illustrations in the fields of tech-
nology and science, Koestler takes Gut-
tenberg (an interesting choice), Kepler
(an inevitable one for Koestler), and
Darwin. The derivative nature of much
of Koestler's truly dazzling erudition
is here exemplified. He seems to know
Darwin only through Himmelfarb, the
least judicious and least perceptive of
Darwin's many biographers.
Book 2 calls for little comment in
this review for a special audience, be-
cause it has practically no bearing on
the history of science and, indeed, has
a bearing more collateral than direct on
the act of creation. It is, however, quite
stunning as a tour de force, the inven-
tion of a whole idiosyncratic develop-
mental system of psychology from
gamete and DNA to the highest levels
of conscious thought.
Throughout the volume Koestler re-
veals little acquaintance with psycho-
logical studies specifically on creativity
that he aims to supersede. For example,
one of the recent scientific books on
creativity names sixty-five authorities
now working precisely in the field of
Koestler's Book 1. Of these Koestler
cites only two, and for them only work
published in 1958 and earlier. Both
Koestler and his sponsor Sir Cyril Bent
suggest that he is entering new terri-
tory. A bibliography of creativity lists
more than four thousand recent titles,
extremely few of them mentioned by
Koestler. Indeed Koestler is wandering
through well-charted lands without a
map. It is possible to share his un-
tutored zest, but that does not qualify
him as a guide.
GEORGEGAYLORDSIMPSON
Harvard University
Stephen Toulmin; June Goodfield. The
Discovery of Time. (Ancestry of Sci-
ence, Vol. 3.) 280 pp., 11 plts., index.
London: Hutchinson, 1965. 35s.
This attractive title may suggest a
discussion of the biological, evolution-
ary, psychological, and/or sociological
processes leading to the conscious repre-