334 Reviews of Books
Middle East, Spain, Eastern Europe, and modern
Israel perforce must all be included when a par-
ticular topic is taken up.
At best this book whets the appetite for more.
Being; composed of articles written for the Encyclo-
paedia Judaica, it presents a fairly broad menu of
material. Some of the articles provide new infor-
mation and/or new insight, but in many cases it is
primarily the well-known that is repeated.
HERMAN FRKL'DENBERGER
Tulane University
DAVID c- LiNDBER<;. Theories of Vision from Al-hindt to
Kepler. (University of Chicago History of Science
and Medicine,) Chicago: University of Chicago
Press. 1976. Pp. xii, ;J24, $20,00,
In the field of medieval optics we have no book
e;iving its history. Vasco Ronchi's Sioria delta luce ÍH
too spotty and unreliable, Carl Boyer's The Rain-
bow, From Myth to Mathematics ^ives a detailed and
generally dependable account of one important
theme in medieval optics. David C. Lindberghs is
the first attempt to survey visual theory com-
pleteiy.
At the basis of this book is the assumpnon that
optics in general is a scient:e with a tradition (à la
Thomas S. Kuhn), As such, its development comes
primarily and almost solely from internal stimuli
and problem-solving. Lindberg carries this as-
sumption further to identify visual theory, an es-
sential element within optics, in the same terms.
The traditions which he identifies and traces with
admirable clarity are mathematical, physical-phil-
osophical, and physiological (or medical). Lest
any doubt remain about self-awareness, Lindberg
speaks of the ^'practicioners of visual theory" (p,
x). Tracing the three traditions from a brief con-
sideration of (¡reek roots, the author branches out
impressively to cover all major writers in the
Arabi(^ tradition to the twelfth century and then
traces the Latin tradition through the Middle Ages
and through Renaissance perspective painting to
Kepler.
Alhazen (ca. tï65-io;}9) is clearly the hero of the
narrative. In him the virtues of each tradition are
captured in a theory which is primarily physical
yet uses the vocabulary, methods, and achieve-
ments of the other traditions as well. Alhazen's
application of radiation from point sources and his
establishment of one-to-one correspondence be-
tween points on an object and in the eye are essen-
tial contributions that lie at the base of Kepler's
theory of vision, Kepler becomes the apex of me-
dieval tradition rather than a mechanical philoso-
pher of the Scientific Revolution.
In developing the narrative. Lindberg analyzes
the texts of every writer with care and in detail.
The analysis is so meticulous that the reader will
repeatedly feel almost overwhelmed with accu-
racy. This is not only careful scholarship but
painstaking documentation of the thesis that visual
theory (and presumably optics in general) is an
enterprise that advances through the logic of inter-
nal problem-solving, not the enthusiastic appli-
cation of "light-metaphysics" or some other ex-
ternal influence. Lindberghs essay in the history of
ideas is essentially unimpeachable in its details —
an excellent study of texts and theories—and can
be attacked only by dismantling the assumptions
involved- That undertaking is a matter of inter-
pretation, more appropriate in other places than
here.
BRUCE EASTWOOD
University of Kentucky
AN\A MARIA BATTisTA. Lo spirito liberale € lo spirito
religioso: Tocquevilte net dibattito sulla scuola. (Di
fronte e attraverso, number 3.) Milan: Jaca Book.
1976- Pp. 2i)]. L. 3,500.
Doris S- Cîoldstein's Trial of Faith : Religion and Pol-
itics in locqueville's Thought (^975) presented the
first extended discussion of religion in Tocque-
vilie's historical, political, and sociological
thought- Anna Maria Battista. professor of the
history of political thought at the University of
Rome, has now added a work which complements
Goldstein's in thoroughness and analytical care.
The emphasis is on a detailed scrutiny of Tocque-
ville's convictions and actions when he entered the
intense debate that preceded and surrounded the
Villemain bill of 1844 which was intended to
strengthen the L^niversity's regulation of private
secondary education. This was a very unhappy
experience for Tocqueville, It provoked the scorn
of liberals, the distrust of Catholics, and endan-
gered his friendship with Gustave de Beaumont
who had been his companion on the famous voy-
age to America.
Battista seeks to explain why Tocqueville acied
as he did and to uncover the logic of his historical
and sociological perspective which separated him
from both liberals and clericals. She confesses that
despite herself in the course of her work she only
reluctantly concluded that Tocqueville viewed reli-
gion from a traditional theological position, even a
conservative one. Personally agnostic, he consid-
ered religion an affair of heart and soul, of dogma
beyond the reach of conventional rationality. From
this circumscribed sphere, religion, the basis of
morality and culture, was obliged to leave to poli-
tics the dreams of reason appropriate to the search
for a free society. Any violation of the restricted
autonomy proper to religion or to politics was
necessarily disastrous to the prospects of an open
society. From the vantage point of the political and
religious dialogue in contemporary Italy, Battista
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