“There are cases, in which more knowledge of more value may be conveyed by the history of a word than by the history of a campaign.” Indeed, this observation by Samuel Taylor Coleridge may be opened out to include not merely single words, but also aphorisms, metaphors, and short significant sayings. And one of the most striking of these is one he himself used in The Friend: "The dwarf sees farther than the giant, when he has the giant's shoulder to mount on."
I first came across this vivid metaphor many years ago in Herbert Butterfield’s The Origins of Modern Science where he quotes a letter written in 1676 by Sir Isaac Newton to fellow scientist, Robert Hooke: "What Descartes did was a good step. You have added much several ways, and especially in taking the colours of thin plates into philosophical consideration. If I have seen a little further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants."
The general meaning is plain and refers to the fact that just about anything we accomplish owes a debt of some kind to those who have gone before us. Once stated, it seems a commonplace. But where did it come from?
We are fortunate indeed that the eminent American sociologist Robert Merton devoted a delightful book, appropriately called On the Shoulders of Giants, to tracking it down.
It is agreed on all hands that the metaphor is first recorded in the 12th century and attributed to Bernard of Chartres (died after 1124 ), a 12th century French philosopher and theologian, who taught at the famous cathedral school of Chartres until his death c.1124.
The attribution is made by John of Salisbury (c1120 – October 25, 1180 ), an Englishman who was also a bishop of Chartres, and is found in his Metalogicon, a Humanist defence of the liberal arts. "Bernard of Chartres used to say that we are like dwarfs on the shoulders of giants, so that we can see more than they, and things at a greater distance, not by virtue of any sharpness of sight on our part, or any physical distinction, but because we are carried high and raised up by their giant size.”
Merton wittily observes that, without carrying the search for its origin as far as we can, would be to deny the truth of the metaphor itself. For Bernard was himself standing on the shoulders of his predecessors, one of whom was Priscian, a sixth century teacher. In the dedication of his book on grammar to the Emperor, he observes that “the younger [that is, the more recent] the scholars, the more sharp-sighted they are”. They can, in other words, draw upon what went before and so advance true knowledge. There are no dwarfs and giants yet, but you can almost sense them ready to take up their place in the corridors of Bernard’s capacious imagination.
Interestingly, we also find the metaphor employed in a biblical commentary by the Italian Jewish scholar, Isaiah di Trani (c1180-1250 ), belonging to the next generation after John of Salisbury - "Who sees further a dwarf or a giant? Surely a giant for his eyes are situated at a higher level than those of the dwarf. But if the dwarf is placed on the shoulders of the giant who sees further? ... So too we are dwarfs astride the shoulders of giants. We master their wisdom and move beyond it. Due to their wisdom we grow wise and are able to say all that we say, but not because we are greater than they." Did Di Trani know John’s Metalogican? Considering how small the number of scholars in the Europe of the 12th century, it cannot be ruled out.
Thus, when Newton used the metaphor in his letter to Hook, it was already a learned commonplace and examples too many to list are found over the next few centuries.
The German philosopher Frederich Nietzsche characteristically turns the metaphor on its head in Thus Sprach Zarathustra. Zarathustra the visionary climbs to a great height with a dwarf on his shoulders to show him his greatest vision. But the dwarf fails to understand the profundity of what he sees. The dwarf is meant to stand for academic scholars, a class Nietzsche despised.
No better way could be found to round off our brief history than by recounting how musician Noel Gallagher, out one night for a few pints, saw the words on a £2 coin and wrote them on a cigarette packet. When he awoke next day and saw what he had written, he realised he had the title for the next Oasis album – Standing on the Shoulders of Giants.
Si Monumentum requires, circumspice.
Barnaby ffrench
