Progress in the Natural Sciences

Like freemasonry, the natural sciences were not a socially divisive force. Their development was not a direct product of the Enlighten-ment, but it served to reinforce that intellectual revolution. The rapid progress made in the natural sciences, from the mid-1750s onwards, in Transylvania owed not only to a few outstanding figures but also to the contribution of many others.

The torch passed from Péter Bod to József Benkő, who clearly belonged to the generation of the Enlightenment. A harbinger of the new era, Benkő was as much a social scientist as a natural scientist. His major work, Transsilvania, is a historical treatise that displays innovative methodology, for the author uses the tools of {2-672.} political science in exploring the economic and cultural circumstances of society. He also wrote a richly-documented history of the Milkó bishopric. This scholar produced works of outstanding merit in several branches of the natural sciences: a trilingual (Latin–Hungarian–Romanian) botanical encyclopedia of Transylvania (Flora Transsilvanica) that followed the Linnean system; a college text on botany (Scintilla Botanica); the first study of caves and caverns in Transylvania (Imago specum M. Principatus Transsilvaniae); as well as short monographs on the sumach of Középajta (A középajtai szkumpia), used for leather tanning, and on the tobacco grown in the same district, where he had sojourned in course of his peripatetic life. He also exploited the new opportunities for popularizing science by writing articles in the newspaper Magyar Hírmondó (Hungarian Herald). A mere fraction of his scholarly output would have qualified him for a university chair; he was elected to the Scholars' Society of Haarlem. Yet fate willed otherwise. He served as a village priest, then taught at Udvarhely for a few years, until petty intrigues drove him back to the life of parish priest in a succession of villages. Along the way, this lonesome and much-abused man turned to drink for solace. Similar vicissitudes marked the life of many a scholar, before and since, but the achievements survive in testimony to their greatness.

Another preeminent intellectual of the period, János Fridvaldszky, cut a less romantic figure, although he, too, earned less than his rightful share of recognition. After his university studies in Vienna, he became professor of Latin and natural sciences at Kolozsvár's Jesuit academy. Fridvaldszky, unlike Benkő, was first and foremost a natural scientist. He turned his inventiveness to practical applications, a quest much stimulated by the foundation of the Societas Agriculturae. He devised methods for baking bread and brewing beer from potatoes as well as for distilling corn into brandy. He also sought ways of making paper from reeds, bulrushes, flax, and hemp. He studied peat and explained its combustible feature to the society.

{2-673.} In 1770, Fridvaldszky developed a comprehensive plan for economic reform (Projectum oeconomicum). The proposals included the general adoption of three-crop rotation; more land-clearing and breeding of horses as well as other draught animals; restrictions on the number of craftsmen in certain branches, and, in other branches (notably linen weaving), the settlement of foreign experts; compulsory training stages abroad for apprentice craftsmen; the creation of factories; and reductions in customs tariffs. In his Dissertatio de agris fimandis et arandis pro M. Principatu Transsilvaniae, Fridvalszky proposed the adoption of a ploughing-sowing-harrowing device, based on an English model, and outlined in simple fashion so that an ordinary peasant could follow the instructions, and recommended a grid-shaped ploughing pattern. In the event, this multitude of practical proposals found little application, for people proved unreceptive and lacked the technological knowhow.

The career of Transylvania's third outstanding scientist of the period, József Fogarasi Pap, was aborted when he died shortly before he was scheduled to take up a chair at the University of Budapest. It began in a most promising manner, when, in 1778, he won a essay competition, organized by Berlin's Academy of Sciences, with his broad interpretation of the concept of 'strength'. His work reflected the spirit of idealism and the ideas of Leibniz: the source of strength lay outside the body, in God, and imagination was an authentic strength. Fogarasi's course on physics at Marosvásárhely reveals that he was familiar with most new developments in the natural sciences. With regard to optics, he rejected the theories of Descartes in favour of those of Newton, and, to some extent, of Leonhard Euler as well. He acquainted students with the two theories of electricity, speaking about atmospheric electricity as well as Benjamin Franklin, and taught the Newtonian cosmic system.

The other Calvinist colleges also served to disseminate new ideas in the natural sciences. As early as 1760, Newtonian physics {2-674.} were taught by Sámuel Pataki at the college in Kolozsvár. József Kovács started teaching physics at Nagyenyed in 1767; he translated J.G. Krüger's treatise on Newtonian physics and had it published in 1774. Ferenc Benkő, a geologist, botanist, and mineralogist, also taught at Nagyenyed in this period; he had been honoured by membership in Natural Sciences Society of Jena.

Saxon colleges had no scholars of comparable eminence, but Szeben's high school had a well-equipped physics laboratory in 1775, complete with an electricity generator.

After the dissolution of the Jesuit order, its academy in Kolozsvár was taken over by the Piarists. Two notable natural scientists taught at the school in the 1790s: André Étienne, a professor of chemistry and metallurgy who popularized Lavoisier's theories, and the ophthalmologist Ioan Piuariu-Molnár, whose teaching was based on the textbook of Joseph Plenck, a professor at the Josephinum in Vienna.

There were other physicians who contributed to the progress of science. The Székely István Mátyus served for several decades as Marosszék's medical officer. He had studied in Holland and Germany, and, by his own account, had been much inspired by the works of Locke and Rousseau. In his two treatises on personal health care, Diaetetica (1762, 1766) and Ó és új diaetetica (1787–93), he addressed the importance of prevention, the causes of infant mortality, the importance of athletic activities, and the dangers of alcoholism. Mátyus also wrote a paper on the curative powers of the mineral waters at Radna and concerned himself with the diseases that afflicted miners. Industrial health problems also preoccupied another physician, Sámuel Rácz. Yet another contributor to medical knowledge was the son of a Brassó patrician, Michael Fronius. After studies at Göttingen, he joined the staff of the Transylvanian court chancellery. and wrote a study of the 'wild man' of Brassó. (The Hungarian translation of the work was published in 1790, in Ferenc Kazinczy's Orpheus, and the original, {2-675.} German version in 1794.) This 'wild man' had grown up in the forest and lacked intellectual development; Fronius analyzed his physical aspects, movements, mental capacity, and reactions to external stimuli, as well as the changes induced by his reintegration into human society.