The Jesuit Culture of Correlation in Observatory Sciences

This essay aims to show the peculiar emergence of a culture of correlation in the field of observatory sciences that resulted from the experimental and philosophical currents of the Society of Jesus and Catholic culture in general. Building on the teaching of experimentalism and physico-chemical atomism at the Jesuit Collegio Romano (in a context of opposition to both the materialism and atheism of modern society and neo-Thomist currents within the Church), it examines the observational practice and the unitary conception of physical forces introduced by the director of the Collegio’s Observatory, Angelo Secchi. It argues that his dynamist theory of the unified universe shaped his later articulation of the correlation between meteorological, magnetic, and astronomical phenomena. The essay suggests that the construction of correlations promoted in this context is not merely local in character but precedes and participates in the formation of the culture of prediction in Jesuit mission observatories.