I seem to remember that this thread was sparked by Roy's comments about the   
search for precursors, before it expanded to cover wider issues about the   
method and standing of our subject that (as Roy says) have been debated   
before on this list (without, of course, reaching a conclusion). Can I go   
back to precursors, briefly? My comment may have some implications for the   
wider debate.  
  
Suppose I find a particular idea (concept, argument) in writer A. One of   
the first things I do is to ask whether this idea was new at the time, or   
whether it was well known, or whether something similar had been said   
before by (say) B, in a different context or without it becoming well   
known. If the last of these, I also want to ask (i) whether A knew B's   
writing or could have come across the idea indirectly, and (ii) how close   
the two really are, how a change of context may have altered the import of   
similar seeming ideas, and so on. All of that seems to me to be an   
essential part of the legwork which a historian of ideas has to do.  
  
The search for early examples of the idea (or metaphor) of equilibrium or   
balance is so broad and vague that I can see why Roy found it surrealist.   
Just to draw up a list or search for the first example would indeed be   
pointless. But to draw up a list with the intention of comparing,   
contrasting, putting into context, and so on, could be an interesting   
project, couldn't it? 'A history is different from a genealogical   
dictionary', as Roy says, but the dictionary could be an essential step.  
  
Tony Brewer