“The Great Laboratories of the Universe”: William Herschel on Matter Theory and Planetary Life

On Herschel's work on radiation, see Connell E. S. , “The radiant heat spectrum from Herschel to Melloni”, Annals of science, iii (1938), 119–37; Woolf H. , “The beginnings of astronomical spectroscopy”, in Mélanges Alexandre Koyré (Paris, 1964), i, 619–34; Lovell D. J. , “Herschel's dilemma in the interpretation of thermal radiation”, Isis, lix (1968), 46–60; and Watanabe M. , “James Hutton's ‘obscure light’: A discovery of infra-red radiation predating Herschel's”, Japanese studies in the history of science, xvii (1978), 97–104.

Priestley Joseph , History and present state of discoveries relating to vision, light and colours (London, 1772).

I have studied the development of this ‘natural history’ in Schaffer Simon , “Herschel in Bedlam: Natural history and stellar astronomy”, British journal for the history of science, forthcoming.

Herschel William , “Investigations of the powers of the prismatic colours to heat and illuminate objects”, Philosophical transactions, xc (1800), 255–83, p. 271.

For the correspondence between Michell Herschel and Priestley , see Lubbock C. , The Herschel chronicle (Cambridge, 1933), 91–92; while for the exchanges between Herschel, Michell Maskelyne and Cavendish , see Hoskin M. A. , William Herschel and the construction of the heavens (London, 1963), 32; McCormmach R. , “John Michell and Henry Cavendish: Weighing the stars”, British journal for the history of science, iv (1968–69), 126–55; and Bennett J. A. , “‘On the power of penetrating into space’: The telescopes of William Herschel”, Journal for the history of astronomy, vii (1976), 75–108. Herschel's Commonplace Book (Linda Hall Library, Kansas City, Mo.), 81–82, lists the following texts on optics: Melvil T. , “Discourse concerning the cause of the different refrangibilities of the rays of light”, Philosophical transactions, xlviii (1753), 261–9; Harris J. , Treatise of optics (London, 1775); Bouguer P. , Traite d'optique (Paris, 1760); Canton J. , “An easy method of making phosphorus”, Philosophical transactions, lviii (1768), 337–44; Boscovich R. , Theory of natural philosophy (Venice, 1763). This was as a supplement to Herschel's reading of Priestley , History of vision, and Smith R. , Compleat system of opticks (Cambridge, 1738). For a survey of these texts and their relation to natural philosophy, see Steffens H. , The development of Newtonian optics in England (New York, 1977) and Cantor G. , “The historiography of ‘Georgian’ optics”, History of science, xvi (1978), 1–15.

Harris J. , Treatise of optics (London, 1775), 2.

Melville Thomas , cited in Herschel, Commonplace Book, 81.

Herschel , Commonplace Book, 82, citing Canton , “Easy method of making phosphorus” (ref. 5), 344; and Herschel W. , “On the central powers of the particles of matter”, in The collected scientific papers of Sir William Herschel, ed. by Dreyer J. L. E. (London 1912), i, lxxvii, read at Bath on 18 February 1780.

On the wasting away of the Sun, see Euler L. , Lettres à une Princesse d'Allemagne (Paris, 1787), i, 69 (written 1760); Franklin B. , to Cadwallader Colden, 23 April 1754, in Benjamin Franklin's experiments , ed. by Cohen I. B. (Cambridge, Mass., 1941), 323–7, and Higgins B. , Philosophical essay concerning light (London, 1776), 240–1. On Priestley and Michell on the momentum of light, see Priestley , History of vision (ref. 2), 387–90 and 786–91.

Priestley , History of vision, 790–1.

On the issue of matter and spirit in this debate, see Heimann P. and McGuire J. E. , “Newtonian forces and Lockean powers”, Historical studies in the physical sciences, iii (1911), 233–306, and McEvoy J. G. and McGuire J. E. , “God and nature: Priestley's way of rational dissent”, Historical studies in the physical sciences, vi (1975), 325–404, both directed against the interpretation of natural philosophy developed in Schofield R. , Mechanism and materialism (Princeton, 1970), 269–73.

Priestley , History of vision, 392, copied out by Herschel (Collected papers, i, lxxvii).

For the metaphysics of Andrew Baxter, see Baxter A. , An enquiry into the nature of the human soul (London, 1733); Bracken H. M. , The early reception of Berkeley's immaterialism, 1710–1733 (The Hague, 1965), 60ff.; Heimann P. M. , “Voluntarism and immanence”, Journal of the history of ideas, xxxix (1978), 271–83. Baxter's statements are in Enquiry, 45, and Bishop Warburton's in The works of George Berkeley , ed. by Fraser A. C. (Oxford, 1901), iii, 400. For the response of the ‘enthusiast’ John Byrom to this debate, see Byrom John , Journals and papers, ed. by Talon H. (London, 1950), 263–6.

Priestley Joseph , Disquisitions relating to matter and spirit (London, 1777), 7–8. Compare Priestley's letter to Joseph Bretland, 7 March 1773, in Life and correspondence of Joseph Priestley, ed. by Rutt J. T. (London, 1831–32), i, 189–91.

Priestley , Disquisitions, xii.

Priestley , History and present state of electricity (London, 1775), i, xiv-xv. See the discussion of this text in McEvoy J. G. , “Electricity, knowledge, and the nature of progress in Priestley's thought”, The British journal for the history of science, xii (1979), 1–30.

On the Bath Philosophical Society, see Torrens H. , “Geological communication in the Bath area in the last half of the 18th century”, in Images of the Earth, ed. by Jordanova L. and Porter R. (Chalfont St Giles, 1979), 215–47, citing the membership of Priestley in Rack E. , “A dissultory journal of events, etc. at Bath Dec. 22 1779 to March 22 1780”, Bath Reference Library MS 1111.

Herschel , Commonplace Book, 84, and Herschel , Collected papers, i, cxvi.

Herschel , “On the central powers of the particles of matter”, Collected papers, i, lxxviii. Compare his “What becomes of light?”, Collected papers, i, lxix, read between January and February 1780.

Herschel , Collected papers, i, lxx. For the connections between these theories and those of Roger Boscovich, see Roger Joseph Boscovich , ed. by Whyte L. L. (London, 1961), 125 n. 3 and 168–72; Hahn R. , “The Boscovich archives in Berkeley”, Isis, lvi (1965), 70–78; and Casini P. , “R. G. Boscovich and Newton's Opticks”, Vistas in astronomy, xxii (1979), 451–2.

Herschel , Collected papers, i, lxxv.

See Schaffer , “Herschel in Bedlam” (ref. 3); Hoskin M. A. , “Herschel's early work on nebulae: A reassessment”, Journal for the history of astronomy, x (1979), 165–76.

Herschel W. , “Observations tending to investigate the construction of the heavens”, Philosophical transactions, lxxiv (1784), 437–51; and “On the construction of the heavens”, lxxv (1785), 213–66, p. 214.

Watson William to Herschel William , 21 January 1785, Royal Astronomical Society Herschel MSS, W.1/13.W.36.

Herschel , “On the construction of the heavens”, Philosophical transactions, lxxv (1785), 213–66, p. 255, citing Michell John , “An inquiry into the probable parallax and magnitude of the fixed stars”, Philosophical transactions, lvii (1767), 234–64.

For the original texts by Newton on this problem, see Hoskin M. A. , “Newton, providence and the universe of stars”, Journal for the history of astronomy, viii (1977), 77–101; for Herschel's statement, see “On the construction of the heavens”, Philosophical transactions, lxxv (1785), 213–66, p. 216.

Herschel , “On the construction of the heavens”, Philosophical transactions, lxxv (1785), 213–66, pp. 217 and 265–6.

Herschel's puzzlement about planetary nebulae is clear in a manuscript of early 1784, Royal Astronomical Society Herschel MSS, W.7/4, from which this statement on their dubious nature differs little.

Herschel , “Remarks on the construction of the heavens”, Philosophical transactions, lxxix (1989), 212–26, pp. 220–1, and Watson William to Herschel William , 12 May 1789, Royal Astronomical Society Herschel MSS, W.1/13.W.55.

Herschel , “Remarks on the construction of the heavens”, Philosophical transactions, lxxix (1789), 212–26, p. 221.

Herschel , “Remarks on the construction of the heavens”, Philosophical transactions, lxxix (1789), 212–26, pp. 221–4. For the connection between matter theory and the economy of nature in Hutton, see Gerstner P. , “James Hutton's theory of the Earth and his theory of matter”, Isis, lix (1968), 26–31.

Herschel , “On central powers”, in Collected papers, i, cxi–cxiv; and “On the central powers of the particles of matter”, ibid., lxxv–lxxviii, p. lxxv.

For the very similar statements of Boscovich and Worster , see Worster Benjamin , Compendious and methodical account of the principles of natural philosophy (London, 1738), 28, and Boscovich Roger , Theory of natural philosophy (Venice, 1763, republished Cambridge, Mass., 1966), 145–6.

Herschel William , “On central powers”, in Collected papers, i, cxiii.

Herschel , “On nebulous stars, properly so called”, Philosophical transactions, lxxxi (1791), 71–88, pp. 72–73.

Ibid., 86.

See Ashbrook J. , “Herschel and the Sun”, Sky and telescope, xix (1960), 463; Sticker B. , “Herschel's cosmology”, History of science, iii (1964), 91–101; Ronchi V. , “The evolution of the meaning of ‘light’ in natural philosophy”, Proceedings of the Xth International Congress of the History of Science (Ithaca, 1962), ii, 725–7.

For surveys of ideas on nebulae, see Hoskin M. A. , “The English background to the cosmology of Wright and Herschel”, in Cosmology, history, theology, ed. by Yourgrau W. and Breck A. (New York, 1977), 219–32, and McCormmach , “John Michell and Henry Cavendish: Weighing the stars” (ref. 5).

Euler L. , “Recherches physiques sur la cause de la queue des comètes, de la lumière boréale, et de la lumière zodiacale”, Histoire de l'Académie royale des Sciences MDCCXLVI (Berlin, 1748), 117–40, and Speiser D. , “The distance of the fixed stars and the riddle of the Sun's radiation”, Mélanges Alexandre Koyré (Paris, 1964), i, 541–51, on Euler, radiation and the Sun.

Dunn Samuel , “An attempt to assign the cause, why the Sun and the Moon appear to the naked eye larger when they are near the horizon”, Philosophical transactions, lii (1762), 462–73.

Herschel , “On nebulous stars, properly so called”, Philosophical transactions, lxxxi (1791), 71–88, p. 85.

Ibid., 87.

Herschel , “On the power of penetrating space by telescopes”, Philosophical transactions, xc (1800), 49–85, pp. 49, 50–51.

Newton Isaac , Opticks (4th edition, London, 1730, reprinted New York, 1952), Query 11.

Whiston William , Astronomical principles of religion (London, 1717), 89–90.

Playfair John , Illustrations of the Huttonian Theory of the Earth (Edinburgh, 1802), 181–2 and 187.

See the texts cited in ref. 9, and Priestley , History of vision, 358–60.

Higgins , Philosophical essay, 240–1.

Herschel , “Observations tending to investigate the nature of the Sun”, Philosophical transactions, xci (1801), 265–318, p. 265. Herschel's stress on the utility of solar observation is connected with the importance he attributed to the rotation of stars, the Sun, and planets, and hence to his interest in variable stars (a phenomenon he attributed to their rotation), climatic changes, and what he called the “biography of stars”. See his remarks on “biography” and on “the very existence of the whole animal and vegetable creation itself” in his papers “On the method of observing the changes that happen to the fixed stars”, Philosophical transactions, lxxxvi (1796), 166–226, and in “On the periodical star α Herculis with remarks tending to establish the rotatory motion of stars on their axis”, Philosophical transactions, lxxxvi (1796), 452–82. There is a similar point made by Herschel John in his paper “On the astronomical causes which may influence geological phenomena”, Transactions of the Geological Society of London (1832), 293–9.

[ Brougham Henry ], in Edinburgh review, i (1803), 426–31. See the responses of Herschel and Watson in Lubbock, Herschel chronicle, 282–4.

Herschel , “Observations … of the Sun”, Philosophical transactions, xci (1801), 265–318, p. 266. de Maillet Compare B. , Telliamed (Amsterdam, 1748, reprinted Urbana, Ill., 1968), 2 and 332.

Herschel , “On the nature and construction of the Sun and the fixed stars”, Philosophical transactions, lxxxv (1795), 46–72, p. 58.

Ibid., 59.

Royal Astronomical Society Herschel MSS, W.4/10.1, pp. 18–19.

Herschel , “On the nature and construction of the Sun”, Philosophical transactions, lxxxv (1795), 46–72, pp. 60–61.

Arago D. J. F. , “Analyse historique et critique de la vie et des travaux de Sir William Herschel”, Annuaire du Bureau des Longitudes for 1842, 249–608; see pp. 257 and 515.

Derham William , “Observations upon the spots that have been seen upon the Sun from the year 1703 to 1711”, Philosophical transactions, xxvii (1711), 270–90; Long Roger , Astronomy (Cambridge, 1742), 478–9; de Maillet B. , Telliamed, ii, 126; Robinet J. L. , De la nature (3rd ed., Amsterdam, 1766), i, 44.

For Bode's theory of the Sun, see his “Gedanken über die Natur der Sonne und Enstehung ihrer Flekken”, Beschäftigungen der Berlinischen Gesellschaft Naturforscher Freunde , Band 2 (1776); for Wilson, see Wilson Alexander , “Observations on the solar spots”, Philosophical transactions, lxiv (1774), 1–30, and “An answer to the objections stated by M. de la Lande … against the solar spots being excavations in the luminous matter of the Sun”, Philosophical transactions, lxxiii (1783), 144–68.

Herschel's references to Alexander Wilson's paper of 1774 are in his Commonplace Book, and since these were composed before 1781 he was evidently forgetful in his letter to Patrick Wilson. See Commonplace Book, 79 and 87; manuscript notes cited in Collected papers, i, cxvii; Herschel to Wilson , 21 Feb. 1796, Royal Astronomical Society Herschel MSS, W.1/1, p. 212; and the references to Wilson in Herschel, “Observations tending to investigate the nature of the Sun”, Philosophical transactions, xci (1801), 265–318, p. 270.

Herschel , “Short account of some experiments upon light that have been made by Zanottus”, read to the Bath Philosophical Society, 1 December 1780, in Collected papers, i, xcv–xcvii, p. xcvi.

Herschel , “Observations … of the Sun”, Philosophical transactions, xci (1801), 265–318, pp. 267, 283, 292.

Herschel , “On the nature and construction of the Sun”, Philosophical transactions, lxxxv (1795), 46–72, p. 63, and “Observations … of the Sun”, Philosophical transactions, xci (1801), 265–318, pp. 293–9.

Herschel , “On the nature and construction of the Sun”, Philosophical transactions, lxxxv (1795), 46–72, p. 64.

Herschel , “Observations … of the Sun”, Philosophical transactions, xci (1801), 265–318, p. 299.

Herschel , “On the nature and construction of the Sun”, Philosophical transactions, lxxxv (1795), 46–72, p. 63. For the eighteenth-century tradition of theories on the aurora and the zodiacal light, see de Mairan D'Ortous , Traité physique et historique sur l'aurore boréale (Paris, 1732); Euler , “Recherches physiques” (ref. 39); and see Briggs J. M. , “Aurora and enlightenment”, Isis, lviii (1967), 491–503.

For Newton's statements on the effects of comets and their tails, see Newton I. , Philosophiae naturalis principia mathematica, ed. by Koyré A. Cohen I. B. and Whitman A. (Cambridge, 1972), Book 3, Propositions 41–42; The correspondence of Isaac Newton, i, ed. by Turnbull H. (Cambridge, 1959), 366 (for the letter to Oldenburg of 1675); ibid., ii (Cambridge, 1960), 338 (for the letter to Flamsteed of 1680/1); ibid., iii (Cambridge, 1961), 336, for Gregory's memorandum of 1694, and Royal Society MS Gregory 247 f79r; Christ Church Oxford MS 346 f147; Cambridge University Library MS Add 3965 f152v. There are discussions of these ideas in Ruffner J. A. , The background and development of Newton's theory of comets (Ph.D. thesis, Indiana, 1966), 321ff.; Kubrin D. , “Newton and the cyclical cosmos”, Journal of the history of ideas, xxviii (1967), 325–46; McGuire J. E. , “Transmutation and immutability: Newton's doctrine of physical qualities”, Ambix, xiv (1967), 69–95, and Cohen I. B. , “Isaac Newton's Principia, the Scriptures, and divine providence”, in Essays in honor of Ernest Nagel, ed. by Morgenbesser S. Suppes P. and White M. (New York, 1969), 531.

Compare Newton's conversation with John Conduitt, March 1724/5, King's College Cambridge Keynes MS 130, no. 11, and this text in Principia, Book 3, Proposition 42 (ref. 66).

Derham William , Astrotheology (London, 1715); Swinden T. , Enquiry into the nature and place of Hell (2nd ed., London, 1727); Ferguson J. , An idea of the material universe (London, 1754), 26–27. See Schaffer Simon , “The Phoenix of Nature: Fire and evolutionary cosmology in Wright and Kant”, Journal for the history of astronomy, ix (1978), 180–200.

Whiston William , New theory of the Earth (London, 1696), 433–4; idem, Astronomical principles of religion (London, 1717), 23; Halley Edmond , “On the cause of the universal Deluge”, Philosophical transactions, xxxiii (1724–5), 118–25; de Buffon Comte G. L. L. , Histoire naturelle, i (Paris, 1949), 133ff. Compare Richard Turner, View of the heavens (London, 1765), 20, and Harrington Robert , New system on fire and planetary life (London, 1796), 32.

Pemberton Henry , View of Sir Isaac Newton's philosophy (London, 1728), 243–6; Hill J. , Urania (London, 1754), entry: Comets; Long , Astronomy (ref. 57), 563; Cowley J. , Discourse on comets (London, 1757), 36ff.; Walker Adam , Epitome of astronomy (13th ed., 1798), 26–28.

These papers are “Observations of a comet made with a view to investigate its magnitude and the nature of its illumination”, Philosophical transactions, xcviii (1808), 145–63; “Observations of a comet”, Philosophical transactions, cii (1812), 115–43; and “Observations of a second comet”, ibid., 229–37.

Messier Charles , “Notice de mes comètes”, Observatoire de Paris MS C.2.19, p. 7.

Herschel , “Observations of a comet”, Philosophical transactions, cii (1812), 115–43, pp. 141–2.

Herschel , ibid., pp. 127 and 140–1, and “Observations of a second comet”, Philosophical transactions, cii (1812), 229–37, pp. 235–7. Cf. Herschel , “Astronomical observations relating to the construction of the heavens”, Philosophical transactions, ci (1811), 269–336, p. 306.

Herschel , “Observations of a comet”, Philosophical transactions, cii (1812), 115–43, p. 142, and “Observations of a second comet”, ibid., 229–37, p. 237.

Herschel , “Observations of a comet”, Philosophical transactions, xcviii (1808), 145–63, p. 157, and “Observations of a comet”, Philosophical transactions, cii (1812), 115–43, p. 140.

Herschel , “Observations of a comet”, Philosophical transactions, cii (1812), 115–43, p. 141.

Herschel , ibid., p. 133.

Herschel , ibid., p. 138.

Herschel , “Observations of a second comet”, Philosophical transactions, cii (1812), 229–37, p. 236.

Herschel , “Observations of a comet”, ibid., 115–43, p. 143.

Herschel , ibid., p. 143.

Herschel , “Astronomical observations relating to the construction of the heavens”, Philosophical transactions, ci (1811), 269–336, pp. 284, 307–9, 314.

Ibid. , pp. 312, 320. See Lalande's idea on the rotation of stars, in his memoir “Mémoire sur les taches du Soleil et de sa rotation”, Mémoires de l'Académie royale des Sciences MDCCLXXVI (1779), 457–514.

Herschel , ibid., p. 319, and “Astronomical observations relating to the sidereal part of the heavens”, Philosophical transactions, civ (1814), 248–84, pp. 253–7, 264.

Herschel , “On the nature and construction of the Sun”, Philosophical transactions, lxxxv (1795), 46–72, p. 63.

Quoted in Collected papers, i, xxviii.

Herschel to Maskelyne, 12 June 1780, quoted in full in Collected papers, i, xc–xci; parts of this letter were added to a paper published in Philosophical transactions, lxx (1780), 507–26.

Herschel W. , “On the remarkable appearances at the polar regions of the planet Mars”, Philosophical transactions, lxxiv (1784), 233–73, and “On nebulous stars properly so called”, Philosophical transactions, lxxxi (1791), 71–88, p. 84.

On the plurality of worlds debate, see Dick S. J. , Plurality of worlds and natural philosophy (Ph.D. thesis, Indiana, 1977); Jaki S. L. , Planets and planetarians (Edinburgh, 1978); Lovejoy A. , The great chain of being (Cambridge, Mass., 1936 and 1964), 130–43; and Nicolson M. , A world in the Moon (Amherst, 1935–36). The statements referred to are from Lovejoy, Great chain of being , 133ff., and Jaki S. L. , “English translation of the third part of Kant's Universal natural history”, in Chronology, history, theology (ref. 38), 388–9.

Ferguson J. , Astronomy explained upon Sir Isaac Newton's principles (2nd ed., London, 1757); Swedenborg E. , Arcana coelestia (1753–54), vols i and ii; Kant I. , Universal natural history and theory of the heavens (Leipzig, 1755 tr. by Hastie W. , Glasgow, 1900), and Jaki S. L. , “Third part of Kant's Universal natural history” (ref. 90).

Boscovich R. , Theory of natural philosophy (Venice, 1763), sections 467–70; see Heimann and McGuire , “Newtonian forces and Lockean powers” (ref. 11), and Heimann P. , “Nature is a perpetual worker”, Ambix, xx (1973), 1–25.

Buffon , Époques de la nature (Paris, 1779), 42–48 and 66–67.

De Luc J. A. , Geological letters to Professor Blumenbach (London, 1793), 71–79.

Hutton James , Theory of the Earth (Edinburgh, 1795), and de Laplace Simon Pierre , Exposition du système du monde (4th ed., Paris, 1813).

On Hutton's matter theory and its relation with his geological system, see Gerstner , “James Hutton's theory of the Earth and his theory of matter” (ref. 31); Heimann and McGuire , “Newtonian forces and Lockean powers” (ref. 11); Grant R. , “Hutton's theory of the Earth”, in Images of the Earth (ref. 17), 23–38.

This association is pointed out by Heimann and McGuire , “Newtonian forces and Lockean powers” (ref. 11), 299–300ff.; cf. Gerstner P. , “The reaction to James Hutton's use of heat as a geological agent”, British journal for the history of science, v (1971), 353–62. See Higgins , Philosophical essay (ref. 9), xlix (on the Sun) and 246–8 (on the properties of light in matter); Walker Adam , A system of familiar philosophy (London, 1799), and An epitome of astronomy (London, 1782); Harrington Robert , A new system on fire and planetary life: Shewing that the Sun and Planets are inhabited and that they enjoy the same temperament as our Earth (London, 1796), and A Death Warrant of the French theory of chemistry (London, 1804). See especially Walker , System , 15 and 395–6; idem, Epitome , 12–13; Harrington , New system, 15 and 30–31. For details of Higgins's work see Gibbs F. , “Bryan Higgins and his circle”, Chemistry in Britain, i (1965), 60–65; for Walker see Taylor E. G. R. , Mathematical practitioners of Hanoverian England (Cambridge, 1966), 248–9; for Harrington, see Monthly review, second series, xx (1797), 107.

Walker , System of familiar philosophy, 2 and 516.

Herschel to Watson , 1803, Royal Astronomical Society Herschel MSS, W.1/1, p. 249; cf. W.7/15, pp. 106–7 on Herschel and Hutton, and geology.

Herschel to Watson , Royal Astronomical Society Herschel MSS, W.1/1, p. 299 (letter of 7 July 1817: I owe this reference to Mr W. Forbush).

Ibid. , quoting Monthly review for April 1816, 416.

de Laplace P. S. , “Sur les comètes”, read November 1813, in Oeuvres complètes, xiii (Paris, 1904), 88–89; see also Arago D. J. F. , A popular treatise on comets (tr. by Smyth W. and Grant R. , London, 1861), 129, who also discusses the habitability of comets as planets. For Laplace's cosmology, see Merleau-Ponty J. , “Situation et rôle de l'hypothèse cosmogonique dans la pensée cosmologique de Laplace”, Revue d'histoire des sciences, xxix (1976), 21–49, and Jaki S. L. , “The five forms of Laplace's cosmogony”, American journal of physics, xliv (1976), 4–11.

Laplace to Herschel, 17 July 1814, Royal Astronomical Society Herschel MSS, W.1/1/13.L.35. John Brooke has recently argued that there are several crucial differences between, on the one hand, the doctrines of Herschel and of Laplace, and, on the other, the subsequent development of these ideas in evolutionary debates: This is very close to my argument here.

See Morrell J. B. , “Professors Robison and Playfair and the Theophobia Gallica”, Notes and records of the Royal Society, xxvi (1971), 43–63. Playfair's review is in Edinburgh review, xxiii (1814), 335.

Brooke J. H. , “Natural theology and the plurality of worlds”, Annals of science, xxxiv (1977), 221–86; see also Schweber S. , “Auguste Comte and the nebular hypothesis”, British journal for the history of science (forthcoming).

[Robert Chambers], Vestiges of the natural history of creation (London, 1844), 7–9, and Explanations (London, 1845), 30–31. For Chambers, see Hodge M. , “Universal gestation of nature: Chambers' ‘Vestiges’ and ‘Explanations’”, Journal of the history of biology, v (1972), 127–52, and Ogilvie M. , “Robert Chambers and the nebular hypothesis”, British journal for the history of science, viii (1975), 214–32. For Nichol J. P. , see Views of the architecture of the heavens (3rd ed., Edinburgh, 1839), 155 and the citation in Chambers, Explanations , 7–13, and Nichol , “State of discovery and speculation concerning nebulae”, Westminster review, xxv (1836), 390–409.

For the attack on Chambers, see Whewell W. , Of the plurality of worlds (London, 1854), and Sedgwick A. , Edinburgh review, lxxxii (1845), 26. For John Herschel's response to Sedgwick, see his letter of 1845, in Lubbock , Herschel chronicle, 231. For John Herschel's answer to the charge of his father's irreligion, see Lubbock , Herschel chronicle, 197. For contemporary and subsequent assessments of this debate on the nebular hypothesis, see Herschel J. , Address to the British Association, 19 June 1845, in Essays (London, 1857), 659–68; Spencer H. , Westminster review, lxxiv (1858), 185–225; and Huxley T. H. , Proceedings of the Geological Society, xxv (1869), xxviii–liii, p. xlv.