From Tubal Cain to Faraday: William Whewell as a Philosopher of Technology

In his Decline and fall of the Roman empire, Edward Gibbon had ascribed a science of chemistry to the Bagdad physicians of the Abbassid empire. Charles Forster had spoken of Alhazen's theory of the telescope in his Mahometanism unveiled (1829). Whewell William , History of the inductive sciences, from the earliest to the present time (3rd edn, London, 1857), i, 256–7.

Yeo Richard , Defining science: William Whewell, natural knowledge and public debate in early Victorian Britain (Cambridge, 1993), 224–30.

Whewell William , “Address”, Report of the third meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, held at Cambridge in 1833 (London, 1834), pp. xi–xxvi.

Whewell William , Novum Organon renovatum (London, 1858).

Spencer Herbert , “The genesis of science” (1854), in Essays: Scientific, political, and speculative (London and Edinburgh, 1868–74), i, 116–93, p. 188.

Yeo , op. cit. (ref. 2), 154.

Whewell William , On the principles of English university education (London and Cambridge, 1837), 42–46.

Brooke John Hedley , “Joseph Priestley (1733–1804) and William Whewell (1794–1866): Apologists and historians of science. A tale of two stereotypes”, in Anderson Robert G. W. Lawrence Christopher (eds), Science, medicine and dissent: Joseph Priestley (1733–1804) (London, 1987), 11–27, p. 20.

Willis Robert , Principles of mechanism (1841), quoted by Hilken T. J. N. , Engineering at Cambridge University 1783–1965 (Cambridge, 1967), 52.

Morrell Jack Thackray Arnold , Gentlemen of science: Early years of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (Oxford, 1982), 260. Robert Willis acted as vice-president of Section G in 1837 and 1838, as its president in 1839, 1842 and 1846.

John Abercrombie (1780–1844), a Scottish physician, wrote about pathology, psychiatry, moral philosophy and epistemology. His Inquiries concerning the intellectual powers and the investigation of truth (1830) became very popular, not only in Great Britain but also in the United States. His popularity had hardly declined even in 1885, according to G. P. Macdonell in the Dictionary of national biography.

Abercrombie John , Inquiries concerning the intellectual powers and the investigation of truth (2nd edn, Edinburgh, 1831), 12, 16.

Whewell William , “Herschel's Preliminary discourse: Modern science — Inductive philosophy”, Quarterly review, xlv (July 1831), 374–407, pp. 386, 403, 404.

Whewell William , Philosophy of the inductive sciences (London, 1840), p. xiii, quoted by Herschel John , “Whewell on inductive sciences”, Edinburgh review, lxviii (June 1841), 177–238, p. 185. Herschel was elated: “This is a chord we rejoice to hear sounded.”.

Yeo Richard , “An idol of the market-place: Baconianism in nineteenth-century Britain”, History of science, xxiii (1985), 251–98, pp. 258, 288.

de Rémusat Charles , Bacon, sa vie, son temps, sa philosophie et son influence jusqu'à nos jours (Paris, 1857), 438–61.

Macaulay Thomas B. , “Lord Bacon”, Edinburgh review, lxvi (July 1837), 1–104, pp. 65–66.

Whewell William , The philosophy of the inductive sciences, founded upon their history (2nd edn, London, 1847), ii, 246–7.

Macaulay , op. cit. (ref. 17), 87–88.

Ibid., 94.

Whewell , op. cit. (ref. 18), i, 615–18.

Whewell William , Of induction, with especial reference to Mr. J. Stuart Mill's System of logic (London, 1849), in Butts Robert E. (ed.), William Whewell's theory of scientific method (2nd edn, Indianapolis and Cambridge, 1989), 265–308, pp. 267–71.

Whewell , op. cit. (ref. 18), ii, 106–13.

Ibid., 111–12.

Kant Immanuel , “Die Architektonik der reinen Vernunft”, Kritik der reinen Vernunft (Riga, 1781), A832–51. Quotations are taken from the English translation of selected parts of the work by Wolfgang Schwarz: Kant I. , Critique of pure reason (concise text; Aalen , 1982), 254–8. See also Fisch about prescientific perception and tacit knowledge: Fisch Menachem , William Whewell, philosopher of science (Oxford, 1991), 127, 195–6.

“Es ist schlimm: Daß nur allererst, nachdem wir lange Zeit, nach Anweisung einer in uns versteckt liegenden Idee, rhapsodistisch viele dahin sich beziehende Erkenntnisse als Bauzeug gesammelt, ja gar lange Zeiten hindurch sie technisch zusammengesetzt haben, es uns dann allererst möglich ist, die Idee in hellerem Lichte zu erblicken und ein Ganzes nach den Zwecken der Vernunft architektonisch zu entwerfen.” Kant , op. cit. (ref. 25), A834–5.

Whewell , Novum Organon renovatum, in Butts , op. cit. (ref. 22), 130–1.

Whewell , op. cit. (ref. 1), i, 5–6, 13.

Ibid., 90.

Rohr René R. J. , Les cadrans solaires: Traité de gnomonique théorique et appliquée (Paris, 1965), 17.

Whewell , op. cit. (ref. 1), i, 230.

Whewell William , The general bearing of the Great Exhibition on the progress of art and science (London, 1851), 3.

Ibid., 1.

Whewell , op. cit. (ref. 1), i, 264.

Ibid., p. x.

Thomson Thomas , History of chemistry (London, 1830–31), i, 30–31.

Whewell , op. cit. (ref. 1), i, 231–3, 256–9.

Johann Friedrich Gmelin (1748–1804), professor of medicine in Göttingen from 1775, was a prolific writer on all kinds of subjects: Botany, poisons, chemistry, observation, mining, pharmacy, medicine, agriculture, alchemy, chemical technology. His Geschichte der Chemie, seit dem Wiederaufleben der Wissenschaften bis an das Ende des 18. Jahrhunderts (Göttingen, 1797–99) was reprinted by Georg Olms (Heidelberg) in 1965. Das gelehrte Teutschland oder Lexikon der jetzt lebenden Teutschen Schriftsteller, ii (1796) and ix (1801); Deutsche Biographische Enzyklopädie (Munich, 1996).

Gmelin , Geschichte der Chemie (ref. 38), i, 13–14.

Whewell , op. cit. (ref. 1), iii, 96.

Whewell , op. cit. (ref. 1), i, 246. In the Philosophy, Whewell added the revival of Greek and Roman literature, the invention of printing and the Protestant Reformation to the list of elements of change. Whewell , op. cit. (ref. 18), ii, 177.

Whewell , op. cit. (ref. 1), i, 271.

Todhunter Isaac , William Whewell, D.D., Master of Trinity College, Cambridge: An account of his writings, with selections from his literary and scientific correspondence (London, 1876), i, 44.

Whewell William , Architectural notes on German churches; with notes written during an architectural tour in Picardy and Normandy (3rd edn, Cambridge, 1842), 3.

Whewell , op. cit. (ref. 1), i, 262.

Ibid., ii, 446–7.

Ibid., ii, 6–15. Most of these engineers did more than write engineering treatises. Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) was a model homo universalis. Girolamo Cardano (1501–76) was a physician, mathematician, astrologer and philosopher who wrote about medicine, mathematics, philosophy, Ptolemy, insomnia, politics, himself, Nero and gambling. Guidobaldo del Monte (1545–1607) wrote about Archimedes, the screw, astronomy, perspective and mechanics. Simon Stevin (1548–1620) wrote about geometry, arithmetic, argumentation, hydrostatics, politics, fortifications, limeneuretics, castrametation, hydraulics, the art of singing, and princely bookkeeping. Whewell was interested, of course, in their mechanical writings. He studied Leonardo da Vinci's mechanical ideas through Adolfo Venturi's Essai sur les ouvrages physico-mathématiques de Léonard da Vinci (1797), Guglielmo Libri's Histoire des sciences mathématiques en Italie (1839) and a look into Leonardo da Vinci's manuscripts kept in the Paris Royal Library. Cardano's mechanical ideas can be found in his De proportionibus numerorum, motum, ponderum, sonorum, aliarumque rerum mesurandarum (1545), del Monte's in his Mechanicorum liber (1577), Benedetti's in his Diversarum speculationum mathematicarum et physicarum liber (1585), Varro's in his Tractatus de motu (1584) and Commandini's in his Liber de centro gravitatis solidorum (1565).

Whewell , op. cit. (ref. 18), ii, 205.

The countercurrent also carried a group of theoretical reformers. Philosophers such as Telesius, Campanella, Caesalpinus, Bruno, Ramus and Melanchthon eroded and undermined the authority of Aristotle, thus facilitating the success of the practical reformers. Ibid., 189–203.

Ibid., 205. Galileo stands out because of his rhetorical gifts: “Writing in the language of the people, in the attractive form of dialogue, with clearness, grace, and wit, he did far more than any of his predecessors had done to render the new methods, results, and prospects of science familiar to a wide circle of readers, first in Italy, and soon, all over Europe.” Ibid., 217.

Ibid., 225–6.

Whewell William , Astronomy and general physics considered with reference to natural theology (London, 1833), 304.

Whewell , op. cit. (ref. 18), ii, 426.

Ibid., 430.

Whewell , op. cit. (ref. 1), i, 121.

Ibid., 111.

John Frederic Daniell (1790–1845), professor of chemistry at King's College, London, from 1831, was of the same opinion if one looked at the “trade of chymistry”. In October 1839, at the start of a new course of lectures at King's College, he told his students that not only soap, wine, vinegar, beer, metals and dyes were known to the Phoenicians, but that “upon a close examination we shall discover amongst ourselves perfection of art existing independently of science”. Daniell John Frederic , “Modern chymistry”, The Times, 15 October 1839, 3; Mertens Joost , “From the lecture room to the workshop: John Frederic Daniell, the constant battery and electrometallurgy around 1840”, Annals of science, lv (1998), 241–61.

Whewell , op. cit. (ref. 3), p. xxiv.

Whewell , op. cit. (ref. 1), i, 255–6.

Whewell , op. cit. (ref. 32), 13–14.

An invention of George Biddell Airy (1801–92) dating from 1839. Whewell , op. cit. (ref. 1), iii, 527–9.

Whewell uses the term ‘electrotype process’. See for these and still other terms Mertens , op. cit. (ref. 57).

Whewell William , “Spedding's complete edition of the works of Bacon”, Edinburgh review, cvi (October 1857), 289–322, pp. 308–9.

Whewell , op. cit. (ref. 4), 240–6.

In 1840 William Snow Harris (1791–1867) attacked William Sturgeon (1798–1850) who, in his own Annals of electricity, maintained the theory of ‘lateral explosions’ proposed by Tiberio Cavallo and Joseph Priestley, which made lightning conductors into very dangerous devices. Appealing to Abercrombie's popular rules of induction and to a series of empirical cases of lightning conductors on ships, Snow Harris proposed a lightning conductor that was properly earthed through mast and hull. This type of conductor was strongly recommended to the Royal Navy by a mixed naval and scientific commission consisting of several commanders and three scientists including Faraday and Wheatstone. Harris William Snow , “On lightning conductors”, Philosophical magazine, xvi (1840), 116–28; idem, “On the course of the electrical discharge”, ibid. , 404–17; Figuier Louis , Les merveilles de la science, ii (Paris, 1868); Whewell , op. cit. (ref. 1), iii, 16 (addition dating from 1847).

Whewell , op. cit. (ref. 4), 245. For the rise of the new profession of consulting chemist, see Bud Robert Franklin , “The discipline of chemistry: The origins and early years of the Chemical Society of London”, Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 1980.

Whewell , op. cit. (ref. 1), iii, 537 (1857 addition).

Whewell , op. cit. (ref. 4), 2.