The Care of the Self and the Masculine Birth of Science

Snow C. P. , The two cultures, intro. by Collini Stefan (Cambridge, 1993), 103.

For examples of what appears with hindsight as distinctly gendered language, see: Kuhn Thomas S. , The structure of scientific revolutions (2nd edn, Chicago, 1970), 42, 158–9.

Merchant Carolyn , The death of nature: Women, ecology, and the Scientific Revolution (London, 1980); Keller Evelyn Fox , Reflections on gender and science (New Haven, 1985); Easlea Brian , Witch-hunting, magic and the new philosophy: An introduction to debates of the Scientific Revolution, 1450–1750 (Brighton, 1980).

Bacon Francis , “The masculine birth of time”, in Farrington Benjamin , The philosophy of Francis Bacon: An essay on its development from 1603 to 1609, with new translations of fundamental texts (Liverpool, 1964), 61–72; discussed in Merchant , Death of nature (ref. 3), 164–90; and Easlea , Witch-hunting (ref. 3), 126–9.

Schiebinger Londa , The mind has no sex? Women in the origins of modern science (Cambridge, MA, 1989).

Keller Evelyn Fox , “Baconian science: The arts of mastery and obedience”, in Keller , Reflections (ref. 3), 33–42, p. 38. See also a well-informed critique of Keller's essay by Hutton Sarah , “The riddle of the sphinx: Francis Bacon and the emblems of science”, in Hunter Lynette Hutton Sarah (eds), Women, science, and medicine 1500–1700: Mothers and sisters of the Royal Society (Stroud, Gloucestershire, 1997), 7–28; and, for general context, Iliffe Rob , “The masculine birth of time: Temporal frameworks of early modern natural philosophy”, The British journal for the history of science, xxxiii (2000), 427–53.

Scott Joan Wallach , Gender and the politics of history (New York, 1988), 38–39.

The importance of binary thinking and its association with the attributes of gender is emphasized in Clark Stuart , Thinking with demons: The idea of witchcraft in early modern Europe (Oxford, 1997), esp. pp. 112–33. See also: Maclean Ian , The Renaissance notion of woman (Cambridge, 1980), 1–5, 44–45, 86–88; Cadden Joan , Meanings of sex difference in the Middle Ages (Cambridge, 1993), 201–27. Keller quotes Joseph Glanvill's gendered construal of the relations between reason and the passions: “[W]here the Will or Passion hath the casting voyce, the case of Truth is desparate…. The Woman in us, still prosecutes a deceit, like that begun in the Garden; and our Understandings are wedded to an Eve, as fatal as the Mother of our miseries.” (Glanvill, The vanity of dogmatizing [1661], quoted in Keller , “Spirit and reason at the birth of modern science”, in Keller , Reflections (ref. 3), 43–65, pp. 52–53.).

General discussions of how the passions were regarded in early-modern philosophy include: Gaukroger Stephen (ed.), The soft underbelly of reason: The passions in the seventeenth century (London, 1998), especially Gaukroger, “Introduction”, 1–14; James Susan , Passion and action: The emotions in seventeenth-century philosophy (Oxford, 1997); James Susan , “Reason, the passions, and the good life”, in Garber Daniel Ayers Michael (eds), The Cambridge history of seventeenth-century philosophy (2 vols, Cambridge, 1998), 1358–96.

Bacon Francis , The new organon and related writings, ed. by Anderson Fulton H. (Indianapolis, 1960), 52 (Aphorism xlix).

Foucault Michel , The history of sexuality, i: An introduction (New York, 1978); ii: The use of pleasure (New York, 1985); iii: The care of the self (New York, 1986). For helpful commentary, see: Davidson Arnold , “Ethics as ascetics: Foucault, the history of ethics, and ancient thought”, in Gutting Gary (ed.), The Cambridge companion to Foucault (Cambridge, 1994), 115–40. Alexander Nehamas gives a lucid account of this last phase of Foucault's work, arguing that it marked a distinct break from his earlier preoccupations, in The art of living: Socratic reflections from Plato to Foucault (Berkeley, 1998), 169–80. I shall not engage here with criticisms of Foucault's interpretation of ancient sexuality. For examples of this, see: Larmour David H. J. Miller Paul Allen Platter Charles (eds), Rethinking sexuality: Foucault and classical Antiquity (Princeton, NJ, 1998); Davidson James , “Dover, Foucault and Greek homosexuality: Penetration and the truth of sex”, Past and present, no. 170 (February 2001), 3–51.

Foucault Michel , “On the genealogy of ethics: An overview of work in progress”, in Rabinow Paul (ed.), The Foucault reader (New York, 1984), 340–72, p. 372.

Biagioli Mario , Galileo, courtier: The practice of science in the culture of absolutism (Chicago, 1993). For a general discussion of the field, see: Golinski Jan , Making natural knowledge: Constructivism and the history of science (Cambridge, 1998), 47–66; and, for interesting suggestions about how work on self-fashioning connects with that on the body of the scientific practitioner, see: Biagioli Mario , “Tacit knowledge, courtliness, and the scientist's body”, in Foster Susan Leigh (ed.), Choreographing history (Bloomington, Indiana, 1995), 69–81.

Lawrence Christopher Shapin Steven (eds), Science incarnate: Historical embodiments of natural knowledge (Chicago, 1998).

“Introduction: The body of knowledge”, in Lawrence Shapin (eds), Science incarnate (ref. 14), 1–19.

Foucault , History of sexuality (ref. 11), ii, 251.

Foucault , History of sexuality (ref. 11), ii, 251.

Foucault , History of sexuality (ref. 11), ii, 108. It has been noted that Foucault's work on self-formation in relation to sexuality concentrates almost exclusively on male identity, without actually examining gender as a topic. For feminist critiques of Foucault on ancient sexuality, see: Foxhall Lin , “Pandora unbound: A feminist critique of Foucault's History of sexuality”, in Larmour (eds), Rethinking sexuality (ref. 11), 122–37; Richlin Amy , “Foucault's History of sexuality: A useful theory for women?”, ibid., 138–70.

Foucault , History of sexuality (ref. 11), iii, 41.

Foucault , “Writing the self”, in Davidson Arnold I. (ed.), Foucault and his interlocutors (Chicago, 1997), 234–47.

A short extract from the unpublished fourth volume of the History of sexuality, dealing with the fifth-century writings of John Cassian, is “The battle for chastity”, in Foucault Michel , Ethics: Subjectivity and truth (Essential works of Foucault 1954–1984 , i, ed. by Rabinow Paul (London, 2000), 185–97). For applications of Foucault's perspective to Christian writings, see: Martin Luther H. Gutman Huck Hutton Patrick H. (eds), Technologies of the self: A seminar with Michel Foucault (Amherst, 1988).

Webster Tom , “Writing to redundancy: Approaches to spiritual journals and early modern spirituality”, The historical journal, xxxix (1996), 33–56, p. 50.

Senault quoted in Johns Adrian , The nature of the book: Print and knowledge in the making (Chicago, 1998), 398, 406.

Descartes René , “The passions of the soul”, in The philosophical works of Descartes, transl. by Haldane Elizabeth S. Ross G. R. T. (2 vols, Cambridge, 1931), i, 329–427, pp. 352–3.

Descartes , “Passions” (ref. 24), 398. Discussions of Descartes's doctrine of the passions include: Dear Peter , “A mechanical microcosm: Bodily passions, good manners, and Cartesian mechanism”, in Lawrence Shapin (eds), Science incarnate (ref. 14), 51–82; Gaukroger Stephen , Descartes: An intellectual biography (Oxford, 1995), chap. 10; Shapin Steven , “Descartes the doctor: Rationalism and its therapies”, The British journal for the history of science, xxxiii (2000), 131–54.

Harth Erica , Cartesian women: Versions and subversions of rational discourse in the Old Regime (Ithaca, 1992), 76. For this episode, see also: Shapin , “Descartes the doctor” (ref. 25), 146.

Hunter Lynette , “Sisters of the Royal Society: The circle of Katherine Jones, Lady Ranelagh”, in Hunter Hutton (eds), Women, science and medicine (ref. 6), 178–97, pp. 193–4.

Glanville William to Evelyn Mary , 25 May 1669, in Frances Harris, “Living in the neighbourhood of science: Mary Evelyn, Margaret Cavendish and the Greshamites”, in Hunter Hutton (eds), Women, science and medicine (ref. 6), 198–217, p. 211.

Nicolson Marjorie Hope , Conway letters: The correspondence of Anne, Viscountess Conway, Henry More, and their friends, 1642–1684 (New Haven, 1930), 63. See also: Hutton Sarah , “Anne Conway, Margaret Cavendish and seventeenth-century scientific thought”, in Hunter Hutton (eds), Women, science and medicine (ref. 6), 218–34; Hutton Sarah , “Of physic and philosophy: Anne Conway, F. M. van Helmont and seventeenth-century medicine”, in Grell Ole Peter Cunningham Andrew (eds), Religio medici: Medicine and religion in seventeenth-century England (Aldershot, 1996), 228–46; Hall A. Rupert , Henry More: Magic, religion and experiment (Oxford, 1990), 91–102. Anne Conway's medical regimen is also discussed by Steven Shapin, “The philosopher and the chicken: On the dietetics of disembodied knowledge”, in Lawrence Shapin (eds), Science incarnate (ref. 14), 21–50, pp. 38–40, but without commenting on the issue of gender.

Conway letters (ref. 29), 79.

For more on Greatrakes, see: Schaffer Simon , “Regeneration: The body of natural philosophers in Restoration England”, in Lawrence Shapin (eds), Science incarnate (ref. 14), 83–120.

Conway letters (ref. 29), 79.

Conway letters (ref. 29), 66.

Conway letters (ref. 29), 76.

Conway letters (ref. 29), 80.

Conway letters (ref. 29), 265.

Compare the situation of Ada Lovelace, discussed in Winter Alison , “A calculus of suffering: Ada Lovelace and the bodily constraints on women's knowledge in early Victorian England”, in Lawrence Shapin (eds), Science incarnate (ref. 14), 202–39.

Conway letters (ref. 29), 146.

Wright John P. , “Locke, Willis, and the seventeenth-century Epicurean soul”, in Osler Margaret J. (ed.), Atoms, pneuma, and tranquillity: Epicurean and Stoic themes in European thought (Cambridge, 1991), 239–58 (quoting Willis, Two discourses concerning the soul of brutes [1672] on p. 254). The gendered dichotomy might have been encouraged by Lucretius's use of the Latin nouns animus (masculine) and anima (feminine) for two aspects of the soul that roughly correspond to Willis's, though Lucretius regarded both as material entities. See also: Johns , Nature of the book (ref. 23), 387–408, on Willis.

Cheyne George , An essay of health and long life (London, 1724), 85–86.

Hunter Michael , “How Boyle became a scientist”, History of science, xxxiii (1995), 59–103, p. 79.

“Gilbert Burnet's funeral sermon”, in Hunter Michael (ed.), Robert Boyle by himself and his friends. With a fragment of William Wotton's lost Life of Boyle (London, 1994), 35–57, p. 55.

“Burnet's sermon” (ref. 42), 51; “The ‘Burnet memorandum’: Notes by Gilbert Burnet on his biographical interview(s) with Boyle”, in Hunter (ed.), Boyle by himself (ref. 42), 26–34, p. 28.

“Burnet memorandum” (ref. 43), 26.

Harwood John T. (ed.), The early essays and ethics of Robert Boyle (Carbondale, 1991), 3–141.

Hunter , “How Boyle became a scientist” (ref. 41). See also: Oster Malcolm , “Biography, culture, and science: The formative years of Robert Boyle”, History of science, xxxi (1993), 177–226.

“Burnet's sermon” (ref. 42), 55.

[ Boyle ], “An account of Philaretus during his minority”, in Hunter (ed.), Boyle by himself (ref. 42), 2–22, pp. 8–9. See also: Iliffe Rob , “Boyle's industry”, History of science, xxxv (1997), 455–84, esp. pp. 457–63.

Boyle Robert , “The doctrine of thinking”, in Harwood (ed.), Early essays and ethics (ref. 45), 185–202.

Ibid., 192.

“Burnet memorandum” (ref. 43), 27.

Boyle , op. cit. (ref. 49), 189.

“Account of Philaretus” (ref. 48), 17. The Oxford English dictionary gives several instances of this meaning of ‘injection’.

Hunter Michael , “Casuistry in action: Robert Boyle's confessional interviews with Gilbert Burnet and Edward Stillingfleet, 1691”, Journal of ecclesiastical history, xliv (1993), 80–98, p. 94.

See also: Hunter , “The conscience of Robert Boyle: Functionalism, ‘dysfunctionalism’ and the task of historical understanding”, in Field J. V. James Frank A. J. L. (eds), Renaissance and revolution: Humanists, scholars, craftsmen and natural philosophers in early modern Europe (Cambridge, 1993), 147–59.

My account of Boyle's theological understanding of alchemy relies upon Principe Lawrence M. , The aspiring adept: Robert Boyle and his alchemical quest (Princeton, 1998), 113–36, 190–201. Also very informative on magic and its theological implications is Clark , Thinking with demons (ref. 8), 214–50.

“Burnet memorandum” (ref. 43), 32. The incident is described and analysed in Hunter Michael , “Alchemy, magic and moralism in the thought of Robert Boyle”, The British journal for the history of science, xxiii (1990), 387–410.

Iliffe Rob , “Isaac Newton: Lucatello professor of mathematics”, in Lawrence Shapin (eds), Science incarnate (ref. 14), 121–55, esp. pp. 147 ff.

Manuel Frank E. , A portrait of Isaac Newton (London, 1980), 213–25.

Snobelen Stephen D. , “‘God of Gods and Lord of Lords’: The theology of Isaac Newton's General Scholium to the Principia”, in Science in theistic contexts: Cognitive dimensions , ed. by Brooke John Hedley Osler Margaret J. van der Meer Jitse M. (Osiris, 2nd series, xvi (2001)), 169–208.

Iliffe , “Lucatello professor” (ref. 57), 147.

Iliffe , “Lucatello professor” (ref. 57), 135, 147; Iliffe Rob , “That puzleing problem': Isaac Newton and the political physiology of self”, Medical history, xxxix (1995), 433–58, p. 443.

McGuire J. E. Tamny Martin , Certain philosophical questions: Newton's Trinity notebook (Cambridge, 1983), 443.

Cranston Maurice , John Locke: A biography (Oxford, 1985); Masham Lady Damaris , “The life and character of Mr. John Locke”, in Yolton Jean S. (ed.), A Locke miscellany: Locke biography and criticism for all (Bristol, 1990), 348–52; Locke John , “Some thoughts concerning education”, in John Locke on politics and education, ed. by Penniman Howard R. (Roslyn, NY, 1947), 203–390.

Locke John , An essay concerning human understanding, ed. by Nidditch Peter H. (Oxford, 1975), 699.

Taylor Charles , Sources of the self: The making of the modern identity (Cambridge, MA, 1989), 171.

Locke , Essay (ref. 64), 336.

For remarks on the connection between Locke's philosophy and autobiographical writing, see: Nussbaum Felicity A. , The autobiographical subject: Gender and ideology in eighteenth-century England (Baltimore, 1989), 30–57.

Locke John , “Register of the air”, Bodleian Library, Oxford, MS 48120, ff. 466–531.

“Burnet's sermon” (ref. 42), 38; Manley Gordon , “The weather and diseases: Some eighteenth-century contributions to observational meteorology”, Notes and records of the Royal Society of London, ix (1952), 300–7. The connection between study of the weather and suppression of the passions is an ancient one, going back to the works of Lucretius and Seneca, who regarded the fear of meteorological phenomena as a sign that the desirable state of tranquillity of mind had not been achieved. The theme was revived in early-modern discussions of melancholy and enthusiasm, which were sometimes portrayed as a kind of internal meteorology, the result of clouds of bodily vapours obscuring the mind. Melancholics and enthusiasts were also thought to be particularly susceptible to the disturbing influences of climatic conditions on their mental state. See: Lucretius , On the nature of things , transl. by Esolen Anthony M. (Baltimore, 1995), esp. pp. 203–15; Seneca , Naturales questiones , transl. by Corcoran Thomas H. (2 vols, Cambridge, MA, 1971); Burton Robert , The anatomy of melancholy , ed. by Jackson Holbrook (3 vols, London, 1932), i, 379–81, 410–13; Heyd Michael , “Medical discourse in religious controversy: The case of the critique of ‘enthusiasm’ on the eve of the Enlightenment”, Science in context, viii (1995), 133–57.

For a full discussion of the document and a summary of the evidence for this identification of the author, see: Golinski Jan , “‘Exquisite atmography’: Theories of the world and experiences of the weather in a diary of 1703”, The British journal for the history of science, xxxiv (2001), 149–71.

1703 weather diary, Lancing College archives, Lancing, West Sussex, 402.

Keller , Reflections (ref. 3), 40.

Zack Naomi , Bachelors of science: Seventeenth-century identity, then and now (Philadelphia, 1996). The most ambitious attempt to delineate the links between misogyny and celibacy in early-modern science, Noble's David F. A world without women: The Christian clerical culture of western science (New York, 1992), is subjected to telling criticism by Clark William , “The misogyny of scholars”, Perspectives on science, i (1993), 342–57. More plausible connections between misogyny and sociability among celibate males are described in the specific setting of the Accademia dei Lincei in early seventeenth-century Rome, by Mario Biagioli, in “Knowledge, freedom, and brotherly love: Homosociality and the Accademia dei Lincei”, Configurations, iii (1995), 139–66.