Reflections on the History of Scottish Science

Rosenberg Charles E. , “On writing the history of American science”, in Bass Herbert J. (ed.), The state of American history (Chicago, 1970), 183–96. I wish to acknowledge my debt to this article which renders explicit much that I had tacitly assumed.

Kuhn Thomas S. , The structure of scientific revolutions (Chicago, 1962); Ziman John , Public knowledge (Cambridge, 1968); Ravetz Jerome R. , Scientific knowledge and its social problems (Oxford, 1971).

Ben-David Joseph , The scientist's role in society: A comparative study (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1971).

Phillipson N. T. Mitchison Rosalind (eds), Scotland in the age of improvement (Edinburgh, 1970) is the best recent survey of eighteenth century Scotland.

The enviably impressive range of work being done on American scientific institutions may be gauged from Daniels George H. (ed.), Nineteenth-century American science: A reappraisal (Evanston, 1972).

Olson Richard , “Scottish philosophy and mathematics: 1750–1830”, Journal of the history of ideas, xxxii (1971), 29–44; Davie George Elder , The democratic intellect: Scotland and her universities in the nineteenth century (Edinburgh, 1964); Cantor G. N. , “Henry Brougham and the Scottish methodological tradition”, Studies in the history and philosophy of science, ii (1971), 69–89; Heimann P. M. McGuire J. E. , “Newtonian forces and Lockean powers: Concepts of matter in eighteenth-century thought”, Historical studies in the physical sciences, iii (1971), 233–306; Gerstner Patsy A. , “The reaction to James Hutton's use of heat as a geological agent”, The British journal for the history of science, v (1971), 353–62; Davies Gordon L. , The earth in decay: A history of British geomorphology 1578–1878 (London, 1969).

A useful demonstration is provided by Rosenberg Charles E. , “Factors in the development of genetics in the United States”, Journal of the history of medicine, xxii (1967), 27–46.

McCormmach Russell , “Editor's Foreword”, Historical studies in the physical sciences, iii (1971), ix–xxiv, p. ix.

Knott Cargill Gilston , Life and scientific work of Peter Guthrie Tait (Cambridge, 1911), 64–97 and 248.

Morrell J. B. , “Practical chemistry in the University of Edinburgh, 1799–1843”, Ambix, xvi (1969), 66–80.

Morrell J. B. , “Thomas Thomson: Professor of chemistry and university reformer”, The British journal for the history of science, iv (1969), 245–65.

Porter Roy , “The industrial revolution and the rise of the science of geology” in Teich M. Young R. M. (eds), Changing perspectives in the history of science (London, 1973), 320–43, p. 342.

Grant Alexander , The story of the University of Edinburgh during its first three hundred years (London, 1884), i, 147–8 and 259–63.

Grant , University of Edinburgh, 216.

Reported in Senate Minutes, 25 June 1833 and 30 April 1833.

Bower Alexander , The history of the University of Edinburgh (Edinburgh, 1817), ii, 223.

Anderson Peter John (ed.), Fasti Academiae Mariscallanae Aberdonensis: Selections from the records of the Marischal College and University MDXCII-MDCCCLX (Aberdeen, 1889), 147–8.

“An account of the life and writings of the author” in MacLaurin Colin , An account of Sir Isaac Newton's philosophical discoveries (London, 1748), i–xx, pp. iv–v, xiii.

Turner R. Steven , “The growth of professorial research in Prussia, 1818 to 1848—causes and context”, Historical studies in the physical sciences, iii (1971), 137–82, p. 157. In 1722 Monro primus became the first Edinburgh professor who gained tenure ad vitam aut culpam. Quite characteristically the Town Council rewarded his diligence and assiduity as a teacher: Bower , University of Edinburgh, ii, 182.

Hahn Roger , The anatomy of a scientific institution: The Paris Academy of Sciences, 1666–1803 (Berkeley, 1971) uses a functional approach in which his theme of the double loyalty of the academicians to science and to the state allows him to give due consideration to conflicts and ideologies.

McGuire J. E. , “Newton and the demonic furies: Some current problems and approaches in history of science”, History of science, xi (1973), 21–48, pp. 23–27.

Shapin Steven Thackray Arnold , “Prosopography as a research tool in the history of science: The British scientific community, 1700–1900”, History of science, xii (1974), 1–28; Thackray Arnold , “Natural knowledge in cultural context: The Manchester model”, American historical review, lxxix (1974), 672–709.

Shapin Steven , “Property, patronage and the politics of science: The founding of the Royal Society of Edinburgh”, The British journal for the history of science, vii (1974), 1–41.

Morrell J. B. , “The chemist breeders: The research schools of Liebig and Thomas Thomson”, Ambix, xix (1972), 1–46.

Morrell J. B. , “The patronage of mid-Victorian science in the University of Edinburgh”, Science studies, iii (1973), 353–88. Playfair's inability to respond to the German challenge indicates as well as anything else when the Scottish Enlightenment began to fade into the Celtic Twilight.

Shapin Steven A. , The Royal Society of Edinburgh: A study of the social context of Hanoverian science (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Pennsylvania, 1971).

Smout T. C. , A history of the Scottish people 1560–1830 (London, 1969), 379–90.

Fergus Andrew , “Sketch of the early years of the Society”, Proceedings of the Philosophical Society of Glasgow, xiii (1882), 1–20, p. 2.

This apt comparison is made by Kent Andrew , “The Royal Philosophical Society of Glasgow”, The philosophical journal, iv (1967), 43–50, p. 44. Dr Kent was the first to stress the near-extinction of the Society in 1833 and its revival the next year.

The minute of the agreement made on 27 February 1832 between a committee of the Managers of Anderson's University and the Society gives a list of the fortyseven registered members of the Society, and is contained in the Society Minute Book, vol. i. My account of the Society draws on this Minute Book and on Dr Kent's article.

The two inactive professors were William Meikleham (professor of natural philosophy at the University of Glasgow, 1803–46) and William Couper (professor of natural history, 1829–57).

Coutts James , A history of the University of Glasgow (Glasgow, 1909), 545–53 gives a detailed account of this struggle for power.