The Audience for Science in Eighteenth Century Edinburgh

For permission to use manuscripts under their care, I am grateful to the Royal Society of Edinburgh; Finlayson C. P. Mr , Keeper of Manuscripts, Edinburgh University Library; and the Trustees of the National Library of Scotland. I should like to acknowledge the helpful criticism of Barry Barnes, John Christie, J. B. Morrell and James O'Rourke.

See the suggestive work of Gurvitch Georges , “The sociology of the theatre”, and Elizabeth Burns, “Conventions of performance”, in Elizabeth Burns Tom (eds), Sociology of literature and drama (Harmondsworth, 1973), 71–81, 348–58.

E.g. Ezrahi Yaron , “The political resources of American science”, Science studies, i (1971), 117–33; Rosenberg Charles , “Science and American social thought”, in Van Tassel D. Hall M. G. (eds), Science and society in the United States (Homewood, Illinois, 1966), 137–84. Cf. Forman Paul , “Weimar culture, causality, and quantum theory, 1918–1927: Adaptation by German physicists and mathematicians to a hostile intellectual environment”, Historical studies in the physical sciences, iii (1971), 1–115. For a sophisticated discussion of the role of audiences in scientific thought, see Dolby R. G. A. , “Sociology of knowledge in natural science”, Science studies, i (1971), 3–21, especially 16–21.

Amitai Etzioni usefully categorizes kinds of power as “coercive”, “remunerative” and “normative”. In the following discussion of audience power I shall almost exclusively be dealing with the latter two varieties: A comparative analysis of complex organizations (New York, 1961), 3–22.

An interpretation of professionalization partly identified with the work of Ben-David Joseph : The scientist's role in society (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1971).

See, however, the treatment of the ideology of scientific internationalism in the context of post-World War I Germany in Forman Paul , “Scientific internationalism and the Weimar physicists: The ideology and its manipulation in Germany after World War i”, Isis, lxiv (1973), 151–80.

Christie John , “The origins and development of the Scottish scientific community, 1680–1769”, History of science, xii (1974), 122–142.

Materials for the history of medicine in eighteenth century Edinburgh may be found in Comrie J. D. , History of Scottish medicine (2 vols, 2nd ed., London, 1932).

These, and subsequent remarks on the founding of the Royal Society of Edinburgh draw on 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.

Fourteen of the fortyseven members in 1739 were medical men (of whom nine were professors); eleven were landed gentlemen; six were lawyers, and three were clerics. By 1782 (the last year of the Philosophical Society's existence), thirtyone of the sixty members were medical men (of whom thirteen were professors).

Only one article in the Society's Essays and observations specifically dealt with antiquarian subjects, whereas almost two-thirds were on the medical sciences or related topics. However, as the Essays and observations were edited by medical professors, these proportions may not be a just reflection of the Society's actual affairs.

For discussion of the cultural concerns of the Edinburgh Enlightenment, see Smout T. C. , A history of the Scottish people, 1560–1830 (London, 1969), especially 500–14; and Phillipson N. T. , “Culture and society in the eighteenth-century province: The case of Edinburgh and the Scottish Enlightenment”, in Stone Lawrence (ed.), The university in society (Princeton, New Jersey, 1974, in the press).

See, for example, this intriguing defence of ‘reason’ in agriculture: “Why … should Reason be so little exercised, as generally it is, in this Matter of the greatest Importance? … Reason, which is the Dignity of our Nature, and gives us the Pre-eminence over the Beasts of the Field, some of which can do what they are habitually accustomed to, and even follow Examples nigh as well as the Husbandman who does not reason in order to find out the Causes of different Consequences”. Maxwell Robert , Select transactions of the Honourable the Society of Improvers in the Knowledge of Agriculture in Scotland (Edinburgh, 1743), xiii.

Christison Robert , “Opening address [to meeting of the Royal Society of Edinburgh], 7th December 1857”, Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, iv (1857–62), 2–29, p. 4.

Forbes James David , “Opening address [to meeting of the Royal Society of Edinburgh], 1st December 1862”, Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, v (1862–66), 2–51, p. 6.

Brewster David , “Review of Babbage's Decline of Science in England”, Quarterly review, xliii (1830), 305–42, p. 325n.

See Graham H. G. , The social life of Scotland in the eighteenth century (London, 1906), especially chs v–vi; Smout, op. cit. (ref. 12), 280–301.

On eighteenth century Scottish agriculture, see Handley James , Scottish farming in the eighteenth century (London, 1953), and The agricultural revolution in Scotland (Glasgow, 1963).

The scientific validity of the new knowledge demanded, as well as the practical efficacy of the innovative techniques, was often doubtful at best. The Society of Agricultural Improvers gave considerable attention to Jethro Tull's scheme for repeated cross-ploughing which was based on the theory that the sole food of plants was earth itself. Cf. Maxwell , op. cit. (ref. 13), 174–85.

A contemporary account of the Society's origins is in Maxwell, ibid., 3–9.

Ibid., x, xiii. Under the patronage of Sir William Pulteney a chair of agriculture was established in the University of Edinburgh in 1790, the first in a British university.

Scots magazine, v (1743), 385.

Home Henry Kames Lord , The gentleman farmer, being an attempt to improve agriculture, by subjecting it to the test of rational principles (3rd ed., Edinburgh, 1788), 405–6n. For correspondence between Lord Kames and Edinburgh scientists, see Tytler Alexander Fraser , Memoirs of the life and writings of the Hon. Henry Home of Kames (2nd ed., 3 vols, Edinburgh, 1814), vol. iii, 191 ff. A national Board of Agriculture was finally established in the 1790s on the initiative of Sir John Sinclair of Ulbster, frse.

Letter from Kames to Cullen, 25 March 1753, National Library of Scotland ms. Acc. 3795: Kames to Cullen, 3 March 1753, NLS ms. Acc. 3892. In 1756 Dr Francis Home, later Professor of Materia Medica at the University of Edinburgh, won a gold medal from the Board of Trustees for his Experiments on bleaching.

Handley , The agricultural revolution in Scotland (Glasgow, 1963), 83; Ramsay Alexander , History of the Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1879), 449.

Ramsay , ibid., 47–8.

At least from the evolution of effective means of international information dissemination in the seventeenth century. If, on the other hand, it can be clearly demonstrated that men of science in various contexts perceive different lines of research as differentially interesting owing to local cultural predispositions, the general significance of the contextual approach is enhanced.

Merton Robert K. , Science, technology and society in seventeenth century England (New York, 1970; orig. publ. 1938), esp. chs iii, vii–x; Hessen B. , “The social and economic roots of Newton's Principia”, in Bukharin N. I. (eds), Science at the cross roads (London, 1971; orig. publ. 1931), 151–229.

Note Merton's cautious statement that “it may be argued that the disinterested search for truth coupled with the logical concatenation of scientific problems is sufficient to account for the particular direction of research. In point of fact, however, a cumulating body of evidence leads to the conclusion that some role must be accorded these factors external to science, properly so-called”. Merton , ibid. , 198. See also the qualifying responses to Hessen and Merton by Clark G. N. , Science and social welfare in the age of Newton (2nd ed., London, 1949), and Hall A. R. , Ballistics in the seventeenth century (Cambridge, 1952).

A methodological approach in this area has been made by Shapin Steven Thackray Arnold , “Prosopography as a research tool in history of science: The British scientific community, 1700–1900”, History of science, xii (1974), 1–28.

Playfair John , “Biographical account of the late Dr James Hutton, F.R.S. Edin.”, Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, v (1805), 39–99, p. 50 A. year earlier Hutton had delivered to the Royal Society of Edinburgh his Theory of Rain, also published in the first volume of the Transactions.

Brewster David , “Presidential address [to the Royal Society of Edinburgh]”, Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, v (1862–66), 321–26, p. 323.

Cf. Hall James , “Experiments on whinstone and lava”, Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, v (1805), 43–75, p. 45, where Hutton is quoted as criticizing those who “judge of the great operations of the mineral kingdom, from having kindled a fire, and looked into the bottom of a little crucible”. For background to Edinburgh geology, see Davies G. L. , The earth in decay: A history of British geomorphology 1578–1878 (London, 1969), chs v–vi; and Gillispie C. C. , Genesis and geology (Cambridge, Mass., 1951), chs ii–iii.

By way of contrast, those who contributed to mathematics in the Royal Society of Edinburgh during this period numbered only eight; none was a landowner.

This is not to claim that landowners, as a class, will tend to cultivate the earth sciences. My data deal only with landowners in the Royal Society of Edinburgh and other societies, not with the proportion of landowners in Scotland who chose to participate in these forms of culture. However, it was possible to pursue all sorts of intellectual activity in the Royal Society of Edinburgh and it is therefore instructive that landowning Fellows chose the earth sciences.

Encyclopaedia Britannica (4th ed., Edinburgh, 1810), xiii, 705–35, p. 706. See similar rhetoric in the article on “Geology”, vol. ix, 550–628, p. 551.

See ref. 22.

Minute-book of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 1793–1824 (meeting of 7 February 1814).

Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, x (1824–26), 362 (my italics); see Minutes of the Royal Society of Edinburgh General Council, 1821–1827, for a list of the registers established.

Cf. Porter Roy , “The Industrial Revolution and the rise of the science of geology”, in Teich M. Young R. (eds), Changing perspectives in the history of science (London, 1973), 320–43. Porter argues that geological science in Britain did not respond “in any immediate way, to social conditions”.

Bailey E. B. , James Hutton—the founder of modern geology (Amsterdam, 1967), 10. Hutton's MS is in the archives of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.

Thackray Arnold , “Natural knowledge in cultural context: The Manchester model”, American historical review, lxxix (1974), in the press.

Henry Thomas , “The advantages of literature and philosophy”, Memoirs of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Manchester, i (1785), 7–29, pp. 18, 23; cited in Thackray, ibid.

Shapin Steven , “The Pottery Philosophical Society, 1819–1835: An examination of the cultural uses of provincial science”, Science studies, ii (1972), 311–36; cf. Berman Morris , “The early years of the Royal Institution 1799–1810: A re-evaluation”, Science studies, ii (1972), 205–40, for a discussion of the relationship between scientific activity in the Royal Institution and the concerns of landowning Proprietors.

For a comment on the cultural impotence of the Edinburgh commercial classes, see Cockburn Henry , Memorials of his time (Edinburgh, 1909; orig. publ. 1856), 164–5.

Discussion of the controversy attending the formation of the Antiquaries' museum is in Shapin, op. cit. (ref. 9).

Ramsay , op. cit. (ref. 25), 539–51.

Accounts of the Society may be found in [ Jameson Robert ], “Some account of the Wernerian Natural History Society of Edinburgh”, Blackwood's Edinburgh magazine, i (1817), 231–4; Jameson Laurence , “Biographical memoir of the late Professor Jameson”, Edinburgh new philosophical journal, lvii (1854), 1–49. Membership lists are in the Society's Memoirs.

Memoirs of the Caledonian Horticultural Society, i ([2nd ed.], 1819), 1–48; “Sketch of a plan for the establishment of a horticultural society at Edinburgh”, Scots magazine, lxxi (1809), 805–6.

“Memoir of the Society”, Transactions of the Edinburgh Geological Society, i (1870), 1–6.

The Botanical Society of Edinburgh (Edinburgh, 1840), 4; First annual report, laws, and transactions of the Botanical Society of Edinburgh (Edinburgh, 1837).

Merz John Theodore , A history of European thought in the nineteenth century (4 vols, New York, 1965; orig. publ. Edinburgh, 1904–12), i, 19. Stanley Goldberg quotes part of Merz's remark and then proceeds to show that national differences in science did persist into the twentieth century: “In defense of ether: The British response to Einstein's special theory of relativity, 1905–1911”, Historical studies in the physical sciences, ii (1970), 89–115.

“The history of French science: Recent publications and perspectives”, French historical studies, viii (1973), 157–71, p. 157.

“Scientific enterprise and the patronage of research in France 1800–70”, Minerva, xi (1973), 442–73, p. 473.

Buckle Henry Thomas , History of civilization in England (3 vols, London, 1903–04; orig. publ. 1857–61), iii, ch. v (“An examination of the Scotch intellect during the eighteenth century”).

Davie George Elder , The democratic intellect: Scotland and her universities in the nineteenth century (2nd ed., Edinburgh, 1964), chs v–viii.

Cantor G. N. , “Henry Brougham and the Scottish methodological tradition”, Studies in history and philosophy of science, ii (1971–72), 69–89.

Olson Richard , “Scottish philosophy and mathematics 1750–1830”, Journal of the history of ideas, xxxii (1971), 29–44.

Morrell J. B. , “The University of Edinburgh in the late eighteenth century: Its scientific eminence and academic structure”, Isis, lxii (1971), 158–71; idem, “Science and Scottish university reform: Edinburgh in 1826”, The British journal for the history of science, vi (1972), 39–56.

Forbes , op. cit. (ref. 15), 16–17.

Ibid., 21.

Morrell J. B. , “Reflections on the history of Scottish science”, History of science, xii (1974), 81–94, p. 86.