The Nebular Hypothesis and the Evolutionary Worldview

Moulton F. R. , “Influence of astronomy on science”, Scientific monthly, xlvii (1938), 301–8.

Lawrence Philip , “Heaven and earth — The relation of the nebular hypothesis to geology”, in Cosmology, history, and theology, ed. by Yourgrau W. and Breck A. D. (New York, 1977), 253–81, p. 279.

Numbers Ronald L. , Creation by natural law: Laplace's nebular hypothesis in American thought (Seattle, 1977), 108. For other evidence of a direct connection see Kirby William , On the power, wisdom, and goodness of God, as manifested in the creation of animals, and in their history, habits and instincts , new edn (Philadelphia, 1853), 4–5; Hitchcock C. H. , “The relations of geology to theology”, Bibliotheca sacra, xxiv (1867), 371; Winchell Alexander , Reconciliation of science and religion (New York, 1877), 176; Du Prel Carl , Entwicklungsgeschichte des Weltalls, 3rd edn (Leipzig, 1881), ch. 1; Eiseley L. , Darwin's century (Garden City, N.Y., 1961), 333–4; Hull David , Darwin and his critics (Cambridge, Mass., 1973), 140, 223; Turner Frank M. , Between science and religion: The reaction to scientific naturalism in late Victorian England (New Haven, 1974), 27–28; Rupke N. A. , “Bathybius Haeckelii and the psychology of scientific discovery”, Studies in history and philosophy of science, vii (1976), 53–62, p. 57; Peacocke Arthur , “Biological evolution and Christian theology — Yesterday and today”, in Durant J. (ed.), Darwinism and divinity (Oxford and New York, 1985), 101–30, p. 116.

Schweber S. S. , “The origin of the Origin revisited”, Journal of the history of biology, x (1977), 229–316.

Notebook Darwin's “B” on Transmutation of Species, quoted by Schweber, “The origin” (ref. 4), 242. and by Gruber Howard , Darwin on man, 2nd edn (Chicago, 1981), 101–2.

Huxley T. H. , review of The natural history of creation , by Haeckel Ernst Dr , The academy, i, no. 1 (1869), 13–14, p. 13.

Thus it includes ‘historicism’ in the sense denounced by Popper Karl , The poverty of historicism (London, 1957), but not the mere assertion that the present should be understood in terms of the past. Modern historians frequently stress the uniqueness and contingency of historical events and the impossibility of comprehending them under any kind of universal law or tendency; thus they reject the evolutionary worldview though their attitude if sufficiently rationalized may resemble a weak form of Darwinism. The concept of ‘social evolution’ as defined by Nisbet Robert A. , Social change and history (New York, 1969), is very close to the ‘evolutionary worldview’ considered here. According to Nisbet , nineteenth century social evolution theories had six major premises: (1) change is natural (to the entity being studied); (2) change is directional; (3) change is immanent (in the entity being considered), not due to external influences; (4) change is continuous (including Marxian ‘revolutions’); (5) change is necessary; (6) change proceeds from uniform causes (as in the geological doctrines of Hutton J. and Lyell C. ). Darwinian evolution explicitly violates (3) and is only weakly consistent with (2) and (5).

Merz John Theodore , A history of European thought in the nineteenth century (4 vols, Edinburgh, 1912), ii, ch. 9; Toulmin Stephen and Goodfield June , The discovery of time (New York, 1965). The phrase ‘Newtonian world-machine’, as used by intellectual historians like Randall J. H. Jr , The making of the modern mind (New York, 1940), ch. 11, and others, obscures the fact that Newton himself rejected this view; see Kubrin D. , “Newton and the cyclical cosmos: Providence and the mechanical philosophy”, Journal of the history of ideas, xxviii (1967), 325–46, for a more accurate account. Similarly the term ‘evolutionary worldview’ is an abstraction that exists primarily in the minds of historians and may not correspond precisely to the outlook of any particular scientist or philosopher; it is nonetheless useful in getting a rough understanding of a complex subject.

Spencer Herbert , First principles (London, 1862). See Burrow J. W. , Evolution and society (London, 1966); Hodge M. J. S. , “England”, in The comparative reception of Darwinism, ed. by Glick Thomas F. (Austin, Texas, 1974), 3–31, p. 16; Leeds Anthony , “Darwinian and ‘Darwinian’ evolutionism in the study of society and culture”, in ibid., 437–85, p. 462; Bannister Robert C. , Social Darwinism: Science and myth in Anglo-American thought (Philadelphia, 1979); Peel J. D. Y. , Herbert Spencer: The evolution of a sociologist (London, 1971); idem, “Spencer, Herbert”, in Dictionary of scientific biography, ed. by Gillispie C. C. (16 vols, New York, 1970–80), xii, 569–72; White Leslie A. , “The concept of evolution in cultural anthropology”, in Evolution and anthropology (Washington, D.C., 1959), 106–25.

See especially the excellent surveys in The comparative reception of Darwinism, ed. by Glick Thomas F. (Austin, Texas, 1974); the popularity of non-Darwinian versions of evolution is noted in England (pp. 4, 289), Germany (p. 97), France (p. 117), the United States (pp. 182, 199) and Spain (p. 318). Ellegård Alvar , Darwin and the general reader (Gothenburg, 1958), also reported that many writers who accepted evolution rejected natural selection. Bowler Peter , The eclipse of Darwinism (Baltimore, 1983), has documented the rise of “anti-Darwinian evolutionary theories in the decades around 1900”. DiGregorio Mario , “The dinosaur connection: A reinterpretation of T. H. Huxley's evolutionary view”, Journal of the history of biology, xv (1982), 397–418, argues that Huxley integrated evolution into his own scientific work only after 1868 and even then failed to use the concept of natural selection. The New York Times obituary of Darwin (21 April 1882, reprinted in Science in the twentieth century, ed. by Sullivan Walter (New York, 1976), 298) shows that misunderstandings of ‘Darwinism’ were already widespread during his lifetime.

Hull David , “Darwinism and historiography”, in Glick (ed.), Comparative reception (ref. 10), 388–402, p. 392.

Greene John , “The Kuhnian paradigm and the Darwinian revolution”, in Perspectives in the history of science and technology, ed. by Roller D. H. D. (Norman, Okla., 1971), 3–25, pp. 21–22.

Bowler Peter , “The changing meaning of ‘evolution’”, Journal of the history of ideas, xxxvi (1975), 95–114; Evolution: The history of an idea (Berkeley, 1984).

Bernard Claude , Leçons sur les phénomènes de la vie, communs aux animaux et aux végétaux, 2nd edn (Paris, 1885), i, 33.

Sandler Iris and Sandler Lawrence , “A conceptual ambiguity that contributed to the neglect of Mendel's paper”, History and philosophy of the life sciences, vii (1985), 3–70.

The terms ‘random’ and ‘chance’ did not have any generally-agreed meaning among nineteenth century scientists. In physics they shifted from being descriptive of knowledge about reality to being descriptive of reality itself (see below, ref. 20). Darwin himself denied that he assumed random variations (The origin of species … (London, 1859 and later edns), beginning of ch. 5) but in the absence of any specific cause his followers have generally adopted that assumption ( Eiseley , Darwin's century (ref. 3)), or have suggested that the causes are random only in the sense of “being unrelated in origin and nature to the functional requirements of the organism, though still having determinate causes” (a formulation suggested by one of the referees). It is frequently asserted that Darwin's theory banished teleology from biology and demolished the ‘design’ argument of natural theology ( Ghiselin Michael , The triumph of the Darwinian method (Berkeley, 1969), 132–59, 215; Mayr Ernst , The growth of biological thought (Cambridge, Mass., 1982), 515–17). But this certainly did not happen immediately; thus Huxley , in the 1869 article quoted above (ref. 6), argued that Evolution does not abolish teleology except in its “commoner and coarser forms”. He explicitly rejected randomness and asserted that evolution is deterministic (see “On the reception of the ‘Origin of species’”, in The life and letters of Charles Darwin, ed. by Darwin Francis (New York, 1891), ch. 14, pp. 553–5). For further discussion of this point see Paradis James G. , T. H. Huxley: Man's place in nature (Lincoln, Neb., 1978), 99–100; Bowler Peter J. , “Darwinism and the argument from design: Suggestions for a reevaluation”, Journal of the history of biology, x (1977), 29–43, and Evolution (ref. 13), ch. 6.

Thomson William (later Lord Kelvin), “Presidential address”, Report of the 41st meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (1871), lxxxiv-cv, p. lxxxiv; reprinted in his Popular lectures and addresses, 2nd edn (London, 1894), ii, 132. Herschel John , Physical geography of the globe (Edinburgh, 1861), 12. von Baer K. E. , quoted in Hull , Darwin (ref. 3), 116. Eiseley , Darwin's century (ref. 3). Rensch Bernhard , “Historical development of the present synthetic neo-Darwinism in Germany”, in The evolutionary synthesis, ed. by Mayr E. and Provine W. B. (Cambridge, Mass., 1980), 284–303, p. 293. According to Roe Shirley A. , “John Turberville Needham and the generation of living organisms”, Isis, lxxiv (1983), 159–84, the idea that the universe operates by chance was an important part of the eighteenth century definition of ‘materialism’, a philosophy generally considered abhorrent. On dislike for randomness as a source of neo-Lamarckian hypotheses see Gerson Elliot F. , “Natural selection and late nineteenth century paleontologists”, Synthesis (Cambridge, Mass.), i, no. 2 (1973), 14–27.

Olson Richard , Science as metaphor: The historical role of scientific theories in forming Western culture (Belmont, Calif., 1971), 109–58. Wise Isaac Mayer , The cosmic god (Cincinnati, Ohio, 1876; repr. New York, 1975), 50–51.

Haber F. C. , The age of the world: Moses to Darwin (Baltimore, 1959); Burchfield Joe D. , Lord Kelvin and the age of the Earth (New York, 1975); Dean D. R. , “The age of the Earth controversy: Beginnings to Hutton”, Annals of science, xxxviii (1981), 435–56; Albritton Claude C. Jr , The abyss of time: Changing conceptions of the Earth's antiquity after the sixteenth century (San Francisco, 1980).

Brush Stephen G. , The kind of motion we call heat: A history of the kinetic theory of gases in the 19th century (Amsterdam, 1976, repr. 1986), ch. 14; Statistical physics and the atomic theory of matter, from Boyle and Newton to Landau and Onsager (Princeton, N.J., 1983), ch. 2.

Skinner B. F. , Beyond freedom and dignity (New York, 1972), 22.

Kant Immanuel , Allgemeine Naturgeschichte und Theorie des Himmels (Königsberg, 1755); Universal natural history and theory of the heavens , English translation and introduction by Jaki S. L. (Edinburgh, 1981). Simon Pierre , de Laplace Marquis , Exposition du systéme du monde (Paris, 1796, and later editions); The system of the world , English translation by Harte H. H. (Dublin, 1830).

For example, the historical account by ter Haar D. and Cameron A. G. W. (two experts on the modern theory) goes back to Descartes but omits Herschel. See their “Historical review of theories of the origin of the solar system”, in Origin of the solar system, ed. by Jastrow R. and Cameron A. G. W. (New York, 1963), 1–37.

Letter from Derham William to Conduitt John , 18 July 1733, quoted by Manuel Frank , A portrait of Isaac Newton (Cambridge, Mass., 1968), 127; Newton Isaac , Opticks, 4th edn (London, 1730, repr. New York, 1952), 402; idem, Letter to Bentley Richard , 10 December 1692, published in Newton's philosophy of nature, ed. by Thayer H. S. (New York, 1953), 46–50; Clark[e] Samuel , A demonstration of the being and attributes of God (London, 1705, repr. Stuttgart , 1964), 230. For further discussion see Kubrin , “Newton and the cyclical cosmos” (ref. 8).

Laplace's famous reply to Napoleon is usually quoted in connection with his establishment of the clockwork universe theory in his Traite de mécanique céleste (5 vols, Paris, 1798–1825). But the best contemporary source is Herschel's William diary of his visit to Paris in 1802. He and Laplace had an interview with Napoleon in which the conversation turned to the “extent of the sidereal heavens”. Napoleon asked “And who is the author of all this!” According to Herschel , “Mons. De la Place wished to shew that a chain of natural causes would account for the construction and preservation of the wonderful system. This the first consul rather opposed. Much may be said on the subject; by joining the arguments of both we shall be led to ‘Nature and Nature's God’.” See Dreyer J. L. E. , “A short account of Sir William Herschel's life and work”, in Herschel's Scientific papers (London, 1912), i, pp. xiii–lxiv, p. lxii; Lubbock Constance A. , The Herschel chronicle (New York, 1933), 310. This would imply that Laplace had in mind his hypothesis about the origin of the solar system. On the other hand one should probably interpret the word “construction” in a strict sense as a process that is now completed: Laplace did not see the world as being in a state of continual change. On this point see Merleau-Ponty J. , “Laplace as a cosmologist”, in Cosmology, history, and theology, ed. by Yourgrau and Breck (ref. 2), 283–91, p. 289. In 1735 Bernoulli Daniel , as noted by Laplace in 1776, estimated the probability of the present arrangement of planetary orbits and attributed their uniformity to the action of the extended rotating atmosphere of the Sun. de Mairan J. J. Dortous had suggested a year or two earlier that the aurora borealis is caused by gas ejected from the Sun's atmosphere, and that other stars could have a “nebulous” appearance because of similar phenomena. See Bernoulli Daniel , “Recherches physiques et astronomiques sur le problème propose pour la second fois par l'Académie Royale des Sciences de Paris: Quelle est la cause physique de l'inclinaison des plans des orbites des planètes par rapport au plan de l'équateur de la révolution du soleil autour de son axe”, in Pièces qui ont remporté les prix de l'Académie Royales des Sciences, 1734 (Paris, 1735); de Laplace P. S. , “Mémoire sur l'inclination moyenne des orbits des comètes, sur la figure de la terre et sur les fonctions”, Mémoires de l'Académie Royale des Sciences, Paris, savants étrangers, année 1773, reprinted in his Oeuvres complètes (Paris, 1891), viii, 279–321; Whitney Charles , The discovery of our Galaxy (New York, 1971), 58–59.

Leclerc George-Louis de Buffon Comte , Histoire naturelle, générale et particulière (Paris, 1749); extract in Mather K. F. and Mason S. L. (eds), A source book in geology (Cambridge, Mass., 1939), 58–64.

On the development of Laplace's cosmogonic ideas see Merleau-Ponty Jacques , “Situation et röle de l'hypothèse cosmogonique dans le pensée cosmologique de Laplace”, Revue d'histoire des sciences, xxix (1976), 21–49, and xxx (1977), 71–72; “Laplace” (ref. 25); La science de I'universe à I'âge du positivisme: Étude sur les origines de la cosmologie contemporaine (Paris, 1983). The changes in his formulation of the theory through five editions of his Exposition (ref. 22) are discussed by Whitney , Discovery (ref. 25) and by Jaki Stanley L. , “The five forms of Laplace's cosmogony”, American journal of physics, xliv (1976), 4–11. The role of Laplace's hypothesis in the history of planetary cosmogony is presented by Jaki S. L. , Planets and planetarians: A history of theories of the origin of planetary systems (New York, 1978).

Merleau-Ponty , “Situation” (ref. 27). Gillispie Charles Coulston , “Laplace, Pierre-Simon, Marquis de”, in Dictionary of scientific biography, ed. by Gillispie (ref. 9), xv, 273–356. Brooke J. H. , “Nebular contraction and the expansion of naturalism”, The British journal for the history of science, xii (1979), 200–11.

Herschel William , “On the discovery of four additional satellites of the Georgium Sidus. The retrograde motion of its old satellites announced; and the cause of their disappearance at certain distances from the planet explained”, Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London, lxxxviii (1798), 47–79; reprinted in his Papers (ref. 25), ii, 1–21. Herschel himself did not consider this a serious exception to the rule. See “On the quantity and velocity of the solar motion”, Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London, xcvi (1806), 205–37; reprinted, Papers (ref. 25), ii, 338–59, pp. 352–3. Subsequent research led to the conclusion that the satellites do revolve in the same plane as the rotation of Uranus, but that this plane is almost perpendicular to that of Uranus's orbit around the sun. See Alexander A. F. O'D. , The planet Uranus (London, 1965).

Herschel William , “Catalogue of a second thousand of new nebulae and clusters of stars; with a few introductory remarks on the construction of the heavens”, Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London, lxxix (1789), 212–55; reprinted, Papers (ref. 25), i, 329–69, p. 330.

ibid., 336.

ibid., 337.

Herschel William , “On nebulous stars, properly so called”, Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London, lxxxi (1791), 71–88; reprinted, Papers (ref. 25), i, 415–25, pp. 415–16. See also Hoskin Michael A. , William Herschel and the construction of the heavens (London, 1963; New York, 1964), 119.

Herschel , Papers (ref. 25), i, 416.

Herschel William , “Astronomical observations relating to the construction of the heavens, arranged for the purpose of a critical examination, the result of which appears to throw some new light upon the organization of the celestial bodies”, Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London, ci (1811), 269–345, p. 331; reprinted, Papers (ref. 25), ii, 459–97, p. 494.

Laplace , System (ref. 22), 336.

For further discussion of Herschel as a ‘natural historian’ see Sticker Bernhard , “‘Artificial’ and ‘natural’ classifications of celestial bodies in the work of William Herschel”, Proceedings of the 10th International Congress of the History of Science (Ithaca, N.Y., 1962), ii, 79–131; Schaffer Simon , “Herschel in Bedlam: Natural history and stellar astronomy”, The British journal for the history of science, xiii (1980, publ. 1981), 211–39. Herschel's researches on nebulae are presented and discussed by Hoskin M. : William Herschel (ref. 33); “William Herschel's early investigations of nebulae: A reassessment”, Journal for the history of astronomy, x (1979), 165–76; Stellar astronomy: Historical studies (Chalfont St Giles, 1982), 125–41.

von Humboldt Alexander , Cosmos (London, 1848), 67. See also Lamont J. , Ueber die Nebelflecken (Munich, 1837), 5–6.

Lightman Alan , “The third evening: Conversations with Papa Joe”, Science 85, vi (1985), no. 8, 22–26.

Harrison Edward , Masks of the universe (New York, 1985), 117.

Herschel William , “On the power of penetrating into space by telescopes, with a comparative determination of the extent of that power in natural vision, and in telescopes of various sizes and constructions; illustrated by select observations”, Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London, xc (1800), 49–85, pp. 83–84; reprinted, Papers (ref. 25), ii, 32–52.

Herschel William , “Catalogue of 500 new nebulae, nebulous stars, planetary nebulae, and clusters of stars; with remarks on the construction of the heavens”, Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London, xcii (1802), 477–528; reprinted, Papers (ref. 25), ii, 199–237, p. 213. Hoskin Michael , “The principal consequences of the discovery of the finite velocity of light for the development of astronomy in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries”, in Roemer et la vitesse de la lumière (Paris, 1978), 235–46. de Serres Marcel , De la création de la terre et des corps célestes, ou Examen de cette question: L'æuvre de la creation est-elle aussi complète pour l'universe qu'elle paraît l'être pour la terre? (Paris, 1843).

The creationists tried to get out of this difficulty by claiming that God created the light “in space” to make it appear to have come from a star thousands or millions of light years away. See Krause David J. , “Apparent age and its reception in the 19th century”, Journal of the American Scientific Affiliation (Sept. 1980), 146–50; “Astronomical distances, the speed of light, and the age of the universe”, ibid., (Dec. 1981), 235–9. This argument is still used by modern creationists; see Morris Henry M. , The remarkable birth of Planet Earth (Minneapolis, 1972), 61–62.

Whewell William , Astronomy and general physics considered with reference to natural theology (London, 1833). The Bridgewater Treatises are discussed by Dahm John Johannes , Science and religion in eighteenth-century England: The early Boyle lectures and the Bridgewater treatises (Ph.D. thesis, Case Western Reserve University, 1969) as part of a tradition of scientific-religious exposition going back to the time of Newton. See Gliserman Susan , “Early Victorian science writers and Tennyson's ‘In Memoriam’: A study in cultural exchange”, Victorian studies, xviii (1975), 277–308, 437–59, for an example of the influence of this work of Whewell.

Whewell , Astronomy (ref. 45), 135.

See ref. 24.

Whewell , Astronomy (ref. 45), 149. For another example of teleology in early nineteenth century astronomical writing see Brougham Henry , Dissertations on subjects of science … (2 vols, London, 1839), i, 45; ii, 57–58.

Whewell , Astronomy (ref. 45), 178.

A similar argument was made by Hitchcock Edward , Religious truth, illustrated from science (Boston, 1857), 32–33.

[ Smith William Henry ], “Vestiges of the natural history of creation”, Blackwood's Edinburgh magazine, lvii (1845), 448–60, p. 449.

Ibid ., 448–9. Millhauser Milton , Just before Darwin: Robert Chambers and Vestiges (Middletown, Conn., 1959), 154–5.

Greene John C. , The death of Adam: Evolution and its impact on Western thought (Ames, Iowa, 1959), 15–34, 284.

“Geology, in the magnitude and sublimity of the objects of which it treats, undoubtedly ranks, in the scale of the sciences, next to astronomy.” Herschel John , Preliminary discourse on the study of natural philosophy (London, 1830; repr. New York, 1966), 287.

de la Beche Henry , Researches in theoretical geology (London, 1834).

Rudwick Martin J. S. , “Uniformity and progression: Reflections on the structure of geological theory in the age of Lyell”, in Perspectives in the history of science and technology, ed. by Roller D. H. D. (Norman, Okla., 1971), 209–27. Lawrence Philip , “Heaven and Earth — The relation of the nebular hypothesis to geology”, in Cosmology, history, and theology, ed. by Yourgrau and Breck (ref. 2), 253–81. Greene Mott T. , Geology in the nineteenth century: Changing views of a changing world (Ithaca, N.Y., 1982).

Numbers, Creation (ref. 3), 110.

ibid., 111.

Brooke , “Nebular contraction” (ref. 28).

Comte Auguste , whose evolutionary view of society was influential in Britain as well as in France, was an enthusiastic advocate of the nebular hypothesis. He even claimed to have found a mathematical confirmation of it, though this proved to be based on circular reasoning. C. C. Person, [“Sur une prétendue explication de la théorie du système solaire de Laplace, par M. Comte”, title given only in index to volume], Precis analytique des travaux de l'Académie Royale des Sciences, Belles-Lettres et Arts de Rouen (1835), 51–52; Schweber S. S. , “Auguste Comte and the nebular hypothesis” (preprint, Department of Physics, Brandeis University and Department of History of Science, Harvard University, 1977).

Nichol John Pringle , “State of discovery and speculation concerning the nebulae”, Westminster review, xxv (1836), 390–409, p. 405.

Chambers Robert , Vestiges of the natural history of creation, reprint of the 1st edn with new introduction by de Beer Gavin (New York, 1969). See Millhauser , Just before Darwin (ref. 52); Hodge M. J. S. , “The universal gestation of nature: Chambers' Vestiges and Explanations”, Journal of the history of biology, v (1972), 127–51; Ogilvie Marilyn Bailey , “Robert Chambers and the nebular hypothesis”, The British journal for the history of science, viii (1975), 214–32; Yeo Richard , “Science and intellectual authority in mid-nineteenth-century Britain: Robert Chambers and Vestiges of the natural history of creation”, Victorian studies, xxviii (1984), 5–31.

Chambers , Vestiges (ref. 62), 154.

[ Brewster David ], “Explanations. By the author of the Vestiges of the natural history of creation”, North British review, iv (1846), 487–504, p. 490.

Numbers, Creation (ref. 3).

Agassiz Louis , The structure of animal life, six lectures delivered at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in January and February, 1862 (New York, 1866), 72. Numbers, Creation (ref. 3), 64, 115.

Agassiz Louis , “Hugh Miller, author of ‘Old red sandstone’ and ‘Footprints of the creator’”, in Foot-prints of the creator, by Miller Hugh (Boston, 1851), xi–xxxvii, p. xxv.

Peel J. D. Y. , “Spencer, Herbert”, in Dictionary of scientific biography, ed. by Gillispie (ref. 9), xii, 569–72, p. 570.

Spencer Herbert , “The form of the earth no proof of original fluidity”, Philosophical magazine, 3rd series, xx (1847), 194–6.

Spencer Herbert , An autobiography (London, 1904), 15–16.

Under Part III the draft listed three chapters, two of them on the nebular hypothesis and the other on equilibration of light and heat. In the published work, First principles (London, 1862), Parts III and IV are omitted but the nebular hypothesis is discussed in other chapters (see Duncan David , Life and letters of Herbert Spencer (2 vols, New York, 1908), ii, 159).

Spencer , Autobiography (ref. 70), ii, 16–17.

ibid., ii, 25.

Spencer Herbert , “Recent astronomy, and the nebular hypothesis”, Westminster review, lxx (1858), 185–225. See his correspondence on the nebular hypothesis with the physicist James Clerk Maxwell, published in Garber E. W. Brush S. G. , and Everitt C. W. F. , Maxwell on molecules and gases (Cambridge, Mass., 1986), 156–9.

Spencer , First principles, reprint of 6th edn (New York, 1912), 334.

ibid., 338.

ibid., 344.

Lawrence , “Heaven” (ref. 2).

“…uniformitarianism in geology seems almost to cry out for evolutionism in biology”. Gillispie Charles Coulston , Genesis and geology (Cambridge, Mass., 1951; repr. New York, 1959), 131. The same phrase is used in his The edge of objectivity (Princeton, N.J., 1960), 300, omitting “almost”. See similar claims by Eiseley , Darwin's century (ref. 3), 160. See also Himmelfarb Gertrude , Darwin and the Darwinian revolution (London, 1959), 78–83; de Beer Gavin , Charles Darwin (Garden City, N.Y., 1965), 104. For more recent contrary interpretations see Bowler , Evolution (ref. 13), 20, 103.

Greene , Geology (ref. 56), 74f., 121, 144–5, 189; Gould Stephen Jay , “Toward the vindication of punctuational change”, in Catastrophes and Earth history, ed. by Berggren W. A. and Van Couvering J. A. (Princeton, N.J., 1984), 9–34.

“All these changes are to happen in the future again, and iguanodons and their congeners must as assuredly live again in the latitude of Cuckfield as they have done so.” Letter to Mantell Gideon , 12 February 1830, published in Life, letters and journals of Sir Charles Lyell, bart., ed. by Lyell Katherine Murray (London, 1881). For further discussion of this aspect of Lyell's theory see Rudwick Martin J. S. , “The strategy of Lyell's Principles of geology”, Isis, lxi (1970), 5–33; idem, “Uniformity” (ref. 56); Lawrence P. , “Charles Lyell versus the theory of central heat: A reappraisal of Lyell's place in the history of geology”, Journal of the history of biology, xi (1978), 101–28.

Tasch Paul , “A quantitative estimate of geological time by Lyell”, Isis, lxvi (1975), 406; “Lyell's geochronological model: Published year values for geological time”, Isis, lxviii (1977), 440–2.

Lawrence , in his articles “Heaven” (ref. 2) and “Charles Lyell” (ref. 81), presents an excellent account of the early development of this theory and its relation to the nebular hypothesis. Greene , Geology (ref. 56), shows how it was applied to geotectonics throughout the nineteenth century and provides an essential part of the background for Alfred Wegener's theory of continental drift.

Fourier J. B. J. , “Mémoire sur le refroidissement séculaire du globe terrestre”, Annales de chimie et de physique, xiii (1819), 418–37, reprinted in Oeuvres de Fourier, ed. by Darboux G. (2 vols, Paris, 1888–90), ii, 271–88; idem, “Remarques générales sur les temperatures du globe terrestre et des espaces planétaires”, Annales de chimie et de physique, xxvii (1824), 136–67, reprinted in Oeuvres, ii, 97–125, p. 114.

See Greene , Geology (ref. 56), for detailed discussion and references. Wood Robert Muir presents Élie de Beaumont as a seminal figure in the “battle for the earth sciences” in The dark side of the Earth (London, 1985).

Lyell Charles , Principles of geology, 2nd edn (London, 1832), i, 162.

Carnot Sadi , Réflexions sur la puissance motrice du feu (Paris, 1824); idem, Reflections on the motive power of fire, transl. and ed. by Fox Robert (Manchester, 1986). Fox discusses the historical background and includes references to the extensive literature on Carnot. For a general survey see Cardwell D. S. L. , From Watt to Clausius: The rise of thermodynamics in the early industrial age (London, 1971).

See Daub Edward E. , “Clausius, Rudolf”, in Dictionary of scientific biography, ed. by Gillispie (ref. 9), iii, 303–11.

Thomson William (1824–1907) was knighted in 1866, primarily for his role in the successful laying of the Atlantic Cable. In 1892, as the most eminent scientist in Britain, he received a peerage of the realm and chose the title Baron Kelvin of Largs. Of his many discoveries and inventions, some carry the name “Thomson” and some “Kelvin”. For simplicity I will refer to him from now on as “Lord Kelvin” or “Kelvin”. His contributions to thermodynamics are discussed by Smith Crosbie , “A new chart for British natural philosophy: The development of energy physics in the nineteenth century”, History of science, xvi (1978), 231–79 and other papers cited therein.

Hopkins William , “Anniversary address of the President”, Quarterly journal of the Geological Society of London, viii, Pt I (1852), xxi–lxxx, p. lxxv. For earlier statements about irreversibility in nature see Brush , Kind of motion (ref. 20), 545–59.

[ Kelvin ], “On a universal tendency in nature to the dissipation of mechanical energy”, Philosophical magazine, series 4, iv (1852), 304–6.

Clausius R. , “Ueber verscheidene für die Anwendung bequeme Formen der Hauptgleichungen der mechanischen Wärmetheorie”, Annalen der Physik, cxxv (1865), 353–400.

Thus when a quantity of heat Q is transferred from a body at a high temperature T₁, to another body at a low temperature T₂, the former loses entropy Q/T₁ while the latter gains Q/T₂; if T₁≥T₂, the net entropy increase (Q/T₂–Q/T₁) must be positive.

Clausius R. , “On the second fundamental theorem of the mechanical theory of heat”, Philosophical magazine, series 4, xxxv (1868), 405–19. This version has caused some unfortunate misunderstandings. Under normal laboratory conditions (e.g. where the temperature is controlled) the equilibrium state toward which the system moves is determined not merely by entropy but also by energy, which depends on interatomic forces. Thus for example at low temperatures a substance will naturally tend to condense into a solid with a regular lattice arrangement of atoms, that being the state of lowest energy, rather than remain in the maximum-entropy state which would be a gas. This clarification is needed to understand an important point in the creation-evolution controversy (see below).

Brush Stephen G. , The temperature of history: Phases of science and culture in the nineteenth century (New York, 1978), chs 5–8.

Brush , Kind of motion (ref. 20), 583–637.

Boltzmann Ludwig , “Der zweite Hauptsatz der mechanische Wärmetheorie”, Almanach der kaiserlich Akademie der Wissenschaften in Wien, xxxvi (1886), 225–59.

Boltzmann Ludwig , “Entgegnung auf einen von Prof. Ostwald fiber der Glück gehaltenen Vortrag”, in his Populäre Schriften (Leipzig, 1905), 364–84; translation quoted from McGuinness Brian (ed.), Ludwig Boltzmann: Theoretical physics and philosophical problems (Boston, 1974), 176.

Morris Henry M. , Scientific creationism (San Diego, Calif., 1974), 59–69.

See ref. 94, above.

Blum Harold F. , Time's arrow and evolution (Princeton, N.J., 1951). See also Mora Peter T. , “The folly of probability”, in The origins of prebiological systems and of their molecular matrices, ed. by Fox S. W. (New York, 1965), 39–64; Rohlfing Duane L. and Oparin A. I. (eds), Molecular evolution (New York, 1972); Fox Sidney W. , “Creationism, the random hypothesis, and experiments”, Science, ccxiii (1981), 290. A detailed molecular-statistical theory of the development of self-organizing systems has been developed by Prigogine Ilya and his colleagues, and earned the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for Prigogine in 1977. According to Prigogine, one must go beyond classical statistical thermodynamics which was designed to deal with systems not far from equilibrium, and consider instead “dissipative structures” which maintain a steady ordered state with the help of a continuous flow of matter and energy. The Second Law is still applicable to such systems but it longer implies a tendency toward disorder. For an exposition of this theory in its historical context see Prigogine I. and Stengers Isabelle , Order out of chaos (New York, 1984).

Hull , Darwin (ref. 3), 273; the review, titled “Physical theories of the phenomena of life”, was originally published in Fraser's magazine, lxi (1860), 739–52, lxii (1860), 74–90, and is reprinted by Hull , 229–72.

The views in his 1860 review have already moved part way toward Darwinism from those expressed in his earlier article “Geology”, in Cambridge essays (London, 1857). His research on heat conduction led him to conclude that “a part at least of the heat now existing in the superficial crust of our globe is due to superficial and not to central causes” (“Experimental researches on the conductive powers of various substances, with the application of the results to the problem of terrestrial temperature”, Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London, cxlvii (1857), 805–49, p. 836) — a result that might have led him to dispute the basis of Kelvin's estimate. Neither Hopkins nor Kelvin suspected the existence of radioactivity as a source of heat in the Earth's crust, but Hopkins detected it indirectly. Darwin had consulted Hopkins on a geological problem in the 1840s; see Schwartz Joel S. , “Three unpublished letters to Charles Darwin: The solution to a ‘geometricogeological’ problem”, Annals of science, xxxvii (1980), 631–7. He was also (as Thomson Keith Stewart , “Natural science in the 1830s: The link from Newton to Darwin”, American scientist, lxxiv (1986), 397–9, has recently pointed out) aware of the need for demonstrating the existence of an adequate cause for evolution, yet his arguments seemed unconvincing to many nineteenth century scientists.

Kelvin , “On mechanical antecedents of motion, heat, and light”, Edinburgh new philosophical journal, i (1855), 90–97.

Kelvin , “On the sun's heat”, Good words, (March and April 1887), reprinted in Kelvin's Popular lectures (ref. 17), i, 369–429, p. 422.

Kelvin , “Of geological dynamics”, Transactions of the Geological Society of Glasgow, iii (1871), 215–38, reprinted in his Popular lectures (ref. 17), ii, 73–131, p. 77.

Kelvin , “On the formation of concrete matter from atomic origins” (posthumously published), Philosophical magazine, series 6, xv (1908), 397–413; reprinted in Kelvin's Mathematical and physical papers (6 vols, Cambridge, 1911), v, 251. On theories of the Moon's origin proposed by Darwin G. H. and others see Brush S. G. , “Early history of selenogony”, in Origin of the Moon, ed. by Hartmann W. K. Phillips R. J. , and Taylor G. J. (Houston, Texas, 1986), 3–15.

Burchfield , Kelvin (ref. 19).

Darwin , Origin (ref. 16), 287.

Huxley T. H. , Science and Hebrew tradition (New York, 1894), 134.

Kelvin , “Geological dynamics” (ref. 106), quoted from Popular lectures (ref. 17), ii, 89–90.

Morris Henry M. , Men of science — men of God (San Diego, Calif., 1982).

Kelvin , “Presidential address” (ref. 17), quoted in Basalla G. (eds), Victorian science (Garden City, N.Y., 1970), 127.

Kelvin , “Presidential address” (ref. 17), lxxxiv; Basalla , Victorian science (ref. 113), 128. The Herschel source is cited above in ref. 17.

See Brush S. G. , “From bump to clump: Theories of the origin of the solar system 1900–1960”, in Space science comes of age: Perspectives in the history of the space sciences, ed. by Hanle Paul A. and Von del Chamberlain (Washington, D.C., 1981), 78–100.