New Directions for Scientific Biography: The Case of Sir William Dawson

Quoted in Edel Leon , Writing lives: Principia biographica (New York, 1984; 1st edn, 1959), 19.

Theerman Paul , “Unaccustomed role: The scientist as historical biographer — two nineteenth-century portrayals of Newton”, Biography, viii (1985), 145–62, esp. p. 147.

Outram Dorinda , “Scientific biography and the case of Georges Cuvier: With a critical bibliography”, History of science, xiv (1976), 101–37, esp. p. 113.

Oldroyd David , for example, counts 176 works that have made original contributions to the question of the origin of Darwin's theory (“How did Darwin arrive at his theory? The secondary literature to 1982”, History of science, xxii (1984), 325–74).

It seems to me, therefore, that Helge Kragh's argument about the “diminishing respectability of the biography” in the history of science has little foundation; see his Introduction to the historiography of science (Cambridge, 1987), 168.

One such study was produced a decade ago: Hankins Thomas L. , “In defence of biography: The use of biography in the history of science”, History of science, xvii (1979), 1–16.

As described in Edel , op. cit. (ref. 1), 25, 205 ff.

Woolf draws this distinction in her essay on “The new biography”, reprinted in Clifford James L. (ed.), Biography as an art: Selected criticism, 1560–1960 (London, 1962), 126–34.

For a fuller discussion see Edel , op. cit. (ref. 1), 36–58. Paul Murray Kendall's Art of biography (New York, 1965) traces the history of biography from antiquity to the present. Garraty's John A. Nature of biography (London, 1958; 1st edn, 1957) also contains a long section on the history of biography (pp. 41–129).

On the biographical conventions of the nineteenth century see Cockshut A. O. J. , Truth to life: The art of biography in the nineteenth century (New York, 1974) and Altick Richard D. , Lives and letters: A history of literary biography in England and America (New York, 1966).

Cockshut , op. cit. (ref. 10), 11.

Clifford James L. , From puzzles to portraits: Problems of a literary biographer (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1970), ch. 7. It is interesting, in light of this distinction and the purpose of my essay, that both Bowen and Stone have written biographies of scientists; respectively, Francis Bacon and Charles Darwin.

Holroyd Michael quotes Philip Guedalla in “Literary and historical biography”, in Friedson Anthony M. (ed.), New directions in biography (Honolulu, 1981), 12–25, p. 23.

Edel , op. cit. (ref. 1), 28 ff.

Edel , op. cit. (ref. 1), 30.

Edel , op. cit. (ref. 1), devotes a chapter to psychoanalysis, pp. 142–58. For a fuller discussion of this issue see Shore Miles F. , “Biography in the 1980s”, Journal of interdisciplinary history, xii (1981), 89–113.

Edel develops this notion of transference, op. cit. (ref. 1), 60 ff. Shore, op. cit. (ref. 16), also discusses the empathetic approach of the biographer, pp. 96–98.

Shore argues, therefore, that current psychoanalytic theories about narcissism are especially important for the biographer to grasp (op. cit. (ref. 16), 107–8).

Meyer Bernard C. , “Some reflections on the contribution of psychoanalysis to biography”, in Holt R. (ed.), Psychoanalysis and contemporary science, i (1972), 373–91, esp. p. 373; Kohut Thomas A. , “Psychohistory as history”, American historical review, xc (1986), 336–54, esp. p. 341.

Runyan William McKinley , Life histories and psychobiography: Explorations in theory and method (Oxford, 1982), 192; Shore , op. cit. (ref. 16), 96.

Runyan , op. cit. (ref. 20), 192 and ch. 10, 202 ff., addresses the question of evidence in psychobiography.

Meyer , op. cit. (ref. 19), 379.

Edel , op. cit. (ref. 1), 62–63.

Tuchman Barbara , “Biography as a prism of history”, Pachter Marc , Telling lives: The biographer's art (Washington, D.C., 1979), 133–47.

This point is reminiscent of Garraty, who argues that “within any framework, length should be proportionate to significance, though significance may be a matter of judgment” (op. cit. (ref. 9), 208).

Edel , op. cit. (ref. 1), 34–35, 98, 203. One outstanding example in the history of science, unknown to Edel, is McCormmach's Russell Night thoughts of a classical physicist (Cambridge, Mass., 1982).

Edel , op. cit. (ref. 1), 218.

Creighton D. G. , “Sir John Macdonald and Canadian historians”, in Approaches to Canadian history (Canadian historical readings, i; Toronto , 1967), 50–62, p. 52.

As mentioned in Hankins , op. cit. (ref. 6), 14.

See Maulitz's Russell review of John E. Lesch's Science and medicine in France, American historical review, xc (1985), 691.

Hankins , op. cit. (ref. 6), 2.

Lurie Edward , Louis Agassiz: A life in science (Chicago, 1966; 1st edn, 1960), p. ix.

This approach is followed in two biographies of Albert Einstein: Clark Ronald W. , Einstein: The life and times (New York, 1972; 1st edn, 1971) and Pais Abraham , ‘Subtle is the lord …’: The science and the life of Albert Einstein (Oxford, 1983; 1st edn, 1982).

Crosland Maurice , Gay-Lussac: Scientist and bourgeois (Cambridge, 1978), p. xi. For example, see Dupree A. Hunter , Asa Gray: 1810–1888 (New York, 1968; 1st edn, 1959) and Heilbron J. L. , H. G. J. Moseley: The life and letters of an English physicist, 1887–1915 (Berkeley, 1974).

Hankins , op. cit. (ref. 6), 8.

Sulloway Frank J. , Freud, biologist of the mind: Beyond the psychoanalytic legend (New York, 1979); Westfall Richard S. , Never at rest: A biography of Isaac Newton (Cambridge, 1980).

Thomas Clara , for example, suggests that literary biographers seek to illuminate an individual's “exfoliating talents”, which equally well describes the task of the scientific biographer. “Biography” in Literary history of Canada: Canadian literature in English , ii, Klinck Carl F. (gen. ed.) (Toronto, 1976; 1st edn, 1965), 180–203, p. 182.

Veninga James F. (ed.), The biographer's gift: Life histories and humanism (College Station, Texas, 1983), 4.

Hankins , op. cit. (ref. 6), 11.

Dawson William Sir , Fifty years of work in Canada: Scientific and educational (London, 1901). Contemporary biographical sketches include Ami H. M. , “Sir William Dawson: A brief biographical sketch”, The American geologist, xxvi (1900), 1–57 (bibliography, pp. 19–57); Adams F. D. , “Memoir of Sir J. William Dawson”, Bulletin of the Geological Society of America, xi (1899), 550–80 (bibliography, pp. 557–80); “John William Dawson”, The Canadian biographical dictionary, 28–32.

O'Brien Charles F. , Sir William Dawson: A life in science and religion (Philadelphia, 1971), 181. Other recent evaluations of Dawson's work include Collard E. A. , “Lyell and Dawson: A centenary”, Dalhousie review, xxii (1942), 133–44; William R. Shea's introduction to a reprint of Dawson's Modern ideas of evolution (New York, 1977), pp. vii–xxv; and Cornell John F. , “From creation to evolution: Dawson and the idea of design in the nineteenth century”, Journal of the history of biology, xvi (1983), 137–70.

Frost Stanley , McGill University for the Advancement of Learning, i: 1801–1895 (Montreal, 1980); Gillett Margaret , She walked very warily (Montreal, 1981); and Zaslow Morris , Reading the rocks (Ottawa, 1975). Also see Pighetti Clelia , “William Dawson and scientific education”, Dalhousie review, lx (1980–81), 622–33.

Berger Carl , Science, God, and nature in Victorian Canada (Toronto, 1983); McKillop A. B. , A disciplined intelligence: Critical enquiry and Canadian thought in the Victorian era (Montreal, 1979); Zeller Suzanne , Inventing Canada: Early Victorian science and the idea of a transcontinental nation (Toronto, 1987).

McGill Archives now possesses a complete computerized inventory to the Dawson papers, including those of John William Dawson, which is organized both by date and by name of correspondent. I have recently completed an index to nearly 6000 items of Dawson's scientific correspondence, which includes subjects and proper names (BSHS Monograph 7, Index to the scientific correspondence of John William Dawson (in press)).

As Edel suggests, op. cit. (ref. 1), 153.

Gay Peter , Freud for historians (New York, 1985), 150. This is what Meyer calls “reductionalism”, and its attendant parochial limitations (op. cit. (ref. 19), 374).

Shore , op. cit. (ref. 16), 102–5, 98, 109.

Kohut , op. cit. (ref. 19), 342.

Meyer explores the role of the memento mori in artistic productivity (op. cit. (ref. 19), 383 ff.)

Whitelaw Marjory , Thomas McCulloch: His life and times (Halifax, 1985), 36.

Garraty From , op. cit. (ref. 9), quoted in Hankins, op. cit. (ref. 6), 11.

Hankins , op. cit. (ref. 6), 11.

O'Brien , op. cit. (ref. 41), 2.

See this claim in Dawson , op. cit. (ref. 40), 144.

For example, Solem Allen and Yochelson Ellis L. , “North American palaeozoic land snails, with a summary of other palaeozoic nonmarine snails”, U.S. Department of the Interior: Geological Survey professional paper, no. 1072 (1979), 1–42. Hueber F. M. , “Psilophton: The genus and the concept”, International symposium on the Devonian system, ii (1967), 815–22.