See, for example, YeoRichard, “Reading encyclopedias: Science and the organization of knowledge in British dictionaries of arts and sciences”, Isis, lxxxii (1991), 24–49.
2.
For an annotated bibliography of these histories, see LaudanRachel, An annotated bibliography of histories of science to 1913 (New York, forthcoming). The following have written brief overviews of the historiography of science prior to 1914: SartonGeorge, The study of the history of science and The study of the history of mathematics (1936; 2nd edn, 2 vols in 1, New York, 1957); GuerlacHenry, “The landmarks of the literature”, Times literary supplement, 26 April 1974, 449–50; ThackrayArnold, “History of science”, in DurbinPaul (ed.), A guide to the culture of science, technology and medicine (New York, 1980), 7–18; KnightDavid, Sources for the history of science 1660–1914 (Ithaca, New York, 1975), 41–66; KraghHelge, An introduction to the historiography of science (Cambridge, 1987), ch. 1; and ChristieJohn, “The development of the historiography of science”, in OlbyR. C. (eds), Companion to the history of modern science (London, 1990), 5–22. Dietrich von Engelhardt includes discussion of history of science in his Historisches Bewusstsein in der Naturwissenschaften (Freiburg, 1979). A number of historiographical articles are collected together in GrahamLorenLepeniesWolfWeingartPeter (eds), Functions and uses of disciplinary histories (Sociology of the sciences year book 7; Boston and Dordrecht, 1974). Sarton'sGeorgeHorus: A guide to the history of science (New York, 1952) offers a highly selective bibliography of the history of science that systematically under-represents significant late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century histories, particularly those that do not hew to a positivist line. Standard early twentieth-century bibliographies of specific disciplines are a much better bibliographic source: See, for example, LoriaGino, Guida alla studio della storia delle matematiche (Milan, 1916); MillerG. A., Historical introduction to mathematical literature (New York, 1921); HouzeauJ. C.LancasterA., Bibliographie générale de l'astronomie (2 vols, Brussels, 1880–82); BoltonHenry Carrington, A select bibliography of chemistry, 1492–1892 (Washington, D.C., 1893); JunkWilhelm, Bibliographica botanica (Berlin, 1909).
3.
The standard works on the idea of progress pay scant attention to progress in science in spite of the fact that many, if not most, of the prophets of progress saw science and technology as its main exemplar. See BuryJ. B., The idea of progress (New York, 1932); van DorenCharles, The idea of progress (New York, 1967); PollardSidney, The idea of progress: History and society (London, 1968); NisbetRobert, History of the idea of progress (New York, 1980), and LaschChristopher, The true and only heaven (New York, 1991). ZilselEdgar, “The genesis of the idea of scientific progress”, Journal of the history of ideas, vi (1945), 325–49 argues that the idea of scientific progress began with Renaissance artisans. There may be something to this thesis (although KellerA. C., “Zilsel, the artisans, and the idea of progress in the Renaissance”, Journal of the history of ideas, xi (1950), 235–40 argues that it also appeared in scholarly works). What is quite clear is that Renaissance artisans had no perceptible influence on the histories of science discussed in this paper. BowlerPeter, The invention of progress: The Victorians and the past (Oxford, 1989) traces ideas of progress in many different intellectual realms but does not discuss scientific progress per se.
4.
The major histories of philosophy treat different topics from histories of science, emphasize different aspects of the same thinker's work, and are only rarely referred to by historians of science. For a survey of the rich historiography of philosophy and a chronology of over a hundred and fifty of the major histories of philosophy between the Renaissance and the early nineteenth century, see BraunLucien, Histoire de l'histoire de la philosophie (Paris, 1973).
5.
To the extent that histories of medicine overlap with histories of science it is in the fields of physiology and anatomy; see ArteltWalter, Einführung in die Medizinhistorik (Stuttgart, 1949). Histories of technology make contact in chronologies of ‘discoveries’ which often include both scientific and technical discoveries and in the histories of mechanics and to a lesser extent electricity. There is no good survey of early histories of technology.
6.
For a more detailed treatment, see LaudanRachel, Arguing the case for science: Histories of scientific progress 1750–1960 (Chicago, forthcoming).
7.
Aristotle, Topics, Book 2.
8.
In the first century A.D. Geminus included passing references to history in his lost work on mathematics. For an overview of the history of mathematics, see StruikDirk J., “The historiography of mathematics from Proclus to Cantor”, NTM Schriftenreihe für Geschichte der Naturwissenschaften, Technik und Medizin, xvii (1980), 1–22.
9.
al-AndalusiSälid, trans. and ed. by SalemS. I.KumarAlok, Science in the medieval world: Book of the categories of nations (Austin, 1991).
10.
Scholarship was so active that Montucla could recommend to his readers a bibliography of the editions of Euclid, for example: BoseG. M., Schediasma literarium quo contenta elementorum Euclidis enunciat simul de variis horum editionibus (Leipzig, 1734). For mathematics, there were chronologies by Gerard Vossius, in his De universae mathesios (Amsterdam, 1650) and by HeilbronnerJohann, Historia matheseos (Leipzig, 1742) and for astronomy by WeidlerJohann, Historia astronomiae (Wittenberg, 1741).
11.
William Ashworth points out the historical dimensions of science in the seventeenth century in “The sense of the past in English scientific thought of the early seventeenth century: The impact of the historical revolution” (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1975). JoyLynn, Gassendi the atomist: Advocate of history in an age of science (Cambridge, 1987) stresses the interpenetration of Gassendi's historical and scientific research.
12.
Brief excerpts of 365 of these biographies were published in 1707 as Chronica de' mathematici. See RoseP. L., The Italian Renaissance of mathematics: Studies on humanists and mathematicians from Petrarch to Galileo (Geneva, 1975) and SegreMichael, “Viviani's life of Galileo”, Isis, lxxx (1989), 207–31.
13.
SpratThomas, The history of the Royal Society of London (London, 1667). WoodPaul, “Methodology and apologetics: Thomas Sprat's History of the Royal Society”, The British journal for the history of science, iii (1980), 1–26 discusses the functions of Sprat's history. See also de FontenelleBernard Bovier, Histoire de l'Académie Royale des Sciences i: Depuis son establissemenl en 1666, jusqu'à 1686 (Paris, 1733) and subsequent volumes.
14.
CassiniJ., “De l'origine et du progrès de l'astronomie, et de son usage dans la géographie et dans la navigation”, Recueils d'observations faites en plusieurs voyages (Paris, 1693).
15.
BlancanusJ., Aristoteles loca mathematica (Bologna, 1615).
16.
Alan Debus has written extensively on chemical historiography; a useful bibliography of his work is included in his Science and history: A chemist's appraisal (Coimbra, Portugal, 1984). See also WeyerJost, Chemiegeschichtsschreibung von Wiegleb (1790) bis Partington (1970): Eine Untersuchung über ihre Methoden, Prinzipien und Ziele (Arbor Seientiarum: Beitrage zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte, Reihe A: Abhandlungen, iii; Hildesheim, 1974) and StrubeW., Die Chemie und ihre Geschichte (Berlin, 1974). See also BerettaMarco, “Chimica e storia nel XVIII secolo”, in Atti del III Convegno Nazionale di Storia e Fondamenti dell Chimica (Cosenza, 1991), 73–82.
17.
DuvalRobert, De veritale et antiquitatae artis chemicae (Paris, 1561); ComingHermann, De Hermetica Aegyptiorum vetere et Paracelsicorum nova mediana (Helmstedt, 1648); BorrichiusOlaus, De ortu et progressu chemiae (Copenhagen, 1668).
18.
BoerhaaveHermann, A new method of chemistry; Including the history, theory, and practice of the art (London, 1727); see HannawayOwen, “The teaching of the history of chemistry in Scotland — Past lessons for the future”, in KaufmannGeorge B. (ed.), Teaching the history of chemistry (Budapest, 1971), 163–9.
19.
JardineNicholas, The birth of history and philosophy of science: Kepler's ‘A Defence of Tycho against Ursus’ (Cambridge, 1984) indicates that he has identified 20 such prefaces.
20.
de FontenelleB. B., Digression sur les anciens et les modernes (Paris, 1688). For a good summary of the debate, see LevineJoseph, “Ancients and moderns reconsidered”, Eighteenth-century studies, xv (1981), 72–89.
21.
PaulCharles B., Science and immortality: The éloges of the Paris Academy of Sciences (1699–1791) (Berkeley, 1980).
22.
TurgotA.-R.-J., Oeuvres (Paris, 1913–23), i, 219.
23.
Preliminary discourse to the Encyclopedia of Diderot, transl. by SchwabRichard N. (Indianapolis, 1963), 96.
24.
Encyclopédie, vii, 632. For further comments by d'Alembert, see vol. v, 169.
25.
MontuclaJean-Étienne, Histoire des mathématiques (Paris, 1758). Second enlarged edition with the third and fourth volumes completed by Lalande, 1799–1802, with help from the historically-inclined mathematician, Silvestre Lacroix.
26.
Montucla, Histoire des mathématiques (ref. 24), i, p. viii.
27.
Turgot to Du Pont de Nemours, 12 October 1765, Oeuvres (ref. 21), ii, 440; Lagrange, quoted in SartonGeorgeBeaujohnGuy, “Documents nouveaux concernant Lagrange'. Revue d'histoire des sciences, iii (1950), 110–32, p. 132.
28.
When writing disciplinary histories, scientists increasingly used the narrative form that Montucla had pioneered for the history of science. Chronologies, although persisting through the nineteenth century, faded into second place as mere propadeutics to historical narratives. Striking exceptions were the histories of science in the ambitiously-conceived, but traditionally executed series Geschichte der Künste und Wissenschaften organized by a “society of learned men” at Göttingen which formed part of the programme for universal history headed by the historians, J. C. Gatterer and A. L. Schölzer. Both the histories of mathematics and chemistry by KästnerAbraham, Geschichte der Mathematik (4 vols, Göttingen, 1796–1800) and GmelinJ. F., Geschichte der Chemie seit dem Wiederaufleben der Wissenschaften bis an das Ende des 18. Jahrhunderts (3 vols, Göttingen, 1797–99), as well as the histories of physics and technology by FischerJohann, Geschichte der Physik (8 vols, Göttingen, 1801–8) were little more than chronologies (though Johann Poppe's Geschichte der Technologie (3 vols, Göttingen, 1807) was rather more sophisticated). Another work in this genre was Wiegleb'sJ. C.Geschichte des Wachsthums und der Erfindungen in der Chemie in der neueren Zeit (2 vols, Berlin, 1790–91).
29.
essayAdam Smith's, “The principles which lead and direct philosophical enquiries; Illustrated by the history of astronomy”, was published posthumously in his Essays on philosophical subjects (London, 1795).
30.
BossutCharles, Essai sur l'histoire générale des mathématiques (2 vols, Paris, 1802–10).
31.
ChaslesMichel, Aperçu historique sur l'origine et le developpement des methodes en géometrie (Brussels, 1837), and a later attempt to reconstruct lost books of Euclid in his Les trois livres des porismes d'Euclide (Paris, 1860).
32.
NesselmannG. H., Die algebra der Griechen (Berlin, 1842) concentrated on Diophantus and is notable for its extensive annotated bibliography of earlier histories of mathematics. His countryman Johann Poppe wrote a Geschichte der Mathematik seit der ältesten bis auf die neueste Zeit (Tübingen, 1828).
33.
CossaliPietro, Origine, trasporto in Italia, primi progressi in essa dell'algebra (2 vols, Parma, 1797–99) and LibriGillaume, Histoire des sciences mathématiques en Italie (4 vols, Paris, 1838–41).
34.
BaillyJean, Histoire de l'astronomie ancienne (Paris, 1775), and Histoire de l'astronomie moderne (3 vols, Paris, 1779–82). DelambreJ.-B. J., Histoire de l'astronomie ancienne (2 vols, Paris, 1817), Histoire de l'astronomie du moyen age (Paris, 1819), Histoire de l'astronomie moderne (2 vols, Paris, 1821), and Histoire de l'astronomie au dix-huitième siècle (Paris, 1827).
35.
IdelerL., Historische Untersuchungen über die astronomischen Beobachtungen der Alten (Berlin, 1806). He also wrote the classic work on chronology, his Handbuch der mathematischen und technischen Chronologie (2 vols, Berlin, 1825–26).
36.
LaplacePierre Simon, Exposition du système du monde, 5th edition, revised and augmented (Paris, 1824).
37.
Jacobus Paulin's Dissertatio gradualis de primordiis chemia and Pehr Afzelius's Historia chemiae medium seu obscuram aevum, a media seculi VII ad medium seculi XVII were published, as was customary with dissertations, in Bergman's collected works ed. by HebenstreitG., Opuscula physica et chemica, iv (Leipzig 1787), 1–84 and 85–141. Wiegleb, Geschichte (ref. 27) translated both these, as a third volume (1792) with a slightly different title: Geschichte … in der Chemie in der ältesten und mittleren Zeit (Berlin, 1792). The latter described alchemy as a necessary stage in the progress of chemistry because of its contribution to the development of empirical methods, and Wiegleb built on it for his own history of chemistry.
38.
TrommsdorfJ. B., Versuch zu einer allgemeinen Geschichte der Chemie (Erfurt, 1806).
39.
ThomsonThomas, A system of chemistry (3rd edn, 3 vols, Edinburgh, 1807) and The history of chemistry (2 vols, London, 1830–31). A distinct Scottish school of history of chemistry developed. Thomson's successor in the Chair of Chemistry at Glasgow, James Ferguson, was a major bibliographer of the history of chemistry.
40.
See DaubenyCharles, An introduction to the atomic theory comprising a sketch of the opinions entertained by the most distinguished ancient and modern philosophers with respect to the constitution of matter (Oxford, 1831).
41.
The English version of his history, originally read before the Royal Society of Stockholm in 1810 was BerzeliusJacob, A view of the progress and present state of animal chemistry (London, 1813); BarclayJohn, An inquiry into the opinions, ancient and modern, concerning life and organization (Edinburgh, 1822).
42.
DumasJ.-B., Leçons sur la philosophie chimique (Paris, 1837).
43.
LibesAntoine, Histoire philosophique des progrès de la physique (4 vols, Paris, 1810–13). SprengelKurt, Geschichte der Botanik (2 vols, Altenberg, 1817–18); von SpixJohann Baptist, Geschichte und Beurtheilung aller Systeme in der Zoologie nach ihrer Entwicklungsfolge von Aristoteles bis auf die gegenwärtige Zeit (Nuremberg, 1811). For the historiography of optics, see CantorGeoffrey, “The historiography of Georgian optics”, History of science, xvi (1978), 1–21.
44.
HoffmannFriedrich, Geschichte der Geognosie (Berlin, 1838); LyellCharles, Principles of geology (3 vols, London, 1830–33), i, chs 2–4; see also PorterRoy, “Charles Lyell and the principles of the history of geology”, British journal for the history of science, ix (1976), 91–103, OspovatAlexander, “The distortion of Werner in Lyell's Principles of Geology”, The British journal for the history of science, ix (1976), 190–8, and Rachel Laudan, “Redefinitions of a discipline: Histories of geology and geological history”, in GrahamLepeniesWeingart (eds), Functions (ref. 2), 79–104. Lyell drew extensively on Giovanni Brocchi's historical introduction to his Conchologia fossile subapennina (Milan, 1814); see also McCartneyPaul J., “Charles Lyell and G. B. Brocchi: A study in comparative historiography”, The British journal for the history of science, ix (1976), 175–89.
45.
CuvierGeorges, Histoire des sciences naturelles (5 vols, Paris, 1841–45). Cuvier gave the lectures at the Collège de France in the 1830s and they were published posthumously.
46.
Of much less importance was Baden Powell's popular survey, An historical view of the progress of the physical and mathematical sciences (London, 1834), in the Cabinet cyclopedia series.
47.
PriestleyJoseph, The history and present state of electricity (London, 1767) and The history and present state of discoveries relating to vision, light, and colours (London, 1772). See McEvoyJohn, “Electricity, knowledge, and the nature of progress in Priestley's thought”, The British journal for the history of science, xii (1979), 1–30, who suggests, inter alla, that Priestley used his history to reinforce the point that all men are epistemologically equal, and BazermanCharles, “How natural philosophers can cooperate: The literary technology of coordinated investigation in Joseph Priestley's History and present slate of electricity”, in BazermanCharlesParadisJames (eds), Textual dynamics of the professions: Historical and contemporary studies on writing in professional communities (Madison, Wisconsin, 1991), 13–44.
48.
CuvierGeorges, Rapport historique sur les progrès des sciences naturelles depuis 1789 (Paris, 1810); DelambreJ.-B., Rapport historique sur les progrès des sciences mathématiques depuis 1789 (Paris, 1810). The newly-founded British Association for the Advancement of Science soon embarked on its own series of literature reviews: See MorrellJ.ThackrayA., Gentlemen of science (Oxford, 1981), 474–9.
49.
See HeilbronJohn, “Franklin, Haller and Franklinist history”, Isis, lxviii (1977), 539–49.
50.
HumeDavid, “Of the rise and progress of the arts and sciences”, Essays, moral and political, ii (Edinburgh, 1741, frequently reprinted) was one of the many who tried to take the broad view of the preconditions for progress.
51.
LeGentilG., “Remarques et observations sur l'astronomie des Indiens et sur l'ancienneté de cette astronomie”, Mémoires de l'Académie Royale des Sciences, 1772, 469–501.
52.
BaillyJean-Sylvain, Traité de l'astronomie Indienne et Orientale (Paris, 1787); Lettres sur l'origine des sciences (Paris, 1775). For a general discussion of orientalism, see SchwabRaymond, The Oriental Renaissance: Europe's rediscovery of India and the East, 1680–1880, translated by Patterson-BlackGeneReinkingVictor from the 1950 French edition (New York, 1984). Schwab has much more to say about science than SaidEdward, Orientalism (New York, 1979) even though the latter is indebted to him in many respects.
53.
Montucla, for example added material on non-European science to his second edition.
54.
PlayfairJohn, “Remarks on the astronomy of the Brahmins”, Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, ii (1790), 135–92.
55.
Henry Colebrooke's most important work on the topic was Algebra, with arithmetic and mensuration, from the Sanscrit of Brahmagupta and Bháscara (London, 1817). Friedrich Buchner based his De algebra Indorum (Elbing, 1821) on Colebrooke's work. See also Bhascara Acharay, Lilavati, transl. by TaylorJ. (Bombay, 1816).
56.
BentleyJohn, A historical view of the Hindu astronomy (London, 1825).
57.
For a brief discussion of this, see LaudanRachel, “Georges Cuvier on the oriental origins of science”, Nineteenth-century French studies, xvii (1988), 19–29.
58.
Jean-Baptiste Biot published key documents in the discussion of Chinese and Indian astronomy in his Études sur l'astronomie indienne et sur l'astronomie chinoise (Paris, 1862). EppingJoseph (with StrassmeierP. J. N.), “Zur Entziffernung der astronomischen Tafeln der Chaldäer”, Stimmen aus Maria Laach, 1881, 419–608, reprinted as Astronomisches aus Babylon (Freiburg im Breisgau, 1889), and an update by JensenP., Die Kosmologie der Babylonier (Strassburg, 1890). Strassmeier's transcriptions passed to Franz Kugler who published his Die babylonische Mondrechnung (Freiburg im Breisgau, 1900). See also HilprechtH. V., Mathematical, metrological and chronological tablets from the Temple Library of Nippur (Philadelphia, 1906). For Egyptian science, the key document was the mathematical papyrus obtained in 1858 by the Scottish Egyptologist, Henry Rhind: EisenlohrAugust, Ein mathematisches Handbuch der alten Ägypter (2 vols, Leipzig, 1877), GriffithF. L., “The Rhind Mathematical Papyrus”, Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archaeology, xiii (1891), 328ff; xiv (1892), 26ff; xvi (1894), 164ff, 201ff, 230ff, and HultschFriedrich, Die Elemente der ägyptischen Theilungsrechnung (Leipzig, 1895). For Japanese mathematics, see SmithDavid EugeneMikamiYoshio, A history of Japanese mathematics (Chicago, 1914).
59.
ComteAuguste, Cours de philosophie positive (6 vols, Paris, 1830–42); I quote from Harriet Martineau's translation and condensation, The positive philosophy of Auguste Comte (Chicago, 1854), 25.
60.
See CanguilhemGeorges, “Histoire des religions et histoire des sciences dans la théorie du fétichisme chez Auguste Comte”, in his Études d'histoire et de philosophie des sciences, 5th edn (Paris, 1983), 81–98, pp. 89–90.
61.
Martineau, Positive philosophy (ref. 58), 36.
62.
Recently there has been a flurry of interest in Whewell. Menachem Fisch argues that Whewell embarked on his history to see whether in fact scientific knowledge results from conceptual innovations rather than the mere accumulation of facts: William Whewell: Philosopher of science (Oxford, 1991), 110. See also CantorGeoffrey, “Between rationalism and romanticism: Whewell's historiography of the inductive sciences”, as well as the other papers in FischMenachemSchafferSimon (eds), William Whewell: A composite portrait (Oxford, 1991).
63.
WhewellWilliam, History of the inductive sciences (3 vols, London, 1837; reprint of 3rd 1857 edn, London, 1967), 3–4; Philosophy of the inductive sciences (3 vols, London, 1840).
64.
On 23 September 1822, Whewell wrote to his friend the economist, JonesRichard, “I still meditate doing something about the History of the Metaphysics of Mechanics, though as yet it is only intention. Something like Smith's History of Astronomy, but with more historical facts”. TodhunterIsaac (ed.), William Whewell, D.D. An account of his writings with selections from his literary and scientific correspondence (London, 1876).
65.
Whewell, History (ref. 62), 6.
66.
It was, for example, the chief source for Arabella Buckley, for many years secretary to Charles Lyell, when she wrote A short history of natural science and of the progress of discovery (London, 1875) to teach schoolchildren scientific concepts and to demonstrate the nobility of striving after truth.
67.
For a more detailed discussion of this, see LaudanRachel, From mineralogy to geology: The foundations of a science, 1650–1830 (Chicago, 1987), 104–7.
68.
George Lewes, for example, wrote on Aristotle: A chapter from the history of science, including analyses of Aristotle's scientific writing (London, 1864).
69.
Following Cousin's lead, Francisque Bouillier, for example, published his Histoire et critique de la révolution Cartésienne (Lyon, 1842) in which he praised Descartes's scientific method and expounded his physics.
70.
BuckleHenry, while basing his History of civilization in England (London, 1857–61) with its lengthy sections on history of science on Comte's dictum that the historical method would be appropriate for the social sciences, was nonetheless coy about the extent of his debt to Comte.
71.
In preparation for a full-length history of this kind, Ludwig Darmstädter and René Du Bois-Reymond put together a chronological list of inventions and discoveries, 4000 Jahre Pionier-Arbeit in den exakten Wissenschaften (Berlin, 1904).
72.
SpencerHerbert, “The genesis of science”, Essays: Scientific, political and speculative (3 vols, London, 1868–75), i, 116–93.
73.
GaltonFrancis, English men of science: Their nature and nurture (London, 1874). See MertonRobert, The sociology of science: An episodic memoir (Carbondale, Ill., 1977), 27–36.
74.
RebièreAlfonse, Les femmes dans la science (Paris, 1894). Later Father Zahm of Notre Dame argued a similar case under the pen name of MozansH. J., Women in science (New York, 1913).
75.
For a bibliography of writings on the Galileo case, see CarliA.FavaroA., Bibliografia galileiana 1568–1895 (Rome, 1896).
76.
DraperJohn, History of the conflict between religion and science (New York, 1875); Draper's call was picked up by the positivist LittréEmil, “Science et religion”, La philosophie positive, xix (1877–8), 334–5; xx, 40–56, and by John Tyndall in his presidential address to the British Association. Otto Zöckler, professor of theology at Greifswald, responded on behalf of the ChurchCatholic, Geschichte der Beziehungen zwischen Theologie und Naturwissenschaft (2 vols, Gütersloh, 1877–79).
77.
WhiteAndrew Dickson, A history of the warfare of science with theology in Christendom (2 vols, New York, 1896). James Walsh responded stressing the positive role of the Catholic Church in mediaeval medicine, The popes and science: The history of Papal relations to science during the Middle Ages and down to our own time (New York, 1908).
78.
For an analysis of this school, see NyeMary Jo, “The moral freedom of man and the determinism of nature: The Catholic synthesis of science and history in the Revue des questions scientifiques”, The British journal for the history of science, ix (1976), 274–92. MansionPaul, “Notes sur le caractère géométrique de l'ancienne astronomie”, Abhandlungen zur Geschichte der Mathematik, ix (1899), 275–92; ThirionJulien, L'évolution de l'astronomie chez les Grecs (Brussels, 1900) stressed the achievements of Eudoxus, Aristotle, and Ptolemy.
79.
DuhemPierre, : Essai sur le notion de théorie physique de Platon à Galilée (Paris, 1908). See also MartinNiall, “The genesis of a mediaeval historian”, Annals of science, xxxiii (1976), 119–29 who suggests that while Duhem did not turn to history of science to support his Catholicism, he found that there was no conflict. TanneryPaul, Pour l'histoire de la science hellène (Paris, 1887); La géométrie grecque (Paris, 1887); Recherches sur l'histoire de l'astronomie ancienne (Paris, 1893). Most of Tannery's works first appeared as articles and these were collected in his Mémoires scientifiques (17 vols, Paris, 1912–50).
80.
These became commoner as the century progressed. Collective literature reviews also persisted. In 1867, for example, the French Minister of Education in the Third Republic commissioned a series: DelaunayC., Rapport sur les progrès de l'astronomie en France (Paris, 1867); BertinM., Rapport sur le progrès de la thermodynamique en France (Paris, 1867); BernardClaude, Rapport sur les progrès et la marche de la physiologie générale en France (Paris, 1867); Milne-EdwardsHenri, Rapport sur les progrès récents des sciences zoologiques en France (Paris, 1867).
81.
Some used it to elicit the methods used by scientists; more often they used it to demonstrate the moral probity of the scientific community. As an example of the first, see MarieMaximilian, Histoire des sciences mathématiques et physiques (12 vols, Paris, 1883–88) which consists almost entirely of brief biographies of scientists; a nice example of the second is Matthew Pattison Muir's Heroes of science, chemists (London, 1883) which was published by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.
82.
Examples of works that attempted to keep up with new developments are Albert Ladenburg, Vorträge über die Entwicklungsgeschichte der Chemie in den letzten hundert Jahren (Brunswick, 1869); SchorlemmerCarl, The rise and development of organic chemistry (London, 1879); FreundIda, The study of chemical composition (Cambridge, 1904).
83.
This is most explicit in the introduction to Berthelot's Histoire des sciences. La chimie au Moyen Age (3 vols, Paris, 1893). See also his Collection des anciens alchimistes Grecs (3 vols, Paris, 1887–88); Introduction à l'étude de la chimie des anciens et du Moyen Âge (Paris, 1889). Berthelot claimed priority, only reluctantly acknowledging the pioneering work of Kopp and Hoefer.
84.
BerthelotP. E. Marcellin, La revolution chimique — Lavoisier: Ouvrage suivi de notices et extraits des registres inédits de laboratoire de Lavoisier (Paris, 1890). See also Bensaude-VincentBernadette, “Un mythologie révolutionnaire dans la chimie française”, Annals of science, xxxx (1983), 189–96.
85.
Adolphe Wurtz had already declared chemistry a French science in the historical introduction to his Dictionnaire de chimie pure et appliquée (3 vols in 5, Paris, 1868–78) for which he was attacked by many Germans, e.g., RauAlbrecht, Die Theorien der modernen Chemie (3 parts, Brunswick, 1877–84). JagnauxLater RaoulJagnauxLater Raoul, Histoire de la chimie (2 vols, Paris, 1891), reiterated Wurtz's assertion. Nineteenth-century nationalism threw into new prominence the question of the relation between scientific progress and national character, which had been lurking since the seventeenth century and John Wallis's Treatise of algebra, both historical and practical (Oxford, 1685) with its strident claims for the priority of the Englishman John Hariot over the Continental mathematician, Viète. Even so good a historian as Michel Chasles allowed national pride to swamp his critical abilities when a canny forger gulled him with manuscripts that purportedly showed that Pascal, not Newton had discovered the principle of gravitation, and the Académie Royale became embroiled in the subsequent debates. See FarrarJ. A., Literary forgeries (London, 1907), ch. 12. The Franco-Prussian War and the First World War only exacerbated nationalism in science.
86.
The most important were KoppHermann, Geschichte der Chemie (4 vols, Brunswick, 1843–47), Beiträge zur Geschichte der Chemie (Brunswick, 1869–75), Die Alchemie in alterer und neuerer Zeit (2 vols, Heidelberg, 1886) and Die Entwicklung der Chemie in der neueren Zeit (Munich, 1873). The latter was one of the series Geschichte der Wissenschaften in Deutschland, one of the editorial projects generated by the famous historian Leopold von Ranke. RockeAlan, “‘Between two stools:’ Kopp, Kolbe, and the history of chemistry”, Bulletin of the history of chemistry, xii (1990), 19–24 makes a good case for the influence of Ranke's historiography on Kopp. See also RuskaJ., “Hermann Kopp, historian of chemistry”, Journal of chemical education, xiv (1937), 3–12. However the twenty-volume series, which included all the subjects denominated by the German term “Wissenschaft” appeared over too many years and was authored by too many individuals to have a clear historiographic stamp.
87.
HoeferJean, Histoire de la chemie depuis les temps les plus reculés jusqu'à notre époque (Paris, 1842–43). Hoefer, who had studied with Ampère and Thenard, hoped to write a general history of science as Whewell had done. He went on to write a series of histories of science for the series Histoire universelle, though none of the quality of his first work: Histoire de la physique et de la chimie (Paris, 1872); Histoire de la botanique, de la minéralogie et de la géologie (Paris, 1872); Histoire de l'astronomie (Paris, 1873); Histoire des mathématiques (Paris, 1874), and Histoire de la zoologie (Paris, 1870).
88.
For example, Ernst von Meyer, the organic chemist, wrote a Geschichte der Chemie von den ältesten Zeiten bis zur Gegenwart (Leipzig, 1889), and PictonHarold, The story of chemistry (London, 1889); Edward Thorpe, Director of the British Government Laboratories, wrote a History of chemistry (2 vols, London, 1909–10); William Tilden based his A short history of the progress of scientific chemistry in our own lime (London, 1899) on his “Lectures to Working Men” given at the Royal College of Science; Francis Armitage based his history on Kopp, Hoefer and Meyer, and aimed to teach the scientific method, A history of chemistry (London, 1906).
89.
The outstanding work here is Kurd Lasswitz's Geschichte der Atomistik vom Mittelalter bis Newton (2 vols, Hamburg, 1890) which was based on a series of articles that Lasswitz had been publishing since the 1870s, though there were numerous articles and theses by other authors of which Hugo Liepmann's Die Mechanik der Leucipp-Democritischen Atome (Berlin, 1886) and Goldbeck'sErnst“Galileo's Atomistick und ihre Quellen”, Bibliotheca Mathemalica, iii (1902), 84–112 are but samples.
90.
notablyMostRoscoeHenryHardenA., A new view of the origin of Dalton's atomic theory (London, 1896).
91.
Adolphe Wurtz defended atomism against Berthelot's criticisms in La Theorie atomique (Paris, 1879). Leopold Mabilleau, professor of philosophy at Caen, gave an extended argument for atomism in his Histoire de la philosophie atomistique (Paris, 1895). Hermann Kolbe described how he had developed his own ideas and attacked Kekulé's theories in his Zur Entwicklungsgeschichte der theoretischen Chemie (Leipzig, 1881). Wilhelm Ostwald criticized atomism in his Electrochemie: Ihre Geschichte und Lehre (Leipzig, 1896). Interestingly Mach claimed to have learnt how important ideas were in science from Whewell.
92.
OstwaldW., Leitlinien der Chemie: Sieben gemeinverständliche Vorträge aus der Geschichte der Chemie (Leipzig, 1906); Grosse Männer: Studien zur Biologie des Genius (Leipzig, 1909); Auguste Comte: Der Mann und sein Werke (Leipzig, 1914); and Klassiker der Wissenschaften (Leipzig, 1889–).
93.
HelmGeorg, Die Energetik nach ihrer geschichtlichen Entwicklung (Leipzig, 1898).
94.
Mathematical journals, such as the Archiv der Mathematik und Physik and the Zeitschrift für Mathematik und Physik, had taken historical articles since mid-century, and from 1871 they also appeared in the Jahrbuch für die Fortschritte der Mathematik. Increasingly however, historians of the mathematical sciences published in specialist journals such as the Bulletino di bibliografia e di storia delle scienze matematiche e fisiche (1868–87), financed and edited by the independently wealthy mathematician, Baldassarre Boncompagni, the Abhandlungen zur Geschichte der Mathematik (1877–), edited by CantorMoritz, and the Bibliotheca Mathematica (1884–1915), edited by the Swedish librarian and historian of mathematics, Gustav Eneström.
95.
The sorry state of English scholarship in the history of mathematics was lamented by the classicist, James Gow in his Short history of Greek mathematics (Cambridge, 1884) who pointed out how ironic this was in the only country that still used Euclid as a text.
96.
LoriaGino, Le scienze esatte nell'antica Grecia, 2nd edn (Milan, 1914); and II periodo aureo della geomelria greca (Turin, 1890) which included studies of Euclid, Archimedes, Eratosthenes and others; and a series of works by the Danish mathematician Hieronymus Zeuthen, most notably the Forelaesning over mathematikens historié (Copenhagen, 1893) translated as Geschichte der Mathematik im Altertum und im Mittelalter (Copenhagen, 1896).
97.
BretschneiderC. A. chided earlier historians for uncritically following Montucla and gave extensive parallel Greek/German extracts of texts in his Die Geometrie und die Geometer vor Euklides (Leibzig, 1870); the Danish philologist, HeibergJ. L., concentrated on editing texts, particularly of Archimedes, in works such as “Neue Studien zu Archimedes”, Abhandlungen zur Geschichte der Mathematik, v (1890), 3–84 and Naturwissenschaften und Mathematik in klassichen Altertum (Leipzig, 1912).
98.
CurtzeMaximilian, Der Algorismus Proportionum des Nicolaus Oresme (Berlin, 1868); Petri Philomeni de Dada (Copenhagen, 1897); and “Urkunden zur Geschichte der Mathematik im Mittelalter und der Renaissance”, Abhandlungen zur Geschichte der mathematischen Wissenschaften, xii (1902), 1–627.
99.
Arab mathematics was pursued most seriously by the orientalists Jean-Jacques and Louis P. E. A. Sédillot. See, for instance, SédillotL., Matériaux pour servir à l'histoire comparée des sciences mathématiques chez les Grecques et les Orientaux (2 vols, Paris, 1845–49). See also Franz Woepcke's editions of the algebras of Omar Khayyam (Paris, 1851) and Muhammad al-Karazi (Paris, 1853). For Jewish mathematics, see the leading Jewish bibliographer, SteinschneiderMoritz, Die hebräischen Übersetzungen des Mittelalters und die Juden als Dolmetscher (2 vols, Berlin, 1893).
100.
HankelHermann, Zur Geschichte der Mathematik in Alterthum und Mittelalter (Leipzig, 1874).
101.
BaltzerH. R., Theorie und Anwendung der Determinanten (Leipzig, 1857). For Augustus de Morgan, see RichardsJoan, “Augustus de Morgan, the history of mathematics, and the foundations of algebra”, Isis, lxxviii (1987), 7–30.
102.
See, for example, CajoriFlorian, The teaching and history of mathematics in the United States (Washington, D.C., 1890); BranfordBenchara, A study of mathematical education, including the teaching of arithmetic (Oxford, 1908); GebhardtMartin, Die Geschichte der Mathematik in mathematischen Unterrichte der höheren Schulen Deutschlands (Leipzig, 1912); and a whole series of essays on the history of mathematical education that appeared in the series Abhandlungen den mathematischen Unterricht in Deutschland, edited by the mathematician and educational reformer, Felix Klein.
103.
SuterHeinrich, Geschichte der mathematischen Wissenschaften (2 vols, Zurich, 1873–5); HoeferJean, Histoire des mathématiques (Paris, 1874); GerhardtKarl, Geschichte der Mathematik (Munich, 1877); BallW. Rouse, Short account of the history of mathematics (London, 1888); La CourPoul, Historisk mathematik (Copenhagen, 1888); FinkKarl, Geschichte der Elementar-Mathematik (Tübingen, 1890); CajoriFlorian, A history of mathematics (New York, 1894); and SmithDavid Eugene, History of modern mathematics (New York, 1900); and several works by Siegmund Günther, Studien zur Geschichte der mathematischen und physikalischen Geographie (6 vols, Halle, 1877–79); (with the well-known neo-Kantian philosopher, WindelbandW.), Geschichte der antiken Naturwissenschaft und Philosophie (Nordlingen, 1888); Geschichte der anorganischen Naturwissenschaften im neunzehnten Jahrhundert (Berlin, 1901); Geschichte der Erdkunde (Leipzig, 1904); and (with WieleitnerH.), Geschichte der Mathematik (Leipzig, 1908–11).
104.
For Belgium see QueteletL. A. J., Histoire des sciences mathématiques et physiques chez les Belges (Brussels, 1864); for Portugal, see GuimaraesRodolphe, Les mathématiques en Portugal au XIX siècle (Coimbra, 1900).
105.
CantorMoritz, Vorlesungen über Geschichte der Mathematik (4 vols, Leipzig, 1880–1908).
106.
ArnethArthur, Geschichte der reinen Mathematik in ihrer Beziehung zur Geschichte der Entwickelung des menschlichen Geistes (Stuttgart, 1852).
107.
Das Erkenntnisproblem in der Philosophie und Wissenschaft der neueren Zeit (2 vols, Berlin, 1906–7).
108.
CournotAntoine, Traité de l'enchainement des idées fondamentales dans les sciences et dans l'histoire (Paris, 1861); Considérations sur la marche des idées et des événements dans les temps modernes (Paris, 1872). Like so many of historians of science, Cournot was much involved in educational reform.
109.
BrunschvicgLéon, Les étapes de la philosophie mathématique (Paris, 1912).
110.
MilhaudGaston, Leçons sur les origines de la science Greque (Paris, 1893); Les philosophes géomètres de la Grèce (Paris, 1900); Le positivisme et le progrès de l'esprit, études critiques sur Auguste Comte (Paris, 1902), and Études sur la pensée scientifique chez les Grecs et chez les modernes (Paris, 1906).
111.
ApeltErnst, Johann Keppler's astronomische Weltansicht (Leipzig, 1849) and Die Reformation der Sternkunde: Ein Beitrag zur deutschen Culturgeschichte (Jena, 1852), and his series of articles in the short-lived journal, Abhandlungen der Fries'schen Schule.
112.
For the prolific Thomas-Henri Martin see his Galilée: Les droits de la science et la méthode des sciences physiques (Paris, 1868) and his “Mémoires sur l'histoire des hypothèses astronomiques chez les Grecs et chez les Romains”, Mémoires de l'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, xxx (1881), 1–302.
113.
Giovanni Schiaparelli's works were posthumously collected as Scritti sulla storia delta astronomia antica (3 vols, Bologna, 1925–27).
114.
Rudolf Wolf, professor of astronomy in Zurich, Geschichte der Astronomie (Munich, 1877); he also compiled a Handbuch der Astronomie, ihrer Geschichte und Literatur (2 vols, Zurich, 1890–93) full of useful information. See also Dreyer'sJ. L. E.History of the planetary systems from Thales to Kepler (Cambridge, 1906).
115.
RepsoldJohann, Zur Geschichte der astronomischen Messwerkzeuge von Purbach bis Reichenbach (Leipzig, 1907).
116.
A particularly successful author here was Agnes Clerke who wrote a number of such histories, including A popular history of astronomy during the nineteenth century (Edinburgh, 1885) and Modern cosmogonies (London, 1905).
117.
The leading classical scholar, August Boeckh, explicated Plato's cosmology, Untersuchungen über das kosmische System des Platon (Berlin, 1852), putting himself in the middle of a debate about whether Plato had espoused a theory of the Earth's daily rotation as suggested by Otto Gruppe in his Die kosmischen Systeme der Griechen (Berlin, 1851) and supported by GroteGeorge, Plato's doctrine respecting the rotation of the Earth (London, 1860). Franz Boll wrote extensively on ancient astronomy, particularly his “Studien über Claudius Ptolemäus”, Neue Jahrbücher für Philologie und Pädagogik, xxi (1872), 49–243 and a work on the zodiac, Sphaera (Leipzig, 1903). Friedrich Hultsch wrote a series of shorter articles on Greek astronomy. Thomas Heath included a history of Greek astronomy to Aristarchus in his Aristarchus of Samos (Oxford, 1913).
118.
de BlainvilleHenri, Histoire des sciences de l'organisation et de leurs progrès comme base de la philosophie (3 vols, ed. by MaupiedF. L. M.; Paris, 1858); Isidore Geoffroy Saint Hilaire, Histoire naturelle général des règnes organiques (3 vols in 5, Paris, 1854–62), i, 1–164. See also CarusJulius, Geschichte der Zoologie bis auf Johann Muller und Charles Darwin (Munich, 1872) and SchmidtE. Oscar, Die Entwicklung der vergleichenden Anatomie: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Wissenschaften (Jena, 1855) in which he complained that there was no good history of comparative anatomy to compare with Kopp's history of chemistry.
119.
LangeF., Geschichte des Materialismus und Kritik seiner Bedeutung in der Gegenwart (Iserlohn, 1866).
120.
RádlEmanuel, Geschichte der biologischen Theorien (2 vols, Leipzig, 1905–09). Radi was conversant with the works of Comte, Buckle and Whewell.
121.
RosenbergerFerdinand, Die Geschichte der Physik (3 vols in 2, Brunswick, 1882–90). This was just the most important of Rosenberger's extensive output on history of physics.
122.
HoeferJean, Histoire de la physique et de la chimie (Paris, 1872); PoggendorffJohann, Geschichte der Physik (Leipzig, 1879); Poggendorff also edited the Anmalen der Physik und Chemie and is best known to contemporary historians of science for the instigation of the massive bibliographic project, the Literarisch-biographische Handwörterbuch für Mathematik, Physik, Chemie und verwandte Wissenschaftsgeschichte.
123.
For mechanics see DühringE. K., Kritische Geschichte der allgemeinen Principien der Mechanik (Berlin, 1873); MachErnst, Die Mechanik in ihrer Entwicklung historisch-kritisch dargestellt (Leipzig, 1883); DuhemPierre, Les origines de la statique (2 vols, Paris, 1905–6); for strength of materials, see Isaac Todhunter (edited and completed by Karl Pearson), History of the theory of elasticity and of the strength of materials (2 vols in 3, Cambridge, 1886–93); for geodesy, see TodhunterIsaac, History of mathematical theories of attraction and the figure of the Earth from the time of Newton to that of Laplace (2 vols, London, 1873). Surprisingly for an admirer of Whewell, Todhunter's histories are little more than annotated chronologies.
124.
CaverniRaffaello, Storia del metodo sperimentale in Italia (6 vols, Florence, 1891–1900); GerlandErnstTraumüllerF., Geschichte der physikalischen Experimentierkunst (Leipzig, 1899); CajoriFlorian, A history of physics in its elementary branches, including the evolution of physical laboratories (New York, 1899).
125.
von KobellFranz, Geschichte der Mineralogie von 1650–1850 (Munich, 1863); von ZittelKarl, Geschichte der Geologie und Palaeontologie bis Ende des 19. Jahrhunderts (Munich, 1899). Archibald Geikie reinforced Lyell's interpretation of geology in his Founders of geology (London, 1901). In France, Adolphe d'Archiac introduced his geological texts with histories, most notably in his Géologie et paléontologie (Paris, 1866) and Stanislas Meunier interpreted the development of geology in a positivist framework in his L'évolution des théories géologiques (Paris, 1911).
126.
SachsJulius, Geschichte der Botanik vom 16. Jahrhundert bis 1860 (Munich, 1875), a strongly pro-Darwin work, relied to some extent on Sprengel and on Ernst H. Meyer's scholarly discussion of botany through the Renaissance, Geschichte der Botanik (4 vols, Königsberg, 1854). The major survey prior to Sachs's was Jessen'sKarl F. W.Botanik der Gegenwart und Vorzeil in culturhistorischer Entwickelung (Leipzig, 1864). The Histoire de la botanique (Paris, 1864) by the eighteenth-century natural historian Michel Adanson was published posthumously, ed. by AdansonA.PayerJ. B.,.
127.
DannemannF., Die Naturwissenschaften in ihrer Entwicklung und Zusammenhang (4 vols, Leipzig, 1900–13).
128.
In a Statement that would have confounded d'Alembert and Montucla, Merz claimed that his history of mathematics was “the first attempt to give to this abstract region of thought a place in intellectual progress”, History of European thought in the nineteenth century (Edinburgh and London, 1896–1914), 2, vi.
129.
For an overview of history of science between the wars see CorsiPietro, “History of science, history of philosophy and history of theology”, in CorsiPietroWeindlingPaul, Information sources in the history of science and medicine (London, 1983), 3–26. For Italy, see AbbriFerdinandoRossiPaolo, “History of science in Italy”, Isis, lxxvii (1986), 213–18; and for Sweden, FrängsmyrTore, “History of science in Sweden”, Isis, lxxiv (1983), 465–68 and FrängsmyrTore (ed.), History of science in Sweden (Uppsala, 1984).
130.
See GrahamLoren, “The socio-political roots of Boris Hessen: Soviet Marxism and the history of science”, Social studies of science, xv (1985), 705–22.
131.
See ThackrayArnold, “On discipline-building: The paradoxes of George Sarton”, Isis, lxiii (1972), 473–95; “The History of Science Society: Five phases of pre-history”, Isis, lxvi (1975), 445–53; and “The pre-history of an academic discipline: The study of the history of science in the United States, 1891–1941”, Minerva, xviii (1980), 448–73, as well as Nathan Reingold's response, “History of science today, 1. Uniformity as hidden diversity: History of science in the United States, 1920–1940”, The British journal for the history of science, xix (1986), 243–62.