The Business of Induction: Industry and Genius in the Language of British Scientific Reform,1820–1840

Young Robert , Darwin's metaphor: Nature's place in Victorian culture (Cambridge, 1985), ch. 2; Rudwick Martin J. S. , “Poulett Scrope on the volcanoes of Auvergne: Lyellian time and political economy”, The British journal for the history of science, vii (1974), 205–42; Wise M. Norton , “Work and waste: Political economy and natural philosophy in nineteenth-century Britain”, History of science, xxvii (1989), 263–301 and 391–449, xxviii (1990), 221–61. See also the sources cited in ibid., 296 n7.

Wise , “Work and waste” (ref. 1), 263, 266.

Thackray A. W. , “Natural knowledge in cultural context: The Manchester model”, American historical review, lxxix (1974), 672–709. See also his similar arguments in “The Industrial Revolution and the image of science”, in Thackray A. W. Mendelsohn E. (eds), Science and values (New York, 1974), 2–18.

Thackray , “Natural knowledge” (ref. 3), 678; see Berman Morris , Social change and scientific organization: The Royal Institution, 1799–1844 (Ithaca, 1978) and Kargon Robert , Science in Victorian Manchester: Enterprise and expertise (Manchester, 1977).

Thackray , “Natural knowledge” (ref. 3), 679–80.

See in particular the contributions to Inkster Ian Morrell Jack (eds.), Metropolis and province: Science in British culture 1780–1850 (Philadelphia, 1983).

Daston Lorraine , “Objectivity and the escape from perspective”, Social studies of science, xxii (1992), 597–618; Schaffer Simon , “Scientific discoveries and the end of natural philosophy”, Social studies of science, xvi (1986), 387–420, pp. 407–8; Yeo Richard , Defining science: William Whewell, natural knowledge, and public debate in early Victorian Britain (Cambridge, 1993).

An exception is Schaffer Simon , “Astronomers mark time: Discipline and the personal equation”, Science in context, ii (1988), 115–45.

One historian who has observed this use of scientific language is Maxine Berg, in The machinery question and the making of political economy 1815–1848 (Cambridge, 1980), Part 3, although she mainly focuses on the impact of scientific language on the factory and not the reverse. See also Wise's commentary on Berg in “Work and waste” (ref. 1), 393–4.

Rudwick , “Poulett Scrope on the volcanoes of Auvergne” (ref. 1), 236–42; Wise , “Work and waste” (ref. 1), Parts 1 and 2.

Beer Gillian , Darwin's plots: Evolutionary narrative in Darwin, George Eliot and nineteenth-century fiction (London, 1983), Part 1; Wise , “Work and waste” (ref. 1), 415. On Darwin see also Schweber Sylvan S. , “Darwin and the political economists: Divergence of character”, Journal of the history of biology, xiii (1980), 195–289.

On this subject in early nineteenth-century England see Poovey Mary , “Figures of arithmetic, figures of speech: The discourse of statistics in the 1830s”, Critical inquiry, xix (1993), 256–77 and Dentith Simon , “Political economy, fiction and the language of practical ideology in nineteenth-century England”, Social history, viii (1983), 183–200.

See in particular Bacon's description of “the several employments and offices” of the fellows of Salomon's House, in The advancement of learning and New Atlantis (1627; London, 1951), 296–7.

See Yeo Richard , “An idol of the market-place: Bacon in nineteenth-century Britain”, History of science, xxiii (1985), 251–98; Smith Jonathan , Fact and feeling: Baconian science and the nineteenth-century literary imagination (Madison, Wisc., 1994), 11–44; and Morrell J. B. Thackray Arnold , Gentlemen of science: Early years of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (Oxford, 1981), 267–73.

Smith Adam , An inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of nations (1776; Oxford, 1979), 30.

Herschel John , Preliminary discourse on the study of natural philosophy (London, 1830), 103; Whewell William , “Modern science — Inductive philosophy”, Quarterly review, xlv (1831), 399.

Babbage Charles , On the economy of machinery and manufactures (1835), in his Works (London, 1989), viii, 262n. On the Herschel campaign see MacLeod Roy M. , “Whigs and savants: Reflections on the reform movement in the Royal Society, 1830–48”, in Inkster Morrell (eds), Metropolis and province (ref. 6), 55–90, pp. 59–66; for one view of Whewell's vision of the British Association see Morrell Thackray , Gentlemen of science (ref. 14), 425–30.

See Ingham Geoffrey , Capitalism divided?: The city and industry in British social development (Basingstoke, 1984), esp. ch. 5; Perkin Harold , The origins of modern English society 1780–1880 (1969; Toronto , 1972); and Gordon Scott , “The London Economist and the high tide of laissez faire”, Journal of political economy, lxiii (1955), 461–88. London was also the chief breeding-ground for discourses (e.g. Marxian Carlylian ) that opposed the new capitalist system. For the construction of ‘political economy’ in Edinburgh see Fontana Biancamaria , Rethinking the politics of commercial society: The Edinburgh Review, 1802–1832 (Cambridge, 1985).

For London see Berman , Social change and scientific organization (ref. 4); for Edinburgh see Shapin Steven , “‘Nibbling at the teats of science’: Edinburgh and the diffusion of science in the 1830s”, in Inkster Morrell (eds), Metropolis and province (ref. 6), 151–78. A parallel between the imperialist agenda of City economists and the language of empire within British science can be developed by comparing Ingham , Capitalism divided?, with Schaffer Simon , “The history and geography of the intellectual world: Whewell's politics of language”, in Fisch Menachem Schaffer Simon (eds), William Whewell: A composite portrait (Oxford, 1991), 201–31, pp. 203–7.

For mesmerism see (e.g.) Sandby George , Mesmerism and its opponents (London, 1848); for provincial medicine see the essays by Ian Inkster and Ivan Waddington in Woodward J. Richards D. (eds), Health care and popular medicine in nineteenth century England (New York, 1977). On the Birmingham school see Checkland S. G. , “The Birmingham economists, 1815–1850”, Economic history review, 2nd ser., i (1948), 1–19, and Moss David J. , Thomas Attwood: The biography of a radical (Montreal, 1990).

Daston , “Objectivity and the escape from perspective” (ref. 7) and Porter Theodore , The rise of statistical thinking 1820–1900 (Princeton, 1986). See also Ashworth William J. , “The calculating eye: Baily, Herschel, Babbage and the business of astronomy”, The British journal for the history of science, xxvii (1994), 409–41, pp. 437–40.

Herschel John , Essays from the Edinburgh and Quarterly Reviews, with addresses and other pieces (London, 1857), 19. See also his defence of political economy in Preliminary discourse (ref. 16), 73.

See Henderson James P. , “The oral tradition in British economics: Influential economists in the Political Economy Club of London”, History of political economy, xv (1983), 149–79 and Dentith , “Political economy” (ref. 12).

Herschel , Preliminary discourse (ref. 16), 10; see Yeo , “An idol of the market-place” (ref. 14), 258 and my discussion of Whewell below.

Smith , Wealth of nations (ref. 15), 145.

Ibid., 20, 785.

On the social composition of the “natural aristocracy” in Smith see Winch Donald , “Science and the legislator: Adam Smith and after”, Economic journal, xciii (1983), 501–20, pp. 502–11.

Smith , Wealth of nations (ref. 15), 25, 265–7, 471, 785; Smith Adam , The theory of moral sentiments (1759; Oxford, 1976), 216. On the tensions between Smith's defence of competition and his resort to state enforcement, in the context of his views on mercantilism and physiocracy, see Tribe Keith , Land, labour and capital (London, 1978) and Brown Vivienne , Adam Smith's discourse: Canonicity, commerce and conscience (London, 1994), 142–61. For Smith on education see West E. G. , “Private versus public education, a classical economic dispute” (1964), in Coats A. W. (ed.), The classical economists and economic policy (London, 1971), 123–43.

Herschel , Preliminary discourse (ref. 16), 70–71.

Daston observes in “Objectivity and the escape from perspective” (ref. 7), 605, that Smith looked up to natural philosophers as “paragons of the virtue of disinterestedness, both in the immediate sense of forsaking the motives of selfish gain, and in the more remote sense of remaining serene in the face of… public contempt”. On the value of disinterestedness in Smith see also Poovey Mary , “The social constitution of ‘class’: Towards a history of classificatory thinking”, in Dimock W. C. Gilmore M. T. (eds), Rethinking class: Literary studies and social formations (New York, 1994), 15–56, pp. 32–47.

Smith , Wealth of nations (ref. 15), 21; Herschel , Preliminary discourse (ref. 16), 12–13. Malthus's Principles had appeared in 1820. As I suggested above, claims of this nature in Herschel can be found side-by-side with expressions of his contrary urge to recede from the ‘real world’. Hence his concern about science catering to “pampered appetites”, cited above, was followed immediately by a call for the natural philosopher “to descend from this high but fair ground” of theory “and justify himself, his pursuits, and his pleasures in the eyes of those around him”. And even in his chapter on “the higher degrees of inductive generalization” he reverted to examples such as “the boiler of the steam-engine” and the value of multiple observations that had as their ultimate source the factory floor or the insurance office (ibid., 10–11, 194, 212–16).

Herschel , Preliminary discourse (ref. 16), 74, 173–4, 164; Babbage , Economy of machinery and manufactures (ref. 17), 263.

Babbage Charles , Reflections on the decline of science in England and on some of its causes (1830), in Works (ref. 17), vii, 21–25 and ch. 4.

Ibid. , 86–93, 71–72. See also his contrast between W. H. Wollaston and Humphry Davy in the conclusion to Reflections, where he praised Wollaston's care “to avoid error”, to teach Babbage better techniques of observations, and to shun claiming to have made observations that others could not see (pp. 206, 208–12). Wollaston, and not Davy, was on a Committee with Babbage in 1827 to reform the Royal Society. See Swijtink Zeno , “The objectification of observation: Measurement and statistical methods in the nineteenth century”, in Krüger L. Daston L. J. Heidelberger M. (eds), The probabilistic revolution (Cambridge, Mass., 1987), i, 261–85, pp. 266–7.

Herschel , Preliminary discourse (ref. 16), 44–49, 114. The fact that Herschel's reference to Jenner appeared in a paragraph that celebrated Bacon underscores the frequent overlap between Baconianism and what I am describing as Herschel's ‘economic’ reform model.

The best summary of the politics of the voluntary association is Morris R. J. , “Voluntary societies and British urban élites 1780–1850: An analysis”, Historical journal, xxvi (1983), 95–118. Morris notes the formal connections between voluntary associations, most of which were non-profit, and joint-stock companies in Class, sect and party: The making of the British middle class, Leeds 1820–1850 (Manchester, 1990), ch. 12.

Ure Andrew , Philosophy of manufactures (London, 1835), 19–24; and see Berg , The machinery question (ref. 9), 197–200, and Shapin Steven Barnes Barry , “Head and hand: Rhetorical resources in British pedagogical writing, 1770–1850”, Oxford review of education, ii (1976), 231–54.

Herschel to Whewell, 20 Sept. 1831, cited in Cannon S. F. , Science in culture: The early Victorian period (New York, 1978), 194. Herschel's fear of democratic tyranny, as well as his concern elsewhere in this letter about preserving room for individual genius, demonstrates his ambivalent feelings about the possible consequences of minimizing the role of individual discovery. But such feelings did not keep him from opposing Whewell's claim that the best discoverers could be selected out and encouraged ahead of time.

Schaffer , “The end of natural philosophy” (ref. 7); Rule John , “The property of skill in the period of manufacture”, in Joyce Patrick (ed.), The historical meanings of work (Cambridge, 1987), 99–118, p. 111.

See also Hobsbawm E. J. , “Artisan or labour aristocrat?”, Economic history review, xxxvii (1984), 355–72, pp. 357–61 for the contemporary distinction between ‘being in a trade’ and ‘having a trade’.

Babbage , Economy of machinery (ref. 17), 263; Reflections on the decline of science (ref. 33), 21.

These categories correspond with R. J. Morris's division of voluntary associations into “the membership society” and “the patronage society”: See Morris , Class, sect and party (ref. 36), 191.

Parliamentary papers , 1829, xxi, 221. See Ashworth , “The calculating eye” (ref. 21), 430–34; Dreyer J. L. E. Turner H. H. (eds), History of the Royal Astronomical Society 1820–1920 (London, 1923), 44, 55–63; and Miller David Philip , “Method and the ‘Micropolitics’ of science: The early years of the Geological and Astronomical Societies of London”, in Schuster J. A. Yeo R. R. (eds), The politics and rhetoric of scientific method (Dordrecht, 1986), 227–57.

Kennedy William F. , “Lord Brougham, Charles Knight, and The rights of industry”, Economica, xxix (1962), 58–71; Chaloner W. H. , “The skilled artisans during the Industrial Revolution, 1750–1850” (1969), in Industry and innovation: Selected essays (London, 1990), 220–31, pp. 224–5.

Morris , “Voluntary societies” (ref. 36), 101. On the SDUK's administration see Grobel Monica , “The Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge 1826–1846” (D.Phil. thesis, University College London, 1932).

Drinkwater to Thomas Coates, 19 Oct. 1829, SDUK papers, University College London. On Herschel and the SDUK see Bolt Marvin , “Early nineteenth-century science and society: Sir John Herschel, scientism, and political economy”, paper given at the 1995 History of Science Society conference in Minneapolis.

Memo by McCulloch J. R. , 26 June 1830; McCulloch to Coates, 9 July 1831; De Morgan to Coates, 5 Jan. 1833, Nov. 1834, SDUK papers.

Grobel , “The Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge” (ref. 45), 681; see also Hays J. N. , “Science and Brougham's Society”, Annals of science, xx (1964), 227–41, pp. 239–40. On mechanics' institutes see Shapin Steven Barnes Barry , “Science, nature and control: Interpreting Mechanics' Institutes”, Social studies of science, vii (1977), 31–74, esp. pp. 48–59; and Berg , The machinery question (ref. 9), 145–78.

Herschel's disinclination to practice what he preached (or even preach it very consistently) frustrated his scientific friends: See De Morgan , “Study of natural philosophy”, Quarterly journal of education, iii (1832), 70 (on Herschel's failure to support including science in the undergraduate curriculum) and Cannon , Science in culture (ref. 37), 183–4, on his ambivalent response to Babbage's Reflections.

See Hyman Anthony , Charles Babbage: Pioneer of the computer (Princeton, 1982), 53–54, 123–35.

Babbage to Herschel, 2 June 1825, HS 2.184, Royal Society papers; Babbage , Passages from the life of a philosopher (1864), in Works (ref. 17), xi, 86.

The best discussion of Babbage's misbegotten partnership with Clement is in Schaffer Simon , “Babbage's intelligence: Calculating engines and the factory system”, Critical inquiry, xxi (1994), 201–28.

On the important place of commercial life insurance in early nineteenth-century British scientific reform see Alborn T. L. , “A calculating profession: Victorian actuaries among the statisticians”, Science in context, vii (1994), 433–68.

Thomas Colby to Babbage, 22 Apr. 1824, BL add ms 37183.120; Babbage to Herschel, 28 May 1824, HP 2.196, Royal Society papers.

Babbage to Herschel , ibid.

Babbage , Comparative view of the various institutions for the assurance of lives (London, 1826); Hyman , Charles Babbage (ref. 50), 62–64.

Babbage , Economy of machinery (ref. 17), 264; and in general, see Berg , The machinery question (ref. 9), 182–9.

Babbage , Reflections (ref. 33), 4–5, 12–14.

Smith , Wealth of nations (ref. 15), 21.

Babbage , Reflections (ref. 33), ch. 1; for Brewster see his review of Babbage in Quarterly review, lxiii (1831), 305–42; for Harcourt see British Association report , 1831, 22–42, and Morrell Thackray , Gentlemen of science (ref. 14).

See Schaffer , “The end of natural philosophy” (ref. 7) and “The history and geography of the intellectual world” (ref. 19); and Yeo , Defining science (ref. 7).

Wise makes a similar point about Whewell's response to Babbage's economics of steam power in “Work and waste” (ref. 1), Part 2.

As did other French economists at the time: See Bradley Margaret , “Charles Dupin's study visits to the British Isles, 1816–1824”, Technology and culture, xxxii (1991), 47–69.

Cited in Berg , The machinery question (ref. 9), 91–93.

See Koolman G. , “Say's conception of the role of the entrepreneur”, Economica, xxxviii (1971), 269–86, pp. 284–5.

Whewell William , The mechanical Euclid (Cambridge, 1837), 176.

Whewell , “Modern science — Inductive philosophy” (ref. 16), 399.

Whewell , “Mathematical exposition of some doctrines of political economy”, Transactions of the Cambridge Philosophical Society, iii (1830), 191–230 and “Mathematical exposition of some of the leading doctrines in Mr Ricardo's ‘Principles of political economy and taxation’”, ibid, iv (1831), 155–98. See Corsi Pietro , “The heritage of Dugald Stewart: Oxford philosophy and the method of political economy”, Nuncius, iii (1987), 89–144.

Whewell to Jones , 19 Feb. 1832, in Todhunter Isaac , William Whewell (London, 1876), ii, 140–1.

See Yeo , Defining science (ref. 7), 16.

Herschel , Preliminary discourse (ref. 16), 305–6; see also p. 300. I am here claiming only that Dalton occupied the same location with respect to Whewell that artisans occupied with respect to capitalists; not that Dalton himself was more like an artisan than a capitalist.

Quoted in Thackray Arnold , John Dalton (Cambridge, Mass., 1972), 118.

On Airy, see Schaffer , “Astronomers mark time” (ref. 8); on Royal Institution members as “entrepreneurial” men of science see Berman , Social change and scientific organization (ref. 4), ch. 5 (on Faraday) and p. xxi, where he credits the RI with “bending science to entrepreneurial and professional purposes”.

Although, as Adrian Desmond has shown in The politics of evolution: Morphology, medicine, and reform in radical London (Chicago, 1989), scientists whose views were closer to Whewell's than to Babbage's did not hesitate to play the ‘public combination’ card when it suited them. See Desmond's discussion of P. M. Roget's self-defence against charges that he had plagiarized R. E. Grant's anatomy lectures in his Bridgewater treatise — A defence that rested on the claim that Grant's lectures had entered the public domain once Roget had paid to attend.

Yeo , Defining science (ref. 7), ch. 5.

Whewell , History of the inductive sciences (1837; 3rd edn, London, 1857), ii, 132; and see Yeo , Defining science (ref. 7), 150–60. On Craik and Smiles see Fielden Kenneth , “Samuel Smiles and self-help”, Victorian studies, xii (1968), 155–76.

On the ‘entrepreneurial ideal’ see Perkin , The origins of modern English society (ref. 18), 221ff.

Alborn T. L. , “Negotiating notation: Chemical symbols and British society, 1831–1835”, Annals of science, xlvi (1989), 437–60; Goldman Lawrence , “The origins of British ‘Social science’: Political economy, natural science and statistics, 1830–1835”, Historical journal, xxvi (1983), 589–616.

Yeo , Defining science (ref. 7), 14.

Cited in Morrell Thackray , Gentlemen of science (ref. 14), 430.

In theory: See Darwin Charles , The descent of man, and selection in relation to sex (1871; Princeton , 1981), ii, 385. In practice: See Secord James A. , “Darwin and the breeders: A social history”, in Kohn David (ed.), The Darwinian heritage (Princeton, 1985), 519–42 and Beatty John , “Speaking of species: Darwin's strategy”, ibid., 265–81.

Quoted in Yeo , Defining science (ref. 7), 254.

Meek Ronald , Economics and ideology and other essays (London, 1967), 52.