Dephlogisticating the Bible: Natural Philosophy and Religious Controversy in Late Georgian Cambridge

Carlyle Thomas , Signs of the times (1829), in Shelston Alan (ed.), Selected writings (London, 1971), 64–65.

Babbage Charles , Passages from the life of a philosopher: The autobiography of Charles Babbage, ed. by Campbell-Kelly M. (London, 1864; repr. London, 1991), 20–21.

In particular, see Enros P. , “The Analytical Society: Mathematics at Cambridge University in the early nineteenth century” (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Toronto, 1979). A more recent account is found in Fisch Menachem , ‘“The emergency which has arrived’: The problematic history of nineteenth-century algebra — A programmatic outline”, The British journal for the history of science, xxvii (1994), 247–76.

For Babbage's retrospective account of the debate and its meaning see Passages (ref. 2), 18–29. For Herschel see, for example, A treatise on astronomy (London, 1833), 36.

Ball W.W. Rouse , A history of the study of mathematics at Cambridge (Cambridge, 1889), 98–99. Rouse Ball fully acquiesced in the Analyticals' account, quickly dismissing the epoch before their arrival: “One will not blame me I think, for making my account of the Cambridge mathematical school at this time [from 1770 to 1812] little else than a list of names.”.

Fisch , op. cit. (ref. 3), 251–2. Fisch claims the varsity to be “near-stagnation” at this time (p. 250). For other accounts of the Analyticals Herculean efforts see, for example, I. Grattan Guinness, “Mathematics and mathematical physics from Cambridge, 1815–1840”, in Harman P. M. (ed.), Wranglers and physicists: Studies on Cambridge physics in the nineteenth century (Manchester, 1985); Enros P. , “The Analytical Society (1812–1813): Precursor of the renewal of Cambridge mathematics”, Historica mathematica, x (1983), 24–47; Schweber S. (ed.), Aspects of the life and thought of Sir John Frederick Herschel (New York, 1981), 54–67; and, also, Bloor David , “Hamilton, Peacock, and the essence of algebra” in Bos H. Merhtens H. Schneider I. (eds), The social history of nineteenth-century mathematics (Boston, 1981), 202–33.

Steve Woolgar writes of the deluded scientist and philosopher arguing that we know science faithfully represents nature since we can use a process of triangulation whereby “certainty about the existence of a phenomenon is enhanced when the same object is viewed from different positions. [With] sitings from two different positions; the true position of the ship can then be located.” See Science: The very idea (London, 1988), 72–73, 79–81. If the historian and sociologist take this point reflexively then it becomes obvious that three or four perspectives get one no closer to what really happened. Hence I am not attempting to home in on the ultimate, genuine account by a process involving a variety of representations from different positions that can be used to reach certainty.

Some of the issues revolving around the formation of the Bible Society in Cambridge become ironic, for a lot of activity involved the attempt by dons to ally themselves to Dissenters and to evince the Dissenters' benignity. See Winstanley D. A. , Early Victorian Cambridge (Cambridge, 1940), 18–25.

For the history of the BFBS see Canton W. , A history of the British and Foreign Bible Society (5 vols, London, 1904–10). For the ‘machinery’ of producing the Bibles see Howsam Leslie , Cheap bibles: Nineteenth-century publishing and the British and Foreign Bible Society (London, 1991).

For the rise of evangelicalism see Hilton Boyd , The age of atonement (Oxford, 1988): Also see Martin R. H. , Evangelicals united (London, 1983) and Brown F. K. , Fathers of the Victorians (Cambridge, 1961). For strategies of teaching the lower classes their ‘proper’ place see Shapin Steven Barnes Barry , “Science, nature and control: Interpreting Mechanics' Institutes”, Social studies of science, vii (1977), 31–74.

The Prayer-Book was first published (in English) during the reign of Elizabeth I, in 1562. Until the third decade of the nineteenth century, to graduate at Cambridge a Tripos candidate would have to swear his allegiance to the three articles, as established in the Elizabethan statutes of the University. For a highly partisan account of the Bible Society in Cambridge, see Milner Mary , The life of Isaac Milner, D.D., F.R.S. (London, 1842), 463–539.

The reactionary politics of the era are discussed in Christie I. R. , Wars and revolutions: Britain 1760–1815 (London, 1982), 215–326; Clark J. C. D. , English society, 1688–1832 (Cambridge, 1985), 235–365.

See Mitchell L. G. , “Politics and revolution, 1772–1800”, in Sutherland L. S. Mitchell L. G. (eds), The history of the University of Oxford in the eighteenth century (Oxford, 1986), 163–90. For Beddoes, see Levere T. H. , “Dr. Thomas Beddoes at Oxford: Radical politics in 1788–1793 and the fate of the Regius Chair of Chemistry”, Ambix, xxviii (1981), 61–69.

Milner's weight in a letter to Dr Jowett: Cited in Milner Mary , op. cit. (ref. 11), 467.

For more recent historico-sociological explanations of how controversies are settled or closed see, for example, Steven Shapin, “The politics of observation”, in Rousseau G. Wallis R. (eds), On the margins of science (Sociological Review Monograph, no. 27, 1979), 139–78, and Schaffer Simon , “Glass works”, in Gooding D. Pinch T. Schaffer S. (eds), The uses of experiment (Cambridge, 1989), 67–104.

For the two versions of Newton, see Milner Isaac , Strictures on some of the publications of the Reverend Herbert Marsh, D.D. (London, 1813), 229–36. For Marsh see his Reply to Milner (Cambridge, 1813), Appendix, 21–27.

Charles Babbage to John Herschel, 1 Aug. 1814 (Royal Society Archives).

William Frend to Augustus De Morgan, 17 Aug. 1835 (Cambridge University Library MS Add. 7887.24).

Cited in Milner Mary , op. cit. (ref. 11), 71.

See Beverley John , The trial of William Frend (Cambridge, 1793).

At least Thomas de Quincey labelled Milner an “eloquent and benevolent” user. See his Confessions of an English opium eater (London, n.d.), p. xxvi.

Milner as paradoxer in De Morgan Augustus , Budget of paradoxes (London, 1863), 251.

Stephen James , Ecclesiastical studies (London, 1849), 233.

Trevor-Roper Hugh , “The second Reformation”, Times literary supplement, 12 Feb. 1993, 4.

Gunning Henry , Reminiscences of Cambridge (2 vols, London, 1854), i, 234. Gunning was no friend of Milner, and remembered his evasiveness and merry partying: “The public dinners were very merry, but the private ones were quite uproarious…. The bottle circulated very freely” (pp. 245–6).

Gascoigne John , Cambridge in the age of Enlightenment (Cambridge, 1989), 253–4, 277. Gascoigne's book on Georgian Cambridge demonstrates the crucial inter-relationship between University Newtonianism and Anglican-Whig culture. He uses this “Holy Alliance” and the explanatory device, ‘mathematical myopia’, to account for the University's “meagre record” in scientific research (p. 277). He also suggests that, though “Cambridge evangelicalism did not present a direct challenge to the university's scientific traditions”, it did not “encourage original enquiry”; evangelicalism also “posed a long-term threat to this accord between science and religion” (pp. 261–2). I argue that the threat to this traditional accord came from dissenters; Milner perceived this and developed a new line to buttress the relationship between Anglicanism and natural philosophy.

Stephen , op. cit. (ref. 23), 233.

For Milner's refusal to sign the petition see Milner Mary , op. cit. (ref. 11), 7. Milner was originally hired to the Board of Longitude as a computer in the 1770s, but later, as Lucasian Professor, was obliged to sit on the Board. As late as 1817, Milner also resisted the reforms to the Mathematical Tripos instigated by George Peacock.

Ibid., 236.

Schaffer Simon , “Machine philosophy: Demonstration devices in Georgian mechanics”, Osiris, n.s., ix (1994), 157–82. Schaffer argues that the varied uses to which devices such as Atwood's Machine were put show both how specific instruments and philosophies can change over time and how potent illustrations made philosophical status seem natural.

Milner , op. cit. (ref. 11), 8.

Milner had been apprenticed as a weaver in Hull; Thomas Parkinson had been a sizar, Samuel Vince was the son of a bricklayer, and James Wood was also the son of a weaver. Details of their lives are in the Dictionary of national biography. Davy's ambition to be the next Newton is discussed in Knight David , Humphry Davy: Science and power (Oxford, 1992), 20.

See Watson Richard , Anecdotes of the life of Richard Watson (2 vols, London, 1818), i, 3.

For Milner's “sooty fellows” see Gunning , op. cit. (ref. 25), ii, 83.

The student's remark is in Keynes MSS 130.6, Book 2, 130.5, sheet 1: Cited in Westfall Richard , Never at rest: A biography of Isaac Newton (Cambridge, 1980), 468. For Greene, see his Principles of natural philosophy (Cambridge, 1712), and his Principles of the philosophy of the expansive and contractive forces (Cambridge, 1714). For Marsh Richard , see The vanity and danger of modern theories: A sermon preach'd in Cambridge in 1699 (Cambridge, 1701). For Edwards, see New discoveries of the uncertainty, deficiency, and corruptions of human knowledge and learning (Cambridge, 1714). Here, I am following Wittgenstein's concept of ‘Finitism’ in order to eschew the idea of essentialism, that there was an essence that inhered in Newton's works to be either observed or neglected. Wittgenstein claimed that the instituted meaning of a word does not determine its future employment. Since language-games do not develop only according to past verbal forms, meaning is simply created by acts of use. Likewise with Newton's œuvre, its meaning, though guided by, was not strictly determined by the initial applications, commentaries, and rhetoric. This is something for which Gascoigne's historiography does not allow. See Wittgenstein Ludwig , The philosophical investigations (Oxford, 1989), 2–60.

Parkinson Thomas penned A system of mechanics (1785) and A system of mechanics and hydrostatics (1789); Wood James (1760–1839) wrote Elements of algebra (1795), The principles of mechanics (1796), and The elements of opticks (1798); Vince's works included Elements of the conic sections (1781), Observations on… gravitation (1806), A confutation of atheism from the laws of heavenly bodies (1807), and Observations on deism (1845); and Wood Vince collaborated on The principles of mathematical and natural philosophy (1793–99) and A complete system of astronomy (1797–1808).

See Hanson N. R. , Patterns of discovery (Cambridge, 1965), 97–98; Schaffer , “Machine philosophy” (ref. 30).

For the work of Clarke, Bentley, and other Newtonians see, for example, Jacob Margaret , The Newtonians and the English Revolution (Hassocks, Sussex, 1976). Clarke's 1714 pamphlet was The scripture doctrine of the Trinity (London, 1714), from which he later had to defend himself, albeit, according to Whiston, ignominiously.

For Clarke see The sermons (2 vols, London, 1742). For Clarke's work in protecting the Newtonian intervening God, see Shapin Steve , “Of gods and kings: Natural philosophy and politics in the Leibniz-Clarke disputes”, Isis, lxxii (1981), 187–215. Desaguliers J. T. , The Newtonian system of the world, the best example of government (London, 1728), dedication, pp. iii–iv; cited in Morton A. Q. Wess J. A. , Public and private science: The King George III Collection (Oxford, 1993), 11. For Desaguliers's work in the City and for his other natural philosophical activities, see Stewart Larry , The rise of public science (Cambridge, 1993).

Isaac Newton: Cited in Jacob , op. cit. (ref. 38), 14.

Berkeley George , The analyst; or, a discourse addressed to an infidel mathematician (London, 1734): Cited in Cantor G. , “Anti Newton”, in Fauvel J. (eds), Let Newton be! (Oxford, 1990), 203–22, p. 210.

See Newton I. , The method of fluxions, edited and with “A perpetual comment” by Colson John (London, 1736): The frontispiece of this work shows exactly the class of people to whom the work was addressed — Young gentlemen.

For challenges to Cambridge doctrine see, for example, Frend William , An account of the proceedings in the University of Cambridge (Cambridge, 1793) For responses to the critiques of Newtonian mechanics by Smeaton and D'Alembert see Milner Isaac , “Reflections on the communication of motion by impact and gravity”, Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society, lxviii (1778), 344–79, and Milner , “On the precession of the equinoxes produced by the Sun's attraction”, ibid., lxix (1779), 505–26.

Newton, in a letter to Hawes Nathaniel , had stated, “A vulgar Mechanick can practice what he has been taught or seen done, but if he is in error he knows not how to find it out or correct it…. Whereas he that is able to reason nimbly and judiciously about figure, force, and motion, is never at rest till he gets over every rub. Experience is necessary, but yet there is the same difference between a mere practical Mechanick and a rational one, as between a mere practical Surveyor or Gauger and a good Geometer, or between an Empirick in Physick and a learned and a rational Physitian.” Newton to Hawes, 25 May 1694. Letter printed in Newton's Correspondence, iii, 357–66: Cited in Westfall , op. cit. (ref. 35), 499. For Watson see A sermon preached before the Stewards of the Westminster Dispensary, with an appendix (2nd edn, London, 1793).

For example, William Wordsworth wrote a vituperative reply to Watson's tract, which, if he had published it, surely would have landed him in gaol. Likewise, William Blake's copies of Watson's works contain condemnations of Watson in the margins: See Blake William , “Annotations to Richard Watson's Apology of the Bible”, in Keynes Geoffrey (ed.) The complete writings of William Blake (London, 1966), and Wordsworth William , “A letter to the Bishop of Llandaff”, in Owen W. J. B. Smyser J. (eds), The prose works of William Wordsworth (2 vols, Oxford, 1974), i, 19–68.

Priestley's letter to Pitt William , cited in Kramnick I. , “Eighteenth-century science and radical social theory: The case of Joseph Priestley's scientific liberalism”, Journal of British studies, xxv (1986), 1–30, p. 13.

Robison John , Proofs of a conspiracy against all the religions and governments of Europe, carried on in the secret meetings of Freemasons, illuminati, and reading societies (London, 1798), 340.

McEvoy John , “Causes, and laws, powers and principles: The metaphysical foundations of Priestley's concept of phlogiston”, in Anderson R. G. W. Lawrence C. (eds), Science, medicine and dissent: Joseph Priestley (London, 1987), 55–72; Schaffer Simon , “Measuring virtue: Eudiometry, enlightenment and pneumatic medicine”, in Cunningham A. French R. (eds), The medical Enlightenment of the eighteenth century (Cambridge, 1989), 281–318; Kramnick I. , op. cit. (ref. 46); and Golinski Jan , Science as public culture (Cambridge, 1992), 91–187.

For precisely this reason, Priestley explained the brutishness of low country inhabitants upon the air and hastened to leave the country: “On Leaving Holland we felt ourselves elevated, as if we were emerging from a low and heavy atmosphere into a superior region, where we fancied we breathed more freely than before.” Priestley much preferred the New Town of Edinburgh which enabled “virtuous circulation”. See Autobiography of Joseph Priestley (Bath, 1970), 105–10. For Priestley's aerial investigations of low-lying areas, see “On the noxious quality of the effluvia of putrid marshes”, Philosophical transactions, lxiv (1774), 90–95; also see, for example, Price Richard , “Father proofs of the insalubrity of marshy situations”, ibid., 96–98.

See Priestley Joseph to Theophilus Lindsey, 30 August 1793, Dr. Williams's Library MS 12.41.

For the Cambridge Platonists' definition of matter and the properties of incorporeal substance as “extended Substance with Activity and Indiscerpibility”, see More Henry , Immortality of the soul (London, 1659), especially Book I, 4–5; also see A collection of several philosophical writings of Dr. Henry More (London, 1662). Newton's views on matter and gravity are well-known, but they were exploited by later Cambridge Newtonians: See, for example, Samuel Vince, Observations on gravitation, atheism and deism (Cambridge, 1806–7).

For Priestley's radical pneumatics and apocalyptic politics see, for example, Fruchtman Jack Jr , The apocalyptic politics of Richard Price and Joseph Priestley: A study in late eighteenth-century English republican millenarianism (Philadelphia, 1983); Schaffer Simon , “Priestley and the politics of spirit”, in Anderson Lawrence (eds), Science, medicine and dissent (ref. 48), 49–55. For Priestley's comments to the English hierarchy see his Experiments and observations on different kinds of air (Birmingham, 1790), i, preface.

See Berington Joseph , Letters on materialism and Hartley's theory of the human mind, addressed to Dr. Priestley, F.R.S. (London, 1776), 220–1.

See Milner Isaac , “Jacksonian lectures on heat: 1784–88”, Wren Library, Trinity College MS R.8.42.1–5.

Burke Edmund , “Letter to a noble lord, 1796”, in The philosophical writings of Edmund Burke (Ann Arbor, 1967), 232–4. For Milner, Newtonian philosophy, when hitched to Locke, became the best antidote to defective religious principles and the revolutionary philosophy from France. However, it is ironic that Milner developed a method for artificially producing a key ingredient for gunpowder of which the French availed themselves in the 1790s.

Milner , Strictures (ref. 16), 229–30.

This sum, especially when added to his other incomes (for example, the money from his parishes and the 200 guineas as President of Queens'), can be compared to the income of the itinerant lecturers: Adam Walker, the most successful of these demonstrators apparently made 600 guineas in Manchester and Liverpool in 1792. See Heilbron J. L. , Elements of early modern physics (Los Angeles, 1982), 155–6. Henry Gunning called Milner a “showman”, describing his Jacksonian Lectures as little more than magic lantern shows, but admitting his chemical lectures to be more learned. See Gunning , op. cit. (ref. 25), 236–7. Milner's Jacksonian lectures are also discussed in Coleby L. J. M. , “Isaac Milner and the Jacksonian Chair of Natural Philosophy”, Annals of science, x (1954), 234–57.

Milner , “Jacksonian lectures” (ref. 54). In these lectures he claimed “the antient doctrine of Stahl is entirely set aside”. Also see “On the production of nitrous acid and nitrous air”, Philosophical transactions, lxxix (1789), 300–13. However, Milner's most extensive chemical writings are housed in Queens' College Library in a two-volume MS edition (vol. i missing).

For Milner's opium addiction see Milner Mary , op. cit. (ref. 11), 148–9. Milner was described by one contemporary as “the most enormous man it was ever my fate to see in a drawing room”. Cited in Twigg John , A history of Queens' College Cambridge (Bury St Edmunds, 1987), 181n.

For Frend's activities with the older radicals at Jesus and the other Cambridge colleges, see Roe Nicholas , Wordsworth and Coleridge: The radical years (Oxford, 1988), esp. pp. 84–117. De Morgan described Frend as an anti-Newtonian in Frend's obituary: See Memoirs of the Royal Astronomical Society, xii (1842), 458–65.

Joseph Priestley to Caleb Rotherham, April 1778: In Rutt J. T. (ed.), The theological and miscellaneous works of Joseph Priestley (25 vols, London, 1817–35), xii, 314–15.

See Frend William , An address to the inhabitants of Cambridge (Cambridge, 1788), 3–7; and Mr Coulthurst's blunders exposed (London, 1789), 4.

Frend William , “Remarks on Egypt, and a Greek inscription lately discovered at Rosetta”, The gentleman's monthly miscellany, i/1 (1803), 1–3.

See Frend William , “What is an album?”, Cambridge University Library MS Add.7886.300; and “Pantagruel's decision on the question about nothing”, The gentleman's monthly miscellany, i/2 (1803), 278–82.

See Frend William , “A Letter to the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge” (Cambridge, 1798), 13; see also his The principles of algebra (London, 1796), preface, and “Remarks on the number of negative and impossible roots in algebraick equations”, in Maseres Baron Francis (ed.), Tracts on the resolution of affected algebraick equations (London, 1800), 473–9.

Frend W. to De Morgan A. , 22 June 1836, Cambridge University Library MS Add.7887.29. For a similar but lengthier airing of these sentiments see Frend , “Farther remarks on St. John”, The gentleman's magazine, lxx/2 (1800), 125–6.

Theophilus Lindsey to Frend William , Cambridge University Library MS Add.7886.146.

Lindsey T. to Frend William , 2 Nov. 1790, Cambridge University Library MS Add. 7886.162. William Cobbett, “Observations on the emigration of Priestley”, in Butler Marilyn (ed.), Burke, Paine, Godwin and the Revolution controversy (Cambridge, 1984, 1988), 140. Frend's comment cited in Knight Frida , University rebel: The life of William Frend (London, 1971), 120.

For ‘theophobia Gallica’ see Morrell J. B. , “Professors Robinson and Playfair, and the theophobia gallica”, Notes and records of the Royal Society of London, xxvi (1971), 43–63; for the career climbing of Leslie and his clash with the moderates also see Morrell , “The Leslie Affair: Careers, Kirk, and politics in Edinburgh in 1805”, The Scottish historical review, liv (1975), 63–82.

Frend W. , Peace and union, recommended to the associated bodies of republicans and anti-republicans (St Ives, 1793).

Milner's speech in Beverley , op. cit. (ref. 20), 77.

For the mobilization of social rank see Shapin Steven , A social history of truth (Chicago, 1994), 3–125.

Frend William , Account of the proceedings at the University of Cambridge (Cambridge, 1793), pp. lii–liii.

See, for example, Coulthurst H. W. , Extracts from the writings of William Frend (Cambridge, 1794) and The evils of disobedience and luxury (Cambridge, 1796); Vince Samuel , Observations on the hypotheses which have been assumed to account for the cause of gravitation from mechanical principles (Cambridge, 1806); Watson Richard , A sermon preached before the Stewards of the Westminster Dispensary, with an appendix (London, 1793) and Apology for the Bible (London, 1796).

See Robison , Proofs of a conspiracy (ref. 47), 10.

For the drift to conservatism and the waning of toleration see Christie , op. cit. (ref. 12), and Clark , op. cit. (ref. 12).

See Morrell J. B. , “Professors Robinson and Playfair” (ref. 69), 54–55. Elsewhere, Morrell also argues that “the metaphysical debate on the relation between cause and effect [was] camouflage which covered more personal and certainly less metaphysical issues which were at stake”. He cites Cockburn Henry , who claimed metaphysics “were the pretence; while a claim of clerical domination over seats of learning was the real subject”. See Morrell , “The Leslie Affair” (ref. 69), 63–66.

Milner was renowned for this message, having given a memorable public oration on this subject in the Old Schools in defence of his D.D. in the 1770s. See Gunning , op. cit. (ref. 25), i, 44–7.

See Hilton , op. cit. (ref. 10), chs 1 and 2.

See Babbage , op. cit. (ref. 2), 28–29.

See Winstanley , op. cit. (ref. 8), 18–25. Also see Milner Mary , op. cit. (ref. 11), 463 ff. For Simeon see “An open letter to Herbert Marsh”, cited in Gascoigne , op. cit. (ref. 26), 257.

See Marsh Herbert , An address to the Senate of the University of Cambridge, occasioned by the proposal to introduce in that place an auxiliary Bible Society, reprinted in The pamphleteer (London, 1813), 81–88; and A sermon, preached in the cathedral church of St. Paul's, London, reprinted in The pamphleteer, 47–80.

See “Marsh, Herbert”, in Dictionary of national biography. Marsh was Bishop of Llandaff (1816–19) and Peterborough (1819–39).

Marsh's works include his translation of Michaelis's Introduction to the New Testament (4 vols, Leipzig, 1791–1801) and A history of the politics of Great Britain and France, from the time of the Conference of Pilnitz to the declaration of war against Great Britain (London, 1799).

Marsh Herbert , Dissertation on the origin and composition of the first three Gospels (Cambridge, 1801).

Cited in Brown , op. cit. (ref. 10), 309.

Marsh Herbert , An essay on the usefulness and necessity of theological learning (Cambridge, 1792), 2.

Cited in Winstanley , op. cit. (ref. 8), 20; also see Marsh Herbert , An inquiry into the consequences of neglecting to give the Prayer Book with the Bible (London, 1812); A vindication of Dr. Bell's system of tuition (London, 1811); and The national religion, the foundation of national education (London, 1811).

A Country Clergyman ( Sykes Thomas ), A second letter to Lord Teignmouth (London, 1810), 5.

Milner's pledge to destroy Jacobins in a letter to Hardwicke Lord , British Library MS Add.35655:85–86.

See Winstanley , op. cit. (ref. 8), 18–25.

Milner Mary , op. cit. (ref. 11), 483–4.

Clarke Edward Daniel , A letter to Herbert Marsh (Cambridge, 1812), p. ix. Clarke was the professor of mineralogy, evangelical, and fellow experimenter with Milner. As an undergraduate, he had performed particularly poorly: However, he witnessed the struggles between two eighteenth-century cultures and later managed to wangle himself a professorship despite not being a Wrangler.

Stephen , op. cit. (ref. 24), 236.

For Marsh as calorimeter see Milner , Strictures (ref. 16), 6–8.

Robison John to Watt James , 9 Sept. 1800: Published in Robinson E. McKie D. (eds), Partners in science: Letters of James Watt and Joseph Black (London, 1970), 352.

Milner , “Jacksonian lectures” (ref. 54).

Despite his distaste for Priestley's natural theology, Milner did endorse the speculations of William Paley, whose Evidences of Christianity (London, 1794) became a set text in the Senate House Examination.

Milner , Strictures (ref. 16), 209.

Ibid., 224.

Ibid., 231.

Milner , who procured a MS copy of Black's lectures, quoted him at length. See Strictures (ref. 16), 215–35.

Milner , “Reflections on the communication of motion” (ref. 43), 352. Reprinted in Milner , Strictures (ref. 16), 221–2.

Milner , Strictures (ref. 16), 212.

Ibid., 214.

Ibid., 228–30.

Ibid., 228–30.

Ibid., 217.

Marsh , Reply to Milner (ref. 16), 104.

See Carlyle , op. cit. (ref. 1), 65: England's secret cited in Howsam , op. cit. (ref. 9), 151.

Stephen , op. cit. (ref. 24), 236.

For Milner's experimental apparatus see Milner Mary , op. cit. (ref. 11), 22, 51, 69–70, 449, 621–2, 658.

Beverley , op. cit. (ref. 20), 85–86.

See Frend , “Pantagruel's decision” (ref. 64). Frend's father was involved in international trade and was twice mayor of Canterbury.

Babbage , op. cit. (ref. 2), 23–24.

Babbage , op. cit. (ref. 2), 20. Babbage reminisced that “it was darkly hinted that [they] were young infidels”, whilst even Bromhead called their programme the “true Faith”. See Schweber , op. cit. (ref. 6), 57 and 63.

Toplis John , in 1805, bemoaned the decline of mathematics throughout the country: “We seem as a nation to be sunk into a great degree of supineness with respect to the sciences, regardless of our former fame…. It is remarkable, that amongst the very few men who still pursue mathematical studies in this country, a considerable part, instead of being dazzled and delighted by the wonderful and matchless power of analysis, still obstinately attach themselves to geometry.” See Toplis John , “On the decline of mathematical studies and the sciences dependent upon them”, Philosophical magazine, xx (1805), 25–31, pp. 26–28.

Compare with Fisch, who claims that Babbage and Herschel looked exclusively to external resources to initiate their changes: “such pressure would need to gather its momentum from outside rather than from within the existing faculty”, Fisch , op. cit. (ref. 3), 250. For example, Babbage and Herschel had important precedent in the form of Robert Woodhouse, who had started the ‘Analytic Revolution’ in England by attacking Frend and Maseres. He attacked infinitesimals and privileged the Taylor Series. Though most of his campaign failed he did publish a successful book on trigonometry that incorporated the work of Euler and Lagrange. See Woodhouse Robert , “Maseres' appendix to Frend's Algebra”, Monthly review, xxxiii (1800), 177–80, and A treatise on plane and spherical trigonometry (Cambridge, 1809).

Wittgenstein says that by “surrounding √-1 by talk about vectors, it sounds quite natural to talk of a thing whose square is −1. That which at first seemed out of the question, if you surround it by the right kind of intermediate cases, becomes the most natural thing possible.” See Lectures on the foundations of mathematics, Cambridge, 1939 (Oxford, 1976), 236; also see Remarks on the foundations of mathematics (Oxford, 1964), iv, 11.

For anxiety see Wittgenstein L. , The blue and the brown books (Oxford, 1989), 29–30, 59.

See Peacock to Herschel , 4 March 1817, Herschel Correspondence, Royal Society Archive HS.13.248. I am grateful to William Ashworth for pointing me in the direction of this.

Babbage , op. cit. (ref. 2), 28.

For Whewell's arguments concerning the proper curriculum see On a liberal education (London, 1845). There are many accounts of Whewellian reform; see, for example, Becher Harvey , “William Whewell and Cambridge mathematics”, HSPS, ii/1 (1980), 1–53, and Simon Schaffer, “The history and geography of the intellectual world: Whewell's politics of language”, in Fisch M. Schaffer S. (eds), William Whewell: A composite portrait (Oxford, 1991), 201–31.

Becher Harvey , “William Whewell and Cambridge mathematics” (ref. 125); Ashworth , op. cit. (ref. 119). In his paper, “The Analytical Society” (ref. 6), Enros also de-emphasizes the Analyticals' first barrage, claiming “the society played no real part in the movement to reform Cambridge mathematics” (p. 26).

Whewell W. , On a liberal education (ref. 123), 40–41.