Closed Circles or Open Networks?: Communicating at a Distance during the Scientific Revolution

For the phrase “matters of fact”, see Shapin Steven Schaffer Simon , Leviathan and the air pump: Hobbes, Boyle, and the experimental life (Princeton, 1986), esp. pp. 22–24; on contemporary ideas of “fact”, see Daston Lorraine , “Baconian facts, academic civility, and the prehistory of objectivity”, Annals of scholarship, viii (1991), 337–63, and Shapiro Barbara , “The concept ‘fact’: Legal origins and cultural diffusion”, Albion, xxvi (1994), 1–26.

Frank Robert G. Jr , Harvey and the Oxford physiologists: A study of scientific ideas and social interaction (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1980). Frank does not employ the concept explicitly, but implicitly. For the concept of tacit knowledge, see Fleck Ludwik , Genesis and development of a scientific fact , ed. by Trenn Thaddeus J. Merton Robert K. , transl. by Bradley Fred Trenn (1st publ. 1935; Chicago, 1979); Polanyi Michael , Personal knowledge: Towards a post-critical philosophy (Chicago, 1958); and idem, The tacit dimension (Garden City, N.Y., 1966). For more recent uses of the idea, see Collins H. M. , Changing order: Replication and induction in scientific practice (London, 1985).

See esp. Schaffer Simon , “Making certain”, Social studies of science, xiv (1984), 137–52; Shapin Steven , “Pump and circumstance: Robert Boyle's literary technology”, Social studies of science, xiv (1984), 481–520; Dear Peter , “Totius in verba: Rhetoric and authority in the early Royal Society”, Isis, lxxvi (1985), 145–61; Shapin Schaffer , Leviathan (ref. 1), 60–69; Golinski Jan V. , “Robert Boyle: Scepticism and authority in seventeenth-century chemical discourse”, in Benjamin Andrew E. Cantor Geoffrey N. Christie J. R. R. (eds), The figural and the literal: Problems of language in the history of science and philosophy, 1630–1800 (Manchester, 1987), 58–82.

See esp. Shapin Schaffer , Leviathan (ref. 1), 39, 58–59; Shapin Steven , A social history of truth (Chicago, 1994); idem, ‘“A scholar and a gentleman’: The problematic identity of the scientific practitioner in early modern England”, History of science, xxix (1991), 279–327; idem, “The house of experiment in seventeenth-century England”, Isis, lxxix (1988), 373–404; idem, “Who was Robert Hooke?”, in Hunter Michael Schaffer Simon (eds), Robert Hooke: New studies (Woodbridge, 1989), 253–85, esp. pp. 280–5; Dear Peter , Discipline and experience: The mathematical way in the scientific revolution (Chicago, 1995); Biagioli Mario , Galileo courtier: The practice of science in the culture of absolutism (Chicago, 1993), esp. pp. 16–18; idem, “Scientific revolution, social bricolage, and etiquette”, in Porter Roy Teich Mikuláš (eds), The scientific revolution in national context (Cambridge, 1992), 11–54; and idem, “Etiquette, interdependence, and sociability in seventeenth-century science”, Critical inquiry, xxii (1996), 193–238. Also see Dear , “Totius in verba” (ref. 3), 155–6, and Shapin Schaffer , Leviathan (ref. 1), 58–59, which raise the issue of the gentlemanly status of the members of the Royal Society and credibility, but in a somewhat weaker version than in the later work.

Quoted in Dear , “Totius in verba” (ref. 3), 156; for counter-examples of the view that ordinary people were not trusted by gentlemen, see Shapin , “Robert Hooke” (ref. 4), 281; idem, Social history of truth (ref. 4), 86–95.

Montaigne, “Of cannibals”, quoted from the translation of Donald M. Frame, The complete essays of Montaigne (Stanford, 1958), 151–2. Also quoted in Eamon William , Science and the secrets of nature: Books of secrets in medieval and early modern culture (Princeton, 1994), 266.

Pagden Anthony , European encounters with the New World (New Haven, 1993), 56–68, esp. pp. 66–68.

For the best recent statement of the centrality of empiricism and experience in the development of early modern science, see Eamon , Science and the secrets of nature (ref. 6).

Boyle Robert , The usefulnesse of experimental naturall philosophy (Oxford, 1663), Part 2, pp. 220–1.

We have both published studies that focus on learned institutions, and we are not disavowing the significance of such work.

Shapin acknowledges this possibility in his introduction to Social history of truth (ref. 4), p. xvii. Also see Johns Adrian , “The ideal of scientific collaboration: The ‘man of science’ and the diffusion of knowledge”, in Bots Hans Wequet Françoise (eds), Commercium litterarium, 1600–1750 (Amsterdam, 1994), 3–22.

For instance, see Latour's Science in action: How to follow scientists and engineers through society (Cambridge, Mass., 1987), and “Drawing things together”, in Lynch Michael Woolgar Steve (eds), Representations in scientific practice (Cambridge, Mass., 1990), 19–68.

For recent summaries of the field, see Wasserman Stanley Faust Katherine , Social network analysis: Methods and applications (Cambridge, 1994) and Scott John , Social network analysis: A handbook (London, 1991). We want to thank Jennifer Boyce Hendriks for putting us in touch with some of the most significant literature in social network analysis.

Granovetter Mark S. , “The strength of weak ties”, American journal of sociology, lxxviii (1973), 1360–80; idem, “The strength of weak ties: A network theory revisited”, in Marsden Peter V. Lin Nan (eds), Social structure and network analysis (Beverly Hills, 1982), 105–30.

Granovetter , “Strength of weak ties” (ref. 14, 1973), 1366, 1367–8, 1376, 1378. Latour's model suggests that all ties are of equal strength, although different people in a network might accumulate or deploy more of them. For an earlier appreciation of the significance of Granovetter's work in raising questions about scientific circles as units of analysis, see Collins H. M. , “The TEA set: Tacit knowledge and scientific networks”, Social studies, iv (1974), 165–86, esp. p. 169.

Milroy Lesley Milroy James , “Social network and social class: Toward an integrated sociolinguistic model”, Language in society, xxi (1992), 1–26, p. 1. Also see Milroy Lesley Margrain Sue , “Vernacular language loyalty and social network”, Language in society, ix (1980), 43–70; Milroy James Milroy Lesley , “Linguistic change, social network and speaker innovation”, Journal of linguistics, xxi (1985), 339–84; and Milroy Lesley , Language and social networks, 2nd edn (Oxford, 1987).

Milroy Milroy , “Linguistic change” (ref. 16), 381–2.

The question of how information and ideas are communicated among people who have never met poses a further intriguing problem, but it is one that we will need to set aside here. In early modern Europe, of course, perhaps the best way of establishing multiple ties among strangers was to resort to print. Words coming from complete strangers in this way had to be evaluated based on a number of criteria, including the expectations of the reader.

Herman Busschof [sic] and Roonhuis Hermann , Two treatises, the one medical, of the gout, … the other partly chirurgical, partly medical (London, 1676), 73–76; the original was published as Hermannus Busschoff, Het podagra nader als oijt nagevorst en uijtgevonden, mitsgaders des selfs sekere genesing of ontlastent hulpmiddle (Amsterdam, 1675); a summary credited to Busschoff was later published in Blankaart Steven (ed.), Collectanea medico-physica, oft Hollands jaar-register: Der genees- en natuur-kundige aanmerkingen van gantsch Europa, etc. Tweede en derde deel des jaars MCDCLXXXI en LXXXII (Amsterdam, 1683), 18–20.

Birch Thomas , The history of the Royal Society of London for improving natural knowledge (4 vols, 1756–57; facsim. Hildesheim, 1968), iv, 119–20.

Philosophical transactions, iv, no. 49 (19 July 1669), 983–6.

Busschof Roonhuis , Two treatises (ref. 19), 73–76.

Wrop J. A. , (ed.), De briefwisseling van Constantijn Huygens, vi: 1663–1687 (The Hague, 1917), letter no. 6995, “Aan H. Oldenburg, A la Haye, ce 16/26 Nov. 1675”, pp. 368–9.

His story is published in [Sir William Temple], Miscellanea (London, 1680), 189–238; Temple's story is summarized in Rosen G. , “Sir William Temple and the therapeutic use of moxa for gout in England”, Bulletin of the history of medicine, xliv (1970), 31–39 (although Rosen was unaware that “Zulichem” was Huygens).

Leeuwenhoek A. , letter of 14 May 1677, Philosophical transactions , xii, no. 136 (25 June 1677), 899–95 [sic for 905]. Leeuwenhoek possessed a copy of Busschoff's book: Palm L. C. , “Italian influences on Antoni van Leeuwenhoek”, in Maffioli C. S. Palm L. C. (eds), Italian scientists in the Low Countries in the XVIIth and XVIIIth centuries (Amsterdam, 1989), 147–63.

Sydenham Thomas , Tractatus de podagra et hydrope (London, 1683); transl. into English in 1684 by James Drake, and several times thereafter. The passage occurs at the third paragraph from the end.

Letter of Dr Johannes Jacob Wepfer to Casparus Sibelius, 20 August 1684, quoted in a letter of Sibelius to Locke, De Beer E. S. (ed.), The correspondence of John Locke (8 vols, Oxford, 1976–89), ii, 635.

On investigators not mentioning the names of those they worked with, see Shapin , Social history of truth (ref. 4), 363–5. We may assume that Busschoff's ties to his wife were strong, so the fact that he does not mention her name suggests the masculine orientation of his correspondence.

For a summary of the general importance of geographical mobility of early modern Europeans, see Flinn Michael W. , The European demographic system, 1500–1820 (Baltimore, 1981); a fundamental study for Britain was Wrigley's E. A. “A simple model of London's importance in changing English society and economy, 1650–1750”, Past and present , no. 37 (1967), 44–70. Perhaps European regions typified by extended family structures saw somewhat less mobility ( Macfarlane Alan , The origins of English individualism: The family, property and social transition (New York, 1978)), but the rapid urbanization of Europe due in large part to migration into rapidly expanding urban centres ( De Vries Jan , European urbanization, 1500–1800 (Cambridge, Mass., 1984)) reinforces the sense of population movement.

There have been many studies of the voyage savant, to which we are most indebted. See, for example, Bots H. , “Het grote boek van de wereld: ‘Bron’ van Lering en Vermaak”, Kleio, xx (1979), 118–25; Frijhoff W. Th. M. , La Société Néerlandaise et ses gradués, 1575–1814: Une recherche sérielle sur le statut des intellectuels à pertir des registres universitaires (Amsterdam, 1981); Dibon Paul Waquet Françoise , Johannes Fredericus Gronovius: Pèlerin de la République des lettres; Recherches sur le voyage savant au XVIIe siècle (Genève, 1984); and Robinet André , G. W. Leibniz Iter Italicum (Mars 1689 – Mars 1690), La dynamique de la République des lettres: Nombreux texts inédits (Florence, 1988). On travel and natural history, see Findlen Paula , Possessing nature: Museums, collecting and scientific culture in early modern Italy (Berkeley, 1994), 155–93.

Clulee N. H. , John Dee's natural philosophy: Between science and religion (London, 1989), 26–29.

Frank , Harvey (ref. 2).

Shapin Shaffer , Leviathan (ref. 1), 223–82; Stroup Alice , “Christiaan Huygens and the development of the air pump”, Janus, lxviii (1981), 129–58.

Webster Charles , “Thomas Linacre and the foundation of the College of Physicians”, in Maddison F. Pelling M. Webster C. (eds), Essays on the life and works of Thomas Linacre, c. 1460–1524 (Oxford, 1977), 198–222; Whitteridge Gweneth , “Some Italian precursors of the Royal College of Physicians”, Journal of the Royal College Physicians, London, xii (1977), 67–80; Cook Harold J. , The decline of the old medical regime in Stuart London (Ithaca, N.Y., 1986), 71–72; Chaney Edward , The Grand Tour and the Great Rebellion: Richard Lassels and ‘The voyage to Italy’ in the seventeenth century (Geneva, 1985), 341; Letter no. 276, Oldenburg to Boyle, 10 June 1663, in Hall A. Rupert Hall Marie Boas (eds), Correspondence of Henry Oldenburg (Madison, Wis., London, and Philadelphia, 1965–86) (hereafter cited as CHO). Also, Sorbière S. , Relation d'un voyage en Angleterre (1664), which brought a reply in Thomas Sprat, Observations on Monsieur de Sorbier's voyage into England (1665).

For a general impression, see Trevor-Roper Hugh R. , The crisis of the seventeenth century: Religion, the Reformation, and social change (New York, 1968); Webster Charles , The great instauration: Science, medicine and reform 1626–1660 (New York, 1975); Kargon Robert H. , Atomism in England from Hariot to Newton (Oxford, 1966), 68–77, 134. For a more detailed account of the Newcastle circle in exile, see Chaney , Grand Tour (ref. 34), 54–55, 309. Thomas Hobbes, for example, adopted a materialist view during a sojourn in France: Tuck Richard , “Hobbes and Descartes”, in Rogers G. A. J. Ryan Alan (eds), Perspectives on Thomas Hobbes , (Oxford, 1988), 11–41 (but cf. Zagorin Perez , “Hobbes's early philosophical development”, Journal of the history of ideas, liv (1993), 505–18).

Stevenson David , “Masonry, symbolism and ethics in the life of Sir Robert Moray, FRS”, Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, cxiv (1984), 405–31; Robertson Alexander , The life of Sir Robert Moray: Soldier, statesman and man of science (1608–1673) (London, 1922).

Hardacre Paul H. , “The Royalists in exile during the Puritan Revolution, 1642–1660”, Huntington Library quarterly, xvi (1963), 353–70; Chaney , Grand Tour (ref. 34); Stoye John , English travellers abroad, 1604–1667, rev. edn (New Haven, 1989); Black Jeremy , The British and the Grand Tour (London, 1985).

Stoye , English travellers (ref. 37), p. x; Bates E. S. , Touring in 1600: A study of the development of travel as a means of education (Boston and New York, 1911); Westrienen Anna Frankvan , De Groote Tour: Tekening van de educatiereis der Nederlanders in de zeventiende eeuw (Amsterdam, 1983); Chaney Edward , “Quo vadis? Travel as education and the impact of Italy in the sixteenth century”, in Cunningham Peter Brock Colin (eds), International currents in educational ideas and practices (History of Education Society, Evington, 1988), 1–28; von Ertzdorff Xenja Neukirch Dieter (eds), Rudolf Schulz (asst.), Reisen und Reiseliteratur im Mittelalter und in der frühen Neuzeit (Amsterdam and Atlanta, 1992); Warneke Sara , Images of the educational traveller in early modern England (Leiden, 1995).

Hunter Michael , Establishing the new science: The experience of the early Royal Society (Woodbridge, 1989), 73–121, esp. pp. 93–99; some of the instructions are printed in Stearns William Phineas , Science in the British colonies of America (Urbana, 1970), 687–90, 694–707, and in Frantz , English traveller (ref. 41), 15–29.

Severinus quoted in Eamon , Science and the secrets of nature (ref. 6), 161–2; on Severinus, see Shackelford Jole , “Paracelsianism in Denmark and Norway in the 16th and 17th Centuries”, Ph.D. dissertation, University of Wisconsin–Madison, 1989.

Bacon Francis , “Of travel”, quoted from Bacon, in Warhaft Sidney (ed.) A selection of his works (New York, 1965), 90. Also see Frantz R. W. , The English traveller and the movement of ideas, 1660–1732 (1st publ. 1934; Lincoln, Neb., 1967), 30–71.

Sassen Ferd , “De Reis van Marin Mersenne in de Nederlanden (1630)”, Mededelingen van de Koninklijke Vlaamse Academie voor Wetenschappen, Letteren en schone Kunsten van België, Klasse der Letteren, xiv/4 (Brussels, 1964).

van Strien From C. D. , British travellers in Holland during the Stuart period: Edward Browne and John Locke as tourists in the United Provinces (Leiden, 1993), 7; on the English gentleman's contempt for pedantry, see Shapin , Social history of truth (ref. 4), 114–19; Shapin , “‘A scholar and a gentleman’” (ref. 4).

Hunter Michael , “Alchemy, magic and moralism in the thought of Robert Boyle”, The British journal for the history of science, xxiii (1989), 387–410, and idem, “The conscience of Robert Boyle: Functionalism, ‘dysfunctionalism’ and the task of historical understanding”, in Field J. V. James Frank A. J. L. (eds), Renaissance and revolution (Cambridge, 1993), 147–59; Golinski J. V. , “A noble spectacle: Phosphorus and the public cultures of science in the early Royal Society”, Isis, lxxx (1989), 11–39; Southgate B. C. , ‘“Forgotten and lost’: Some reactions to autonomous science in the seventeenth century”, Journal of the history of ideas , 1 (1989), 249–68, esp. pp. 266–7; Dear Peter , “Miracles, experiments, and the ordinary course of nature”, Isis, lxxxi (1990), 663–83.

Quoted in Shapiro , “Concept of ‘fact’” (ref. 1), 5.

Duncan Eleazar , The copy of a letter written by E. D. Doctour of Physicke to a Gentleman, by whom it was published (London, 1606), 20–21. For further remarks on controversies about whether simple people might be accounted truthful, see Eamon , Science and the secrets of nature (ref. 6), esp. pp. 259–66; and on the issue of character, see Cook Harold J. , “Good advice and little medicine: The professional authority of early modern English physicians”, Journal of British studies, xxxiii (1994), 1–31; Harley David , “The good physician and the godly doctor: The exemplary life of John Tylston of Chester (1663–99)”, The seventeenth century, ix (1994), 93–117.

Meeting of 18 January 1681/2: In Birch , History of the Royal Society (ref. 20), iv, 119.

Rhijne Ten had been introduced to the practice by Busschoff.

ten Rhijne Wilhem to Oldenburg Henry , 23 July 1681, LBC.8.240–242, Royal Society of London. Because it was received after Oldenburg's death, the letter (3138) is summarized rather than printed in CHO.

Birch , History of the Royal Society (ref. 20), iv, 122, 140.

Ten Rhijne Willem , Dissertatio de arthritide: Mantissa schematica: De acupunctura: Et orationes tres, I. de chymiae ac botaniae antiquitate et dignitate. II. de physiognomia. III. de monstris (London, 1683). For a more elaborate account of this episode, see Cook Harold J. , Trials of an ordinary doctor: Joannes Groenevelt in seventeenth-century London (Baltimore, 1994), 125–8.

CHO, 2209, De Graaf to Oldenburg, 18 April 1673. In turn, De Graaf's first letter to Oldenburg is CHO, 911, 20 July 1668. De Graaf wrote this letter at the urging of someone who had just met Oldenburg, Matthias Paisen (913, c. 11 July 1668), and he sent the letter and a copy of his book on the parts of generation via his “dear friend” (“integerrimus amicus”) Dr Vincke, who was on his way to visit England. When De Graaf's letter and book were discussed at a meeting of the Royal Society, one of De Graaf's acquaintances, Mr Duijst van Voorhout, was present, perhaps to add further testimony about De Graaf. Moreover, in the ensuing debate over De Graaf's discoveries, De Graaf relied on the testimony of people who had seen his work in person to travel to England as witnesses to his work: Ex: CHO, 967.

For his early experience in England, see Colie Rosalie , ‘Some thankfulnesse to Constantine’: A study of English influence upon the early works of Constantijn Huygens (The Hague, 1956); Bachrach A. G. H. , Sir Constantine Huygens and Britain, 1596–1687: A pattern of cultural exchange, i: 1596–1619 (Leiden and London, 1962).

Palm L. C. , “Leeuwenhoek and other Dutch correspondents of the Royal Society”, Notes and records of the Royal Society, xliii (1989), 191–207.

Ibid.; for Shapin's views of Leeuwenhoek's reliance on local testimony of witnesses, see Social history of truth (ref. 4), 306–7.

CHO, nos. 363–477.

These numbers would be 18 and 8 if the letter from Cassini is included — But this was a copy of a letter Cassini sent to someone else, included in a letter to Oldenburg from Auzot.

CHO, nos. 363, 369, 380, 381, 393, 414.

CHO, nos. 390, 448.

CHO, nos. 408 and 398, 422, 449, respectively.

CHO, nos. 375, 404, 413; 361; and 364 respectively.

Ornstein Martha , The rôle of scientific societies in the seventeenth century (1st pub. 1913; Chicago, 1928), 169–75; Cole F. J. , A history of comparative anatomy: From Aristotle to the eighteenth century (London, 1944), 341–69; McClellan James E. III , Science reorganized: Scientific societies in the eighteenth century (New York, 1985), 55.

Probably his book on the circulation of the blood, which places the circulation of the blood in the tradition of Athanasius Kircher and the Hermetic philosophy: Sachs Philipp Jacob , Oceanus macro-microcosmicus seu dissertatio epistolica de analogo motu aquarum ex & ad oceanum, sanguinis ex & ad cor. (Vratislava, 1664), although perhaps his A<image> sive vitis viniferae ejusque partium consideratio physico-philologicohistorico-medico-chymica (Leipsig, 1661) or his <image>, sive gammarorum, vulgo cancrorum consideratio physico-philologica-historico-medico-chymica (1665), the latter of which we have not seen.

We therefore disagree with Mario Biagioli's claim that the Royal Society's network of correspondence was self-consciously developed to make up for their lack of direct princely patronage: Biagioli, “Etiquette, interdependence, and sociability” (ref. 4), 227.

On Finch and Baines, see Chaney , Grand Tour (ref. 34), 341; Middleton W. E. Knowles , The experimenters: A study of the Accademia del Cimento (Baltimore, 1971), 286–91; Middleton (ed. and transl.), Lorenzo Magalotti at the court of Charles II: His Relazione d'Inghilterra of 1668 (Waterloo, Ontario, 1980); on the failed attempts of Robert Southwell to establish connections between the Accademia del Cimento and the English virtuosi, see Middleton , Experimenters , 282–6.

In the same way, the Philosophical transactions remained Oldenburg's private venture, but quickly became associated with the Society.

Middleton , Experimenters (ref. 65), 281; on the correspondence of members, 281–308. At the end of the century Martin Lister reported that the Marquis de L'Hôpital blamed the short lived nature of the Cimento on the small number of members and their “very little correspondence”: Quoted in Biagioli, “Etiquette, interdependence, and sociability” (ref. 4), 226. For Biagioli's views of the Cimento more generally, see his, “Scientific revolution, social bricolage, and etiquette” (ref. 4), 25–32.

Dr Casparus Sibelius to Locke, 961, 9/19 September 1687, in De Beer E. S. (ed.), The correspondence of John Locke (8 vols, Oxford, 1976–89), iii, 265–6, De Beer's translation.

Also see Stegeman Saskia , “How to set up a scholarly correspondence: Theodorus Janssonius van Almeloveen (1657–1712) aspires to membership in the Republic of Letters”, Lias, xx (1993), 227–43, who notes that Van Almeloveen was able to establish a rich correspondence network without personal travels only by deploying “a whole network of acquaintances and family ties” who prepared his way (p. 233).

Adelmann Howard B. , Marcello Malpighi and the evolution of embryology (5 vols, Ithaca, 1966), i, 337–8; idem (ed.), The correspondence of Marcello Malpighi (5 vols, Ithaca, 1975), i, 347–8, 354–7; CHO, 740.

CHO, 390a, Lyons, 28 July 1665, — To Justel.

Justel's own letter to Oldenburg detailing the Parisian discussion of the mirror is now lost, as are virtually all of Justel's letters to Oldenburg during this period. The inference that Justel read the letter at the Thévenot derives from the fact that André Graindorge described the mirror in terms that paraphrase the account Oldenburg received. That Graindorge had learned of the mirror from an account read at the Thévenot on Tuesday, 4 August 1665 is clear in the letter he wrote to Pierre-Daniel Huet the next day. A transcription of that letter appears in Leon Tolmer's “Vingt-deux lettres inédites d'André de Graindorge à P.-D. Huet”, Mémoires de l'Académie Nationale de Caen, n.s., x (1943), 303.

CHO, 390a, — To Justel, 28 July 1665.

CHO, 391, Oldenburg to Boyle, 10 August 1665.

CHO, 392, Oldenburg to Moray, 11 August 1665.

Oldenburg's published account appeared in the sixth number of the Philosophical transactions, which came off the press in Oxford during the first week of November 1665. CHO, 446, 5 November 1665, Moray to Oldenburg.

With regard to the Thévenot Academy, it is important to note that, despite a widespread misperception in the literature on French science, this organization continued to operate well beyond mid-1665. See Lux David , Patronage and royal science in seventeenth-century France: The Académie de Physique in Caen (Ithaca, N.Y., 1989), 29–56; idem, “Colbert's plan for the Grande Académie: Royal policy toward science, 1663–1667”, Seventeenth-century French studies, xii (1990), 177–88.

Although Middleton mistakenly attributed all the Cimento's correspondence with Paris during this period to activity at the Montmor Academy, his identification of Melchisedec Thévenot himself as a primary transalpine contact after 1660 actually supports the significance of the Thévenot Academy in this role (Experimenters (ref. 65), 304–9).

The communications in this case were routine. Oldenburg expected his news from Paris twice weekly, and when things moved well, he received his news from Paris just five days from the date on his correspondent's letter. In France, letters passed with comparable speed. The mail, for example, also moved twice weekly between Paris and Caen, and a letter posted at noon on Wednesday in Paris could be read at the Académie de Physique in Caen Thursday evening — Something less than 36 hours after it left Paris. A letter posted in Caen on Saturday, was waiting for André Graindorge when he picked it up in Paris on Monday morning — Ample time for reading at the next session of the Thévenot Academy late Tuesday afternoon: Lux, Patronage and royal science (ref. 77), 31–38. Thus, for the scale of the communications between Oldenburg and the Parisians attending the Thévenot, the 79 days between the date on the original report from Lyon (28 July 1665 [N.S.]) and the date on Oldenburg's letter telling Boyle he had his final confirmation from France (5 October 1665 [O.S.]) represented an entirely reasonable cycle time for communications (Lyon-Paris, Paris-London, London-Paris, Paris-Lyon and Paris-Italy, Italy and Lyon-Paris, Paris-London). In fact, when Oldenburg wrote to tell Boyle he had “the thing well attested”, he revealed he had received the final confirmation from Paris “last week”. In other words, the central cycle time for all the exchanges in Oldenburg's cross-channel conversation was something less than 79 days.

Justel's reputation is decidedly mixed. A. Rupert Hall and Marie Boas Hall, for example, describe Justel simply as a political correspondent and claim Oldenburg “presumably received some compensation for his trouble” in passing on Justel's news to the office of the Secretary of State because “only monetary gain can explain how Oldenburg could tolerate Justel's nearly unreadable hand and boringly repetitious gossip for so many years” (CHO, ii, p. xxv). On the other hand, Harcourt Brown described Justel as one of the most important intelligencers in seventeenth-century science: “The benefit which the work of the Royal Society received from the exchanges between Justel and its successive secretaries is almost beyond calculation; what Justel did directly and indirectly for the dissemination of English books, news and science over the continent of Europe is not equalled before the eighteenth century, and only occasionally surpassed then”: Brown, Scientific organizations in seventeenth century France (Baltimore, 1934), 162–3.

Justel to Oldenburg, CHO, 768, 771, 778, 787, 816, 15 February - 18 March 1668.

Lux, Patronage and royal science (ref. 77), 121–5.

For a succinct statement on the historical complexity of this interpretive problem particularly as it applies to the Royal Society see Hunter Michael , “First steps in institutionalization: The role of the Royal Society of London”, in Solomon's House revisted: The organization and institutionalization of science (Nobel Symposium no. 75; Canton, Mass., 1990), 13–30. For an excellent bibliography on the early history of the Royal Society, see Hall Marie Boas , Promoting experimental learning: Experiment and the Royal Society, 1660–1727 (Cambridge, 1991). Michael Hunter's works, especially Science and society in Restoration England (Cambridge, 1981) and Establishing the new science: The experience of the Royal Society (Woodbridge, 1989), remain the most thorough treatment of the early Royal Society. For the Académie Royale des Sciences, Alice Stroup's recent A company of scientists: Botany, patronage, and community at the seventeenth-century Parisian Royal Academy of Sciences (Berkeley, Cal., 1990) goes far beyond earlier work in explaining that institution's role in the social history of French science during the second half of the seventeenth century. For a general review of the interpretive problems encountered in work on the reorganization of science in the 1660s, see Lux David S. , “Societies, circles, academies, and organizations: An historiographic essay on seventeenth-century science”, in Barker Peter Ariew Roger (eds), Revolution and continuity: Essays in the history and philosophy of early-modern science (Washington, D.C., 1991), 23–43.

Lux, “Colbert's plan” (ref. 77).

See Stroup , A company of scientists (ref. 83), 199–217; Lux , Patronage and royal science (ref. 77), 51–56.

André Graindorge put this point succinctly when describing what happened to submissions to the Académie Royale from Caen: “Anything entering the coffers at the academy in Paris never reappears” (Graindorge to Huet, Biblioteca Medicea-Laurenziana, Ashburnham 1866, 624 (20 January 1674)). For a more complete discussion on this point, see Lux, Patronage and royal science (ref. 77), 174–9.

CHO, 526, 26 May 1666 [N.S.], Justel to Oldenburg.

CHO, 888, 26 June 1668, Auzout to Oldenburg.

CHO, 589, 28 December 1666, Auzout to Oldenburg [Oldenburg's translation].

CHO, 730, 29 December 1667, Auzout to Oldenburg.

CHO, 526, 26 May 1666, Justel to Oldenburg.

CHO, 573, 13 October 1666, Justel to Oldenburg.

CHO, 622, 30 March 1667, Justel to Oldenburg.

CHO, 721, n.d. [December 1667], Justel to Oldenburg.

CHO, 834, 18 April 1668, Justel to Oldenburg.

CHO, 841, 2 May 1668, Justel to Oldenburg.

CHO, 877, 13 June 1668, Justel to Oldenburg.

CHO, 894, 7 July 1668, Justel to Oldenburg.

CHO, 978, n.d. [October 1668], Justel to Oldenburg.

CHO, 994, 10 November 1668, Justel to Oldenburg.

CHO, 1024, 8 December 1668, Justel to Oldenburg.

Biblioteca Medicea-Laurenziana, Ashburnham 1866, 572, 16 January 1668, Graindorge to Huet.

Lux, Patronage and royal science (ref. 77), 81–139.

CHO, 1159, 11 May 1669, Vernon to Oldenburg.

For example, the work of Robert Hooke as demonstrator to the Royal Society would seem to fit this pattern nicely. See esp. Pumfrey Stephen , “Ideas above his station: A social study of Hooke's curatorship of experiments”, History of science, xxix (1991), 1–44; Dennis Michael Aaron , “Graphic understanding: Instruments and interpretation in Robert Hooke's Micrographia”, Science in context, iii (1989), 309–64.

This suggests that viewing science in action situated in one location (as does the stimulating work of Latour Bruno Woolgar Steve , Laboratory life: The construction of scientific facts, 2nd edn (Princeton, 1986)), without taking account of the many people coming and going to and from other sites, overlooks something essential.