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History of Science in a National Context

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2009

Maurice Crosland
Maurice Crosland
Affiliation:
Unit for History of Science, Physics Laboratory, University of Kent, Canterbury, Kent CT2 7NR.
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The history of science can be approached in several different ways. It may be studied, as in the classification once favoured in the long-established Department of History and Philosophy of Science at University College London, by considering separately the history of individual sciences: physics, chemistry, biology, etc.—Partington's monumental History of chemistry is a good example of the cross-section of history of science obtained by considering a single discipline. This approach is understandable when history of science is the work of retired specialists in a particular science. On the other hand, many of those who have approached the history of science from a training in general history have tended to favour a study of a particular period as an alternative to an orientation by subject. This is particularly valuable before the nineteenth century, when subject boundaries were not so tightly drawn as some of the old science historians tended to assume. A third possibility is area studies, usually the history of science within a particular country. Sometimes this is done unconsciously, as when historians claim that they are dealing with a general theme, such as science and religion or scientific institutions, but do so with special reference to their own country. French historians of ‘the Enlightenment’ often study French authors exclusively. Language as much as country is a limiting factor here.

Type
Presidential Address
Information
The British Journal for the History of Science , Volume 10 , Issue 2 , July 1977 , pp. 95 - 113
Copyright
Copyright © British Society for the History of Science 1977

References

NOTES

This address was delivered at the summer meeting of the British Society for the History of Science at the University of Southampton on 6 July 1976.

In keeping with the circumstances in which this talk was given, footnotes have been confined to a few basic references. I hope to have a later opportunity to develop more fully some aspects of this survey.

1 See Hall, M. B., ‘Science in the early Royal Society’, in Crosland, M. P. (ed.), The emergence of science in western Europe (London, 1975), pp. 57–77.Google Scholar

2 Second Report of the British Association for the Advancement of Science; Cambridge, 1832 (London, 1833), P. 184.Google Scholar

3 Stebbins, R. E., in Glick, Thomas F. (ed.), The comparative reception of Darwinism (Austin, Texas, 1974), P. 122.Google Scholar

4 De l'origine des espèces ou des lois du progrès chez les êtres organises …, traduit… sur la troisème édition … par Mlle Clémence Auguste Royer. Avec une préface et notes du traducteur (Paris, 1862).Google Scholar

5 Darwin, to Lyell, , 22 08 [1867]Google Scholar, in Life and letters of Charles Darwin, ed. Darwin, F. (3 vols., London, 1888), iii. 72.Google Scholar

6 Chadwick, O., The secularisation of the European mind in the nineteenth century (Cambridge, 1975), P. 176.Google Scholar

7 Darwin, , op. cit. (5), iii. 118.Google Scholar

8 Crosland, M. P., The Society ofArcueil. A view of French science at the time of Napoleon I (London, 1967), PP. 14–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9 Herivel, J. W., Joseph Fourier. The man and the physicist (Oxford, 1975), p. 235.Google Scholar

10 Gleanings in science, i (1829), pp. xi–xii.Google Scholar

11 Ibid., p. vii.

12 The Canadian journal. A repertory of industry, science and art and a record of the proceedings of the Canadian Institute, ed. Hind, H. Y., i (1852–1853), Introduction, pp. 2–3.Google Scholar

13 Shapin, S. A. and Thackray, A. W., ‘Prosopography as a research tool in history of science: the British scientific community, 1700–1900’, History of science, xii (1974), 4.Google Scholar

14 For an excellent characterization of a certain style of teaching science in Paris in the nineteenth century, see Fox, R., ‘Scientific enterprise and the patronage of research in France, 1800–70’, Minerva, xi (1973), 442–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

15 Some information on nineteenth-century career structures is given in Crosland, M. P., ‘The development of a professional career in science in France’, op. cit. (1), pp. 139–59.Google Scholar

16 An introduction to Revolutionary institutions is provided in Crosland, M. P. (ed.), Science in France in the Revolutionary era described by Thomas Bugge (Cambridge, Mass., 1969).Google Scholar

17 For the history of the Museum in the Revolutionary period, see Deleuze, M., Histoire et description du Muséum royal d'histoire naturelle (2 vols., Paris, 1823), i. 67–158.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

18 Life, letters and journals of Sir Charles Lyell, Bart., ed. [Mrs] Lyell, K. M. (2 vols., London, 1881), i. 150.Google Scholar

19 A ministerial decree of 14 July 1837 retitled the chair of pharmacology at the Paris Faculty of Medicine: it was henceforth the ‘chaire de chimie organique et de pharmacie’. It was given to J. B. Dumas. A further chair of organic chemistry was established in 1865 at the Collége de France for Marcellin Berthelot.

20 Le Collège de France 1530–1930. Livre jubilaire (Paris, 1932).Google Scholar See also Clark, T. N., Prophets and patrons. The French university and the emergence of the social sciences (Cambridge, Mass., 1973).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

21 Herschel, J. F. W., in Encyclopaedia metropolitana (London, 1845), iv.Google Scholar art. ‘Sound’ [1830]Google Scholar, 810n.

22 The time devoted to science in die lycées was a contentious issue; there were frequent changes which it would be tedious to list.

23 Gréard, O.. Éducation et instruction. Enseignement supérieur (2nd edn., Paris, 1889).Google Scholar

24 Report quoted by Anderson, R. D., Education in France, 1848–1870 (Oxford, 1975), p. 61.Google Scholar

25 Dalmas, A., Evariste Galois, révolutionnaire et geometre (Paris, 1956), p. 27.Google Scholar

26 Although the major work of all four was in chemistry, Gay-Lussac and Berthelot had gained election to the Académie in the less fiercely contested physics section.

27 ‘Lettre sur l'enseignement des sciences’, Gazette des écoles (2 01 1831).Google Scholar

28 The cost was 3,120 francs for the year, the equivalent of a modest salary. Archives nationales, F17 1023, dossier 12.

29 Ibid., dossier 13. The full text of the letter will be given in a fordicoming article by the present author on the history of the Annales de chimie.

30 Crosland, M. P., ‘Humphry Davy—an alleged case of suppressed publication’, The British journal for the history of science, vi (1973), 304–10.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

31 Sec, for example, Taton, R., ‘Sur quelques ouvrages récents concernant l'histoire de la science française’, Revue d'histoire des sciences, xxvi (1973), 69–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

32 For a recent contribution in this area, see, however, Bradley, Margaret, ‘The facilities for practical instruction in science during the early years of the École Polytechnique’, Annals qf science, xxxiii (1976), 425–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

33 History of science society newsletter, vol. v, no. 1 (01 1976), p. 14.Google Scholar

34 For example, Dolby, R. G. A., ‘The transmission of science’, Histoty of science, xv (1977), 1–43Google Scholar, and Crosland, M. P. and Smith, G. W., ‘The transmission of physics from France to Britain: 1800–1840’, Historical studies in the physical sciences (in press).Google Scholar