More than any other aspect of the Second Scientific Revolution, the remarkable revitalization or British mathematics and mathematical physics during the first half of the nineteenth century is perhaps the most deserving of the name. While the newly constituted sciences of biology and geology were undergoing their first revolution, as it were, the reform of British mathematics was truly and self-consciously the story of a second coming of age. ‘Discovered by Fermat, cocinnated and rendered analytical by Newton, and enriched by Leibniz with a powerful and comprehensive notation’, wrote the young John Herschel and Charles Babbage of the calculus in 1813, ‘as if the soil of this country [was] unfavourable to its cultivation, it soon drooped and almost faded into neglect; and we now have to re-import the exotic, with nearly a century of foreign improvement, and to render it once more indigenous among us’.

In 1924 Edmund Clifton Stoner (1899–1966), a 24-year-old research student at the Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge, sought a university post in physics. Having previously studied at Cambridge as an undergraduate, Stoner was nearing the end of three years' postgraduate research under Professor Sir Ernest Rutherford's supervision. 1924 was not, however, an auspicious time to seek employment since vacancies in university physics departments were scarce. Rutherford showed a kindly interest in Stoner's career and summoned him to his residence – Newnham Cottage – one Friday afternoon in March. Acknowledging Stoner's diabetes as a major concern, he ‘pointed out that I [Stoner] really wanted a job where I could take things fairly easily… He, of course, is prepared to “back me up” & was really very charming, though not very useful in any definite way.’ Subsequent visits to the Appointments Board proved ‘quite fruitless’. Stoner declined to apply for a post at Armstrong College, Newcastle, and only in mid-July did he hear of two more attractive positions. The first, at Durham University, was advertised in the press. Rutherford, who was ‘Affable – pleased with my work(!)’, advised him to apply. Interviewed together with several other candidates, Stoner was unsuccessful but not greatly disappointed. The other post, at the University of Leeds, was brought to his attention by Rutherford.

Hugo de Vries (1848–1935) would without doubt turn in his grave if he could be told about the various perspectives from which historians have studied his ideas and works. His would not be an exceptional case, of course, for many before and after him have fallen victim to the irony of history. Still, I am inclined to grant de Vries that he would have some reason for his distress, for the irony has hit him particularly hard. In 1922, de Vries was invited to attend the Mendel centennial celebrations at Brünn (Brno). He declined the invitation, suspecting, among other things, that the tenor of the commemoration would be pro-Mendel and anti-Darwin, and he heartily refused to share in either sentiment. Now contrast this with de Vries' imputed role in the historiography of genetics and evolutionary theory as ‘rediscoverer’ of Mendelism and as co-executor of the ‘eclipse of Darwinism’, and the irony will be clear.

Early in June of 1867, Charles Darwin turned back the cover of his copy of the respected quarterly North British Review, to find on its opening pages a lengthy essay attacking his theory of natural selection. As with the vast majority of articles in the Victorian periodicals, the review was anonymous, prompting immediate speculation in Darwin's circle as to the author's identity. It was to be about a year-and-a-half before Darwin would learn that the engineer Fleeming Jenkin had written the essay. By then, Darwin had concluded that the critique was the most valuable he had ever read on The Origin of Species.