From 8 February until at least 19 April 1686, the Dublin Philosophical Society was occupied with a prodigiously talented young girl whose name was never recorded. She was less than eleven years of age, but still much older than the society itself, which had begun meeting less than three years previously. Although one of many wonders engaging the curiosity of the nascent society, this girl served a surprising range of purposes, so that accompanying her anonymity was a curious malleability. Pressed into several different roles and identities, her exploitation affords a glimpse into the various qualities that could make a spectacle useful in a philosophical climate that was unique among the British Isles. The use of this girl therefore not only sheds light on the needs of a less familiar learned society, but also shows how these could differ from those of its better-understood counterparts. For a period of time, it was the versatility not of the gentlemen in Dublin, but of the prodigy they used, that best served this group on the periphery.

This article examines the early modern household's importance for producing experimental knowledge through an examination of the Halifax household of Margery and Henry Power. While Henry Power has been studied as a natural philosopher within the male-dominated intellectual circles of Cambridge and London, the epistemic labour of his wife, Margery Power, has hitherto been overlooked. From the 1650s, this couple worked in tandem to enhance their understanding of the vegetable world through various paper technologies, from books, paper slips and recipe notebooks to Margery's drawing album and Henry's published Experimental Philosophy. Focusing on Margery's practice of hand-colouring flower books, her copied and original drawings of flowers and her experimental production of ink, we argue that Margery's sensibility towards colour was crucial to Henry's microscopic observations of plants. Even if Margery's sophisticated knowledge of plants never left the household, we argue that her contribution was nevertheless crucial to the observation and representation of plants within the community of experimental philosophy. In this way, our article highlights the importance of female artists within the history of scientific observation, the use of books and paperwork in the botanical disciplines, and the relationship between household science and experimental philosophy.

Although maybe not the most fashionable area of study today, French science has a secure place in the classical canon of the history of science. Like the Scientific Revolution and Italian science at the beginning of the seventeenth century, French science, particularly eighteenth-century and early nineteenth-century French science, remains a safe, albeit conservative, bet in terms of history-of-science teaching and research. The classic trope of the passage of the flame of European science from Italy to Britain and France in the seventeenth and then eighteenth centuries is well established in overviews of the field. Specializing in research in this area is not, therefore, unreasonable as a career choice if you are aiming for a history-of-science position in Europe or even in the US. The Académie (royale) des sciences, with its state-sponsored model of collective research, provides a striking counterpoint to the amateur, more individualistic functioning of London's Royal Society – a foretaste of modernity in the institutionalization of science. Clearly naive, such a representation of French science serves as a good initial framework on which to hang half a century of critical historical research. If proof of the continued interest for eighteenth-century French science is needed, we can cite the Web-based project around Diderot and d'Alembert's Encyclopédie currently in progress under the auspices of the French Academy of Sciences. The large number of publications in the history of French science (in English as well as French) make it unreasonable to pick out one or two for special attention here. But what about history of science in France and the academic community that practises this discipline today? Here, I offer a very personal view and analysis of this community, trying to underline contrasts with the history of science in the UK and the US.

While the study of Newton's religious views has been continuously expanding, it has not been brought to bear directly on Newton's career as an ‘experimental philosopher’. Historical perspectives on his optical experiments in particular affirm the historiographic separation between the religious and scientific aspects of his work. In this paper I examine the practical implication of Newton's theology of dominion on his early experiments on light and colours. While his predecessors had made experiments to collect evidence, I show that Newton conceived experimental research as a discipline of the practical understanding of the structure of light and the origins of colours. His conception of experimental reasoning followed his practical reflections on human beings as agents who belonged to God's dominion and who were created to serve its divine ends. These reflections suggested, more specifically, that the aim of natural philosophy was the discovery of divine rules that instrumentally constrained and facilitated human conduct in general, and perceptual judgement in particular. I show, moreover, that Newton's endeavour to subordinate experiment to divine worship had been foreshadowed by Boyle's writing on the theory and practice of the experimental philosophy.

The admiration of the Soviet Union amongst Britain's interwar scientific left is well known. This article reveals a parallel story. Focusing on the biologists Julian Huxley and Lancelot Hogben and the scientific journalist J.G. Crowther, I show that a number of scientific thinkers began to look west, to the US. In the mid- to late 1930s and into the 1940s, Huxley, Crowther and Hogben all visited the US and commented favourably on Roosevelt's New Deal, in particular its experimental approach to politics (in the form of planning). Huxley was first to appreciate the significance of the experiment; he looked to the Tennessee Valley Authority as a model of democratic planning by persuasion that could also be applied in Britain. Crowther, meanwhile, examined the US through the lens of history of science. In Famous American Men of Science (1937) and in lectures at Harvard University, he aimed to shed light on the flaws in the Constitution which were frustrating the New Deal. Finally, Hogben's interest in the US was related to his long-standing opposition to dialectical materialism, and when he finally saw the US at first hand, he regarded it as a model for how to bring about a planned socialist society through peaceful persuasion.

Between 1867 and 1869 Michel Chasles presented a series of manuscripts to the Académie des sciences, which suggested that Isaac Newton's claims to original discovery were unfounded. It quickly became apparent to the majority of the academicians that the manuscripts were forgeries, but Chasles was repeatedly allowed to state his case. This essay focuses on the responses to the affair from four British men of science: David Brewster, Augustus De Morgan, Robert Grant and Thomas Archer Hirst. It asks why they felt it necessary to add their voices to this debate and examines their various strategies for refuting Chasles's evidence.

Sharon Macdonald, Behind the Scenes at the Science Museum. By Jim Bennett 99

Charles Mollan, William Davis and Brendan Finucane (eds.), Irish Innovators in Science and Technology. By Enda Leaney 100

Pamela O. Long, Openness, Secrecy, Authorship: Technical Arts and the Culture of Knowledge from Antiquity to the Renaissance. By Catherine Eagleton, Karin Tybjerg and Koen Vermeir 101

Antonio Clericuzio, Elements, Principles and Corpuscles: A Study of Atomism and Chemistry in the Seventeenth Century. By Christoph Lüthy 103

Lisa Silverman, Tortured Subjects: Pain, Truth, and the Body in Early Modern France. By Sean M. Quinlan 105

Trevor H. Levere and Gerard L'E. Turner, Discussing Chemistry and Steam: The Minutes of a Coffee House Philosophical Society 1780–1787. By William H Brock 106

Claudine Cohen, The Fate of the Mammoth: Fossils, Myth, and History. By Bowdoin Van Riper 107

David Elliston Allen, Naturalists and Society: The Culture of Natural History in Britain, 1700–1900. By Jim Endersby 108

Roger Luckhurst, The Invention of Telepathy, 1870–1901. By Richard Noakes 110

Benjamin H. Yandell, The Honors Class: Hilbert's Problems and Their Solvers. By I. Grattan-Guinness 112

Emily Thompson, The Soundscape of Modernity: Architectural Acoustics and the Culture of Listening in America, 1900–1933. By Neil Pemberton 113

Throughout the nineteenth century evolution theory and the possibility of reconciling it with Christian doctrine was a matter for free discussion among Catholics, but suddenly towards the end of the century the attitude of the Roman doctrinal authorities hardened. Nothing public was done but theologians, upon hearing that their theses had been examined in Rome and judged to be untenable, began to withdraw their books from sale, make public retractions and cease to discuss the subject. What processes lay behind these events, and who were the main persons responsible for what was effectively a U-turn in the official church attitude of Pope Leo XIII's pontificate, are questions that have been unanswerable until now. However, in 1998 the archives of the Holy Office, now renamed the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, were opened to scholars so that it has become possible to clarify these particular mysteries. This article does that for the first time, and the story it has to tell provides insights into the dynamics of cultural and intellectual interactions within the Catholic Church community and with the rest of the world. This Catholic story should be seen as something more than a struggle that took place within the ranks of the Catholic Church: it was an episode in the history of science and its cultural relations in the modern world.

On 26 February 1616 Galileo was ordered to cease to defend heliocentrism in any way whatsoever. This order, called a precept, automatically applied to anything he might later attempt to publish on the subject. Issued at the end of his first trial by the Roman Inquisition, the precept became the spark that triggered his second trial in 1632–3 and figured importantly in the justification of his sentence. This precept has been a subject of controversy since the late nineteenth century for its authenticity, legality and legitimacy. This paper addresses the first two points and establishes the facts of what probably happened in 1616. It does so by examining seven texts that bear on the event. All but one of these (plus Galileo's first deposition in 1633) agree tolerably well that Galileo did indeed receive the precept in the strongest form. An examination of the singleton text in the context of how the Inquisition produced and kept its records as well as of its procedures and personnel shows that it is the least reliable source. This context also supports the argument that certainty about what happened is impossible to achieve. The theory that the document most damaging to Galileo was a forgery is also disposed of. Examination of the crucial phrase successive ac incontinenti in one of the documents supports the paper's suggestion that more caution is in order before accepting the currently nearly universal claim that the precept was improper in law.

The basic guidelines for the Science Museum Library, which determine the nature of the collections and the ways they are placed at the service of the public, were stated in the Government White Paper on the British Library of 1971: ‘The Library will be developed both as a reference library of the history of science and technology and for the provision of specialist services for the staff of the Science Museum’.

Compared with other scientists of the nineteenth century, the German chemist Justus von Liebig (1803–73) was a complex figure. In part, this was because Liebig established such broad borders for his science. Chemical methods, popular and professional publications about chemistry, technological applications, promoting the car and even politics – all were central concerns stemming from Liebig's notion of chemistry as the central science.

When Liebig discovered John Stuart Mill's Logic, a work on the philosophy of science, it struck a deep chord within him. Mill's high praise for Liebig's chemistry certainly provided Liebig with a means to promote his own reputation. In addition, Mill's Logic presented science as a central method for the general reform of society, a goal Liebig was himself struggling to define in the early 1840s. In the scientific method, Mill discovered a ‘rule by the elite’, which he could never find nor justify in his political philosophy. This was a rule that greatly appealed to Liebig, and he set out to ensure that Mill's work was translated and published in German. Though many details of this transaction are known, this paper seeks to investigate the relationship between Liebig and Mill's book, and the significance of this relationship for understanding Liebig's role as a gatekeeper and inter-relations between science and politics.

In a letter found not long ago in the Institute of Electrical Engineers and recently republished in the new edition of Faraday's correspondence, certain allegations are made about difficulties experienced by Humphry Davy in getting his work published in Napoleonic France. These allegations have been repeated in the standard Davy bibliography and are believed by at least one other Davy scholar known to the author. A new biography of Faraday makes much of this supposed incident and suggests a comparison with Stalinist Russia. No doubt the letter will continue to be quoted and the story believed until someone takes the trouble to examine the situation more closely.