Monthly Archives: February 2014
From Natural Philosophy to the Sciences: Writing the History of Nineteenth-Century Science
Posted on February 12, 2014 1 Comment
David Cahan’s (ed.) From Natural Philosophy to the Sciences (2003) takes stock of current historiography of the sciences in the “long nineteenth century.” In his Introduction, “looking at nineteenth-century science,” Cahan declares that “the study of nineteenth century science is flourishing.” During the nineteenth century, “the scientific enterprise underwent enormous and unprecedented intellectual and social […]
The Triumph of Time: A Study of the Victorian Concepts of Time, History, Progress, and Decadence
Posted on February 10, 2014 Leave a Comment
Jerome Hamilton Buckley’s The Triumph of Time (1966) is a “little book” with an enormous and exceedingly complex subject. It pretends to be no less than a survey of Victorians’ attitudes towards time. Buckley proposes to “test the truth” of John Stuart Mill’s suggestion, articulated in his The Spirit of the Ages (1831), that his own […]
Publishing Conflict
Posted on February 6, 2014 Leave a Comment
In 1873, John William Draper began writing his History of the Conflict between Science and Religion (1874). Draper did so at the request of Edward Livingston Youmans (1821-1887), America’s premier science popularizer and founder of Popular Science magazine (1872). As editor of the International Scientific Series, Youmans asked for Draper’s contribution. Later, Youmans brother, William […]
Taking Long Views (1887), by May Kendall
Posted on February 5, 2014 Leave a Comment
His locks were wild, and wild his eye, Furrowed his brow with anxious thought. Musing I asked him: “Tell me why You look thus vacant and distraught?” Sadly he gazed into my face: He said, “I have no respite, none! Oh, shall we wander into space Or fall into the sun? “Astronomers I’ve sought in […]
Victorian Science in Context
Posted on February 4, 2014 Leave a Comment
“Victorians of every rank, at many sites, in many ways, defined knowledge, ordered nature, and practiced science.” This introductory remark, in Bernard Lightman’s Victorian Science in Context (1997), unveils the aim of the volume as a whole. Presented as a series of connected vignettes, it focuses on the local and the contingent. Situating a range […]
The Agnostic Theology of Huxley and Tyndall
Posted on February 1, 2014 Leave a Comment
Earlier today I read Bernard Lightman’s short essay “Does the History of Science and Religion Change Depending on the Narrator? Some Atheist and Agnostic Perspectives” (2012) as a break from reading his edited volume Victorian Science in Context (1997). It was, as expected, excellent. Lightman’s answer is a resounding yes. In his estimation, “during the […]