Victorian Scientific Naturalism
Title | Victorian Scientific Naturalism PDF eBook |
Author | Gowan Dawson |
Publisher | University of Chicago Press |
Total Pages | 354 |
Release | 2014-04-28 |
Genre | History |
ISBN | 022610964X |
Victorian Scientific Naturalism examines the secular creeds of the generation of intellectuals who, in the wake of The Origin of Species, wrested cultural authority from the old Anglican establishment while installing themselves as a new professional scientific elite. These scientific naturalists—led by biologists, physicists, and mathematicians such as William Kingdon Clifford, Joseph Dalton Hooker, Thomas Henry Huxley, and John Tyndall—sought to persuade both the state and the public that scientists, not theologians, should be granted cultural authority, since their expertise gave them special insight into society, politics, and even ethics. In Victorian Scientific Naturalism, Gowan Dawson and Bernard Lightman bring together new essays by leading historians of science and literary critics that recall these scientific naturalists, in light of recent scholarship that has tended to sideline them, and that reevaluate their place in the broader landscape of nineteenth-century Britain. Ranging in topic from daring climbing expeditions in the Alps to the maintenance of aristocratic protocols of conduct at Kew Gardens, these essays offer a series of new perspectives on Victorian scientific naturalism—as well as its subsequent incarnations in the early twentieth century—that together provide an innovative understanding of the movement centering on the issues of community, identity, and continuity.
Phrenology and the Origins of Victorian Scientific Naturalism
Title | Phrenology and the Origins of Victorian Scientific Naturalism PDF eBook |
Author | John van Wyhe |
Publisher | Routledge |
Total Pages | 435 |
Release | 2017-05-15 |
Genre | History |
ISBN | 1351911295 |
Through a reassessment of phrenology, Phrenology and the Origins of Victorian Scientific Naturalism sheds light on all kinds of works in Victorian Britain and America which have previously been unnoticed or were simply referred to with a vague 'naturalism of the times' explanation. It is often assumed that the scientific naturalism familiar in late nineteenth century writers such as T.H. Huxley and John Tyndall are the effects of a 'Darwinian revolution' unleashed in 1859 on an unsuspecting world following the publication of The Origin of Species. Yet it can be misleading to view Darwin's work in isolation, without locating it in the context of a well established and vigorous debate concerning scientific naturalism. Throughout the nineteenth century intellectuals and societies had been discussing the relationship between nature and man, and the scientific and religious implications thereof. At the forefront of these debates were the advocates of phrenology, who sought to apply their theories to a wide range of subjects, from medicine and the treatment of the insane, to education, theology and even economic theories. Showing how ideas about naturalism and the doctrine of natural laws were born in the early phrenology controversies in the 1820s, this book charts the spread of such views. It argues that one book in particular, The Constitution of Man in Relation to External Objects (1828) by George Combe, had an enormous influence on scientific thinking and the popularity of the 'naturalistic movement'. The Constitution was one of the best-selling books of the nineteenth century, being published continuously from 1828 to 1899, and selling more than 350,000 copies throughout the world, many times more than Dawin's The Origin of Species. By restoring Combe and his work to centre stage it provides modern scholars with a more accurate picture of the Victorians' view of their place in Nature.
The Age of Scientific Naturalism
Title | The Age of Scientific Naturalism PDF eBook |
Author | Bernard Lightman |
Publisher | University of Pittsburgh Press |
Total Pages | 266 |
Release | 2016-02-19 |
Genre | Science |
ISBN | 0822981645 |
Physicist John Tyndall and his contemporaries were at the forefront of developing the cosmology of scientific naturalism during the Victorian period. They rejected all but physical laws as having any impact on the operations of human life and the universe. Contributors focus on the way Tyndall and his correspondents developed their ideas through letters, periodicals and scientific journals and challenge previously held assumptions about who gained authority, and how they attained and defended their position within the scientific community.
The Constitution of Man Considered in Relation to External Objects
Title | The Constitution of Man Considered in Relation to External Objects PDF eBook |
Author | George Combe |
Publisher | |
Total Pages | 476 |
Release | 1899 |
Genre | Human beings |
ISBN |
Huxley's Church and Maxwell's Demon
Title | Huxley's Church and Maxwell's Demon PDF eBook |
Author | Matthew Stanley |
Publisher | University of Chicago Press |
Total Pages | 373 |
Release | 2015 |
Genre | Biography & Autobiography |
ISBN | 022616487X |
During the Victorian period science shifted from being practiced in a theistic context (integrating religious considerations and ideas) to a naturalistic context (explicitly forbidding religious matters). This book examines the foundations of that change. While it is generally thought that the transformation was due to the methodological superiority of naturalistic science, Matthew Stanley shows that most of the methodological values underlying scientific practice were virtually identical between the theists and the naturalists. Each agreed on the importance of the uniformity of natural laws, the use of hypothesis and theory, the moral value of science, and intellectual freedom. This was despite the claims by both groups that those fundamentals were intrinsic to their worldview, and completely incompatible with that of their opponents. Stanley goes on to argue that the victory of the scientific naturalists came from deliberate strategies executed over a generation to gain control of the institutions of scientific education and to re-imagine the history of their discipline. Rather than a sudden revolution, the similarity between theistic and naturalistic science allowed for a relatively smooth transition in practice from the old guard to the new. "Huxley's Church and Maxwell's Demon" explores this shift through a parallel study of two major scientific figures: James Clerk Maxwell, a devout Christian physicist, and Thomas Henry Huxley, the iconoclast biologist who coined the word agnostic. Both were deeply engaged in the methodological, institutional, and political issues that were crucial to the theistic-naturalistic transformation. The author s astute examination of the ascendance of scientific naturalism sheds new light on the controversies over science and religion in modern America. "
Evolutionary Naturalism in Victorian Britain
Title | Evolutionary Naturalism in Victorian Britain PDF eBook |
Author | Bernard Lightman |
Publisher | Taylor & Francis |
Total Pages | 337 |
Release | 2023-05-31 |
Genre | History |
ISBN | 1000948315 |
Scholars have tended to portray T.H. Huxley, John Tyndall, and their allies as the dominant cultural authority in the second half of the 19th century. Defenders of Darwin and his theory of evolution, these men of science are often seen as a potent force for the secularization of British intellectual and social life. In this collection of essays Bernard Lightman argues that historians have exaggerated the power of scientific naturalism to undermine the role of religion in middle and late-Victorian Britain. The essays deal with the evolutionary naturalists, especially the biologist Thomas Henry Huxley, the physicist John Tyndall, and the philosopher of evolution, Herbert Spencer. But they look also at those who criticized this influential group of elite intellectuals, including aristocratic spokesman A. J Balfour, the novelist Samuel Butler, and the popularizer of science Frank Buckland. Focusing on the theme of the limitations of the cultural power of evolutionary naturalism, the volume points to the enduring strength of religion in Britain in the latter half of the 19th century.
The "creed of Science" in Victorian England
Title | The "creed of Science" in Victorian England PDF eBook |
Author | Roy M. MacLeod |
Publisher | Routledge |
Total Pages | 360 |
Release | 2000 |
Genre | History |
ISBN |
The nineteenth century, which saw the triumph of the idea of progress and improvement, saw also the triumph of science as a political and cultural force. In England, as science and its methods claimed privilege and space, its language acquired the vocabulary of religion. The new 'creed' of science embraced what John Tyndall called the 'scientific movement'; it was, in the language of T.H. Huxley, a militant creed. The 'march' of invention, the discoveries of chemistry, and the wonders of steam and electricity culminated in a crusade against ignorance and unbelief. It was a creed that looked to its own apostolic succession from Copernicus, Galileo and the martyrs of the 'scientific revolution'. Yet, it was a creed whose doctrines were divisive, and whose convictions resisted. Alongside arguments for materialism, utility, positivism, and evolutionary naturalism, persisted reservations about the nature of man, the role of ethics, and the limits of scientific method. These essays discuss leading strategists in the scientific movement of late-Victorian England. At the same time, they show how 'science established' served not only the scientific community, but also the interests of imperial and colonial powers.