Subjects
Recreating Newton:
Newtonian Biography and the Making of Nineteenth-Century History of Science
Rebekah Higgitt
Science and Culture in the Nineteenth Century
978 1 85196 906 7: 234x256mm: £60.00/$99.00
978 1 85196 547 2
Higgitt examines Isaac Newton’s changing legacy during the nineteenth century. She focuses on 1820-70, a period that saw the creation of the specialized and secularized role of the ‘scientist’. At the same time, researchers gained better access to Newton’s archives. These were used both by those who wished to undermine the traditional, idealised depiction of scientific genius and those who felt obliged to defend Newtonian hagiography. Higgitt shows how debates about Newton’s character stimulated historical scholarship and led to the development of a new expertise in the history of science.
Sample pages
Readership
History of Science, Nineteenth-Century Studies, Newton Studies, Biographical Studies
Contents
Preface and acknowledgements
List of Figures
Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 2: Jean-Baptiste Biot’s ‘Newton’ and its Translation (1822-29)
This was the first significant retelling of Newton’s life and the first to contain evidence regarding Newton’s possible breakdown in 1692-93. The notion of scientific genius, and its presentation to different audiences, is central to this chapter. Through a comparison of the translation with its original, Biot’s Romanticised image of Newton is shown to be problematic in its new context. The chapter also addresses the use of Newton’s reputation to support a particular scientific theory. Biot presented Newton as a consistent advocate of the corpuscular theory of light at a time when he felt this was under increasing attack. In Britain, the work was welcomed by advocates of Continental mathematical techniques, for it propagandised the continuity between the achievements of Newton and the group surrounding Pierre-Simon Laplace.
Chapter 3: Brewster’s Life of Sir Isaac Newton (1831): Defending the Hero
David Brewster’s response to Biot’s biography was The Life of Sir Isaac Newton. Brewster’s wish to defend Newton was in part due to personal reverence but also to wider religious and moral concerns. There are some contradictions in Brewster’s image of Newton and his ideas regarding the progress and support of science, which are apparent in this biography. He believed that the process of scientific discovery involved the inspiration of unique minds but also that successful discoverers should be useful members of society rather than cloistered scholars. Brewster played an important part in the formation of the British Association for the Advancement of Science but rejected the Baconianism it later came to represent. These contradictions are examined in the context of Brewster’s role in the debates over the ‘Decline of Science’ and of his own scientific career. The final section of this chapter looks at the critics who chided Brewster for his hero-worship of Newton and notes the reformist and non-sectarian constituency that advocated an ‘impartial’ and source-based approach to Newton’s life.
Chapter 4: Francis Baily’s Account of the Reverend John Flamsteed (1835)
Francis Baily’s Account of Flamsteed depicted Newton in a manner radically different from earlier biographies and was to be a major impetus to subsequent research. Firstly, this chapter examines the relationship between Baily’s science and history, in order understand his admiration for Flamsteed and his acceptance of Flamsteed’s depiction of Newton. This study also demonstrates the contemporary relevance of the seventeenth-century controversies and Baily’s appropriation of objective techniques for recording scientific data to a controversial historical subject. The correspondence of the select group to which the Account was distributed is examined in order to gain an understanding of the section of the scientific community to which Baily wished to appeal. These responses are compared with published reviews, several of which were deeply hostile. This analysis reveals the deep divisions over Baily’s project: responses were frequently dictated by political and religious commitments. Those who approved of Baily’s publication, together with those who criticised Brewster’s Life, produced a reformist/radical critique of the idolisation of Newton, and the chief tactic at their disposal was the dissemination of documents that undermined that image.
Chapter 5: Newtonian Studies and the History of Science 1835-1855
This chapter examines a number of publications that were fundamental to the increase of knowledge about Newton and places this within the context of the developing expertise in the history of science. It highlights a discrepancy in the existing literature, which has devoted significantly more attention to broad, narrative histories than to primary-source based works. These writings brought new evidence to readers but refrained from developing grand schemes regarding scientific development and frequently avoided all interpretation and theorising. Their focus on original sources was in tune with contemporary developments in general historiography, but can also be viewed as a particularly ‘scientific’ technique. In his critical studies, Augustus De Morgan likewise insisted on the need for citing original authorities and an ‘impartial’ approach. This stance, like that of Brewster’s reviewers and Baily’s supporters, reflected his religious Nonconformity and political reformism. The chapter will end with a discussion of the moral values attached to the ‘inductivist’ approach to history demonstrated by Baily, S P Rigaud and Joseph Edleston or the ‘impartial’ judgements of De Morgan, which might be subsumed within their form rather than explicitly presented as in hagiographical biographies.
Chapter 6: Brewster’s Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton (1855): The ‘Regretful Witness’
In 1855 Brewster produced a second, two-volume biography of Newton. Although long-planned, this work was eventually to appear as a response to what Brewster viewed as a series of attacks on Newton’s reputation. Brewster’s correspondence with other ‘experts’ on Newton provides valuable information about his original research and his desire to find material with which he could defend Newton. Brewster’s attempts to tackle problematic areas in Newton’s biography demonstrate that these difficulties had been raised by other writers and required Brewster to make painful admissions. As well as much of the contents of this work being dictated by the research of others, the mission to find authoritative original sources was also a response to their writings. This standard biographical work must therefore be understood as the product of an individual’s struggle between fidelity to an idealised image and to the historical sources, between suppression and revelation. While Brewster occasionally resorted to suppression, new evidence contained in the Memoirs ensured that the depiction of Newton in its reviews had changed considerably from that presented in the 1831 reviews.
Chapter 7: The ‘Mythical’ and the ‘Historical’ Newton
The final chapter emphasises the difference between the ‘historical’ Newton, created by the expert community, and the ‘mythical’ Newton, celebrated by men of science and the public at large. De Morgan criticised the latter in print and attempted to propagate a more nuanced picture, opposing the hero-worship that led to the erection of Newton’s statue in Grantham. The second section shows that his book Newton: His Friend: and His Niece (1885) has been misread by most historians, who view it as a defence of Newton. In fact De Morgan continued his battle against Brewster and all those who adopted Newton as a hero and moral exemplar. His campaign was revived a final time as a result of the uninformed reaction to an apparent attack on Newton’s scientific status in 1867 through a series of forged documents. As well as highlighting the techniques of experts in dealing with anomalous evidence, this episode serves to demonstrate that more popular views of Newton were not significantly affected by either the biographies produced over the preceding decades or by new historical standards. The rhetorical importance of the ‘mythical’ Newton proved – and still proves – to be more enduring than carefully constructed historical accounts.
Chapter 8: Conclusion
Bibliography
Index
Reviews
'Higgitt’s well-researched study signals the rich resource that scientific biography offers to the historian of science'
– Adelene Buckland, British Society for Literature and Science Online Book Reviews
Read the full review
Related titles
