The Man of Science Citation Shapin, Steven. 2006. The Man of Science. In The Cambridge History of Science Vol. 3: Early Modern Science, ed. L. Daston and K. Park, 179-191. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Permanent link http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:3425895 Terms of Use This article was downloaded from Harvard University’s DASH repository, and is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Other Posted Material, as set forth at http:// nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of-use#LAA Share Your Story The Harvard community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Submit a story . Accessibility Part II PERSONAE AND SITES OF NATURAL KNOWLEDGE Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008 177 P1:KDA 0521572444c06 CUNY388/Park 0521572444 February8,2006 9:3 Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008 178 P1:KDA 0521572444c06 CUNY388/Park 0521572444 February8,2006 9:3 6 THE MAN OF SCIENCE StevenShapin Itisdifficulttorefertotheearlymodernmanofscienceinotherthannegative terms. He was not a “scientist”: The English word did not exist until the nineteenth century, and the equivalent French term – un scientifique – was notincommonuseuntilthetwentiethcentury.Nordidthedefinedsocialand cultural position now picked out by “the scientist’s role” exist in the early modern period. The man of science did not occupy a single distinct and coherentroleinearlymodernculture.Therewasnoonesocialbasisforthe supportofhiswork.Eventheminimalorganizingprincipleforanytreatment of the man of science – that he was someone engaged in the investigation ofnature–is,onreflection,highlyproblematic.Whatconceptionsofnature, and of natural knowledge, were implicated in varying cultural practices? Thesocialcircumstancesinwhich,forexample,naturalphilosophy,natural history, mathematics, chemistry, astronomy, and geography were pursued differedsignificantly. Themanofsciencewas,however,almostalwaysmale,andtouseanything but this gendered language to designate the pertinent early modern role or roles would be historically jarring. The system of exclusions that kept out thevastnumbersoftheunletteredalsokeptoutallbutaveryfewwomen. Andalthoughitisimportanttorecoverinformationaboutthosefewfemale participants,itwoulddistortsuchabriefsurveytodevotemajorattentionto 1 theissueofgender (seethefollowingchaptersinthisvolume:Schiebinger, Chapter7;Cooper,Chapter9;Outram,Chapter32). Any historically responsible treatment of the early modern man of sci- encehastoembraceasplittingimpulseandresisttemptationstowardfacile 1 Women do become rather more substantial philosophical presences in the salons of the Enlightenment;see,forexample,DenaGoodman,“EnlightenmentSalons:TheConvergenceof FemaleandPhilosophicAmbitions,”Eighteenth-CenturyStudies,22(1989),329–50. ThischapterwassubstantiallywrittenwhiletheauthorwasaFellowoftheCenterforAdvancedStudy intheBehavioralSciences,Stanford,California.HethankstheCenterandtheAndrewW.Mellon Foundationfortheirsupport. 179 Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008 P1:KDA 0521572444c06 CUNY388/Park 0521572444 February8,2006 9:3 180 StevenShapin 2 generalization. Thediversityofpastpatternsneedstobeinsistedupon,and notasamatterofmerepedantry.Eventhosehistoricalactorsconcernedwith bringing into being a more coherent and dedicated role for some version of the man of science were well aware of contemporary diversities. Francis Bacon (1561–1626) noted that “natural philosophy, even among those who haveattendedtoit,hasscarcelyeverpossessed,especiallyintheselatertimes, adisengagedandwholeman...,butthatithasbeenmademerelyapassage 3 andbridgetosomethingelse.” So the man of science was not a “natural” feature of the early modern culturalandsociallandscape:Oneusesthetermfautedemieux,awareofits improprietyinprinciple,yetconfidentthatnomortalhistoricalsinsinherein thetermitself.Althoughitisaproperhistoricalquestiontoask“howwegot fromtheretohere,”oneshouldatthesametimebewaryabouttransporting into the distant past the coherences of present-day social roles. Despite the legitimacy of asking how the relatively stable professionalized role of the modern scientist emerged from diverse sixteenth- and seventeenth-century arrangements, it would be misleading to mold historical inquiry solely to fit the contours of present-day interest in “origins stories” or to construe 4 historicalinquirysolelyasasearchfortracesofpresentarrangements. Earlymodernscientificwork–ofwhateverversion–waspursuedwithin a range of traditionally established social roles. One has to appreciate the expectations,conventions,andascribedattributesofthoseexistingroles,as wellasthechangestheywereundergoingandtheirmutualrelations,inorder tounderstandthesocialidentitiesofmenofscienceintheperiod.Yet,vitalas itistoinsistontheheterogeneityofexistingrolesinwhichnaturalknowledge washarboredandextendedintheearlymodernperiod,abriefsurveysuch asthisonecantreatjustafewofthemoreconsequentialroles–andhereI haveelectedtofocusontheuniversityscholarorprofessor,themedicalman, andthegentleman. 2 Forjustificationofsuchsplittingsensibilities,see,forexample,ThomasS.Kuhn,“Mathematical versusExperimentalTraditionsintheDevelopmentofPhysicalScience,”inTheEssentialTension: SelectedStudiesinScientificTraditionandChange,ed.ThomasS.Kuhn(Chicago:Universityof ChicagoPress,1977),pp.31–65,andthearchaeologyofdisciplinesandrolesmootedinRobertS. Westman,“TheAstronomer’sRoleintheSixteenthCentury:APreliminaryStudy,”HistoryofScience, 18(1980),105–47. 3 FrancisBacon,TheNewOrganon[1620],bk.1,aphorism80,ed.FultonH.Anderson(Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill,1960),p.77. 4 Awell-knownessayon“theemergenceanddevelopmentofthesocialroleofthescientist,”strongly shapedbytheassumptionsofstructural-functionalistsociologyandbytheso-calledprofessionaliza- tionmodel,isJosephBen-David,TheScientist’sRoleinSociety[1971](Chicago:UniversityofChicago Press,1984),esp.chaps.4–5(forearlymoderntopics).Notethatthenegativeclaimsofthisandthe precedingparagrapharedirectcontradictionsofBen-David’sassertion(p.45;cf.p.56n.20)that itwasintheseventeenthcenturythat“certainmen...view[ed]themselvesforthefirsttimeas scientistsand[saw]thescientificroleasonewithuniqueandspecialobligationsandpossibilities.” Forwell-judgedcriticismofahistoricalassumptionsinBen-David’saccount,seeThomasS.Kuhn, “ScientificGrowth:ReflectionsonBen-David’s‘ScientificRole’,”Minerva,10(1972),166–78;cf.Roy Porter,“GentlemenandGeology:TheEmergenceofaScientificCareer,1660–1920,”TheHistorical Journal,21(1978),809–36,atpp.809–13. Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008 P1:KDA 0521572444c06 CUNY388/Park 0521572444 February8,2006 9:3 TheManofScience 181 Amorecompletesurveywouldbeabletotreatawholerangeofothercon- temporaryrolesandtheirimportancefortheconductofnaturalknowledge. Theclericalrole,forexample,overlappedsignificantly,butonlypartially,with thatoftheuniversityscholar,andanumberofkeyfiguresspentthewhole, orveryconsiderableportions,oftheirworkingliveswithinreligiousinstitu- tions or sustained by clerical positions: among many examples, Nicholas Copernicus (1473–1543) in his Ermland chapter house, Marin Mersenne (1588–1648)intheorderofMinimsinParis,andPierreGassendi(1592–1655), whosecanonryatDigneassuredhisfinancialindependence.Thesignificance ofthepriestlyroleforcontemporaryappreciationsoftheproperrelationship between natural knowledge and religion cannot be overemphasized. When some seventeenth-century practitioners circulated a conception of natural philosophers as “priests of nature,” they meant to display the theological equivalence of the Books of Nature and Scripture and also to imbue scien- 5 tificworkwiththeaurasurroundingtheformallyreligiousrole. Still other major scientific and philosophical figures spent much of their careers as amanuenses, clerks, tutors, or domestic servants of various kinds to members of the gentry and aristocracy, a common career pattern for Renaissance humanist intellectuals in several countries. Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679)functionedinavarietyofdomesticservicerolestotheCavendish familyforalmostthewholeofhisadultlife,andoneofJohnLocke’s(1632– 1704) first positions was as private physician, and later as general secre- tary, to the Earl of Shaftesbury. Relationships binding the practice of sci- encetothepatronageofprincesandwealthygentlemenwerepervasiveand consequential: The significance of the Tuscan court’s patronage for Galileo Galilei’s “socioprofessional identity” and for the direction of his scientific work has been vigorously asserted, and the importance of patronage and clientagerelationsforthecareersandauthorityofverymanyothernotable earlymodernmenofscience–andfortheauthorityoftheknowledgethey 6 produced – merits much fuller study. Finally, a more extensive account of the early modern man of science would treat a whole range of less exalted figures–mathematicalpractitioners,instrumentmakers,lensgrinders,and varioustypesof“superiorartisans”–whosesignificancebothforthepractical conductofscientificresearchandforthedevelopmentofempiricalmethods wasmuchinsisteduponbytheMarxisthistoriographyofthe1930sand1940s 7 andasvigorouslydeniedbyidealisthistorians. 5 See,forexample,HaroldFisch,“TheScientistasPriest:ANoteonRobertBoyle’sNaturalTheology,” Isis,44(1953),252–65;andSimonSchaffer,“GodlyMenandMechanicalPhilosophers:Soulsand SpiritsinRestorationNaturalPhilosophy,”ScienceinContext,1(1987),55–85. 6 MarioBiagioli,Galileo,Courtier:ThePracticeofScienceintheCultureofAbsolutism(Chicago:Uni- versityofChicagoPress,1993);seealsoBruceT.Moran,ed.,PatronageandInstitutions:Science, Technology,andMedicineattheEuropeanCourt,1500–1750(Woodbridge:BoydellPress,1991). 7 Forclassicstressonthecrucialsignificanceofcraftrolesintheemergenceofmodernscience,see EdgarZilsel,“TheSociologicalRootsofScience,”AmericanJournalofSociology,47(1942),544– 62. For Alexandre Koyre´–inspired rejection of any such idea, see A. Rupert Hall, “The Scholar Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008 P1:KDA 0521572444c06 CUNY388/Park 0521572444 February8,2006 9:3 182 StevenShapin THE UNIVERSITY SCHOLAR The man of science, and almost all specific versions thereof, represented a subset of the early modern learned classes. By construing the investigation of nature as an act within learned culture, one is immediately marking out amassivelyimportantsocialdivisioninearlymodernEurope,thatbetween those who were literate and those who were not, between those who had passedthroughformalschoolingandthosewhohadnot.Europeancultures diddifferintheextenttowhichtheirpopulationswereschooled,andthere- fore literate, but, in general, the fraction of the literate was very small and 8 thatofthelearnedevensmaller. Whatwasunderstoodaboutthecharacters of the learned elite was, mutatis mutandis, understood of the learned man ofscienceaswell. Bynomeansallnoteworthyearlymodernmenofscienceweresystemati- callyshapedbyuniversitytraining.Amongthosewhodidnotformallyattend universityatallwereBlaisePascal(1623–1662),RobertBoyle(1627–1691),and Rene´Descartes(1596–1650),thoughDescartes’trainingattheJesuitschoolof LaFle`chewasconsiderablymoresignificanttohisintellectualdevelopment thanwasBoyle’stimeatEtonCollege.Atbothendsofthesocialscale,the futuremanofsciencemightescapeuniversitytraining–thosebeingbredto artisanalormercantilework,suchasthepotterandnaturalhistorianBernard Palissy(1510–1590)orthemerchantandmicroscopistAntonievanLeeuwen- hoek (1632–1723), because they lacked the means or current interest,9 and thearistocrat(e.g.,Boyle)becauseprivateresourcesmightbepreferredand because there was no professional or material inducement to secure formal andtheCraftsmanintheScientificRevolution,”inCriticalProblemsintheHistoryofScience,ed. MarshallClagett(Madison:UniversityofWisconsinPress,1959),pp.3–23.Forrevivedinterestin theroleandstandingofmathematicalpractitioners,see,forexample,MordechaiFeingold,The Mathematicians’Apprenticeship:Science,Universities,andSocietyinEngland,1560–1640(Cambridge: CambridgeUniversityPress,1984);J.A.Bennett,“TheMechanics’PhilosophyandtheMechanical Philosophy,”HistoryofScience,24(1986),1–28;Bennett,“TheChallengeofPracticalMathematics,” inScience,Culture,andPopularBeliefinRenaissanceEurope,ed.StephenPumfrey,PaoloL.Rossi, andMauriceSlawinski(Manchester:ManchesterUniversityPress,1991),pp.176–90;MarioBiagioli, “TheSocialStatusofItalianMathematicians,1450–1600,”HistoryofScience,27(1989),41–95;Richard W.Hadden,OntheShouldersofMerchants:ExchangeandtheMathematicalConceptionofNaturein EarlyModernEurope(Albany:StateUniversityofNewYorkPress,1994);FrancesWillmoth,Sir JonasMoore:PracticalMathematicsandRestorationScience(Woodbridge:BoydellPress,1993);Amir Alexander,“TheImperialistSpaceofElizabethanMathematics,”StudiesinHistoryandPhilosophy ofScience,26(1995),559–91;StephenJohnston,“MathematicalPractitionersandInstrumentsin ElizabethanEngland,”AnnalsofScience,48(1991),319–44;andKatherineHill,“‘JuglersorSchollers?’: NegotiatingtheRoleofaMathematicalPractitioner,”BritishJournalfortheHistoryofScience,31 (1998),253–74. 8 Fortreatmentofchangingrelationsbetweeneliteandlayculturesintheearlymodernperiod,see PeterBurke,PopularCultureinEarlyModernEurope(London:TempleSmith,1978),esp.chaps.2 and9;seealsoPaulJ.Bagley,“OnthePracticeofEsotericism,”JournaloftheHistoryofIdeas,53 (1992),231–47;andCarloGinzburg,“HighandLow:TheThemeofForbiddenKnowledgeinthe SixteenthandSeventeenthCenturies,”PastandPresent,73(1976),28–41. 9 TheexperimentalistRobertHookewasatChristChurch,Oxford,asachorister,anditisunclear whetherheeveravailedhimselfofformaluniversityinstruction. Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008 P1:KDA 0521572444c06 CUNY388/Park 0521572444 February8,2006 9:3 TheManofScience 183 training. For a larger number of other men of science, university educa- tion was part of a background preparation for roles in civic life, and the acquisitionofscientificexpertise,oratleastofthatexpertiseforwhichthey became known, occurred elsewhere. The mathematician Pierre de Fermat (1601–1665)andtheastronomerJohannesHevelius(1611–1687)studiedlaw at a university, as did many other future men of science; William Gilbert (1544–1603), author of De magnete (On the Magnet, 1600), and the math- ematician and physicist Isaac Beeckman (1588–1637) studied medicine; and JohannesKepler(1571–1630)studiedmainlytheology. Intheirmaturecareers,however,manyscientificpractitionersinthesix- teenth and seventeenth centuries were professionally engaged by universi- ties or related institutions of higher learning, though the proportion of these among the great figures making up the canon of early modern sci- encecanbeoverestimated.10AndreasVesalius(1514–1564),Galileo,andIsaac Newton(1642–1727)wereprofessors(foratleastpartoftheircareers),whereas Copernicus,Kepler,Bacon,Descartes,Mersenne,Pascal,Boyle,TychoBrahe (1546–1601), and Christiaan Huygens (1629–1695) were not. Moreover, the professorialrolewasbynomeansastableone.Althoughforlatetwentieth- century scientists a permanent university appointment generally represents a natural career culmination, this was not necessarily the case for the early modern man of science. Occupying a university chair or fellowship might be just an episode in a career that included a variety of other social roles. Therewasindeedanearlymodernpatternofusinguniversityemployment as a stepping stone to more desirable positions directly supported by court patronage. A figure such as the mathematician and astronomer Christoph Clavius (1538–1612) was arguably exceptional in remaining at his professo- rial position (in the Jesuits’ Collegio Romano) for almost the whole of his adultlife.BothIsaacBarrow(1630–1677)andhissuccessorintheCambridge Lucasian Chair of Mathematics, Isaac Newton, abandoned their university appointments while they were relatively young men – Barrow for brighter prospects as a royal chaplain (returning to Cambridge later as Master of Trinity and University Vice Chancellor), and Newton (after health prob- lems) to become an official of the Royal Mint. Their contemporary Seth Ward (1617–1689), the Savilian Professor of Astronomy at Oxford, gave up his professorial career in early middle age, accepting several church livings andultimatelybecomingbishopofExeter. ThomasWillis(1621–1675)vacatedtheSedleianChairofNaturalPhilos- ophyatOxfordforalucrativemedicalpracticeinLondon.Vesaliuslefthis teachingattheUniversityofPaduainmid-careerformedicalserviceinthe 10 This brief survey does not aim at a prosopography of early modern men of science and their institutionalaffiliations.Suchanexercisewouldfirsthavetoestablishsocialandintellectualcriteria foridentifyingwhowasamanofscience,whereasamajorpurposeofthischapteristodrawattention totheproblematicnatureofanycoherentsetofcriteriathepresent-dayhistorianmightdrawup. Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008 P1:KDA 0521572444c06 CUNY388/Park 0521572444 February8,2006 9:3 184 StevenShapin imperial household; the astronomer Gian Domenico Cassini I (1625–1712) combineddutiesasaprofessorattheUniversityofBolognawithengineering workforthepopebeforeabandoningbothforastipendasamemberofthe newAcade´mieRoyaledesSciencesinParis;theFrenchHuguenotinventor Denis Papin (1647–1712) had no compunction about leaving his chair of mathematicsattheuniversityofMarburgbecauseofitsmiserablesalaryand heavy teaching load, and the Danish astronomer Ole Ro¨mer (1644–1710) equally understandably quit his chair of mathematics at the University of Copenhagentobecomeapowerfulofficeholder–firstmayorandthenstate councillor. Hence the identification of scientific work with the professorial careerwassignificantbuttenuousandpatchyduringtheearlymodernperiod. Ifyouwere,forexample,acleric-professor,oraphysician-professor,thenit needsnospecialexplanationthatyougaveupyourchair–andevengaveup yourscientificresearch–whenbetter-paidormoreprestigiousecclesiastical ormedicalopportunitiespresentedthemselves. Professionalaffiliationwithinstitutionsofhighereducationandthestew- ardshipoflearningmeantthreethingsaboveall.First,itsignaledlinkswith organizedformsofChristianreligion.Throughouttheearlymodernperiod, universitiesoutsideItalywerewidelyunderchurchcontrol–theReformation splittingtheinstitutionalnatureofthatcontrolbutnot,withsomeimportant exceptions, diluting it. The universities had as one of their major purposes the training of individuals for clerical roles, and membership in the clergy, orformalsubscriptiontochurchdoctrines,wereverygeneralconditionsfor matriculation,graduation,orentrytothefellowshipandprofessoriate. Second, the university combined curatorial and culturally reproductive roles, and its professors’ activities and identities were primarily understood in those lights. Universities signified both responsible custodianship of the knowledge inherited from the past and its reliable transmission to future generations, and, although a significant number of professors took it upon themselvestoengageinresearchthatchallengedorthodoxbeliefs,nowherein earlymodernEuropewassuchaconceptionoftheprofessorialrolestandard. Originalresearchwasnot,sotospeak,arolerequirement. Third, affiliation with the university associated the man of science with specific hierarchical social forms: The master was understood to be a mas- ter of knowledge traditionally accumulated and traditionally vouched for, and his institutional purpose was to transmit that mastery to future gener- ations. The value placed on these hierarchical forms implicated the value placedontraditionalformsofknowledge.The“modern”assaultonschool- knowledgeproceededimportantlybywayofcriticismsoftheschools’hier- archical social forms and the role of the professor in those forms. The university setting vouched for expertise, authenticity, and orthodoxy, and thoseascribedcharacteristicsspokeinfavoroftheknowledgehousedthere. But to those of a mind to criticize university arrangements, the same site and role were associated with authoritarianism, dogmatism, pedantry, Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008 P1:KDA 0521572444c06 CUNY388/Park 0521572444 February8,2006 9:3 TheManofScience 185 disputatiousness,andmelancholicsequestrationfromthecivicandmaterial worlds. Indeed, some of the new scientific societies that began to emerge in the mid-seventeenth century developed in self-conscious opposition to the universities:Apeaceableandusefulcommunityofinquiringequalswasjuxta- 11 posedwithbastionsofschool-mastery,divisiveness,andinconsequentiality. The Royal Society of London was a notable site in which such sentiments were expressed, whereas in Germany Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz’s (1646– 1716)plansforastate-supportedscientificacademystressedtheimportance of selecting persons who were not only knowledgeable but who were “also endowedwithauniquegoodnessofmind;inwhomrivalryandjealousyare wanting; who will not use despicable devices to appropriate for themselves the labors of others; who are not factious and have no wish to be regarded asthefoundersofsects;wholaborforloveoflearningandnotforambition 12 orsordidpay.” Insuchvenues,disapprovingassessmentsoftheprofessorial characterprecipitatedbynegation,asitwere,thedevelopingidentityofthe free academic member of the Republic of Science. Yet, apart from a very general commitment to a harmoniously collaborative – or at least collec- tive–pursuitofnaturalknowledge,thereisnosinglecoherentpatterntobe discernedintheestablishmentorstructureofseventeenth-centuryscientific societies.MembersoftheAcade´mieRoyaledesSciencesinParisenjoyedsub- stantialCrownpensionsanddevotedthemselveseffectivelytotheextension of state power through reformed natural knowledge and technology, but, although fellows of the Royal Society of London intermittently expressed theirdesiretorealizetheimperializingdreamsoftheutopianresearchinsti- tutedescribedinBacon’sNewAtlantis(1627),theEnglishCrownofferedno stipendsandlittlefinancialsupport.CharlesIIlaughedatthemforwasting 13 theirtimeonintellectualtrivialities. 11 SomeoftheseissuesaretreatedfortheEnglishsettinginAllenG.Debus,ScienceandEducation intheSeventeenthCentury:TheWebster–WardDebate(London:Macdonald,1970);MichaelR.G. Spiller,“ConcerningNaturalExperimentalPhilosophie”:MericCasaubonandtheRoyalSociety(The Hague:MartinusNijhoff,1980);andJamesR.Jacob,HenryStubbe,RadicalProtestantismandthe EarlyEnlightenment(Cambridge:CambridgeUniversityPress,1983),esp.chap.5.Therelations betweentheRoyalSocietyofLondonandgentlemanlyconventionsarebrieflytreatedlaterinthis chapter.ForageneralsketchoftheacademicinstitutionalformasitdevelopedinEuropebeginning inthemid-fifteenthcentury,seeBen-David,TheScientist’sRole,pp.59–66. 12 GottfriedWilhelmLeibniz,“OntheElementsofNaturalScience,”inLeibniz,PhilosophicalPapers andLetters[ca.1682–4],ed.andtrans.LeroyE.Loemker,2nded.(Dordrecht:Reidel,1969),pp.277– 90,atp.282.ForthecontextandoutcomeofLeibniz’splansforestablishingscientificsocieties,see AyvalRamati,“HarmonyataDistance:Leibniz’sScientificAcademies,”Isis,87(1996),430–52. 13 Thereisaverylargesecondaryliteratureonparticularseventeenth-centuryscientificsocieties,as wellassomeattempttoidentifytheircollectivesignificance:see,forexample,SirHenryLyons,The RoyalSociety,1660–1940:AHistoryofItsAdministrationunderItsCharters(Cambridge:Cambridge UniversityPress,1944),chaps.1–4;DorothyStimson,ScientistsandAmateurs:AHistoryoftheRoyal Society(NewYork:HenrySchuman,1948);SirHaroldHartley,ed.,TheRoyalSociety:ItsOrigins andFounders(London:TheRoyalSociety,1960);MargeryPurver,TheRoyalSociety:Conceptand Creation(Cambridge,Mass.:MITPress,1967);MichaelHunter,EstablishingtheNewScience:The ExperienceoftheEarlyRoyalSociety(Woodbridge:BoydellPress,1989);Hunter,TheRoyalSociety Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008