The motto of the Royal Society
In science, it often happens that scientists say, 'You know
that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would
actually change their minds, and you never hear that old view from them again.
They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should because scientists
are human, and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot
recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.
(1987) -- Carl Sagan
August 29, 1662. The council and fellows of the Royal
Society went in a body to Whitehall to acknowledge his Majesty's royal grace to
granting our charter and vouchsafing to be himself our founder; then the
President gave an eloquent speech, to which his Majesty gave a gracious reply,
and we all kissed his hand. The next day, we went in like manner with our address
to my Lord Chancellor, who had much prompted our patent.
— John Evelyn
"If I have seen further, it is by standing on the
shoulders of Giants."
Isaac Newton 1675
Adrian Tinniswood’s new book is a superb introduction to the
origins of the Royal Society. His book part of the Landmark Library series is well
written and finely researched. Tinniswood is a historian with no previous track
record in science history, so this is a remarkably good book. It is compact
and highly accessible.
The Society resulted from the huge intellectual and
political ferment that was created by the English bourgeois revolution.
Tinniswood shows that before the Royal Society became a recognised body, it
comprised a collection of discussion groups.
Many of these groups were inspired by Francis Bacon
(1561-1626). Bacon was part of the massive growth of intellectual ideas that
proceeded in the seventeenth century. Bacon is an important figure because he
was the first to reject traditional Aristotelian thinking and proposed an experimental
investigation to find truths about nature.
As Karl Marx wrote, "The real progenitor of English
materialism is Francis Bacon. Natural science is to him the true science, and
sensuous physics the foremost part of science. Anaxagoras with his 'homoimeries'
and Democritus with his atoms are often his authorities. According to Bacon,
the senses arc unerring and the source of all knowledge. Science is
experimental and consists in the application of a rational method to sensuous
data. Observation, experiment, induction, analysis are the main conditions of a
rational method. Of the qualities inherent in matter, the foremost is motion,
not only as mechanical and mathematical motion, but more as impulse, vital
force, tension, or as Jacob Boehme said, pain of matter. The primitive forms of
the latter are living, individualising, inherent, and essential forces, which
produce specific variations".[1]
However, not everyone saw as clear and precise as Bacon according
to the Marxist writer David North " until the seventeenth century, even
educated people still generally accepted that the ultimate answers to all the
mysteries of the universe and the problems of life were found in the Old
Testament. But its unchallengeable authority had been slowly eroding,
especially since the publication of Copernicus's De Revolutionibus in the year
of his death in 1543, which dealt a death blow to the Ptolemaic conception of
the universe and provided the essential point of departure for the future
conquests of Tycho Brahe (1546-1601), Johann Kepler (1571-1630) and, of course,
Galileo Galilei (1564-1642). Intellectually, if not yet socially, the
liberation of man from the fetters of Medieval superstition and the political
structures that rested upon it was well underway".[2]
Historians have largely accepted that the English bourgeois
revolution created the conditions for establishing the Royal Society. Many of
the practices adopted by the Society, according to Tinniswood, were "far
ahead of its time". Probably one of the most important activities was the publishing
of Philosophical Transactions, launched in 1665. It is the world longest-running
scientific journal.
One of the more gruesome facts uncovered by Tinniswood was
that live experiments were done on the premises at Gresham College. In 1664,
Robert Hooke inserted a pipe into the trachea of a dog and pumped in the air
with bellows saying, "I was able to preserve it alive as long as I could
desire after I had wholly opened the thorax and cut off all the ribs, and
opened the belly,".
Tinniswood convincingly argues that the Royal Societies methodology,
scholarship and activities laid the foundations for developing modern science.
Tinniswood book does not examine the class background of the founders of the Society,
but it is clear that many of its founding members were from sections of the
lower middle class and gentry class.
As Neil Humphrey writes, "The nature of the Society's
membership evolved over the following centuries, but from its beginning, it was
a multifarious organisation. Members of the British gentry that used the
Society as a means for social advancement (while injecting it with much-needed
capital) were plentiful alongside studious researchers. This diversity created
a tension between science and privilege that finally exploded in 1830 when
fellow Charles Babbage lambasted the glut of unproductive members. In 1847 the
Duke of Sussex took the Society's reins, and scientific fellows seized control
and amended its constitution in 1847 to stymie further influence from the
gentry. This power-grab forever transformed the nature of the Society from that
of a scientific, social club into a scholarly society".[3]
It is not easy to cover over three centuries of scientific developments
in such a short book, but Tinniswood does well. One mild criticism is his lack
of interest in what is happening recently in the Royal Society. It would appear
that the Society's recent history is not as glorious as its past. In 2008 the Royal
Society's education director, Professor Michael Reiss, was forced to resign for
advocating the teaching of creationism in schools and evolution studies. He
said, "Creationism is best seen by science teachers not as a misconception
but as a world view."[4]
His comments provoke and anger and opposition from many
members. Nobel Prize winners Richard Roberts, John Sulston and Harry Kroto, sent
a letter demanding Reiss step down.
Conclusion
Tinniswood's history of The Royal Society is an accessible account of the formation of modern science. His writing style and explaining complex historical matters in a simple manner means the book is accessible to the general reader without losing its academic rigour. I would highly recommend it.
About the Author:
Adrian Tinniswood many books include Behind the Throne and
The Long Weekend. He writes for many publications such as The New York Times
and BBC History Magazine. He is a senior research fellow in history at The University of Buckingham, and he lives in Bath, England.
[1] England and Materialist
Philosophy- www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/holy-family/english-materialism.
[2] Equality, the Rights of
Man and the Birth of Socialism
David North-
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/1996/10/lect-o24.html
[3] https://origins.osu.edu/review/society-started-it-all-origins-modern-science
[4] https://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2008/sep/11/michael.reiss.creationism
