Journal of the History of Biology, Vol. 2, No. 2

0

Journalof the Historyof Biology FALL 1969: VOLUME 2, NUMBER 2

Editor: Everett Mendelsohn, Harvard University Assistant Editor: Judith P. Swazey, Harvard University THE BELKNAP PRESS OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS ? Copyright 1969 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College

CONTENTS Some Aspects of English Physiology: 1780-1840

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JUNE GOODFIELD-TOULMIN

Essay on Myth and Method in Seventeenth-Century Biological Thought

321

WILLIAM P. D. WIGHTMAN

American Geneticists and the Eugenic Movement: 1905-1935

337

KENNETH M. LUDMERER

Multum in Parvo: Gilbert White of Selborne

363

CHARLES F. MULLETT

Richard Bradley's Understanding of Biological Productivity

391

FRANK N. EGERTON

W. K. Brooks's Role in the History of American Biology

411

DENNIS M. MCCULLOUGH

Essay Review

439

JOSEF BROZEK

The J. H. B. Bookshelf

445

Index to Volume 2

457

Editorial Board: Bentley Glass, State University of New York, Stony Brook; Hebbel E. Hoff, M.D., Baylor University; Ernst Mayr, Harvard University; Everett Mendelsohn, Harvard University; Jane Oppenheimer, Bryn Mawr College. Advisory Editorial Committee: Ennrque Beltran, Mexico; Georges Canguilhem, France; John T. Edsall, M.D., U.S.A.; A. E. Gaissinovitch, U.S.S.R.; Ralph W. Gerard, M. D., U.S.A.; John C. Greene, U.S.A.; Marc Klein, M.D., France; Vladislav Kruta, M.D., Czechoslovakia; Joseph Needham, England; Dickinson W. Richards, M.D., U.S.A.; K. E. Rothschuh, M.D., Germany; Conway Zirkle, U.S.A. JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF BIOLOGY is published semiannually in the spring and autumn by the BeLknap Press of Harvard University Press, 79 Garden Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 02138. Editorial Correspondence and manuscripts should be sent to Professor Everett Mendelsohn, Editor, Journal of the History of Biology, Holyoke Center 838, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 02138. Subscription correspondence should be addressed to Mrs. W. H. Carpenter, Harvard University Press, 79 Garden Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 02138. Subscriptions, which are payable in advance, will start with the first issue published after receipt of the order. Please make remittances payable to Harvard University Press. Subscription rates are $7.50 a year in the U.S.; $8.50 in all other countries; $4.50 for a single copy. Journal Design by David Ford

Some Aspectsof English Physiology:1780-1840 JUNE GOODFIELD-TOULMIN Department of Philosophy, College of Human Medicine Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan

INTRODUCTION We have long been used in the history of science to seeing how the precise questions men were interested in, and the types of explanation that they were prepared to accept, have changed over the centuries. By now this is almost a truism. Changes of this sort have been most extensively documented within the history of the physical sciences, but the general thesis is equally true in biology, as anyone who has studied the history of the mechanist/ vitalist controversy knows. (It is indeed this very recognition of the changing nature of explanation that caused me initially to distinguish between "descriptive" and "explanatory" vitalists, and between "descriptive" and "explanatory" mechanists.1) And whether one is dealing with biological explanation over a wide span of time, or whether one is examining in more detail a far shorter period in biological history, the same general lesson appears to be true. The first part of this paper discusses an episode from physiology in early nineteenth-century England and will illustrate this point. This was a time of great debate2 over physiological 1. G. J. Goodfield, The Growth of Scientific Physiology (London, 1960). 2. I actually started this investigation as a result of a difference between myself and Dr. Everett Mendelsohn. In a footnote to his book Heat and Life, Dr. Mendelsohn says:-"His [Crawford's] failure to directly enter the philosophical arguments over vitalism should not be misconstrued. Most working biologists remained outside of this discourse." (E. Mendelsohn, Heat and Life, 1964, p. 159n.) This statement is questionable. For example, in the particular discussion with which I am here concerned, which proved to be only one aspect of this issue within physiology at that time, I have counted the number of working scientists in France and England who actually wrote on this matter and noted where they wrote. Both Palmer, editing the works of John Hunter in 1837, and Bostock in his great compendium of contemporary physiology (3rd ed., 1836), devoted considerable footnote space to a discussion of this particular question and listed the names, with bibliographical references, of working physiologists who had

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method and physiological explanation, and the debate spilled over into a number of adjacent areas. The early years of the nineteenth century were particularly active for such discussions, especially in London, and the debates which these engendered had wide repercussions both within physiology and more generally. The resultant controversies were to set up ripples of unwelcome effects among the liberals of the time. Firstly, the arguments were closely tied in with the current philosophy.3 Many of the early nineteenth-century physiologists were strongly influenced by David Hume and became caught up in philosophical debates normally associated with such men as Joseph Priestley, Dugald Stewart, David Hartley, Thomas Reid, and Thomas Brown. (This group are a delight to read. They are representative of a particular school of philosophers, many of them Scotsmen, who as Peter Medawar has pointed out "had definite opinions to express and took care to make them fully understood." 4) Physiology became tangled up on the theological side too. The pre-Darwinian battle was fought out in England quite as intensely between 1815 and 1830 as it was to be after 1859. Later in the century the issue was to be one of descent: the possibility that man could have physically evolved from the apes was too difficult to swallow. But even in the earlier years of the century, certain obvious physical similarities between man and the apes resulted in a number of comparisons being made which were highly unwelcome. Many scientists concluded from their morphological and anatomical observations that, for example, the mind of man could be directly correlated with the more complex development of his brain. Those of them interested expressed written opinions on this topic. The list contains many wellknown scientists from France, Germany, and England, as well as a number whose names are not so familiar. Together these add up to over fifty references, and few well-known physiologists are missing. This was discussion within the only one aspect of the physiological-philosophical broad framework of general physiology. I would, therefore, still hold to the statement that I made when reviewing Mendelsohn's book in Isis [56, (1965), 461-465]: "with few exceptions, this was a time of methodological heart-searching for physiologists." 3. For instance, William Lawrence, who will receive extensive discussion in this paper, refers to the following influential book which he had studied carefully: Thomas Brown, Inquiry into the Relation of Cause and Effect, 3rd ed., Edinburgh, 1818. Lawrence, moreover, is constantly writing in Humean terms, e.g.," . . . and the constant conjunction of phenomena . . . is the sole ground for affirming a necessary connection between them." W. Lawrence, Lectures on Comparative Anatomy, Physiology, Zoology, and the Natural History of Man. Dedicated to Blumenbach (London, 1819), p. 105. 4. P. Medawar, The Art of the Soluble (1967), p. 9.

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Some Aspects of English Physiology both in physiology and anthropology also became involved in problems of "mind" and "soul," and therefore, like Priestley, in questions of materialism, and often most unwillingly found themselves caught up in theological problems. The focus of the theological-scientific debate, however, revolved around the question of the demarcation lines between science and religion.5 Caught up in this debate were men like Thomas Rennell, Vicar of St. Mary's in Cambridge; the Catholic, Foster of Chelmsford, George Nesse, William Grinfield, the physiologist Sir Charles Bell, and perhaps most notably of all, William Lawrence. It was Lawrence who, in his classic and controversial book, wrote: "Animals, too, participate in rational endowment."6 (The second part of this paper deals with these problems). Thirdly, science and scientists were inevitably involved in the political debates of the day. The years between 1800 and the Battle of Waterloo in 1815 were traumatic ones for England, and the liberals of the time found the going very rough. The poet Robert Southey early made a reputation as a free-thinking, fearless speaker, but drew great scorn upon himself when later he accepted the post of Poet Laureate, became a member of the "Establishment," and one of the most illiberal of the Right-Wing. Many scientists found the atmosphere suffocating and bitter. Lawrence himself, in 1819, after he had drawn reproaches for taking notice of the opinion of the French physiologists, was to observe bitterly that the French seemed "to be considered our natural enemies in science, as well as in politics." It was probably only his decision to give up theoretical physiology and to concentrate totally on his medical practice that prevented him from being forced to follow the example of Joseph Priestley and emigrate to America. This is by way of general background. The era is fascinating for the historian of physiology, and the whole of the interrelations between the work of the physiologists and the philosophers considered in the context of the social and political scene is part of a larger work of which two episodes alone are given here. I. THE VITAL PRINCIPLE AND THE APPEAL TO NEWTON7 In the Edinburgh Review of September 1814 a critique appeared of two recently published lectures by John Abernethy of 5. This point has also been discussed by Oswei Tempkin, "Basic Science, Medicine, and the Romantic Era," Bull. Hist. Med., 36 (1963), 97-129. 6. W. Lawrence, Lecture XI, p. 109. 7. An earlier version of Part I of this paper was first presented to Sir Karl Popper's seminar at London School of Economics in June 1967. It was given in its present form at the History of Science Colloquium at

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the Royal College of Surgeons.8 Like many of the reviews published in the journals of that day, it was anonymous. It was perhaps that very anonymity which enabled the reviewer, like other writers of his time, to indulge in particularly penetrating turns of phrase. The review in question has this opening paragraph: We profess to think very highly of all Mr. Abernethy's contributions to the science of surgery; but really these Lectures appear to us exceedingly deficient, both in sound reasoning and good taste; and we have very much overrated the physiological proficiency of the learned body to whom they were originally addressed, if there are not many among them who felt themselves somewhat scandalized by the instruction they conveyed. They are a collection of bad arguments, in defense of one of the most untenable speculations in physiology; interspersed with not a little bombast about genius, and electricity, and Sir Isaac Newton.9 Though one has continually to remember the magisterial authority of Newton in English science, it comes as something of a surprise to see his name here, most especially in connection with a book by a man whose concem was with physiology and the practice of medicine and surgery. But when one examines both the origin of the physiological "speculation" in questionthe doctrine of the vital principle-and the arguments used for and against it, surprise tums out to be misplaced. Not only does one find extraordinarily close analogies between the form of this physiological speculation and the form of Newton's theory of gravitation, but one is in the midst of an ironic situation, in which the adherents of the theory and its opponents both appealed to the example of the great Sir Isaac himself-as they justify their variously interpreted and misinterpreted hin-to positions. There are several reasons why the doctrine was put forward in such a specific form at that time and why it was taken seriously at all. One reason relates to the definitions of matter which were then being taken as axiomatic. The legacy of the sevenHarvard University in February 1968. Part II of this paper was given as a lecture at the Rockefeller University in March 1966, and subsequently printed in The Rockefeller Review (October 1966). It has been amended for this printing. My thanks are due to the Librarians of the Royal College of Medicine, the Royal College of Surgeons, and the Royal College of Physicians in London, England, for their help and assistance during the work on the manuscripts. 8. The Edinburgh Review, (1814), Article VI, pp. 384-398 (Anonymous). 9. Ibid., p. 384.

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Some Aspects of English Physiology teenth century had left its mark, and most people had quite clear ideas of what matter is and therefore what a mechanical explanation should be. All genuinely physical processes were explicable in mechanistic terms, and authentic processes involved only transfers of energy or momentum, by the contact, or collision, of those "solid, impenetrable particles" of which Newton spoke in the Opticks. There were no independent fields of force, no action at a distance, no patterns of organization. What was "matter"? Earlier in the century Hartley had written as follows: "Matter is a mere passive Thing, of whose very Essence it is, to be endued with a Vis Inertiae; for this Vis Inertiae presents itself immediately in all our observations and experiments upon it, and is inseparable from it, even in idea." 10 And later he says: "I see clearly and acknowledge readily, that matter and motion, however subtly divided, or reasoned upon, yield nothing more than matter and motion." 11 Hartley, of course, was a philosopher and a theoretical psychologist. But let us look also at a medical man-a practicing doctor in Manchester-who will serve as a good example of what the average intelligent person was thinking and believed. On February 7, 1787, John Ferriar delivered a paper to the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society, called "Observations Concerning the Vital Principle." We shall be returning to Ferriar, but here for the moment let us notice that he states that this doctrine was put forward as a hypothesis "because of a persuasion, generally agreed, that Matter is totally inert and insusceptible of sensitive life by an organization." 12 Given these generally accepted ideas, it was inevitable that the properties of living things should create difficulties. An exhaustive, mechanical explanation had no room for self-propelled matter, self-regulating matter, or for thinking matter. How could a machine calculate, assess, think? 13 These restrictive definitions of matter and of mechanism paid off brilliantly in physical theory, but the price was paid by physiology. Moreover, by the end of the eighteenth century the physical sciences had added yet another difficult paradox for physiologists. The success of the new chemistry, if anything, intensified the physiological problem by intensifying the distinction between the inanimate 10. D. Hartley, Observations on Man (1749),

pt. II, chap. 1, Proposition

6. 11. D. Hartley, Observations, pt. I. Conclusion. 12. J. Ferriar, "Observations concerning the Vital Principle," Memoirs of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Manchester, 3 (1790), 223. 13. For a comprehensive discussion of this point see S. E. Toulmin, "Neurosciences and Human Understanding," In Neurosciences: A Study Program. Rockefeller University Press (1968), pp. 822-832.

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and the animate. By 1800 men knew, more or less, by what criteria one should judge a pure chemical substance. It could be measured, weighed and contained; it reacted and it was ponderable. Clearly, it did not breathe, it did not eat, it did not reproduce, it did not evince irritability. In this way, even the new chemistry set the seal of inactivity upon matter and material substances. Physiologists might have been tempted, as indeed some were, to leave the question of the differences between living and nonliving things at a safe descriptive level. Or, they could have recognized at a level of observation, and later admitted as a matter of theory, a total difference between the behavior of organisms and the behavior of inorganic substances, and so have paved the way for explanations of a totally different type. The French physiologist Bichat and the French chemist Chaptal are obvious examples.14 But other physiologists saw a paradox and admitted a difficulty. These men realized that chemical substances made up the body of living organisms, and were convinced by the experiments which demonstrated that chemical processes went on inside living organisms. They clearly saw the necessity of chemical explanation as an important adjunct to physiological theory and method. Their recognition of the importance of chemical studies to physiological understanding is shown by the fact that in 1802/3 a society was formed in London for this very study: The Society for the Promotion of Animal Chemistry. It flourished, and many eminent men were members, including both Sir Humphrey Davy and his brother, Dr. John least, it Davy. The Society had considerable influence-not sponsored Liebig's famous lectures on the subject, and the majority of the physiological papers communicated to the Royal Society for the years 1800 to approximately 1815 were first read at meetings of the Society for the Promotion of Animal Chemistry. Sir Benjamin Brodie's only experiments with a bearing on theoretical biology were all communicated to this society first,'5 and many men whom we arbitrarily might want to label as vitalists (as Brodie was so labeled by Claude Bernard'6) belonged to the society from the very beginning. But since there were features about organisms which undoubtedly were unique, these scientists were faced with a genuine theoretical and meth14. M. F. X. Bichat, Anatomie generale appliqu6e a la physiologie et m6decine (Paris, 1801); J. A. Chaptal (1791), Elements of Chemistry, trans. W. Nicholson (London, 1791), esp. p. 279. 15. See G. J. Goodfield, "Benjamin Brodie," in Dictionary of Scientific Biography (in press). 16. C. Bernard, Legons sUT la chaleur animale, Paris (1876), p. 290.

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Some Aspects of English Physiology odological problems. They tried to avoid either reducing organisms totally to "machines" or uplifting them to a unique and mysterious category of beings. Their problem can be very simply stated. There are obvious differences, both of behavior and properties, between living and nonliving things. This we perceive. We know at the same time that chemical substances make up the animal body and chemical processes are going on inside it. So the question became: how can we at one and the same time allow for these observable differences, and yet in our theoretical explanation take cognizance of the role of chemical processes within organisms? For whatever category of explanation these men opted for, they felt that they did have to do justice to the phenomena in question as they observed them. In trying to resolve the paradox, there was one particular observation to which men pointed as crucial evidence of the fundamental difference between the living and the inorganic worlds. This related to the oxidizing effect of the atmosphere. A living organism, although it was made of the same chemical substances as non-living things, and although it did have chemical processes going on inside, yet when alive apparently had the capacity to resist the destructive effect of oxygen. When dead, it behaved like an ordinary chemical system and was decomposed very rapidly. As a result of this observation, their questions took a precise form. What else, besides common chemical matter, does the organism possess when alive which it apparently loses when dead? Wherein and in what lies this particular property-this capacity to resist the decomposing effects of ordinary atmospheric oxygen? Notice the form of the question, because it dictated the form of the answer. Admittedly, even in the early nineteenth century there were some physiologists who criticized the form of the question-William Lawrence was one of these -but nevertheless it was the dominant one in England at this time. The theory of the vital principle was one answer to this question. This principle was thought of as an active power, superadded to matter, which was independent both of mind and of material substances. In various guises the doctrine had a long history as John Ferriar himself showed in 1787, but it took a very precise form in the early years of the nineteenth century. It was not a doctrine of a vital "force" or "substance," but specifically of a "principle"; and, as a matter of history, turned out to be theoretically unrewarding. But to study it is interesting both because (as I have indicated) the debates it engendered spilled over into neighboring areas and because the patterns of

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argument enabled both its proponents and its opponents to appeal to the magisterial example set by Newton. The issue occupied a central place in English physiological and medical thought from approximately 1780 until 1830. In 1829, and again in 1836, we find elegant and important criticisms of the doctrine in two works: John Prichard's Review of the Doctrine of the Vital Principle (1829), and John Bostock's Elements of General Physiology (3rd ed., 1836). After 1836, references to the doctrine die away. I said that the doctrine was unfruitful, and some people recognized this from the beginning. Indeed, some physiologists took up positions which were almost exact analogues of those taken by Cuvier and Magendie. But their moves in the direction of a more "French-type" physiology were always blocked, since they called forth responses from critics in a form which consistently shifted the issue away from physiology and toward philosophy and theology (see Part II). Before examining the doctrine in detail let us reiterate that the evidence for the existence of the vital principle was the fact that the organism possessed the power to counteract the destructive effects of the atmosphere, and the justification for an explanation of this type lay within the framework of the selfimposed axiom of matter which had been introduced by physicists and accepted by physiologists. Admittedly it could have been argued, and it was argued, that the explanation need not be sought by appeal to the presence of any particular principle added to common matter, but lay rather in the very organization inherent in the living things. This view was, on the whole, rejected for two reasons. Many people-among them, John Hunterl7-felt that postulating a special organization of chemical matter would itself prove an insufficient explanation. And they justified their belief by pointing to the early embryonic stages of the chick egg. Clearly, it was quite easy to distinguish a live hen's egg from a dead one, for one only had to wait a few days, and the difference would be smelt. Yet in both cases there was no visible organization. A live hen's egg, even if not fertilized, looked just the same as a dead hen's egg, visible organization being seen only several days after fertilization had taken place. But, in any case, even if one did grant that living properties arose as a result solely of a peculiar type of organization, this only took the question back one step further. For in that 17. J. Hunter, "Lectures on the Principles of Surgery," delivered in 17861787, in The Works of John Hunter, edited with notes by J. Palmer (London, 1837), vol. I. Discussion of this relevant problem is in chap. 2 of vol. I. See also "A Treatise on the Blood," 1793, Works, vol. III, especially footnote, pp. 120-121.

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Some Aspects of English Physiology case, one had to ask, "In what does this special organization consist?" and, "Why should such an organization give rise to a particular set of vital properties?" (Even in contemporary biology, it is essential for us to answer: "How is it, at the quantum-level, that the structure of the DNA molecule gives rise to a molecule that can replicate?" And it is not the least of the many merits of the Crick-Watson hypothesis of DNA structure that it suggests immediately why this can happen.) The doctrine of the vital principle assumed a definite character and a magisterial authority in the early years of the nineteenth century as a result of the work of John Hunter. Hunter was one of the most important of English doctors and contributed a great amount of detailed anatomical work to English medicine. His influence was pervasive, and he was regarded within London and within the medical world generally with the greatest admiration and respect, his styles of thought and methods of procedure leaving an enduring mark in the schools. In comparison with his anatomical and surgical writings, Hunter wrote very little about the phenomena of life, and where he did write, the material is scattered in the context of his medical lectures. Nor was he distinguished for his clarity. But he was clearly very much concerned with the problem, and he had profound impact on the direction of medical thought. Hunter argued that one could not account for living phenomena except on the supposition that life resulted from the addition of a simple principle to ordinary matter. The principle was distinct from mind as manifested in man, as well as from the physical matter that was the study of physicists and chemists. It was the very presence and absence of this principle which resulted in the presence or absence of life. To take but one example: "Animal and vegetable substances differ from common matter in having a power superadded, totally different from any other known property of matter, out of which arise various new properties."18 Another analogy brings us directly into contact with Newton: "The living principle, then, is the immediate cause of action in every part; it is therefore essential to every part, and is as much a property of it as gravity is of every particle of matter composing the whole." 19 Notice here the structure of the appeal to the Newtonian example. There were many debates in Newton's time about the causes and the mechanism of gravity. But Newton died in 1727. By the time Hunter wrote the above passage (1786), scientists had more or less despaired of finding a mechanism for gravita18. J. Hunter, Works, I, 214.

19. Ibid., p. 223.

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tional action. Gravity was therefore considered an intrinsic property of matter-Hartley earlier referred to it as another "
Why are we compelled to regard the vital principle as an ultimate fact? By the very same processes of thought which force us to regard gravity as an ultimate fact. We see genuine and real properties and relate these back to the existence of an inherent principle. That there should be an unexplained mechanism here does not surprise these men, since they have, they believe, an excellent precedent in the unexplained mechanism of gravity, and so far in physiology no other explanation seems to be comprehensive. In 1814 the doctrine of the vital principle received another public airing, and the treatment of the lectures in the Edinburgh Review brought the whole query into the domain of public medical discussion. Hunter's pupil, John Abernethy, a prominent medical man who had recently succeeded Sir William Blizard as Professor of Anatomy and Surgery at the Royal College of Surgeons in London, brought the doctrine into the open again. His first two anatomical lectures for 1814 were subsequently pub20. D. Hartley. Observations, pt. II, chap. 1, proposition 6. 21. J. Hunter, Works, I, 124n.

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Some Aspects of English Physiology lished as An Inquiry into the Probability and Rationality of Mr. Hunter's Theory of Life. In the series of lectures that Abernethy delivered to the Royal College of Surgeons over a period of some ten years, he consistently amplified Hunter's views, making sure that they were kept in the forefront of medical students' minds. There is hardly a single lecture among those he published in which he does not, in some phrase or other, eulogize Hunter for his wisdom, foresight, the soundness of his doctrines, and for his medical methods in general. Though Abernethy's point of departure was, not surprisingly, essentially Hunter's his views took a curious twist. He accepted, as all others had done before him, the axiom that matter was inert and therefore one must suppose the existence of a principle to animate it. But he drew an analogy between the vital principle and the electrical principle, or the electrical fluid, to the point of near identification: Thirdly I proceed to inquire into Mr. Hunter's opinion, that irritability is the effect of some subtle, mobile, invisible substance superadded to the evident structure of muscles, or other forms of vegetable and animal matter, as magnetism is to iron, and as electricity is to various substances with which it may be connected. Mr. Hunter doubtless thought, and I believe most persons do think, that in magnetic and electrical motions, a subtile invisible substance, of a very quickly and powerfully mobile nature, puts in motion other bodies which are evident to the senses, and are of a nature more gross and inert. To be convinced as I am of the probability of Mr. Hunter's Theory-as the cause of irritability, it is, I am aware, necessary to be as convinced as I am that electricity is now what I have supposed it to be, and that it pervades all nature.22

We find here almost a paraphrase of Newton, who wrote at the very end of the General Scholium: And now we might add something concerning a most subtle spirit, which pervades and lies hid in all gross bodies, by the force and action of which spirit, all particles of bodies attract one an other and all sensation is excited . . . And the members of the animal body are moved at the command of the will, namely by the vibrations of this spirit.23 Now we can well argue, as some people did, that this "subtile, 22. J. Abernethy. An Inquiry, p. 33. 23. I. Newton, Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, 2nd ed., 1713, General Scholium, last paragraph.

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mobile matter" is neither one thing nor the other. It is neither totally matter nor totally spirit; it is both ponderable and imponderable; it has a label and nature rather like that of Lucretius' "mind-stuff." So the status of this "subtile" mobile matter was highly ambiguous, but so too was the status of electricity. Physiologists had been much impressed by Sir Humphrey Davy's demonstration in 1800 that an electric current passed through a solution of salt would cause the salt to dissociate. Here apparently was an agency which suspended natural chemical laws, by splitting chemical affinities, and it showed therefore something of what the vital principle could be and what the vital principle could do. That the discovery of electricity was indeed interpreted in this way is demonstrated by Prichard in 1829. In his book, A Review of the Doctrine of the Vital Principle, he writes as follows: The discovery of electricity formed an era in the history of natural philosophy. The existence of a subtile agent, possessed of some of the properties of matter, and apparently destitute of certain qualities which have been usually found in conjunction with them, intangible, invisible, and only known by its effects, was a new fact, and seemed to open a wide field of speculation. A new class of beings or entities was thus made known, which seem to exist between the opposite confines of matter and spirit, and to partake in a degree of the nature of both. This discovery was laid hold of by physiologists. The vital principle was imagined to be a substance of a similar kind in many respects, if not to be absolutely identified with the electric fluid. As the electric fluid appears to be endowed with a property of modifying, under particular circumstances, the ordinary influence of chemical affinity, and of controlling in a certain degree the usual operations of its laws, so the vital principle, which was supposed to be diffused through the body in the living state, and to pervade every texture and every part, was imagined to protect the whole from the chemical agencies of the surrounding elements. When death takes place, it was supposed that this influence was withdrawn, and that the fabric of the body is thus left, as common matter, a prey to the common agencies of the atmosphere.24 This, very briefly, is the mongrel form of the doctrine of the vital principle as bred out of Hunter and Newton and Humphrey 24. J. Prichard, Vital Principle, p. 12-13.

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Some Aspects of English Physiology Davy and presented by Abernethy. About its status as a hypothesis Abernethy had no doubt: Since thinking is inevitable, our chief inquiry should be how we ought to think or theorize; and on this point Newton himself has condescended to instruct us. Our theories, hypotheses, or opinions,-for to me all these words seem to refer to one and the same act of the mind-should be verifiable or probable, and should rationally account for all the known phenomena of the subject they pretend to explain; under which circumstances it is allowable to maintain them as good, until others more satisfactory be discovered . . . Upon the foregoing terms alone do I wish to uphold Mr. Hunter's theory of life; and I do so on the present occasion, because it seems highly probable . . . that it was his hypothesis respecting life which incited him to enquiries by which he has been able to supply the deficient facts, so as to establish his conjectures or convert his hypothesis into a theory.25 Later we will examine the whole question of the role and status of hypotheses as interpreted by various people within this theoretical framework, especially Prichard's view as he examines the doctrine in his persuasive and excellently argued book. For the moment, notice that Abemethy believed that Hunter's doctrine fulfilled all the conditions specified by Newton for a "proper"hypothesis and therefore he was entitled to suppose it was "good"in the absence of anything better. Let us now turn to the critics of the doctrine. We can look at what they said and we can also look at what doctrines they offered as alternatives. The second problem is disposed of very rapidly; either they offered no alternatives or, foreshadowing Cuvier and Bernard, they refused to try to constrain life in terms of one single definition or quality or principle, and argued that it was, in its properties and manifestations, simply the result of a number of interrelated processes. These, as Lawrence himself pointed out and as will be noted later, would require a great deal of study in order that their role, importance, and balance in the economy of the organism could be properly assessed. I suspect that no one in 1969 would try to give a vest-pocket definition of life; even as early as 1814 there were men in England who realized the futility of endeavoring to do so. The positive contributions of these men are another aspect of this extremely complicated story of English physiology, and one 25. J. Abernethy. An Inquiry, pp. 10-12.

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which I cannot go into at this moment. But to see an example of a typical criticism of the doctrine we can do worse than to read again the anonymous reviewer in The Edinburgh Review of September 1814: . . .the doctrine seems to be altogether absurd and preposterous under all its modifications. It is not because it bears the name of a speculation that we object to it; we have no Baconian horror at hypotheses of any sort; but, on the contrary, are heretical enough to think, that wherever they are not substituted for facts, they rather do good than harm: that they stir up inquiry, and make inquirers, where, perhaps, there would have been neither the one nor the other;-that when well-founded they stand, and when false they are refuted. But our objection to the doctrine is, that, unless it be enough to constitute a hypothesis, to suppose that every event has a cause, it has no claim to the accolation of an hypothesis at all. To affirm that sensation, and thought and volition, and irritability and secretion, are owing to the principle of life,and when we demand what this principle is, to tell us that it is an agent, about which nothing is known,-is neither more nor less than to say, that these phenomena are produced by something-but by what, nobody has yet been able to conjecture. To ascribe them to some known power, such as electricity, or the north wind, would at all events have been a hypothesis; and we should then have set ourselves about ascertaining, experimentally, whether to be electrified, positively or negatively, were to be plus or minus alive, or whether vitality be really incompatible with a breeze from the South: But, according to our humble metaphysics, the supposition which supposed nothing, is next to no supposition at all.26 The reviewer evidently felt very strongly about the inadequacy of this theory, for he goes on in this vein: If there be any man who believes, that Sir Humphrey Davy has really done all this, has demonstrated the existence of a subtile, active, vital principle, pervading all nature, or who 26. The Edinburgh Review (September 1814), p. 391. The author of this anonymous review still remains untraced. Walter Houghton and his wife, Esther Houghton, of Wellesley College, who have been preparing the Index to Victorian Periodicals, have so far been unable to identify him. We have discussed this and are still looking for more ancilliary evidence. My own suspicion, based on the style of writing and also on the nature of the scientific criticisms presented, is that it could well be William Lawrence. He was relatively young, thirty-one, in 1814. (See last sentence of quotation following.)

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Some Aspects of English Physiology has suffered himself to be so borne away by these 'whirlwinds' and 'waterspouts' of Mr. Abernethy, as to look upon his body as a Leyden phial, we fear that we should exhaust our vital principle in endeavouring to dispel the illusion. Certainly we shall not make the attempt. We have laid down, of late, a plan of the strictest economy as to the expenditure of that portion of the very quickly and powerfully mobile substance which has fallen to our share; and we are not without hopes that it may thereby be made to last for three score years to come. It is part of that plan, not to squander it, in our youth, in . . . convincing unreasonable physiologists.27 Now let us try to dissect out some of these phrases and see what they imply. Our anonymous reviewer says that in ascribing the phenomena of life to a "vital principle" we are ascribing it to an agent about which nothing is known, and this is to say that the phenomena are produced by something, but what nobody has been able to conjecture. This, he argues, is unsatisfactory. On the other hand, however, many people argued that, qua explanation, the doctrine of the vital principle carried the same degree of weight as the doctrine of inherent gravitational power. Try substituting the word "gravity" for the phrase "principle of life," and "gravitational phenomena" for "living phenomena" halfway through the previous passage, and it will read like this: To affirm that bodies falling to the earth and the planets moving in their orbits are owing to gravity,-and when we demand what gravity is, to tell us that it is an agent, about which nothing is known, is neither more nor less than to say, that these phenomena are produced by something-but by what, nobody has been able to conjecture. This is something of a caricature, but not very much of a one, and it might as well stand as an eighteenth-century critique of gravitational theory. The form of explanation is legitimate, but so too is the critique. Matter demonstrates gravitational phenomena because of the existence of gravity. What is gravity? We don't know, but must take it as a fact of Nature. Living organisms demonstrate living phenomena because of a living principle. What is the living principle? We don't know, but must take it as a fact of Nature. It was deficient and unsatisfactory perhaps, but not much more so in the one case than in the other. To insist in 1814 that the real reason why one could get away with it in the Newtonian 27. Ibid., p. 297.

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case and not in the case of the vital principle was because one could relate the gravitational phenomena to a mathematical formula would carry no weight, for the relevance of mathematical explanation to biology had yet to be demonstrated. Even those physiologists like Lawrence, who never doubted the applicability of the laws of physics and chemistry within living organisms, nevertheless did question what mathematical calculadon could reveal about them (pp. 311-313 below). Moreover, in stating that the problem is one of experimental verification, the supporters of the theory felt that the anonymous reviewer had begged the question. To ascertain experimentally whether to be electrified positively or negatively were to be positively or negatively alive is something that one could only tackle after one could specify exactly what it is to be alive, and that is just what they were trying to do with their analogies. Look at another criticism, that acknowledged by William Lawrence himself, speaking in 1816 on the occasion of his first lecture course to the Royal College of Surgeons: The object of explanation is to make a thing more intelligible. In showing that the motions of the heavenly bodies follow the same laws as a descent of a heavy substance to earth does, Newton explained a fact. The opinion under our review is not an explanation of that kind; unless you find, what I am not sensible of, that you understand muscular contractions better by being told that an Archeus, or subtle and mobile matter sets the fibres at work. This pretended explanation in short is reference not to anything we understand better than the object to be explained; but to something that we don't understand at all; to something which cannot be received as a deduction of science, but must be accepted as an object of faith . . . To make the matter more intelligible, this vital principle is compared to magnetism, to electricity, and to galvanism; or it is roundly stated to be oxygen. 'Tis like a camel, or like a whale, or like what you please.28 It was all very well to be high-minded, but the difficulties were genuine enough. Lawrence's maxim is that one must try to explain phenomena in terms of things we already understand. The consequence is that everything must ultimately be reduced to one principle: the corollary that there are no totally new phenomena under the sun. But now apply Lawrence's maxim not to living phenomena, but to electrical ones. How could one 28. W. Lawrence, "On Life," Lecture II in An Introduction to Comparative Anatomy and Physiology (London, 1816), p. 167.

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Some Aspects of English Physiology explain these in terms either of already understood facts or already understood laws? The subsequent history of electrical phenomena throughout the nineteenth century was a demonstration of the impossibility of subsuming this category under the then known laws of mechanics. The laws of electrical action would prove to be more "fundamental" than the laws of mechanical action, and in fact electricity was a genuinely new type of phenomenon; and why should this not have been equally true of life? You can never tell beforehand. So up to 1820 we have a situation in which, a few critics apart, there seems to be no doubt about the legitimacy of calling on an immaterial principle to explain the phenomena of life. Not only had one on the one hand an appeal to the gravitational analogy and the method of argument employed by Newton, but physiologists and philosophers were quite used to dealing with, or at least admitting the existence of, an immaterial mind and an immaterial soul. Joseph Priestley's brilliant attempts to banish both these and to have one comprehensive category of matter which included thinking matter, were, in the climate of the times, destined to failure. Priestley was a good Christian and circumvented the inevitable problems of the immortality of the soul by supposing that the question did not arise, for the soul did not exist. God in his Infinite Wisdom and Power would, at the day of Resurrection, resurrect all matter with all its properties, mechanical and mental and spiritual. But Priestley was more or less unique at that time. Whatever one did or did not believe about the existence of independent vital principles or gravitational principles, most men-including Lawrencewere at any rate agreed about the existence of an independent soul. But, even so, by 1829 questions about the status and value of the doctrine of the vital principle-considered as some species of immaterial agency-came under intensive review alongside an examination of the whole question of hypotheses within biological science. The critical book was written by James Prichard, a medical practitioner in Bristol.29 Though he was to attack the doctrine of a vital principle, Prichard, like many other men of his time, was critically aware that any such 29. J. Prichard, Vital Principle, pp. 97-129. Prichard was also a corresponding member of the National Institute of Science in France, Honorary Fellow of Kings and Queens Colleges of Physicians in Ireland, and a member of the World Academy of Medicine in Paris. Not only did he have a distinguished medical practice, specializing in some of the very earliest studies of human behavior and ethnology, but he was completely "daufait" with the current opinions abroad.

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discussion could, if one were not careful, face one with charges of materialism. (The attacks on Lawrence and Sir Thomas Morgan, led by Reverend Thomas Rennell and by various anonymous writers in the Quarterly Review and the British Critic, had as their focus the "materialism" shared by Lawrence, T. C. Morgan and, quaintly to our ears, even Bichat (see Part II). What had been going on in the intervening years between Hunter and Prichard-with no degree of success at all-was an attempt by English physiologists to demonstrate that questions about 'life," or a "vital principle," were physiological ones, totally unrelated to questions about the existence of an immaterial soul or an immaterial mind. But, as Owsei Temkin has pointed out, the problem was that there were no clear distinctions between the boundaries at this point, nor could there be; and no one could agree on what was, or should be, a "scientific" question as distinct from a theological one.30 But some physiologists tried to make these distinctions, and Prichard's book contains the following statement in the preface: The subject is one in relation to which vague, and, as I believe, erroneous opinions have prevailed to a considerable extent. A careful and dispassionate examination of various questions connected with it, appears to be on many accounts requisite, especially for the advantage of students of a particular class, who, owing to a variety of circumstances, are in a peculiar manner liable to imbibe prejudices, the result of partial views and inadequate information. Even in a more general point of view, it seems to be desirable that some distinctions should be recognized, which, to the best of my ability, I have endeavoured, in the following pages, to draw. I observe that a late writer [Dutrochet3l] of great celebrity has thought incumbent to ward off the charge of materialism, when entering on an inquiry as to the immediate agencies concerned in the phenomena of merely physical or organic life, and it is no uncommon thing to hear the metaphysical doctrine of the existence of a Soul, confounded with the physiological theory of a Vital Principle.32 30. Lawrence tried, vainly, to insist that there was a genuine distinction between physiology and theology. "I say, physiologically speaking, and beg you to attend particularly to this qualification: because the theological doctrine of the soul, and its separate existence, has nothing to do with this physiological question, but rests on a species of truth altogether different" (Lectures, p. 8). 31. Prichard's footnote reads, "See the Advertisement of Mr. Dutrochet's Work, entitled L'agent immediat du mouvement vital . . ." 32. Vital Principle, Preface, p. vii.

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Some Aspects of English Physiology The distinction was clear to Prichard and Priestley and Lawrence, but to the public at large it certainly was not. In his book Prichard begins by examining the status of the hypothesis of a vital principle considered as a scientiftc hypothesis. And it is no surprise in Section III to find him starting his inquiry into methodological investigation and the role of hypotheses by appealing to the example of Sir Isaac Newton: "It has been laid down by Sir Isaac Newton as the first role of philosophizing that we are to admit no more causes of natural things, or of the phenomena of Nature, than such as are both true and sufficient to explain their appearances." 33 This, as Prichard said, had been received as one of the fundamental laws of reasoning by natural philosophers. From this he deduced that whenever one attempts to account for a particular phenomena, it was incumbent upon scientists from the very start to give some direct proof that "the cause assigned is a thing that really exists, before proceeding to inquire whether it is sufficient to explain the occurrences which are to be accounted for."34 This entailed that one was not permitted to infer the existence of an agent simply because the hypothesis of its existence would afford an explanation of the phenomenon in question. Now if we think about this, strict adherence to this maxim would rule out any appeal whatever to theoretical entities in physical explanation, since, according to Prichard, one has to prove the existence of the agent in question before one examines the explanatory power of the hypothesis of which the agent is a part. But, as Prichard goes on to imply, "In principle this is all very fine, but in practice it can be extremely difficult," for: It must, indeed, be allowed that there are many subjects on which we are strongly disposed to speculate and with respect to which philosophers have generally adopted some theoretical opinion, although it is impossible to examine them with strict adherence to those rules which logicians have endeavoured to establish on the authority of Newton.35 The following passage, with which he continues, is extremely important: Writers on logic and metaphysics, who have to do with abstractions, and with modes of their own creating, may lay down rules of philosophizing, as rigid as they please; but those who are occupied in pursuing physical inquiries, become aware that the narrow extent of their actual knowledge, and 33. Ibid., p. 21.

34. Ibid.

35. Ibid., p. 22.

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the limited opportunity of interrogating Nature by experiment, will sometimes put them under the necessity of transgressing such maxims; or, at least, of yielding to them an imperfect and partial obedience. It must be acknowledged by everybody, that a theory which has in its favour both of the requisites above described, fully and completely, is entitled to the highest regard, and must be placed on a very different ground from that of a mere hypothesis, be it ever so probable. The theory of gravitation is, perhaps, the best example which the whole compass of natural philosophy affords of such a theory, complete in every respect, and strictly deserving the title of a philosophical doctrine. In that instance, the principle proposed for the explanation of phenomena is first ascertained

beyond all doubt, as a matter of

fact,36

and it is afterwards

shown to be competent to the explanation of all the phenomena ascribed to it. But there are few examples of reasoning on the laws of Nature so successful, and we are often obliged to rest satisfied with theories which cannot lay claim to so high a title. We are, in many instances, accustomed to infer the reality of causes from their apparent effects, such effects constituting indeed the only evidence that we can obtain of the existence of many agents in Nature, whose power and operation are sufficiently manifest. There are circumstances and modifications under which this way of reasoning must be accounted legitimate, though it is no easy matter to lay down the precise rules on this subject. In general, there are two things to be chiefly considered, in respect to any hypothesis proposed with a view of accounting for phenomena not hitherto explained; these are, first, the question how far the assigned cause affords a solution of the results which are ascribed to its operation; and secondly, what degree of evidence can be discovered, independently of this consideration, for establishing the existence of the supposed agent, as a matter of fact or probability. This last inquiry ought, perhaps, to take the lead, or to occupy our minds in 36. This was surely an oversimplification of the manner in which Newton's theory of gravitation was established. No sharp line can be drawn marking the point at which Newton's argument had succeeded in "'ascertaining" the principle of gravitation "beyond all doubt as a matter of fact," so allowing him to turn to the new task of using it "to the explanation of phenomena." The evidence for gravitation was cumulative and involved using it to "explain phenomena" from the outset. One can argue that beyond a certain point no reasonable doubt remained of the validity of such gravitational explanations; but this judgement turns on a matter of degree, and there was certainly no clear point at which "all doubt whatever" suddenly disappeared.

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Some Aspects of English Physiology the first instance. If the assigned cause is a thing whose existence admits of no doubt, we have, in what relates to this branch of the argument, the greatest advantage that can be desired. Such is the case in the theory by which Newton explained the revolutions of the heavenly bodies on the principle of gravitation. But if such an assurance that we are proceeding on safe ground cannot be obtained, it only remains for us to look round in search of probabilities, or arguments derived from analogy. We have then to survey the subject in its general bearings, and to inquire what relation the causes assigned display, to other agents whose existence is well ascertained, or whether their operation is conformable to the general laws and analogies of Nature. In this manner we may estimate the probability of an hypothesis, examine circumspectly the ground on which it stands, and prepare ourselves for approaching it in a more exact scrutiny. The consideration which remains, is at least of equal importance to the preceding step in the inquiry. It is now to be determined how far the assigned cause,-whether proved to exist with certainty or with high probability, or only suggested as a possible fact, which may be styled the lowest degree of previous evidence,-how far, being either proved or conceded, it will enable us to explain the phenomena.37 The whole passage raises some very interesting considerations, and by the end of it Prichard is indeed admitting the legitimacy of proceeding from time to time as physicists proceed over theoretical entities. But he insists that if the cause of the phenomena we are interested in is not strikingly obvious, then we have to ask ourselves both how far our hypothesis of an agent explains the phenomena in question, and what degree of independent evidence can be discovered for establishing their existence. Of course, one is then brought up sharply by questions about the form of admissible evidence-indeed, up against questions about what admissible evidence can or should be. So Prichard concludes that it may be necessary to make analogies, to relate the phenomena in question and our hypothetical agents to things which are already known, "and inquire whether their operation is comformable to the general laws and analogies of Nature."38 This echoes Lawrence's insistence that we can only proceed in science by making analogies with things we already understand, not with those that we do not. But in situations like this all new principles, such as electricity, would always cause problems. However, Prichard is right in stating that, to 37. Ibid., pp. 22-26.

38. Ibid., p. 25.

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a degree, the theory of gravitation-in retrospect-had a neatness and simplicity about it which in many other cases, especially within biology, one simply does not find, since the interacting, self-regulating processes of organisms provide us with gross phenomena of great complexity.39 Prichard's book was widely read and had considerable influence. His method of arguing was careful, exact, and austere, and it is perhaps not surprising that he rejects the doctrine of a vital principle as an untenable one for explanation in physiology. But he did so only after a very careful examination of the whole issue, and by 1829 he could call on a wealth of empirical facts which were not available at the beginning of the century. So by 1836, when John Bostock, in his vast survey of physiological knowledge, Elements of General Physiology, analyzes the doctrine once more, the intellectual situation is totally different from that which faced John Ferriar and John Hunter. By then so many processes in the living body were being expressed in terms identical with or analogous to those in physics and chemistry, that the burden of proof was shifting. Those who were introducing the doctrine were doing so, Bostock implied, mostly as an admission of their incapacity to express the explanation of living phenomena in any other way. This is not to say that adequate and comprehensive theories of living phenomena were available. This was far from being the case, but critics were to demand far more rigorous "proof' of the existence of the "principle" before accepting it as a valid category of explanation. As Bostock says: There are two senses in which the term principle has been correctly applied in natural philosophy; first, when we wish to designate a material agent, which produces some specific effect, as, according to the doctrine of Lavoisier, oxygen is said to be the acidifying principle, and one of the constituents of oak bark is styled the tanning principle: or secondly, we may correctly employ the term principle to signify the cause of a number of phenomena, which essentially resemble each other, and which may be all referred to one or more general laws, as the principle of gravitation or the principle of chemical attraction. We may then inquire how far the term principle can be properly applied to the cause of the phenomena of life. I feel little hesitation in saying, that it cannot be used with propriety in the first sense, to designate any material agent, 39. Ibid., p. 23.

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Some Aspects of English Physiology notwithstanding the high authority of those physiologists who maintain the existence of a "materia vitae," and go so far as to describe its visible and tangible properties; or of those who identify the cause of the characteristic properties of life with electricity or any analogous agent. Nor shall we find the term principle more appropriate when employed in the second sense, to express the supposed cause of a series of phenomena, which may be all referred to one or more general laws; for, according to the explanation which has been given of it by those who have expressed themselves in the most intelligible manner, the vital principle has been employed to express all those actions which could not be referred to any other general principle. Besides the laws of mechanics and of chemistry, we observe in the living body various phenomena which essentially differ from these, and which we must therefore ascribe to some other cause; but we find that these phenomena differ essentially among themselves, so that if we make this want of resemblance the bond of union, we proceed upon the fundamentally erroneous plan of generalizing specific differences, or associating phenomena, not because they resemble each other, but because they cannot be reduced under any other class. We may then conclude, that when it is asserted that the blood resists decomposition in consequence of the operation of the vital principle, if the phrase have any definite meaning, it is saying no more than that the blood is not decomposed because it is contained in the vessels of the living body, an assertion which no one will be disposed to deny, but which unfortunately does not throw any light upon the subject of our investigation. I conceive that the present state of our knowledge does not admit of our giving a satisfactory answer to this question, but as far as we are able to understand it, I think it is very evident, that it depends upon no single cause or principle, but upon the conjoined operation of many actions, which together constitute life, by the operation of which the living differs from the dead animal.40 No doubt the doctrine of the vital principle turned out to be wrong. No doubt, on the other hand, the critics of the doctrine were quite unable, as they themselves often admitted, to supply any alternative explanation which would be both comprehensive and viable. But most of these men realized it was premature to expect, at this stage of the science, any complete and satisfactory account of the phenomena of life. It was the presence 40. J. Bostock, General Physiology, pp. 402-405.

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of interacting processes, whose detailed operation had to be elucidated, which enabled organisms to manifest the properties from which the whole problem began. "Life" they felt was the result of these processes, not the action of a different and unique type of principle. Lawrence, Prichard, and Bostock had their methodological sights well adjusted and approached physiological explanation only after having gone through a kind of intellectual catharsis over the nature of hypotheses and the relation of strictly scientific questions to theological ones. Their French counterparts, like Magendie, simply failed to acknowledge that there was a problem; nor was there in France. It was the English who were wrestling with theoretical and philosophical inhibitions, not the French, and why this should have been so is a fascinating question for future research. But the debates which had been engendered by an examination of the doctrine were not without value for English physiology. The critical judgments of men like Lawrence and Prichard were as important in England in banishing overtly vitalistic solutions as were the criticisms of Magendie and Bernard in France. (It is important to remember that England never had its equivalent of Naturphilosophie.) So if we are to try to answer the question, 'Why is it that the greatest synthesis in physiological method came eventually from France rather than England?", we may have to seek our answer, not in differing methodological attitudes between the best men in both countries, but somewhere else. (There were quite as many English physiologists applying physicochemical methods to the study of organisms in England as there were in France.) The reasons, I think, are rather more sociological. The ablest of these men, William Lawrence, gave up his theorizing and concentrated solely on his medical practice (see Part II). And here we have some clues. First, it must have been extremely disheartening to find oneself in the middle of a "theology" controversy every time one expressed an opinion on an issue where physiology, philosophy, and theology overlapped. Second, if one examines the questions and examines the papers, one finds that almost without exception the people concerned in these debates in England were men who were earning their living as doctors. They were in the finest tradition of British physicians of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; men who were working at a full-time medical practice, but who spent many of their evenings delivering papers or discussing their views in the meetings of the Literary and Philosophical societies of their towns-Bristol,

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Some Aspects of English Physiology Manchester, London, and Edinburgh. In the last resort, however, it was patients, not problems, that occupied them. II: THE AFFAIR OF WILLIAMLAWRENCE In the year 1637, on July 11, the Star Chamber of Charles I passed an act requiring all printers and publishers to be licensed. Two important conditions were specified. First, the printers must not produce any "seditious, schismatical, offensive bookes or pamphlets," and second, all publications must bear the name and address of the publisher and also the name of the author: a necessary identification for punishment. By 1709 the intellectuals of England must have been somewhat discouraged, since we find Parliament passing "An Act for the Encouragement of Learning by Vesting the Property of Printed Books in the Authors." Nevertheless, this still carried by implication the tradition that there was no property in manuscripts which were blasphemous, seditious, or immoral. In a spate of Chancery cases in the 1820's the Chief Justice of England, Lord Eldon, ruled definitively on this question. Where there was blasphemy, sedition, or immorality, there was no property; where there was no property, there could be no right. When an author brought an injunction against pirating publishers, the publishers were quick to see the advantage of raising the issue of blasphemy, immorality, and sedition as their defense. And if Lord Eldon was the judge, they tended to win their cases. Lord Byron himself was prominent twice in such suits. In February 1822 he lost his case with respect to a pirated edition of his poem Cain; and in 1823 he lost it again over a pirated portion of Don Juan. In the interim between these two cases, in March 1822, a case was heard concerning a pirated scientific work, Lectures on Physiology, Zoology, and the Natural History of Man.41 This work had been withdrawn from pub41. See William Jacobs, Reports of Cases in the Court of Chancery During the Time of Lord Chancellor Eldon (London, 1828). The Lawrence case, "Lawrence v. Smith," was heard on March 21, 25, and 26, 1822. The Law Reports for March of that year give full details of the arguments used by Counsels both for the Plaintiff and for the Defense. The various editions of Lawrence's book are as follows: 1) 1819 (J. Callow), 579 pp.; 2) 1822 (W. Benbow), 500 pp.; 3) 1822 (Kaygill & Price, no plates) 2 vols., 288 and 212 pp.; 4) 1823 (J. & C. Smith, new plates) 532 pp.; 5) 1823 (R. Carlile, 5 Water Lane, Fleet Street, and 201 Strand). This edition carries a sarcastic dedication to Lord Eldon "as the result of his injustice in refusing to establish the Author's Right of Property in these lectures." There is a copy in the Royal Society of Science in Stockholm,-with a note inside by

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lication by the author, William Lawrence, after a public outcry, and when, in spite of the author's wishes, it was reprinted, Lawrence brought an injunction to restrain the publisher. The injunction was contested by the defendant, who argued that because of the inherent blasphemy Lawrence had no property rights in his manuscript. Having read the book itself and the reviews in the Quarterly Review, the British Critic, and the foremost medical journals of the day, Lord Eldon gave judgment for the publisher on the grounds that the law did not protect those who contradicted the Scriptures and that Lawrence's lectures did violate the law as it stood. There are a number of important elements in William Lawrence's book for the development of biological theory and methodology. Yet it must be said that the objections brought against his physiological arguments which were to lead to the public outcry, his withdrawal of the book, and ultimately to the court case, were largely irrelevant to strictly scientific issues. Lawrence, who twice became the President of the Royal College of Surgeons, was born in 1783 in Cirencester, Gloucestershire, where his father was chief surgeon of the town. When he was sixteen, he was apprenticed to John Abernethy at St. Bartholomew's Hospital in London. Two years later Abernethy, impressed with the young man's talents, appointed Lawrence as his demonstrator in anatomy, and he held this post for twelve years. He became a member of the Royal College of Surgeons at the age of twenty-one, and in 1814 assistant surgeon at Barts at the age of thirty-one. His relationship with Abernethy is important in view of the subsequent controversies, especially bearing in mind Abernethy's devotion to John Hunter, who died in 1793 when Lawrence was ten years old. Every year at the Royal College of Surgeons two introductory courses were offered to the medical students, one on comparative anatomy and one on physiology. Abernethy gave one of these courses in 1814, and two years later Lawrence was appointed to give the other course. So for about four years they ran parallel with each other on these series. In view of Abernethy's eminence at the Royal College of Surgeons and his devotion to Hunter, it was perhaps tactless and certainly unfortunate for Lawrence in 1816, on the occasion of his first appearance, Lawrence presenting this book to the Society. There is also a copy in the New York Academy of Medicine. This edition also contains the two lectures that Lawrence delivered in 1816; 6) 1844 (J. Taylor, old plates) "Ninth 396 pp. I have used as my source of quotations none edition-stereotyped," of the above editions, but the collection of these lectures which is in the library of The Royal Society of Medicine in London.

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Some Aspects of English Physiology to devote one of his introductory talks to the problems of "Life,"42 and to use the occasion to deliver a penetrating analysis of Hunter's doctrine of a vital principle, criticizing especially the particular gloss placed on this doctrine by Abernethy. Given all these circumstances, some sort of confrontation between the two men was clearly inevitable. Lawrence, in two pungent lectures, went straight to the heart of the matter in a characteristically forthright and uncompromising manner. His forthrightness was hardly calculated to endear him to his contemporaries, nor did it. But had matters been left here, this personal and intellectual controversy might well have been confined to the walls of the Royal College of Surgeons-whose members promptly became aligned with one side or the other -and remained restricted to the not unusual clash between scientific generations. (In his 1817 lecture Abernethy was content to cover the same ground as in his 1814 series, expounding Hunter's views once again and roundly attacking Lawrence for his skepticism.43) Lawrence was clearly a man whose intellectual convictions were profound; though intemperate at times in expression, he was passionately devoted not only to the study of physiology, but also to the younger generation of medical students. In a society which was becoming more and more introverted and insular he was determined to search for scientific truth by observation and reason alone, and speak it out freely. Stung by Abernethy's reaction, which he felt was unreasonable and unconsidered, and pricked by the avuncular hostility already showing itself among the senior members of his profession -notably Charles Bell-Lawrence launched in his 1817 lectures into a brilliant and sustained exposition of his views. These are the seven lectures which, in 1819, were published as LectuTes on Physiology, Zoology, and the Natural History of Man. Lawrence writes beautifully, with a wealth of illustrations, both literary and scientific, drawn from past and present writers, and from foreign as well as British authors. Ironically, in view of what was to happen later, there runs through all these lectures one consistent theme: a plea for liberal attitudes and an open mind, both in science and in thought generally. He deplores that "in the modem philosophy . . . an overbearing dogmatism . . . is held forth as a wiser course than the modest confession of ignorance."44 He insists that "fair argument and 42. W. Lawrence. Introduction to CompaTative Anatomy and Physiology, Lecture II. 43. J. Abernethy, Physiological Lectures addressed to The Royal College of Surgeons, London. Delivered 1817, published 1825. 44. W. Lawrence. Lectures, p. 9.

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free discussion" produce more honorable results than an mquiry into a man's "motives, tendencies, and designs" and emphasizes that "truth, not victory," should be the only object and the only end in academic discussion.45 And all the time he insists, "I will not be set down nor cried down." For, to quote one of the many bitter-sweet phrases he is continually using: "Like Ajax, it [Truth] requires nothing but daylight and fair play."46 (This plea relates to Ajax's fury when he realizes that Odysseus has deprived him of Achilles' armor by political trickery.) What was it in Lawrence's view that led first to his ostracism and his own withdrawal of the book, and finally to the Court case? Several distinct elements played significant parts, but all of these his critics tended to run together. They are his views on organization and life; his idea about the relation of the mind and the body; and his willingness to utilize knowledge and help from whatever source he could, even "foreign" ones I He begins by refusing "unequivocally to constrain the term life"' within one definition, formula, or phrase, for at the simplest level life denotes only what is apparent to our senses. It cannot be applied to the "offspring of metaphysical subtlety" or "immaterial abstractions" without a complete departure from the original acceptance of the term.47 We can, of course, study the phenomena of life; we can study its organization, or the peculiar "heterogenic" composition which distinguishes living bodies, as contrasted with inorganic bodies. Further, it is not only the inevitable heterogeneity of organisms that marks them off from nonliving matter, but the fact that the very structures themselves are in constant flux, by virtue of the processes of exchange between the organism and the extemal world, such as digestion, breathing, and growth. We are dealing, he says, not with one single phenomenon, which could be covered by one single word, but a set of mutual interrelations. Even the expressions we use, such as "organization," "function," "vital properties," and '"ife," are themselves closely related to each other. "Organization," he said, "is the instrument. Vital properties are the acting power; function, the mode of action; and life is the result." 48

Certain organic structures, such as muscles and nerves, manlifest certain vital properties, such as contractility and irritability. There was, in the full philosophical meaning of the word, a "necessary" connection between the structures and the properties. The vital properties are the causes of vital functions in 47. Ibid., p. 60. 46. Ibid., p. 107. 45. Ibid., p. 4. 48. W. Lawrence, Introduction to Comparative Anatomy and Physiology, p. 121.

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Some Aspects of English Physiology the same sense that chemical affinity is the cause of chemical combination, and gravitational attraction is the cause of the movements of the heavenly bodies. We observe the phenomena of life and we trace them back as far as observation and experiment will enable us; and we refer them ultimately to a peculiar order of properties which are called "vital properties." For the moment no question of the mechanisms arises. To the question, "VVhyor how does muscle contract or a sense cell respond," all that Lawrence felt entitled to say was, "As yet I do not know, and I cannot conjecture." In using the phrase "vital properties" to describe the immediate cause of living phenomena, Lawrence was deliberately alluding to the Frenchman Xavier Bichat, whose words he returns to many times, and who clearly influenced him greatly. Yet in one interesting and fundamental respect he moved on from Bichat. Bichat insisted that there was such a variability among vital properties that they could not be studied with the tools of physics and chemistry, since they did not conform to the laws of physics and chemistry. It was this view which lay at the heart of Claude Bernard's later criticisms; not Bichat's insistence, which Bernard applauded, that the causes of vital phenomena are to be found in the properties of tissues, but the implicit indeterminism in the phenomena about which Bichat was so emphatic. In 1960, writing about Bichat, I said that it was a pity he died so young, since he might subsequently have realized that the "internal environment" was capable of a rigid determinism, and that the variability of vital properties has another source.49 Fifteen years after Bichat's death, in 1818, we see Lawrence taking this next step for him, placing himself, methodologically speaking, halfway between Bichat and Bernard. Yes, Lawrence agrees, vital action does fluctuate. Yes, to calculate the power of the muscle or the velocity of blood is, to use Bichat's comparison, like building an edifice on shifting sands. But why should this be so? By 1818 Lawrence is emphasizing not so much an inherent indeterminism in physiological phenomena as the complexity and interrelatedness of living processes. He is questioning not the calculations themselves, but what the figures can tell us. The laws of physics and chemistry do apply within living matter; this, Lawrence declares explicitly, is too obvious to be denied. What he questions is the total program of "reductionism." Are the limb movements of the animal machine governed 49. J. G. Goodfield, The Growth of Scientific Physiology, p. 70.

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by the laws of mechanics and hydraulics like a system of levers? Yes, he answers, in a general way they are; but we cannot calculate exactly the contraction of living muscle, because we can never be certain that we have all the necessary data before us. Similarly with the circulation. There are innumerable processes and reactions which contribute to the "strength" of the circulation at any one time, and these themselves are dependent not only on each other but on variations in the external environment. It is no wonder, says Lawrence, when physiologists do try to estimate the force exerted by the heart, for instance, the results are widely variable; one result was 8 ounces, another 180,000 pounds. With so many elements necessarily entering into the calculation, it becomes necessary to ask: what has this figure revealed for us? 50 The same is true of animal chemistry. Chemical analysis gives us a kind of "anatomy" of living fluids, but physiological knowledge, Lawrence insists, consists in discovering the innumerable ways in which the composition of the bodily fluids varies and why it varies, and how each organ influences and modifies the rest. Chemical analysis yields but one small part of the total physiological study. A thorough understanding of chemistry is indispensable for the would-be physiologist, but to resolve life itself into a mere play of "chemical affinities" seemed to Lawrence "injudicious." In the science of life, we are dealing with complex systems, and this students should never forget. In his own words, In the physical sciences it is in our power to regulate the conditions of the operation or experiment, and to reduce them by succsesive analyses to the greatest simplicity. But in physiology we are forced to take and study our subjects in all the complexity of their natural composition, and in conditions not regulated by our choice, and in a state of complication requiring close attention, and careful discrimination to search out and determine the precise share of each component part.5' So Lawrence sums up both the problem and the methods for the future science of physiology and its relation to medicine. By the preceding observations, or by any subsequent ones, I would by no means discourage surgical students from the pursuit of the physical sciences. I regard them, on the contrary, not merely as a desirable accompaniment, but as powerful and indispensable auxiliaries in physiological and medical 50. W. Lawrence, Lectures, p. 72.

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51. Ibid., p. 91.

Some Aspects of English Physiology researches. A close alliance between the science of living nature and physics and chemistry, cannot fail to be mutually advantageous. What we have principally to guard against, in our professional researches and studies, is the influence of partial and confined views (and of those favourite notions and speculations, which, like coloured glass, distort all things seen through their medium). Thus we have had a chemical sect, which could discern, in the beautifully varied appointments, and nice adaptions of animal structure, nothing but an assemblage of chemical instruments: a medico-mathematical doctrine, which explained all the phenomena of life by the sciences of number and magnitude, by algebra, geometry, mechanics and hydraulics; and even a tribe of animists, who, finding that all the powers of inorganic nature had been invoked in vain, resorted to the world of spirits, and maintained that the soul is the only cause of life. It is amusing to observe the entire conviction and self-complacency, with which such systems are brought forward . . . the ardour, with which wrangling sectaries dispute about their petty divisions and sub-divisions of belief; each sect conceives itself in possession of the truth, yet probably they are all more or less counterfeit. If the seductive influence of favourite notions, and the disproportionate importance attached to particular sciences, have operated so unfavourably on the doctrines of physiology and medicine, the remedy for the evil must be sought in more enlarged views and general knowledge. We cannot expect to discover the true relations of things, until we rise high enough to survey the whole field of science, to observe the connexions of the various parts and their mutual influence.52 Lawrence had, for his time, a very balanced view of life and of the fundamental methodological dilemma facing physiologists. He was neither a "mechanist," nor a "vitalist," nor a "reductionist"; he was the first, and might well have been one of the greatest, of English biologists. He preferred the newly coined name "biology" as the "science of life" to "physiology," which meant the "doctrine of nature"; and he seems to have been the man who introduced this term into the English language. (The term had been coined by Treviranus of Bremen, for whom Lawrence had a great admiration, and whose great treatise on biology-to which Lawrence constantly refers-was still incomplete at the time of these lectures.) But it was Lawrence's views on the mind-body problem which 52. Ibid., p. 76.

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provoked the most violent attacks. These ideas were a natural extension both of his belief that the cause of vital functions must be sought in the living tissues of the body and of his inability to conceive of any "principle" superadded to matter and separable from it. To talk of life as independent of an animal body, or to discuss a function without referring to the organ involved, was absurd. All this applied just as much to the notion of a "mind" separated from, or added to, "matter" as it did to 'life" separated from, or added to, "matter." The whole Cartesian dualism was misconceived, and to any physiologist worth his salt, irrational. The doctrine of the sensorium had been current for nearly 200 years, and Lawrence criticizes it in these terms: Physiologists have been much perplexed to find out a common center in the nervous system, in which all sensations may meet, and from which all acts of volition may emanate; a central apartment for the superintendent of the human panopticon . . . That there must be such a point they are well convinced, having satisfied themselves that the human mind is simple and indivisible, and therefore capable of dwelling only in one place. Now, there are many orders of animals with sensation and volition, who have none of these parts. And this assumed unity of the sentient principle becomes very doubtful, when we see other animals, possessed of nervous systems, which, after being cut in two, form again two perfect animals. Is the immaterial principle divided by the knife, as well as the body?53 The same kinds of fact, reasoning, and evidence which show digestion to be a function of the muscles, show too that sensation, perception, memory, judgment, reasoning, thought, are the corresponding functions of the appropriate organ: to wit, the brain. Any difficulty or obscurity which afflicts this idea afflicts the former ideas equally; all the evidence which connects the living processes with the material connection in the one applies just as forcibly in the other. Lawrence knew he would be told that the notion of thought was inconsistent with that of matter; that it was impossible to conceive how the medullary substance can perceive, remember, or judge. He acknowledged that, as yet, men were ignorant of these things, just as they remained ignorant of how the liver secreted bile, or how muscles contracted. But, though we might not yet know the mechanism, the constant conjunction of func53. Ibid., p. 88.

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Some Aspects of English Physiology tions and organs was the sole ground for affirining a necessary connection between them. On the other hand, if one took the prevailing view-that thought was not a function of the brain itself, but rather the act of an immaterial substance residing in it-the physiologist is entitled to ask, what then does the brain do? One is presented with a curious physiological situation: an organ which, in the human, receives one fifth of all the blood from the heart, delicately organized, nicely wrapped up in protective membranes, safely protected in a bony box, better fed, clothed, and lodged than any other part of the body, yet without any apparent function. And with devastating sarcasm, Lawrence concludes: . . . its office, only one remove above a sinecure, is not a very honorable one: it is a kind of porter, entrusted to open the door, and introduce newcomers to [mind] -the master of the house-who takes upon himself the entire charge of receiving, entertaining and employing them.54 We know, he goes on, that thought, sensation, and all such functions of the mind must be closely related to the structure of the brain. We can see mental powers grow and develop as a child grows and develops. As the body grows older so, too, does the mind falter. The gradation of the brain structure and mental faculties increases through fish, reptiles, birds, horses, elephants, dogs, monkeys, and so on up to man. Animals, too, participate in some degree of rational endowment; it is strongly suspected, he says, that a Newton or a Shakespeare excels other mortals because of more ample development of the anterior cerebral lobes.55 The mind of man is thus the more perfect exhibition of mental phenomena which man's more complex anatomical development would lead us to expect. Insanity is not a disease of an independent mind, for which moral treatment alone can be recommended, but a disease of the brain -a deranged function of a normally healthy organ. "Arguments, syllogisms, discourses, sermons, have never yet restored any patient; the moral pharmacopoeia is quite inefficient and no real benefit can be conferred without vigorous medical treatment." 58 This was extremely strong stuff for the world of England in 1817. The lectures were published in 1819, as were Abernethy's, and within a few months it was all over. Lawrence had managed to offend, criticize, denounce everything that the Establishment held most dear, whether it was the medical establishment, the 54. Ibid., p. 106.

55. Ibid., p. 110.

56. Ibid., p. 114.

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political establishment, or the theological establishment. As the row gathered momentum during the months of 1819, one can feel the opposition and the fury snowball until one is unable to disentangle the real issues from the irrelevancies, the sound judgments from the prejudices. The actual explosion began in the University of Cambridge. The Hulsean lecture, which is given to this day, was founded by John Hulse, who provided a sum of money in order that each year "A Christian Advocate should produce a publication which may be an answer to cavil and objections brought against organized religion. . ." For the year 1819 the lecturer in question, Reverend Thomas Rennell, felt "obliged to call attention to the mischievous tendencies of certain opinions which strike deep at the heart of all religion." We find these mischievous tendencies examined in a chapter which is cheerfully headed: "Mistaken Notions of Life and Organization: Views of M. Bichat, T. C. Morgan and of Mr. Lawrence."57 The focus of Rennell's attack is not unexpected: by insisting that all the properties of animals are located within, and utterly dependent on, the material tissues of the body (which are destroyed by death), these physiologists deny the possibility of the separate existence of the human soul. We have the authority of the Scriptures to tell us that on death the mind and soul separate from the body and lead an independent existence. This is a fundamental Protestant doctrine, and any suggestion that the mind could not exist without its material counterpart inevitably strikes at the heart of contemporary Protestant belief. For, when we have argued ourselves out of a separate mind as an immaterial entity, we can then with equal facility argue ourselves out of a separate soul as an immaterial entity, and by a continuation of the very same logical process dismiss the possibility of the existence of Almighty God, who is also a spirit. So materialism of this sort inevitably leads to Atheism; in fact, materialism and atheism go hand in hand. Several things must be said straight away about Rennell's position. Though given the current intellectual situation his attitude is understandable, he invaded a physiological issue with theological arguments. Like so many natural theologians in the Protestant tradition, he also staked far too much on an intellectual position in a territory which, one feels in retrospect, was not truly his. But the trouble was that practically everyone followed Rennell's lead and evaded those scientific questions which one 57. T. Rennell, Remarks on Scepticism . . . being an Answer to the Views of M. Bichat, Sir T. C. Morgan, and Mr. Lawrence. 3rd ed. (London, 1819), p. 54.

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Some Aspects of English Physiology day would have to be answered, making the issue Lawrence's supposed atheism and materialism, rather than his physiology. So by July 1819, when the two most influential literary journals of the day, the Quarterly Review and the British Critic,58 are examining the questions, we find the Quarterly Review beginning in this manner: "We find our attention called by the pamphlets before us to a subject of no ordinary importance, the doctrine of materialism, an open avowal of which has been made in the metropolis of the British Empire in the lectures delivered under public authority by Mr. Lawrence . . . in the Royal College of Surgeons." In some 6000 words Lawrence is roundly attacked. The focus of this and other attacks is generally identical with Rennell's, and Lawrence is chided not only for his materialism and atheism but for the misguided, pernicious influences upon him of the free-thinking physiologists of Germany and France, especially Bichat. The defenders of Lawrence were few and for the most part felt obliged to publish anonymously, but they were at least unanimous in trying to disentangle the scientific from the theological issue and to delineate the boundary between science and religion. Moreover, in the two most brilliant defenses, Rennell is attacked not for his bad science but for his bad theology. A Protestant writer presents the issue neatly: immaterialism and immortality need not be, as Joseph Priestley had pointed out, one and the same thing; we are enabled to regard thinking matter as material, yet God and the soul as spirit. The Scriptures teach us morality, but they no more teach us physiology than they do astronomy. And with the earlier warning of Galileo before us, theologians would be well advised to think carefully before they condemn Lawrence's book permanently to the "Index Anglicanus Expurgatorius"I 59 Another brilliant publication comes from a Catholic, Foster of Chelmsford, who takes the same line: physiologically speaking, Lawrence is on irreproachable grounds. And Foster, too, begs people not to turn to the Bible for scientific knowledge, but to take note again of the example of Galileo "imprisoned in a dungeon for truths afterwards confirmed by Newton." 60 58. The Quarterly Review, 22, (July 1819), 1; The British Critic, 12, (1819), 89. 59. Anon., A Letter on the Reputed Immateriality of the Human Soul with Strictures on the Rev. T. Rennell's Late Publication (London, 1821), p. 64. 60. Philostratus (Foster of Chelmsford). Somatopsychonoologia, showing that Body, Life and Mind considered as Distinct Essences cannot be deduced from Physiology (London, 1823), p. 116.

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But in 1819 the political pressures were far too great and the not be-clearly delinephilosophical issues were not-could ated. This was England four years after the Battle of Waterloo, when every attempt to reform was still ruthlessly suppressed. The trauma of the French Revolution, and especially the Terror, had not passed; if anything, fears were more intense, and Englishmen were absolutely determined that in their country, at least, the status quo would remain. The existing climate of the time is well summed up in a second passage from the Quarterly Review of July 1819: Mr. Lawrence contends that the doctrines which he promulgates were true, and that truth ought always to be spoken . . . it is not to be justified, we must inform him, on any sound principle, that a man should, at all times and under all circumstances, give currency to opinions of every description, on the mere ground that, in his private judgment, he believes them to be true. A considerate person will always feel a certain distrust of his own opinions, and above all, he will most seriously weigh the tendency, and the probable consequences of their general reception. Apply this to the opinions maintained by Mr. Lawrence . . . Mr. Lawrence, we apprehend, would much sooner entrust his life and property to a person who believed that he had an immortal and accountable soul, than to one who believed with him that medullary matter thinks, and that the whole human being perishes in the dissolution of the body.6' And whereas such views were only to be expected in France, this was England. As the British Critic said: Melancholy it is indeed to think that Bichat has mixed up with his physiological speculations, so many that are adverse to the best interests of mankind; but it must be considered as an apology for the man, even though it be no justification of his opinions, that he was only 7 years of age when the French Revolution broke out. He was consequently brought up and educated in atheism. It might, indeed, have been hoped that a man of so superior an understanding would have been above the influence of shallow sophistry, as it is, however, he is fairly entitled to allowance. With respect however to Mr. Lawrence, he certainly cannot take the benefits of the apology which may be offered for M. Bichat. What we mean to observe is simply this, that Mr. Lawrence was extremely wrong and censurable in supposing that because a 61. The Quarterly Review, 22 (July 1819), 33.

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Some Aspects of English Physiology French professor, in a country and at a time when all principles of every kind were treated with ridicule, might talk atheism to his pupils, and treat the religion of Christianity with contempt, that, therefore, an English professor may innocently, and without violating any confidence, take the same liberty.62 (Those of us who have been accustomed to seeing how soundly Bichat was trounced for his vitalism find it ironic to see him here attacked for his materialism. The English critics could have attacked La Mettrie and Hartley with far more justification.) The Quarterly Review called on the Royal College of Surgeons to force Lawrence to expunge the offending paragraphs from his book and to insist as a condition of his continuing employment as a lecturer that he strictly abstain from propagating any similar opinions. The medical journals joined in, and within one month of publication Lawrence withdrew his book and resigned his lectureship. The pressures on him must have been intense. Clearly the alternatives were either to withdraw his book or leave his medical practice. In the only written communication we have he said: "I thought it expedient to withdraw this work from circulation."63 Presumably, had he not resigned voluntarily the Royal College of Surgeons might have forced him out. From that moment on he devoted himself exclusively to medical practice and went on to a splendid career, becoming Surgeon-General to Queen Victoria. The pirated version of his book ran into nine editions, and we may attribute the large sale almost entirely to the supposed blasphemy. It was discussed for years, but with few exceptions the issue was the one of materialism, and Lawrence's genuine biological arguments were bypassed. The focus of the methodological debate shifted from England back to France, and it was left to Claude Bernard to give the real first and brilliant synthesis of biological experiment and biological philosophy in terms not unlike Lawrence's. Forty-four years later we find a small vignette of Lawrence written by Thomas Henry Huxley in the preface to his 62. The British Critic, 12 (1819), 95. 63. A letter of Lawrence's is in the Departnent of Manuscripts at the British Museum. It is written to a bookseller, William Hone, and though not dated, is on paper watermarked '1820'. It says: ". . . I beg you to accept the accompanying copy of my lectures, and to assure you that although I thought it expedient to withdraw this work from circulation, no consideration of expediency would ever induce me to shun the appearance of intimacy with one whom I respect so highly for talent and the most important public services as well as for the possession of much greater courage in these matters than falls to the lot of Yours very faithfully, W. Lawrence" (B.M. Add. Ms. 40120, f 171).

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book, Evidence on Man's Place in Nature: "It was not so very long since my kind friend Sir William Lawrence, one of the ablest men whom I have known, had been well nigh ostrasized for his book on Man, which now might be read in a Sundayschool without surprising anybody."64 Lawrence died, on July 5, 1867, four years after Huxley's statement. He was eighty-four years old. His story is, so far as I can judge, unique in the history of science. Given the context of the times-social, scientific, political, and theological-its course carried a degree of tragic inevitability, to which the case-law of the English legal system added a final quixotic touch.65 64. T. H. Huxley. Evidence on Man's Place in Nature (1836), Preface. 65. Four authors, in recent times, have written on this episode: see C. D. Darlington, Darwin's Place in History (1960); Owsei Temkin, "Basic Science, Medicine and the Romantic Era", Bull. Hist. Med., 36 (1963) 97129; J. Goodfield-Toulmin, "Blasphemy and Biology," The Rockefeller University Review, September 1966, pp. 9-18; P. D. Mudford, "William Lawrence and the Natural History of Man", J. Hist. Ideas, 22 (1968), 430436. Darlington places a different interpretation on the whole episode from those of the other authors, who are more or less in agreement. As I wrote in 1966, "Darlington's interpretation is misjudged. Lawrence's views on evolution and inheritance did NOT provide the focus of the attacks on him; the issues were more to do with his materialism." Mudford's article, a critique of Darlington's, emphasizes this and demonstrates how misleading and inaccurate Darlington's interpretation is.

320

Essay

MythandMethodin Seventeenth-Century Biological Thought WILLIAM P. D. WIGHTMAN Formerly of King's College Aberdeen, Scotland

I believe that I do not stand alone in the conviction that the greatest myth about the seventeenth century, announced with varying degrees of refinement and historical understanding (or misunderstanding), is the belief in a "Scientific Revolution" brought about by the application of "the scientific method." Elsewhere and at other times I have said enough-perhaps too much-about my general reasons for regarding this half-truth as an unfortunate introduction into the terminology of historiography. There are indications that the shibboleth "scientific method" is losing some of its charm; but the "Scientific Revolution" we shall always have with us, like the "Renaissance"-a far worse source of confusion. I have been careful in my title to employ the adjectival form "biological"; since to talk about seventeenth-century "biology" would not only be a linguistic anachronism-no very serious matter perhaps-but also and much more seriously to force the fluid thought of that revolutionary period into a rigorous framework and thus prejudge a very important aspect of the very question I am to examine. This question involves a correlative prejudice of mine that the over-simplification of the historical process implied by the expression "The Scientific Revolution" was the consequence of the very common assumption that "science" is coterminous with what we-though not the seventeenth-century pioneers-call "physics." Of course some of the work of men like Niels Stensen and William Harvey could be made to look like physics, just as some of the ingenious work of the arch-physicist Mersenne can be made to look like psychiatry-or worse. But the ques-

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tions the former group were asking were totally different from the questions uppermost in the minds of a John Wallis or a Huygens. Because the latter questions were much simpler-I am careful not to introduce irrelevant value-judgments by using the term "easier"-it is not surprising that to many of these questions they got the "right," or nearly the right, answers straightaway. Of course nothing succeeds like success; so the success of the answers being assessed independently of the nature of the questions, the name "science" was attached to that aspect of seventeenth-century natural philosophy that got results, with the implication that the method by which they were gotten was "the"scientific method. Unfortunately the only sustained counterblast (at least in English) was the late Canon Raven's Gifford Lectures,' characterized by the not uncommon confusion of the logical categories of contrary and contradictory. My prejudices are not such as to lead me into the same trap: no conviction is stronger in my mind than that if there were any movements of thought justifiably regarded as "revolutionary" at that time they were Galileo's rejection of the method appropriate to a large area of science and Descartes' introduction of a symbolical calculus that enormously increased the power and range of Galileo's method. Descartes, however, unlike Galileo, had the honesty to admit later2 that its area of application might be more restricted than he had at first surmised. The "method" that Galileo (in one locus classicus) 3 explicitly rejected was the Aristotelian principle that to find an explanation for anything is to discover a cause; demonstration, in showing that the cause postulated is such that if it exists then the "thing" could not be otherwise than it is. In lectures4 given at the invitation of the University of London in 1965 I briefly reviewed the development of this concept of method from the insights of Plato through the Posterior Analytics to the time when in association with the standard medieval text of Galen known as the Ars medicinalis it became a central problem of 1. C. E. Raven, Natural Religion and Christian Theology (Cambridge, Eng., 1953). 2. For example, "Les Ph6nom6nes morbides naissent de l'activit6 physiologiques et dispositions mentales," conjugu6e des mechanismes quoted by H. Dreyfus-LeFoyer in "Conceptions m6dicales de Descartes, Rev. m6t morale, 44 (1937), 237f. Dr. Leslie Beck kindly supplied this valuable reference. 3. Galileo, Discorsi . . . (Leiden, 1638), p. 163. 4. Based on an article, "Quid sit Methodus?," J. Hist. Med., 19 (1964), 360-376.

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Seventeenth-Century Biological Thought the medical schools of Northern Italy. Thus far I was walking in the footsteps of J. H. Randall, Jr., whose pioneering work is well known.5 Unfortunately for the enlargement of biological knowledge a great deal of time and dialectical ingenuity was expended on the question as to whether Galen in the Ars medicinalis was talking about "research" or "teaching," which involved the further problem of the relation between the method of investigating the course of Nature and the development of a merely logical schematism. In the light of the criticism of Randall's theory by Neil Gilbert and by W. J. Ong in his remarkable work on Ramism,6 I tried to show that preeminently in the works of Giovanni Manardi and the lectures of Giovanni Battista da Monte (Montanus)-the theory of method was closely related at least to medical diagnosis. Of course the explanatory categories were mainly Galenic (though neither Manardi nor da Monte was a slavish follower of Galen); but-and this is the main position for which I am contending-until the prevailing mythology had been replaced (replaced, not merely rejected) there was little hope of positive advance. Since then I have reread Galen's On the Natural Faculties. I would rather translate Swa/.,.ws as "powers"-for these-the pulsatile power of the heart, the digestive power of the stomach, but not alas the blood-making power of the veins, are, unlike the "faculties" of the old psychology, real powers, though the causes are, as Galen himself emphasizes, still to be discovered. "If," he writes, "we are to investigate methodically the number and kinds of powers, we must begin with the effects (~pywv);

for each of these effects comes from a certain activity (IvcpyE'a)

and each of these again is preceded by a cause (ah,jt-)." 7 This is essentially-though Galen does not call it so in this place-the methodus resolutiva of the late medieval and renaissance medical schools whereby, starting from the effects, a way is sought back to the cause; that is, to the "nature" from the assumption of which the effects necessarily follow. I may be over-optimistic, unhistorical, biased in favor of the ancients and the renaissance physicians who proclaimed this method to their students; but I 5. J. H. Randall, Jr., "The Development of Scientific Method in the School of Padua," J. Hist. Ideas, 1940; revised, with Latin citations, as The School of Padua and the Emergence of Science (Padua, 1960). 6. Neil Gilbert, Renaissance Concepts of Method (New York, 1960); W. J. Ong, Ramus, Method and the Decay of Dialogue (Cambridge, Mass., 1958). 7. Galen, On the Natural Faculties (London: Loeb Classical Library, 1916).

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confess I can not see how this differs from the core of the socalled "scientific method" normally8 traced back only to the so-called "scientific revolution." Nor, if I understand him aright, could Isaac Newton; but of that more later. To justify such a claim it would be necessary to discover examples of its application, or at least unmistakable evidence of its influence, in those thinkers to whose works the biological aspects of the Scientific Revolution may most plausibly be ascribed. Outstanding among these was of course William Harvey; and the fact that he had spent two years in the medical school at Padua made the probability of finding such influence almost a certainty. Or so one would have thought. More than once, indeed, it has been claimed that Harvey had learned his method at the feet of Galileo, who was undoubtedly lecturing there, guided, in his own words, by the metodo resolutivo and metodo compositivo. This is the sort of contrived history we are all, alas, apt to resort to in order to round off a plausible argument. But Walter Pagel (whose great work came into my hands only after the main lines of this essay had been sketched out) could find no actual evidence that Harvey had even heard of Galileo.9 Nor does the exposition of the case for the motion of the heart and blood show any strong resemblance to the method. Indeed, Harvey's answer to one of the most learned of his critics, Caspar Hofmann-in a letter the full text of which has come to light only quite recently-shows that in the exposition of the De Motu Cordis he had laid himself open to the charge that he had not been methodical enough. Since the Latin text and K. J. Franklin's translation of this extremely interesting document appeared in the Journal of the History of Medicine'0 it may not be known to a majority of readers. I had unaccountably missed it myself and would have been deprived of one of the most significant of my documents had I not seen the translation reproduced in Sir Geoffrey Keynes's great biography." In the letter to which Harvey is replying Hofmann is bolstering his earlier condemnation of the notion of a dual circulation by accusing Harvey of convicting Nature of folly and error, and of characterizing her as a very stupid and idle worker to the extent that she should let the blood recrudesce and, with a view to its concoction, let it return again and again to the heart; and with a view to its recrudescence equally often to the body in 8. See A. C. Crombie, Robert Grosseteste and the Origins of Experimental Science, 1100-1700, rev. ed. (Oxford, 1961), pp. 25f, 68. 9. W. Pagel, William Harvey's Biological Ideas (Basel and New York, 1967), PP. 20-21. 10. E. V. Ferrario et al., J. Hist. Med., 15 (1960), 17. 11. G. Keynes, The Life of William Harvey (Oxford, 1966), p. 237.

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Seventeenth-Century Biological Thought general-and rather more in the same vein. The sentiments here expressed exemplify one of the dominant myths of the seventeenth century, but at this stage it is Harvey's reply that must occupy our attention, since after denying some of the details of Hofmann's allegations he continues: Nay more, you proceed to find fault with me as being too little of an analytical anatomist in that I try to investigate the final cause without establishing the facts; I shall be grateful . . . if you will read the summary of the whole of my assertions in chapter 14. You wili be able to discover that I give merely the facts and add no physiological speculation or extra causes nor the reason why Nature produces the movement of the blood through the pulsation of the heart. Suspecting that the words translated as "the facts" might reveal something of interest, I found in the original Latin text what I had been half hoping for. Here is the actual passage: "Quin parum Anatomicum me esse Analyticum parum pergis, incuT sare, ob id, quodTO 0Ttnon constituto StOTtinvestigare mtor." The Greek words TO OTL and &STL Tae of course precisely those of the Posterior Analytics rendered through the long Paduan controversies as quia and propter quid. The search for the cause as a consequence of which the "facts" necessarily follow came to be known as the methodus resolutiva. Exactly when the tern analytica-the one used by Harvey-came to replace the former resolutiva I have not been able to determine. But, as J. W. N. Watkins12 recently reminded us, they were used interchangeably by Thomas Hobbes at a later date than the letter we have just been considering. Galileo, on the other hand, says in the Dialogo: "When the conclusion is true one may by making use of analytical methods hit upon some proposition which is already demonstrated and arrive at some axiomatic principle." So even if Harvey had never "heard" or even "heard of" Galileo, as Hobbes had, it is evident that the use of this method was widespread at the time; and this method, with some qualifications (that Randall drew attention to and are chiefly of interest to logicians), can be traced in an uninterrupted line through at least three centuries of teaching in the medical schools of Northern Italy, the Arabic commentary of ibn Ridwan, and ultimately to Aristotle, whose term for it, irayoyq is usually translated as "induction." But to return to Harvey. That Harvey had indeed conscientiously applied the method 12. J. W. N. Watkins, Hobbes's System of Ideas (London, 1965); see also n. 17 below.

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despite what Hofmann might allege to the contrary appears from the sentence that immediately follows the one previously quoted: "Historiam solam TOV & tantum astruere nullam speculationem Physiologicam adjungere aut causas superaddere neque propter quid Natura per pulsum Cordis hunc motum praestet sanguini invenire poteris." He goes on to say that "for the sake of illustration" he has described what would happen if the circulation were as he stated it to be, but that he does not concern himself in that place with the question whether such inferred consequences are actually to be observed. This is of course (though Harvey does not call it so) the methodus compositiva. In regard to the instances he cites, it seems to me that he displays in a very clear manner his control of myth; but I shall return to that later. Here it suffices to say that at the end of the letter he turns the tables on Hofmann by begging him to get his own facts right before casting doubts on the skill of others, whether as anatomists or analysts. Though there are many points of methodological interest in the De Motu Cordis, nowhere in that work does Harvey's familiarity with the Paduan version of Aristotle's so-called induction stand out so clearly. But the letter is not an isolated case: a similar riposte is made against an objector in the Second Reply to Jean Riolan fils;l3 this is of more than passing interest since it illustrates admirably that it may well have been this rigorous training in formal logic characteristic of the medical schools that enabled Harvey to avoid the traps inherent in the teleological form of argument that he deploys so effectively in the De Motu Cordis. "To those" he writes to Riolan, "who repudiate the circulation because they neither see the efficient nor final cause of it and who exclaim 'cui bono' I have yet to reply, having hitherto taken no note of the ground of objection which they take up. And first I own I am of opinion that our first duty is to inquire whether the thing be or not before asking wherefore it is? For from the facts and circumstances which meet us in the circulation admitted as established the ends and objects of its institution are especially to be sought." In the Latin original there are no Greek tags, but the critical phrase is: "Prius in confesso esse debet, Quod sit, ante quam Propter quid, inquirendum" 14- a sufficiently near equivalent. 13. Harvey, An Anatomical Disquisition on the Motions of the Heart, trans. Robert Willis (Everyman reprint, 1923), p. 149; see also Crombie, Robert Grosseteste, pp. 311-318. 14. Harvey, Exercitatio Anatomica de Circulatione Sanguinis . . . (Cambridge, Eng., 1649), p. 76.

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Seventeenth-Century Biological Thought If Randall's thesis had been limited to the claim that the Scientific Revolution was, as I am inclined to believe, very largely built on this venerable logical instrument, it is well taken. It was perhaps a necessary condition; why it was not in my view a sufficient condition will be considered later. But before proceeding to that we might wonder why Harvey seems to have given no hint of its use in the de Motu, since the work is a very lively, intimate, piece of writing. The following passage, though written a few years after Harvey's death, may suggest an answer to the question: Quod ad methodum nostram et philosophandi modum spectat nemo mihi vitio vertat si non ad amussim hic omnia et juxta analytices regulas descripserim quoniam in hoc opere sine duce aut viatore loca tantum devia et velut solitudinem nullis calcatam vestigiis peragrare contigit ubi non iter tantum sed et viam facio. Quocunque igitur deflexero apud aequos conatus nostri aestimatores errasse vix dicar qui semitam non habuerim cui insistendum fuerat nec orbitam agnoscam quam transisse deprehendar.A5 Not only is the figurative speech in line with the traditional development of the problem of method (it will be recalled that the term methodus is unknown in classical Latin, the sense being rendered by the Ciceronian via et ratio), but Thomas Willis is evidently addressing a public familiar with the terms of the problem-the passage is in fact taken from the Preface of his first work, De Fermentatione (1651). Harvey even more than Willis (for the topic of "Fermentation" was by this time only too familiar) was picking his way through a land where no previous traveler had laid down a path, for though discussion of the movement of the blood had not been absent during the latter part of the sixteenth century, Harvey-again even more than Willis-was flying in the face of many time-honored creeds. Clarity had to be achieved even at the risk of some dogmatism; persuasive rhetoric might be more effective than cold logic, often, as we know too well, 15. T. Willis, Opera Omnia (Amsterdam, 1682). "As to my method and manner of philosophizing let no one hold it against me for a fault if I have not here described everything rigorously and according to the rules of analysis, since in this work it has been my fate without a leader or companion to traverse only unfamiliar regions and as it were a wilderness marked by no footsteps, where I make not only a journey, but a path. Wherever I have turned aside I shall hardly be said to have erred by fairminded judges of what I have tried to do, since I had no path on which my foot had to be set, nor do I recognize any track that I may be detected as having transgressed."

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more likely to iritate than to convince when strong emotions are involved. Harvey may have deliberately couched the argument in terms of the ancient myths of Nature, the divine artist doing nothing in vain. Moreover, as I hinted in my London University Lectures, it was a persistent strain in the introductory expositions of the Italian medical writers that whereas the methodus resolutiva was the chief means of investigation, the compositive method (being easier) was more appropriate as an instrument of teaching; for here the principles of the art or science having been laid down as established, the latent consequences could be derived in a straightforward and compelling manner. It is perhaps worthwhile, before concluding this part of the discussion, to note how the greatest "analyst" of the age, Descartes, regarded the matter. Until I had read Leslie Beck's admirable work on the subject 'I I was still suffering from the traditional British view that the Discours de la MWthode was at least an adequate summary of Descartes' views on the problem. In fact, apart from a strong hint of the methodus almost on a par with the other methods by divisivus-put da Monte-there is precious little (hardly a page indeed) on what was then understood by the term. Yet a patient reading of the Regulae, and more especially of some of the correspondence, reveals Descartes' position-and here I have Dr. Beck's personal corroboration-to be very close to that of da Monte. In a letter to Regius,'7 who you will recall was Descartes' chief guide in regard to medical thought, after distinguishing two methods (that he calls analytic and synthetic) he makes the well-known remark that the ancients must have kept to themselves the arcana discovered by analysis. But for himself "Ego vero solam Analysim quae vera et optima via est ad docendum in Meditationibus meis sum secutus." Note the "via"-his reason being that whereas in geometry the "primae notiones" are easily admitted by all, in metaphysics "de nulla re magis laboratur quam de primnis notionibus clare et distincte percipiendis." Unfortunately, in the Regulae Descartes gave only rather scrappy examples of the application of this method to natural philosophy as distinct from mathematics, the promised supplement never having appeared. In similar vein Willis (who is supposed to have been a close follower of Descartes) excused 16. L. H. Beck, The Method of Descartes (Oxford, 1952). 17. Descartes, Oeuvres, ed. Adam and Tannery, vii, p. 155f. Clerselier's French translation (AT ix, 121) gives 'Tanalyse ou resolution l'autre par la synthese ou composition."

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Seventeenth-Century Biological Thought himself for not having set out his ideas analytically; and if this preference seems to be at variance with the Paduan preference for the compositive method in teaching, the "docendum" of Descartes and the monograph of Willis were not aimed at "iuvenes" as were the medical lectures of da Monte. And thus much concerning method; what of myth? Let me first recall Randall's claim that "the transformation of the demonstrative proof of causes into a method of discovery is precisely the achievement of the Paduan theory of science" (p. 31). What any of those Paduans discovered is not disclosed, and with good reason. In my London lectures I tried to show that what they did-ven those like Manardi and da Monte in that humanist tradition rather too hastily written off by some scholars-was a necessary propylaea to modem science, but even their warmest admirers would be hard put to be able to credit them with any discoveries. Toward the end of his classical statement Randall tells us that only "with this mathematical emphasis added to the logical methodology of Zabarella there stands completed the 'new method' for which men had been so eagerly seeking." "Completed?" Yes indeed, for such simple "questions" as the natural motion of disembodied points, and even-with cannon some reservations-of balls and pendulum clocks. But for the motion of the heart, of muscles, of messages from sense organs to muscles? You won't find any mathematics in Harvey (except the recognition that a thousand times half an ounce is a lot more than nine pounds); in Stensen's study of how muscles work; in Francesco Redi's final quietus to the age-long belief in the spontaneous generation of maggots in meat (so plausible a belief as to be held by Harvey to the end); of the scientific (but wrong) arguments of Martin Lister against the marine deposition theories of shell fragments put forward by Hooke and Stensen; and finally of the revelation of new inner worlds by Leeuwenhoek and Malpighi every bit as significant to the mathematician Leibniz as had been the new outer worlds revealed by Galileo. For the whole range of animate nature mathematics was largely irrelevant, and even, since by virtue of its nature it inevitably oversimplified the problem (as happened in the case of Alphonso Borelli's fascinating models), ultimately misleading and even obstructive of further progress. If it was not mathematics, what was it that brought about so radical a change in biological thought as to promote a greater advance in biological understanding than in the fourteen centuries since Galen? "Observation and experiment" springs at once to the lips. But Galen's anatomy was good enough to

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enable Harvey to appeal far more often to his authority than to that of his own immediate precursors; and Galen's use of ligature for the demonstration of the current of urine was the prototype on which much of Harvey's experimentation on the circulation of the blood was founded. All the traditional ingredients for biological progress were there from the time of Galen: yet of progress in any physiological sense there was virtually none. I do not pretend to solve this problem; I can but touch the fringe of it; but I have for a long time suspected that men's relations to their myths had much to do with it. The failure of Galen and of fifteen centuries of his followers was not primarily a failure of methodology or of observation or of experiment-not even of quantification, of which there are more than traces in his scales of temperature and pulse rate to which the Paduans applied the medieval notions of intension and remission. It was the creeping paralysis of a plausible mythology subject to no critical control. The course I followed in preparatory studies for this essay was in fact opposite to that which I have employed in exposition. I had for many years been fascinated by Harvey's rhapsodical outburst ending in the words: "Thus the heart is the origin (principium) of life and the sun of the Microcosm in just such a manner (proportionabiliter) as the Sun deserves to be called the Heart of the World."1'8 The close correspondence of this with the uncanonical hymn of Copernicus, "non inepte quidam lucernam mundi allii mentem alii rectorem vocant Trismegistus visibilem Deum" is striking enough; but even more significant is the similar reference to the "Macrocosmical Sun's dignity and perfection . . . even in the centre of middle of the heavens . . . in whom all the vertue of the celestiall bodies do consist . . ." 19 all the more significant since the writer, Robert Fludd, was a close friend of Harvey's. All this, and latterly to an especial degree the reference to Hermes Trismegistos, is widely accepted. What to my knowledge has never been remarked on is the conclusion of the recently quoted passage of Harvey which Willis translates thus: It [the blood] returns to its sovereign the heart as if to its source or to the inmost home of the body there to recover its state of excellence or perfection. Here it resumes its fluidity and receives an infusion of natural heat-pow. 18. Harvey, De Motu Cordis (Frankfurt, 1628), p. 42. 19. R. Fludd, Mosaicall Philosophy, pp. 61-64; quoted by A. G. Debus in Alchemy and Chemistry in the Seventeenth Century (University of California Press, 1966), p. 18.

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Seventeenth-Century Biological Thought erful, fervid, a kind of treasury of life, and is impregnated with spirits and it might be said with balsam. When recently I read Keynes's biography I found that the word "balsam" was replaced by "sweetness"; in his earlier translation Chauncey Leake just leaves it out.20 Perhaps, I used to think, balsam was just a fancy of Willis's. But to make sure I looked at our copy of the princeps (which by the way belonged to Alexander Read), and there it was: "Ibi calore naturali potenti, fervido, tanquam vitae thesauro, denuo colliquatur, spiritibus et (ut ita dicam) balsamo praegnans."21 The word "balsamum" used by Virgil and Tacitus is derived from the Greek PaXovaaov and can mean either the tree Amyris opobalsamum, or more usually the sweet-smelling resin derived from it. The Oxford Dictionary refers to Paracelsus as the first to use the term in a secondary sense, namely, "a healthfull preservative assistance, of oily and softly penetrative nature . . . existing in all organic bodies." Not unexpectedly, a hint from A. G. Debus's invaluable guide sent me on the path to finding the systematic alchemical version of the concept developed at some length in the Traite de la Mati&re preparation et excellente vertu et de la Medecine Balsamique des Anciens Philosophes that Joseph Duchene published in 1626: "Ce bausme vital ceste unique et vraye medecine qu'on emploie tant pour preserver que delivrer de toutes maladies." 22 This balsamic salt is found in urine (hence the latter's fertilizing power) it "echauffe, engraisse (voire anime) fortifie corrobore augmente . . ." Compare this with Harvey's "natural heat, powerful, fervid, treasury of life . . ." imparted to the blood by the heart. And Duchene adds a point that Harvey (though not Copernicus) leaves out, namely, that there is nothing original in the belief in an all-pervasive divine power of life-to assert it is merely to return to the teaching of Hermes Trismegistos, the oldest of philosophers. The function of Paracelsus seems to have been to give this power of life a local habitation (unsichtbares Feuer eingeschlossener Luft tinglerender Salz) and a name (Astralischer Balsam). The observant will notice that I have again been treading in the footsteps of Debus.23 Hermes, Paracelsus, Duchene-whence did Harvey imbibe this heady stuff? Not I think from John Caius's conservative 20. Keynes, Harvey, p. 182; C. D. Leake, Facsimile of the editio princeps with translation and commentary (London, 1928). 21. See n. 18 above. 22. Duchene, Traits, p. 11. 23. A. G. Debus, "The Paracelsian Aerial Nitre," Isis LV (1964), 43-61.

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establishment nor the neo-Aristotelians of Padua. Of course he could have read Duchene's own works: he was no rabid anti-Paracelsian like his later opponent Jean Riolan fils. Indeed, among his colleagues was Sir Theodore Turquet de Mayerne, whose enlightened views on chemical medicine had brought down the wrath of the Facult6 on his head in Paris, but whose clinical reports are praised by Keynes as models of their kind. But whatever other sources Harvey may have looked to, he himself gives us a clue in the following entry in his De Motu Locali (dated by Dr. Whitteridge as ca. 1615) "motus spiritus motivus utpote quod contrahi et laxari potest: here Dr. Fludd." 24There is in fact nothing about balsam in this place, but the following (evidently associated with the above passage) indicates the close relationship if not identity in Harvey's mind of balsamum and spiritus "a spiritu fit pulsus cordis" "musculus mortuus non contractile stiff ita privatus spiritu." It may be emphasized in passing that the entry "sicut animal ab anima movetur ita corpus a spiritu ita musculus and sanguis et spiritus una res" indicates that spiritus is not to be identified with the Aristotelian "soul," of which (in respect of movement) it seems to be rather the medium. It is well known that Robert Fludd had put forward on purely speculative grounds a theory of complete circulation of the blood some years before Harvey is likely to have had any assured belief in it. Whether Harvey was influenced in this regard by Fludd we do not know; but it is clear that the notion was part of the current mythology. In regard to spiritus motivus Harvey's remark just quoted gives us good grounds for believing that Fludd was the actual source of the myth that in one form and another guided Harvey to the end of his mortal speculations. Dr. Pagel holds to the view that in spite of some apparent inconsistencies, Harvey never really departed from the belief that it was the blood (as in the well-known punctum saliens) that was endowedwith this spirit.25 At this stage it may be objected that magistral figure as he was, Harvey might not be representative of seventeenthcentury biological thought. In respect of balsam, however, we find Marcello Malpighi, in his tract De Polypo Cordis,26 written fifty years after Harvey's De Motu Locali, taking no excep24. Harvey, De Motu Locali Animalium (1627), trans, and ed. G. Whitteridge (Cambridge, Eng., 1956), p. 95. 25. Pagel, Harvey, pp. 332-333. 26. M. Malpighi, De Polypo Cordis (1666), in Opera Omnia (Leiden, 1687), ii, p. 318. My attention to this source was drawn by H. B. Adelmann, Marcello Malpighi and the Evolution of Embryology (London and New York, 1966).

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Seventeenth-Century Biological Thought tion to the view of Thomas Cornelius that there exists a very tenuous "halitus" in the blood "vitae balsamum appellandum censuit." But that understanding of these matters had been somewhat clarified since Harvey's heyday is shown by Malpighi's preference (against Cornelius) for the view that this halitus arose not by fermentation of particles in the blood but rather "from the external air, since the lungs themselves resemble a gland." The word "fermentation" points to another seventeenth-century myth. The products of fermentation may indeed engender passing myths even today; but long familiarity with the process itself caused such a cautious follower of Aristotle as Harvey to refer to it as a real cause of processes other than that of alcoholic generation. The analogy between this and the germination of a seed that must die in corruption before becoming active in life was of course drawn by Paracelsus. And when we consider what evidence of powerful motion-the very essence of change in Aristotle's eyes-is made visible in fermentation it need not surprise us to find it regarded as being a concrete manifestation of the iL8os whereby all forms are realized in their material aspects. And in just such a universal aspect it appeared to Thomas Willis, that great anatomist to whom the very word "neurology" is due. But by the time (1659) that Willis wrote his De Fermentatione he could claim that whereas the term was hardly known in the vulgar philosophy that explained "res naturales . . . in inanibus Formarum et Qualitatum figmentis," none was now commoner among the modems who look especially to Matter and Motion-even unto the constituent atoms, belief in which had now been restored. The term "fermentation," and others heard only among the chemists, he is now going to extend to a far wider use, since the "principles" of the chemists-especially sulphur, salt and spirit -are now more widely referred to.27 Not "mercury" you notice; Willis is going to need "spirit," especially animal spirits, to rush about and as it were "ferment," to account for the interaction between sense organs, brain and muscles. How far this "mechanization" of chemistry was more successful than the alchemical "athanors" appealed to by Fludd to represent the levels of activity of the brain, or than the boiler vaporizing the blood drop by drop, in comparison with which Descartes had to express his disappointment with Harvey's insistence on the power of motion residing in the blood, I hope others will continue to investigate. But silly, deplor27. Wilis, De Fermentatione, chap. II.

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ably silly, as most of Willis's chemical mechanistic physiology may seem to us, it was dissatisfaction with the reigning myth (he had as we have seen no quarrel with the reigning Aristotelian-Galenic method) that drove him to exploit a new myth in the light of which he could "believe Nature and ocular demonstration" (avTorouwqin the Latin original) .28 It may well be said that in linking the word "myth" with method I have introduced an unnecessary mystification that could easily be avoided by retaining the traditional term, hypothesis. That this may introduce mystification I accept; that it is precisely equivalent to hypothesis I deny. Redi's investigation, which I regard as one of those that mark the turning point in science (as Sir Geoffrey Keynes has justly claimed for Harvey's on the "bite" of the spider),29 embodying a clear and persuasive hypothesis, contained no trace of myth; that is, it drew on no half-conscious story of how things are in the cosmos-the abditae rerum causae. Redi's reason for his acceptance of the generation of plant-galls did. So much the worse for science, then; and what a pity he hadn't got it out of his system with the meat-maggot myth. But was it? Listen to Willis on the genesis of the animal spirits in the brain and especially-mark you-in the cortex: The volatile salt which like Ferment spiritualizes the subtil liquor stilled forth from the blood is had more copiously in the cortex of the brain than in its middle or marrowy party; because that part, being endowed with an ashy colour shews by its aspect that spermatick particles and humor in them in which Spirit and a volatile salt very much abounds, yea, and plainly resembles an Armeniack smell (such as either part alike breathe forth).30 To us the Armeniack smell is simply an indication of the putrefaction of protein, but to Willis it was the discovery of an essential stage in the "spiritualization" characteristic of the cortex, providing a 'likely story" in the light of which the masterly anatomical analysis of the "dispensation" of these spirits by the medullary part could proceed. So, I ask once again, could it have been, can it ever be, otherwise than that men of science must rise on stepping stones of their dead myths to higher abstractions? For the less than highest genius (as for Redi) the stepping stone is mounted 28. Wilis, Anatomy of the Brain, trans. Pordage, facsimile Feindel (Montreal, 1965), Willis's preface. 29. Keynes, Harvey, p. 353. 30. Willis, Anatomy of the Brain, p. 92.

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ed. by W.

Seventeenth-Century Biological Thought only by a successor-in Redi's case by Antonio Vallisneri. Perhaps the mark of the highest genius is the relentless application of method to myth whereby the dead self is transcended in the same individual. Here Harvey (at least in the De Motu Cordis if imperfectly in the De Generatione) stands supreme. The myth of spirit is the engine, but method-the insistence

on

TO

O'T

before

&OTt-iS

the driver at the wheel and on the

brake pedal. Though beholden to Galen he did not hesitate, by far more extensive experiment and comparative observation, to correct him. Spirit-yes; but spiritus concoctivus, chylificativus, procreativus-in his second letter to Riolan3l he "chooses to decline them all-considering it abstractly."32 These last words are not Harvey's but those of a young man treading a similar path a decade after Harvey's death, but who in his old age allowed his mythology to forecast the shape of things to come as none of the mechanical-chemical modelmaking biologists-Willis, Borelli et al.-had even a glimpse of: And now we might add something concerning a most subtle spirit which pervades and lies hid in all gross bodies, by the force and action of which spirit . . . all sensation is excited and the members of animal bodies move at the command of the will, namely by the vibrations of this spirit mutually propagated along the solid filaments of the nerves, from the outward organs of sense to the brain and from the brain into the muscles. But these are things that can not be explained in a few words nor are we furnished with that sufficiency of experiments which is required to an accurate determination and demonstration of the laws by which this electric and elastic spirit operates.33 Thus the myth. But almost in the same year he laid down the canon by which myth must be controlled by method: As in tigation ever to consists

Mathematicks, so in Natural Philosophy, the Invesof difficult Things by the Method of Analysis, ought precede the Method of Composition. This Analysis in making Experiments and Observations, and in

31. Harvey, On the Motion of the Heart, trans. Willis, p. 60. 32. Newton to Oldenburg, The Correspondence of Isaac Newton (Cambridge, Eng., 1960), I, 174. 33. Newton, Principia, 3d ed., trans. A. Motte, ed. F. Cajori (University of California Press, 1947), p. 547. It is true that "electric and elastic" was a later interpolation by the translator; but it is difficult to conceive what other kind of "spirit" could have been propagated along the solid filaments of the nerves.

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drawing general Conclusions from them by Induction, and admitting of no Objections against the Conclusions, but such as are taken from Experiments, or other certain Truths. For Hypotheses are not to be regarded in experimental Philosophy. And although the arguing from Experiments and Observations by Induction be no Demonstration of general Conclusions; yet it is the best way of arguing which the Nature of Things admits of, and may be looked upon as so much the stronger, by how much the Induction is more general. And if no Exception occur from Phaenomena, the Conclusion may be pronounced generally. But if at any time afterwards any Exception shall occur from Experiments, it may then begin to be pronounced with such Exceptions as occur. By this way of Analysis we may proceed from Compounds to Ingredients, and from Motions to the Forces producing them; and in general, from Effects to their Causes, and from particular Causes to more general ones, till the Argument end in the most general. This is the Method of Analysis: And the Synthesis consists in assuming the Cause discover'd, and establish'd as Principles, and by them explaining the Phaenomena proceeding from them, and proving the Explanations.34 34. Newton, Opticks, 4th ed. (New York: Dover, 1952), p. 404.

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AmericanGeneticistsand the Eugenics Movement: 1905-1935 KENNETH M. LUDMERER Reed Hall, Johns Hopkins University 1620 McElderry Street, Baltimore, Maryland

INTRODUCTION Compared to science in previous centuries, one notable aspect of twentieth-century science is a feeling of social responsibility among many investigators. Not only in the United States, but across the world, scientists have spoken out in groups and as individuals to help guide and direct the social applications of their discoveries. Since the 1930's, physicists have expressed concern over the possible misuse of atomic energy, a concern which has led to the formation of the Federation of American Scientists, the British Atomic Scientists' Association, and similar organizations in Japan, many European nations, and all the Communist countries.' Chemists and biochemists for a decade have been debating the moral issues involved in the use of chemical weapons and in spring 1967, led 5000 American scientists in petitioning President Johnson to end the production of these arms. In publicizing the dramatic new vision of man's future suggested by recent findings in genetics and molecular biology, biologists, too, have openly demanded that scientific discoveries be properly applied. In all these cases a scientist's view of his social responsibility might be stated as follows: "Since I realize that my science has a fundamental importance to certain social or legislative questions, I conceive it as my responsibility to inform the public of the facts of my science, or to support the efforts of others who do, so that in considering these issues the public may be properly informed." Of these examples of scientists interested in social applica1. These organizations are discussed in E. H. S. Burhop, "Scientists and Public Affairs," in M. Goldsmith and A. MacKay, ed., Society and Science (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1964).

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tions of their discipline, one of the most prominent is the case of American geneticists between 1905 and 1935. During those years many geneticists were interested in the issue of whether genetic principles should form the basis of social legislation, and their interest in this issue led them into a consideration of the merits of the eugenics movement. From 1905 to around 1915, many geneticists joined the movement and avidly supported its two-part program of "negative eugenics," the prevention of reproduction of those regarded as "unfit," and "positive eugenics," the encouragement of reproduction of those considered to be "fit." Largely becapse geneticists backed the movement at that time, it enjoyed extensive public popularity and achieved numerous legislative triumphs. After approximately 1915, the majority of these same geneticists became disenchanted with the movement and dropped out of it. Their abandonment came in two stages: from 1915 to late 1923 they frequently criticized the movement, though usually not harshly; during the next dozen years, they publicly repudiated it. In renouncing the movement in the 1930's, as they did, they helped doom it to extinction. It is the purpose of this paper to analyze in detail the views of American geneticists between 1905 and 1935 toward the eugenics movement and, more important, to explain how their interest in the movement developed and changed over time. I shall attempt to show that their attitude toward eugenics was influenced both by scientific developments internal to the science of genetics and by social and political factors external to the science. In this analysis I shall employ a model which I hope will be capable of answering the general question of how scientists develop a sense of social responsibility. The challenge of this paper is not to "demonstrate" that both internal and external factors molded geneticists' attitudes toward the eugenics movement, which is a rather bland statement, but to delineate clearly the respective roles and relative importance of these two types of factors. With this in view, I shall attempt to prove the following major points: First: that both the intellectual legacy of Social Darwinism and certain developments within the science of genetics helped initiate geneticists' interest in eugenics at the term of the century and that of these two types of causes, the external were the general, the internal the particular. Second: that internal factors were primarily responsible for initiating the first phase of geneticists' withdrawal from the eugenics movement. To this end, I shall attempt to show that new findings of heredity dampened the enthusiasm of many geneticists for the movement; by demonstrating that inheri-

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American Geneticists and the Eugenics Movement tance is a much more complex process than had previously been thought, these findings indicated to many geneticists that the task of constructing sound and valuable eugenic schemes is not so simple. Third: that external factors were primarily responsible for triggering the second phase of geneticists' withdrawal. I shall attempt to demonstrate that many geneticists, alarmed by the movement's participation in the vitriolic debates over immigration restriction and by its apparent endorsement of the race theories of Nazi Germany, reacted against the movement by renunciating it. Before analyzing geneticists' attitudes toward the eugenics movement, it is essential to realize that any study of attitude formation also involves a consideration of psychological factors. Thus, underlying this historical inquiry is a psychological assumption as to how a man can acquire a sense of social responsibility. In this paper I am making the assumption that both objective evidence and emotional commitments are important in the formation, maintenance, and change of attitudes. It is this psychological assumption which underlies my historical choice to categorize factors as being either "internal" or "external." It is not the purpose of this paper to attempt to provide a psychological account of why certain men have predilections toward social questions, but to begin with men who had and from here to proceed to describe the nonpsychological factors that influenced their views toward the eugenics movement. Such a study, however, is meaningful only with the realization that at the finest level of analysis psychological questions also are relevant. ENTHUSIASM FOR EUGENICS From approximately 1905 to 1915, numerous American geneticists were keenly interested in the eugenics movement in this country. The three best-known leaders of the movement, Charles B. Davenport, Harry H. Laughlin, and Paul Popenoe, were all trained geneticists.2 Every member of the first edi2. Davenport, Director of the Eugenics Record Office and generally regarded as the leading American eugenicist of the pre-Depression era, was also one of America's prominent biologists and had done important work in the areas of embryology, experimental evolution, and genetics. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1912. Laughlin, Superintendent of the Eugenics Record Office and editor of the Eugenical News, was a trained geneticist and a former college instructor of breeding. Popenoe, senior author of one of the most widely read textbooks on eugenics, was a well-known biologist and from 1913 to 1917 edited the Journal of Heredity.

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group including such retorial board of Genetics (1916)-a nowned geneticists as T. H. Morgan, William E. Castle, Edwin G. Conklin, Edward M. East, Herbert S. Jennings, and Raymond Pearl-participated in or gave support to the eugenics movement at some point during the movement's early years. Geneticists' enthusiasm for the movement resulted both from external social and intellectual factors and from factors internal to their science. Several aspects of the late nineteenth-century social and intellectual milieu helped establish the context for geneticists' interest in the topic of eugenics. The most important of these was Social Darwinism's ideal of searching for biological solutions to social problems. Many early geneticists, particularly the younger men who were reared and educated as evolution was winning its victory, openly endorsed this ideal. Underlying their early involvement with the movement was their confidence that a biological analysis would enable many pressing social problems to be solved. At the turn of the century, many geneticists expressed this view. As the Nobel laureate H. J. Muller wrote, "I have never been interested in genetics purely as an abstraction, but always because characteristics and of its fundamental relation to man-his means of self-betterment, which constituted the primary source of my interest." 3 While their enthusiasm for a sort of "biological sociology" was at the base of many geneticists' early interest in the eugenics movement, other parts of the nineteenth-century legacy also helped produce their interest. Among these was the fear-quite common among nineteenth-century intellectualsthat the quality of American stock was degenerating. Geneticists, like many the century before, often felt that the institutions of education, charity, and medicine, by enabling less "fit" individuals to survive, were threatening the future prosperity of the American people. This fear was heightened by belief in the so-called "differential birth rate," the theory that the "unfit" procreated far more rapidly than the "fit" and hence threatened to dilute the incidence of "valuable" genes in the population. At the turn of the century many geneticists voiced such fears. Perhaps the most outspoken was Davenport, a man resolute 3. H. J. Muller to C. B. Davenport, 26 August 1918, Charles B. Davenport Papers, American Philosophical Library. Here after CBD. For similar statements by other noted geneticists, see Edward M. East, Mankind at the Crossroads (New York: Charles Scribner's, 1924), p. v; Charles B. Davenport, Heredity in Relation to Eugenics (New York: Henry Holt, 1911), p. iii; E. G. Conklin, "Biology and Democracy," Scribner's Magazine, 65:404, 1919.

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American Geneticists and the Eugenics Movement in his belief that true human progress could result only through improvements in the germ plasm. As he remarked to Charles W. Eliot, then president of Harvard University, "It is my present opinion that advances in medical art, at least, are not working toward the increase in the proportion of men reaching a high level of intellectual or physical capacity. The preservation of 'culls' by modern medicine is possibly, if not probably, pulling down the average faster than the increase in eugenical ideals, leading to an increased production of higher types, can possibly upbuild it."4 During these years Davenport was not alone among geneticists in voicing such fears.5 Believing that the hereditary quality of the American people was on the decline, they naturally began thinking about the possibility of instigating eugenic reform. Many geneticists were also influenced by the common late nineteenth-century view of evolution and eugenics as a secular religion, a view which was popularized by Francis Galton and Karl Pearson, the two leading advocates of eugenic programs in the nineteenth-century English-speaking world. Many early geneticists were influenced by Galton and Pearson and came to feel that the "religion of evolution," as Conklin put it,6 imposed a moral obligation upon man: that of using his intelligence to guide his future development. Conklin wrote, "The topic [of eugenics] . . .is one in which the bearings of science upon religion are most vital, namely, the origin and destiny of the human race."7 Pearl said of eugenics: "Its ideals must be introduced into the national conscience like a new religion." 8 Thus, the roots of many early American geneticists' interest in the eugenics movement lay in the late nineteenth century. From Social Darwinism they inherited an interest in applying tools of biology to problems of man as well as the precedent of biologists of the previous generation, such as Galton and Pearson, who were actively interested in such problems. In addition, geneticists were influenced by the pessimism Social Darwinism had bred-while America was ascending as a world power, many geneticists were concerned with what they considered to be a decline in the quality of American stock. Fur4. Charles B. Davenport to Charles W. Eliot, 4 May 1920, CBD. 5. See, for example, Albert F. Blakeslee, "Corn and Education," J. Heredity, 8:57, 1917; E. G. Conklin (written anonymously), "The Future of America: a Biological Forecast," Harper's Magazine, 156:532, 1928; E. G. Conklin, The Direction of Human Evolution (New York: Charles Scribner's, 1921), p. viii; East, Mankind, p. vii. 7. Ibid., p. vi. 6. Conklin, Human Evolution, p. 237. 8. Raymond Pearl, "Breeding Better Men," World's Work, 15:9823, 1908.

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thermore, geneticists between 1905 and 1915 advocated the same solution to these "problems" of degeneracy-a eugenics program-as many of the nineteenth century had done. Even geneticists' attitude toward eugenics-their viewing it as a secular religion-was inherited from the earlier views of Galton and Pearson. While the nineteenth-century legacy set the context for geneticists' early interest in eugenics, what permitted expression of their interest were developments internal to the science of genetics. These developments excited geneticists, for taken together they suggsted that action should be undertaken on certain social problems geneticists considered urgent. Geneticists were quick to acknowledge the debt that eugenic theory owed to the science of genetics. As Pearl wrote, "We may then say that the experimental study of inheritance in plants and animals is one of the main foundations upon which progress in scientific eugenics must rest. Genetics is at once the guide and support of eugenics."9 What developed was a common hope among many geneticists that if these findings could explain the problems, then they might ultimately guide the social and medical reforms necessary to correct them. The first of these crucial findings was the rediscovery of Mendel's laws in 1900. By providing a long-sought explanation for the transmission and distribution of traits determined by single genes from one generation to the next, Mendel's laws permitted geneticists to make predictions about the number and types of offspring to be expected from different types of matings. The laws soon made their impact upon breeding; the imprecise rule that "like produces like" was abandoned, and breeders began basing their methods upon quantifiable biological theory. Pleased with results from breeding, many geneticists quickly became enthusiastic about the possibility of extending Mendel's laws from the breeding of plants and animals to that of better human beings. A second important development was the emergence of a belief in the generality of single gene (or "unit") inheritance, a belief which was common among geneticists during the first ten years of the century. Acceptance of the generality of this principle was important to those geneticists interested in eugenics, for it imbued them with confidence in their ability to breed better men. Believing that most traits are determined by unit genes, they felt certain that Mendel's laws explained the transmission of almost all characteristics and hence that gen9. Raymond Pearl, "Genetics and Eugenics," J. Heredity, 5:388, 1914.

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American Geneticists and the Eugenics Movement eticists possessed the knowledge to construct sound and valuable eugenic programs. As I shall later discuss in detail, it was only after 1915, when most geneticists had abandoned their belief in the generality of unit inheritance because of its inconsistency with breeding data, that their enthusiasm for eugenics began to wane. The third important development was the theory of the famed German embryologist and geneticist, August Weismann. In the late 1880's Weismann postulated that the material of the genes is immutable, immune to change from environmental influences, thereby helping to make untenable the prevailing belief among biologists in the inheritance of acquired characteristics. This theory eventually had a profound effect upon the social views of geneticists: in acknowledging environmental influences to have a negligible effect upon the germ plasm, they became for a time pessimistic about the possibility of improving defective individuals through environmental agencies, a pessimism which heightened their interest in eugenics as a method to improve the race. It was only after 1915, while they were renouncing unit inheritance, that most geneticists also began recognizing the full importance of environment in development another reason why their infatuation with eugenics began to evaporate at that particular time. Thus, discoveries internal to the science of genetics also helped to bring about many early geneticists' involvement with the eugenics movement. At a time when intellectual classes were breaking away from rooted traditions, when established faiths were being critically examined, when religious authority was losing its hold upon educated minds, it is not surprising that genetic discoveries had this effect. As the University of Wisconsin's Michael F. Guyer, an important figure in the confirmation of Mendelian theory in the first decade of the century, claimed, "Certain definite principles of genetic transmission have been disclosed. And since it is becoming more and more apparent that these hold for man as well as for plants and animals in general, we can no longer ignore the social responsibilities which the new facts thrust upon us."'0 Similar statements are found in the writings and letters of almost every American geneticist of the period interested in eugenics." 10. Michael F. Guyer, Being Well-Born (Indianapolis, Ind.: BobbsMerrill, 1916), Preface. 11. See, for example, Albert F. Blakeslee, "Corn and Men," J. Heredity, 5:511, 1914; and East, Heredity and Human Affairs (New York: Charles Scribner's, 1927), p. v. It is significant that genetic findings apparently influenced the social views of English geneticists in the same way. As

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The role played by genetic findings in producing geneticists' interest in the eugenics movement can be illustrated by examining the nontechnical writings of these men. For example, of the fifteen geneticists of the period who belonged to the National Academy, two limited their nontechnical writings exclusively to the subject of eugenics, and seven others also wrote about more general social or philosophical aspects of science, such as its relation to religion or its place in education; but not a single one wrote all his nontechnical articles on general issues-a fact which suggests that their interest in eugenics stemmed not just from a general interest in science's relation to society but from elements within genetics itself. Each of these nine had published papers prior to 1900, but they began writing on social topics of any sort only after that date-only after modern genetics had been born. At this time, significantly, there seem to have been no additional factors operating on geneticists to produce their interest in eugenics. Geographical influences apparently played no role. Geneticists interested in social applications of heredity, while coming primarily from the Atlantic seaboard and Great Lakes states, were by 1920 found in every other section of the country -a distribution which parallels that of American geneticists in general at this time. In addition, there was no conceptual category of genetics any more effective than others in producing this interest. Among the prominent eugenicists, for example, Charles B. Davenport was a Mendelian, Raymond Pearl a biometrician, William E. Castle an animal geneticist, Edward M. East a plant geneticist, and H. J. Webber an experimental breeder. Furthermore, interest in eugenics apparently did not stem from the influence of any particular institution or teacher. At Johns Hopkins, for example, certain students of William Keith Brooks, most notably Conklin and Nobel laureate T. H. Morgan, were for a while involved with the eugenics movement, yet others, such as E. B. Wilson, never were. Similarly, of Morgan's best-known students at Columbia-H. J. and Muller, A. H. Sturtevant, and Calvin Bridges-Muller William Bateson commented (Bateson, The Method and Scope of Genetics "So [Cambridge, Eng.: Cambridge University Press, 1908], pp. 34-35): philosophical speculation, but soon as it becomes common knowledge-not liability to a disease, or the power of resisting its attack, a certainty-that addiction to a particular vice, or to superstition, is due to the presence or absence of a specific ingredient, and finally that these characteristics are transmitted to the offspring according to definite, predictable rules, then man's view of his own nature, his conception of justice, in short his whole outlook of the world, must be profoundly changed."

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American Geneticists and the Eugenics Movement Sturtevant became interested in human applications of genetics, while Bridges remained unconcerned. No particular religious or family influence seems to have been operating either; geneticists of this period, almost all of whom were Protestant and descended from early American ancestors, were recipients of a similar social and religious heritage. Thus, developments within genetics provided the immediate impetus to many geneticists' interest in the eugenics movement. The percentage of geneticists who became involved with fifty percent. As I the movement was high-approximately have mentioned, nine of the fifteen geneticists of the period who belonged to the National Academy were sufficiently interested in the issue of eugenics to publish articles on the subject. Forty-two of the one hundred American geneticists who served in 1928 on the General Committee of the International Congress of Genetics had at some time been active in the movement. Significantly, not only widely known geneticists were involved with the movement, but lesser known men as well, men of the type who received unstarred listings in Cattell's American Men of Science.12 This can best be seen by examining data for the period after 1915. On the 1929 Advisory Council of the American Eugenics Society, in addition to nine starred geneticists, there were ten non-starred students of heredity. A group of geneticists who wrote statements for a small circular entitled "What I Think about Eugenics," published by the American Eugenics Society in 1925, consisted almost evenly of non-starred and starred scientists. Between 1914 and 1930, articles appearing in the Journal of Heredity on the subjects of immigration, birth control, and eugenics were written more frequently by non-starred geneticists than by starred ones. What is particularly striking at this time is the enthusiasm geneticists displayed toward the eugenics movement. As Pearl remarked in 1913: "I doubt if there is any other line of thought or endeavor on which common international discussion and action can be so well and so profitably brought about as with eugenics." 13 Geneticists' enthusiasm for the movement was 12. A certain number of men in each scientific field (the actual number depended upon the particular field) were declared by Cattell to be "starred" by virtue of a vote of the scientists themselves. 13. Raymond Pearl to Charles B. Davenport, 24 February 1913, CBD. For other examples, see Edwin G. Conklin, Heredity and Environment in the Development of Men, 1st ed. (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1915), p. vi; Guyer, Being Well-Born, p. vii; Charles B. Davenport to David Starr Jordan, 24 May 1910, CBD.

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contagious and probably contributed greatly to the rapid rise in popularity the movement enjoyed during its first years.14 Thus, in the period between 1900 and 1915, a high percent of American geneticists became interested in the eugenics movement. Alarmed by what they considered to be a decline in the hereditary quality of the American people, they joined the movement and supported its program of "positive" and "negative" eugenics in the hope they could help reverse this trend. As ardent enthusiasts of the movement, geneticists contributed to its surge in popularity and to its initial legislative successes. The roots of geneticists' interest in the movement lay deep in the nineteenth century. By imbuing them with an interest in applying scientific tools to problems of man, Social Darwinism helped initiate a sense of social responsibility among them. In addition, their conservative social assumption that economic and social status indicates genetic fitness, their pessimistic view that the American people were hereditarily degenerating, their program of positive and negative eugenics, and their view of eugenics as a "secular religion"-all were inherited from nineteenth century biologists and intellectuals. While this intellectual and social milieu constituted the general cause of their interest in the eugenics movement, discoveries within genetics acted as the immediate cause. Genetic findings served as an organizing principle which allowed previous speculation on eugenics to be recouched in quantifiable terminology. Implicit in these discoveries, also, was the suggestion that a national eugenics program was both feasible and desirable. In acting upon the implications of these findings, geneticists were motivated by their aforementioned social commitments. This is not to say that geneticists allowed their social commitments to color their scientific interpretation of the discoveries, which they generally did not, but to suggest that with a different set of social commitments they might have drawn from the discoveries a different set of social conclusions from those they in fact did draw. 14. By 1915 the movement had reached the proportions of a fad. An editorial in the American Breeders' Magazine "Race and Genetics Problems," American Breeders' Magazine, 2:230, 1911) correctly noted that eugenic proposals are "being received more readily among the intelligent and thinking part of the population than the pioneer eugenicists in their fondest hopes have allowed themselves to believe possible." It was around this time the eugenics movement scored its first legislative success. In 1907 the Indiana legislature became the first to pass a sterilization bill based upon "eugenic" principles; by January 1935 25 states had passed similar bills.

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American Geneticists and the Eugenics Movement DISILLUSIONMENT WITH EUGENICS. STAGE I. Until around 1915 geneticists' enthusiasm for the eugenics movement often went unbridled. Between 1908 and 1913, however, there was a series of developments within genetics which placed the eugenics movement in an unexpected light. Taken as a whole, these developments showed that the genetic assumptions underlying the movement were invalid. By demonstrating that heredity was more complex than had previously been thought, they also indicated that the difficulties in applying genetic theories to man were correspondingly greater. In 1908 G. H. Hardy, a British mathematician, and Wilhelm Weinberg, a German physician and part-time geneticist, independently derived what is known today as the Hardy-Weinberg Law, the foundation of modern population genetics. This law gives a mathematical treatment of gene frequencies in human populations. It implies, among other things, that eliminating a trait from a population is an extraordinarily long and complex process and thus belies eugenicists' claims that breeding for or against a particular trait is an easy task. In 1909 W. L. Johannsen, a Danish botanist and geneticist, completed a series of experiments on garden peas which effectively distinguished between inherited and noninherited variation. Johannsen isolated pure lines of garden peas (lines with the same genetic constitution) and tested them for degrees of similarity. Among representatives from different lines he discovered a great deal of variation. When he tested individual plants from the same lines he found no inherited variation but did find much fluctuation due to chance environmental influences. These results clearly demonstrated the sensitivity of genes to environmental influences, thereby suggesting that development is determined not by heredity alone, but by the interaction of heredity and environment. Four years later, in 1913, the American geneticists Edward M. East and Rollins A. Emerson brought together in a classic paper on maize crucial evidence disproving the generality of unit inheritance. In this paper, East and Emerson developed the "multiple gene" theory, a theory which explains the genetic basis of the so-called "quantitative," or "metrical," characters (characters, such as height and intelligence in man, which are differences along continuous scales of measurement). According to this theory, the development of "quantitative" traits is determined by the interaction of many genes-with each other and with the environment. As geneticists began to accept this theory, they came to realize that Mendel's laws describe the

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pattern of inheritance of relatively few traits-a realization which showed one of the major genetic assumptions underlying nearly all eugenic proposals of the period to be invalid. These genetic findings, then, indicated that earlier views of inheritance had been oversimplified, and as a result eugenic assumptions about heredity were seen to be invalid.'5 Around the outbreak of the First World War, geneticists, as they came to accept these findings, began to display an altered attitude toward the eugenics movement. Aware of the complexity of inheritance, they began to feel that eugenic programs were scientifically unfeasible, and their enthusiasm for the movement began to dull. In 1913, for example, A. F. Blakeslee, whose researches on the plant Datura provided insight into several fundamental genetic mechanisms, discussed how the new genetic findings affected his view of the movement. Realizing that environment as well as heredity is important in development, the eugenic goal began to seem to him a distant ideal. He warned that "in the garden of human life as in the garden of corn, success is the resultant complex of the two factors, environment and heredity." As a result, he felt that society could be improved by noneugenic means and warned against intemperately campaigning for legislation. He wrote: "The enthusiasm, however, with which some would thoughtlessly rush into eugenics and eugenic legislation shows that they may stand in danger of having the new light [discovery of the importance of heredity in development] blind their eyes to the influence of environment as a factor to be considered."'6 Such examples are numerous.'7 15. In addition to these developments in genetics, an important development in psychology also helped to discredit eugenic assumptions about heredity. In 1919 the United States Army released the results of the intelligence tests it had given inductees during the war. Out of the 1.7 million inductees given the Binet Test, 47 percent of Caucasians and 86 percent of Negroes were found by eugenic standards to be feebleminded. These absurdly high figures suggested correctly that the test had made no provision for the different backgrounds of those who took it, thereby underscoring the fact that raw intelligence scores reflect the individual's training. However, since geneticists had already been shown by the aforementioned genetic findings that eugenic programs were based on scientific misjudgments, they did not need these results from psychology to convince them of that fact. Of the geneticists I studied, Castle was the only one who made direct reference to these tests. (William E. Castle, "Eugenics," Encyclopedia Britannica, 13th ed. [1926], pp. 1031-1032.) While the tests constituted a dramatic refutation of certain eugenic tenets, evidently they primarily influenced the general public rather than the community of geneticists. 16. Blakeslee, J. Heredity, 5, p. 518. 17. For other examples, see E. G. Conklin, "Heredity and Responsibility,"

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American Geneticists and the Eugenics Movement Thus, prompted by certain discoveries within genetics, many geneticists began to voice their disenchantment with the eugenics movement. It is important to realize, however, that throughout World War I and for a time after, geneticists rarely criticized the movement harshly. In the early 1920's, for example, East-while sharply criticizing certain eugenic proposals -still declared the movement to represent "a cause fundamentally good,"'8 and such noted geneticists as T. H. Morgan, W. E. Castle, E. M. East, H. S. Jennings, and Raymond Pearl continued to participate in various eugenic congresses and meetings.19 It is also important to realize that after the war the ranks of the geneticists became divided on the subject of the eugenics movement. Despite most geneticists' growing disillusionment with the movement, a small number, the most noted of whom was Davenport, even in the 1920's, maintained an undiminished enthusiasm for eugenics. Undaunted by the implications of the work of Johannsen and of East and Emerson, these men would not be shaken from their original conviction that long-run improvements in society could result only from improvements in its germ plasm-that "heredity," as Davenport put it, "stands as the one great hope of the human race; its savior from imbecility, poverty, disease, immorality."20 Even though most geneticists who had previously backed the movement were losing enthusiasm for it, these men continued their efforts to popularize it. After World War I, when immigration to the United States was beginning to soar, these same men took conservative positions on questions of race and immigration. What distinguishes these two groups of geneticists is that those who unreservedly continued to endorse the eugenics Science, 37:48, 52, 1913; T. H. Morgan to C. B. Davenport, 18 January 1915, CBD; T. H. Morgan to William Bateson, 17 April 1920, CBD; R. C. Punnett, "Eliminating Feeblemindedness," J. Heredity, 8:464, 1917; Castle, Britannica, p. 1031; Castle, Genetics and Eugenics (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1924), p. 374-375. Punnett criticizes eugenicists for ignoring the Hardy-Weinberg Law; the others criticize eugenicists for ignoring either the multiple gene theory or the importance of environment in development. 18. East, Mankind, p. vi. 19. Davenport's correspondence includes numerous discussions with noted geneticists concerning their participation in various eugenic meetings. For example, see H. S. Jennings to Davenport, 27 April 1923; Davenport to T. H. Morgan, 13 April 1917; Raymond Pearl to Davenport, 30 December 1920; all CBD. 20. Cited by Charles E. Rosenberg, "Charles Benedict Davenport and the Beginning of Human Genetics," Bull. Hist. Med., 35:269, 1961.

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movement never fully accepted the multiple gene theory or the importance of environment in development, nor to my knowledge did they ever make mention of the Hardy-Weinberg Law.2' At the root of their disregard for these later findings within genetics were both scientific and non-scientific factors. The example of Popenoe, whose writings demonstrate greater devotion to conservative social assumptions than to scientific truth,22 suggests that some geneticists were motivated to disregard these theories of heredity by social prejudices and that such men used the eugenics movement as a scientific guise for their racial, class, or religious bias. The example of Davenport, who considered the theories to be scientifically unproved and whose writings generally lacked the hostility toward minorities expressed by Popenoe,23 suggests that some were men who simply were not always critical in making scientific judgments. 21. Davenport, for example, despite his close contact with many of those doing research in quantitative inheritance, remained steadfast in his view that "most characteristics are, or may be resolved into, elementary units." Until his death in 1944, he was assigning unit gene determinants to such varied and complex traits as stature, temperament, intelligence, and mental illness. Similarly, Popenoe was resolute in his belief that an individual's important characteristics, physical and mental, are determined by heredity rather than by environmental forces. "We are far from denying that nuture has an influence on nature," he wrote in 1915, "but we believe that the influence of nurture, the environment, is only a fifth or perhaps a tenth that of nature-heredity." (Carnegie Institution of Washington Yearbook, 1906, p. 94; "Nature or Nuture?" J. Heredity, 6:227, 1915). With respect to such factors as location training and family background, this minority group of geneticists is indistinguishable from the group which was growing unhappy with the movement. Davenport, for example, of early American Protestant ancestry, had been a student of the same teacher, E. L. Mark, at the same university, Harvard, as had Jennings and Castle. 22. In his best-known work, Applied Eugenics, Popenoe openly preached racist views. With little evidence, he expressed his view in this book that "not only is the Negro different from the white, but he is in the large eugenically inferior to the white." Again, "The ability of a colored man is proportionate to the amount of white blood he has." He added, "The color line therefore exists only as the result of race experience. This fact alone is sufficient to suggest that one should not dismiss it lightly as the outgrowth of bigotry. Is it not perhaps a social adaptation with survival value?" (Paul Popenoe and Roswell H. Johnson, Applied Eugenics. [New York: Macmillan, 1926], pp. 285, 188, 280. ) 23. Davenport's objections to the theories were at least partially entangled with his mistaken skepticism toward the chromosome theory of heredity, which even in 1921 he felt "will require a good deal of work yet before it can be adopted generally." As a sincere (if at times uncritical) investigator, his statements on eugenics were usually marked with caution and tolerance. He continually uttered warnings to those less cautious eugenicists zealously campaigning for legislation to first accumulate evidence and only then to attempt to pass legislation. It is significant that he was greatly alarmed at the racist and propagandist elements which in the

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American Geneticists and the Eugenics Movement During World War I the split between the larger body of geneticists, who were losing enthusiasm for eugenics, and the less cautious eugenicists was not yet complete. Many respected geneticists had not yet wholly accepted the new findings. Guyer, for example, in 1916 still felt that heredity was five to ten times more important than environment and doubted that the multiple gene theory was significant.24 In addition, the problems of the war were immediate and pressing; issues of eugenic significance temporarily lost their importance to many geneticists. By the end of the war, however, the intellectual split between the body of geneticists and most eugenicists had become complete. The role of environment in development had been firmly established, as had the multiple gene theory and the Hardy-Weinberg Law; whereas almost all competent geneticists acknowledged these theories, most eugenicists did not. Geneticists' interest in the study of human genetics had not jelled. The best minds working in genetics were largely interested in the general phenomena of inheritance, not in their expression in specific species. Geneticists studied mainly lower organisms; the research strategy they felt provided them the best possible experimental results.25 It was significant when Jennings, offered the presidency of the American Eugenics Society in 1926, declined so that he could devote his time to laboratory research.26 1920's pervaded the eugenics movement, and he once commented sadly, "It is very surprising to see how conclusions of great social import are issued and accepted on wholly unscientific bases." As a matter of personal policy, he found it desirable "to decline to associate myself with any sort of propaganda, even propaganda on eugenics" (C. B. Davenport to William Bateson, 9 February 1921; Davenport to Sewall Wright, 16 November 1932; Davenport to Mrs. E. M. East, 10 November 1916; all CBD). 24. Guyer, Being Well-Born, pp. 295-296, and chap. 3. 25. For discussions of these attitudes of geneticists toward human genetics, see Curt Stern, "Mendel and Human Genetics," Proc. Amer. Phil. Soc., 109:216, 1965; and Laurence H. Snyder, "Old and New Pathways in Human Genetics," in L. C. Dunn (ed.), Genetics in the Twentieth Century (New York: Macmillan, 1951), p. 370. 26. C. B. Davenport to H. S. Jennings, 14 June 1926; H. S. Jennings to C. B. Davenport, 16 June 1926; both CBD. Jennings, like many other geneticists of the period, felt a conflict between the time-devouring demands of experimental investigation and his desire to popularize the science and write on its social implications. Although he devoted considerable time to writing nontechnical articles addressed to the lay public, he was beseiged by more requests for articles and speeches than he could possibly handle. In response to repeated requests for such articles by G. D. Eaton, editor of Plaintalk, Jennings wrote, "I am not primarily a writer, but an experimenter." Again: "It is mainly only when I see a place where there is a great need for setting forth what are the results of investigation that I try in "Prometheus." Although he to do any writing of a general character-as participated in the campaign to oppose immigration restriction legislation, he could not devote himself fully to this cause because of a "heavy

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Thus, during the war years the majority of American geneticists began to lose enthusiasm for the eugenics movement, a phenomenon which was prompted by their realization that current genetic knowledge promised no quick hereditary improvement of the human race. This represented the first of two stages in their complete withdrawal from the eugenics movement. Despite their criticism of its scientific inadequacies, most geneticists remained members of the movement and did not publicly condemn it; a few, such as Davenport and Popenoe, even maintained their original enthusiasm. However, the stage was now set for the second and more serious phase of their withdrawal. DISILLUSIONMENT WITH EUGENICS. STAGE II. After World War I had ended, several factors contributed to a heightened concern with racial questions among many Americans. Immigration, which had virtually ceased during the war, began to rise as shipping once again became available to transport civilians. Many Americans who, during the war, had only abstract notions of immigrants now found themselves encountering them in everyday life. In the post-war mood of isolation there was a general distrust and fear of anything foreign. Accompanying this isolationist fervor of the 1920's was a strong undercurrent of anti-Semitic feeling which singled out the Jew for scorn from other new immigrant groups. A wave of post-war labor riots, in which immigrants played a significant role, intensified the racial unrest of many Americans. The Laughlin Report in 1922,27 which concluded that "the recent immigrants as a whole present a higher percentage of inborn socially inadequate qualities than do the older stocks," gave an unofficial government sanction to this view. Immigrants and colored races had performed relatively poorly on the first Stanford-Binet intelligence test in 1916, a fact racists promptly seized as "proof' of the inherently weak mental capacities of these groups. Anthropology at this time was providing little evidence to counter racist propaganda; anthropologists had not yet reached a consensus as to what constitutes a racial trait, and they had not yet begun to appreciate the relevance of gencampaign of work in experimental breeding of lower organisms." (H. S. Jennings to G. D. Eaton, 31 October 1927; H. S. Jennings to G. D. Eaton, 28 April 1927; H. S. Jennings to Theodora Jacobs, 26 March 1924; all from Herbert S. Jennings Papers, American Philosophical Society Library. Hereafter cited as HSJ.) 27. Analysis of America's Melting Pot. Hearings before the Committee on Immigration and Naturalization, House of Representatives, 66th Cong., 3rd Sess. Serial 7-C, pp. 725-831, Washington, D.C. 1923.

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American Geneticists and the Eugenics Movement etic findings for their own work.28 In this social context, the eugenics movement underwent a dramatic two-part change in tone, a transition which prompted a second and more intense phase of geneticists' withdrawal from it. As the intellectual split between geneticists and eugenicists was completed, the eugenics movement to a much greater degree than before came to be led by men making rash and pretentious claims about the power of heredity. The view some of these men held of inheritance was astonishing in its naivete. To quote one of the movement's new "prophets," W. E. D. Stokes, a well-known horse breeder and eugenicist: "There is no trouble to breed any kind of men you like, 4 feet men or 7 feet men-or, for instance, all to weigh 60 or 400 pounds, just as we breed horses."29 Such claims were based upon eugenicists' naive and uncritical view of the phenomenon of inheritance: they placed far too much confidence in the influence of the genes, and they were overeager to find the 3:1 Mendelian ratio in all the traits they considered. This first transition in the movement was accompanied by a second-its pervasion by racists eulogizing the eugenic merits of immigration restriction. After immigration to the United States began to skyrocket, racists and restrictionists, alarmed by what they considered to be "inferior" newcomers,30 turned to the eugenics movement, where they found a scientific sanctuary to air their prejudices.31 28. Geneticists themselves occasionally expressed disappointment at anthropologists' ignorance of their work. As Davenport once remarked, "I think the future will find it almost inexplicable that now, 15 years after the proper way of looking at heredity and 'species' or 'races' has been made clear there are not half a dozen anthropologists who make use of the new point of view" (C. B. Davenport to Alex Hrdlicka, 5 May 1915, CBD). 29. Eugenical News, 2:13, 1917. 30. Eugenicists, themselves generally of Anglo-Saxon stock, not surprisingly entertained an extraordinarily high opinion of their own pedigrees. Eugenicist David Starr Jordan at one time commented, "Any healthy New England family, which can show its connection with England can also show its connection with most of the nobility of England, and with royal families of all the world except China and Patagonia" (David Starr Jordan to Charles B. Davenport, 20 March 1911, CBD). 31. Probably the most influential of such men was Madison Grant, VicePresident of the Immigration Restriction League and an avid eugenicist, who served as president of the Eugenics Research Association (1919), as treasurer of the Second International Congress of Eugenics (New York, 1919), and as member of the Board of Directors of the American Eugenics Society. His most important book, The Passing of the Great Race (1916), lauded by eugenicists, was perhaps the most uncompromising and aggressive plea for the maintenance of a Protestant and "Nordic" America ever published.

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In the years following the war, the eugenics movement continued to acquire more and more of a racist guise. In the 1920's this was seen most clearly in the movement's participation in the controversy over immigration restriction. Believing that recent waves of immigrants consisted primarily of people of poor hereditary stock whose inferior blood threatened to swamp the "native" Americans, eugenicists opposed immigration and campaigned for its restriction. The arguments of eugenicists swayed many, among whom was Representative Albert Johnson of Washington, sponsor of the 1924 Immigration Restriction Act, a man known for his enthusiastic endorsement of eugenic pleas for restricting immigration.32 With the impending passage of the Immigration Restriction Act, geneticists' unhappiness with the eugenics movement entered a second stage. They were dismayed by the distorted image of genetics that eugenicists were popularizing and they were not willing to permit the movement to pervert their science for the advancement of racist goals. Accordingly, they began to repudiate eugenics. In late 1923 and early 1924, many noted geneticists-among whom were H. S. Jennings, R. Pearl, Vernon Kellogg, E. Carleton MacDowell, and Samuel J. Holmes -began correspondence over the immigration issue, expressing their common fear that restrictive legislation might pass. They were not necessarily against the idea of restricting immigration, since they realized that this could be one means of combating overpopulation in the country, but they were against the pending legislation, which, they felt, was based upon a distorted version of genetics and was accentuating racial enmities. As Pearl lamented to Jennings: Without having gone at all deeply into the matter, I have had a strong feeling that the reactionary group led by Madison Grant and with Laughlin as its chief spade worker were likely, in their zeal for the Nordic, to do a great deal of real harm. So far as I can learn, there is no other group which makes the least pretension to being scientific which is interesting itself in any practical way in this pending immigration legislation. From what I hear, I judge that the opinions of Congressmen generally regarding this group is that it is the only one which has any scientific knowledge about immigration.33 32. Johnson in the 1920's had close connections with many eugenicists. He spoke highly of Grant's Passing of the Great Race, frequently quoting the book on the floor of Congress, and also of Laughlin's report. In 1923, in recognition of his many "services" to the cause of eugenics, he was elected honorary president of the Eugenics Research Association. 33. Raymond Pearl to Herbert S. Jennings, 24 November 1923, HSJ.

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American Geneticists and the Eugenics Movement As the movement's contribution to the restriction campaign increased, many geneticists began to criticize it publicly, exposing the false biology at its base; and almost all of these men attributed their disillusionment with the movement to its activities during the restriction debates. For example, Herbert S. Jennings, a first-rate geneticist who after World War I became one of America's foremost expositors of applying only sound biology to human affairs, in his wide-selling Prometheus criticized eugenicists severely for spreading a doctrine based upon outmoded principles of biology. He stated: Knowledge has moved rapidly and has, indeed, changed fundamentally within the last ten years, altering the picture as to the relations of heredity and environment. What has pregotten into popular consciousness as Mendelism-still sented in the conventional biological gospels-has become grotesquely inadequate and misleading. He particularly bemoaned the use of false biology to justify racist propaganda in the debates over immigration: The same fallacy [that whatever is hereditary is fixed and unchangeable] reappears in discussions of racial problems. The recent immigrants into the United States show certain proportions of defective and diseased persons; and we are informed that "these deficiencies are unchangeable and that heredity will pass them on to a future generation." There is no warrant in the science of genetics for such a statement; under new conditions, they may not appear . . . We are warned not to admit to America certain peoples now differing from ourselves on the basis of the resounding assertion that biology informs us that the environment can bring out nothing whatever but the hereditary characters. Such an assertion is perfectly empty and idle.34 Thus, in the middle and late 1920's, dismayed at eugenicists' distortion of their science to justify the Immigration Restric34. Herbert S. Jennings, Prometheus (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1925), pp. 11, 65-66. Similar views were expressed by: H. S. Jennings, "Undesirable Aliens," The Survey, 51:311, 1923; East, Mankind, Preface; T. H. Morgan, Evolution and Genetics (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1925), Preface and last chapter; Castle, Britannica, p. 1031; Raymond Pearl, "The Biology of Superiority," American Mercury, 12:266, 1927. It is interesting to note how dramatically the attitudes of these geneticists toward the eugenics movement had changed. Pearl, for example, whose enthusiasm for eugenics before the war had seemingly been boundless, now was of the view that "it would seem to be high time that eugenics cleaned house, and threw away the old-fashioned rubbish which has accumulated in the attic" (Pearl, American Mercury, p. 266).

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tion Act of 1924, many geneticists publicy began to condemn the movement. At this point it is important to reflect on why they became so embittered against it. Two factors stand out. First, the racial hostility engendered by the movement ran counter to many geneticists' strong feelings of compassion and understanding for their fellow man.35 In addition, eugenicists' uncritical interpretation of genetic findings was incompatible with geneticists' view of the importance of critically and objectively evaluating scientific evidence, regardless of the conclusions favored. Thus, eugenicists offended both geneticists' sense of fair play and their concept of legitimate scientific research. The geneticists' strong reaction against the movement can best be understood in this light. In the 1930's geneticists' reaction against the eugenics movement reached its climax. In this decade their fears of racism increased as they witnessed the Nazis espouse a creed of Aryan purity and superiority and a morbid fascination with health, biological fitness, and human breeding. As geneticists became distrustful of the Nazis, they became more and more hostile toward the American eugenics movement. They had good reason to view the American movement with suspicion, since many American eugenicists had been forthright in their praise of German "eugenic" measures. Paul Popenoe, for example, thought highly of the Nazi sterilization program; Lothrop Stoddard, another prominent eugenicist, once described a German sterilization hearing and recorded his admiration for the German emphasis upon biological fitness.36 Fearing another Germany, many geneticists in the mid-1930's completed their renunciation of the eugenics movement. To underscore this important point, it is worth quoting L. C. Dunn, a Columbia University geneticist, in detail: With genetics [eugenics'] relations have always been close, although there have been distinct signs of cleavage in recent years, chiefly due to the feeling on the part of many geneticists that eugenical research was not always activated by purely disinterested scientific motives, but was influenced by social and political considerations tending to bring about 35. Jennings, particularly, was known for his humanitarianism. For an example of why he was so regarded, see Independent Woman, to Herbert S. Jennings, 9 February 1934, HSJ. 36. For a revealing letter on Popenoe's endorsement of Nazi eugenic schemes, see Paul Popenoe to L. C. Dunn, 22 January 1934, Leslie C. Dunn Papers, American Philosophical Library. Hereafter cited as LCD. Lothrop Stoddard, Into the Darkness: Nazi Germany Today (New York: Duell, Sloan, & Pearce, 1940), pp. 179 ff.

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American Geneticists and the Eugenics Movement too rapid application of incompletely proved theses . . . I have just observed in Germany some of the consequences of reversing the order as between program and discovery. The incomplete knowledge of today, much of it based on a theory of the state which has been influenced by the racial, class, and religious prejudices of the group in power, has been embalmed in law, and the avenues to improvement in the techniques of improving the population have been completely closed. Although some progress may be made in reducing the proportion of those elements which are undesirable to the regime, the cost appears to be tremendous. The genealogical record offices have become powerful agencies of the state, and medical judgments even when possible, appear to be subservient to political purposes. Apart from the injustices in individual cases, and the loss of personal liberty, the solution of the whole eugenic problem by fiat eliminates any rational solution by free competition of ideas and evidence. Scientific progress in general seems to have a very dark future. Altho much of this is due to the dictatorship, it seems to illustrate the dangers which all programs run which are not continually responsive to new knowledge, and should certainly strengthen the resolve which we generally have in the U.S. to keep all agencies which contribute to such questions as free as possible from commitment to fixed programs.37 The geneticists' repudiation of the movement in the 1930's took many forms. Some, such as Dunn, individually spoke out against the movement. In 1933, geneticists' dismay with the German situation helped instigate a shake-up in the editorial policies of the Journal of Heredity, which until then had been publishing many uncritical articles favorable toward eugenics. Curt Throughout the 1930's, numerous geneticists-including Stern, A. F. Shull, A. F. Blakeslee, R. A. Emerson, C. H. Danforth, L. C. Dunn, Laurence H. Snyder, Sewall Wright, Barbara McClintock, Raymond Pearl, and L. J. Cole-were working for the American Committee for Displaced German Scholars, an organization attempting to relocate displaced German academians in American institutions.38 In 1939 the Seventh In37. L. C. Dunn to John Merriam, 3 July 1935, LCD. 38. The Dunn Papers provide a poignant account of the human problems involved in the relocation of displaced German scholars. The Committee was confronted by a conflict between its humanitarian goal of aiding the refugees and the practical consideration of how not to stifle American scholarship by offering positions to Germans rather than to young Americans. The Committee's compromise was usually to try to find positions

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ternational Genetics Congress at Edinburgh made an official condemnation of eugenics, racism, and Nazi doctrines.39 Not surprisingly, geneticists' renunciation of the eugenics movement at this time contributed to the movement's ultimate downfall. Thus, in the 1930's, repelled by the Hitler regime, many geneticists completed their reconsideration of the eugenics movement. Alarmed by the way the Nazis put genetics to use in Germany, they resolved to prevent any such tragedy in this country. To geneticists, the American movement, with leaders such as Popenoe, Stoddard, and Grant, seemed to smack too much of a Nazi brand of racism. No longer tolerant of the movement's inadequacies, many geneticists publicly repudiated eugenics.,

Significantly, while they were renouncing the eugenics movement in the 1930's, geneticists for the first time manifested a sense of social responsibility in its modern form. It is again worth quoting Dunn in detail: The effects of this knowledge [genetic science] upon society have been quite different in different countries. The demonstration that certain differences between individuals are influenced by heredity and hence by ancestry has led in Germany to the promulgation and enforcement of laws requiring the elimination of persons with certain characteristics from the breeding population. If you live in Germany you can be haled before a court and sentenced to be sterilized for any one of a number of offenses committed when you chose your ancestors . In our own country the immigration quotas were set some time ago after hearings at which alleged mental differences between European races, presumably of a genetic and therefore permanent character, played a large part in determining a policy which has guided our democracy for twenty years. What can science do for democracy? It can tell the people the truth about such misuses of the prestige of science; the facts in these cases did not matter-they were opposed to the practice which resulted, but not enough people knew them well enough or lacked the courage to make them known. for refugees which Americans would not have filled anyway. This compromise was often emotionally trying for the refugees, however, since many men who had been leading scholars in Germany had to be content with obscure and unimportant positions in America. 39. Ruth Benedict, Race: Science and Politics (New York: Viking Press, 1943), pp. 264-266.

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American Geneticists and the Eugenics Movement Since the people have come to accept pronouncements made in the name of science, chiefly I think because of the prestige gained through material and technological advances made possible through science, it behooves scientists to be aware of the responsibility which this trust and support implies.40 Referring back to the discussion which began this paper, Dunn's speech clearly represents an explicit statement of social responsibility in its modern form, a statement that it is the scientist's duty to inform the public of the facts of his science. It also represents a maturation of the incipient form of social responsibility many geneticists had manifested before World War I. Before the war, geneticists were interested in eugenics as a type of biological sociology; in advocating eugenic programs they were using genetic theory to establish ends of social behavior. After the war, however, geneticists attempted to construct means, not ends, for social behavior. In the post-war years they evidently felt it behooved them only to provide the public with the facts of heredity and not to use those facts to construct such schemes. Social responsibility in modern form apparently means analysis, not prescription. It is also clear from the above example that geneticists' sense of social responsibility in modern form developed as a response to the misuse of genetics in America and Germany. This fact suggests a general explanation for understanding why certain groups of scientists have developed social responsibility. It suggests that social responsibility in modern form results from a crisis in the social uses of science. In the case of geneticists, this crisis was the use of genetic theory to justify immigration restriction in the United States and sterilization programs in Nazi Germany. This crisis wrought such tragic consequences that geneticists began to conceive it as their responsibility to guard against any further perversions of their science. It appears to me that this model might have more general validity than for the case in which I was dealing here. To my knowledge, every group of scientists which has developed a sense of social responsibility has done so following a crisis in the social uses of their science. The example of physicists is obvious; the social impact of the atomic bomb was so great that many physicists have since conceived it as their duty to explain atomic energy to interested congressmen and laymen. Biochemists and chemists concerned with the use of chemical 40. L. C. Dunn, "Natural Science and Democracy," radio address delivered on Armistice Day, 1937, LCD.

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weapons also developed their concern after a crisis, the use of chemical weapons by the United States government on civilian populations. On the other hand, to my knowledge there is no group of scientists possessing social responsibility in a field which has not undergone a major "crisis." Medical researchers, for example, have traditionally been devoid of any sense of social responsibility. Since 1966 there have been signs of an emerging sense of social responsibility among these men, judging from their recent flurry of articles on the ethics of medical research, but it is significant that their concern has followed a great public interest in the moral and philosophical implications of organ transplantation, an issue which may later be considered medicine's "crisis." Thus, after World War I, geneticists' disillusionment with the eugenics movement entered a second phase, a stage characterized by their public repudiation of the movement. Underlying their condemnation was their deep aversion to the movement's subjugation of genetic principles to justify preconceived social and political ideologies. In the 1920's geneticists reacted against the movement's use of genetic theory to justify immigration restriction legislation; in the 1930's they feared the movement's connections and similarities with eugenics in Nazi Germany. Thus, the second stage of geneticists' withdrawal from the movement was prompted by factors external to the science of genetics. These factors were consequential enough to have created a crisis in the social use of genetics, a crisis which was resolved by the emergence of a sense of modem social responsibility among many of them. Geneticists, who before the war had helped found the movement and had contributed to its early popularity, in the end helped destroy it. CONCLUSION I have attempted to show that between 1905 and 1935, both internal and external factors were important in producing and influencing geneticists' attitudes toward the eugenics movement. Internal factors operated in several ways during this period. In the first decade of the century, discoveries within genetics supplied geneticists a mode of expression to evoke their already existing social concern by providing a new vocabulary with which to present eugenic proposals. In addition, because these findings were relatively easy to explain to the layman, it became an easy matter for geneticists to popularize eugenics. After 1915, by suggesting the complexity of inheritance, other developments within genetics helped dim their initial enthusi-

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American Geneticists and the Eugenics Movement asm for the movement. During this period, factors external to the science of genetics also were important. By producing a general interest in social affairs among many geneticists, the intellectual and social milieu of the late 1800's lay the foundations for their early participation in the eugenics movement. In the 1920's and 1930's the subjection of genetic theory to support preconceived social and political doctrines prompted them to renounce the movement publicly. While both internal and external factors operated on geneticists, the lesson of this study is that external factors were more important in influencing their attitudes toward the movement than internal factors. At the turn of the century, geneticists inherited from Social Darwinism a general interest in applying biological principles to the analysis of social problems; discoveries within genetics mainly provided a convenient and persuasive terminology with which to express their interest. Later, both internal and external factors caused their enthusiasm for the movement to wane, but their public renunciation of it was caused primarily by external factors alone. The importance of external factors is seen to be even greater by considering the model I suggested to explain the development of social responsibility in modern form among scientists. According to this model, social responsibility results after a a response to crisis in the social uses of a given science-as external factors. This model appears to account satisfactorily for the emergence of geneticists' sense of social responsibility: alarmed by eugenicists' frequent endorsement of Nazi "eugenic" programs, many geneticists claimed it was their duty to explain the facts of their science to the public so that the layman could see for himself the scientific errors of racism. Geneticists were now presenting the layman the facts, though not necessarily interpreting the facts for him. This same pattern-the emergence of modern social responsibility after an externally induced crisis-appears to be present in the other examples that I gave. The ironies revealed by this study are many. First, it is ironic that principles of genetics created feelings of both pessimism and optimism among many geneticists. Early developments in genetics-Mendel's laws, the concept of unit inheritance, and Weismann's theory-supplemented Social Darwinism in creating an atmosphere of pessimism among many geneticists by posing the grim assumption that human defects are hereditarily determined and incapable of medical cure. In recognizing the importance of heredity in development, many geneticists for a while were overly pessimistic in their forecasts of the

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evolutionary future of the human race. These same three genetic developments, however, by suggesting the feasibility of a eugenics program, of controlling reproduction to eliminate defective genes from the population, provided a remedy to the "problem"they had helped create. It is also ironic that even though the classical eugenics movement has been discredited in America for over thirty years, many individuals today are speaking of certain "dangers" to society in terms remarkably similar to those used by the classical eugenicists. The explosion of the atomic bomb created a sudden awareness among the public of the dangers of gene mutation from radiation and other sources.4' Today, as topics such as the "genetic load" are increasingly discussed, many individuals are experiencing a growing alarm over the future genetic condition of the American people, a marked concern over the rising genetic and financial costs to society of modern medicine for preserving "defectives" and allowing them to reproduce. Although geneticists in the 1930's generally abandoned the ideal of using science to prescribe policy, to construct ends for social action, it was this ideal which initially attracted many of them to the eugenics movement in the first place. In the early years of the century, geneticists viewed science in a new light: as a restraint upon conduct. Hitherto, science had been valued for its products, for releasing man from old burdens, for supplying him new opportunities to enjoy and to explore life. In supporting the eugenics movement, geneticists departed from this mode. They now appealed to science, not for a particular product, but to determine who should and who should not reproduce. They let science act as a constraint upon their actions; they let science tell them that individual desires are less important than the biological and moral imperative of improving the human race.42 Thus, it becomes understandable why many geneticists for a time regarded eugenics as a religion, for they had permitted biology to assume religion's traditional function of defining permissible conduct. The history of geneticists' involvement with the eugenics movement reminds us that science can play many roles and be put to many purposes. 41. Professor Donald Fleming, unpublished lectures on "The History of Science in America," Harvard University. 42. Ibid.

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Multumin Parvo:GilbertWhite of Selborne CHARLES F. MULLETT Department of History University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri

When Mr. Justice Holmes confessed his preference for little decisions which selectors commonly passed by because they did not deal with the Constitution, "yet which contained the germ of some wider theory and therefore of some profound interstitial change in the very tissue of the law," he was teaching historians a primary lesson. He was also applying the gospel according to Mr. Shandy. "Everything in this world," observed Tristram's father, "has wit in it, and instruction too, if we can but find it out." "Everything" includes books; and such a book -a little book too-is Gilbert White's Natural History of Selborne wherein one, without leaving his own house and garden, may find wit and instruction and some profound interstitial change in the very tissue of society. Though its world be only a parish and its author a one-time curate, much of late eighteenth-century England passes before its readers, if they can but detect it.' 1. There are several biographies: Walter Johnson, Gilbert White, Poet, Pioneer, and Stylist (London: John Murray, 1928); Walter Scott, White of Selborne (London: The Falcon Press, 1950); R. M. Lockley, Gilbert White (London: H. F. & G. Witherby, Ltd., 1954); Cecil S. Emden, Gilbert White in his Village (London: Oxford University Press, 1956). The first, almost a concordance, is rather sentimental, a mixture of genuflection and correction with intrusive, irrelevant guesses and a tendency to censure White for not doing what he had no capacity to do. The second, gossipy and antiquarian, is marred by clich6s. The third is an excellent short biography. The fourth, a character sketch, is a brief explication of items in the Natural History and WVhite'sother works. In addition, for the total picture, one should consult Journals of Gilbert White, ed. Walter Johnson (London: G. Routledge & Sons, 1931); Rashleigh Holt-White, Life and Letters of Gilbert White, 2 vols. (London: John Murray, 1901), Letters of John Mulso to Gilbert White ed. R. Holt-White (London, 1906); and E. A. Martin, A Bibliography of Gilbert White (London: Halton & Co., 1934). The editions of the Natural History are literally too numerous to mention. I have chiefly depended on those by Sir William Jardine (London: George Routledge & Sons, 1890, first published in 1829: Edinburgh: Constable & Co.); Edward

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White's "Advertisement" predicates the spirit of the whole.2 He "takes the liberty, with all proper deference, of laying before the public his ideas of parochial history, which, he thinks, ought to consist of natural productions and occurrences as well as antiquities . . . If stationary men would pay some attention to the districts on which they reside, and would publish their thoughts respecting the objects that surround them, from such materials might be drawn the most complete countyhistories, which are still wanting in several parts of this kingdom." For his own part he had also searched the archives at Oxford where he found the records that might "gratify the curiosity of the antiquary, as well as establish the credit of the history." If he had "induced any of his readers to pay a more ready attention to the wonders of the Creation, too frequently overlooked as common occurrences," if he had "lent a helping hand towards the enlargement of the boundaries of historical and topographical knowledge, or if he should have thrown some small light upon ancient customs and manners," his purpose would be fully answered. Who was this parish Pliny who dealt with natural rather than chronological history, and, for all his references to the wonders of Creation, was little concemed with the supernatural? Who was this village Boethius and Cicero, who knew the consolations of philosophy and friendship? The externals of his life, begun with his pedigree and ended with his funeral, need at most a recitation. Bom in 1720 in the vicarage of the parish he immortalized, the son of a barrister, grandson of an earlier vicar Gilbert, he graduated B. A. from Oxford in 1743, and was elected Fellow the following year. After taking orders he became a curate for a short time, but by 1755 he had settled down in a private capacity at Selbome where he inherited the family property in 1763 and remained until his death in Jesse (London: George Bell and Sons, 1898; first published in 1851); Grant Allen (London: John Lane, 1900); and R. M. Lockley (London: J. M. Dent & Sons, Ltd., 1949). All have sketches of White and his work and useful notes, and the first three contain many items besides the Natural The value of Jardine's otherwise History as well as numerous illustrations. informing notes is unfortunately reduced by his failure to distinguish between them and White's. Jesse arranged White's letters chronologically so that the two sets are intermingled, which was not a happy decision since Pennant and Barrington differed substantially in knowledge and interest. Allen's edition, on the whole the most useful and attractive, includes a magnificent bibliography of The Natural History. For easy reference I have cited the number of the letter rather than the page; since there are two sets of letters I have indicated the recipient: P for Pennant, B for Barrington, followed by the number. 2. Neither Allen nor Jesse includes this informing preface.

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Gilbert White of Selborne 1793. The book, by far his best biography, appeared in 1789, although the letters that comprise it were written to Thomas Pennant and Daines Barrington between 1767 and 1787.3 A generation after The Natural History appeared, that stout rural rider, William Cobbett, proclaimed his anxiety to see Selbome, about which he had learned from a book "by a parson of the name of White," that had been recommended and then sent to him as a work of "great curiosity and interest."4 Because the "Thing [the Establishment in Church and State] was biting so very sharply that one had no attention to bestow on antiquarian researches" Cobbett would not pass the opportunity to prod the ecclesiastical "Thing" even as he lauded the book. "If all the parsons had, for the last thirty years, employed their leisure time in writing the histories of their several parishes, instead of living, as many of them have, engaged in pursuits that I need not name here, neither their situation nor that of their flocks would, perhaps have been the worse for it at this day." White first described the location of Selborne (in Hampshire, bordering on Sussex, and not far from Surrey), its topography and soils, its stone useful for building; a vast district, it required three days to tread its bounds of some thirty miles.5 3. Thomas Pennant, much more a collector than a field naturalist, was the author of British Zoology (1766, 4 vols. folio) and History of Quadrupeds (1771), both of which went into several editions; he "toured" and corresponded extensively. Among his many correspondents were Dr. John Lightfoot (1735-1788), author of Flora Scotica (1777), the fruit of a tour with Pennant in 1772; the Reverend George Low, Scottish naturalist; Sir Joseph Banks (1743-1820), the redoubtable president of the Royal Society for many years; Dr. Peter Simon Pallas (1741-1811), pioneer naturalist of Russia, comparative anatomist, and authority on Russian sheep; Samuel Wegg, Hudson's Bay Company committeeman; and Andrew Graham, naturalist of the Hudson's Bay area. From all these men he requested both information and specimens. Daines Barrington (1727-1800), a little of everything-lawyer, antiquary, public servant, naturalist, but, according to Jeremy Bentham, a "quiet, good sort of man"-encouraged White to publish the Natural History. He wrote The Naturalist's Calendar (1767) and contributed papers to the Royal Society, as did Pennant and White. During the years of White's literary career the Transactions of the Royal Society contained dozens upon dozens of papers on natural history; it was of course only the most famous of the many societies publishing such papers. 4. Rural Rides 2 vols. (London: J. M. Dent & Sons, Ltd., 1912), I, 144, 200-201. 5. This description of land and people is incorporated in nine letters ostensibly addressed to Pennant but actually written about 1784, when White was thinking seriously of publishing both sets of letters; he probably added some subsequent letters for the same purpose of rounding out the narrative. They have more in common with the 26 letters that make up The Antiquities of Selborne (included in Jardine's edition) than with the rest of the Natural History.

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Its roads, worn by traffic until they were sixteen or eighteen feet below the level of the fields, looked like watercourses; its forest was a naturalist's treasure with its game, bogs, and "tcurious plants." The growing population numbered over 670, "many of whom are sober and industrious, and live comfortably in good stone or brick cottages, which are glazed, and have chambers above stairs; mud buildings, we have none." The inhabitants, distinctly more male than female so far as births and deaths are concerned, enjoyed a good share of health and longevity, and the parish swarmed with children who had an equal chance, both men and women, to live above forty years. The men worked on farms and in hop gardens, and felled and barked timber; the women weeded grain, picked hops, and spun wool, which was then made into "genteel corded stuff, much in vogue" for summer wear, by some "people called Quakers" in a neighboring town. The men also enjoyed less honest pursuits. Large herds of deer, however much they damaged crops, injured morals more. So tempting were the deer and so scarce the inhibitions to deerstealing that the government had extended the "severe and sanguinary" Black Act so that it comprehended "more felonies than any law that ever was framed before."6 Yet neither fines nor imprisonment, "the lash of the law," halted poaching, "so impossible is it to extinguish the spirit of sporting, which seems to be inherent in human nature." When a landlord turned some wild boars and a wild bull into his forests, "to the great terror of the neighbourhood," people destroyed them. Rabbits posed another temptation as did carp, tench, eels, and perch, and even fine oak timber. Villagers addicted to such pursuits did not commonly share White's own attachment to natural knowledge, and from time to time he wished for neighbors who would, by quickening his industry and sharpening his attention, accelerate his progress in acquiring information, for he was alternatively touched with delight at observing the habits of birds and with mortification at his ignorance.7 Yet to read his descriptions of the country6. P. VII. The Black Act-"An Act for the more effectual punishing wicked and evil disposed Persons going armed in Disguise, and doing Injuries and Violence to the Persons and Properties of His Majesty's Subjects, and for the more speedy bringing the Offenders to Justice"-was passed in 1722 and repealed in 1823. Over the years it was extended to over 50 offenses and 200 sorts of offenders. More than any other capital statute it aroused law reformers, with whom White clearly agreed. 7. P. X. This modest bid for commiseration must be viewed a little skeptically. White is constantly citing contacts, personal and epistolary, with a diversity of men, among them Sir Joseph Banks, Dr. John Lightfoot, and

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Gilbert White of Selborne side and follow his accounts of swallows and martins and mice and a full hundred more, is to feel that his loss-if loss there was-is unmistakably our gain. The quality of his prose matches that of those magnificent nineteenth-century expositors-Darwin, Faraday, Whewell, to name but a few-in its "large discourse," its leizurely amplitude.8 Its intelligibility, empathy, commitment to general truth, cadence, and exactitude at once delight and inform. The amateur can understand, the specialist can learn, from a book that supplies still another illustration of the epistolary heights achieved in the eighteenth century. Consider for example White's description of the grasshopper lark (P. XVI): Nothing can be more amusing than the whisper of this little bird, which seems to be close by though at an hundred yards distance; and, when close at your ear, is scarcely any louder than when a great way off. Had I not been a little acquainted with insects, and known that the grasshopper kind is not yet hatched [he is writing on April 18], I should hardly have believed but that it had been a locusta whispering in the bushes. The country people laugh when you tell them that is the note of a bird. It is a most artful creature, skulking in the thickest part of the bush; and will sing at a yard distance, provided it be concealed. I was obliged to get a person to go on the other side of the hedge where it haunted; and then it would run, creeping like a mouse, before us for a hundred yards together, through the bottom of the thorns; yet it would not come into fair sight: but in a morning early, and when undisturbed, it sings on the top of a twig, gaping and shivering with its wings. Not less entrancing is his account of the harvest mouse, which he was the first to describe in England (P. XII): Benjamin Stillingfileet (1702-1771), author of Miscellaneous Tracts relating to Natural History (1759), the original "blue-stocking," defender of Linnaeus, and friend of Barrington; as well as "intelligent shepherds," a "sportsman," anatomists, and several unidentified "gentlemen." He visited Sir Ashton Lever's "wonderful collection of art and nature" at Leicester House. He traveled quite extensively, and many men sent him specimens for his opinion. 8. See the perceptive introduction to Science Before Darwin. A Nineteenth-Century Anthology, ed. Howard Mumford Jones and I. Bernard Cohen with the assistance of Everett Mendelsohn (London: Andre Deutsch, 1963). Of the essays in this volume, the most relevant for present purposes is William Whewell, "Of the Transformation of Hypotheses in the History of Science," pp. 305-323, which ought to be read again and again by the historians of ideas.

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From the colour, shape, size, and manner of nesting, I make no doubt but that the species is nondescript . . . They breed as many as eight at a litter, in a little round nest composed of the blades of grass or wheat . . . with the aperture so ingeniously closed, that there was no discovering to what part it belonged. It was so compact and well filled, that it would roll across the table without being discomposed, though it contained eight little mice that were naked and blind. As this nest was perfectly full, how could the dam come at her litter respectively so as to administer a teat to each? Perhaps she opens different places for that purpose, adjusting them again when the business is over; but she could not possibly be contained in the ball with her young, which moreover would be daily increasing in bulk. This wonderful procreant cradle, an elegant instance of the efforts of instinct, was found in a wheat-field suspended in the head of a thistle. Who would forego his account of the huge female moose which died without issue, despite the hope that she would couple with a young stag, because their inequality of height barred "commerce of an amorous kind?" VVhocould fail to see the tame bat taking flies out of a person's hands, adroitly shearing off the wings, hiding its head as it ate, and running off in a "most ridiculous and grotesque manner?" (P. XXVIII, XI) Who would delete the vignette of the cattle standing bellydeep in the lakes where they dripped their dung whereof the nestling insects supplied food for the fish that otherwise would fare poorly "because the water is hungry?" Thus nature, "a great economist, converts the recreation of one animal to the support of another" (P. VIII). Not all is observation, for White also read a great deal. Although he elevated John Ray (1627-1705) and Linnaeus (17071778) to the dignity of the law and the prophets, he cited at least forty naturalists-French, German, Italian, Swedish, of them little known and seldom reDutch, English-some membered, as well as unidentified authors and an impressive number of "Travels."9 Moreover, he related what he read to 9. Carl Linnaeus was at the peak of productivity in the years that White was beginning his apprenticeship in natural history. In 1774, on a visit to London, White was much distressed to find a "strange spirit of decrying" the man whom he believed the "greatest naturalist in Europe". Three years later he advised his brother John, also a devoted naturalist, to refer in his works to the Linnean nomenclature, "because though it is the fashion now to despise Linn. yet many languish privately to understand his method."

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Gilbert VVhiteof Selborne what he saw and heard. To be sure, his knowledge of physiology was limited-a gap that could more readily be overlooked had he not been the friend and neighbor of Stephen Hales, with whose work he was clearly familiar.'0 Nevertheless, he saw the need to go beyond description and classification, and he recognized that the wonders of Creation included more than the hand of God or his human instruments, that indeed they included what would increasingly be known through human observation and experiment. As we think ourselves back into White's day we must expect as much ambivalence as we see in our own and estimate it accordingly. To claim for him and the vast majority of his contemporaries striking hypotheses would be ridiculous. What is evident is the wide appeal of science; only war gained more space in magazines and reviews. The kingdom of man, encompassing both nature and society, was replacing the kingdom of God. Man as organism was something to study rather than revere; and the rise of anthropology, a conspicuous feature of the time, owed no less to biology than to extensive and handsome collections of voyages and travels. As must be expected, oddities excited great curiosity and led to investigation. Species were not immutable, and men sought to account for mutations. Curiosity was no respecter of persons, and on occasion must produce a smile: George II, having died on his way from the "necessary stool," could not rest in decent privacy; a discourse complete with pictures of his ruptured heart appeared in the Philosophical Transactions (LII, pt. 1, 265-275), with the gracious permission of His Majesty George III. Science was a greater leveler than Tom Paine. In assaying the Natural History as a clue to the contemporary scientific outlook it is pertinent to consider briefly the issues and concerns of the twenty years, 1767-1787, what particular individuals were doing, and how White fitted into the That contempt followed not from any scientific revolution but from Linnaeus's primitive piety, which prompted him to accept "creation" when "evolutionism" was already taking hold. White accepted the reality of the latter without dismissing the former. Allen is rather too positive in suggesting that White preferred the system of Ray to that of Linnaeus. 10. Stephen Hales (1677-1761) sought in plants a system analogous to the circulation of the blood and consequently experimented to that end. White cited both his Vegetable Staticks: or, an account of some statical experiments on the sap in vegetables (1727) and Haemastatichs, or an account of hydraulick and hydrostatical experiments made on the blood and blood-vessels of Animals. This last is contained in Statical Essays, 2 vols. (3rd, ed. 1738).

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picture.-1 The assessment is not easy. Not only did men differ sharply over matters large and small; all, whatever their avowed stand, illustrated Whewell's text that "it is very difficult for the same person at the same time to do justice to two conflicting theories," especially, one may add, if the person is at most only vaguely aware of the conflict. The old opinion passes away, the new one grows to vigor, but, continues Whewell, when the first is "found to be untenable and consequently, is succeeded by a different, or even by an opposite one, the change is not made suddenly, or completed at once, at least in the minds of the most tenacious adherents of the earlier doctrine; but is effected by a transformation, or series of transformations, of the earlier hypothesis, by means of which it is graduaUly brought nearer and nearer to the second." Whewell's insight warns us to beware making the thoughts of these men our thoughts or conversely our thoughts theirs. No doubt many eighteenth-century naturalists were forerunners of Darwin, but to credit them with any consistent theory of evolutionism or to put into their mouths the language and into their minds the theories of a century later is totally unhistorical. They were feeling their way, condemned alike to repeat the errors and recite the prejudices of their predecessors. Yet they also accommodated to their original hypothesis new explanations derived from observed facts and maintained a "verbal consistency" with the original hypothesis until it broke down "under the weight of the auxiliary hypotheses thus fastened upon it, in order to make it consistent with the facts." Scarcely a man cited by White to scientific purpose failed to illustrate Whewell's insight. All of them have been quoted to contrary effect; all of them have been made spokesmen of did not even the ideas they did not comprehend-perhaps apprehend. How constantly we need to remind ourselves that 11. For contemporary issues and developments in biology and, by extension, White's relation to them, the following are informative: Erik Nordenskiold, The History of Biology (New York: Tudor Publishing Company, 1928), pt. II, pp. 121-298; Forerunners of Darwin: 1745-1859, ed. Bentley Glass, Owsei Temkin, William Strauss, Jr. (Baltimore, Md.: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1959), pp. 3-261; Milton Millhauser, Just Before Darwin: Robert Chambers and Vestiges (Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 1959), chap. 2; Philip C. Ritterbush, Overtures to Biology: The Speculations of Eighteenth-Century Naturalists (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1964); Loren Eiseley, Darwin's Century: Evolution and the Men who Discovered It (London: Victor Gollancz, Ltd., 1959); Norton Garfinkle, "'Science and Religion in England, 1790-1800: The Critical Response to the Work of Erasmus Darwin," Journal of the History of Ideas, 16 (1955), 376-388; see also the references in footnote 1, especially Grant Allen's edition of the Natural History.

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Gilbert White of Selborne however identical the word its application is writ in water. By the same token we need to remind ourselves that an assumption will linger on as a formula, as window-dressing, when belief has gone out of it. Men continued to recite physico-theology even after they were recording facts and interpretations divorced from cosmological catchwords. One may apply Lovejoy's judgment of Buffon to many: they did much to counteract tendencies which they seemed consciously to promote. Whatever else, no simple or single generalization covers the scientists of the later eighteenth century. To complicate our inventory, some later writers demonstrate equal ambivalence. Grant Allen painted a dreary picture of biological knowledge with its fables and foLklore-dreary, inaccurate, and above all contradictory-before going on to assess the business of White's generation as the substitution of "careful and accurate first-hand observations for the vague descriptions, the false surmises, and the wild traditional tales of earlier authors," a judgment wholly misleading. "We are present, as it were," he declared, "at the birth of zoology; we are admitted to see science in the making."'12 From this judgment he took but a short step to compare the late eighteenth century in biology with the eras of Copemicus in astronomy and of Lyell in geology. What history hath this scientist wroughtl In this context let us view White's contradictions charitably. What is now fact was once still to discover. White was writing when Linnaeus's classifications were superseding Ray's, when indeed rags and tags of others still circulated, and though in the main he adhered to Ray's, he cited Linnaeus nearly as often and quite as respectfully. Chiefly, however often White referred to other men's books, he depended on first-hand observations, which he conducted with such care that in many instances they are valid even now. Equally important was his method: he had no patience with second-hand evidence and voiced his frustration when he had to depend on it. More than many of his contemporaries he saw relationships, consequences, and cumulative effects, and sought explanations. Here he struck the keynote of later biology, which was interested in problems rather than in mere classification. As he wrote Barrington (XL) in June 1778: The standing objection to botany has always been, that it is a pursuit that amuses the fancy and exercises the memory without improving the mind or advancing any real 12. Allen, pp. xxx-xxxvii.

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knowledge; and where the science is carried no farther than a mere systematic classification, the charge is but too true. But the botanist that is desirous of wiping off this aspersion should be by no means content with a list of names; he should study plants philosophically, should investigate the laws of vegetation, should examine the powers and virtues of efficacious herbs, should promote their cultivation, and graft the gardener, the planter, and the husbandman, on the phytologist. Not that system is by any means to be thrown aside; without system the field of Nature would be a pathless wilderness; but system should be subservient to, not the main object of pursuit13 [italics mine]. Anticipatory of later outlook as this passage is, we should remind ourselves, even as we denigrate the appetite for classification, that in an age of new and expanding knowledge-and science was that-knowledge to be communicated meaningfully must be reduced to categories, that is, to classification. Moreover, we must also remember that although White started from observation, not books and least of all Scripture, he assures us that this astonishing machine, the Universe, was produced and created by an infinite Architect, and that "He who has ordered all things with the most singular wisdom, and has regulated the number of the offspring of every kind of animal with a proportion so exact, employed certainly as accurate a calculation in creating them." In short, White accepted without thought the argument from design and believed that the adaptation of animals to their environment "is predetermined and not consequent on the conditions of the earth or the surrounding elements." 14 No one should be surprised at White's diagnosis, consid13. But see also White's letter to his brother John in 1770: "I am glad to find you begin to relish Linn: there is nothing to be done in the wide boundless field of natural history without a system." Knut Hagberg, Carl Linnaeus, trans. Alan Blair (London: Jonathan Cape, 1952), p. 257. 14. Such sentiments pop up throughout the Natural History: "this extraordinary provision of nature as a new instance of the wisdom of God in creation"; "I could not help being touched . . . with delight to observe with how much ardour and punctuality these poor little birds [swallows and martins] obeyed the strong impulse towards migration . . . imprinted on their minds by the Creator"; "It is curious to observe with what different degrees of architectonic skill Providence has endowed birds of the same genus"; "We remember a little girl who, as she was going to bed, used to remark . . . in the true spirit of physico-theology, that the rooks were saying their prayers; and yet this child was much too young to be aware 'he feedeth the ravens who that the scriptures have said of the Deity-that call upon him"' (P.XX, XXIU; B.XX, LIX). On the other hand, see also the concluding sentence of B.XXI: "So soon does nature advance small birds to their . . state of perfection; while the progressive growth of

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Gilbert White of Selborne ering that he was an acute and dedicated observer-or confounded by his cosmology: he was illustrating Whewell's text on the confluence of two conflicting theories. He accepts the great Architect, and at the same time is creating the environment that will dispense with him; the environment prefacing the great take-off a generation or two later when Englishmen, aware that science in England was without a head, founded the British Association and reformed the Royal Society. The great amateur was heralding the day of his own eclipse. Yet what is of primary concern here is not the forerunner of Darwin-Aristotle was that-but the mirror of his own time. Although White struck the keynote of a century later he also registered the contemporary temper, no more so than in his scrutiny of folklore. When he heard that a woman in a nearby town professed to know a "wonderful method of curing cancers by means of toads," he determined to inquire into the validity of the claim since several intelligent persons, both gentry and clergy, had given much credit to what was asserted in the papers, and one clergyman, with whom he dined, "seemed to be persuaded that what is related is matter of fact." For his part, White, on attending to this clergyman's account, "discerned circumstances which did not a little invalidate the woman's story of the manner in which she came by her skill." After relating those suspicious circumstances he concluded, "In short, this woman (as it appears to me) having set up for a cancer-doctress, finds it expedient to amuse the country with this dark and mysterious relation." Four months later, on receiving a sympathetic response from Pennant, he replied, "You judge very right, I think, in speaking with reserve and caution conceming the cure done by toads: for, let people advance what they will on such subjects, yet there is such a propensity in mankind towards deceiving and being deceived, that one cannot safely relate anything from common report, especially in print, without expressing some degree of doubt and suspicion" (P. XVIII, XXI). men and large quadrupeds is slow and tediousI" On may properly query if the use of Deity is at all significant. White's greatest idols-Ray, Derham, Hales, Linnaeus-had no doubts upon the wisdom of God in Creation. William Derham (1657-1735), like White a country vicar and an observer of nature, delivered sixteen sermons as the Boyle lectures in 1711 and 1712 which were published under the title Physico-Theology: or, a Demonstration of the being and attributes of God, from his Works of creation (1713); Hales's anniversary sermon before the Royal College of Physicians in 1751 bore the title, The Wisdom and Goodness of God in the Formation of Man. For a vivid and scholarly survey of the transition from "Static Creationism" to evolution see John C. Greene, The Death of Adam, Evolution and Its Impact on Western Thought (Ames, Iowa: Iowa State University Press, 1959).

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The same skeptical spirit characterized his response to queries conceming the genera of animals peculiar to America -that is, how they got there, and from whence? If, he said, one looked into the writers on the subject he got little satisfaction. (P. XXIV) "Ingenious men will readily advance plausible arguments to support whatever theory they shall choose to maintain; but then the misfortune is, every one's hypothesis is each as good as another's, since they are all founded on conjecture." The late writers, in whom might be seen all the earlier arguments, stocked America from the western coast of Africa and the south of Europe, and then broke down the Isthmus that bridged over the Atlantic. "But this is making use of a violent piece of machinery: it is a difficulty worthy of the interposition of a god! Incredulus odi." No less revealing was his reply to the question why he had spoken so positively about the ousel's southward migration in the autumn. "Was not candour and openness the very life of natural history, I should pass over this query just as a sly commentator does over a crabbed passage in a classic; but common ingeniousness obliges me to confess, not without some degree of shame, that I reasoned in that case from analogy." Nevertheless, though he delighted "very little in analogous reasoning, knowing how fallacious it is with respect to natural history," he could not but think that it might on occasion conduce towards the explanation of some difficulties; and so he sought to explain the early migration of the swift in the same terms as that of the "great large bat," namely, feeding habits (P. XXV, XXVI). For all the skepticism that heightened many a page, the sheer joy of observing nature permeates them all, as witness "The Naturalist's Summer-Evening Walk," where in verse less poetic than his prose he describes the birds of the parish:15 These, NATURE'S works, the curious mind employ, Inspire a soothing melancholy joy: As fancy warns, a pleasing kind of pain Steals o'er the cheek, and thrills the creeping veinl Each rural sight, each sound, each smell combine; The tinkling sheep-bell, or the breath of kine; The new-mown hay that scents the swelling breeze, Or cottage-chimney smoking through the trees. 15. In this apostrophe (P.XXIV), after reciting what the naturalist may see and hear, White again paid homage to the great Designer: "Such baffled searches mock man's prying pride, The God of Nature is your secret guide I"

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Gilbert White of Selborne Even though birds get by far the larger share of White's attention and even though his "little intelligence is confined to the narrow sphere" of his own observations at home, the reader's interest never diminishes because he never knows when a sentence will amuse or inform or, best of all, carry the imagination far beyond the page or the topic. Letter after letter sustains White's own creed that "all nature is so full, that that district produces the greatest variety which is most examined" (P. XX). For instance, his interest in toads did not stop with folklore and freaks even though he reported how a quack "ate a toad to make the country people stare," and afterwards drank oil. He speculated upon "the method in which toads procreate and bring forth," which was very much in the dark. (Is there a pun here?) Were they viviparous or, as Ray classified them, oviparous? Unlike frogs, whose copulation "(or at least the appearance of it; for Swammerdam proves that the male has no penis intrans)" was notorious, toads were never seen in the same situation. That Swammerdam's account of the impregnation of the female frog fascinated White is clear from his exclamation. "How wonderful is the economy of Providence with regard to the limbs of so vile a reptile!" Quite as clearly he was not fascinated on learning "that some ladies (ladies you will say of peculiar taste) took a fancy to a toad, which they nourished summer after summer, for many years, till he grew to a monstrous size, with the maggots which turn to flesh flies . . . and was taken up, after supper, on the table to be fed" (P. XVII). In addition to frogs and toads, White kept an eye on vipers, bats, "squncks," hedgehogs, deer, and tortoises. The skunk he reported to be "an innocuous and sweet animal; but, when pressed hard by dogs and men, it can eject such a pestilent and fetid smell and excrement, that nothing can be more horrible" (P. XXV). His tortoise, Timothy, is a sweeter subject, and the accounts of him show White at his best. Timothy began to form its "hybernaculum" at the onset of cooler weather. "It scrapes out the ground with its fore-feet and throws it up over its back with its hind; but the motion of its legs is ridiculously slow, little exceeding the hour-hand of a clock; and suitable to the composure of an animal said to be a whole month in performing one feat of copulation." However assiduous the digging, the work was continually interrupted by the heat of mid-day and so long unfinished; "harsher weather, and frosty mornings, would have quickened its operations." No part of its behavior impressed White more than "the extreme timidity it always expresses with regard to rain; for though it has a shell

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that would secure it against the wheel of a loaded cart, yet does it discover as much solicitude about the rain as a lady dressed in all her best attire, shuffling away on . . . the first sprinklings, and running its head up in a corner." Such sensitivity made it an excellent weatherglass; "for as sure as it walks elate, and as it were on tiptoe, feeding with great earnestness in a morning, so sure will it rain before night." Its sagacity in discerning those that do it kind offices greatly impressed White, for he noticed that "as soon as the good old lady comes in sight who has waited on it for more than thirty years, it hobbles towards its benefactress with awkward alacrity; but remains inattentive to strangers. Thus not only the ox knoweth its owner, and the ass his master's crib, but the most abject reptile and torpid of beings distinguishes the hand that feeds it, and is touched with the feelings of gratitude" (B. XIII). Not less indicative of the hold Timothy had over him is the conclusion to The Antiquities of Selborne, "More Particulars respecting the old Family Tortoise, omitted in the Natural History: " 16 Because we call this creature an abject reptile, we are apt to undervalue his abilities, and depreciate his powers of 16. Jardine, Natural History, pp. 374-375. Jesse, Natural History, pp. xii-xv, includes a charming letter written in 1784 from Timothy to Hester Mulso, later Mrs. Chapone, Dr. Johnson's dear friend. "My present master is what men call a naturalist, and much visited by people of that turn . . . and twice a year I am carried to the grocer's to be weighed, that it may be seen how much I am wasted during the months of my abstinence, and how much I gain by feeding during the summer. . . . My great misfortune, and what I have never divulged to anyone before, is the want of society with my own kind. . . . It was in the month of May last that I resolved to elope from my place of confinement; for my fancy had represented to me that probably many agreeable tortoises, of both sexes, might inhabit the heights of Baker's Hill, or the extensive plains of the neighbouring meadow, both of which I could discern from the terrace. One sunny morning I watched my opportunity, found the wicket open, eluded the vigilance of the gardener, and escaped into the sainfoin, which began to be in bloom, and thence into the beans. I was missing eight days, wandering in this wilderness of sweets, and exploring the meadow at times. But my pains were all to no purpose, I could find no society such as I sought for. I began to grow hungry, and to wish myself at home. I therefore came forth in sight, and surrendered myself up to Thomas, who had been inconsolable in my absence." Jesse prints the section on Timothy in the Antiquities after Letter XCII to Barrington, April 21, 1780. There are also many references to Timothy in White's manuscript (see Jesse p. 262n for examples) and in other letters to Barrington, nos. VII and L. In this connection see Sylvia Townsend Warner, The Portrait of a Tortoise (London: Chatto & Windus, 1946), a charming memoir of Timothy, who, mirabile dictu, turned out to be a "girl."

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Gilbert White of Selborne instinct. Yet he is, as Mr. Pope says of his lord, '. . . Much too wise to walk into a well': and has so much discernment as not to fall down an haha [ditch], but to stop and withdraw from the brink with the readiest precaution. Though he loves warm weather he avoids the hot sun; because his thick shell, when once heated, would, as the poet says of solid armour, 'scald with safety.' He therefore spends the more sultry hours under the umbrella of a large cabbageleaf, or amidst the waving forests of an asparagus bed. But, as he avoids heat in the summer, so, in the decline of the year, he improves the faint autumnal beams, by getting within the reflection of a fruit-wall; and, though he has never read that planes inclining to the horizon receive a greater share of warmth, he inclines his shell, by tilting it against the wall, to collect and admit every feeble ray. Pitiable seems the condition of this poor embarrassed reptile; to be cased in a suit of ponderous armour, which he cannot lay aside; to be imprisoned, as it were, within its own shell, must preclude, we should suppose, all activity and disposition for enterprise. Yet there is a season of the year (usually the beginning of June) when his exertions are remarkable. He then walks on tiptoe, and is stirring by five in the morning; and, traversing the garden, examines every wicket and interstice in the fences, through which he will escape if possible; and has often eluded the care of the gardener, and wandered to some distant field. The motives that impel him to undertake these rambles seem to be of the amorous kind; his fancy then becomes intent on sexual attachments, which transport him beyond his usual gravity, and induce him to forget for a time his ordinary solemn deportment." Quite apart from its value as observation, this passage must raise the query as to how it is to be reconciled with Jardine's assertion (p.ix) that White "kept steadily in view the moral obligation upon himself, as a man and minister, to benefit his fellow-creatures by impressing upon them the beneficence of the Creator as examplified in His works." Perhaps it is enough to consider it as evidence of the "contentment and cheerfulness of spirit" which the study of those works "under proper restrictions imparts to the mind." Be that as it may and notwithstanding White's affection for Timothy, birds were his chief, his inexhaustible delight: "new occurrences still arise as long as any inquiries are kept alive." No wonder that in recording the habits of scores of varieties he took pride that Selbomne had at times "exhibited" more

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than half the birds ever seen in Sweden, indeed nearly half the species even known in Great Britain.17 Because, like William Harvey, he took his observations from nature and not from books, he recognized the possibility of error. He knew, however, that his correspondents would make allowances, especially since he freely confessed his ignorance and sought constantly to repair it. Consequently he took no small satisfaction in finding that Barrington was not displeased with his "little methodus" of birds. If it had merit it was owing to his practice of carrying in his pocket a list of the birds that were to be remarked, and, as he rode or walked about his business, he noted each day the continuance or omission of each bird's song, so that he was as sure of the certainty of his facts "as a man can be of any transaction whatsoever," the more that his eyesight was "thank God, quick and good" (B. XXII). Yet pride never led him to arrogance. In winding up a long letter to Pennant he half apologized for its "quaint and magisterial air," but, recollecting that the recipient had requested stricture and anecdote, he hoped Pennant would pardon his sententious and didactic performance for the sake of its information (P. XL). His curiosity and observation ranged far, for on his "little list" of birds he noted their every action-flying, walking, migrating, feeding, singing, nesting, and mating. Love and hunger chiefly governed brute creation, the first inciting animals to perpetuate their kind, the second to preserve it, but except at the season when "commerce" was necessary for the continuance of the breed, and the "soft passion" was indulged, birds segregated themselves by sexes. During the amorous season, however, jealousy prevailed so strongly that males would scarcely share the same hedge or even field, and most of the singing and elation of spirits followed from rivalry and emulation (B. XI). White did not doubt that the reason why the sex of birds on their first plumage was so difficult to distinguish was because they would not pair and discharge their parental functions till the ensuing spring: sexual attachments brought out colors. Though he delighted not in reasoning by analogy, he supported his contention by observing that whereas in earlier life a beautiful youth might be so like a beautiful girl that the difference in sex was not discernible, later on a beard and stronger features commonly marked the male sex (B. VI). Diverting as is this brief excursion, dependence on his senses 17. P.XL. White specified: Selborne 120 species, Sweden 221, Great Britain 252. According to Lockley, Natural History, p. 104n, "these figures are approximately doubled today, if we include the very rare visitors and valid subspecies."

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chastity,18 or any one of a dozen items that testify to his acute and catholic vision, the reader must consider what lies beneath them. He responds quickly to White's realization that to every rule there was an exception and that no assumption was better than the evidence back of it. He relishes White's refutation of a French anatomist who contended that cuckoos did not hatch their own eggs because their internal structure incapacitated them for incubation.19 Discontented with what at first seemed a plausible explanation, he dissected a cuckoo and found indeed that the bird was awkwardly constructed, but he also dissected other birds of similar structure which did practice incubation, and so the conjecture fell to the ground. For quite different reasons he thought that a rook should be shot weekly and its crop examined to see whether the benefit in the consumption of noxious insects outweighed the injury to wheat and turnips.20 Important as were biological details, White knew their limits. The botanist-and no doubt he believed the same about the ornithologist-must study them in the context of the economy of nature. To plants men owed timber, bread, beer, honey, wine, oil, linen, and cotton, "what not only strengthens our hearts, and exhilarates our spirits, but what secures from the inclemencies of weather and adorns our persons." The products of vegetation had vastly influenced the commerce of nations, for as every climate has its peculiar produce natural wants have brought mutual intercourse. Without knowledge of plants "we must have been content with our hips and haws, without enjoying the delicate fruits of India and the salutiferous drugs of Peru." "Instead of examining the minute distinctions of every various species of each obscure genus," the botanist should acquaint himself with those that are useful. To this end White compiled a short list of the more rare plants found in his district (B. XL). Not surprisingly, in view of his environment, his perception extended to forestry. He noticed that "in heavy fogs, on elevated situations especially, trees are perfect alembics: and no one that has not attended to such matters can imagine how 18. Lockley, Gilbert White, p. 64. 19. B.XXX. White earlier (B.IV) had raised the question whether the cuckoo drops several eggs in different nests during the season. Lockley, (Natural History, p. 124n) points out that the cuckoo usually lays about a dozen, carefully observing newly laid eggs and generally choosing the nests of smaller birds; cuckoo eggs hatch in twelve days, those of foster parents in thirteen to fifteen, thus giving the young cuckoo a great advantage in size. 20. Quoted from White's Journal in Emden, Gilbert White, p. 56.

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Gilbert White of Selbome much water one tree will distil in a night's time by condensing the vapour, which trickles down the twigs and boughs, so as to make the ground below quite in a float."21 Trees perspired profusely, condensed largely, and checked evaporation so that woods were always moist; no wonder, therefore, that they contributed much to pools and streams. That White's knowledge did not stop with his own parish is evident. From Peter Kalm's Travels to North America he learned that trees were great promoters of lakes and rivers, for since the forests had been cleared, all bodies of water were so diminished that streams once very considerable would no longer drive a common mill -a judgment that joined the economy of nature with that of society. Similarly, White ventured into agronomy, describing the soils in the parish and discoursing upon the value of earthworms. Lands subject to frequent inundations were always poor, probably because the worms were drowned. "Earthworms, though in appearance a small and despicable link in the chain of nature, yet, if lost, would make a lamentable chasm." By boring and perforating and loosening the soil, rendering it pervious to rains, and, most of all, by throwing up worm casts which, being their excrement, was a fine manure, they were great promoters of vegetation. Being hermaphrodites and much addicted to venery, they also were very prolific. A good monograph on worms "would afford much entertainment and information at the same time, and would open a large and new field in natural history."22 Indeed, agriculture generally often won his attention. He noticed marked improvements during his lifetime, owing variously to new crops, increased use of implements, and the application of scientific knowledge; and he foresaw continuous progress. Always modest, White did not pretend to great skill in en21. B.XXIX. White here refers to Hales's Vegetable Staticks. 22. B.XXXV. This monograph, as we know, was supplied by Darwin, though without a reference to White of whom he was a devoted reader and from whom Eisley (Darwin's Century, p. 14) believes he gained his initial stimulus for earthworm and other studies. For instance he elaborated White's hypothesis (P.XLIV) that housedoves were "derived from the small blue rock-pigeon." See also Darwin's The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex, 2nd ed. (London: John Murray, 1906), pp. 382, 435, 564, 622-624; and The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication, 2 vols., 2nd ed. (London: John Murray, 1875) II, 293. In 1846 Darwin expressed regret that foreign periodicals showed no interest in such "anecdotal natural history" as White's (Francis Darwin and A. C. Seward, ed., More Letters of Charles Darwin, 2 vols. (London, John Murray, 1903), I, 55). How closely White observed earthworms is clear from his Journal. (See Emden, Gilbert White, pp. 94-95).

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tomology, but he would not confess total ignorance either. Because the most insignificant insects influenced the economy of nature much more than the incurious appreciated, he looked to the day when some neat plates would express the generic distinctions of insects according to Linnaeus; "many people would study insects, could they set out with a more adequate notion of those distinctions." A full history of harmful insects, "suggesting all the known and likely means of destroying them," would be most useful and important, for, despite their minuteness, which made them less the object of attention, their numbers and fecundity made them mighty in effect; a knowledge of their properties, economy, and propagation must preface methods of preventing their depredations (P.XXXIV). Faunists as a rule too quickly stopped with bare descriptions and few synonyms, because that might be all done at home in a study, whereas investigation of the life and conversation of animals required much more trouble and difficulty. It could only be pursued by the active and inquisitive and by those who resided much in the country. Foreign systematics were much too vague in their specific discourses, and the excellent John Ray alone conveyed some precise idea in every term, maintaining his superiority over his followers and imitators in spite of fresh discoveries and modern information (B.X). It is indeed these divagations, these insights of the natural philosopher, rather than the observations of the natural historian, charming and learned as they are, that win the mere historian. One shares his conviction that the common bane of expeditions examining natural curiosities was hurry, "because men seldom allot themselves half the time they should do: but, fixing on a day for their return, post from place to place, rather as if they were on a journey that required dispatch, than as philosophers investigating the works of nature." One shares his appreciation of monographers who, come from whence they may, had "fair pretence to challenge some regard and approbation from the lovers of natural history; for, as no man can alone investigate all the works of nature, these partial writers may, each in their department, be more accurate than more general writers; and so by degrees may pave the way to an universal correct natural history." Given enough monographs, natural historians would not invalidate their theories by falling into errors, especially by "comparing one animal to the other by memory" (P.XXVI, XXI, XXXII). He knew of course that for a man unsupported and alone to begin a natural history was no small undertaking and, whatever else, he should not imitate the French who were strangely prolix in natural history: verbositas praesentis saeculi calamitas artis. Though there

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Gilbert White of Selborne was endless room for observations in the boundless field of nature, "investigation (where a man endeavours to be sure of his facts) can make but slow progress; and all that one could collect in many years would go into a very narrow compass" (P.XXX: B.V). Because of this circumstance White regretted some people's dissatisfaction with Scopoli's natural history: "One would think that an history of the birds of so distant and southern a region as Carniola would be new and interesting." He himself had read it with satisfaction, even though some parts were exceptionable and mistaken. "Men that undertake only one district are much more likely to advance natural knowledge than those that grasp at more than they can possibly be acquainted with: every kingdom, every province, should have its own monographer."23 This conviction he exemplified in four letters in the Philosophical Transactions, included with several corrections and additions in the Natural History.24 Herein he wrote the natural history of the house martin, the swallow, the swift, and the bank-martin, describing their arrival, nesting, domestic economy, parental role, and departure. Interspersed were accounts of his ramblings and observations, even his fear lest in contemplating the activity of chimney swallows his eyes "undergo the same fate with those of Tobit" (B. XXII). Happily he neither suffered that fate nor lost his practical sense. Nor, for that matter, did he omit men and women; his History had been never so rich had he not known his fellowvillagers. Without apology he reported a very simple piece of domestic economy, namely the use of rushes instead of candles (B. XXVI). He described the process of preparing the rushes and emphasized that a pound of rushes, medicated and ready for use, cost only three shillings and provided eight hundred hours of light, so that a poor family would enjoy five and a half hours of light for a farthing; a pound and a half of rushes would supply a family for a year. Unhappily, "the very poor, who are always the worst economists and therefore must continue very poor, buy a halfpenny candle every evening, which in their blowing open rooms, does not burn much more than two hours. Thus have they only two hours' light for their money instead of eleven." Yet he recognized that it was the hardest thing in the world 23. B.VI, pursued all Plantarum Medicus, 5 (1777).

VII. Giovanni-Antonio Scopoli (1723-1788), Italian physician, branches of natural history. His chief works were Methodus (1754), Entomologia Carniolica (1763), Annus Historicovols. (1769-72), and Introductio ad Historiam Naturalem

24. B.XVI,XVIII,XX, XXI.

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to shake off prejudices: they were sucked in with mother's milk, and became so interwoven that people required the strongest good sense to disengage themselves (B. XXVIII). No wonder therefore that the lower people retained them their whole lives through, since their minds were not invigorated by a liberal education and not enabled to make any efforts adequate to the occasion. Such a preamble, he went on, seemed necessary before entering on the superstitions of Selborne, 'lest we should be suspected of exaggeration in a recital of practices too gross for this enlightened age." He then related how as late as 1751 within 20 miles of London some people drowned two superannuated witches. Locally the villagers until recently sought to cure ruptured children by pushing them naked through apertures in young pollard-ashes, caused by splitting them down the middle. Once "the operation was over, the tree, in the suffering part, was plastered with loam, and carefully swathed up. If the parts coalesced and soldered together, as usually fell out, where the feat was performed with any adroitness at all, the party was cured; but, where the cleft continued to gape, the operation, it was supposed, would prove ineffectual." Similarly, in describing the sad existence of a pauper, inflicted with a kind of leprosy, he reported that women, "who love to account for every defect in children by the doctrine of longing, said that his mother felt a violent propensity of oysters, which she was unable to gratify; and that the black rough scruff on his hands and feet (only these organs were affected) were the shells of that fish" (B. XXXVII). Neither of his parents was a leper, and his father in particular had lived to an advanced age. This incident launched White into an essay on the disease, its dreadful havoc in Biblical times, its prevalence in medieval Europe, and the mixture of wonder and satisfaction with which a humane and thinking person must observe how the pest was eradicated. He himself attributed the eradication to greater cleanliness and use of linen in place of wool, and to vastly improved diet, including the declining consumption of salted flesh, which no man need eat unless he preferred. People were now eating plenty of good wheaten bread; village gardens provided a great variety of fresh vegetables, such as beans, peas, greens, and potatoes, and the city multitudes could get these commodities at green-stalls.25 It is not surprising that he applauded 25. B.XXXVII. What White says of diet differs radically from Sir Frederic Eden's description in The State of the Poor (1797). Eden found that the diet of the common people had deteriorated a great deal in the latter half of the century from the first half, when it conformed to White's summary.

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Gilbert VVhiteof Selborne Italian fondness for salads and the wide use of endive in many countries. Once gentlemen took up the study of horticulture, gardening made rapid advances to the benefit and delight of many. However parochial his concern, White was not parochial in outlook. He hoped that "some future faunist, a man of fortune," would visit Ireland, a "country little known to the naturalist."26 Such a man, moreover, should undertake that tour with a botanist. A person of a thinking turn of mind would "draw many just remarks from the modern improvements, both in arts and agriculture, where premiums obtained long before they were heard of with us." Scotland too warranted attention, for great ignorance prevailed of its character, the Highlands in particular. His knowledge of America, however small, was pertinent; and when he visited the "superb museum" at Leicester he did not fail to describe with illustrations a bivalve known only to inhabit the Indian ocean (P.III). Topically, White's discourse was equally unlimited, as witness his charming letter on echoes which abounded in the "hollow vales and hanging woods," though of course buildings or naked rocks re-echoed much more articulately, because in hanging wood or vales the voice was "as it were entangled, and embarrassed in the covert, and weakened in the rebound" (B. XXXVIII). Many of the latter returned simple sounds-the notes of a hunting horn, the melody of birds, the cry of a pack of dogs-very agreeably, but none was found to return a "polysyllabical, articulate echo, till a young gentleman, who had parted from his company in a summer evening walk, and was calling after them, stumbled upon a very curious one in a spot where it might least be expected." At first he thought himself mocked by some boy, but, "repeating his trials in several languages, and finding his respondent to be a very adroit polyglot, he then discerned the deception. This echo in an evening, before rural noises cease, would repeat ten syllables most articulately and distinctly, especially if quick dactyls were chosen." Had a trial been made at midnight, "when the The latter should by no means be dismissed. Theories of disease were in constant flux during the century, and long before the century ended the relation between diet and health was appreciated by many outside the medical ranks. For a valuable introduction to the whole subject see 3. C. Drummond and Anne Wilbraham, The Englishman's Food. A History of Five Centuries of English Diet (London: Jonathan Cape, 1939), pp. 205327. 26. P.XLII. This letter is dated correctly, March 9, 1775, in Lockley Natural History and in Jesse; but incorrectly, (March 9, 1774,) in Allen and Jardine. The two latter place it as if it had been written in 1775.

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air is very elastic, and a dead stillness prevails, one or two syllables more might have been obtained." In distance this polysyllabical echo was found to faUl short of Robert Plot's rule as five to eight, but that candid philosopher did admit some latitude.27 Weather and time of day had a vast influence. Echo had always amused the imagination and might become the subject of philosophical and mathematical inquiries. Although Virgil thought that echoes injured bees, so fanciful a notion would hardly be allowed any longer, since philosophers agreed that insects had no organs of hearing. Gentlemen, thought White, might like to build, along with heliotropes and obelisks, an echo in their garden and so amuse themselves of an evening with the prattle of this "loquacious nymph" of whose decent reserve much might be said. This reference reminds us of his delight in sounds which, he said, did not always give pleasure according to their sweetness, or displeasure according to their harshness, for men were more likely to be captivated or disgusted because of associations, rather than notes. Harmony or melody affected them for days after a concert. When he heard fine music he was haunted with passages therefrom night and day; and especially at first waking, which, by their importunity, gave him more uneasiness than pleasure, teasing his imagination and recurring even when he desired to think of more serious matters. Not only, be it said, did such passages distract his attention, but also the chirp of crickets, the songs of birds, for this naturalist heard as well as saw, and with good consequence (P. XL; B. XLIII). Whatever the particular sense, whatever the subject, whether improving the breed of sheep for wool, a most prolific pig, or dogs, bats, peacocks, crickets, and spiders, he never failed his readers. He saw the irony of cats' propensity for fish and their repugnance to getting wet. He noted that a characteristic temporarily lost would break out among descendants, and that the loss of male insignia-other than castration-had debilitating effects on animals. He described the affinity of an idiot boy for fees, the source, language, and mores of gypsies, and the common practice of birds and desert inhabitants of cleansing themselves with dust. He listed some possessions left by a neighbor, a natural daughter of Prince Rupert (1619-1682), who was a distinguished mechanic and artist (he invented 27. Robert Plot (1640-1696), antiquary, professor of chemistry, secretary of the Royal Society, and natural historian, fulfilled White's desire for complete county histories, as witness his NatuTal History of Oxford-Shire, being an Essay toward the Natural History of England (1677) and Natural History of Stafford-Shire (1686).

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Gilbert White of Selborne mezzotint) as well as warrior, among the rest a very complicated clock. He reminded his readers that weather was a part of natural history and reported thunderstonrs and the effect of frosts and snow on animals and shrubbery.28 These asides notwithstanding, it was animal behavior above all that captivated him. "They who write on natural history cannot too frequently advert to instinct," he wrote, "that wonderful limited faculty, which in some instances, raises the brute creation as it were above reason, and in others leaves them far below it" (B. XXIV). In particular he found a wonderful spirit of sociality independent of sexual attachment and of species, and he recalled that philosophers had defined instinct as that secret influence by which every species was impelled naturally to pursue at all times the same way without any teaching or example; whereas reason, without instruction, would often vary and do by many methods what instinct effected by one alone. This maxim, he warned, must be taken in a qualified sense, for instinct did sometimes vary and conform to circumstances of place and convenience. Before taking leave of one whose subjects are still with us, whose observations are still valid, and whose reflections are still pertinent, the historian must advert to the relevance of his Natural History for the student of his time. In particular the historian must note the silences, especially since White avowed his intent to relate occurrences as well as antiquities and natural history. The span of years, 1767-1787, and the location of Selborne, fifty miles southwest of London, cannot pass unremarked. Admittedly the title does not promise a world history or an English history; but Selborne was only fifty miles from the center of an empire in revolution and dissolution, fifty miles from a city of a million inhabitants and how many towns clinging to its teats, fifty miles from the scene of almost constant political, religious, and social turbulence. Though America is far away, France is not, and France is not only a threat but even before 1787 predicted by some to be the scene of upheaval.29 Though wars and rumors of wars may pass the parish by, economic and social change, manifest in a score of ways, are at its borders. Yet neither the loss of America, expansion into India, Africa, and the Antipodes, nor English transformation in industry, population, or opinion wins 28. See especially P.XXIX; B.XXXII, XXV-XXVII, VII; P.IX; B.LX; similar items run through many letters. 29. In time White did react to the overthrow of the French monarchy and the effect on England. Johnson, Gilbert White, p. 19.

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a reference beyond the observation that the English eat and dress more healthily, and get oil from plants. Why these silences? He traveled, corresponded, read, and thought. He was no "indifferent." May it be that the answer lies less in the man than the world he lived in-not the physical world of his parish but the emotional and intellectual world of 1767-1787? There were newspapers, and people got excited about what was going on, but no one was bombarded hourly with frenetic prophecies of disaster. People rioted, but, except for crowds, the bofling point was higher, and the majority allowed those whom God and a few electors had put in power to run the country. The world did not invade the house; no one identified detergents with civilization. Selbome exemplified Thomas Hardy's insight: Only a man harrowing clods In a slow silent walk, With an old horse that stumbles and nods Half asleep as they stalk. Only thin smoke without flame From the heaps of couch grass; Yet this will go onward the same Though Dynasties pass. Throughout, White was an "economist," in modem terms, an ecologist, and a utilitarian. Speculative inquiries, he wrote Robert Marsham toward the end of his life, "can bear no competition with practical ones, where the latter profess never to lose sight of utility."30 Although he allowed that the methods of Providence "astonish us in new lights, and in variable and changeable appearances," he was not intoxicated with "final causes." Indeed, when he cited Ray or Derham he did so for details on the migration of frogs, the song of the lark, the behavior of insects, or the beauty of the Sussex downs. For his own part he stressed adaptation and variation, the economy of nature, sexual selection, the struggle to survive, evolution rather than cataclysm. He did not need John Ray to teach him that nature never makes jumps and that variability marks all 30. Marsham, a Norfolk clergyman, would repay investigation. In 1736 he began, at the suggestion of Hales, to record "firsts"-snowdrops, leaves, nestings, and such-year by year, and the family continued the practice generation by generation, with one short gap, until 1950. C. B. Williams, "The Changing Seasons," The Listener (June 22, 1967), pp. 819-820. See also Lockley, Natural History, p. 198n, and Johnson, Gilbert White, p. 36n. No doubt one could find many such recorders in the tradition of the parsonnaturalist.

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Gilbert White of Selborne species. That he was sometimes incomplete, sometimes wrong, and sometimes stubborn is to be expected: he had the defects of his virtues. Nevertheless, we may concur with Coleridge who, though he found something to criticize and more to qualify, would not for a moment be thought to lessen the value of this "sweet delightful book." Combining the scientist, the philosopher, and the poet, he would not describe the behavior of a redstart or a whitethroat, least of all Timothy, in the same terms as a natural calamity. Consequently, he touched nothing he did not adorn. Never was the insight of his great contemporary, Buffon, better illustrated: the style was the man. He vastly preferred the beautiful to the sublime; and, afflicted with the "demon of procrastination" maintained that "earnest agitation of the mind is bad for the stomach and bowels." If he did not comprehend the infinite prospects of experimental science he did see the limits of natural history. Whether because of his distrust of mere classification, his utilitarian outlook, or the increasingly skeptical temper of his time, he deplored fanciful analogies.3' Yet in the final analsyis, however important as observation, the Natural History survives because, unlike the books of many contemporaries, now as dead as their authors, it is an artless biography of its time. On all counts his closing words, that the length of his correspondence has sufficiently tried our patience, must command dissent: he stopped too soon. 31. It is scarcely to be wondered that the stalwart Scottish economist, naturalist, and critic of "mere classification," James Anderson, invited White to contribute to his weekly, The Bee. For the latter see my article, "The Bee (1790-1794): a Tour of Crotchet Castle," The South Atlantic Quarterly, 66 (1967), 70-86. Moreover, at the risk of succumbing to post hoc ergo propter hoc, it is worth suggesting that in 1790 the great Scottish agriculturalist, Sir John Sinclair (1754-1835), in designing his Statistical Account of Scotland (20 vols., 1791-1799) applied White's recommendation of county histories by memorializing all the parish ministers of Scotland for information on natural history, population, and economy. Later on, he sponsored a series of agricultural county histories that in some instances went far beyond agriculture.

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RichardBradley'sUnderstandingof Biological Productivity: A Study of Eighteenth-Century Ecological Ideas FRANK N. EGERTON Hunt Botanical LibTary, Carnegie-Mellon University Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Scientific problems can arise from work within a science or, as with some ecological problems, from practical experience outside of science. Farmers, for example, are necessarily interested in problems of biological productivity, and it seems surprising that there were relatively few scientific investigations of this subject before the twentieth century. A major cause of this deficiency was the lack of substantial support from society of agricultural education and research before the nineteenth century. Yet, there were individuals in the eighteenth century who did investigate agricultural problems scientifically, and some of their reports have ecological importance, as this paper is intended to demonstrate. Historians of science always face the problem of trying to explain old science without exaggerating its modernity and imposing a modern perspective upon it. In discussing the similarities of Richard Bradley's understanding to modern ecology, I shall attempt to avoid the so-called "inductivist's" pitfall of merely seeing how closely his ideas will fit the Procrustean bed of contemporary science. Nevertheless, reference to the present understanding of productivity ecology will help make clear what Bradley was able to perceive and also what parts of this modem subject were beyond his possible reach. MODERN PRODUCTIVITYCONCEPTS The basic modern concepts of productivity ecology are not difficult to grasp (which makes it feasible to compare them with Bradley's ideas). Most of the problems of this branch of ecology concern measuring and evaluating the relevant factors

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and determining how they intereact. For this summary it will suffice to define concepts and the factors that are to be measured and then indicate their relationships.' Productivity ecology is concerned with the amount of biological growth in different environments. The first concept needed is habitat, which is the kind of area, such as forest, pond, or desert. The next concept is ecosystem, which includes the biotic and abiotic components of a habitat. The interaction of biotic and abiotic determines productivity. Changes in the productivity of an area usually involve changes in the populations of species in that area, and therefore productivity and population studies should be closely articulated, but often they are not. There are three fundamental concepts of biological productivity: (1) Standing crop (biomass), (2) material removed, and (3) production rate. The standing crop is a measure of the amount of living material in an ecosystem at a particular time. For species that grow to a large size, such as some kinds of trees, or fish, there may be many small or a few large individuals present. Ecosystems have carrying capacities, which are the maximum number of individuals of each species that can be maintained there over a long period of time. For similar habitats in different regions there are differences in productivity determined by climate, other abiotic factors, and changes in species. Material is removed from ecosystems by inanimate agencies -for example, water washing organic and inorganic matter from land into rivers-and also by organic agencies-for example, man or some other animal removing fish from a body of water. The living material removed from an ecosystem is called a yield (harvest). A maintained yield cannot exceed limitations determined by the materials (including gases and water) supplied to the area. The maximum potential yield is the largest possible maintained harvest. A useful measure is yield per unit effort, measured in man hours, cost, and so forth. Production rate is the rate at which living matter in an ecosystem grows. It differs for different species in the ecosystem, and therefore to achieve a comprehensive understanding of it subsidiary concepts and measurements are needed. When animals eat plants or other animals, and when organisms die and decompose, transfers of biomass and energy occur, but 1. This discussion is based upon George L. Clarke, Elements of Ecology (New York, London, Sydney: John Wiley, 1954; 2nd printing with new references, 1966), chap. 13, and Eugene P. Odum, in collaboration with Howard T. Odum, Fundamentals of Ecology, 2nd ed. (Philadelphia and London: W. B. Saunders Company, 1959), chap. 3.

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Richard Bradley and Biological Productivity always with some loss because of indigestible parts and the second law of thermodynamics. The biotic pathway of these changes is called a food chain, and the nutritive positions in a food chain are called trophic levels. These levels are plant (primary), herbivore, primary carnivore or parasite, secondary . . . n carnivore or parasite, and decomposer. To accurately determine production rate, it is necessary to measure at a given trophic level both gross production (before respiration) and net production (after respiration). Turnover is the average amount of time required in a given habitat for members of a given species to go through their life cycle and decompose. The energy of life comes ultimately from the sun, and the amount of radiant energy stored in chemical bonds by plants (according to the first law of thermodynamics) in a given ecosystem can be summed for a year and compared with the sums of other areas. The efficiency of each trophic level is measured by a series of intake vs. production ratios. Because of the loss of biomass and energy as transference occurs from one trophic level to the next, there is a "pyramidal" trophic structure for each ecosystem. This "pyramid" can be measured in terms of energy, biomass, or number of individuals. BRADLEY'SDISCUSSIONS OF PRODUCTIVITY Richard Bradley (1688?-1732) was an English botanist and horticulturist who joined the Royal Society in 1712 and became the first professor of botany at Cambridge University in 1724. He earned his living mainly by writing books on agriculture, horticulture, and biology (his professorship paid no salary). He was deeply interested in both theoretical science and its practical applications, and in his books he combined these to achieve results that are often notable for the history of ecology and the history of quantification in biology.2 His contributions to ecological thought covered a much broader range of topics than are discussed in this paper.3 2. Bradley was not, I believe, ever guilty of the charge, recently directed toward his contemporary, Dr. Richard Mead (1673-1754), of having used mathematics to give his writings a spurious appearance of authority. See William Coleman, "Mechanical Philosophy and Hypothetical Physiology," Texas Quarterly, 10 (1967), 259-269. On the history of quantified biological studies, see the following papers from The Conference on the History of Quantification in the Sciences (sponsored by the Social Science Research Council, 20-21 November 1959): Samuel S. Wilks, "Some Aspects of Quantification in Science," Isis, 52 (1961), 135-142; Richard H. Shryock, "The History of Quantification in Medical Science," ibid., 215-237; R. W. Gerard, "Quantification in Biology," ibid., 334-352. 3. I am presently preparing an extended study on Bradley's life and writings.

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The business of farmers is to produce useful products from the land. One can conceptualize this in a variety of ways. A way that Bradley chose seems obvious for someone living in a monetary society. He discussed agricultural productivity in terms of investment and profit. This line of reasoning he introduced into a chapter of his book on New Improvements of Planting and Gardening, which urged his countrymen to raise more trees because the forests of England had been seriously depleted.4 It seems that he fell into his monetary line of reasoning because growing timber is not obviously so profitable a use of land as is growing crops that can be planted and harvested in the same year. Bradley explained what he thought was the most profitable way to manage forest land, including when to remove timber, and he gave charts of expenditures and profits for the ninth, seventeenth, and twenty-fifth years after planting.5 He discussed further the growth of trees in A Philosophical Account of the Works of Nature.6 There are two relevant passages, one on the production of seeds by an elm, and the other on the increase in weight of an oak. The former was little more than the translation of a paper published in 1700 by the French physician, botanist, and member of the Academie des Sciences, Denis Dodart (1634-1707). Because Bradley published a fairly complete translation of the article, and because it seems to have exerted a significant influence upon his thinking, Dodart's argument will be followed in some detail. Dodart apparently had a double objective of supporting the encasement theory of embryonic development and showing the spectacular reproductive capacity of plants. One. might 4. Robert Greenhalgh Albion, Forest and Sea Power. The Timber Problem of the Royal Navy 1652-1862 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Economic Studies, 1926; reprinted, Hamden: Archon, 1965), chap. 3. 5. Bradley, New Improvements of Planting and Gardening, both Philosophical and Practical, explaining the Motion of Sap and Generation of Plants with other Discoveries, 3rd ed., 3 pts. (London: W. Mears, 171920), pt. 1, chap. 5, pp. 59-71; see also the memorandum book kept by Sir Thomas Sclater (1615-1684) on profits from his orchard, 1675-1677, first published by Robert Theodore Gunther, Early Science in Cambridge (Cambridge, Eng.: Cambridge University Press, 1937), pp. 452-456, and also Weston, cited below, n. 10. 6. Bradley, A Philosophical Account of the Works of Nature. Endeavouring to set forth the several Gradations Remarkable in the Mineral, Vegetable, and Animal Parts of the Creation. Tending to the Composition of a Scale of Life. To which is added, an Account of the State of Gardening, as it is now in Great Britain, and other Parts of Europe: Together with several new Experiments relating to the Improvement of Barren Ground, and the Propagating of Timber-Trees, Fruit-Trees, &c. with many Curious Cutts (London: W. Mears, 1721; 2nd ed., James Hodges, 1739).

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Richard Bradley and Biological Productivity wonder why he could not realize that his evidence was as useful for the epigenesis theory as for encasement, but that aspect of his argument lies beyond the present discussion. Dodart mentioned that the reason plants have a high reproductive capacity is to preserve the species from the accidents that tend to destroy its members,7 but he did not go further into the realm of ecology. However, as we shall see, his method of reasoning could be transferred to ecology. Dodart's observations began with an eight-foot elm branch which he cut from a tree six inches in diameter and twenty feet high, which was about twelve years old. He counted 16,450 seeds on this branch, and he estimated that there must be ten branches of that size on the tree, producing a total of 164,500 seeds. He also estimated that there were about that many seeds on the smaller branches, giving a total for the tree of 329,000 seeds. He seems to have felt that, since this was a young tree, an average of 330,000 seeds per year would be reasonable for all elms, and he also assumed that the average life of an elm would be 100 years. Thus, he believed that a modest estimate of the lifetime production of an elm was 33,000,000 seeds. One is likely to feel that Dodart had gone rather far beyond the reliable application of the one fact that there were 16,450 seeds on his eight-foot limb. Actually, his speculations went even further. He knew that if the limbs of a tree are cut or broken off, new limbs usually sprout from the trunk. Therefore, he felt that within the trunk were hidden enough potential branches to account for 48 times more seeds per year than were actually produced, or 480 times more for the life of the elm. The total reproductive potential of the tree was therefore 480 x 33,000,000 = 15,840,000,000. But, since every elm has that capacity, every seed that will become an elm tree also has that capacity. At this point, he introduced the encasement theory: If we only suppose that each Grain [graine] of a Tree contains in itself a second Tree, which again encloses the same Number of Seeds [graines]; and that we can never discover a Grain which contains more Trees, nor a Tree which contains more or fewer Seeds than the preceding Tree; then consequently there is a Geometrical Progression of Growth, whose first Term is one; the second 15,840,000,000; the 7. Dodart, "Sur la multiplication des corps vivans considerke dans la fecondit6 des plantes," MS?moires de l'Academie des Sciences, (1700), 189225; see p. 190.

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third the Square of 15,840,000,000; the fourth its Cube, and so on, ad infinitum . . .8 This numerical extravagance did not prove the encasement theory, but it at least shows that Dodart was impressed with the reproductive capacity of plants and that he tried to express this capacity quantitatively. Dodart used the phrase "une progression geometrique croissante," which Bradley translated as "a Geometrical Progression of Growth." The phrase might have been in his mind when he discussed the growth of oaks. He indicated that others had mistakenly assumed that the oak increased according to what is known as a simple arithmetic progression: . . . for it would be ridiculous to imagine, as some have done, that an Acorn that had shot vigorously the first Year, so as to be perhaps six or eight Inches high, should weigh as much as a Year's Growth when the Tree is fifty Years old; or that every Year, during the whole time of its Growth, it gains equal Sums of Weight: no; the Case is quite otherwise, as we find by Experience: the first Year the young Oak weighs about three times as much as the Acorn, and the second Year about three times as much as the Tree of one Year, and the third Year three times as much as the second, and so on in that Mathematical [geometrical] Progression, during the chieftest Time of its Growth; not to reckon the Weight or Number of the Acorns, which it might reasonably bear, from its thirtieth Year to the hundredth Year of its Age, which I conceive cannot be less than a hundred Bushels, which may probably contain in Number 384000 Acorns 9

Note that there has been a subtle shift in emphasis here. Both Dodart and Bradley discussed biomass as well as number of seeds, but in Bradley's discussion there is a greater emphasis upon total biomass than in Dodart's. One of Bradley's readers, R. Bosworth, wrote and requested further clarification of the rate at which trees grow. His ques8. Dodart, "Sur la fecondit6 des plantes," Histoire de l'Academie des Sciences, (1700), 91; trans., Bradley, A Philosophical Account of the Works of Nature, 1st ed., p. 110; 2nd ed., p. 152. 9. Bradley, A Philosophical Account of the Works of Nature, 1st ed., p. 45; 2nd ed., p. 65. The terms and concepts of arithmetic and geometric progression originated in antiquity: see Florian Cajori, "Origin of the Names Arithmetical and Geometrical Progression and Proportion," School Science and Math. 22 (1922), 734-737.

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Richard Bradley and Biological Productivity tion, put into modemn terms, was whether the rate of increase was arithmetic or geometric (see Fig. 1). Having been stimu-

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lated by Bosworth's letter to think more deeply about the problem, Bradley arrived at a more complex answer than before, though the influence of his previous efforts is apparent in his new answer. It also seems clear that he derived benefit

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from the line of reasoning in Weston's Discours of Husbandrie.10 Bradley's revised estimate was that: The second Year they grow somewhat more than the Weight of the first Year; that is, if a Plant in the Seed Year soc _

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FIG. 2. Compound interest rate of increase, based upon Bradley's figures. Since he used the awkward system of pounds, shillings, and pence for his calculations, he rounded off some of his figures. Since small fractions would not show in this graph, his figures have been further rounded off, but without noticeable distortion. He intended these monetary figures to be equivalent to the increase in weight of the trees, but he did not specify these equivalencies except for the first two years. A Discourse of Husbandrie used in 10. [Richard Weston (1591-1652)], Brabant and Flanders; shewing the wonderful improvement of Land there;

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Richard Bradley and Biological Productivity weigh'd two Ounces, the same Plant if it is in Health this second Year, will weigh about a Dram more than four Ounces Avoirdupois; which is not unlike the Growth of an annual Rent of one Pound to be continually put out at Interest after the Rate of five per Cent."1 That is, each year it supposedly gained five percent plus an additional ? (Fig. 2). However, by the tenth year, he felt that "the Trees have then got so much Strength, that their Degree of vegetation is increased, so that we may add one [additional] Pound annually for Ten Years, besides the Interest at five per Cent";'2 during the third decade, five percent plus 3?; and in the fourth decade, five percent plus 4? annually. "A Proportion of this Kind is what I suppose is analogous to the Method of Growth in an Oak; and from the best Information I can get, I am apt to think, that the Parallel I have drawn very nearly give us their Value at the several Periods of Time, from one to fifty Years."'13 Bradley had, indeed, developed a good mathematical model (see Figs. 3A, 3B). The compound interest rate of biomass increase gives a general indication of tree growth, which was later realized by V. H. Blackman, who published the idea in 1919, about two centuries after Bradley.'4 Considering the importance of forest management in England, it seems surprising that Bradley's calculation was forgotten. He himself was aware of the subject's importance, and he urged those who could to measure the growth of trees, at about threeand serving as a pattern for our practice in this Common-Wealth (London: William Du-Gard, 1605 [sic, 1650]), pp. 15-20. This pamphlet has often been incorrectly attributed to Samuel Hartlib, who wrote the preface. 11. Bradley, A General Treatise of Husbandry and Gardening . . . (3 vols. [15 issues], London: John Peele, 1721-1724) II, 71, November 1721. This work is hereafter cited as GT. 12. GT II, 73. 13. GT II, 80. 14. Blackman, "The Compound Interest Law and Plant Growth," Annals of Botany, 33 (1919), 353-360. Blackman responded to certain criticisms of his procedure in "The Significance of the Efficiency Index of Plant Growth," New Phytologist, 19 (1920), 97-100. He wrote at a time of wide interest in growth rates. A survey of the controversies and the other mathematical representations of growth has been provided by E. C. BartonWright, Recent Advances in Plant Physiology (Philadelphia: P. Blakiston's Sons, 1930), pp. 329-343. The practical complexities in measuring tree growth have been discussed in a recent collection of articles: C. Allen, "Methods of Measuring the Growth of Trees as Individuals and in Stands," in Tree Growth, Theodore T. Kozlowski, ed. (New York: Ronald, 1962), chap. 24; Cherng-jiann Shieue, "Measuring and Predicting Growth of AllAged Stands," ibid, chap. 25; Donald W. Lynch, "Measuring and Predicting Growth of Even-Aged Stands," ibid., chap. 26; Marshall N. Palley, "Estimating Growth of Forest Stands from Samples," ibid., chap. 27.

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Slash pine Douglas-fir

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to devise a FIG. 3. Growth rate curves, showing the difficulty of trig generalized formula for plant growth that would cover all species and ecological conditions. Graph A represents height growth of young conifers, from the most rapid to the slowest-growing species. Note that the curve for Slash Pine is similar to Bradley's geometric rate, and that the curve for Engehnann Spruce is similar to his compound interest rate. Graph B represents typical volume-growth curves for the "'average tree" on Douglas Fir yield tables, showing the great differences between sites of different quality. Note that the curve for "site index 140" is similar to Bradley's arithmetic rate. Graphs from Frederick S. Baker, Prnnciples of Silviculture. Copyright 1950 by McGraw Hill Book Company, New York, Toronlto, London, pp. 307, 345. Used with permission of McGraw-Hill Book Company.

year intervals, and make known their figures. "The ingenious Mr. Holt" had measured the size of some oaks near Epping Forest on two occasions eight years apart and had promised to send Bradley his figures, but they had not yet been received at the time of Bradley's writing. Different trees, Bradley knew,

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Richard Bradley and Biological Productivity grew at different rates. He supposed that the Abele Tree was "one of the Quickest Growers of any useful Tree in England," for it was said "to grow to good Perfection in twenty Years." Samuel Hartlib (ca. 1600-1622) had given some figures, taken in the years 1647-1652, which supported this statement.15 Another article concerning plant productivity was on vineyards. Bradley computed the number of vines that could be planted per acre (standing crop) and the quantity and monetary value of the grape juice that could be obtained from them.16 If one compared the financial value of a crop of timber and a crop of grapes, the figures would be grossly misleading as indicators of biomass produced. Despite this, thinking of both crops in terms of a common denominator, money, could lead to the idea that there might be other common denominators which are biologically meaningful. And Bradley did move closer to this goal in an interesting article on the most profitable ways of allocating the space in a family vegetable garden. The common denominator of food value is a little closer to ecological meaningfulness than is monetary value. Although Bradley wrote from the point of view of practical home economics rather than of theoretical ecology, the contents of this essay could be classified under the three productivity headings of standing crop, material removed, and production rate. This can be seen from representative statements on standing crop and material removed: We are to consider, that Pease will require more Room than any other Thing in a Garden, considering their TableUse; for the Fruits of many Plants must go to make a Dish, and then a Crop of Pease seldom lasts longer good than Three Weeks or a Month; but then, because we must have many Plants, we are not to croud them close together; for then we shall have a smaller Quantity of Fruit; and besides, the first Gathering when the Lines of Plants are too close together, breaks and bruises the Plants, so that they do not even bring a Quarter-Part of their Crops to Perfection. I have experienced, that ten Rods of the Ronceval, and Dutch Admiral Pease, have yielded more Fruit when their Lines have been set wide enough asunder, and have been well Stick'd, than three times the Quantity of Ground has done, where the Rows were as many more in Number, and twice the Quantity of Seed put into each Row: And besides, those that had Room enough, have brought good Pease for above ten 15. GT II, 85, 86. Cf. Theophrastus, Historia Plantarum, III, 6, 1. 16. GT III, 116-126, August 1724. Cf. Columella, Rei Rusticae, V, 1-3.

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Weeks together, by being water'd now and then, and the Pease gather'd carefully from them, without bruising the Plants. But though we might reckon ten Rods of such Pease to be enough for a Family, yet when we come to provide Carrots or such-like Roots, two or three Rods will prove much more advantageous than the ten Rods of Pease; for in the Roots there is little or no Waste; but there must be many Plants of Pease to yield as much profitable Eating, as one Carrot or Parsnip will do. I suppose a Carrot Root that requires about eight Inches Square of Ground, will fill the Space of a Pint; and the profitable Part of the Pease that require a Yard Square of Ground to grow upon, will hardly be more than half as much, considering what Air they must be allowed; and so every Thing in a Garden, according to the profitable or useful Part of it, should be consider'd.17 And on production rate: "The Neglecting to contrive a due Succession of Crops [is a mistake]; for in that Case, we may lose half the Profit of our Ground, which ought never to lie idle." 18 Although Bradley was primarily a horticulturist, agriculturist, and botanist, his theoretical and practical interests also included animals, and there appeared in A General Treatise several reports on animal productivity, especially on cattle, rabbits, poultry, and fish. It would not have required much biological insight to realize that there were fundamental connections between plant and animal productivity. For a starter, there was the Biblical adage: "all flesh is grass" (Isaiah 40:6; I Peter 1 :24). Bradley attempted to be more precise by describing the relationship from a chemical point of view: . . . I am of Opinion that the Salts . . . in Flesh, Fruit and Herbs are the same, only differing in the Proportions of their Quantities; that is, one Pound Weight of Flesh may perhaps contain twice as many Salts as the like Weight of Grain or Seed, and one Pound of Grain twice the Salts as may be found in a Pound of Herbs or Grass.19 Since the word "salts" had no precise chemical meaning when Bradley wrote, what he had in mind might be clearer if the modern reader mentally substituted "food value" for Bradley's "Salts," because he reached his conclusion in the context of 17. GT III, 4-5, June 1722 (printed 1723). 18. GT III, 6. 19. Bradley, New Improvements of Planting and Gardening, pt. 1, p. 29.

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Richard Bradley and Biological Productivity a discussion of food.20 He correctly deduced that the same nutrients are present in different kinds of organisms, that these nutrients are concentrated in seeds, and that when animals eat plant material, the concentration of the nutrient material might become greater in the animals's flesh than it had been in the plant. Bradley's actual involvement in the subject of animal productivity apparently arose from the practical problem of how best to allocate land for livestock and crop plants. For example, he suggested to Salisbury farmers that it was unnecessary to set aside land exclusively for sheep, because he felt that the sheep could subsist upon parts of food crops that man did not consume.2' One correspondent, H. Waller,22 shared Bradley's open-minded experimental approach in the operation of his own farm. Waller also speculated upon the optimum productivity of the land: "But where such a Farm is chiefly or wholly cultivated for Corn, many more Poultrey may be kept upon it than I do in mine; and it would be well, if we could rightly proportion the Number: For else we may be Loosers by keeping too few, as much as if we were to over-stock a Farm." 23 Waller then described his own program of livestock productivity: I have at present about 20 Acres of Cow Pasture, besides [being able to use the] Common [pasture], and the Advantage of some Turneps for Winter Food; by this Means I maintain Nine Cows, but find I might add Two more to my Number. The Cows, however, which I have at present, give me each of them about Three Gallons a Day at least, which together yields 27 Gallons per Diem, but sometimes give me 40 Gallons in a Day, from whence I have a large Quantity of Whey and Base Milk to assist the Feeding of Twelve Swine, Two of which are Breeders. In my choice of these, I rather preferr'd the black Bantham Breed, than the large sort common in England, though I do not believe this black sort eats less than the common large Kind, nor perhaps do they yield so much profitable Flesh for Market by one Fourth Part, as the others; however it is certain, that their Flesh 20. It seems clear that Bradley's discussion of salts was influenced by earlier discussions, such as the one by Sir Hugh Plat (1594), which has recently been traced back to Bernard Palissy (1580); see Allen G. Debus, "Palissy, Plat, and English Agricultural Chemistry in the 16th and 17th Centuries, "Archs. Int. Hist. Sci., 21 (1968), 67-88, esp. pp. 73-75. 21. CT I, 19-20, April 1721. 22. Elsewhere Bradley gave Waller's initial as "W." 23. GT I, 86, May 1721.

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is much more delicate for the Table than the common English breed; whether as sucking Pigs, or in Pork or Bacon. Again, I should remark, that for the better feeding of these Creatures, I have a considerable Help from Brewing my own Drink, from some Offals of my Farm Yard, and the Mast of the Woods.24 In a subsequent issue of his General Treatise, Bradley printed a letter from A. B., who raised several objections to Waller's account. One of these was that the expense of the hay or other fodder that cows eat in winter had not been taken into account. A. B. also wondered about the discrepancy between Waller's figures and those that Sir William Petty (1623-1687) had given in his Political Anatomy of Ireland.25 Waller's reply was printed after A. B.'s letter. The details of this discussion need not be followed here; it is enough to note that this kind of biological productivity was of serious interest and that efforts were made to express consumption by the cattle and also part of their produce quantitatively. For rabbits, Bradley discussed how to achieve maximum productivity with both small-scale and large-scale rabbit warrens. In a small warren, shelters had to be provided, males had to be chained to prevent them from destroying the young, and the rabbits had to be fed with imported food. However, the food was said to be a small expense. He calculated that, during a year, two males, twenty females, and their offspring would consume: ? 48 bushels of bran, @ 3 pence per bushel = 12 bushels of oats, @ 16 s. per quarter = = 6 trusses of hay, @ 1 s. per truss Yearly expense

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Besides this purchased feed, "The rude Cabbage Leaves, the Turnep-tops, the Carot-tops, and the Weeds which too frequently 24. CT I, 87. 25. CT II, 21-22, October 1721. Letter dated 9 September 1721. Petty's book was written in 1672 but first appeared posthumously at London in 1691. A. B. cited the 1719 ed., pp. 51, 52, 57. A critical edition has been published by Charles Henry Hull in The Economic Writings of Sir William Petty together with the Observations upon the Bills of Mortality more probably by Captain Graunt 2 vols. (Cambridge, Eng.: Cambridge University Press, 1899; reprint, New York: Augustus M. Kelley, 1963), I, 173174. Earlier, Walter of Henley (12th-13th century) had also discussed milk productivity of cows in his Boke of Husbandry. See the medieval text with modern translation by Elizabeth Lamond (London and New York: Longmans, Green, 1890), pp. 26-27.

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Richard Bradley and Biological Productivity annoy a Garden, will make up to them what is necessary." The returns which could be expected from this investment were as follows: The twenty breeding Does will, if they are well fed, bring at least six Stops of young ones each every Year; but some who now keep Rabbets at Hammersmith, have about nine or ten Broods of young Rabbets in a Year. Their Way is, when a Rabbet kindles, to leave only five young Rabbets to each Doe, and destroy the rest; for they reasonably judge, that more than that Number will weaken a Doe so much, that she will not breed so often as she should do for their Interest. Now if your Rabbets breed only six Months in the Year, which is to suppose the least, and that you was to save only five of a Kindle to each Doe, you would have in a Year six hundred young Rabbets; which, one with another, to follow the Price of the Hammersmith and some other Rabbet-mongers, would sell for Six-pence a-piece at a Month old, without consuming hardly any Hay, Bran or Oats; so that then your Warren would afford the Value of fifteen Pounds per Annum; out of which, if we take two Pounds two Shillings, which is the Charge of their extraordinary Food, there will remain neat Profit,

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Besides which, the "Intrails of the Rabbets will always be of Use to your Fish." 26 The large-scale warren which he described was of 700 acres, and the food for the summer grew in the warren itself. Although these acres, in North Wiltshire, were commonly judged to be of the most barren Parts of England, from the exceeding shortness and smallness of its Grass, yet we are assur'd that those Parts which have been plough'd up, of the same Kind, at the Reduction [removal] of the Warren, produc'd the most luxuriant Crops of Corn that has been known to grow in the Kingdom, which happen'd, as is suppos'd, from the Soil being render'd fine by the working of the Rabbits, and also from the large Share of Vegetative Salts, proceeding from the Dung and Urine which by plowing were regularly mix'd, and thereby render'd fruitful.27 26. GT II, 355-356, March 1722. 27. CT III, 30-31, August 1724.

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He apparently believed that the rabbits increased the fertility of the land, not only mechanically, but also chemically.28 He did not seem to realize that the necessary importation of food in winter for the rabbits29 was rather similar to adding fertilizer to the soil on which the rabbits lived. This barren land, enriched by the rabbits, provided good food for them during the summer. The warren was stocked with 8000 rabbits, which were thought to produce about 24,000 offspring annually. However, these are subject to many Accidents, by Poachers, by Weezels, Polecats, Foxes, and Distempers, tho' the greatest Care be taken of them by watching, setting of Ginns [traps for predatory animals], or in their Food. To view the Warren in its present State, one would suppose that the Food there would hardly maintain half so many; but yet we find by his [Mr. William Gilbert's] Method of Management, that he loses few of them, and his Warren is always in better Case than others, and his Rabbits of a greater Price.80 Bradley's discussion of raising poultry was sufficiently like that for rabbits that it need not be described.31 His discussions of fish, however, provide somewhat different insights into animal productivity. For example, he found that when he raised fish in pans, they did not grow as rapidly as the same kind of fish living in rivers. He attributed this to the river fish obtaining more food than those in the pans. This conclusion was supported by a friend's experience: An Acquaintance of mine took a young Fry or Shoal of little Carp, and put them into three Ponds; he finds that in one Pond the Water happens to be so rich and advantageous to them, that they are about half as big again as those which were put in the other two Ponds, and that there is a remarkable Difference in the Size of the Fish which are in the last two Ponds I have mention'd. The Pond where the largest Fish are found seems to be advantaged by the washing of a neighbouring Hill, when quick Showers happen. The other two Ponds are not so well placed as the former, 28. This idea is an aspect of what was known after 1761 as the humus theory. Selman A. Waksman, Humus: Origin, Chemical Composition, and Importance in Nature (Baltimore: Williams and Wilkins, 1936), pp. 4-5, 10-18. 29. Hay and hazel, "whose Bark they devour very greedily." GT III, 32, August 1724. 31. GT II, 358-360, March 1722. 30. GT III, 34.

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Richard Bradley and Biological Productivity one of them is upon a Clay, the other upon a Gravel, and are nearly of the same Bigness; of these two we find the Fish in the Clay Pond are larger than those in the Gravelly Soil; so that as they have more or less Nourishment in one Pond than another, they are larger or smaller in Proportion, tho' they were all of the same Breed and Age, for the Spawn of one Fish hatches all in one Day, nay within three or four Hours Time.32 Bradley was able to discuss optimum fish production in detail, because he had not only advice from others but also his own very useful observations. In trying to raise fish fry in pans, he had gained some insight into which fish could be raised together and which could not. He saw eels, flounders, and silver pence bury in the mud at the bottom of the pans and snatch young fish swimming by; and eels, flounders, and perch were the only fish which he found could survive in basins with pike.33 Although frogs were eaten by pike and eels, he warned: "In the Spring Season, when Frogs and Toads begin to appear, suffer as few as possible in your Carp Ponds, but destroy them before they spawn, so that they and their Generation perish at once; for whether these horrid Animals do Mischief or not to the Carps, by poisoning of them, as is reported, they certainly rob the Carps of great Part of their Food." 34 One reader, A. R., had written and asked Bradley how to manage for the greatest profit a canal 140 ft. X 25 ft. Into this canal, river water could be introduced by means of a water wheel. Bradley approved of this procedure: Now it is certain, that where such a Current can be maintain'd, a Pond of the same Size will feed and keep half as many more Fish, as it would do if it was only standing Water, or fed by a little Spring; for in the constant Course of the River Water thro' it, there will be a constant Supply of feeding Matter brought in with the Water, which will be grateful to, and serve partly for the Fishes Nourishment; and especially, if your Canal be so made, that the Fish in it are given to breed.36 However, he recommended that steps be taken to prevent the fish from reproducing, because if there were many small fish 32. CT II, 92-93, November 1721. 33. GT II, 349-350, March 1722. 34. GT II, 345. Pike, however, rarely eat frogs. Gunther Sterba, Freshwater Fishes of the World, trans. and rev. by Denys W. Tucker (London: Vista Books, 1962), p. 78. 35. GT 11, 342.

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in the pond, they would not have enough nourishment to grow to a good size. To prevent the production of young fish, the banks of a pond should be cut vertically at least two feet deep and planks erected along them; the eggs would not hatch unless they were in shallow water. If this were done, In a Pond of the Bigness you mention, if the River was not to feed it, you might maintain about fourteen Brace of large Carps, and twice as many Tench, to thrive well; but as the Pond is fed by the River, you may well enough maintain twenty one Brace of Carps, and forty two Brace of Tench, and expect them to prosper, without giving them any extraordinary Feed.36 Presuming that this canal had been stocked with spawn of one or two years old, three years later the carp, "at a moderate Price," should sell for about two shillings each and the tench for one shilling each. This was equivalent to 2? 13s. per year, which Bradley thought was "very profitable." 37 The profit could be increased by encouraging crayfish to live in the banks. For this purpose, one must leave holes in the boards which were placed vertically along the banks. This same canal should also be able to support six pair of ducks, which for laying early and bringing forward Increase, should be of the nook'd Bill sort, and from that Kind one might have young ones fit for killing about the later End of March, as I have seen this Year sold in the London Poulterer's Shops for two Shillings a-piece; but supposing every one of the Young they will produce worth a Shilling at the first Hand, I think one can hardly reckon less than forty Shillings for the Encrease of six Couple of Ducks, deducting all Hazards and Expence of feeding them."38 However, ducks could not be raised on a pond containing large pike, because these fish would eat th- young ducklings. If one wished to devote a pond to pike and perch, the pond should also contain roach and dace for their food, and also water weeds "for their Shelter and Nourishment; for where there are Water-weeds, there will also be Water-Insects, which help the Feed of Fish." 39 36. 37. 38. 39.

GT II, CT II, GT II, CT II,

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343. 347. 347-348. 351.

Richard Bradley and Biological Productivity According to Bradley's calculations, land devoted to fish ponds yielded a very good yearly profit:40 ? Canal with carp, tench, crayfish, trout, bream 4 Ducks 2 Pond with eels, pike, perch, flounders, crayfish 3 Total 9

s. 0 0 0 0

d. 0 0 0 0

CONCLUSIONS Bradley succeeded in conceptualizing biological productivity in terms-monetary investment vs. profit-that could be applied to organisms as different in form and habitat as trees, grapevines, and crayfish.41 This form of measurement was not precise enough to have served as a basis for actual comparisons of production rate. His way of thinking, however, could have been applied with other terms of measurement once the usefulness of such measurements had been realized. The realization that production rate is an important factor is implicit in his discussions, but for his purposes, yearly yields were generally sufficiently precise determinations. Although Bradley drew substantially upon the contributions of others, his writings represent a significant beginning for productivity ecology. All of the kinds of investigations that he reported could have been extended, rendered more precise, and formed the basis of ecological generalizations during the eighteenth century. There were, however, certain conceptual limitations imposed by a lack of relevant knowledge in physiology and in physical 40. CT II, 351-352. Cf. Sir Thomas Sclater's records on profits from his fish ponds, 1675-1677, first published by Gunther, Early Science in Cambridge, pp. 461-463. Bradley also discussed productivity in A Complete Body of Husbandry; Collected from the Practice and Experience of the most considerable Farmers in Britain. Particularly setting forth the various Ways of Improving Land, by Hollow Ditching, Dreining, Double Plowing, Grasing, Enclosing, Watering and Manureing. With Particular Directions for the Fertilising of Broom-Ground, Heath-Ground, Furze, Bushey, and Chilturn-Ground: Also the Method of Improvement, by assorting proper Plants to Lands, and of shifting of Crops. To which is added Several Particulars relating to the Preservation of the Game; and stated Accounts of the Expence and Profits of Arable, Pasture, Meadow and Wood Lands (London: James Woodman and David Lyon, 1727; 2nd ed., Dublin: J. Watts, 1727), chap. 16. 41. A farmer's time and work were probably not yet considered valuable enough for the calculations to be based upon time or energy invested.

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science. A good understanding of productivity ultimately depends upon an understanding of metabolism, which in turn depends upon an understanding of photosynthesis, respiration, biochemistry, and the first and second laws of thermodynamics. The essential knowledge of these subjects would not be available until decades after Bradley's time. Acknowledgments I wish to express my appreciation for assistance to the following: Professor Arthur W. Cooper, Department of Botany, North Carolina State University at Raleigh, conceming ecology; Professor Harold L. Burstyn, History Department, CarnegieMellon University, concerming the introduction; Dr. Frederick Wilkins, concerning style; Mrs. Dorothy Shea Zaborowski, Mathematics Department, Trinity College, Washington, D.C., concerning mathematical descriptions of growth rates; and Mr. John V. Brindle, Hunt Botanical Library, Carnegie-Mellon University, for drawing the graphs for figs. 1 and 2. I also wish to thank the Hunt Botanical Library, Carnegie-Mellon University, for supporting this research.

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W. K.Brooks'sRolein theHistoryof AmericanBiology DENNIS M. McCULLOUGH

Lionel A-21, Harvard College Cambridge,Massachusetts

INTRODUCTION In the history of American biology, William Keith Brooks (1848-1908), Professor of Biology at Johns Hopkins University from 1891 to 1908, has been accorded a position of great esteem. Reported to have been an outstanding teacher, he supposedly influenced a large number of graduate students in the 1880's and 1890's. Many of these students, such as Edmund B. Wilson, Thomas H. Morgan, Edwin G. Conklin, Ross G. Harrison, and William Bateson, later came to be the outstanding biologists of their generation. Brooks's reputation as a teacher was established early and has persisted to the present day. In 1908, Professor E. A. Andrews of Johns Hopkins wrote in Science: "What we can most surely appraise at the present moment is the work of Brooks as friend and teacher, an inspiration and example. Men who have worked in close contact with Brooks now hold commanding positions in the intellectual life of the world; the influence of their living presence is exerted in Japan and in England, in South Africa and in Canada, and through his native country from Maine to the gulf and from ocean to ocean." 1 Evidence of Brooks's current reputation concerning his influence on succeeding generations is widespread and perhaps is best exemplified by the comment of Dr. J. Walter Wilson that Brooks was the intellectual parent of a whole generation of great American biologists.2 However, for the historian these links between teacher and 1. E. A. Andrews, "William Keith Brooks," Science, 28 (Dec. 4, 1908), 784. 2. Letter from J. Walter Wilson, Professor Emeritus of Biology at Brown University, Nov. 4, 1966.

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student must prove to be more than mere coincidences in time and place. The extent of the influence of Brooks on his students has not been traced in any detail. Although it is often stated that he had a profound influence on a whole generation of American biologists, the exact nature of that influence and its extent has generally been taken for granted. The generation of biologists before Brooks was of secondary importance when regarded in an international context; the following generation gained a position of leadership in international biological circles, especially in the fields of genetics and embryology. This paper is an attempt to evaluate Brooks's significance as a teacher and as a figure of influence in the history of American biology during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. PERSONALITYAND WORK Brooks was a quiet, contemplative, and benign man. Born in Cleveland, Ohio, on March 25, 1848, he had a congenital heart defect which kept him from leading the active, athletic life led by all his schoolmates. Perhaps as a result he became interested in natural history and spent much time as a youth on long, lone tramps into the countryside gathering collections of interesting specimens. He continued to follow these interests, studying natural history, Greek, and mathematics at Williams College and graduating Phi Beta Kappa in 1870. After teaching in a boys' preparatory school for two years, Brooks went on to spend the years 1873 to 1875 in Boston and Cambridge, studying for a Ph.D. in Natural History at Harvard. Receiving his degree in June of 1875, he stayed on in Boston for another year as an assistant in the museum of the Boston Society of Natural History. This was his first and only prolonged contact with museum work. Brooks's Johns Hopkins career began in 1876. He was awarded one of the twenty original fellowships, but before he entered in the fall he was promoted to Assistant in the Department of Biology under Professor H. Newell Martin. He rose to the position of Associate in 1883, Professor in 1891, and Head of the Department of Biology in 1893-a position which he maintained until his death in 1908. During his first seventeen years at Hopkins (1876-1893) Brooks published sixty-five scientific papers in the fields of morphology and embryology. Although Brooks was usually considered to be a morphologist, he did have a bias toward embryology and gathered most of his evidence related to the phylogenetic problems set forth by morphologists from that field. Brooks also had a strong

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W. K. Brooks and American Biology interest in marine biology. His major contributions to biological knowledge reflect these interests. Among these contributions are the authoritative studies of that time on the American oyster and on Salpa, a chain tunicate of the phylum Chordata. He also did studies of squid, of Mollusca (in general, in addition to his complete study of the oyster), and of Lucifer, a small crustacean. In all of these studies he carefully described and illustrated the morphology of the stages in the life cycles of these animals. His drawing ability was exceptional, and great emphasis was always placed on details. The beauty of many of these drawings is overwhelming. Most of these studies, descriptive in nature, were intended to shed light on specific phylogenetic problems, although many have had continuing significance and interest because of their purely descriptive value. In addition to these many articles and monographs, Brooks published in 1883 a rather speculative book on heredity, primarily a synthesis of bits of theories taken from Darwin and others. After 1893 his scientific investigations were almost entirely abandoned, and his writings were primarily philosophical in nature. From the year 1894 until his death in 1908, Brooks published a mere ten papers related to scientific investigations. Five of these were joint publications with students -the results of research he suggested or directed. Quiet, unobtrusive eccentricity best describes Brooks's life style as a scholar. Many of his students and colleagues at Johns Hopkins felt protective toward him, for he seemed to be too childlike in his trust in people and too susceptible to exploitation by others. Brooks's childlike image and his tendency to become preoccupied with one idea or thought for a period of time are strongly reflected in his lack of conformity to social conventions. An illustration from a typically euphemistic biographical memoir will serve to point out these characteristics: In spite of his quiet reserve he was usually a very companionable man, and his company was sought and prized by his friends. On his part, he was fond of his friends and neighbors though he was often silent and absorbed in thought. At such time he would occasionally interrupt his quiet reflections by some thoughtful and unexpected remark, such as, "The term supernatural is due to a misconception of nature; nature is everything that iS."8 3. E. G. Conklin, 'William Keith Brooks," Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences (hereafter, NAS), 7 (1913), 38.

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In dealing with students, Brooks sometimes exhibited these same tendencies. One student tells of receiving a letter from Brooks requesting that he drop all his work at once and make a trip from Beaufort, N.C., to Woods Hole, Mass., in order to begin a series of embryological studies on Gonionemus (the student was working on the embryology of a totally unrelated organism at the time he received the letter). However, Brooks also suggested that the student "get specimens of the adult for me." 4 Brooks fancied himself a philosopher and often read and discussed passages from Huxley, Berkeley, and the late eighteenth-century naturalist, Gilbert White, during his Thursday night gatherings for students at '"rightside," his Lake Roland home. Those trying to evaluate Brooks's contributions usually bypassed quietly his philosophical writings. Indeed, even for the "William Keith Brooks Memorial Volume" of the Journal of Experimental Zoology, E. A. Andrews, one of the editors, confessed that he was having difficulty trying to find someone to do the part having to do with Brooks's philosophy.5 Professor George Lefevre, once a student of Brooks, recalled his reaction to Brooks's philosophizing as follows: "True it is that we were not always able to follow him closely in his metaphysical moods, but we learned at least to feel something of the relation that exists between the study of phenomena and the philosophic inquiry into underlying causes." 8 This brief sketch of William Keith Brooks's career, personality, and interests will suffice to introduce the man. BACKGROUNDAND TRAINING In order to better understand William K. Brooks and the development of his interests and ideas, it will help to look more carefully into his scientific training. As a graduate student at Harvard's Museum of Comparative Zoology from 1783 to 1875, Brooks appears to have felt the influence of Louis Agassiz (d. 1873), probably the outstanding figure in mid-nineteenth-century American biology. Agassiz was a systematic and descriptive biologist. He and his students worked on embryo4. G. Lefevre, in "William Keith Brooks Memorial Volume," J. Exp. Zool., 9 (1910), 15. 5. E. A. Andrews to E. G. Conklin, Nov. 9, 1909. In the Edwin Grant Conklin Papers (Firestone Library, Princeton University). Hereafter referred to as Conklin Papers. 6. Lefevre, J. Exp. Zool., p. 16.

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W. K. Brooks and American Biology logical and morphological problems based on both the taxonomic scheme and the scientific methodology which Agassiz himself had laid down.7 Agassiz extended his interests in science well beyond investigation, however. He was a great popularizer of science and a widely lauded teacher. Toward the end of his life an interest in instructing teachers in the methods of teaching science-or, more specifically, natural history---emerged. This interest took the concrete form of America's first summer school, the Anderson School of Natural History on Penikese Island near Woods Hole.8 Agassiz's illness and death during the fall following the first summer of the Anderson School took from the school the driving force needed for its continuation. It lasted for only one more summer, under the direction of Alexander Agassiz, Louis's son. However, despite its short period of existence, this school served a vital function as a forerunner of American marine biological laboratories, and it was at this school that Brooks studied under Louis Agassiz. Agassiz had a great deal of contact with his pupils during this session, lecturing usually once, and sometimes twice, each day. The general routine for the students during the summer was rigorous, as Agassiz had warned it would be. There were four or five lectures a day, in addition to dredging, collecting specimens, and dissecting in the laboratory.9 Agassiz, it would appear from the later recollections of several of his pupils, assisted in the laboratory, in the field, and on the water in addition to carrying on his lecturing duties. A concise summary of these teaching methods is given by Lane Cooper: His initiatory steps in teaching special students of natural history were not a little discouraging. Observation and comparison being in his opinion the intellectual tools most indispensable to the naturalist, his first lesson was one in looking. He gave no assistance; he simply left his student with the specimen, telling him to use his eyes diligently, and report upon what he saw. He retumed from time to time to inquire after the beginner's progress, but he never asked him a leading question, never pointed out a single 7. W. R. Coe, "A Century of Zoology in America," in A Century of Science in America (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1918), pp. 391438. 8. W. W. Willoughby, "The History of Summer Schools in America," Report of the Commission of Education for the Year 1891-1892, 2, 953. 9. Anonymous, Penikese: A Reminiscence by One of Its Pupils (Albion, New York: Frank H. Lattin, 1895), pp. 39-45.

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feature of the structure, never prompted an inference or a conclusion. This process lasted sometimes for days.'0 While at the Anderson School, Brooks appears to have acquired several ideas and interests from Agassiz. Among these was an interest in the training of teachers-an interest which Brooks experimented with, yet later disdainfully discarded." However, Agassiz' influence on Brooks runs deeper than this one idea. The teaching methods which Agassiz sought to give to the teachers at the Anderson School were taken up by Brooks and were used by him at Hopkins. Agassiz's desire to emphasize original investigations also appeared later, to supplement the Hopkins' emphasis on research. Brooks's love for marine biology also originated during his intensive study at the Anderson School. Upon hearing of the opening of the Johns Hopkins University, Brooks applied for a Hopkins Fellowship for graduate work and was awarded one of the coveted twenty which were available. Thus Brooks, a young man of twenty-eight, traveled to the newly founded Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. Brooks seemed to have a special knack for getting involved in educational experiments-Penikese was the site of the first, Baltimore was to be the site of the second. Louis Agassiz's vision of the Anderson School as an institution promoting original investigation appears as an early response to the problem of graduate education in America. The opening of the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore in the fall of 1876 was a much more substantial and specific response to this same problem. President Daniel C. Gilman's inaugural statement, "our aim is to make scholars, strong, bright, useful and true,"12 with its indication of a strong orientation toward graduate study, set Hopkins apart from most American universities of that time. Hugh Hawkins, in Pioneer: A History of the Johns Hopkins University- 18 74-1 889,13 documents the reasons why Hopkins was able to attract and nurture so many fine students. For instance, the Fellowship Program was meant to be used to recruit outstanding young scholars, and it succeeded remarkably well. "To look through a list of the first students at the 10. L. Cooper, Louis Agassiz as a Teacher (Ithaca, New York: Comstock Publishing Company, 1945), pp. 32-33. 11. Johns Hopkins University Circulars (hereafter Circulars), Original Series, No. 9 (1879), p. 111. 12. Johns Hopkins University Inaugural Addresses, 1876 (Baltimore: John Murphy and Company, 1876), p. 38. 13. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1960.

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W. K. Brooks and American Biology Johns Hopkins University is to obtain a preview of the men who were to become the distinguished members of the faculties of American universities in the thirty or forty years that followed." 14 The list is impressive-Thorstein B. Veblen, Frederick Jackson Turner, Woodrow Wilson, Richard T. Ely, Henry C. Adams, G. Stanley Hall, John Dewey, Walter Hines Page, Herbert B. Adams-to name but a few. When William K. Brooks entered Hokpins in September of 1876, a merger of germinal ideas with an environment conducive to the growth of these ideas occurred. It is no surprise, when quickly considered in this light, to find that biologists such as E. G. Conklin, Ross Harrison, E. B. Wilson, T. H. Morgan, William Bateson, and many others studied under Brooks at Hopkins. But the relation of the first observation to the second is not as direct as it appears. A potential for greatness was carried from Harvard to Hopkins by Brooks in the form of his bias toward marine studies and the idea of the seaside laboratory for original investigations; but Brooks also carried with him two potential millstones: his leanings toward descriptive studies and the observation-oriented teaching methods of Louis Agassiz which indeed went hand-in-hand with the study of structure and evolution. When placed in the Hopkins environment, the above four ideas and biases of Brooks were to develop and help to set a direction for the Biology Department. The results of this interaction and development, when coupled with (1) the unique abilities of a number of the incoming graduate students, (2) the development and influence of other marine laboratories, (3) the advantages of Hopkins as an institution, and (4) the philosophy and personality of William K. Brooks, were to lead to an overrated reputation-that of Brooks as a teacher and a figure of influence in the history of American biology. THE MORPHOLOGICALBIAS The original physiological orientation of the Department of Biology at Hopkins was, for the most part, due to the prospective hospital and medical school which Gilman kept in the back of his mind. In seeking a physiologist for the Biology Professorship, Gilman was forced to look abroad, for, with the exception of a little work done at Harvard, very little physi14. W. C. Ryan, Studies in EaTly Graduate Education: The Johns Hopkins, ClaTk University, the University of Chicago (Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, Bulletin No. 30, New York, 1939), p. 32.

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ology was being attempted in American universities. T. H. Huxley, the eminent English biologist and defender of the ideas of Charles Darwin, was one of those whose advice Gilman sought. Huxley recommended for the position his young assistant, H. Newell Martin. Gilman eventually wrote Martin asking him to come to Johns Hopkins to set up a laboratory and school of biology similar to that organized by Professor Huxley at South Kensington.15 Martin bickered a little and then accepted, suggesting shortly thereafter that the university get a morphologist as an assistant for him.16 His reasons for this request were revealed in his introductory address to the Biology Department on October 23, 1876: At no previous period has such an interest been taken in biological problems, or have so many earnest workers been in this field-never before has so rich a harvest been in view. This is mainly owing to the promulgation of two great ideas within the past few years. On the morphological side we have the doctrine of evolution applied to living forms, and especially as definitely put forward by the theory of the origin of species by natural selection; while on the physiological side we have the doctrine of the conservation of energy, and its extension to the play of forces in living organisms.'7 Martin wanted his department to apply itself to both ideas, and the consequent desire for a morphologist opened the door for William K. Brooks. From the very beginning, however, Martin assumed that the physiological studies would dominate the work of the department, and he was quick to express this opinion. To be sure, this competitive attitude was not unique to Martin, but rather reflected a widespread and old conflict over the relationship between form and function. In his introductory lecture he revealed his attitude toward morphology in his department: On the zoological and morphological side no arrangements have as yet been made for a lecture and laboratory course this year, nor so far as I know has any such demand as would render it advisable shown itself. Should it do so, we may, perhaps, make arrangements for elementary instruction in these subjects, under the more immediate su15. D. C. Gilman to H. N. Martin, March 14, 1876, Gilman Papers, Eisenhower Library, Johns Hopkins University. 16. H. N. Martin to D. C. Gilman, May 29, 1876, Gilman Papers. 17. "The Study and Teaching of Biology," Pop. Sci. Monthly, 10, 300.

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W. K. Brooks and American Biology perintendence of Dr. Brooks, our associate in Biology, upon whose shoulders I must throw most of the burden of that side of the work.18 Since fifteen of the nineteen graduate students in biology during the first year were M.D.'s who were primarily interested in physiological studies,'9 Martin found little opposition to his desires among the students. Brooks suffered a slight embarrassment upon discovering the orientation of the department, as is revealed in a letter which he wrote to Alexander Agassiz at Harvard just three days after Martin's introductory statement. In this letter, Brooks stated the facts of his position, but with a slightly distorted emphasis. He had joined the department, he informed Agassiz, as Dr. Martin's assistant. He was to be in charge of the morphological instruction, leaving nothing but the purely physiological instruction to Dr. Martin. He went on to say that his duties would allow him ample time for his own work, since most of the students in the laboratory were young physicians or medical students, who would not be under his direction.20 Thus began the split between morphology and physiology in the Hopkins Biology Department, a split which began to alienate Brooks from physiological studies and make him cling more tightly to his morphological interests. Both men seemed to nurture the split, although open hostility never was evidenced. When the journal of the Biology Department, Studies from the Biological Laboratory, was first started and Martin was given the editorship, Brooks again revealed his dissatisfaction with his role in the Department. He thought that Martin, who had taken no special interest in the summer laboratory, should not have had all the credit for the journal.2' E. G. Conklin later recalled the stand which Brooks took during the late 1880's regarding morphology: Brooks was at that time Associate Professor and in 1891 became Professor of Morphology, and morphology dealt with form rather than function and had nothing to do with experiments. [Martin's physiology, on the other hand, was experimental.] The significance of morphology was held to be in its bearings on evolution. When Watase was working to Karyokinesis (mitosis) in the eggs of the squid, Brooks 18. Ibid., pp. 308-309. 19. Circulars, Original Series, No. 7 (1877), pp. 66-67. 20. W. K. Brooks to A. Agassiz, Oct. 26, 1876, Agassiz Papers, Library of the Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University. 21. W. K Brooks to W. Faxon, n.d., Agassiz Papers.

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mildly objected that such work was not morphology. When I was working on the cell-lineage of Crepidula [a small gasteropod of the phylum Mollusca], Brooks said there was no morphological significance in the mere duplication of cells, and in accepting my thesis he said, "This university has accepted theses on counting words, I suppose it might accept one on counting cells." 22 The hardening of Martin's attitude may have been due in part to the success of the summer marine laboratory which Brooks started in 1878. Judged by the relative output of research papers, Brooks's morphology would seem to have been much more successful than Martin's physiology. However, in 1884 Martin did get the opportunity to state his case for physiology, and he was very explicit about his position. The occasion was the opening of the new Biological Laboratory at Johns Hopkins: It [the new Biological Laboratory] is a building constructed primarily to afford facilities for instruction and research in physiology; and secondarily, similar opportunities in applied sciences . . . So many distinct branches of biological science are pursued in it, we call it in general the biological laboratory; but it is a biological laboratory deliberately planned that physiology in it shall be queen, and the rest her handmaids. He went on to say that perhaps someday a sister building would be constructed to house the morphologists, and he returned to the physiology-morphology theme: But one or the other (physiology or morphology) had to be chosen first unless we were to do two things imperfectly rather than one well, and there were strong reasons for selecting physiology. In the first place, I think even the morphologists will admit that hitherto, and especially in the United States, they have had rather more than their fair share; numerous museums and laboratories have been built for their use; while physiology, if she got anything, had been usually allotted some out of the way room in an entirely unsuitable building, if no one else wanted it; and been very glad to get even that.23 The end result of Brooks and Martin's desires to see their own 22. E. G. Conklin, "Address at the Jubilee of the Department of Biology at Western Reserve University, Dec. 3, 1938," "(MS)," Conklin Papers. 23. Circulars, No. 30 (April 1884), p. 87.

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W. K. Brooks and American Biology fields of special interest advanced was the widening of the split between physiology and morphology at Johns Hopkins. FOUNDING OF THE CHESAPEAKEZOOLOGICAL LABORATORY The founding of the Chesapeake Zoological Laboratory (CZL) in 1878 was a natural outcome of Brooks's reaction to the situation in the Biology Department at Johns Hopkins. Brooks entered Hopkins with a strong love for marine biology and with Louis Agassiz's seaside study and research idea. During his first two summers after getting his Ph.D. and during his first summer at Hopkins, he pursued these interests with Alexander Agassiz at the latter's small Newport Laboratory and with Spencer F. Baird at the U.S. Fish Commission Station at Woods Hole.24 At Johns Hopkins, however, Brooks was confronted with a department which allotted morphology a secondary position, and he undoubtedly wished to improve this position. It would have seemed logical to leave Baltimore to do this, for Baltinore was dominated by Martin's physiological laboratory. The marine laboratory may have appeared as a possible bastion for Brooks's morphology. Brooks provided the initial impetus for the marine laboratory, going among wealthy and potentially interested citizens of Baltimore to solicit some of the support he needed.25 The Trustees also extended their official consent and some financial aid. In addition, Brooks appealed to Professor Baird of the U.S. Fish Commission for help, and Baird used his influence to obtain from the U.S. Army a location and the use of some buildings.26 The objectives of the CZL, as stated by Brooks, were: (1) "to furnish advanced students with opportunities for original investigation," (2) "to provide material for winter work in the University," (3) "to enable less advanced students to become acquainted with the many interesting forms of life which can be studied only at the seashore, and to give them an opportunity to become practically acquainted with the methods of marine zoological work," (4) "to increase our scientific acquaintance with the zoology of the Chesapeake Bay." 27 24. Agassiz's work was a very small-scale continuation of the Anderson School. Baird's was devoted primarily to research on the economic aspects of fish breeding habits, etc. 25. Circulars, N. S. No. 1, p. 24. 26. Report of the President of Johns Hopkins University, 1878, p. 50. 27. Ibid., p. 52.

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The first session included Brooks, two Hopkins Fellows in Biology, an assistant in the department and three school teachers-the school teachers being much less experienced than the others. The results were partially pleasing to Brooks and the University, for a number of papers were published on the research done in morphology. The Trustees made another one-year appropriation for the summer of 1879. However, in order to better avoid financial hazards and in order to acquire access to good equipment, Brooks joined his group to the U.S. Fish Commission project for the study of the Chesapeake Bay oyster.28 The group of students that year was more select and included three Hopkins Fellows and two other people from the Hopkins Biology Department-one a former Fellow, one a Fellow-to-be.29 Morphological studies were again emphasized, and a large number of papers resulted. Nevertheless, despite the number of publishable papers which the summer laboratory yielded, Brooks was pessimistic about its future. There were two reasons for this-Brooks's lack of interest in recruiting outside personnel and a proposed summer school for teachers which Samuel Clarke, an assistant in the department, was to conduct. Martin was giving Clarke support in the latter venture.30 Brooks revealed his feelings in a letter to a friend at Harvard in 1880, in which he expressed his misgivings about the future of the marine station. The trustees are committed to a three year experiment, so I am sure of two years more; but I did not persuade any outsider to go to Beaufort this year, as at least those who did go [in the past] were not able to do original work, and I do not see much hope of doing better in the future. Clarke had a sort of picnic school [sic] for beginners at my old quarters at Fort Wool and had a much larger party than I did, and can get together a much larger party this year. And if he shows that there is a demand for an elementary school, and I cannot show that there is very much for a station for investigation, I shall have great trouble persuading the Trustees that the latter undertaking is the proper one to encourage.3' But the summer laboratory continued to exist, despite Brooks's preoccupation with work on the oyster for the Maryland Oyster Commission during 1882 and 1883, and despite 28. 29. 30. 31.

Circulars, No. 30 (April 1884), p. 91. Ibid., p. 93. Ibid., No. 9 (March 1881), p. 112. W. K. Brooks to W. Faxon, Dec. 15, 1880, Agassiz Papers.

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W. K. Brooks and American Biology an illness in 1884 that was the first of many periods of illness which would plague Brooks for the rest of his life. The Trustees provided annual appropriations of approximately $1000 during the years 1880 to 1883. Although one season was spent at Hampton, Virginia, and two others in the Bahamas, the laboratory was usually stationed at Beaufort, North Carolina. The pattern of the laboratory was well established between 1880 and 1887. Groups attending the laboratory were small, ranging in size from six to sixteen.32 The majority of the investigators each year were Hopkins Fellows and advanced graduate students. The length of the session was as long as was permitted by the weather, with the average length being about nineteen weeks. The published results of the research done at the CZL from 1878 through 1886 clearly point up the emphasis which Brooks placed on morphological studies. Of the 108 papers which were published, 95 of them were the results of morphological research.33 In 1886, Brooks provided a summary of the work of the marine laboratory since its commencement in 1878: Nearly every one of the great generalizations of morphology is based upon the study of marine animals, and most of the problems which are now awaiting a solution must be answered in the same way. For these reasons, our chief aim in zoology and animal morphology has been to provide means for research upon the marine animals of the Atlantic coast, and for nine years, students in this Department, together with instructors and advanced students from other institutions have spent at the seashore all the months in which marine work is practicable. Their time and energy have been devoted to research rather than to the preservation of collections, and the wisdom of this course can be estimated by examination of the accompanying list of publications; all of which are based, either in part or entirely, upon research which we have carried on at the seashore.34 The research done at the CZL gives the impression that the summer laboratory was a great educational experience for Hopkins graduate students, but there were a few mutterings of discontent with the laboratory itself. In 1880, E. B. Wilson, 32. Circulars, No. 30 (April 1884), p. 93. 33. Ibid., No. 54 (Dec. 1886), pp. 40-41. Included in the morphological category are the results of a dozen or so embryological investigations. These two areas were closely allied at this time. 34. Ibid., p. 37.

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later to become one of Brooks' most successful students, wrote an unsolicited letter to President Gilman from the Beaufort summer laboratory. He opened by suggesting that Gilman might be interested in hearing from one of the rank-and-file members of the laboratory (Wilson was then a Fellow). He went on to say that their practical work seemed to be most successful, and that he and Brooks might now lay claim to be what their licenses rather ironically proclaimed them-"skillful engineers and pilots." But he said nothing about the results of their biological work. Wilson closed by remarking how much he was looking forward to returning to Baltimore.35 Such veiled mutterings were not confined to the mechanics of the summer session. A few struck toward the heart of the summer laboratory, the morphological studies. One student joked about the problems upon which the morphologists worked; another was bitterly frustrated. E. G. Conklin, reflecting on the morphological studies being made at Hopkins during his years as a graduate student (1888-1891), spun this rather esoteric anecdote: When [F. H.] Herrick and I were students at Johns Hopkins, speculations on the course of evolution and particularly on the ancestry of the vertebrates were rife. Almost every group of invertebrates that was intensively studied by any zoologist was found by him to have certain features that suggested relationship to the vertebrates. Thus Adam Sedgwick argued for a coelenterate ancestor, Hubrecht for nemertean, Dohrn for an annelidan, Gaskell for a crustacean and Patten for an arachnidian origin. All graduate students at Johns Hopkins were expected to read these classics on the ancestry of the vertebrates. I felt that the mollusks had been neglected in these speculations and once jocosely suggested relationships to chordates, and the larvae of the chordate, Balanoglossus, resemble larvae of echinoderms. Thus almost every phylum of invertebrates showed certain resemblances to vertebrates, and personal predilections decided which branch of your family tree you chose to emphasize. Reflecting on this chaos of speculation Watase [another of Brooks' students] once said to me, "I am done with this whole phylogeny business." 36 Primarily because of financial difficulties, the university dis35. E. B. Wilson to D. C. Gilman, July 11, 1880, Gilman Papers. 36. Conklin, "Address . . . at Western Reserve University . . ." " (MS ) ," pp. 12-13.

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W. K. Brooks and American Biology continued the CZL in 1888.37 The summers of 1888, 1889, and 1890 were a transitional period for Hopkins' marine studies. However, Brooks had success in securing facilities for some of his students during all three summers. He accepted an invitation to be the scientific director of the U.S. Fish Commission Station at Woods Hole during the summer of 1888, and brought with hin four young men. Brooks and several of his students returned the following summer, and a number of Hopkins students returned again for the summer of 1890, although Brooks stayed in Baltimore. The CZL was later re-established under the name "Johns Hopkins Marine Laboratory." But, in fact, the new laboratory was never to be like the old CZL. In 1891 Brooks, on one of his last trips, took a party of fifteen to Jamaica. T. H. Morgan, then a Bruce Fellow, and R. P. Bigelow, a regular Fellow, did most of the planning and work involved with the expedition. Also, the whole function of the summer was changed. "Our summer was devoted, in great part," wrote Brooks, "to the collection and preservation of material for embryological work at home." 38 Of the work done on the collected specimens, about half was descriptive embryology and half morphology.39 This same pattern of investigation continued throughout the decade (1891-1900), as is reflected in the Circulars published during those years. Doctoral theses also continued to be written on nonexperimental morphological and embryological investigations. At the same time Brooks became more trenchant regarding what his students should consider as legitimate problems. In 1897 he wrote to President Gilman recommending that Hopkins men no longer go to the U.S. Fish Commission Station at Woods Hole unless the University was allowed to direct their work.40 This ended the important contact with the people at Woods Hole that a few Hopkins men, including T. H. Morgan and E. G. Conklin, had been able to benefit from during their graduate days. The exact reason for Brooks's harsh stand on this matter is not clear. The implication is strong, however, that he was dissatisfied with the type of work pursued at Woods Hole, either in the fisheries laboratory or in the Marine 37. W. K. Brooks to D. C. Gilman, May 29, 1887, Gilman Papers. 38. Circulars, No. 95 (February 1892), p. 45. 39. Ibid., No. 97 (April 1892), pp. 65-85. 40. W. K. Brooks to D. C. Gilman, June 2, 1897, Gilman Papers. During the years 1887 to 1896, Hopkins sent at least one man to this station each summer.

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Biological Laboratory, and wanted to keep his students from moving in that direction. Small Marine Laboratory parties continued to go out to Jamaica and the Bahamas, but Brooks, primarily because of his health and, as of 1893, his new responsibilities as head of the department became less active in the work of the Marine Laboratory and seldom went out with these expeditions.4' Consequently, his contact with students in the department decreased. Also, beginning with the period of transition of the Brooks's interests began to Marine Laboratory (1888-1893), turn more and more toward the philosophical aspects of biology. He was always fond of metaphysics, but now this seemed more compelling than ever. This gradual shift is reflected in his bibliography.42 Thus, during the beginning of an era which was generally described as a "period of Experimental Biology" 43 and in which even some naturalists were pleading for increased experimentation,44 Brooks and the Biology Department at Johns Hopkins were, at best, staying on a course of descriptive morphological and embryological studies (independent of other areas of biology) set out by Brooks with his Marine Laboratory in the 1880's. At worst, they were moving away from experimentation, and even observation, toward speculation. Brooks went on to steer this course until his death in 1908. In 1907, he had expressed in a biographical memoir of Joseph Leidy his attitude regarding the current state of biology: Its [Leidy's life] lesson to later generations of naturalists seems to be that one may be useful to his fellow men, and enjoy the keen pleasure of discovery, and come to honor and distinction, without visiting strange countries in search of varieties, without biological stations and marine laboratories, without the latest technical methods, without grants of money, and above all, without undertaking to solve the riddles of the universe or resolving biology into physics and chemistry.45 41. Conklin, NAS, 7, 52. 42. Ibid., pp. 79-88. 43. W. R. Coe, "A Century of Zoology in America." Also see: F. R. lillie, The Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1944), p. 117; E. B. Wilson, "Aims and Methods of Study in Natural History," Science, 13 (January 1901), 14-23; and E. G. Conklin, "The Marine Biological Laboratory," Science, 11 (March 1900), 333-344. 44. C. S. Minot, "The Work of the Naturalist in the World," Pop Sci. Monthly, 47 (1895), 60-72. 45. W. K. Brooks, "Joseph Leidy," Anat. Record, I (June 1907), 111.

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W. K. Brooks and American Biology In an article titled "The History of Biology at the Johns Hopkins University," Carl Swanson considered Brooks's death the end of an era: Brooks had succeeded Martin as director of the Department of Biology at the latter's death. The death of Brooks in 1908 marked the end of a definite era in the history of the department. The methods they used, and the problems they were interested in, were to be supplanted by others of a more modem type; for in biology, as in the other sciences, the points of view change rapidly, and senescence comes to theories and modes of thought as it does to men.46 Had the era of the Johns Hopkins Biology Department ended at the time of the retirement of Martin (1893), it might have been able to follow the changing trends in biology. As things went, it continued slowly along the older, more traditional paths during Brooks's term of office, failing in large part to adopt the newly emphasized experimental approaches. TEACHING AND SUPERVISION Brooks was appointed by Johns Hopkins on the strength of his potential as an original investigator in morphology, yet his later reputation is based almost entirely on his role as a teacher. A reconstruction and examination of Brooks's teaching methods may be helpful in suggesting where truth and mythology lie in estimating his influence on American biology. Brooks, it will be recalled, was exposed to the methods and philosophy of Louis Agassiz's teaching in the early 1870's. The primary goal aimed for by Agassiz was the development of the student's power of observation and his independence and selfreliance. Agassiz promoted these aims by forcing his students to sit and observe a specimen, sometimes for days, sometimes for weeks, without giving them any direct help. After the basic powers of observation were judged to be acquired, Agassiz guided his pupils more closely and gave to the student generously of his own researches and materials.47 These teaching methods were successful for Louis Agassiz, undoubtedly in great part because good powers of observation were necessary for morphological and taxonomic investigations. Agassiz was teaching in an era when most of his students would go on to be morphologists or taxonomists. However, the independence 46. Biological Science, 22 (December 1951), 239. 47. Cooper, Agassiz, p. 42.

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and self-reliance which his students acquired would also seem to be partially responsible for their success. The methods which Brooks used closely resemble those of Agassiz. Yet, by the time Brooks reached his prime, biology as a whole was turning away from morphology and taxonomy. Because of his descriptive bias, Brooks was still teaching with Agassiz's observation-oriented methods in an era when experimentation was becoming more and more important. It is in the light of the oncoming era of experimental biology that Brooks must be judged as a teacher, for it was in this era that his students would have to work. Brooks had little contact with beginning students in the department. W. H. Howell, Professor of Physiology after Martin and a man with about twenty years of contact with Brooks, made the following observation on Brooks as a teacher: "his more serious mission was, of course, his special students, and the necessity that he was under of leading a restrained and quiet Iffe from a physical standpoint limited greatly the extent of his active work in teaching." 48 The CZL during the 1880's was the place where Brooks had the most extensive and intimate contact with his "special students," for, during the 1890's and later, Brooks was prevented by his state of health and department responsibilities from going with the Marine Laboratory on expeditions. In Baltimore, during these later years, Brooks's students commented that he was more concerned with giving them a "philosophic outlook on zoological phenomena" than with considering specific biological problems.49 Brooks's students and other observers made many statements and told numerous anecdotes about his methods. By distilling these one obtains a very Agassiz-like picture of Brooks. H. V. P. Wilson recalled Brooks' usual advice to beginning students: "It was to start out, not from a general principle, but from some phenomenon that had caught the eye and became a nucleus for thought. Continued, persistent observation and reflection circling around such a center would sooner or later lead one into living contact with great questions." Conklin commented: "He believed so thoroughly in the law of natural selection as he once said, that he thought it best for a student to find out for himself, as soon as possible, whether he was fitted for independent investigation or not, and by this rigid discipline the unfit were weeded out from the fit." 50 48. Circulars, N. S. No. 1 (1909), p. 12. 49. Lefevre, J. Ex-p. Zool., pp. 13-14. 50. Wilson, J. Exp. Zool., p. 9, and Conklcin, "The Life and Work of William Keith Brooks," Anat. Record, 3 (January 1909), 6.

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W. K. Brooks and American Biology R. P. Bigelow, perhaps recalling that Brooks was at Penikese with Agassiz, once said, "Like Agassiz, Brooks allowed his graduate students to work largely upon their own initiative."5' This was backed by W. H. Howell, who felt that "in many cases, the routine work for the Ph.D. degree was accomplished with but little direct supervision on his part." Brooks at times may have gone out of his way to discourage some students. Conklin tells a humorous anecdote about this practice: At one time he had some of his students repeating ancient history in trying to imbed tissues in soap, and to more than one who asked him for advice about staining microscopical preparations he recommended Beale's Carmine: The results were always unsatisfactory, but in the meantime the student had learned something about the historical development of staining methods, and, best of all, had also learned to rely on himself rather than upon Dr. Brooks. One such student, after laboring for some weeks with Beale's Carmine, saw Dr. Brooks and told him that he could not get satisfactory results. After waiting in vain for some response, he ventured to ask whether Dr. Brooks had ever used the methods. Yes, he had. "What did you think of it?" "Twasn't worth a damn." 52 Although the methods were distorted a bit by Brooks's personal eccentricities and his state of health, they are basically the same as the methods of Louis Agassiz. The emphasis on observation and the lack of emphasis on technique are practices which are particularly closely linked to the morphological problems which Brooks set before his students. However, if Brooks himself chose to teach self-reliance and independence, the small, close-knit community of the CZL would seem to counteract that teaching to a slight extent. H. V. P. Wilson refers to the value of help gotten from others: "We lived in the laboratory all day, and the younger men learned much from the older, especially in matters of technique," and "Brooks exercised little or no supervision over such work, but the older men were a great deal of help to the younger."53 T. H. Morgan and E. G. Conklin also made references to the help and stimulation provided by fellow students at Johns Hopkins.54 There was 51. Bigelow, "Memoir-W. K. Brooks," Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Science, 71 (March 1937), 491 and Howell, Circulars, N. S. No. 1 (1909), p. 12. 52. NAS, 7, 44. 53. "Brooks," J. Excp.Zool., 9, 10-11. 54. T. H. Morgan, "Edmund Beecher Wilson," NAS, 20 (1939); E. G. Conklin, "Thomas Hunt Morgan," Biol. Bull., 93 (August 1947), 14-18.

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in existence a community spirit of assistance and teaching among the graduate students and Fellows. BROOKS'SPHILOSOPHY We have seen that the teaching methods which Brooks used and his emphasis on morphology were not oriented toward the new direction which biology was to follow. In addition, his philosophy, as it affected his role as director, teacher, and investigator in the Biology Department, afforded a very real barrier to changes in the department's orientation. As a philosopher Brooks was rambling and vague, adhering to no single system of ideas and belonging to no "school." Concerned ultimately with biological problems, Brooks sought to go beyond the immediate recording of sense impressions. To discourse reflectively on these broader philosophical issues with students and friends at his home on Lake Roland was one of his favorite pastimes. In a positive way, these discourses inspired more than one of Brooks's students to look at biology in its broadest sense. E. B. Wilson wrote: "From him I learned how closely biological problems are bound up with philosophical considerations. He taught me to read Aristotle, Bacon, Hume, Berkeley, Huxley; to think about the phenomena of life instead of merely trying to record and classify them." E. G. Conklin assessed the matter more objectively: Whatever we may be inclined to say of his conclusions and theories, it cannot be denied that in an age when biological investigators have been content with discovering phenomena, he attempted to go back of phenomena to their real meaning and significance and to point out the relationship of these newly discovered phenomena to the great current of philosophy which has flowed down to us from the remote past.65 Yet despite the praise which Brooks may deserve for setting the current biological problems in a philosophical context, his role as "philosopher" led to an anti-experimental attitude. This was certainly nurtured by the physiology-morphology split in the department, for from the beginning physiology was experimental and morphology was nonexperimental. In addition, it seems to have prevented him from regarding favorably any attempts at experimentation by his students. In a biographical sketch, E. A. Andrews wrote: "Brooks was not an ex55. Wilson, quoted in T. H. Morgan, NAS, 20, 319; Conklin, Anat. Record, 3, 9.

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W. K. Brooks and American Biology perimenter, but an observer of natural processes, from which he endeavored to interpret logically. He saw too many facts to be long satisfied with the sharp cut result that seemed to follow from experimentally severing some portion of the phenomenon from the rest. He was a recorder of nature and a philosophic reasoner about the outside universe as it appeared to his consciousness." 65 Brooks's view of nature and the proper methods of studying nature are most clearly stated in the "Introduction" to the Foundations of Zoology (1899): I shall try to show that life is the response to the order of nature . . . but if it be admitted, it follows that biology is the study of response, and that the study of that order of nature to which response is made is well within its province as the study of the living organism which responds, for all the knowledge we can get of both these aspects of nature is needed as a preparation for the study of that relation between them which constitutes life.57 This is the basis on which Brooks placed value in marine laboratories where organisms could be studied in their natural environments. The corollary to the major tenet is that since the living organism and its environment are integrally related, the separation of the two for purposes of study is not desirable, or, in fact, valid. Brooks saw a danger in experimentation, or the consideration of a problem outside of its natural context. He made this a moral which he expressed quite often, as in his article, "The Lesson of the Life of Huxley": If, reflecting upon some partial view of an experience, we regard it as a whole, forgetting that it is a part and not the whole, the results of our reflection may seem to be the obvious conclusions of sound reasoning, when they are no better than illustrations of the threadbare fallacy of the undistributed middle. Our minds are so constituted that a path which our thoughts have once followed becomes easier with each new venture, while it grows harder at the same time for us to consider what lies outside the borders of the path. No rational being, whose mind is such as we find ours to be, can treat a part as a complete and independent subject for reflection without forgetting that it is not the whole, but only a part.58 56. Circulars, N. S. No. 1 (1909). 57. W. K. Brooks, The Foundations of Zoology (New York: MacMillan, 1899), p. 3. 58. Smithsonian Institute Annual Report-1900 (Washington, D. C.: U. S. Government Printing Office, 1902), p. 710.

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While few, if any of Brooks's students necessarily subscribed to these same views, the fact remains that the philosophy of the department after 1893 was skeptical of analytical-thus especially experimental-work. Although the situation at Hopkins during Brooks's tenure as department head was not entirely advantageous for preparing modem experimental researchers, nevertheless some very important interests were encouraged: namely, the study of marine life and the use of marine laboratories. Also, Johns Hopkins as an institution attracted some of the most capable and serious students in the country, and, by virtue of its historical position, afforded opportunities for graduates with Ph.D.'s. However, both the anti-experimental and morphological biases of William K. Brooks detract from the positive influence which he was able to exert on his students. Brooks failed to perceive the new directions in which biology was moving, and, consequently, the scientific problems on which his students worked while at Hopkins were to be of minor significance in the oncoming experimental era. BROOKSAND HIS STUDENTS Although many of Brooks's students followed his interests in morphology and practical biological work (mostly in the form of studies of marine animals with economic importance), the most outstanding of his students and the ones upon whom his reputation and importance in the history of biology ultimately rest deviated sharply from the type of work in which he guided them while at Hopkins. It will be worthwhile to consider his five outstanding students-E. B. Wilson, T. H. Morgan, E. G. Conklin, R. C. Harrison, and William Bateson-to see what effect Brooks had on their subsequent research orientation. It is interesting to note that none of these men appear to have come to Hopkins specifically to work with Brooks. Bateson was an Englishman who came to the CZL to study Balanoglossus, the hemichordate which was so abundant on the eastem coast of the United States. Although he had wanted to study abroad in 1879, E. B. Wilson had been unable to raise the necessary funds. At the suggestion of his cousin, Samuel F. Clarke, one of the first Fellows of the University, Wilson came instead to Johns Hopkins. Morgan's interest in Hopkins seems to have come from family connections in Baltimore, as well as from Joseph Kastle, several years his senior at their undergraduate institution, the State College of Ken-

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W. K. Brooks and American Biology tucky, who had come back with glowing reports of Hopkins' excellent graduate program (Kastle was in chemistry). Harrison was a "natural"-a Baltimorean with ability and a Hopkins A.B.-who started graduate studies in both biology and mathematics.59 Conklin gave no special reasons for choosing Hopkins. In all of these cases, the fact that there were only a few graduate schools in this country at the time would seem to be important in limiting the choice. Of the five, the only one to state specifically the way in which Brooks influenced him in his work was Bateson. This is somewhat ironic, for Bateson was never a regular Hopkins graduate student, and he had the shortest period of contact with Brooks-three months during the summer of 1883 and one month during the summer of 1884.60 Yet it was here, said Bateson, that he leamed to think of heredity and variation as problems, rather than axioms. He gave credit to Brooks for impressing this germane idea upon him. "For myself I know that it was through Brooks that I first came to realize the problem which for years has been my chief interest and concem ... For me this whole province was new. Variation and heredity with us had stood as axioms. For Brooks they were problems. As he talked of them the insistence of these problems became imminent and oppressive."61 The other four can be grouped together. All spent several years under Brooks. All received Hopkins Ph.D.'s-Wilson in 1881, Morgan in 1890, Conklin in 1891 and Harrison in 1894. During their Hopkins and Woods Hole years all became close, lifelong friends. E. B. Wilson entered Hopkins in 1879, just three years after Brooks arrived. During his three years at Hopkins he attended three sessions of the CZL. Wilson gave Brooks credit for giving him "new ideas, new problems, new points of view,"62 but he seems not to have stated specifically what these ideas, problems, and points of view were. Wilson finally found the money to go abroad to study in 1882, thereby fulfilling an old desire. While studying at Cambridge he met Huxley, Bateson, and Michael Foster, the eminent English physiologist. Later he went to Leipzig, one of the leading scientific centers in Germany, for several months to study 59. Morgan, NAS, 20, 319; A. H. Sturtevant, "Thomas Hunt Morgan," NAS, 31 (1958), 284; J. S. Nicholas, "Ross Granville Harrison," NAS, 35 (1961), 134. 60. Bateson was at the CZL for the entire summer of 1884, but Brooks became ill and had to leave after one month. H. W. Conn to D. C. Gilman, July 3, 1884; July 26, 1884; August 18, 1884. Gilman Papers.

61. Bateson, J. Exp. Zool., 9, 7.

62. Quoted in Morgan, NAS, 20, 319.

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under Rudolf Leuckart, an early proponent of the need to combine morphology, physiology, and psychology. Finally, he spent a year under Anton Dohrn at the Naples Station. This last stop Wilson called, "a realization of my wildest, most unreal dreams." In addition to the charm and beauty of the setting of the Station, he was ecstatic about the "new scientific vistas which were opening" before him. In 1891 Wilson returned to Naples and Munich to study under Hans Driesch, Theodore Boveri, and Curt Herbst. This trip settled his later line of scientific study: cellular and experimental embryology.63 After returing from this trip, he began a long career, first at Bryn Mawr, and later at Columbia. Morgan's Hopkins career began in 1886. He entered with an interest in marine biology, having spent a summer at the Boston Society of Natural History laboratory at Annisquam, Massachusetts.64 Despite this early common interest, however, Morgan and Brooks were never very close. Morgan's student and later associate, A. H. Sturtevant, described Morgan's Hopkins years as follows: At Johns Hopkins Morgan was a student of William Keith Brooks, and it was Brooks who influenced him in his choice of embryology as his first field of study. To Brooks also must be attributed the encouragement of his long interest in marine organisms. However, he was also greatly influenced, in his student days, by H. Newell Martin and W. H. Howell. From them he learned the value of physiological approaches to biology; and I think he was inclined to turn to them rather than to Brooks at times because he felt that the latter was somewhat too metaphysical in his tastes.65 Morgan visited the Naples Station in 1890 and later returned and carried on research there for periods of ten months (18941895) and three months (1900). He also began to teach at Bryn Mawr in 1891, staying there for thirteen years. In 1904 he went to Columbia's Biology Department, which was then headed by E. B. Wilson. Most of Morgan's summers were spent at Woods Hole. Sturtevant claimed that the Naples experiences greatly influenced the course of Morgan's later research: "Here he collaborated with Hans Driesch in the use of experimental methods in the study of embryology. This association was important in influencing the course of his later work."66 E. G. Conklin documented the results of this influence as follows: 63. Ibid., pp. 320-321. 65. Ibid., p. 285.

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64. Sturtevant, NAS, 31, 284. 66. Ibid., p. 287.

W. K. Brooks and American Biology When he was a student at Johns Hopkins, morphology, which was his chief subject, consisted largely of observational rather than experimental work and was centered to a large extent on the embryology of various classes of animals with the primary purpose of determining their phylogeny and relationships. Morgan's early researches were of this sort. By the time he had taken his Ph.D. he had finished eight papers and in the following years he published eight more on this general theme. After 1892 he published no papers that were not experimental or analytical. This sudden change in his interests was due in large part to associations formed and interests aroused at Woods Hole and at the Naples Zoological Station.67 Morgan seldom mentioned Brooks and never referred to him in his writings. However, references to Dohrn and Driesch and their influence are frequent.68 Conklin, more than any of the others, shows evidences of Brooks's influence as a philosopher. His writings reflect the same love for speculation and popularization which is apparent in Brooks. Conklin entered Johns Hopkins in 1888 and left in 1891. During his first two summers as a graduate student he was assigned the Hopkins Table at the U.S. Fish Commission laboratory at Woods Hole. During the first summer, Brooks was there with him. The second summer he had to himself, and during this period he began to study cell-lineage.69 It was this work that Brooks was to criticize for lacking "morphological significance."70 While continuing this work during the following summer at Woods Hole, he met E. B. Wilson. Wilson was working on a similar problem at the MBL, so they compared notes. Their resulting mutual enthusiasm about the significance of cell-lineage studies gave this approach the momentum which was eventually to lead to important embryological and cytological discoveries. Conklin later used experimental procedures to see how the development of the egg (the original cell in the cell-lineage studies) was controlled.7' Ross Harrison, the last of this group, received his Hopkins A.B. at the age of nineteen and proceeded directly to the 67. Conklin, Biol. Bull., p. 16. 68. E. B. Wilson's references to Brooks are also infrequent and his references to Dohrn frequent. In the Conklin Papers there are hundreds of letters to Conklin from Wilson and Morgan. These letters also follow suit-a number of references to Dohm, absolutely none to Brooks. 69. CiTculars, 1888-1891. 70. E. N. Harvey, "Edwin Grant Conklin," NAS, 31 (1957), 63. 71. Ibid., pp. 63-64.

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graduate school. Owing to the discontinuation of the CZL at this time, his first summer as a graduate student (1890) was spent away from Brooks, working with E. G. Conklin at the Fish Commission Laboratory at Woods Hole. This experience helped Harrison to decide on biology over mathematics as his field for future study. When he returned to Baltimore he dropped the mathematics part of his schedule and spent all of his time working under Brooks and Martin. Martin in particular had a great influence on Harrison, as he had had on Morgan. "Martin stimulated Harrison as he had T. H. Morgan, but in a far different way . . . To Morgan the physiological approach was the quickest way to test an idea, but to Harrison, it was contributory to the cross-checking of the morphological details which had been altered by experiment."72 Brooks's influence was more diffuse, vaguely acknowledged, and difficult to trace in Harrison's later work. Nicholas has written: "Brooks' philosophy found Harrison an appreciative listener not so influenced by it as was Conklin . . . Harrison, however, never wrote along philosophical lines nor did he mix philosophy with the interpretation of his experimental work."73 Before receiving his Ph.D. at Hopkins, Harrison decided to study medicine at the University of Bonn for a period of two years. He did so between 1892 and 1894, and returned to Bonn for short periods of time in 1895, 1898, and 1899, receiving his M.D. degree in the latter year. In the eyes of one contemporary historian of biology, Jane Oppenheimer, "more important than the diploma to Harrison's future progress was his temporary absorption into the new world of German experimental embryology."74 Harrison, like Wilson and Morgan, was strongly influenced by his European experiences. The periods between his years in Germany were spent finishing and teaching at Bryn up his Ph.D. at Hopkins (1893-1894) Mawr under Morgan (1894-1895) and at the Hopkins Medical School (1896-1898).75 Yale was Harrison's eventual home after 1907. The contrast between Brooks and his students is evident. Brooks was basically an observer of natural processes: all five of his most prominent students were experimenters. They cannot be said to have followed Brooks's line of scientific work, for none of them pursued morphological studies for long after leaving Johns Hopkins. 72. Nicholas, NAS, 35, pp. 134-135. 73. Ibid., p. 135. 74. Essays in the History of Embryology and Biology (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1967), pp. 93-94. 75. Nicholas, NAS, 35, 137.

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W. K. Brooks and American Biology There appeared to have been two powerful sources of influence on these men quite outside the Hopkins environment. One was the direct contact with European experimental biology, especially through the Naples Zoological Station; the other was the association of younger American biologists at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole. It was here, especially, that the new approaches of such European luminaries as Driesch, Boveri, Dohmn, and others were put into practice in trying to solve some of the older problems of morphology. The MBL, founded in 1887, was modeled after the Naples Station by its first director, C. 0. Whitman. It became a haven for early experimental biology in this country and was used (and in large part directed) by Morgan, Conklin, Wilson, and Harrison. The benefits of the exposure to a variety of scientific viewpoints and methods and the contact with other scientists which the MBL provided could not be equaled by Brooks and the environment at Johns Hopkins. In addition, there was neither the morphological-physiological split nor Brooks's dislike for experimentation to hinder the investigators and students at the MBL. E. B. Wilson's reaction to the changes which occurred in biological research in the 1890's reflects the enthusiasm which the scientific activities at the MBL generated: "For my part I am wholly ready to admit that the introduction of experimental methods into morphology is the most momentous step in biological method that has been taken since the introduction of such methods into physiology by Harvey and Haller." 76 The stimulation which Morgan, Wilson, and Harrison got directly from European biology was very strong and complemented the strong influence of the MBL. CONCLUSION The results of this study indicate that the reputation of W. K. Brooks was aided significantly by historical circumstances. The first of these factors was the unique historical role of Johns Hopkins University in American graduate education. The second was the impact of European experimentalism on American biologists and the consequent increase of experimentation in this country. Johns Hopkins, as an institution, greatly aided in the selection, nurture, and placement of Brooks's students. To these institutional forces, Brooks did add direction toward marine biology and facilities for marine research. Also, his teaching 76. Science, 13, 16.

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methods-which were reinforced by his own natural quietness and his poor health-did encourage self-reliance: Brooks simply could not dominate over the day-to-day activities of his students. The impact of European experimentalism was largely responsible for giving American biologists new approaches to problems which were beginning to assume major importance in biology. Several of Brooks's students, notably E. B. Wilson, T. H. Morgan, and Ross Harrison, were involved in this transfer of approaches and problems to America. In addition, a large number were influenced by working at the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole, where many of these new approaches were being used-in some cases for the first time, in this country. Both of these historical circumstances detract from Brooks's personal importance as an influential and directing force. That Brooks allowed his students to pursue their own research with comparative freedom is indisputable. Perhaps this is the criterion for an outstanding teacher. But the fact remains that none of his best students followed Brooks's own line of investigation or his own method of research. It is less important here to evaluate Brooks as a teacher than to understand his influence on the direction of biological thought in the twentieth century. This study suggests that his influence was less important in terms of setting a direction for research than has previously been believed. What it is apparent that Brooks accomplished was the setting forth of biological topics in a larger context through his insistence on the relevance of philosophy to scientific research. How much this directly influenced his students, especially those outstanding individuals who later made important advances, is difficult to determine. This paper has tried to show that, in terms of available evidence, Brooks does not seem to have had the profound influence on early twentieth-century biology that some historians have claimed.

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RazvitieBiologiiv SSSR (Developmentof Biologyin the USSR) Reviewed by Josef Brozek, Department of Psychology Lehigh University, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania Published under the auspices of the Institute of the History of Natural Sciences and Technology, USSR Academy of Sciences. Moscow: Nauka, 1967. 763 pp., illus.

This collaborative study is one of the volumes in the series Fifty Years of Soviet Science and Technology (Sovetskaya nauka i tekhnika za 50 let), published under the auspices of the Division of General Biology, Institute of the History of Natural Sciences and Technology, USSR Academy of Sciences. It is a useful continuation of the accounts concerning the development of biological sciences in pre-1917 Russia published, under the editorship of S. R. Mikulinskii, in Istoriya estestvoznaniya v Rossii (History of the Natural Sciences in Russia. Moscow: USSR Academy of Sciences, 3 vols., 19571962). Razvitie biologii consists of three parts: (1) S. R. Mikulinskii's introduction; (2) twenty-nine chapters concerned with various aspects of biology; and (3) a history of Soviet historiography of the biological sciences by L. Ya. Blyakher. Blyakher presents portraits of S. L. Sobol' (1893-1960), who wrote a history of the theory of evolution and of microscopy and edited the collected works of Charles Darwin; V. V. Lunkevich (18661941), author of a three-volume treatise on the history of biology; B. E. Raikov (1880-1966), who reported on evolution in Russia before Darwin; and A. D. Nekrasov (1874-1960), historian of Darwinism and of evolutionary embryology. Mikulinskii's introduction outlines the main trends of research in biology in the USSR and describes the special features of Soviet science. Prior to 1917, biological research was carried

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on primarily at a few university centers-Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kiev, Kazan, Odessa, Tomsk. The Academy of Sciences included only three biological laboratories, two museums and a research station with a biological staff of twenty-eight persons. Following 1917, special research institutes established under a variety of auspices (including the People's Commisthe USSR Academy of sariat of Health-Narkomzdrav-and Sciences) began to assume a leading role in basic research. Both the organizational growth and geographical distribution of biological research were altered rapidly in succeeding years. The total number of biological research establishments (not counting agricultural and medical institutions) is now over 220, and the personnel exceeds 32,000. Among the trends in Soviet science during the 1920's and 1930's one may note the work on various aspects of the function of the central nervous system; relations between the chemistry of life and of the earth (biogeochemistry); biological complexes (biocoenology); evolutionary morphology (as a synthesis of the data of comparative anatomy, embryology, and paleontology); and genetics, a field which developed rapidly and in which outstanding accomplishments were made in the USSR until D. Lysenko "managed to convince broadly the non-specialists that genetics is a pseudo-science and succeeded in 1948 in severely curtailing research in genetics" (p. 12). Since the 1940's the nature of biology in the Soviet Union, as elsewhere, has undergone a rapid change with the growth of the disciplines bordering on biology on the one hand and on physics and chemistry (biochemistry, biophysics, and radiobiology) on the other. In addition, new disciplines have emerged: molecular biology, biochemical embryology, radiation genetics. Biological methods have been enriched by a multiplicity of new procedures (electron microscopy, use of isotopes, ultracentrifugation, various techniques of chromatography). Mathematics and cybernetics have found increased use in biology, as have models of biological processes. The application of biological principles in the technological context has given rise to bionics. Exploration of space has stimulated a rapid development of astrobiology. Mikulinskii discerns five characteristic features of Soviet biology: 1) The principle of systematic planning of scientific research. 2) A close relation between basic research and the practical needs of the society, with biology providing an effective theoretical basis of medicine, agriculture, and certain areas of industry.

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Essay Review 3) Complex investigations of biological phenomena, with the aim of clarifying their manifold interrelations. 4) The theory of organic evolution as the basis of all of biology, combined with great interest in research on different aspects of evolutionary theory. 5) Dialectical materialism as the philosophical underpinning of the views on nature and on man. In turn, through their research and the popularization of biological knowledge, biologists contributed to "the triumph of the scientific materialist world view" in the Soviet Union (p. 20). The statement concerning the principle of science planning is general, without documentation of its role in biology. While science planning has been discussed and practiced in Russia for decades, there still remain unresolved problems, such as a rational, scientifically based selection of areas calling for accelerated development and preferential support, or prediction (prognozirovanie) of scientific advance (p. 16). The author repeats what has been said many times by Soviet historians of science: the practical needs of life constitute the principal stimulus for the development of (the basic) natural sciences. Actually, Mikulinskii's examples illustrate primarily the opposite process, i.e., the involvement of biologists in a multiplicity of applied problems, such as increasing the productivity of bodies of water; prevention of diseases carried by various species of invertebrates-protozoans, mites and ticks, worms, and insects; improving the yield, cold resistance, drought resistance, and salt tolerance of economically important plants; and development of industrial biochemistry and microbiology. With all the emphasis on the applications of biology, the author recognizes that it is difficult to anticipate dependably the practical implications of basic research. Furthermore, strictly applied research is apt to run quickly out of steam. In this regard, at least, the East and the West do meet intellectually. The central part of the book has six chapters devoted to botany, three to zoology, followed by a discussion of paleontology and physical anthropology, with emphasis on human evolution; an examination of the biological resources of fresh and salt water and of the land; and special biological disciplines: ecology, comparative anatomy, histology, cytology, microbiology and virology, ontogenesis, animal and human physiology, biochemistry, biophysics, genetics, molecular biology, astrobiology, study of the origin of life on the earth, biogeochemistry, and evolution. The bibliographies for each chapter are grouped together at

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the end of the book and constitute a valuable feature of the work. Unfortunately, when articles are cited the pages are not given. This will make life unnecessarily difficult, especially for the user who has to request photocopies. At times there are strange omissions. For example, in the bibliography accompanying Chapter 20, "Animal and Human Physiology," the authors cite five historically oriented articles (by I. S. Beritashvili, V. P. Chemigovskii, I. V. Danilov and P. S. Kupalow, A. V. Lebedinskii, and A. A. Ukhtomskii) as well as F. P. Maiorov's History of the Study of Conditioned Reflexes (Istoriya ucheniya ob uslovnykh refleksakh, Moscow-Leningrad: USSR Academy of Sciences, 1954). However, the reader will not find a reference to the book-length treatment by Kh. S. Koshtoyants, Essays on the History of Physiology in Russia, originally published in 1946 as Ocherki po istorii fiziologii v Rossii and, in translation, by D. P. Boder, K. Hanes, and Natalie O'Brien (Washington, D. C.: American Institute of Biological Sciences, 1964; for a review see J. Brozek, "Russian Contributions on Brain and Behavior," Science, 152 [May 13, 1966], 930-932). The final chapter, by Blyakher, is devoted to the history of historiography. Before 1917 the history of biology was not cultivated systematically in Russia. Of note are the historical writings of K. A. Timiryazev (Development of Biology in the Nineteenth Century, 1907; Three Hundred Years of Natural Science, 1920), and I. I. Mechnikov's "Essay on the 'Origin of Species,"' 1876). A substantial number of the classical biological works were translated into Russian. During the Soviet period the publication of the classics, both foreign (including Mendel) and Russian (I. I. Mechnikov, I. M. Sechenov), was intensified. The works of Charles Darwin were published in several editions, with detailed commentaries. In the mid-1940's, the establishment of the Institute of the History of Natural Sciences in the framework of the USSR Academy of Sciences, with a section on the history of biological sciences, provided a scientific center for the work in this field. The media of publication of historical studies include journals, among them: Voprosy istorii estestvoznaniya i tekhniki (Problems of the History of Natural Sciences and Technology), with 20 volumes published between 1956 and 1966; Annaly biologii (Annals of Biology, Vol. I, 1959); nonperiodical series: Nauchnoe nasledstvie (Scientific Heritage, Vol. I, 1948, Vol. II, 1951, Vol. III, 1956; Trudy (Works) of the Institute of the History of Natural Sciences and Technology, since 1952); conference proceedings (Trudy soveschaniya po istorii estestvoznania

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Essay Review 1966 g.-Proceedings of a 1966 Conference on the History of Natural Sciences, published in 1968); and collections of papers (e.g., Idea razvitiya v biologii-The Idea of Development in Biology, 1965; Iz istorii bilogicheskikh nauk-History of Biological Sciences, 1966). In listing the publications of the last thirty years, Blyakher groups them according to four major themes: 1) Theory of evolution, in general and in Russia in particular. 2) Historical accounts of major problems, theoretical (e.g., theory of epigenesis, fertilization, relationships between ontogenesis and phylogenesis, cell theory, photosynthesis) and practical (raising fish, study of insects, function of nitrobacteria, hybridization of domestic animals). 3) History of separate biological disciplines (paleontology, paleobotany, embryology, comparative anatomy, animal morphology, physical anthropology). 4) Biographies of outstanding biologists, Russian (including I. P. Pavlov, four entries, and I. M. Sechenov, two entries) and foreign. Of special significance are the works being published in the Scientific Biographical Series (Nauchno-biograficheskaya seriya) of the USSR Academy of Sciences. Information on the publishers of the works that are cited is left out in most entries. Place of publication is given only rarely, and some references (for example, the translation of Helmholtz, p. 686, and of Purkyne, p. 687) lack the year of publication. It is confusing rather than illuminating when an author notes that "biological investigations carried out in the framework of the Academy of Sciences are discussed in the collaborative work Istoriya Akademii nauk SSSR (History of the USSR Academy of Sciences)" (p. 690). The reader is not informed that the two volumes published so far, in 1958 and 1964, respectively, and edited by K. V. Ostrovityanov, cover only the period 1724 to 1917. Blyakher does not fail to mention some of the weak spots in Soviet historiography. Thus, in the interpretation of evolutionary theory (and of genetics) the pseudo-scientific views of T. D. Lysenko held sway for an amazing length of time. To cite Blyakher: "The history of evolution was presented from this point of view in many high school and university textbooks published between 1948 and 1964" (p. 688). N. V. Lebedev's Lectures on Darwinism (Kurs lektsii po darvinizmu, 1962) were reviewed by A. L. Zelikman (Genetika, No. 2, 1965) under the damning title "Anti-Darwinism under the mask of

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Darwinism." Even F. A. Dvoryakin's 1964 textbook was apparentlywrittenin the same out-of-date,distortedfashion. Another negative factor was the bout of chauvinlismin the years following the Second World War. The endeavor to bring to light unjustly forgotten contributions of Russian scientists was marred by "exaggerationsof the merit of some of the investigators, discoveries of would-be priorities, and groundless belittling of some achievements of scientists abroad" (p. 689). It is Blyakher'sthesis that these were temporarydeviations and the errorswere corrected.

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THE J. H. B. BOOKSHELF JUDITH P. SWAZEY

Adams, Alexander B. Eternal Quest. The Story of the Great Naturalists. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1969; 509 pp.; $10.95. The development of various facets of systematic biology in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries is drawn in biographical studies of fourteen of its leading figures. In each portrait Adams blends the personal history and scientific work of his subject with well-chosen background material of the period to depict the nature and achievements of the great naturalists. Although Adam's subjects may be familiar ones to many readers, they should gain a fresh and deeper perspective from his well-structured narrative. Berg, Leo S. Nomogenesis, or Evolution Determined by Law. Translated from the Russian by J. N. Rostovtsov. Cambridge, Mass.: M.I.T. Press, 1969; xix + 477 pp., paperbound; $3.95. Berg's theory of nomogenesis, propounded in 1922, derived from the eminent Russian zoologist's skepticism about the elements of chance in natural selection, and was founded on his belief that "the [inherent] laws of development of the organic world are the same both in ontogeny and phylogeny." Although few evolutionary biologists today would accept nomogenesis, it was in 1922 a reasonable alternative to many of the problems seen in Darwinian theory. Berg's little-known treatise thus is welcome in English translation as a contribution to the history of evolutionary thought and, equally, as an addition to our knowledge of the history of Russian biology. Berlandier, Jean Louis. The Indians of Texas in 1830. Edited by John C. Ewers, trans. P. R. Leclercq. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1969; xi + 209 pp., illus.; $10.00. Swiss-trained botanist Jean Louis Berlandier traveled through Texas in 1818-1829 with a Mexican boundary and scientific expedition, observing and recording plant and animal life, geography, natural resources, and, paramountly, the life of the native tribes. Berlandier's manuscript, translated for the first time from the French, is a fascinating

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and handsomely illustrated document which should delight historians, naturalists, ethnographers, and general readers alike. Ewers' excellent introduction provides valuable background on Berlandier and the nature and significance of his travels. A Biographical Dictionary of Scientists. Edited by Trevor I. Williams. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1969; xi + 592 pp.; $9.95. General readers and students, in particular, will find this a useful, well-arranged reference work on over 1000 historical (nonliving) scientists from antiquity to the present, written by 50 contributors. The Dictionary's broad scope, covering many fields of science and technology, gives the user a ready entry into the vast area of the history of science. Canguilhem, Georges. Etudes d'histoire et de philosophie des sciences. Paris: Librarie Philosophique J. Vrin, 1968; 394 pp., paperbound. Historians and philosophers of science should find pleasurable and stimulating reading in this collection of essays by the Director of the University of Paris's Institut d'Histoire des Sciences et des Techniques. The majority of the papers will be of particular interest to the historian of biology: a commemorative paper on Vesalius; interpretive studies of Comte's biological philosophy; Darwin, Wallace, and Bernard; examinations of the concept of life, the nature of psychology, therapy, experimentation, and responsibility in medicine; and a lengthy analysis of various aspects of the study and philosophy of biology. Clark, Ronald W. The Huxleys. New York: McGraw Hill, 1968; xvi + 398 pp., illus.; $8.95. "The most continuing characteristic" of the Huxley dynasty, writes Ronald Clark, is "the distinctive mixture of scientific curiosity and artistic perception . . . which can be traced through more than a century." In this often uneven biography, Clark focuses upon the family's founder, Thomas Henry, and his grandsons Aldous and Julian. Biologists will be most attracted to the first third of the volume, dealing with the fascinating personage of T. H. Huxley, whose work and writings ranged widely and trenchantly through the scientific and social movements of his century. Clark, Ronald W. JBS. The Life and Work of JBS Haldane. New York: Coward-McCann, Inc., 1968; 326 pp., illus.; $6.95. Few men have equaled the range of JBS Haldane's contributions to twentieth-century biology, and fewer still have led as colorful and varied a life outside the laboratory. In this highly readable scientific biography, Clark admirably performs the task of describing Haldane's scientific work in

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The J. H. B. Bookshelf terms that all readers can appreciate, and vividly recreates Haldane's life: the child-prodigy son of the eminent John Scott Haldane, the student at Oxford, and the "bravest and dirtiest officer" in Marshall Haig's World War I army, through his involvements with communism and his life in India, to his appearance on BBC television, as his death from cancer in 1964 approached, to read his own obituary. Clarke, Edwin, and C. D. O'Malley. The Human Brain and Spinal Cord. A Historical Study Illustrated by Writings from Antiquity to the Twentieth Century. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968; xiii + 926 pp., illus.; $25.00. This comprehensive, well-organized, and handsomely illustrated work helps fill a great void in source material in the history of the neurosciences. The two major topics covered are mai anatomical structures, such as the spinal cord, cerebrum, and neuron, and basic physiological principles, such as the reflex and the localization of cerebral functions. The selections in the book's thirteen chapters are preceded by brief biographical sketches which interrelate the various contributions; cross-references to other selections are a particularly useful feature of these commentaries. Colbert, Edwin H. Men and Dinosaurs. New York: E. P. Dutton, Inc., 1968; xviii + 283 pp., illus.; $8.95. Anyone who has ever gazed in fascination at dinosaur exhibits in a museum will be equally absorbed by this account of the field and laboratory work by the men who have discovered and interpreted the dinosaurs' remains. The author, Curator of Vertebrate Paleontology at New York's American Museum of Natural History, published Dinosaurs: Their Discovery and Their World in 1961. In the present volume, he traces the study of fossil remains from their first descriptions in the early nineteenth century to the 1960 discovery, in the Arctic, of the footprints of Iguanodon, who roamed tropical Europe in early Cretaceous time. Craigie, E. Horne, and W. C. Gibson. The World of Ramon y Cajal. With Selections from His Nonscientific Writings. American Lectures in History of Science and Medicine, ed. W. W. Nowinski. Springfield, Ill.: Charles C Thomas, 1968; x + 295 pp., illus.; $9.75. An engaging view of the land and people which produced Ramon y Cajal, and of Cajal himself as writer, artist, and keen observer of human nature, is provided by Professor Craigie's travelogue of his journey "from Cajal's birthplace to Madrid and the Nobel Prize" and by the selections from Cajal's writings. Darwinism Comes to America. Edited by George Daniels. Wal-

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tham, Mass.: Blaisdell Publishing Co., 1968; xix + 137 pp. Twenty selections, published in the first two decades after the Origin of the Species, reflect the varied reactions of American scientific, religious, and social thinkers to Darwinism. Through these writings, and his own commentaries, Professor Daniels examines the process of adjustment "to what was undoubtedly the most profound intellectual innovation of modem times." The Epitome of Andreas Vesalius. Translated by L. R. Lind. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, paperbound, 1969; xxxvi + 103 pp., illus., plus Latin text of the Epitome; $3.45. Vesalius's Epitome, completed just two weeks after his De humane in 1543, is a superb condensation of the latter monumental work. Lind's fine translation, first published in 1949, enables us to follow Vesalius's own summary of the purposes and results of his anatomical work. The Essential Writings of Erasmus Darwin. Edited by Desmond King-Hele. New York: Hillary House, Ltd., 1969; 223 pp., illus.; $7.00. The life and fascinating range of activities of Erasmus Darwin ( 1731-1802) are seen through passages from his writings and a commentary by King-Hele. Erasmus, the uninitiated quickly learns, should be remembered for many things besides being Charles's grandfather-physician, poet, prolific inventor, zoologist, futurist, social reformer, etc., etc. Galen on the Usefulness of the Parts of the Body. Translated from the Greek with an introduction and commentary by Margaret Talmadge May. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1968; 2 vols., boxed, xvi + 804 pp.; $25.00. Between A.D. 165 and 175 Galen composed an exhaustive 17-book treatise, based primarily on anatomical argument, to demonstrate that the human body's structure is the result of intelligent and divine design. Previously available only in the Greek, Latin, and Arabic texts, and in two French translations, Galen's influential medical-philosophical study is now in English translation. While classicists must judge the accuracy of the translation, which is based on Helmreich's critical edition of the Greek text, historians will find that May's rendition reads smoothly, and is enhanced by her useful introduction and textual commentaries. Ghislen, Michael T. The Triumph of the Darwinian Method. Berkeley: University of Califomia Press, 1969; 287 pp.; $7.50. Through a detailed study of Darwin's voluminous writings, several of which he examines thoroughly for the first time, Professor Ghislen analyzes afresh Darwin's concepts and

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The J. H. B. Bookshelf attempts to reconstruct the sequence of and rationale behind his thinking. In particular, the methodology and philosophy underlying Darwin's works are scrutinized within a framework of historical and contemporary science and modem analytical philosophy. Grene, Marjorie. Approaches to a Philosophical Biology. New York: Basic Books, 1969; vii + 295 pp.; $6.95. In the Englishspeaking world, Professor Grene explains in her preface, thought about the subject and matter of biology has been dominated by the "twin orthodoxies" of the Darwinian tradition and the physicalism of many biochemists, biophysicists, and cyberneticists. In an attempt to broaden our perspective, she here presents essays on five European scientist-philosophers and their views of the conceptual foundations of biology: Adolf Portman, Helmuth Plessner, F. J. J. Boytendijk, Erwin W. Strauss, and Kurt Goldstein. Grew, Nehemiah. The Anatomy of Plants. Reprinted from the 1682 edition. With a new introduction by Conway Zirkle. The Sources of Science, No. 11. New York and London: Johnson Reprint Corporation, 1965; xviii + 304 pp., illus.; $35.00. Grew's classic work is a major source book for the development of botanical knowledge through the use of the microscope in the seventeenth century. All of Grew's major botanical publications, as well as his lectures before the Royal Society between 1675 and 1677, are reprinted. A brief but useful introduction by Zirkle offers a short history of the microscope and a biographical sketch of Grew, comparing his work with that of contemporaries such as Malpighi. Haldane and Modern Biology. Edited by K. R. Dronamraju. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1968; xvi + 333 pp.; $10.95. Known primarily as a mathematical biologist, who played a prominent role in the development of population genetics and biochemical genetics, JBS Haldane (1892-1964) was one of the major predecessors of modern molecular biology. The present collection of 27 memorial essays provide often stimulating and insightful assessments of Haldane's work and person and of developments in the many fields of biology to which he made fundamental contributions. Isler, Hansruedi. Thomas Willis, 1621-1675. Doctor and Scientist. New York: Hafner Publishing Company, 1968; xiii + 235 pp., illus.; $6.00. To those at all familiar with his work in areas such as neuroanatomy, neurophysiology, neuropathology, and epidemiology, Thomas Willis must stand as one of the major but historically neglected figures of seventeenth-century biology and medicine. In this welcome first

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monograph on Willis, Isler reviews his life and times, including his role as a "Vertuosi" and founder of the Royal Society, and then analyzes, interrelates, and evaluates his writings. A bibliography of primary and secondary sources is included. Leonardo's Legacy. An International Symposium. Edited by C. D. O'Malley. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969; viii + 225 pp., fius.; $15.00. These nine essays, originally presented as a series of lectures at U.C.L.A. in 1966, appraise many little-known areas of Leonardo's vast contributions to science, technology, and art. Kenneth Keele's examination of Leonardo's neurophysiological studies and James Ackerman's concluding essay, "Science and Art in the Work of Leonardo," should particularly interest biologists. Ley, Willy. Dawn of Zoology. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: PrenticeHall, Inc., 1968; viii + 280 pp., illus.; $7.95. Both the layman and expert will find Ley's popular history of animals a highly readable and informative work. "Zoology," Ley writes, "began with the discovery that there were curiosities." He guides the reader through man's study of these curiosities, real and imagined, from antiquity to the nineteenth century, from "man the hunter" to "man the explainer." Manning, Thomas G. Government in Science. The U. S. Geological Survey, 1867-1894. Lexington, Ky.: University of Kentucky Press, 1967; x + 257 pp.; $7.00. Professor Manning presents a detailed analysis of the early history of one of American govemment's first major scientific ventures. In the development of the Survey under its first three directors, King, Powell, and Walcott, we see emerging the complex and increasingly critical issues of governent-sponsored science, such as the role of the scientist in politics, civilian vs. military control, and the balance between pure and applied research. Medicine, Science, and Culture. Historical Essays in Honor of Owsei Temkin. Edited by Lloyd G. Stevenson and Robert P. Multhauf. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1968; xvii + 312 pp., illus.; $10.00. As editor of the Bulletin of the History of Medicine and as a teacher and director of the Johns Hopkins Institute for the History of Medicine, Owsei Temkin has been a major, formative influence on the history of medicine for more than two decades. That influence is honored by and reflected in these eighteen essays by his friends and colleagues. The essays cover a wide range of topics that will be of interest to both historians and practitioners of the biomedical sciences. Medvedev, Zhores A. The Rise and Fall of T. D. Lysenko. Trans-

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The J. H. B. Bookshelf lated by I. M. Lerner. New York: Columbia University Press, 1969; xvii + 284 pp., ilius.; $10.00. Medvedev, a molecular biologist at the Institute of Molecular Biology near Moscow, chronicles the absorbing story of Soviet genetics from 1937 to 1964. As Medvedev says in his Preface, the book's three parts represent the author's three viewpoints: as historian, as a witness to the events, and as an active participant in the last phases of Lysenkoism. Lerner's account of the manuscript's publication in this country and its banning in the Soviet Union is a thoughtful addition to Medvedev's own narrative. Nicolson, Marjorie, and G. S. Rousseau. "This Long Disease, My Life." Alexander Pope and the Sciences. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1968; viii + 315 pp.; $8.50. Those interested in the interplay between science and literature, as well as the effects of a man's health on his view of medicine and of life in general, are offered a study of these themes in the life and writings of Alexander Pope, whose satirical pen provided his contemporaries and posterity with vivid pictures of eighteenth-century science. Because of his chronic invalidism, treated in part I of this volume, Pope wrote most frequently of medicine. In part II the authors examine five medical themes in Pope's works, and in parts III and IV his views on other areas of science, particularly astronomy. One Hundred Years of Anthropology. Edited by J. 0. Brew. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1968; 276 pp.; $5.95. A series of five lectures, delivered at the 1966 centennial celebration of the founding of Harvard's Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology. Topics covered included the history of the Peabody Museum, trends in the history of American archeology, the study of old world prehistory, and Darwinism and biological anthropology. Taken together, the essays offer a panorama of the emergence of anthropology as a distinct discipline and of its relations to other fields, such as biology. Ritterbush, Philip C. The Art of Organic Forms. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1968; v + 149 pp., illus.; $10.00. In what he terms a "brief adventure of ideas," Dr. Ritterbush explores the influence of the "idea of organic form" in art, poetry, and philosophy over the past 150 years. As defined by the author, organic form is "the notion that organized beings display principles of emergent order of greater complexity than nonliving entities, whereby organic form is seen to be a property of the whole organism." The

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book was prepared in conjunction with a 1968 exhibit at the Museum of Natural History in Washington, and is beautifully illustrated with examples of organic form and their artistic counterparts. Rothschuh, Karl E. Physiologie. Freiberg, Munich: Karl Alber, 1968; 407 pp. Rothschuh examines the changes in and development of physiological concepts, problems, and methods from the sixteenth to the twentieth century. After three short introductory chapters dealing with broad themes, such as the nature of physiological investigation and changes in physiological thought, he moves the reader from sixteenthcentury Neoaristotelian and Neogalenic physiology (Femel and Zwinger) to such recent figures as von Bertalanffy. A bibliography of primary and secondary sources and a biographical appendix are included. Rotschuh, Karl E. Physiologie im Werden. Medizin in Geschichte und Kultur, Band a; Stuttgart: Gustav Fischer, 1969; xi + 188 pp., illus.; paperbound. Topics centering around the roles and significance of idea and method in the historical development of physiology, from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century, are examined in this concise work by Professor Rotschuh. Rubner, Max. The Laws of Energy Conservation in Nutrition. Translated by A. Markoff and A. Sandri-White, ed. Lt. Col. Robert Joy. U.S. Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine, Natick, Mass., 1968; 371 pp. (obtainable from Clearinghouse for Federal, Scientific, and Technical Information, 5285 Port Royal Rd., Springfield, Va. 22151). Rubner's 1902 monograph, previously unavailable in English, presented fundamental researches in the related areas of temperature regulation and nutrition, such as showing that the law of conservation of energy applies to living tissues. This work is the first in a projected series of classic texts that will be made available through the Army's Research Institute of Environmental Medicine. Schierbeek, A. Jan Swammerdam, 1637-1680. His Life and Works. Amsterdam: Swets and Zeitlinger, 1967; vi + 202 pp., illus. This monograph, published in Dutch in 1947, is a welcome addition to the slim body of Swammerdam studies. Schierbeek begins with four chapters on Swammerdam's life and works, and then deals chronologically with his many scientific studies: physiology, human and animal anatomy, embryology, entymology, and botany. A primary and secondary source bibliography is included.

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The J. H. B. Bookshelf Scientific Contributions of Selman A. Waksman. Edited by H. Boyd Woodruff. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1968; xx + 391 pp., illus.; $15.00. This collection of papers, dating from Waksman's student days to his 1952 Nobel Prize Address, were brought together by Dr. Woodruff in honor of Waksman's eightieth birthday. The papers bear witness to Waksman's fundamental work in soil microbiology and the applications of that work in the development of antibiotics. Shetler, Stanwyn G. The Komarov Botanical Institute. 250 Years of Russian Research. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1967; xiv + 240 pp., illus.; $5.95. The development of botanical research in Russia is viewed through the history of the present Komarov Institute, formed in 1931 by the merger of the two institutions established by Peter the Great in St. Petersburg. While focusing primarily on descriptive botany, Shetler's account offers insight too into what seem to be some characteristic features of Russian biology in general, such as its complex organizational structure and the penchant of its leading figures for sweeping theories. Siegel, Rudolph E. Galen's System of Physiology and Medicine. Basel and New York: S. Karger, 1968; xii + 419 pp., illus.; $23.50. In this first volume of a comprehensive study of Galen's doctrines, Professor Siegel systematically analyzes five areas of Galen's physiological and medical writings: heart and bloodflow, respiration and combustion, the substrate of biologic function, the application of the humoral doctrine in health and disease, and sympathy as a diagnostic concept. Swazey, Judith P. Reflexes and Motor Integration. Sherrington's Concept of Integrative Action. Harvard Monographs in the History of Science. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1969; xviii + 273 pp., illus.; $6.50. In his work from the 1880's to the publication of The Integrative Action of the Nervous System in 1906, Sherrington provided an experimentally documented account of coordinated motor behavior. For this, and his contributions after 1906, he has been called "the man who almost singlehandedly crystallized the field of neurophysiology." Mrs. Swazey reviews the historical background to Sherrington's work, gives a detailed analysis of his major lines of research from which he synthesized the integrative action concept, and considers the significance of that concept for neurophysiology. Torrey, John, and Asa Gray. A Flora of North America. Intro-

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duction by Joseph Ewan. (Facsimile of the 1838-43 edition). New York: Hafner Publishing Co., 1969; 2 vols., 711 and 504 pp.; $45.00. A reprint of the basic work in systematic botany for the United States. Wagner, Richard. Clemens von Pirquet. His Life and Work. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1969; xv + 214 pp., illus.; $7.00. Although his name may be unfamiliar to many readers, von Pirquet's (1874-1929) innovative work such as immunology (tuberculin skin test), biometrics, biostatistics, and pediatrics (first Professor of Pediatrics at Johns Hopkins) marks him as an outstanding physician and researcher of the early twentieth century. Drawing in part on his own 11-year association with von Pirquet, Dr. Wagner's biography focuses upon his subject's scientific work and, at the same time, provides us with insight into the nature of this complex man whose life ended by suicide in 1929. WaUace and Bates in the Tropics. An Introduction to the Theory of Natural Selection. Edited by Barabara G. Beddall. New York: Macmillan Co., 1969; ix + 241 pp.; $5.95. In 1848 two young self-taught naturalists, Alfred Russell Wallace and Henry Walter Bates, began their years of studying plant and animal life in the tropics. As Mrs. Beddall demonstrates through her well-chosen selections from their writings and her commentaries, the observations made by Wallace and Bates provided seminal contributions to the theory of evolution by natural selection. Warren, Richard M., and Roslyn P. Warren. Helmholtz on Perception: Its Physiology and Development. New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1968; x + 277 pp., illus.; $9.95. A compendium of six writings by Helmholtz which represent his three major areas of work on perception-the physiological bases of hearing and vision, and a developmental theory of human perception. Two of the selections are in English translation for the first time. The selections are preceded by a sketch of Helmholtz's life and work, and a too-brief section, "Criticisms, evaluations, and utility," which relates Helmholtz's work and principles to current problems in the study of sensation and perception. World Who's Who in Science. A Biographical Dictionary of Notable Scientists from Antiquity to the Present. Ed. Allen G. Debus. Chicago, Ill.: Marquis-Who's Who, Inc., 1968; xvi + 1855 pp. Vital statistics and brief resumes of the scientific interests and contributions of approximately 30,000 scientists; nearly half of the sketches are historical. While the biological and physical sciences predominate, the social sciences, and

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The J. H. B. Bookshelf historically-based subjects such as astrology, are also represented.

Gregor Mendel Colloquium Brno, Czechoslovakia June 29-July 2, 1970 A follow up to the successful 1965 Mendel Memorial Symposium. The current sessions will focus on six areas of active research: 1. Mendel's hybridizing experiments, 2. Mendel's attitude to evolution, 3. Mendel's other scientific activities, 4. Mendel's public activities, 5. Psychological analysis of Mendel and a fragment of his sermon, 6. Interpretation of Mendel's theory in different countries after 1900. Information on participation may be had from the Secretariat, Mendel Colloquium, Moravian Museum, Brno, Czechoslovakia.

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Index to Volume II SPRING-FALL 1969

Abernethy, John, and vital principle doctrine, 285, 292-295, 309 Adams, A.B., The Eternal Quest, review, 445 Agassiz, Alexander, 415, 419, 421 Agassiz, Louis, influence on W. K. Brooks, 414-416, 427, 429 Allen, Garland, "Hugo deVries and the Reception of the Mutation Theory," 55-87; Mayr's commentary, 123-125, 140 Allen, Grant, 371 "American Geneticists and the Eugenics Movement: 1905-1935," K. M. Ludmerer, 337-362 Amplifiers, sensory, limitations of, 225-226 Analytische Theorie, H. Driesch, 167 Anatomy of Plants, The, N. Grew, review, 449 Anderson School of Natural History, 415 Andrews, E. A., 411 Approaches to a Philosophical Biology, M. Grene, review, 449 Aristotle: doctrine of Four Causes, and modern biological explanation, 48-51; J. H. Randall on, 249-250; 247, 326, 333 Art of Organic Form, The, P. C. Ritterbush, review, 451 Ascent of Life, The, T. A. Goude, 248 Bailey, L. H., 79 Baird, F. Spencer, 421 Balsam, a 17-century myth, 330-332 Barcroft, Joseph, 89-122 Barron, Donald H., 119 "Bases of Conflict in Biological Ex-

planation, The," R. C. Lewontin, 35-45 Bateson, William, 65, 432-437 passim Beck, Leslie, 328 Beckner, Morton: "Function and Teleology," 151-64; Mannier's commentary, 211-214; The Biological Way of Thought, 266-267 Beddall, B. G., Wallace and Bates in the Tropics, review, 454 Bell, Charles, 309 Berg, Leo S., Nomogenesis, or Evolution Determined by Law, review, 445 Berlandier, J. L., The Indians of Texas in 1830, review, 445 Bernard, Claude, and Barcroft, 8996 passim; 138, 311 Bichat, M. F. X., 288, 311, 319 Bigelow, R. P., 425, 429 Bildungstrieb, in Driesch's teleology, 175 Biographical Dictionary of Scientists, A, T. I. Williams, review, 446 Biological reasoning, compared with 7-18 entity-explanations, Biological thought, 17th century, 321-336 Biological Way of Thought, M. Beckner, 266-267 "Biology and the Unity of Science," D. Shapere, 3-18 Biology, relation of to other sciences, 129-134; history of, and reductionism, 216-221; coining of, 313 Blakeslee, A. F., 348 Blood, Barcroft's studies of, 101109 Bohr, Christian, 101

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INDEX TO VOLUME II Borelli, G., 136 Bostock, John, and vital principle doctrine, 290, 304-305 Bosworth, R., 396, 397 Bradley, Richard: on plant productivity, 393-403; on animal productivity, 403-408 Brew, J. O., One Hundred Years of Anthropology, review, 451 Brooks, W. K., 334; personality and work, 412-414; scientific training, 414-417; interest in morphology, 417-420; and Chesapeake Zoological Laboratory, 421-427; role as teacher, 427-430, 432-438; philosophy, 430-432; students, 432-437 Brozek, Josef, essay review of Razvitie Biologii v SSSR, 439 Bunge, Mario, on evolutionary theory, 241-244 Byron, Lord, 307 Camis, Mario, 103 Canguilhelm, G., etudes d'histoire et de philosophie des sciences, review, 446 Cannon, Walter, 90, 94 Castle, W. E., 344 Causation: confusion of final and efficient, 35-39; Aristotle's doctrine and modern biological explanation, 48-51; ultimate and proximate, 126 Caws, Peter, on evolutionary theory, 244-245 Chardin, Teilhard de, 247 Chemical explanation, and physiological theory, 288-289, 312 Chesapeake Zoological Laboratory, founding of, 421-427 Frederick Churchill, B., 'From to Entelechy: Machine-Theory Two Studies in Developmental Teology," 165-185, 216 Clark, E., and C. D. O'Malley, The Human Brain and Spinal Cord, review, 447 Clark, R. W., The Huxleys, review, 446; JBS: The Life and Work of JBS Haldane, review, 446 Clemens von Pirquet, R. Wagner, review, 454 Cobett, William, 365 Colbert, E. H., Men and Dinosaurs, review, 447

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commentary, William, Coleman, 216-221 Conceptual changes, and role hybrids, 136 Conklin, E. G., 424, 429, 432-437 passim Cope, E. D., 73, 79 Copernicus, N., 330 Craigie, E. H., and W. C. Gibson, The World of Ram6n y Cajal, review, 447 Cybernetic system, parallel-processing, 226-228 Daniels, G., Darwinism Comes to America, review, 447 Darwin, Charles, 41, 215 About the "Darwin's Questions Breeding of Animals (1839)," P. J. Vorzinimer, 269-281 reactions to, 56-58; Darwinism: social, and eugenics, 338-341 Darwinism Comes to America, G. Daniels, review, 447 Davenport, C. B., 66, 84; and eugenics, 339, 340, 344, 349, 350 Davy, Humphrey, 288, 297 Dawn of Zoology, W. Ley, review, 450 Debus, A. G., World Who's Who in Science, review, 454 epistemology of, Decision-systems, 234-236; see also Sensory-motor decision system Delage, Yves, 73, 165 Dennert, Eberhart, 56 with R.: compared Descartes, Harvey, 135-136; and problem of method, 328 Development: and problem of levels, 199-206 passim Dodart, Denis, influence on Bradley, 392-394 Driesch, Hans: and teleology in biology, 166-185; machine theory of life, 167-176; 216 Dronamraju, K. R., Haldane and Modern Biology, review, 449 Dualism: in biology, 124-126 Dunn, L. C., 356, 358 Dwight, Thomas, 82 East, E. M., 344, 347 Ecology, in 18th century, 391-410 Egerton, Frank N., "Richard Bradley's Understanding of Biological

INDEX TO VOLUME II Productivity: A Study of Eighteenth Century Ecological Ideas," 391-410 Eldron, Lord, 307, 308 Elements of General Physiology, J. Bostock, 290, 304-305 Embryogenesis, Driesch's views on, 167-176, 177-185 Embryology, rise of experimental, 165 Epitome of Andreas Vesalius, The, L. R. Lind, review, 448 Essential Writings of Erasmus Darwin, The, D. King-Hele, review, 448 Eternal Quest, The, The Story of the Great Naturalists, A. B. Adam, review, 445 etudes d'histoire et de philosophie des Sciences, G. Canguilhelm, review, 446 Eugenics movement, American, 337362; and social Darwinism, 338341; as secular religion, 341; and racism, 352-359 Evolution and Philosophy, A. G. van Melsen, 245-247 theory: explanatory Evolutionary mechanisms in, 39-45 passim, 214-216; and philosophy of biology, 241-268 passim; Caw's writings, 244-245; van Melsen, 245247; Flew, 252-254; Grene, 255259; Woodger, 259-260; Gregory, 260-262; see also "Darwin's Questions" Explanation: exclusive vs. complete, 38; sufficient and exact, 39; evolutionary and biological, 42; teleonomic, 51; and organizational levels, 199-206 "Explanation in Biology," B. Glass, 47-53 Explanation in biology: conference on, v-vi; as sociological problem, 35-45 passim; 135-140; changing nature of, seen in doctrine of vital principle, 283-320 "Explanation in the Biological Sci187-198; ences," M. Scriven, Mannier's commentary, 207-211 Fermentation, a 17th-century myth, 333-335 Ferriar, John, 287, 289 Fisher, R. A., 36

Flora of North America, A, J. Torrey and A. Gray, review, 453 Flew, A. G. N., on evolutionary theory, 252-254 Fludd, Robert, 330, 332 Foster of Chelmsford, 317 "From Machine-Theory to Entelechy: Two Studies in Developmental Teleology," F. B. Churchill, 165-185 Foster, Michael, 93 Foundations of Biology, F. Mainx, 264-265 Fredericq, Leon, 95 "Function and Teleology," M. Beckner, 151-164; Mannier's commentary, 211-214 Functional ascription, 151, 154-160 Galen, and problem of method, 322323, 330 Galen on the Usefulness of the Parts of the Body, M. T. May, review, 448 Galen's System of Physiology and Medicine, R. E. Siegel, review, 453 Galileo: and problem of method, 322; and Harvey, 324, 325 Galton, Francis, 341 Gene theory: and verbal explanations, 48; and American eugenics movement, 337-362 Germ-plasm theory, 166 Ghislen, M. T., The Triumph of the Darwinian Method, review, 448 Gilman, Daniel C., 416, 417, 425 Glandular secretion, Barcroft's study of, 98-100 in Glass, Bentley, "Explanation Biology," 47-53; Nagel's commentary, 132-133 Goal-ascription, 151-152 "Some June, Goodfield-Toulmin, Aspects of English Physiology: 1780-1840," 283-320 Goude, T. A., The Ascent of Life, 248 Gould, S. J., 219 Government in Science: The U.S. Geological Survey, T. G. Manning, review, 450 Gregg, J. R., and evolutionary theory, 260-262 Grene, Marjorie, criticisms of evoAplutionary theory, 255-259;

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INDEX TO VOLUME ]I proaches to a Philosophical Biology, review, 449 Grew, N., The Anatomy of Plants, review, 449 Grobstein, Clifford, "Organizational Levels and Explanation," 199206; 218 Guyer, M. F., 343, 351 Haacke, Wilhelm, 175 Haeckel, Ernest, 166 Haldane, John Scott, 90, 99; on regulation of internal environment, 109-111 Haldane and Modern Biology, K. R. Dronamraju, review, 449 Hales, Stephen, 369 Hardy-Weinberg law, 347 Harrison, R. G., 432-437 passim Harvey, W.: and Descartes, 135136; and problem of method, 324335 passim; reply to Hofmann, 324-326; 321 Hartley, David, 286, 319 Held, R., 227 Helmholtz on Perception, R. M. Warren and R. P. Warren, review, 454 Hempel-Oppenheim thesis, 352 Henderson, L. J., 114 Herbst, Curt, 166 Heredity, chemical explanation of, 21-30 Hill, A. V., 103, 105 Historical elements, in evolutionary and biological explanation, 42 Hobbes, T., 325 Hofmann, Caspar: and Harvey, 324326 Holmes, Frederic L., "Joseph Barcroft and the Fixity of the In89-122; Environment," ternal 128-129; Nagel's commentary, Mendelsohn's commentary, 137138 Homeostasis, Cannon's 1929 article on, 94 Howell, W. H., 428 "Hugo deVries and the Reception of the Mutation Theory," G. Allen, 55-87 Hull, David, "What Philosophy of Biology is Not," 241-268 Human Brain and Spinal Cord, The, E. Clark and C. D. O'Malley, review, 447

460

Hunter, John, and vital principle doctrine, 291-294, 309 Huxley, T. H., 56, 319, 418 The Huxleys, R. W. Clark, review, 446 of aspects Idiographic-historical biology, 187-198 passim Immigration policy, and eugenics, 352-356 Indians of Texas in 1830, The, J. L. Berlandier, review, 445 Intention-ascription, 151-152, 153154 and BarInternal environment, croft's work, 89-122 Invariant searching-systems, properties of, 231-232 Isler, H., Thomas Willis, review, 449 Jan Swammerdam, A. Schierbeek, review, 452 JBS: The Life and Work of JBS Haldane, R. W. Clark, review, 446 Jennings, H. S., 355 Johannsen, Wilhelm, 73-74, 347 Johns Hopkins biology department: and W. K. Brooks, 411-438 passim "Joseph Barcroft and the Fixity of the Internal Environment," F. L. Holmes, 89-122 Kalm, Peter, 381 Kellog, V. L., 56, 76 Kelvin, Lord. See Thompson, William King-Hele, D., The Essential Writings of Erasmus Darwin, review, 448 Kitts, David B., commentary, 214216 Komarov Botanical Institute, The, S. G. Shetler, review, 453 Kuhn, T. S., 137 Lack, David, 43 Langley, John N., 98 Laughlin, H. H., and eugenics, 339 Lawrence, William, 298, 306; physiological doctrines, 307-320; attacks upon, 315-320 Laws of Energy Conservation in Nutrition, The, M. Rubner, review, 452 Lectures on Physiology, Zoology,

INDEX TO VOLUME

and Natural History of Man, W. L. Lawrence, 307-320 passim Leidy, Joseph, 426 Leonardo's Legacy, C. D. O'Malley, review, 450 Lewontin, Richard, "The Bases of Conflict in Biological Explanation," 35-45, 124, 127, 214 Ley, Willy, Dawn of Zoology, review, 450 Liebig, Justius von, 139-140 Life, definition of, 48 Lind, L. R. The Epitome of Andreas Vesalius, review, 448 Linnaeus, C., 368, 371 Loeb, Jacques, and deVries, 67, 84, 169 Ludmerer, K. M., "American Geneticists and the Eugenics Movement," 337-362 Ludwig, Carl, 98 Lyell, Charles, 272 McCullough, Dennis M., "W. K. Brooks's Role in the History of American Biology," 411-438 McDougal, D. T., 81 Mainx, Felix, Foundations of Biology, 264-265 Malpighi, M., 332 Malthus, T., 273 Mannier, Edward, commentary, 207-214 Manning, T. G., Government in Science, review, 450 Martin, H. Newell, and Hopkins biology department, 418-419 Mathematical idealizations, applied to biology, 12-14 Mathematics, in 17th-century biology, 329 May, M. T., Galen on the Usefulness of the Parts of the Body, review, 448 Mayr, Ernst, 27, 80; "Scientific Explanation and Conceptual Framework," 123-128 Medicine, Science, and Culture, L. G. Stevenson and R. P. Multhauf, review, 450 Medvedev, Z. A., The Rise and Fall of T. D. Lysenko, review, 450 Melsen, A. G. van, Evolution and Philosophy, critique of, 245-247 Men and Dinosaurs, E. H. Colbert, review, 447

II

Mendel, Gregor, 71, 342; Colloquim, 455 Mendelsohn, Everett, commentary by, 135-140 Mersenne, M., 321 Milieu int6rieur. See Internal environment Mind-body problem, W. Lawrence on, 313-315 Mivart, St. Georges, 75 Molecular biology: and biological explanation, 35; and reductionism, 19-30 Morgan, T. H., 67, 78, 125, 425, 432-437 passim Muller, H. J., 340 Mullett, C. F., "Multum in Parvo: Gilbert White of Selborne," 368389 Mutation theory of deVries: development of, 58-65; reception of, 65-69; as alternative to Darwinism, 69-85; methodology in, 8385 "Myth and Method in Seventeenth Century Biological Thought," W. P. D. Wightman, 321-336 Nagel, Ernest, commentary, 128-134 Natural History of Selborne, G. White, 368-389 passim Newton, Isaac, 324, 335-336; and vital principle doctrine, 285-307 passim Nicolson, M., and G. S. Rousseau, "This Long Disease, My Life": Alexander Pope and the Sciences, review, 451 Nomogenesis, or Evolution Determined by Law, L. S. Berg, review, 445 Nomothetic-dynamic aspect of biology, 187-198 passim Oenothera, and mutation theory, 58-85 passim; 123 O'Malley, C. D., Leonardo's Legacy, review, 450 One Hundred Years of Anthropology, J. 0. Brew, review, 451 "Organism, Environment, and Intelligence as a System," J. Platt, 225-239 "Organizational Levels and Explanation," C. Grobstein, 199-206 Orthogenesis, 77

461

INDEX TO VOLUME II Palmer, James, 292 Pangenesis, and deVries, 59-60, 65 Paracelsus, 331, 333 Pearl, Raymond, 344 Pearson, Karl, 341 Peck, A. L., 48 Petty, William, 404 Philosophy of biology, literature review of, 241-268 Philosophy of science: nature of, 188-189; macro- and micro-, 189198, 207- 211 Physics, open-endedness of, 133; see also Reduction Physiologie, K. E. Rotschuh, review, 452 Physiologie im Werden, K. E. Rotschuh, review, 452 Physiology, English: and doctrine of vital principle, 283-320; ties with philosophy, theology, politics, 284-285 Pinie, N. W., 48 Platt, John, 133; commentary on reductionism, 140-147; "Organism, Environment, and Intelligence as a System," 225-239 Popenoe, Paul, 339, 350 Pritchard, John, and vital principle doctrine, 290-306 passim Priestley, Joseph, 299 Problem-solving, methods of, 236238 Productivity concepts of R. Bradley, 393-410 Prosser, C. L., 31, 32 Putnam, H., 219 Questions About the Breeding of Animals, Darwin: dating of, 269272; and development of evolutionary theory, 272-277; contents of, 277-81 Racism, and American eugenics movement, 352-359 Ramsey, Nornan, 127 Randall, J. H., Jr., and Aristotle, 249-250, 323, 327, 329 Ray, John, 368, 371 Razvitie Biologii v SSSR, essay review of, Brozek, 439 444 Reafferent stimulation, 227-231 Redi, Franceso, 334 Reduction: of biology to physics and 3-18 and chemistry, passim;

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molecular biology, 19-30; Nagel on, 131-134 250-257; 127-128, Reductionism, approach to, psycho-sociological 139-140; limits to application of, 140-147; and history of biology, 216-221 Reflexes and Motor Integration, J. P. Swazey, review, 453 Rennell, Thomas, 316 Respiration, foetal, Barcroft's work on, 119-120 The Respiratory Function of the Blood, Barcroft, 106-109, 116117 Review of the Doctrine of the Vital Principle, J. Prichard, 290-306 passim "Richard Bradley's Understanding A Productivity: of Biological Study of Eighteenth Century Ecological Ideas," F. N. Egerton, 391-410 Rise and Fall of T. D. Lysenko, The, Z. A. Medvedev, review, 450 Ritterbush, P. C., The Art of Organic Form, review, 451 Karl E., Physiologie, Rotschuh, Physiologie im Werden, reviews, 452 Roux, Wilhelm, 165, 182 Rubner, Max, The Laws of Energy Conservation in Nutrition, review, 452 Russell, Bertrand, 47 Schaffner, Kenneth F., "Theories in Biology," and Explanations 19-33, 126, 131 Schierbeek, A., Jan Swammerdam, review, 452 Scientiftc Contributions of Selman A. Waksman, H. B. Woodruff, review, 453 Scientific description, and explanation, 47 Scientific revolution, 17th-century, mythology of, 321 Scriven, Michael, "Explanation in the Biological Sciences," 187198; Mannier's commentary, 207211 Selection, action of, 274-277 Sensory-motor decision system, relation of to environment, 225239 passim

INDEX TO VOLUME II Shapere, Dudley, "Biology and the Unity of Science," 3-18, 124; Nagel's commentary, 129-130; reply to Nagel, 134-135 Shetler, S. G., The Komarov Botanical Institute, review, 453 Siegel, R. E., Galen's System of Physiology and Medicine, review, 453 Simpson, G. G., 27; on irreducibility of biology, 3-5 Social applications of science, case of eugenics, 337-362 Social Darwinism, and eugenics, 338-341 Society for the Promotion of Animal Chemistry, 288 Sociology of scientific knowledge, and biological explanation, 135140 "Some Aspects of English Physiology: 1780-1840," J. GoodfieldToulmin, 283-320 Soviet biology, history of, 439-444 Species, nature of: and anti-Darwinism, 79-85; typological and nominalist views, 80-82 Stadler, Louis, 48 Stevenson, L. G., and R. P. Multhauf, Medicine, Science, and Culture, review, 450 Stokes, W. E. D., 353 Swammerdam, J., 375 Swazey, J. P., Reflexes and Motor Integration, review, 453 Teleological statements, eliminability of, 160-164 Teleology: and function, 151-164; examined through Driesch's work, 166-185; 249 Teleonomic explanations, 51 Temperature adaptation, 30-33 "Theories and Explanations in Biology," K. F. Schaffner, 19-33 Theory, meaning of, 128-129 "This Long Disease, My Life:" Alexander Pope and the Sciences, M. Nicolson and G. S. Rousseau, review, 451 Thomas Willis, H. Isler, review, 449 Thompson, William, 75-76 Thompson, W. R., 247 Torrey, J., and A. Gray, A Flora of North America, review, 453 Trismegistos, Hermes, 330

Triumph of the Darwinian Method, The, M. T. Ghislen, review, 448 Vallisneri, Antonio, 335 Variation: discontinuous, 65; nature 19th-century of, origin and debates, 70-78 Vital principle, and Newtonian science, 285-307 Vitalism, Driesch's, 177-185 Vorzimmer, Peter J., "Darwin's Questions About the Breeding of Animals (1839)," 269-281 DeVries, Hugo: Mayr's commentary, 123-125; and Driesch, 172; see also mutation theory "W. K. Brooks's Role in the History of American Biology," D. M. McCullough, 411-438 Waddington, C. H., 211 Wagner, Richard, Clemens von Pirquet, review, 454 Wallace and Bates in the Tropics, B. G. Beddall, review, 454 Waller, H., 403 Warren, R. M., and R. P. Warren, Helmholtz on Perception, review, 454 Watson-Crick model, 22-23, 25 Webber, H. J., 344 Weismann, August, 166, 343 "What Philosophy of Biology is Not," D. Hull, 241-268 White, Gilbert, 368-389 Wightman, W. P. D., "Myth and Method in Seventeenth-Century Biological Thought," 321-336 Williams, T. I., A Biographical Dictionary of Scientists, review, 446 Willis, Thomas, and problem of method, 327-335 passim Wilson, E. B., 432-437 passim Wilson, H. V. P., 428 Woodruff, H. B., Scientific Contributions of Selman A. Waksman, review, 453 World of Ramon y Cajal, The, E. H. Craigie and W. L. Gibson, review, 447 World's Who's Who in Science, A. G. Debus, review, 454 Woodger, J. H., 259-260 Wright, Sewall, 37 Zoogeography, explanatory eses about, 43-45

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