340 Lightman
be brought to their lecture- rooms and tested.” No doubt, the journalist
admitted, it is a great thing “to extend the boundaries of science, and to
apply its verifying tests to the explanation of all phenomena; but it is also
a serious thing to meddle rashly with the foundations of human belief
and society.”^6
But this was also an age when a vast transformation in human com-
munication, made possible by mechanized printing presses, railway dis-
tribution, improved education, and the penny post, played a crucial role
in the creation of a large reading public not always easily controlled by
professional scientists. Though Huxley and his allies attempted to domi-
nate the world of scientifi c journalism, their aims were thwarted by large
numbers of popularizers of science, many of them women, who read a
different meaning into contemporary science and who proposed a more
egalitarian relationship between scientist and layman. Moreover, many
Victorian readers did not accept the role of passive consumers of knowl-
edge conferred upon them by scientifi c naturalists stressing their expertise
and professional status. Although this was the period when categories like
“popular” science and “professional” science began to emerge, there was
tremendous opposition to the attempt of scientifi c naturalists to separate
the fi rst from the second and then relegate it to a subordinate rank. The
crucial story in the latter half of the nineteenth century revolves around
processes of control and resistance. Huxley and his scientifi c naturalist
comrades aimed at controlling the meaning of science; but they were re-
sisted by defenders of the Anglican establishment, by physicists within
the ranks of professional scientists, by popularizers of science, and by
members of the public. The details of this story are distinctively British,
but the larger outlines of the tale are relevant for understanding the for-
tunes of science in other parts of the west. During the nineteenth cen-
tury the meaning of science was changing throughout Europe and the
United States, and in most cases the dynamic involved would- be profes-
sionals bent on reforming institutions and ideas opposed by a diverse
set of groups both “inside” and “outside” the scientifi c community, as
we now conceive it. I use quotation marks around the words “inside”
and “outside” because this was precisely what was stake in these contests:
who would be counted as being part of the scientifi c community and
who, therefore, had the authority to defi ne the meaning of science. In
this chapter I will provide an example of the transformation of science in
the nineteenth century by focusing on Victorian Britain, for we can only
understand the complexity of the process if examine a specifi c case and
the social and cultural context particular to it.