342 Lightman
Institution lecture theatre in 1802, Davy concluded with a comforting vi-
sion of the social function of chemistry. He suggested that a wider knowl-
edge of experimental philosophy would lead men to prefer stability and
harmony in the both the natural and the social worlds. “The man who
has been accustomed to study natural objects philosophically,” Davy de-
clared, “perceiving in all the phenomena of the universe the designs of a
perfect intelligence, will be averse to the turbulence and passion of hasty
innovations, and will uniformly appear as the friend of tranquillity and
order.”^10 In a new move, which was adopted by more and more scientists
in the nineteenth century who came into contact with the British public,
Davy assigned his audience a passive role—to admire and support scien-
tifi c work.^11
However, the gentlemen of science by no means controlled the mean-
ing of science in the fi rst half of the nineteenth century. They did not
form a well- defi ned group of authoritative leaders.^12 Though the natural
sciences became an increasingly signifi cant part of the establishment’s
response to unbelief, the gentlemen of science were not always successful
in their attempts to persuade fellow members of the Anglican intellectual
elite that science was more than a secondary adjunct to theology. The
support for science at Oxford and Cambridge, where an education in lan-
guages and the classics was still considered the ideal, was woefully inad-
equate. Geology, chemistry, and botany were taught, but they were merely
optional lectures in subjects that were not examinable until after midcen-
tury. Science teaching at the ancient universities was not intended to in-
stitute a modern, professional education, but instead to educate Christian
gentlemen.^13 In spite of the connection with natural theology, the intel-
lectual status of “science” was a matter of contention in the fi rst half of
the century. This is precisely why Whewell attempted to coin a new term
to highlight the common enterprise in which he and his British Associa-
tion colleagues were engaged. It was part of the role that he had created
for himself as critic, reviewer, adjudicator, and legislator of science at a
time when the scale and character of the scientifi c enterprise were under-
going fundamental change.^14 Moreover, Whewell and his allies found that
various groups with different political and social agendas contested their
vision of science. Whether it was the middle- class Philosophical Radicals
with their utilitarian ideology and sensationalist theory of knowledge,
or more radical Nonconformists who attacked the Anglican oligarchy by
drawing on egalitarian conceptions imported from continental anatomy
and Lamarckian evolution, the gentlemen of science were hard- pressed to
defend the legitimacy of their own vision of science and the aristocratic
notion of society so intimately connected with it. Whereas Whewell and