356 Lightman
the authority of scientists, depicting them as too specialized and nar-
row, and appealed directly to public judgment to determine the scientifi c
worth of his theories. Despite being denounced by many of the eminent
gentlemen of science, not to mention a young Thomas Henry Huxley, in
Britain alone, Vestiges sold forty thousand copies, the sales boosted by the
publication of cheap reprints.^54
The existence of a robust market for popular science became fi rmly
established in the second half of the nineteenth century, as the structure
of communication underwent further changes with the repeal of the re-
maining taxes on knowledge, the introduction of the rotary press, and a
gigantic expansion in newspaper and periodical publishing. New cheap
national newspapers slowly replaced expensive provincial ones, and the
monthlies superseded the highbrow quarterlies. Secord sums up the re-
sults nicely: “The ‘People,’ imagined by the entrepreneurs of useful knowl-
edge in the 1830s, came into being as the market for the late Victorian
mass- circulation press.” Though by the end of the century categories like
“popular” science and “professional” science became embedded in stable
publishing genres, and “popular” science came to be used somewhat dis-
missively, the power of scientists to control the meaning of science was se-
verely limited by the creation of the new mass media and by the resulting
proliferation of alternative points of view.^55 Little did Tyndall and Spencer
suspect, as they worked as land surveyors before becoming eminent scien-
tifi c naturalists, that they were helping to lay the groundwork for the vast
railway system that was so essential to the communications revolution
that would later confi ne their ability to dominate science. Ironically, the
same social and economic forces, fl owing out of the industrial revolu-
tion, which favored the development of professional science by bringing
the British middle class (with its large Nonconformist component) into
prominence during the nineteenth century, created a counterbalance to
the infl uence of scientifi c naturalism.
The communications revolution opened up a new space in the second
half of the century for men and women who were interested in science
but who had little or no formal training in the area to forge careers in sci-
ence journalism. These science journalists created a role for themselves as
mediators between the specialized, professional scientist and the members
of the reading public interested in the larger religious, moral, and social
implications of the most recent discoveries.^56 They had their own set of
goals, which did not necessarily coincide with the agenda of those like
Huxley, who were determined to professionalize and secularize science.
Many popularizers of science, for example, provided their readers with a
readily accessible natural theology, updated in light of current scientifi c