370 Lightman
by human hands from materials supplied by nature, the fabric of science
is delicate and the quilt must be handled carefully. But if we can pick
apart the threads without unraveling the whole, we will understand how
the patterns have been formed, how they fi t, and, ultimately, what holds
them all together in the fragile tapestry of history.NOTES
The author would like to acknowledge those scholars whose helpful suggestions
strengthened this paper immeasurably. Paul Farber gave me the reference to Huxley’s
essay on biology and natural history. In addition to answering several questions about
the North British Physicists, Crosbie Smith drew my attention to lectures by Thomson
and Maxwell on natural philosophy. Erin Jenkins guided me toward Redfern and Mann
as good case studies for working class intellectuals who encountered science. Sally
Kohlstedt supplied me with some useful references to nineteenth- century Ameri-
can science. With Andy Daum’s permission, Lynn Nyhart kindly sent me his then-
unpublished paper on German popular science. I am also indebted to Adrian Desmond,
Don Opitz, Lynn Nyhart, and the editors for sharing their stimulating comments and
reactions to earlier drafts of this chapter. Finally, a version of this chapter appeared as
“Science, Scientists and the Public: The Contested Meanings of Science in Victorian
Britain,” in Bernard Lightman, Evolutionary Naturalism in Victorian Britain: The ‘Darwin-
ians’ and their Critics (Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2009), 1–40. The editors are grateful to
Ashgate for permission to republish it here.- [William Whewell], “Mrs. Somerville on the Connexion of the Sciences,” Quar-
terly Review 51 (1834): 59. - Ibid., 54–56.
- Sydney Ross, “‘Scientist’: The Story of a Word,” Annals of Science 18 (1962): 65–66.
- Frank M. Turner, Between Science and Religion: The Reaction to Scientifi c Naturalism
in Late Victorian England (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1974), 12–13. - John Tyndall, Fragments of Science, 8th ed. (London: Longmans, Green, & Co.,
1892), 2:197. - [ John Tulloch], “Modern Scientifi c Materialism,” Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine
188 (Nov. 1874): 520. - James A. Secord, Victorian Sensation: The Extraordinary Publication, Reception, and
Secret Authorship of Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 2000), 405. - Ibid., 406.
- William Paley, The Complete Works of William Paley, D.D. (London: J. F. Dove,
1825), 1:429. - Humphry Davy, The Collected Works of Sir Humphry Davy (ed. John Davy, [Lon-
don: Smith, Elder, 1839–1840], 2:326), as cited in Jan Golinski, Science as Public Culture: