What Is a Scientific Instrument, When Did It Become One, and Why?

The British Society for the History of Science

What Is a Scientific Instrument, When Did It Become One, and Why?Review by: Deborah Jean WarnerThe British Journal for the History of Science, Vol. 23, No. 1 (Mar., 1990), pp. 83-93Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of The British Society for the History of ScienceStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4026803 .

Accessed: 30/09/2013 18:23

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

Cambridge University Press and The British Society for the History of Science are collaborating with JSTOR todigitize, preserve and extend access to The British Journal for the History of Science.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 130.239.76.10 on Mon, 30 Sep 2013 18:23:07 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cup

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=bshs

http://www.jstor.org/stable/4026803?origin=JSTOR-pdf

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp


BJHS, 1990, 23, 83-93

Essay Review

What is a scientific instrument, when did it become one, and why?

Although a rose by any other name might smell as sweet, it is still a truth generally acknow- ledged that nomenclature can exert a powerful influence on perception. This truth is particularly apparent for such value-laden terms as 'art' and 'science', the meanings of which have often been vigorously contested. This essay explores the various English terms used to express the concept of a 'scientific instrument'-with some comparative evidence from French and German-and how and why these have changed over time. It suggests that the varying breadth of these terms reflects a chang- ing understanding of the scope of science.

Although instruments and apparatus have long been used for investigating the natural world, their importance increased markedly in the early years of the seventeenth century with the invention of the telescope and the micro- scope, the barometer and the air pump, and the pendulum clock, and the rise of experimental philosophy.' Investigators then, as now, were excited about particular instruments or experiments, but expressed little concern with the commonality of the various instruments used for observation and experiment.2 Increasingly, however, these instruments came to be grouped together, identified as the tools of

experimental or natural philosophy, and dis- tinguished from other sorts of instruments, such as musical, medical, and mathematical. The collective identity was forged, in large part, by people charged with organizing collections: curators, historians, dealers, authors of tariff regulations, and officials of exhibitions and patent offices.

The new name given to these instruments (or apparatus, as these terms were used inter- changeably) in the English-speaking world was 'philosophical', the term 'scientific' not yet having come into widespread use. The term probably entered the language during the early seventeenth-century period of reform which, following the lead of Francis Bacon, Charles Webster has termed the Great Instauration.3 Its first appearance of which I am aware occur- red in 1649, when Samuel Hartlib wrote to Robert Boyle about 'models and philo- sophicall apparatus'. The meaning of the new term was made explicit by Nehemiah Grew who, in his 1681 catalogue of objects belonging to the Royal Society, constructed a category 'Of Instruments relating to Natural Philosophy' distinct from the category of practical instruments which, following long tradition, he identified as 'Things relating to the Mathematicks'.4

Grew's distinction between philosophical and mathematical, which reflects a clear understanding of the power of words to influence perception, must be seen in the light of Thomas Sprat's suggestion that 'the best Natural Philosophy . . . may be learn'd from

1 Albert Van Helden, 'The Birth of the Modern Scientific Instrument', in The Uses of Science in the Age of Newton, (ed. by John Burke), Berkeley, 1983, pp. 49-84.

2 The men who in 1645 began meeting regu- larly, often at Gresham College, demanded of each other 'a weekly Contribution for the Charge of Experiments'. In a similar vein, Hooke was appointed Curator of Experiments at the Royal Soc- iety in 1662. Samuel Sorbiere in Paris was referring to similar objects when, in the early 1660s, he mentioned 'an arsenal of machines to carry out all sorts of experiments'.

3 Charles Webster, The Great Instauration, New York, 1976.

4 Hartlib's letter is quoted in Charles Weld, A History of the Royal Society, London, 1848, vol. i, p. 53. Nehemiah Grew, Musaeum Regalis Societatis. Or a Catalogue & Description of the Natural and Artificial Rarities Belonging to the Royal Society And preserved at Gresham Colledge, London, 1681,

p. 357.



84 Essay Review

the Shops of Mechanicks',5 and John Wallis's comment that mathematics, at that time, 'was scarce looked upon as Academical Studies, but rather mechanical-as the business of traders, merchants, seamen, carpenters, surveyors of land, and the like'.6 Philosophical, however, implied authority and prestige, and the liberal tradition open to the gentility. The verbal distinction between philosophical and mathematical obscured the connections between men of science-many of whom, as Webster has suggested, would use science to give them a leg up the social and/or intellectual ladder7-and the aspiring tradesmen, who as Jim Bennett argues, actually initiated the practice of scientific experiment in England.8 It implied that the observations, measurements and experiments of natural philosophers were made in a search for truth, and thus differed from the observations, measurements and experiments which mathematicians and mechanics made for merely practical purposes. The terminological ploy succeeded. The controversies of natural philosophers with scholastic philosophers, and their efforts to legitimize the inductive method as a form of philosophizing, have been exten- sively explored. The other side of the coin- their efforts to distinguish themselves from other empirical investigators-has not.

The Royal Society offers another glimpse of this sort of social manipulation.9 Its found- ers may have been disappointed to find that their royal charter did not encourage royal pat-

ronage similar to that enjoyed by their colleagues in France, but they must have appreciated the fact that it brought a measure of social and political recognition unknown to such earlier and informal groups as those meeting at Gresham College or at Oxford University.

The issue of social advancement may also explain, in part, the mixed signals regarding technology emitted by the experimental philosophers. Following the argument advanced by Francis Bacon, they were intensely interested in the contributions science could make to technology. At the same time, they sought to maintain the social boundary between philosophers and tradesmen. Accordingly they also made the air-pump, rather than any practical instrument, emblematic of their activities.10 And, while the socially secure Robert Boyle may have aimed to 'carry Philosophical materials from the shops to the Schooles and divulge the experiments of Artificers',1" most of his colleagues did not focus attention on these connections.

Philosophical apparatus proliferated in the eighteenth century, thanks in large part to men with a definite material interest, such as instrument makers, lecturers, authors, and pub- lishers.'2 Some philosophical apparatus was used for scientific investigations, but most was used pedagogically. The new meaning of the term was captured by Benjamin Martin who, in 1742, solicited students for an academy in which 'mathematical and philosophical instruments of all kinds' would be used to render art and science 'easy and familiar'. With an enthusiasm which comes through even the written word, Martin and other English, Dutch, French and German popularizers pro- claimed the benefits of the experimental

5 Thomas Sprat, History of the Royal Society, London, 1667, pp. 71, 121. Note that Sprat's famous frontispiece depicts such practical instruments as quadrants and sectors along with such philosophical instruments as telescopes and air pumps behind the figures of Lord Brouncker, Charles II, and Francis Bacon.

6 Quoted in E.G.R. Taylor, The Mathemati- cal Practitioners in Tudor and Stuart England, Cambridge, 1954, p. 4.

7 Webster, op. cit. (3), p. 486. 8 J.A. Bennett, 'The Mechanicians and the

Mechanical Philosophy', History of Science. (1986), 24, 1-28.

9 Michael Hunter, Science and Society in Resto- ration England, Cambridge, 1981, p. 58.

10 Steven Shapin and Simon Schaffer, Leviathan and The Air-Pump. Hobbes, Boyle, and The Experi- mental Life, Princeton, 1985.

11 Robert Boyle, Some Considerations Touching the Usefulnesse of Experimental Natural Philosophy, Oxford, 1664, Book II, pp. 18-29.

12 Roy Porter, et al., Science and Profit in 18th- Century London Cambridge, 1985.



Essay Review 85

method.13 In fact, however, they used their apparatus primarily for spectacular displays of what had already been discovered and, according to Simon Schaffer, 'to make manifest the theological and moral implications' of natural philosophy."4

The first commercial notice of the new term, indicating that philosophical apparatus was becoming a commodity, seems to have been Richard Glynne's 1726 advertisement that he 'Makes and sells apparatus for experimental philosophy'. Joseph Hickman introduced the term 'Philosophical Instrument Maker' in 1747.15 By 1800 at least a dozen Englishmen were identifying themselves as 'Mathematical and Optical Instrument Maker' or as 'Mathematical, Optical and Philosophi- cal Instrument Maker'. This composite terminology suggests several things. One is that despite the many connections between the various types of instruments, there was as yet no one concept or term to encompass them all. Another is that the demand for philosophical apparatus was not yet sufficient to support much specialization. Philosophical commis- sions may have brought prestige, but practical apparatus paid the bills. Another is the close connections between the philosophical and the

practical, especially in England, where scientists collaborated with mechanics in an effort to develop an astronomical solution to the longitude problem.16 Another is that the distinction between mathematical and optical instruments crumbled somewhat as the former began to be equipped with telescopic sights, and as the latter began to be equipped with substantial mounts and graduated circles. (Nevertheless, the term mathematical instrument continued in use until the late nineteenth century. When applied mathematics moved out of the mathematics curriculum and into departments of engineering, such things as transits and levels became known as engineering instruments. Optical retained its traditional meaning of any instrument whose primary component was a lens, mirror, or prism.) And yet another is that as the instrument business took the first steps towards industrialization, the term 'maker' came increasingly to signify the man who co-ordin- ated the activities of numerous anonymous craftsmen and women.

The distinctions between mathematical, optical, and philosophical were further blurred by the virtuosi with deep pockets who, in their search for conspicuous symbols of consump- tion and erudition, filled their cabinets with all the latest instruments, often together with a wide assortment of animals, vegetables, and minerals.17

During the course of the nineteenth century the terms 'natural philosophy' and 'philosophical instruments' gradually fell from use, while 'science' and 'scientific instruments' became increasingly common. As, however, the meanings of these terms were in flux, if not dispute, it is wrong to consider the newer terms as simple replacements for the older ones. Text books on natural philosophy addressed

13 Quoted in John R. Millburn, Benjamin Mar- tin. Author, Instrument-Maker, and 'Country Show- man', Leyden, 1976, p. 38. See also J.T. Desaguliers, Lectures of Experimental Philosophy, London, 1719, William Whiston, A Course of Mechanical, Optical, Hydrostatical, and Pneumatical Experi- ments. (n.d.), J.A. Nollet, Leqons de Physique Experimentale, Paris, 1745, and G.J.'s Graven- sande, Physices Elementa Mathematica Exer- perimentis Confirmata, Leyden, 1721.

14 Simon Schaffer, 'Natural Philosophy and Public Spectacle in the Eighteenth Century', History of Science, (1983), 21, pp. 1-43. Maurice Daumas, Scientific Instruments of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, New York, 1972, especially Part Two, chapter IV, 'The Collections of Philosophical Instruments'.

15 According to a private communication from Michael Crawforth of Project Simon, Glynne's advertisement is in G. Gordan, An Introduction ... to Geography, London, 1726, and Hickman's advertisement is in the Daily Advertiser, 27 June 1747.

16 Deborah Jean Warner, 'Astronomers, Arti- sans and Longitude', in Tekniska Museet Sym- posium, Transport Technology and Social Change, Stockholm, 1980, pp. 133-140.

17 Hunter, op, cit. (9), p. 68. Anthony Turner, Early Scientific Instruments. Europe 1400-1800. London, 1987, chapter VI, 'Contrasting Collec- tions'.



86 Essay Review

primarily mechanics, optics, pneumatics and electricity, while philosophical instruments, particularly in the eighteenth century, were those used to investigate and then demonstrate the truths of those subjects. Science, as it came to be understood in the nineteenth century, had various meanings, many of which were broader than natural philosophy, and nar- rower than the traditional scientia meaning all of knowledge. Many scientists viewed science-or natural science, to distinguish it from political science and moral science-as encom- passing the biological and physical sciences, now expanded to include such subjects as chemistry, geology, and physiology. Those men interested in professionalizing science tended to define scientific instruments as the tools of their trade, as distinct, for instance, from the tools of engineering. Those who stres- sed the connections between theory and practice tended to apply the mantle of science to a wide range of technical achievements. Their definition of scientific instruments thus included a wide range of educational and practical apparatus.

Unlike 'scientist', which was coined by William Whewell in 1834,18 the origin of the term 'scientific instrument' is obscure. We do know, however, who first made it important, when that happened, and why. The precipitat- ing factor was the Great Exhibition of 1851 at which Great Britain expected to dazzle the world, but learned to her chagrin that other industrialized countries were fast approach- ing, and in places surpassed, her own achievements.19 As the Americans did in reaction to Sputnik a century later, the British government immediately sought ways to improve technical education throughout the realm. To that end

they established a Department of Science and Art. On 15 November 1853 Lyon Playfair informed the Committee of Council on Educa- tion that this Department was 'superintending the preparation of Scientific Diagrams and Apparatus suited to elementary schools'. The Department would not actually produce the diagrams and apparatus. That was left to private enterprise. It would, however, pay up to fifty per cent of the cost of the authorized diagrams and apparatus ordered by schools.20 Within a short time numerous dealers were offering scientific instruments, meaning pre- sumably instruments which qualified for the government subsidy.2" (Incidentally, the ear- liest use I have found of the English term 'scientific instrument'-it appeared in the U.S.A. in 1847-also referred to apparatus for elementary education.22)

The new term seems to have originated in France in the late eighteenth century, in cir- cumstances remarkably similar to those that obtained in Britain at the mid-point of the nineteenth century. Recognizing that French

18 [William Whewell] review of Mrs Somerville, 'On the Connexion of the Physical Sciences' in Quar- terly Review, March, 1834. Whewell, Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, London, 1840, introduction. Whewell, History of the Inductive Sciences, London, 1837, vol. i, preface. Sydney Ross, 'Scientist: The Story of a Word', Annals of Sciences, (1962), 18, pp. 65-85.

19 J.A. Bennett, Science at the Great Exhibition, Cambridge, 1983.

20 First Report of the Department of Science and Art, London, 1854.

21 Horne & Thornthwaite, A Guide to the Purchase and Use of Scientific Instruments, London, 1857. Murray & Heath advertised as 'Manufactur- ers of Scientific, Chemical and Physical Apparatus to Her Majesty the Queen' in The Photographic News, 1858. R. and J. Beck, An Illustrated Catalogue of Scientific Instruments, London, 1865. L.P. Casella is listed as 'Scientific Instrument Maker to the Admiralty' on the title page of his Illustrated and Descriptive Catalogue of Surveying, Philosophical, Mathematical, Optical, Photographic, and Standard Meteorological Instruments, London, 1871.

22 Holbrook's Scientific Apparatus, Berea, Ohio, 1857. See also the evaluation of 'Common School Apparatus, consisting of Juvenile Instructor, Numeral Frame, Geometrical Forms, Arithmetical Solids, Geological Cabinet, Globe, Tellurion, Orrery, Thermometer, &c.' by various County School Superintendents in New York State: 'This is to certify, that after a careful examination of the Sci- entific School Apparatus. . . 'cited in Benjamin Pike, Jr., Illustrated Descriptive Catalogue of Optical, Mathematical, and Philosophical Instruments, New York, 1856, i, p. 386.



Essay Review 87

instruments were generally inferior to English ones, the French government instituted a 'corps d'ingenieurs en instruments d'optique, de mathematiques et de physique et autres ouv- rages a l'usage des sciences' in 1787. While 1&tienne Lenoir, the first 'ingenieur du Roi pour les instrumens a l'usage des sciences', specialized in instruments for geodesy and navigation,23 by the 1830s the French term was being applied to instruments for research and for advanced education. In the 1850s Lerebours et Secretan referred to 'instruments de la science moderne'.24 At the end of the century Mailhat mentioned 'tous les instruments scientifiques en general', while Ducretet referred to 'appareils scientifique de tous genres, soit ceux de recherche ou de demonstration destines aux cabinets de physique, soit ceux destines aux applications industrielles'.25

The term 'Wissenschaftliche Instrumente' probably came into use in the 1830s, when German scientists began developing institutions for professional education and communication. It must have been well established by 1850 when Andrew Prosch and Gustavus C. Wessman, two recent German immigrants to New York, termed themselves 'scientific instrument makers'.26

Following the lead of Reichenbach, Fraunhofer and Gambey, leading German and French mechanicians and opticians aimed to produce instruments based on 'a high standard of technical skill and equally advanced scien-

tific knowledge',27 and they seem to have been equally comfortable serving practical and philosophical customers.28 While the French and German terms were occasionally applied to apparatus for popular education, they were most often used to describe high-class mathematical instruments, reflecting in large part the importance of geodesy which, especially for Continental scientists, demanded the precise instrumentation formerly monopolized by astronomy, and later geomagnetism, the subject which, under the leadership of Carl Friedrich Gauss, is said to have set German physics 'on a new course'.29

The broad meaning of the term scientific instrument, common in French and German, was introduced to English speaking audiences during the second half of the nineteenth century. At the International Exhibition held at London in 1862, the Austrians stated clearly that 'The production of Scientific Instruments of every description has established its chief seat at Vienna'.30 The term was also used by the German makers who showed their wares at the several international exhibitions dating from 1873 to 1904.31 At the American Centen- nial Exhibition of 1876 'scientific' encompassed several distinct categories, including instruments for 'astronomy, geodesy, and surveying;

23 Maurice Daumas, 'Le corps des Ingenieurs brevetes en instruments scientifiques (1787)', Ar- chives Internationales d'Histoire des Sciences, (1952), 5, pp. 86-96. 'Liste Generale des Membres' appended to Bulletin de la Societe d' Encouragement pour l'Industrie Nationale, 1824, 23.

24 Lerebours et Secretan, Catalogue et Prix des Instruments d'Optique, Physique, de Chimie, de MatbMmatiques, d'Astronomie et de Marine, Paris, 1853, advertissement.

25 'Maihat' and 'Ducretet' in Syndicat des Con- structeurs en Instruments d'Optique & de Precision, L'Industrie Franqaise des Instruments de Precision, Paris, 1901-02.

26 Doggett's New York City Directory for 1 850-51.

27 Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Mechanik und Optik, Special Catalogue of the Collective Exhibi- tion of Scientific Instruments and Apparatus, Berlin, 1893.

28 A. Brachner, 'German Nineteenth-Century Scientific Instrument Makers', in Nineteenth-Cen- tury Scientific Instruments and Their Makers, (ed. by P.R. de Clerq) Leiden & Amsterdam, 1985, p. 119 Jacques Payen, 'Les Constructeurs d'Instruments Scientifiques en France au XIXe Siecle', Archives Internationales d'Histoire des Sciences, (1986), 36, pp. 84-161, excerpted in de Clerq (ed.), vide supra pp. 159-182.

29 Christa Jungnickel and Russell McCormmach, Intellectual Mastery of Nature, Chicago, 1986, vol. i, p. 63.

30 Arenstein, Austria at The International Exhibition of 1862, Vienna, 1862, p. 57.

31 Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Mechanik und Optik, op. cit. (27) German Educational exhibition, Scientific Instruments, Berlin, 1904.



88 Essay Review

instruments for mathematical drawing; hydro- graphic apparatus, meteorological instruments of all kinds: and . . . chemical and physical apparatus'. A few years later the Philadelphia dealer, J. W. Queen, noted that 'The character and uses of scientific instruments are so varied and the stock so large as to require, in our establishment, their division into special departments.'32

In Britain, however, there were some who would restrict the meaning of science, scientist, and scientific instrument. This effort began in the 1830s, led by men who promoted science as a profession, hoping to gain thereby not only career opportunities and research facilities, but also the status and authority long associated with the military and the learned professions of law, medicine, and theology.33 The reformers, who repeatedly described leading scientists as 'men of genius', sought to maintain and even enhance the aura of science as special knowledge, and to suggest that science provided certainty and stability increasingly unknown in the hurly-burly world of commerce and industry.34

The reformers laid particular stress on the importance of instruments, and the value of precise measurements manipulated by mathematics. Thomas Graham remarked that 'It is curious how much the progress of science depends upon the invention and improvement of instruments'. John Herschel is even more ar- ticulate on this point: in science 'We are obliged to have recourse to instrumental aids, that is, to contrivances which shall substitute for the vague impressions of sense the precise one of number, and reduce all measurement to counting.' William Whewell may have been more sceptical about instruments, arguing that precise instrumentation was useless without a

well-trained observer and sophisticated prog- ramme for reducing the observations, but he too recognized their worth.35 Engineers were, of course, also concerned with precision, and it was advances in engineering practice which made precision instruments available to science. But the job of engineers was to make things work in the world of commerce, while supposedly disinterested scientists sought knowledge that was 'objective, value transcen- dent, and tinged with the Divine'.36

James Clerk Maxwell seems to have been the first to spell out the scientists' meaning of the term 'scientific instrument'. He did so in his capacity as a member of the British Committee of Council on Education which organized a Special Loan Collection of Scientific Appara- tus in 1876.37 In deciding what to include, the Committee paid particular attention to the 'limitations it might be desirable to place on the term "Scientific apparatus"'. Although in the end they included models and other teaching apparatus, for the most part they followed Maxwell's definition: 'Everything which is required in order to make an experiment is called Apparatus' and 'A piece of apparatus constructed specially for the performance of experiments is called an Instrument.' Max- well's definition was essentially functional. An instrument was not scientific in and of itself, but only if it was used for scientific observation and /or experiment. Other instruments, however similar, which were used for educational or commercial purposes, were not. Maxwell's definition was repeated in the U.S.A. by the

32 J.W. Queen & Co., Catalogue of Physical Instruments, Chemical Apparatus, Chemicals and School Apparatus Generally, Philadelphia, 1881, preface.

33 Susan Faye Cannon, Science in Culture, New York, 1978, p. 145.

34 Simon Schaffer, 'Scientific Discoveries and the End of Natural Philosophy', Social Studies of Sci- ence, (1986), 16, pp. 387-420.

35 Graham is quoted in Gerard Turner, Nineteenth-Century Scientific Instruments, London, 1983, preface. John Herschel, A Preliminary Dis- course on the Study of Natural Philosophy, London, 1830, p. 125. William Whewell, The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences. London, 1840, ii, book xii.

36 P.M. Harman, (ed.) 'Introduction', in Wranglers and Physicists, Manchester, 1985. The quote is from J.B. Morrell and Arnold Thackray, Gentlemen of Science, Oxford, 1981, p. 481.

37 J.C. Maxwell, 'General Considerations Con- cerning Scientific Apparatus,' pp. 1-21 in Hand- book to the Special Loan Collection of Scientific Apparatus, South Kensington Museum London, 1876, pp. 1-21.



Essay Review 89

National Academy of Sciences which, after noting no distinction between scientific and philosophical,38 argued that 'an instrument is philosophical, not in consequence of its special construction or function, but in consequence of the uses to which it is to be put, and many instruments may be put both to uses which are philosophical and to uses which are purely industrial or commercial'.39

The British reformers, undoubtedly in part in response to the public spectacles of the eighteenth century, were particularly interested in distancing themselves from popularizers. In Whewell's words, 'there is no Popular Road to these sciences'.40 In his 1871 inaugural address as the first Cavendish Pro- fessor of Experimental Physics at Cambridge, Maxwell emphasized the difference between experiments of 'illustration' and experiments of 'research'.41 German scientists, many of whom were civil servants hired to teach, seem to have been less concerned about distinguish- ing scientific from educational apparatus. Wilhelm Weber, who began teaching physics at Gottingen in 1831, provides a good example of the relaxed Germanic attitude towards this terminology. When his initial request for research apparatus was turned down, Weber submitted a new request for the same apparatus, but termed it educational, and succeeded in obtaining the funds needed to set up his laboratory.42

The British reformers, especially those associated with Cambridge, were equally

interested in distancing themselves from technology, and they repeatedly emphasized the difference between the liberal understanding of scientists and the empirical knowledge of ingenious mechanics.43 At the same time, however, they adhered to the theory of science leading to practical applications-a theory which generated scepticism among many practitioners-and claimed credit for many of the technological advances which were transform- ing power and production around the world.44 The Baconian trickle-down theory was particularly evident at the Crystal Palace where Class X encompassed 'Philosophical Instru- ments and Processes Depending on Their Use'. James Glaisher, in his capacity as judge at that exhibition, spoke of the 'eminent men, who have toiled during successive generations for the advancement of science, and whose suc- cessful efforts have developed the important principles which have served for the groundwork of modern discoveries, and their beautiful applications to the wants of the present day'.45

As high technology contributed an increas- ing portion to national wealth and prestige, scientists tightened their allegiance to an aris- tocracy of intellect, and reiterated the moral virtue of their disinterested search for truth.46

38 For some, however, scientific referred to instruments used for original investigation and professional training, while philosophical referred to those used for 'demonstrating the laws, principles and facts of physical science'. see J.W. Queen & Co., Priced and Illustrated Catalogue of Physical Instru- ments, Philadelphia, 1882, preface.

39 'Report on Customs Duty on Philosophical and Scientific Apparatus', Report, National Academy of Sciences, 1884, pp. 65-67.

40 Whewell, Philosophy of the Inductive Sci- ences, London, 1840, p. 513.

41 Quoted in Egon Lehrburger, The Cavendish Laboratory, London, 1962, p. 16.

42 Jungnickel and McCormmach, op. cit. (29), pp. 89-90.

43 Thomas F. Gieryn, 'Boundary-Work and the Demarcation of Science from Non-Science: Strains and Interests in Professional Ideologies of Scientists', American Sociological Review, 1983, 48, pp. 781- 795.

44 For an American example see Arthur Molella and Nathan Reingold, 'Theorists and Ingenious Mechanics: Joseph Henry Defines Science', Science Studies, (1979), 3, pp. 323-351.

45 Great Exhibition Report of Juries, p. 316. see also Catalogue of the Philosophical Instruments, Models of Inventions, Products of National Indus- try, &c. &c. Contained in The First Exhibition of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, 1838, and Patent Office of Great Britain, Abridge- ment of Specifications Relating to Optical, Mathematical, and Other Philosophical Instru- ments, London, 1875.

46 Susan Faye Cannon, op. cit. (33), chapter I, 'Science as Norm of Truth'. For a later example see Paul Forman, 'The Self-Image of the American



90 Essay Review

Indeed, this concern seems to have grown even as science and technology grew together; as industry was demanding precision machining and standardized parts, as engineering was moving into academic curricula, and as scientists were becoming increasingly involved with telegraphy and other science-based technologies. Even William Thomson, who promoted the unity of theory and practice, implied that the precise measurements on which science depends differed markedly from the various measurements made for commercial purposes.47 In the U.S.A. this line was taken by Joseph Henry at mid-century, and later by Henry A. Rowland, who issued a 'Plea for Pure Science' even as he was serving as a consulting engineer and teaching the first gen- eration of American electrical engineers.

Maxwell's definition of a scientific instrument was widely accepted within the professional scientific communities of England and the U.S.A. It informed the practice of those instrument makers who catered to the scientists, notably The Cambridge Scientific Instru- ment Company, and William Ladd, 'Scientific Instrument Maker by Appointment to the Royal Institution of Great Britain'.48 It

informed the Harvard professors who, in 1879, organized a national inventory of apparatus 'available for scientific researches' which focused narrowly on 'apparatus required for exact quantitative determinations in the various branches of Physics'.49 And it informed the Journal of Scientific Instruments, founded by the Institute of Physics in 1922.

I will close this essay by mentioning two other terms: instrument of precision, and instrument of physics. During the nineteenth century the French Patent Office used the former to encompass horology, apparatus of physics and chemistry, apparatus of medicine and surgery, telegraphy, weights and mea- sures, and mathematical instruments. The term was used in a similar fashion at the international expositions held at Paris in 1867 and 1889, and at Philadelphia in 1876.50 The term was also used in its literal sense, as when the talented mathematical instrument maker, H. P. Gambey identified himself as 'fabricant d'instrumens de pr6cision'.5" The term was used literally and broadly simultaneously by the Syndicat des Constructeurs en Instruments d'Optique & de Pretcision, which entitled their catalogue of apparatus for science, education and industry, L'Industrie Franqaise des Instru- ments de Precision (Paris, 1901-02).

'Instrument de physique', originally the French equivalent of philosophical instrument, came to signify the apparatus of the modern

Physicist Before and Since the Second World War', paper presented at Joint Atlantic Seminar for the History of Science, 22 April 1988.

47 Romuldas Sviedrys, 'The Rise of Physics Laboratories in Britain', Historical Studies in the Physical Sciences, (1976), 7, pp. 405-436. William Thomson, 'The Structure of Matter and the Unity of Science', 1871 presidential address to the British Association for the Advancement of Science, quoted in Victorian Science, (ed. bv G. Basalla, W. Coleman and R. Kargon) Garden City, 1970, p. 103.

48 M.J.G. Cattemole and A.F. Wolfe, Horace Darwin's Shop: A History of The Cambridge Scien- tific Instrument Company, 1878 to 1968, Bristol & Boston, 1987. William Ladd in Nature, (1869), 1, p. 3 8. Buff and Berger, Catalogue of the Engineers'and Surveyors' Instruments, Boston, 1889, noted that, in addition to their regular work, 'We have made and do make scientific instruments'. By the 1 920s in Eng- land there was also the Endicott Scientific Instru- ment Co., and Heath & Co., Ltd at the New Eltham Scientific Instrument Works, while in the U.S.A. there were such companies as the Central Scientific Co.

49 'List of Apparatus Available for Scientific Researches Involving Accurate Measurements', Harvard College Library Bulletin, (1879), 11, pp. 301-4, 350-4.

50 U.S. Patent Office, Subject Matter Index of Patents for Invention . . . Granted in France, Washington, D.C., 1883. Paris Universal Exposi- tion, Reports of the U. S. Commissioners, Washington, D.C., 1867, iii, p. 469. Paris exposition Universelle Internationale, Rapport Geniral, Paris, 1889, iv, p. 532. At the Centennial Exhibition held at Philadelphia in 1876, Group XXV comprised 'Instruments of Precision, Research, Experiment, and Illustration'.

51 Francoeur, 'Rapport ... sur le theodolite de M. Gambey, fabricant d'instrumens de pr6cision', Bulletin de la Sociite d'Encouragement pour l'In- dustrie Nationale, (1822), 21, p. 151.



Essay Review 91

science of physics, which developed in France in the latter decades of the eighteenth century.52 Mossy, who worked in Paris around 1770 making barometers, thermometers, and other instruments with glass tubes, was known as a 'constructeur des instruments de physique en verre'.53 By the 1830s Pixii pere et fils were selling a wide variety of 'instruments de physique', and other Parisians were quick to follow suit. While these makers offered many traditional philosophical instruments, they were most proud of those designed for advanced education and research. Pixii supplied apparatus to the Lcole Polytech- nique, then one of the leading institutions in the world providing higher education in science. Lerebours et Secretan supplied the equally renowned 1cole Imperiale des Ponts et Chausees. Maison Charles Chevalier point- edly offered 'instruments de physique experimentale'.54

The Germans also adopted the modern notion of physics at an early date. As explained by Oswald Marbach in 1850, 'Physikalischer Apparate' had long referred to collections of beautiful, unusual and ingenious objects, but in recent years this term had come to signify objects valued for their usefulness, especially the higher classes of optical and mathematical instruments and those instruments designed specifically for physics.55 During the latter part

of the nineteenth century German instrument makers used this term frequently, often in its literal sense."6 The term physical instruments seems never to have caught on in England. It did, however, in the U.S.A. where scientists were more heavily influenced by French and German experiences.57

Western countries have long been proud of their contributions to science, and treasured the material evidence of these scientific achievements. The Medici collection of Galileo's telescopes became Tuscan state prop- erty in the eighteenth century. The Royal Soci- ety of London displayed Newton's telescope, the Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers displayed Lavoisier's apparatus, and the Smithsonian Institution displayed Priestley's burning lens. The Special Loan Collection of 1876 included such apparatus 'as possessed historic interest on account of the persons by whom or the researches in which, it had been employed'. The exhibit mounted by German universities at the Columbian Exposition of 1893 included von Guericke's air pump, Kirch- hoff's spectroscope, and other apparatus 'with which the German scientists had made important and, in part, memorable advances in the exact sciences).58

For the most part, however, collectors of historic scientific apparatus have been more concerned with beauty and ingenuity than with memorable advances.59 Typical in this

52 P.M. Harman, op. cit. (36). 53 Maurice Daumas, Scientific Instruments of

the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, New York, 1972, p. 289. W.E.K. Middleton, History of the Barometer, Baltimore, 1964, pp. 89-90.

54 Pixii, Catalogue des Principaux Instruments de Physique, Chimie, Optique, Mathematiques, et Autres a l'Usage des Sciences, Paris, 1832. Lerebours et Secretan, Catalogue et Prix des Instruments d'Op- tique, de Physique, de Chimie, de Mathtmatique, d'Astronomie et de Marine, Paris, 1853. Maison Charles Chevalier, Catalogue ... des Instruments de Physique Experimentale, Paris, 1861.

55 Oswald Marbach, Physikalisches Lexicon, Leipzig, 1850, pp. 244-78, offered as examples the physics apparatus of Emil Stohrer in Leipzig and Meyerstein in Gottingen, the optical instruments of Merz, Utzschneider & Fraunhofer in Munich, the microscopes of Schief in Berlin, and the mathematical instruments of Ertel & Sohn in Munich and Boller in Leipzig.

56 C. Gerhardt, Preis-Verzeichnis uber Physikalische Apparate, Bonn, 1893. Max Kohl, Physikalische Apparate, Chemnitz, 1904. E. Leybold, Catalogue of Physical Apparatus, Cologne, after 1905.

57 E.S. Ritchie, Catalogue of Physical Instru- ments, Boston, 1880. J.W. Queen & Co., Catalogue of Physical Instruments, Chemical Apparatus, Chemicals and School Apparatus Generally, Philadelphia, 1881. L. E. Knott, Physical Instru- ments, Boston, 1912.

58 South Kensington Museum, Handbook to the Special Loan Collection of Scientific Apparatus, London, 1876, introduction. Chicago, Columbian Exposition, Katalog der Universitats Ausstellung, Berlin, 1893. German Educational Exhibition, Sci- entific Instruments, Berlin, 1904, historical remarks p. 97.

59 J.V. Field, 'What is Scientific About a Scien- tific Instrument?' Nuncius, (1988), 3, pp. 3-26.



92 Essay Review

regard was Robert T. Gunther, creator and first curator of the Museum of the History of Science in the Old Ashmolean Museum at Oxford.60 Gunther began his career as Lec- turer in Natural Science at Magdalen College. Always interested in history, he began seeking out and photographing the old apparatus in Oxford laboratories and museums in 1915, fearful that war-time atrocities might destroy the unusual if not unique evidence of early science at his University. Writing at a time when the centre of British science was at Cambridge, Gunther's primary focus was the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when science at Oxford was equal to that in other institutions, and when British instruments were equal to those made in other countries. He cast a wide net, and caught demonstration apparatus, instruments for observation and experiment, and various astrolabes and sundials donated to the colleges by wealthy alumni.61

Gunther's eclecticism may have derived, in part, from the German historians who, in the latter half of the nineteenth century, had begun collecting, studying and displaying Islamic and early European mathematical instruments. Although appreciated primarily as works of art or artisanship, these instruments were often identified as Wissenschaftliche, meaning 'knowledge broadly construed'.62

Although Gunther never clearly defined what he meant by a scientific instrument, his tacit definition-which included the tools of self-identified scientists, as well as old (but not contemporary) educational and practical apparatus-was accepted by his intellectual descendants, beginning with G. Boffito's Gli Strumenti della Scienza e la Scienza degli

Strumenti (Florence, 1929). It was also accepted by the compilers of the inventory of 'instruments scientifiques de valeur his- torique', which had been proposed by the Comite Belge d'Histoire des Sciences on the eve of World War Two, and which finally appeared in 1958. That same year the Interna- tional Union of the History and Philosophy of Science established a Scientific Instrument Commission and charged it to sponsor national inventories of scientific instruments of historical value. The Commission succeeded in energizing numerous historians to turn their attention to this aspect of their material herit- age. Despite sponsorship by the IUHPS, however, most studies to date have neglected the ninteenth and twentieth centuries, and thus most instruments which most scientists of that time, and many historians of science as well, would consider scientific. And, except for instruments of navigation, surveying, and horology, they have neglected practical instruments of the modern period.63

Since 'science' has always connoted 61itism, defining an instrument as scientific elevates its status, and that of everyone it touches: maker, user, owner, and historian. Gunther's definition thus appealed to the growing cadre of instrument enthusiasts who wished to distinguish themselves from tool-collectors and other antiquarians. It was also embraced by liberal historians who believed that science transcended class distinctions, and by Marx- ists who sought the roots of science in work- ing-class experience.64

The task facing historians of scientific instruments is comprehension of the past in its own terms. To that end we should notice the extent to which the terminology we have cho- sen obscures the meaning of apparatus for the

60 A.V. Simcock (ed.), Robert T. Gunther and the Old Ashmolean, Oxford, 1985.

61 Robert T. Gunther, Early Science in Oxford, Oxford, 1923-1945, and Early Science in Cam- bridge, Oxford, 1937.

62 G. Von Bezold, Wissenschaftliche Instrumente im Germanischen Museum, Niirnberg, 1899. Alfred Rohde, Die Geschichte der Wis- senschaftlichen Instrumente vom Beginn der Renais- sance bis zum Ausgang des 18. Iahrhunderts, Leip- zig, 1923.

63 Gerald L'E. Turner, Ninteteenth-Century Sci- entific Instruments, London, 1983, and P.R. de Clercq (ed.) Ninteteenth-Century Scientific Instru- ments and Their Makers, Leiden & Amsterdam, 1985, begin to rectify this situation.

64 Mary M. Robischon, Scientific Instrument Makers in London During the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (PhD dissertation, University of Michigan, 1983), especially chapter II.



Essay Review 93

cultures in which it was made and used. I am not arguing that we scrap the generic term scientific instrument altogether, but I would suggest that probably we should not use it very often. Instead, as much as possible, we should use terms contemporaneous with the instruments themselves.

Maxwell's narrow definition of a scientific instrument is helpful in understanding the role of these instruments in establishing the professional identity of some English scientists in the middle decades of the nineteenth century. It should not, however, be allowed to constrain our understanding of the breadth of the scientific enterprise as a whole.

Gunther's definition implies a recognition that the scientific enterprise was greater than the professionalizers of British science would have us believe. Even so, his definition may be too narrow still. By emphasizing the scientific, it blinds

us to the contributions instruments and instrument makers have made to various aspects of commerce and education.65

As William Thomson pointed out in 1846, 'nothing in science is more difficult than defini- tions',66 This is certainly true of 'scientific instruments', a term which means different things to different people, and whose meaning has changed substantially over time.

DEBORAH JEAN WARNER

National Museum of American History, Smitbsonian Institution,

Washington DC 20560, USA

65 David Bryden, Scottish Scientific Instrument Makers, 1600-1900, Edinburgh, 1972, p. 33. W.D. Hackmann, 'The Ninteenth Century Trade in Natural Philosophy Instruments in Britain', in de Clercq (ed.), op. cit. (63), p. 77.

66 Silvanus P. Thompson, Life of Lord Kelvin, London,1901,p.239.



Documents

What Is a Scientific Instrument, When Did It Become One, and Why?