Styles of Reasoning in the British Life Sciences: Shared Assumptions, 1820-1858

STYLES OF REASONING IN THE BRITISH LIFE SCIENCES: SHARED ASSUMPTIONS, 1820–1858

SCIENCE AND CULTURE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Series Editor: Bernard Lightman

FORTHCOMING TITLES Recreating Newton: Newtonian Biography and the Making of NineteenthCentury History of Science Rebekah Higgitt The Transit of Venus Enterprise in Victorian Britain Jessica Ratcliff Medicine and Modernism: A Biography of Sir Henry Head L. S. Jacyna Science and Eccentricity: Collecting, Writing and Performing Science for Early Nineteenth-Century Audiences Victoria Carroll

www.pickeringchatto.com/scienceculture

STYLES OF REASONING IN THE BRITISH LIFE SCIENCES: SHARED ASSUMPTIONS, 1820–1858

BY

James Elwick

LONDON PICKERING & CHATTO 2007

Published by Pickering & Chatto (Publishers) Limited 21 Bloomsbury Way, London WC1A 2TH 2252 Ridge Road, Brookfield, Vermont 05036-9704, USA www.pickeringchatto.com All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without prior permission of the publisher. © Pickering & Chatto (Publishers) Limited 2007 © James Elwick 2007 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Elwick, James Styles of reasoning in the British life sciences: shared assumptions, 1820–58. – (Science and culture in the nineteenth century) 1. Life sciences – Research – Great Britain – History – 19th century 2. Life sciences – Methodology I. Title 570.7’2’041 ISBN-13: 9781851969203

∞ This publication is printed on acid-free paper that conforms to the American National Standard for the Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials. Typeset by Pickering & Chatto (Publishers) Limited Printed in the United Kingdom at Athenaeum Press Ltd, Gateshead

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments List of Illustrations Introduction Styles of Reasoning: Analysis:Synthesis and Palaetiology Problematics A London Community of Life Researchers and other Historiographic Notes The Argument and Structure Historians’ Questions 1 Analysis Part One Analysis:Synthesis in France Philosophic Anatomy in London Philosophic Radicals and Philosophic Anatomists: Mutually Appreciative Audiences Analysis:Synthesis, Political Individualism and Spontaneous Order The Importance of Museums The Contingent Beginnings of Richard Owen The Domestication of Analysis:Synthesis: Owen’s Reinterpretation of John Hunter Owen’s Rise 2 Analysis Part Two Neurophysiology as Analysis: Vivisections The Reflex Arc, Analysis and Compound Individuality Lower Animals, Disunity and the Reflex Arc The Bodily Oeconomy Compound Individuality and Levels of Organization: Phrenology and Wiganism Hierarchy and Internal Unity 3 Synthesis Cephalization

vii ix 1 2 5 6 7 9 11 14 18 22 25 29 32 37 40 43 43 46 50 55 58 61 65 65

Centripetal Development 67 Cephalization and Recapitulation 71 Exemplars of Cephalization 75 The Creation and Reception of a New Exemplar 80 Monsters as Synthesized (Truly Compound) Organisms 85 4 Regeneration as Reproduction 87 Exemplars: Recurring Puzzles and Animal-Researcher Pairings 89 Why did Owen call it Vegetative Repetition? 93 Parthenogenesis then Metagenesis 101 The Acceptance of Metagenesis 105 5 1837: The Accession of Palaetiology 109 William Whewell and Palaetiology, 1837 110 Martin Barry and the Introduction of von Baerian Embryology to Britain, 1837 111 William B. Carpenter and the Reinterpretation of Zoophytes 116 Vivaria and Questions of Evidence 122 Huxley, Palaetiologist 125 6 Alternative Explanations and New Generations, 1850–1858 131 Huxley Cultivates London Mentors 132 Zoöids and Individuality 133 Private Attacks upon Owen Begin 138 Public Attacks upon Owen Begin 142 Reproductive Masses: ‘Buds’ or ‘Pseudova’? 143 Professionalization as Exclusion 149 Conclusion 161 Individual Agency and Styles of Reasoning? 165 Notes 169 Works Cited 205 Index 227

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I have incurred numerous debts to many people as this book went into print and am grateful for the chance to thank them. This book has benefited from advice and suggestions by many people in the history and philosophy of biology, Victorian studies and history of science more generally. In particular I thank Ruth Barton, John Beatty, Conor Burns, Peter Clarke, Jennifer Coggon, James Delbourgo, Darrin Durant, Martin Fichman, Craig Fraser, Elihu Gerson, Piers Hale, Alan Hall, Michael Ghiselin, Sungook Hong, Rob Iliffe, Nicholas Jardine, Edward Jones-Imhotep, Fredrik Jonsson, Jenn Keelan, Kenton Kroker, Trevor Levere, Gordon McOuat, Lynn Nyhart, John Pickstone, Andrew Reynolds, Harriet Ritvo, Jan Sapp, Anne Secord, Sara Scharf, Ian Slater, Charissa Varma and Paul White. More generally I would like to acknowledge my debt to the students and faculty of the Institute of the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology, University of Toronto, where I obtained my doctorate; and to the faculty of the Science and Technology Studies Program, York University, Toronto, where I did my postdoctorate. I am particularly grateful to Bernard Lightman and Katharine Anderson, who read the entire book manuscript in its various forms and multiple versions – their suggestions have substantially improved it. I am also indebted to the two anonymous referees for Pickering & Chatto, who put their fingers on several points that worried at me in a subconscious and unarticulated way. My research has been supported during my doctoral and postdoctoral work by grants from the Joint Initiative in German and European Studies, University of Toronto, and by Ontario Graduate Scholarships, University of Toronto Fellowships and a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Postdoctoral Fellowship. I thank the administrators of these funds and agencies for making this work possible. I am particularly indebted to two groups of libraries and archives that gave me access to sources and answered my numerous questions. First, I thank the staff of the various libraries of the under-appreciated University of Toronto system, especially in its Interlibrary Loans Service and in the University’s extraordinary Fisher Rare Books Room. Second, I am grateful to the staff of several London

– vii–

viii

Styles of Reasoning in the British Life Sciences

archives. Tina Craig helped me at the Royal College of Surgeons and I reproduce work from the Richard Owen Papers by the kind permission of the Royal College of Surgeons of England’s President and Council. At the Linnean Society of London, Gina Douglas made my trip to the George Newport Correspondence, Linnean Society Manuscripts No. 236, far easier. Paul Cooper was of great assistance at the Natural History Museum (London) and I reproduce work from the Richard Owen Correspondence and Collection by permission of the Natural History Museum’s Trustees. I am grateful for Anne Barrett’s assistance with the Papers of T. H. Huxley, College Archives, Imperial College London, and am especially indebted to her former assistant, Hilary McEwan. Some of the points raised here were first tried out in conference and seminar papers and in particular I thank audience members at York and Harvard Universities and the Universities of Guelph and Toronto for strengthening these arguments. Parts of these chapters have previously appeared – in altered form – in History of Science, Victorian Studies and the Journal of the History of Biology. I thank the past and present editorial staff at these journals and their anonymous referees for their help and suggestions. In writing this book I owe a special debt to three people: to Ian Hacking, whose subtle suggestions have the power to redirect entire manuscripts; to Polly Winsor, whose enthusiasm and knowledge made her a marvellous doctoral supervisor; and to Bernard Lightman, an ideal postdoctoral supervisor, whose exemplary industry, kindness and astute suggestions helped mould this work into shape. While I am sometimes tempted to blame any mistakes in this book on the occasional failure of my phrenological faculty of Concentrativeness, I take full responsibility for such errors. Finally, my greatest thanks is to my family: to Sue Heddle and Spencer Elwick for their patience with me and with this project, and to my parents, John and Penny, for their unflagging moral support. This book is dedicated to them.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

1.1. 1.2. 1.3. 1.4. 1.5. 2.1. 2.2. 3.1. 3.2.

Some life researcher commitments 1830–50 The new London University c. 1827 J. Bentham’s ‘Analytical Sketch’ Royal College of Surgeons c. 1827 British Museum c. 1827 G. Newport’s nervous system of Iulus terrestris W.B. Carpenter’s Iulus Cephalizing vertebrate brain masses Organization of T. R. Jones’s General Outline of the Animal Kingdom (1841) 3.3. Starfish nervous system 3.4. Starfish nervous system fully schematized 3.5. G. Newport’s coalescence of privet hawk-moth nervous system during metamorphosis 3.6. Newport’s depiction used by P. M. Roget, S. Solly, T. R. Jones and W. B. Carpenter 4.1. Lingthorn starfish 4.2. Dredging 4.3. Taenia solium – the pork tapeworm – usually found in humans 4.4. Ovaries of simple cestoid worms 4.5. Repeating generative organs of Taenia solium 4.6. Aphid metagenesis 4.7. Single Hydra viridis 4.8. Group of Hydra viridis 4.9. T. R. Jones’s Nereis 4.10. W. B. Carpenter’s Nereis 4.11. R. Owen’s ‘Ideal typical vertebra’ 4.12. R. Owen’s analogies between aphid, zoophyte and plant 5.1. K. Ernst von Baer’s ‘Scheme of the progress of development’ 5.2. M. Barry’s diagram of elaboration of development 5.3. M. Barry’s ‘The Tree of Animal Development’

– ix–

12 20 23 34 37 52 53 70 75 77 77 82 83 87 88 89 90 90 94 94 95 96 96 103 106 114 117 117

x

5.4. 5.5. 5.6. 6.1. 6.2. 6.3.

Styles of Reasoning in the British Life Sciences

S. Hibberd’s ‘Cabinet Aquarium’ One of Lloyd’s Aquarium Warehouse’s three rooms ‘Portable fish-hatching apparatus’ T. H. Huxley’s Salpae buds J. Lubbock’s Daphnia schaefferi and reproductive masses T. H. Huxley’s colonial Botryllus sea squirts

126 127 128 137 144 151

INTRODUCTION

This book reconstructs some of the assumptions shared by a group of London life researchers in the thirty-eight years before Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species. It sets out to understand some of the questions that intrigued members of this community, looks at the research from their perspective and depicts their various theories and hypotheses as answers to these questions. In so doing it shows them to be part of a larger interlocking system of beliefs. Some are forgotten; others still live on. This work can thus be seen as a history of a pre-Darwinian mentality in the life sciences. It does differ from earlier studies of mentalities because of its narrow range and focus – covering under forty years, looking only at those in a single city, dealing mainly with those who studied invertebrates. Yet Styles of Reasoning can be seen as a history of a mentality for other reasons. It studies collective and often unarticulated beliefs that formed a backdrop for the individual projects of London life researchers. It investigates many ordinary people too – not peasants or heterodox millers but instead now-forgotten life researchers who wrote textbooks, published in medical journals or taught comparative anatomy and physiology to medical students. These people shared assumptions and similar practices that formed an underlying context; a framework giving explicit theories and definitions their meaning and appeal. Finally, this book shows how many of these shared beliefs often reinforced one another, together forming a coherent system. If certain points were accepted, then one was constrained – though not forced – to accept other points.1 These shared presuppositions can be explicated still further, using work from history and philosophy of science: instead of calling them mentalities they are called styles of reasoning. Styles of reasoning are here defined as self-reinforcing beliefs about what counted as good research. More durable than Kuhnian paradigms, they were rules about how one reasoned correctly, tacit positions that channelled researchers into deeming certain kinds of evidence to be more relevant to their investigations. A style of reasoning is a more historiographically precise tool than a mentality, because it acknowledges that different styles can coexist. It also more strongly emphasizes the role of scientific practice. Indeed

–1–

2

Styles of Reasoning in the British Life Sciences

this book gets its title from Ian Hacking, who altered Alistair Crombie’s ‘styles of scientific thought’ to highlight that scientific work is done just as much outside the head as inside it.2 This book uses other insights about styles of reasoning from historians and philosophers ranging from Robin George Collingwood in the 1930s to John Pickstone today. The ways in which they have used styles of reasoning to understand past science have several points in common. Seeing past scientific research as grounded in different styles of reasoning helps us to sympathetically understand that work. Styles of reasoning also show how past beliefs were structured in a coherent way, reinforcing one another to the point of self-authentication. Most relevant for the historian of science, styles of reasoning especially show how scientific disputes were often arguments over exactly what constituted evidence. They illustrate that past scientific disagreements often happened between practitioners who used different styles, constraining each side to see certain kinds of evidence as more relevant than other kinds.

Styles of Reasoning: Analysis:Synthesis and Palaetiology This book examines Londoners using two different styles of reasoning in the life sciences between 1820 and 1858. The simplest way to tell this story is to focus on one style and then on the other. This does not result in an overly schematic history, if by this term one denotes a rigid and artificial set of historiographic structures. One reason is because of the agents’ own self-descriptions and practices. Many researchers explicitly described themselves as practising one style or the other. In other cases, although they did not openly describe themselves as practising one style, researchers’ methods and practices clearly show a use of one common style or the other, and this is duly noted. In still other instances a researcher would appropriate what he liked from another’s work and reinterpret it according to his own style of reasoning. A less charitable reading is that others’ work could be deliberately misinterpreted. Those still concerned with matters of agency and structure can turn to the conclusion of this work for an extended discussion. Another reason for organizing this work at the level of styles of reasoning is instrumental. Depicting different kinds of life research as instances of two different styles helps us draw a map, simplifying the terrain in order to discover new connections and recover forgotten problems that mattered to the people being studied. Technical issues are clarified and links made between realms generally studied by one historical discipline but ignored by another. Hence Styles of Reasoning shows how a London life researcher like Richard Owen saw reproduction and neuroanatomy as intimately connected issues, not as the respective and dis-

Introduction

3

tinct provinces of, say, the history of biology on the one hand and the history of medicine on the other. Indeed seeing various instances of life research as parts of a larger style of reasoning also sheds light on the oft-repeated insistence that scientific investigations are situated in a larger cultural pattern and historical context. Yes, the sceptic might say, but exactly which of the past researcher’s myriad contexts was truly relevant to the scientific knowledge being produced? Some historians of science have worried that, without such clarifications, the sciences’ cultural and social context becomes an inexplicable ‘miasma’ unconnected with the technical work performed,3 turning histories of science into histories of just any other kind of culture. Such sceptics can be shown that a style of reasoning can be seen as a more specific context of scientific work – that a style of reasoning made one kind of scientific research possible rather than another kind. This book presents two different styles of reasoning. The first style is the doublet of analysis:synthesis. An analyst4 believed that the best way to learn about systems was to break them up into their simplest unit ‘elements’ and study them (analysis), then imagine that system to be an aggregation of those units (synthesis). A ‘system’ could be anything from an organism to an economy. Analysis: synthesis subtly differed from reductionism, for it was not only a doublet of disintegration and reintegration – it also granted the simpler constituent elements degrees of agency and life. Elements were not chemicals, but smaller organized systems in their own right. Thomas Henry Huxley would later complain that this view was little more than a form of decentralized animism.5 The second style was palaetiology. The term was coined by William Whewell. A palaetiologist believed that the best way of learning about things was to understand their origin and change over time. Yet palaetiology was not quite the same thing as ‘developmentalism’, for analysis:synthesis also offered its own version of development. An analyst saw the developmental process as one of coalescence: an embryo formed by fusing, hence ‘synthesizing’, its parts. Some analysts claimed that an embryo developed by first appearing at several different points which then expanded inwards, met and compounded in a centre. While other analysts disagreed, they also saw development as a centripetal process. They related an embryo’s development to the example of insect metamorphosis, where the serially repetitive segments of the larva coalesced and concentrated during the pupal and imago stages. Meanwhile the palaetiologist held a view with which we are more familiar – an embryo developed centrifugally, emanating outwards from a single and simple starting point. For instance Karl Ernst von Baer’s embryology depicted development as the emergence of a heterogeneous set of specialized functions and structures from a homogeneous and unspecialized mass. Adherents of the two different styles used different forms of evidence to justify their conclusions. Analysts deployed the structure and activities of sim-

4

Styles of Reasoning in the British Life Sciences

pler parts to advance their views about a system. Palaetiologists pointed to the changes and developments of a system over time to make their point. Like an argument over two different things, clashes between the two styles tended to mean that the combatants ignored or mocked the validity and meaningfulness of the other side’s evidence. This was because the relevance of the opponents’ underlying style was denied. Analysts generally used static evidence. For example they played up the point that since all reproductive bodies were histologically indistinguishable from one another, they were for all intents and purposes identical. Their focus on static evidence meant that sex was seen as just another form of reproduction, like budding. Meanwhile palaetiologists generally favoured dynamic evidence. In the case of reproductive bodies, they acknowledged that although all reproductive bodies were indeed histologically identical, this similarity was irrelevant. What instead mattered to them was how sexual fertilization was the only kind of activity causing the reproductive bodies called ‘ova’ to develop into complex organisms. Sex was therefore of the utmost importance to palaetiologists because it was the activity that distinguished one kind of reproductive body from all others. Styles of reasoning were also related to more concrete matters like practices and physical locations. Different kinds of evidence had to be generated, stored and examined. This book especially highlights the role of invertebrate specimens as evidence: in the 1830s and 1840s it was believed that understanding the structure and function of these simple creatures would in turn allow more complicated ones to be better understood. Unfortunately many invertebrate specimens, particularly marine ones, were difficult to get and tricky to work with. Once one was obtained, where and how could it be kept? Following Pickstone, Styles of Reasoning claims that analysts who disintegrated organisms had to store their collection of specimens and various body parts somewhere; large museums dedicated to life research grew out of this requirement. Such museum collections gave an analyst access to a wide range of examples that he could compare; larger collections enabled more comparisons and therefore facilitated what was collectively acknowledged to be better science. On the other hand, since palaetiologists favoured changing evidence, their attention turned to living organisms. In this book’s case of marine invertebrates, they needed to keep animals alive, in controlled conditions, so they could be watched closely and over a long time. Such observations were not really available until the early 1850s, when the aquarium became widespread. With the growing popularity of aquaria it became possible for many life researchers to view complex phenomena like reproduction and development. This book claims that one reason for the success of palaetiology in the British life sciences was the emergence and proliferation of aquaria.

Introduction

5

Problematics A style of reasoning made certain questions possible and even interesting to life researchers. Some of the questions asked between 1820 and 1858 included: 1. Why did simpler organisms have greater regenerative powers than more complex ones? Why, for example, did lobster limbs grow back at some points while human ones could not? What was the difference between the reproduction of a new individual and the regeneration of part of an individual? Was there any difference at all? 2. What were the similarities between metamorphosis and the development of embryos? Why did higher organisms tend to develop a head and centralized nervous system? Why did this process of ‘cephalization’ occur in both individual developing embryos and in the ‘animal series’ as a whole, running ‘parallel’ to each other? Why did simpler animals tend to have more repeating parts and more complicated ones tend to have fewer? Why did monsters so often appear as double individuals? 3. Decapitated animals such as millipedes moved around, but in a different, less coordinated, way than whole animals. Why was this movement less coordinated and how else did it differ from the movement of whole animals? Conversely, separated parts could move independently, shown by the ability of turtle and snake heads to bite after being severed – why? What did such phenomena say about the nature of volition? About the unity of consciousness? By articulating such points this book has tried to follow Collingwood, who claimed that one could most completely and sympathetically articulate past alien beliefs by seeing them as responses to deeper questions.6 Styles of Reasoning groups such questions under the general category of problematics. This term denotes that we are not simply interested in the various answers that researchers gave to these puzzles (metagenesis in the first; recapitulating cephalization and anchylosis in the second; consentaneity in the third), but also in the more general historical matter of why certain questions were asked at all. To use Hacking’s language, this book is interested in the ‘positivity’ of certain research puzzles – whether a person could answer these questions in ways that were meaningful to his contemporaries. The above questions belonged to three general problematics, each made possible by the style of analysis:synthesis. They were closely related because they all dealt with the relationship of part to whole. The first was the problematic of compound individuality: how did one best define a biological individual and what were its limits? The second was the problematic of how spontaneous order emerged when elements were put together: how did independent parts combine to form part of a larger system? The third was the problematic of collective action:

6

Styles of Reasoning in the British Life Sciences

how did separate and independent parts combine their activities so as to work in a harmonious way? These three questions were particularly relevant for people who dealt with invertebrates, in which the relationship of part to whole was often a difficult one to resolve – for instance, when could one tell if a polyp was an individual or part of a larger colony? While analysis:synthesis made it possible to answer certain questions pertaining to a part’s relationship to the whole, palaetiology made these matters less important. Sometimes palaetiology even made them meaningless. To use Nicholas Jardine’s words, certain problematics became ‘unreal’ because different styles of reasoning had different presuppositions.7 Sometimes the very assumptions making a problematic sensible were misunderstood or rejected as unimportant. Hence for William Benjamin Carpenter and Huxley, their predecessors’ views on the compound individuality of many invertebrates were meaningless because they rejected outright their predecessors’ underlying assumptions. The work of Carpenter and Huxley between 1848 and 1858 can be seen as a mission to gradually restrict the explanatory and investigative possibilities of the then-dominant community of analytic:synthetic life researchers. It is asserted here that Carpenter and Huxley largely succeeded.

A London Community of Life Researchers and other Historiographic Notes Because Styles of Reasoning discusses shared assumptions, it investigates secondand even third-rank researchers as well as elite ones. Charles David Badham – savaged by one journal as incompetent – is thus mentioned alongside Owen. This book’s search for common beliefs from the 1820s to the late 1850s means that it bundles student textbooks together with influential articles in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. Anonymous and pseudonymous reviews of works – favourable, cautious, scathing, obtuse – are discussed to emphasize that a meaning of a statement should be found in its reception, not its utterance. Private manuscripts and correspondence provide a comprehensive glimpse of certain researchers’ lives. Styles of Reasoning deliberately restricts its focus to English-language works for two reasons – because most life researchers of the period were conversant only in this language, and because this highlights the greater importance of multilingual people with advanced access to foreign life sciences. Their skills made them intermediaries. Men such as Martin Barry, Robert Grant, Owen and Huxley quickly made their scientific reputations because they imported French – or German – language research. To emphasize permeable disciplinary boundaries, the people in this book are called life researchers. Calling someone like George Newport an entomologist obscures his work in other areas such as the reflex arc and the sexual fertilization

Introduction

7

of frogs’ eggs. Such people also described their own work as ranging across different fields. Thus, while Grant was Professor of Comparative Anatomy at London University, at the end of the 1820s his lectures for medical students explicitly covered not only comparative anatomy (also called zootomy) but also comparative physiology and zoology.8 Styles of Reasoning differs from a number of other histories of biology of the mid-nineteenth century by paying less attention to certain canonical points – it does not dwell on well-known categories such as materialism versus anti-materialism, for instance, or form versus function. This omission is not because such points are unimportant; it is merely an acknowledgment that other historians have already extensively covered these realms. For this same reason this book makes little mention of Darwin’s 1859 Origin of Species and the ways in which it changed biology. Not only has Darwin been well examined; the Origin of Species managed to reshape the research of many life researchers and obscure the concerns of others, ‘like the secretion of a cuttle fish’.9 De-emphasizing Darwin brings forward obscure areas of life research and how past investigators defined such topics on their own terms. By portraying Darwin as merely one of many other members of a larger community of life researchers, two important points are emphasized. First, the importance of the neurosciences to life research is made clear. Second, the close links between life researchers and the contemporary concerns of the medical community are highlighted. On the latter point this book strongly agrees with the histories of Adrian Desmond. In this way Styles of Reasoning charts a shift: the first part of the book looks at how life researchers cultivated an audience of naturalists, surgeons and physicians. The second part of the book shows how life researchers became increasingly aware of a new audience of ‘biologists’ less interested in medical issues. The story of how one style of reasoning gradually supplanted another in London life research is thus also a tale about how biology emerged as an independent discipline.

The Argument and Structure The argument of this work proceeds from analysis:synthesis to palaetiology. Its first four chapters are synchronic. To post-1815 British life science came the style of analysis:synthesis, largely associated with French research. This style led investigators to focus on the simplest living units, and analysts often depicted relationships between parts of a complex living system as properties of each part. It was possible to discuss life as the aggregated output of the activity of each cell or tissue, or mental activity as the aggregated product of each ganglion or phrenological mental unit. Some embraced these views and others rejected them, but problematics like these were seen as important and worth discussing and investi-

8

Styles of Reasoning in the British Life Sciences

gating, or were at least considered meaningful. In the same way, an embryo was often portrayed as a synthesis of various elements (cells, ganglia, tissues) into an integrated whole. Again, it was thought that embryonic parts fused together in a process resembling metamorphosis, and although there were disputes over exactly how development resembled metamorphosis, the similarity itself was taken for granted. By 1840 the style of analysis:synthesis dominated London life research and its adherents dwelt on the three above problematics of compound individuality, spontaneous order and collective action. The style’s dominant figure was Owen and by recognizing this we can sympathetically recreate parts of Owen’s larger research programme, like his principle of ‘vegetative repetition’ and his On Parthenogenesis (1849). Both were answers to the problematic of compound individuality. Indeed this work claims that Owen’s programme, and his specific beliefs in such apparently alien causes as ‘spermatic force’, was considered reasonable by many contemporaries in 1849 because it wrestled with the problematic of compound individuality by using the underlying style of analysis:synthesis. The final two chapters are diachronic. In the 1850s, analysis:synthesis as a coherent style started to be questioned as palaetiology grew in importance and provided alternative explanations and new problematics for life researchers. Not only had the term been introduced in 1837 by Whewell to denote the study of historical causation and how simple entities grew into more complicated ones – fields including geology, ethnology and comparative philology. In that same year Barry introduced von Baerian embryological principles to an English-speaking audience, describing an embryo’s development from a homogeneous and sexually fertilized mass into differentiated and specialized tissues. In 1848 and 1849 – informed by comparative philology and the ethnology of James C. Prichard, and spurred by a growing conflict of interest with Owen – Carpenter challenged what he saw as the ‘confusion’ of the analytic:synthetic perspective and the ‘paradox’ of compound individuality. But for his troubles he was publicly rejected by Owen’s allies, such as Edward Forbes. In the early 1850s the young Huxley appropriated Carpenter’s insights for his own purposes. He therefore also used palaetiology – von Baerian embryology and insights from comparative philology – to challenge the status quo of life research while also enhancing his reputation. Like Carpenter, Huxley defined biological individuality temporally. But he had an even sharper conflict of interest with Owen and the gentlemanly patron-client structure of British life research. So he used palaetiology to attack Owen, compound individuality’s strongest defender. They argued past one another, but Huxley introduced new terms and, with others, came to control how students in the life sciences were examined. He therefore successfully enforced the proper use of his new terms amongst the young men who would come to form the next generation of elite

Introduction

9

London life researchers. This entrenched the palaetiological style among many of them. To make such an argument, this book is arranged in the following way. The first three chapters break up the doublet of analysis:synthesis into its two components, analysis and synthesis. Hence Chapter 1 looks at the use of analysis in life research, particularly in museums, and studies Owen’s use of analysis in his comparative anatomy and arrangement of the Hunterian Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons. Chapter 2 looks at the use of analysis in the orthodox and less-orthodox neurosciences, from the emergence of the reflex arc to the feuding mental faculties of phrenology. Chapter 3 looks at synthesis alone, noting how in the 1830s and 1840s embryos were seen as developing in a coalescing way that resembled metamorphosis. As recapitulation was a synthetic process, parallelism therefore made sense to most London researchers of the time and they fought only over details. Chapter 4 looks at attempts to portray reproduction and regeneration as part of a common process and shows how Owen’s 1849 proposal of ‘parthenogenesis’, later ‘metagenesis’, was an attempt to reconcile reproduction and regeneration. He proposed metagenesis as an all-encompassing answer to solve several mysteries faced by contemporary life researchers. Chapter 5 looks at the style of palaetiology, how it grew stronger in Britain after 1837, and Carpenter’s failed attempts to use it to change British life research in the late 1840s. Chapter 6 investigates how Huxley used palaetiology to overturn Owen’s life research programme during the 1850s while trying to prevent its revival by those whom he increasingly defined as ‘outsiders’. This group included the self-taught G. H. Lewes, who offered the threatening model of populist life science.

Historians’ Questions In addition to problematics faced by historical actors, Styles of Reasoning also tries to answer certain questions asked by historians of science about technical, social and institutional matters. They include: 1. Why was there so much contention over the definition of the biological individual in the mid-Victorian period? Then why did it suddenly stop?10 2. How did the new historicist perspective change life research?11 3. Why was recapitulation so appealing to leading British researchers?12 4. Starting in the late 1820s and early 1830s, why did so many museums appear in Britain?13 5. Why was phrenology taken up so strongly by middle-class radicals? How was it connected with orthodox neuroscience of the time?14 6. Similarly, why were there strong links between these political radicals and philosophic anatomists? What did they have in common?15

10

Styles of Reasoning in the British Life Sciences

7. What exactly was Owen’s research programme and what was the importance of metagenesis and serial homology for that programme? Why did large portions of his work go into decline by the late 1850s?16 8. How did life research ‘professionalize’ into biology? How and why were nonelite life researchers forced into ‘popular science?’17 In dealing with such queries this book most strongly engages with the work of such historians as Frederick Churchill, Desmond, John Farley, Stephen Jacyna, Bernard Lightman, Evelleen Richards, Nicolaas Rupke, Phillip Sloan and Paul White. Styles of Reasoning also explores the different images and language used by analysts to describe the relationship of parts to whole. More specifically, because analysis was not quite the same thing as reductionism – again, the elements of a system themselves were deemed to possess agency – many life researchers likened body parts to members of a political or economic system. The will commanded other body parts; the body had an ‘oeconomy’; the workings of the quasi-independent ganglia of the nervous system were deemed to be ‘consentaneous’. One explanation for the use of such language and imagery is that people outside life research also used the same analytic: synthetic style of reasoning. This book notes how philosophic anatomists used similar methods as the philosophic radicals – Grant’s tools strongly resembled those of the philosopher Jeremy Bentham. In this sense, although analysts often used micropolitical language and imagery in their life research, they were not simply projecting images of society into their work. They were not looking into mirrors when they looked at their specimens. Instead they used the same cognitive tools that others used to learn about, understand and discuss complicated systems. It just so happened that complicated systems included both organisms and societies.

1 ANALYSIS PART ONE

This chapter begins with several questions. What were some ways in which Britons reformed life research out of the ‘decline of science’ in the late 1820s and early 1830s? Why was there a strong link between philosophical anatomists and radicalism? Why was there an explosion of museums or museum reformation in the 1830s? Why was there a belief that organisms were compounded out of simple parts? The first, more sweeping, part of this chapter establishes the context and suggests some answers to these queries. By the beginning of the 1830s there appeared a new emphasis in Britain on the style of analysis:synthesis, in which a system was broken up into components which were then studied (analysis), and the system rebuilt out of these components (synthesis). Although there were strong links between the style of analysis: synthesis, philosophical anatomy and calls for the rationalizing reform of British institutions, many researchers, regardless of their politics, embraced this style because of its emphasis on the museum. To illustrate the acceptance of analysis:synthesis, the second part of this chapter then switches perspective, focusing on concrete details. It examines how Owen’s early work at the Hunterian Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons exemplified the use of analysis: synthesis. Owen’s domestication of this style from its dangerous Francophile roots was one reason why he became the premier British comparative anatomist. But Owen was merely one of a larger group of London-based life researchers. The best way to display this community is to take Martin Rudwick seriously and do so graphically, depicting their relationships and commitments as a topography. Figure 1.1 facilitates synchronic comparisons while also showing several diachronic changes between 1830 and 1850. Also informed by the work of A. H. Barr, Edward Tufte and Randall Collins, such a map allows us to see this book’s cast of characters and their backgrounds at a glance.1 Rather than using Rudwick’s gradient of perceived competence, the diagram shows only selected influential life researchers who were at or above a certain level of perceived competence. Vertically, a person’s name appears at the time when other researchers began to see him as important or even a peer – from this

– 11 –

12

Styles of Reasoning in the British Life Sciences

Figure 1.1. Some life researcher commitments 1830–50.

Analysis Part One

13

point onwards he had to be taken seriously. Horizontally, a person’s name appears nearer to either analysis:synthesis or palaetiology, indicating a commitment to one style or the other. Their exact horizontal position does not indicate a degree of commitment. Also shown are three important ‘defections’ from one style to the other, with the names of Carpenter, George Allman and Darwin shown a second time inside a rounded triangle near the approximate time of their switch. The arrowed lines between different individuals do not denote vague ‘influences’ between life researchers but two specific kinds of relationship: patron-client and pedagogical. These lines appear only when a particular and formal relationship can be proven; this cautious approach means that this diagram is not exhaustive, and other relationships surely existed. The arrows indicate a direction of power, influence or knowledge from superior to inferior: patron to client or teacher to student. Solid lines indicate patron-client relationships. Such a line only appears if a testimonial was written or significant amounts of money changed hands, either in the form of gifts or formal employment. Thus Grant taught for a while at Marshall Hall’s school; Hall got one job through Richard Grainger. Forbes wrote various glowing testimonials for Huxley and even helped him get his first permanent scientific position (Forbes’s old one at the School of Mines). Meanwhile dashed lines indicate formal pedagogical relationships: time spent by a student in a teacher’s classroom or lecture hall at some kind of institution. Huxley was taught by the embryologist Thomas Wharton Jones. Informal pedagogical relationships are not shown here because they are not all documented: for example a link between Darwin and Grant is not shown because although Darwin apparently learned about marine invertebrates from Grant while at Edinburgh, this was not in a formal institutional setting. Moreover, in Figure 1.1 each life researcher is accompanied by flags and in rare cases phrenological busts. A phrenological bust appearing by a name denotes that the person was sympathetic to phrenology at some point in his life: this leaning is significant for it was one way in which a young man learned that the proper method of investigation was through disintegration and reintegration. Hence Samuel Solly became increasingly and publicly committed to phrenology around 1836. In the meantime the flags signify if a person trained at three different locations: a Paris-based medical school, at the University of Edinburgh or at London University or University College London. Owen briefly studied at both Edinburgh and the Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle. While the research for this map was obviously shaped by the focus of this project and should be viewed accordingly, the French flags clustered on the diagram’s analysis:synthesis side indicate some correlation between a Paris-based medical education and an affinity for analysis:synthesis in life research. We can therefore turn to France and the popularity of analysis:synthesis there, showing

14

Styles of Reasoning in the British Life Sciences

how the popularity of that style in 1830s Britain came out of French science some two generations before.

Analysis:Synthesis in France Analysis:synthesis was a double movement. Analysis broke down a system into its constituent parts, while synthesis compounded those parts back into that entire system again. These simplest parts were known as elements. The entire system could be portrayed as an aggregation of these elements. Thus someone using this style believed that certain knowledge of an entire system was attained when the nature of its elements were fully understood. Analysis:synthesis does not seem to have been a new style. Bentham, for instance, claimed that it began at the very ‘infancy of society’.2 Two historiographic points about the phrase analysis:synthesis should be made here. First, for consistency and clarity, this style is denoted ‘analysis: synthesis’ to convey both the downward disintegrating move and the upward integrating (or reintegrating) move, although some of the people in this book referred to this method only as ‘analysis’. This was because they recognized that, in life research, people could only disintegrate. Nature was the only force that could properly synthesize the parts of a living being; people could only study the synthetic process or imagine its results. Second, ‘analysis:synthesis’ is used to describe this method instead of ‘reductionism’ because they were different. Where reductionism meant seeing a living things in terms of the laws of physics or chemistry – as matter in motion, so to speak – analysis:synthesis granted agency and life to simpler elements. Each element was an organized system in its own right, making the body as a whole an aggregate of these simpler living elements. For some opponents analysis:synthesis was flawed because it was not reductionist but only a form of re-description: critics of phrenology thought that dividing the brain up into distinct mental faculties was simply to re-label mental processes, not explain them. Molière’s critique of ‘dormative virtues’ could be applied, or analysis:synthesis in the life sciences depicted as a form of animism or hylozoism. Descartes’s method was one of analysis and synthesis, the order of his reasoning in the Meditations resembling the strategy of decomposition and recomposition in geometry. In fact some also identified different kinds of analysis. By the third sentence of the 1751 Encyclopédie entry on ‘Analysis’, the authors admitted that their definition of analysis:synthesis – going from the compound to the simplest, then from the simplest to the most compound – was not terribly exact. Bentham also distinguished between different kinds of analysis, scolding previous authors for confusing the disintegrating physical analysis with logical

Analysis Part One

15

analysis (the division of concepts again and again in order to reach their simplest points).3 Despite Bentham’s complaint, many insisted that the definition of analysis: synthesis as decomposition and recomposition was useful, for it clarified complicated concepts and systems while facilitating research. Hence the Encyclopédie article on ‘analysis’ noted that, along with Descartes, Britons such as Francis Bacon and John Locke also used this method.4 Isaac Newton exemplified the successful use of analysis, shown by his famous experiments with white light – he decomposed white light into a rainbow using a prism, then recomposed it back into white light. The Encyclopédie quoted Newton’s statement on the utility of analysis from his Opticks. Bernard de Fontenelle and Voltaire also mentioned Newton’s work with light, though both called Newton the ‘anatomist’ of white light, not its ‘analyst’.5 This wording may indicate their belief in the equivalence of anatomy and analysis. By 1780 Étienne Bonnot de Condillac was also using Newton’s prestige to emphasize the utility of analysis:synthesis. His La logique, ou les premiers développements de l’art de penser (translated as Logic) defined analysis as the method of decomposition and recomposition. To understand a machine, one must study each part separately: ‘When I have an exact idea of each part, and when I can replace them all in the same order as they previously were in, then I shall understand this machine perfectly because I have decomposed it and recomposed it’.6 Different researchers then took up de Condillac’s method – the most famous being Antoine Laurent Lavoisier. In his 1789 Elements of Chemistry, Lavoisier reduced chemicals to their simplest parts, even naming chemicals by these simplest elements. He explicitly cited de Condillac for the method behind his work, and Lavoisier’s success was seen as an empirical verification of the utility of analysis:synthesis for other researchers.7 The style of analysis:synthesis became more popular amongst other French researchers after Lavoisier’s untimely death during the Great Terror of 1794. Not only was analysis:synthesis fruitful – it was also populist in a time of democratic upheaval. De Condillac had already humbly noted that all people learned analysis:synthesis from nature itself – he was only articulating what everyone did already. People from every walk of life already used the style – a seamstress given an unusual dress as a model to copy for a new dress would very naturally learn how to make the new dress by separating each part of the model and then putting it back together again. Seamstresses and philosophers were thus equally well equipped to use the same style of reasoning.8 In a socially-levelled Paris, beset with fears of the sans-culottes mob, what could be better for a savant than to show that he learned about nature in the same way as any other French citizen? Analysis:synthesis also promised certainty after the chaos of the Great Terror, for it offered a way to rationally reorder society. The style offered savants the

16

Styles of Reasoning in the British Life Sciences

refuge of certainty in a frenzied world, promising to make uncertain investigations stable and precise. It could be used to train a new French elite responsive to the new democratic reality. This move had begun even before the Great Terror. In 1793 the Consultation Bureau of Arts and Trades produced a pamphlet, Reflections on Public Instruction, with an early preface (written in 1791) by Lavoisier himself that used the introduction and opening chapters of de Condillac’s Logic to set out a new education system. In 1795, the revolutionary government founded the École Normale as a way to train teachers, who would return to their own districts and train others in the same educational method. The École Normale’s programme was drawn upon the style of analysis:synthesis and 1,400 copies of de Condillac’s Logic were distributed to these students. They came to make up the new French elite and helped make de Condillac’s work a standard French educational text.9 Analysis:synthesis thus became widespread in France between 1800 and 1820. Pickstone has shown just how many different researchers in France used analysis:synthesis in their investigations during that period. His discussions of the physical sciences and the push for ‘hospital medicine’10 may be set aside to focus on the widespread use of analysis:synthesis in life research alone. Life researchers made new findings by decomposing organisms into various simpler elements. Xavier Bichat and his followers studied tissues, declaring that just as chemistry had simple elements that combined to form compounds, so too was every animal organ formed out of elementary tissues. Diseases struck the tissues, not the organs, and so ‘life’ was no more than the aggregate contribution made by each of the tissues’ vital properties. Franz-Josef Gall decomposed mental operations and the structure of the brain into discrete organs known as ‘mental faculties’. His study of mental ‘organology’ became known in Britain as phrenology.11 Etienne Serres saw an embryo’s development as a synthetic process, in which simple parts or ‘centres of ossification’ fused together. Finally, Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire’s programme of philosophical anatomy determined the vertebrate structural plan by breaking down the skeleton into individual bones, then seeking correspondences of these bones – ‘homologies’ – between animals as diverse as fish, birds and mammals.12 Georges Cuvier can also be portrayed as an analyst. A great deal of attention is paid to this eminent French zoologist and comparative anatomist because of his geological/palaeontological catastrophism and quaternary division of the animal kingdom (vertebrates, molluscs, articulates and radiates). Cuvier is also depicted as an exemplary anti-transformist because of his principle of the correlation of parts. Combined with his four-fold taxonomic division, the correlation of parts was anti-transformist because it ruled out the possibility of a species developing between each of the four embranchements – a cephalopod, for instance, could not develop into a vertebrate. The correlation, or interdependence, of

Analysis Part One

17

physiological systems meant that any sudden physiological imbalance that must inevitably appear in a transforming animal must also threaten the viability of the entire animal. His well-known emphasis on function over structure does not seem to be analytic:synthetic. Yet Cuvier’s principle of the subordination of characters was analytic:synthetic. By subordination of characters he meant that an animal’s interdependent physiological systems had to be subordinated to the nervous system, for it coordinated their activities. Because of the nervous system’s importance it could be used for classification. Each embranchement was distinguished by the layout of its nervous structure. And although Cuvier opposed Lamarckian transformism, he still saw animals organized hierarchically within each embranchement. There existed an animal scale from simplest to ‘most perfect’ – one could determine the place of a species or individual animal on an embranchement by how strongly the physiological systems were subordinated to the nervous system. The stronger the nervous system, the more the other systems were controlled by it – implying that an animal was higher and more ‘perfect’, a result of its greater sentience.13 Anatomically, a higher subordination of characters to the nervous system meant a greater proportion of nervous tissue to the rest of the body; lower subordination of characters meant a lesser proportion. For Cuvier it thus followed that higher proportions of nervous tissue necessitated a compacted and concentrated nervous system, a point shown when one compared the concentrated nervous centres of people with the diffused nervous systems of insects and other lower animals. A nervous centre, meanwhile, was called a ganglion, to be found in all animals but the simplest. A ganglion was a swelling of grey nervous tissue. Grey tissue was deemed to be a source of nervous power; white nervous fibres conducted that power. Each ganglion was connected with other ganglia, all of them acting as nodes in a network of white nerve fibres. Bichat had already proposed that each ganglion be seen as an independent nerve centre,14 because it was the simplest nervous element out of which more complicated nervous structures were constructed. Following Bichat, from 1800 onwards it was held that all nervous systems were compounded out of ganglia. By 1840 even human brains were portrayed as masses of fused ganglia, these nervous elements being compacted together during development. If one looked at the animal world from the bottom up, from the simplest animals to the most complex, ganglia as nervous elements also explained the potential independence of many body parts. In 1805 Cuvier noted several lower animals in which the removal of their brains did not remove their sensation, or even their will. The body of a turtle showed apparent sensation after decapitation; so too did a frog after its brain was removed. Simpler animals could be disintegrated still further and remain alive. Insects and worms could be cut into

18

Styles of Reasoning in the British Life Sciences

several pieces and, because there was a ganglion in each section, each piece could itself act as an individual animal, he concluded.15 By depicting ganglia as the elements of animality, Cuvier set out the problematic of compound individuality in animals. Compound individuality was taken up in Britain as French life research grew in importance there.

Philosophic Anatomy in London At the end of the Napoleonic Wars, analysis:synthesis was taken up by the British life research community. Only after the fighting had stopped could young Britons travel to Parisian medical and natural history institutions to take advantage of their enormous resources. When studying at such places as the Muséum, these men also learned that if life research was to produce certain knowledge, it had to be carried out analytically:synthetically. As shown by Figure 1.1 many of the young men importing this ‘French’ style formed a group that remained in contact after their return, mainly gaining employment in the medical field and training future surgeons and doctors. By forming a community they reinforced each others’ belief in the utility of analysis:synthesis, judging British life research by the standards of this shared style. This sense of community meant that interest in the problematic of compound individuality also increased. In 1829 Grainger – a skilled London anatomist trained at such places as St Thomas’s Hospital and his brother’s Webb Street anatomy school – commented on the French view of animals as divisible into several independent nervous centres. He noted how Cuvier, Henri de Blainville, Gall and Johann Spurzheim all saw animals as divisible. Grainger thought it significant that a number of elite researchers had reversed the ancient belief that the brain was the origin and centre of the nervous system. Others followed Cuvier and in the process explored compound individuality. In 1836 Owen claimed to be continuing Cuvier’s principle of classification by nervous structure, citing Cuvier’s rationale of nervous centre distribution and the independent vitality of each separated body fragment. He even coined new names to accentuate the dispersion of ganglia. Cuvier’s Articulata became Owen’s Homogangliata to denote a ganglion in each recurring segment; Cuvier’s Mollusca became Heterogangliata, indicating how ganglia were irregularly dispersed throughout the body. Owen even noted that the body’s divisibility corresponded to the distribution of nervous centres. The following year, he pointed out that the nervous system was the essence of the animal, to which all other body systems were subject. Owen was still promoting this nomenclature in 1852.16 Owen’s putative opponent, Grant, reasoned similarly when he invented more new terms for Cuvier’s animal groups, also in 1836. Vertebrata became

Analysis Part One

19

Spini-Cerebrata, Mollusca the Cyclo-Gangliata, Articulata the Diplo-Neura and Radiata the Cyclo-Neura. Each name signified a kind of nervous structure; the nervous system was most important for Grant because of its leading role in the ‘living economy of animals’. The nerves were like ‘galvanic wires’ for communication between distant body parts. Though Grant claimed that he was developing a point that Cuvier had neglected, he overemphasized his own novelty. One of Grant’s reviewers noted that classifying by nervous structure was ‘generally admitted by comparative anatomists’ to be the best kind of arrangement.17 In 1836 Grant’s system was used by Solly (a brain researcher who had studied in Paris and who used Gall’s dissection techniques) and Owen’s protégé Thomas Rymer Jones (who also studied in Paris and who by 1836 was Professor of Comparative Anatomy at King’s College London). Rymer Jones even linked Grant’s and Owen’s classification systems, noting how both men were continuing Cuvier’s project by using the nervous system as a taxonomic key.18 Desmond explains Grant’s renaming of animal groupings as rooted in his transformism.19 But Owen’s very similar scheme indicates that both men may have simply been following the common belief that it was good practice to break down animals into simpler elements and classify them by how the most important elements were arranged. At a deeper level Grant and Owen shared the analytic:synthetic style of reasoning. Grant had graduated from the University of Edinburgh in 1814 and then travelled to Paris at the war’s end, studying medicine and natural history there until 1820. He then returned to Edinburgh to teach the principles of Geoffroy’s philosophical anatomy to medical students. He corresponded with Geoffroy and visited him almost every year in Paris. Geoffroy returned the favour by identifying Grant as the leading British life researcher. Philosophical anatomy offered Grant the chance to understand the resemblance of structure and the unity of plan across the entire animal kingdom.20 Yet it is not entirely precise to lump Grant in with the ‘Geoffroyans’ – while Geoffroy specialized in vertebrate anatomy, Grant instead began his career by studying some of the simplest animals – the communal sponges – and then applied this understanding to more complicated ones.21 Instead the similarities between Geoffroy and Grant lie in a shared method of disintegration; perhaps it is through this method and not simply an adherence to transcendental anatomy that also sheds light on why Edinburgh medical schools were seen as a Francophile fifth column in British life research. The centre of analytic:synthetic life research shifted south to the new London University when it recruited teachers from the north and from the Continent. The founders of the new school wanted to distinguish it from the closed world of London hospital medicine. In the late 1820s the only way to become a medical professional was to obtain an apprenticeship, requiring access to a patron who controlled such positions. These apprenticeships cost a large amount of money

20

Styles of Reasoning in the British Life Sciences

– Solly, for instance, paid £525 for his post in the mid-1820s.22 Solly was one of the last men to buy an apprenticeship however, because that way of obtaining a future living was becoming controversial, as the link between patronage and corruption was being revealed in furious tirades about corruption. A new competitive, market-oriented way of selecting young men for professional positions – opening more schools to more applicants, allowing them to compete in written and oral examinations and then bestowing certificates for competence – was gradually being worked out, and London University was one testing-ground for these solutions.

Figure 1.2. The new London University c. 1827, in S. Leigh, Leigh’s New Picture of London (London: Samuel Leigh, 1827), p. 329.

In June 1827, Grant became London University’s Professor of Comparative Anatomy, declaring it to be a ‘study of analysis’ that revealed the connections between the ‘apparently isolated facts of Zoology’. He taught five times a week until 1873 and did not miss a single lecture.23 Many of the future leaders of British life research attended his classes. Figure 1.1 shows some of Grant’s pupils: between 1831 and 1836 alone, students and auditors included William Baly, Carpenter, William Farr, Edwin Lankester, Thomas Laycock, Newport, Peter Mark Roget and Thomas Southwood Smith. Grant taught them to examine the form, structure, appearance and relations of every body part as they dissected each specimen. Students were to compare each specimen and each part with their companions.24 Grant also taught that development moved from the simplest forms to the most compound, and such views and the ways in which he taught them are more closely examined in Chapter 3.

Analysis Part One

21

Newport was to later privately laud Grant as the ‘found[er of ] the modern English school of Comparative Anatomy’.25 But Grant was not the only researcher by way of Paris to teach life research. In the late 1820s and early 1830s three Irishmen also arrived at London University to teach anatomy. James R. Bennett had run an English-language medical school in Paris between 1822 and 1825 and became an anatomy demonstrator at London University in 1828. Bennett not only sought to use French-style layouts for dissecting theatres, but also argued that students would only understand anatomy when they studied the tissues that made up the organs and when they learned the structure and physiology of the simplest animals. Popular with the students, Bennett encouraged their revolt against the then-Professor of Anatomy, Granville Pattison, who proudly declared his ignorance of that ‘French anatomy’. Eventually the students succeeded: Pattison was removed from his position and Bennett took over the Professorship of Anatomy in 1830. Unfortunately Bennett died the next year. The other two Irishmen were brothers who had also studied in Paris in the 1820s. Richard Quain started at London University by helping at Bennett’s anatomy demonstrations; in 1832 he was appointed Professor of Descriptive Anatomy.26 After his return from Paris, Jones Quain taught with William Lawrence at the Aldersgate School of Medicine. In 1831 he was appointed Professor of Anatomy at London University. Quain’s 1828 Elements of Anatomy became a standard text, going into several editions, later rewritten by colleagues such as William Sharpey. As shown by its title, Quain explicitly called Elements a work on ‘Analytical Anatomy’. Its very first page insisted upon the utility of de Condillac’s method, as shown by Bichat’s successful use of it: medicine was to be reformed by ‘those rigorous methods of investigation which have already effected so much for other departments of natural science’. Quain claimed that anatomy would be made precise when one knew about the ‘textures’ that made up each organ. Analysis meant that diseases could be newly arranged ‘according to a natural method’. Hence lungs could be better understood as aggregations of three different tissues. Inflammations and pathologies in each kind of tissue could be grouped and compared with disorders of similar tissues in other body regions. Analyses at different levels of focus were also possible. The entire body could be divided ‘into separate regions, or compartments, each requiring a special degree of attention’ (particularly if that region was the seat of a disease). Hence while descriptive anatomy merely listed the parts, the ‘analytical method’ disintegrated the human frame ‘into its constituents … [examining] the character and properties of each of these separately, as a necessary preliminary to a just appreciation of their powers when combined’.27

22

Styles of Reasoning in the British Life Sciences

Philosophic Radicals and Philosophic Anatomists: Mutually Appreciative Audiences Desmond has shown the affinities between the philosophical anatomists of London University and the philosophic radicals of the same period. He sees a shared epistemology that linked the philosophical anatomist with the political radical. He depicts both groups as materialist, viewing life as explainable only by physics and chemistry – materialist or deist natural laws were thought to animate the world ‘from below’. But there are exceptions to this materialism, including the strongly political radical Grainger and Marshall Hall. The link may not entirely lie in materialism, therefore – a slightly different connection has been found by Ian Burney, who notes the affinities of medical reformers to democratic change. Instead of focusing on their materialism, Burney depicts medical reformers as motivated by universalist, rationalist and abstract principles – it was thus the abstractions of philosophic anatomy that went well with a commitment to democratic reform.28 Using Burney’s point we can argue that the universalist principles shared by philosophic anatomists and political radicals were part of the analytic:synthetic style of reasoning. For analysis:synthesis not only depicted living organisms as aggregations of simple parts, it could also be applied to other realms – for instance providing rationalist principles with which to direct market-oriented reforms of science and society. Disintegrating and then imaginatively reconstituting any kind of complicated system helped to clarify its structure and function. It ended any apparent confusion by treating a system as nothing more than the sum of its simplest elements. Features of a system that were not shown to be made out of these elements could be deemed superfluous and set aside. One could thus use analysis:synthesis to set out an ideal system against which extant systems could be compared and criticized. This style lent itself to any reformer who sought to rationalize a system, making it more comprehensible and responsive to change, in order to reduce the amount of resources needed to attain a certain goal. One group using analysis:synthesis were the group now called the philosophic radicals, who sought to reform social and political institutions. The key member of the philosophic radicals was Bentham. In 1789 Bentham had called society no more than the ‘whole assemblage of any number of individuals … constituting an imaginary compound body’.29 Bentham started his career by criticizing Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England. Blackstone’s key failing as a legal scholar was his treatment of the current English legal system as the best possible outcome. But, without something against which to compare that legal system, there was no way to determine if it was indeed perfect. Moreover, without an ideal system there could be no criticism of existing laws and no way to reform them. Hence Bentham set out to create such a system by breaking

Analysis Part One

23

up various legal phenomena into their constituent parts – by making distinctions between those parts. This method he called ‘bipartition’.30 His Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, for example, went to extraordinary lengths to distinguish kinds of offences by breaking them all up into different classes, then breaking up each smaller class into even smaller ones. John Stuart Mill later noted that Bentham’s often idiosyncratic opinions were not as important as his continuous application of the ‘method of detail’ to solve complex issues. Inspired by the belief that ‘the human mind is not capable of embracing a complex whole, until it has surveyed and catalogued the parts of which that whole is made up’, he saw Bentham as trying to make the study of morality and politics scientific by separating wholes into parts, abstractions into individual things and classes into individuals. ‘Hence his interminable classifications’, Mill wryly added.31 Bentham famously undertook many such interminable classifications. Some were more esoteric, such as the ‘analytical sketch’ of political tactics shown in Figure 1.3.

Figure 1.3. ‘Analytical Sketch’, in J. Bentham, Political Tactics (1838–43), ed. M. James, C. Blamires and C. Pease-Watkin (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999), p. 179.

24

Styles of Reasoning in the British Life Sciences

Bentham’s method of bipartition was the style of analysis:synthesis, albeit in the logical, not physical, sense. His 1818 Chrestomathia even noted his inspiration by de Condillac’s suggestive but confused use of the word analysis. Bentham claimed to be building upon and correcting not only de Condillac’s work, but also the French classification tables in the Encyclopédie that predated de Condillac.32 For much of his life Bentham’s voice was a lonely one. By the second decade of the nineteenth century, however, he gained a small audience for his method. These included Whigs such as Samuel Romilly (Roget’s uncle) and Henry Brougham, radical politicians such as Francis Place, Thomas Wooler and Francis Burdett and review writers such as Sydney Smith. All of these men started to bring Bentham’s arcane writings to a wider arena.33 He really only became prominent in English society in the 1820s. Eventually Bentham became very famous indeed: in the consolidated index of the Edinburgh Review between 1813 and 1830, the only person mentioned more than Bentham was Napoleon.34 Bentham’s two most famous disciples were James Mill (father of J. S. Mill) and the physician T. S. Smith, both of whom used the language and tools of analysis:synthesis. For his part, Mill sought an investigation of the economy’s aggregated operations to resolve it into those elements; and carefully and comprehensively to pass them under review. This is the analytical operation. When we have the full knowledge of the elements, which we are to combine, as means, towards our ends … it then remains that we proceed to form those combinations, by which the ends will be the most advantageously produced. This is the synthetical operation.35

Mill thought that analysis would permit the economy’s optimal division of labour to be discovered. Meanwhile, his infamous ‘Essay on Government’ (1820) spoke of a ‘dissection of human nature’ that would show ‘the primary elements into which human happiness may be resolved’. The ‘Essay’ deduced a theory of government from simple axioms, an approach famously attacked by Thomas Macaulay for its fatuousness. In 1829, Mill continued along analytic:synthetic lines by writing a psychology treatise entitled The Analysis of the Human Mind, which started by setting out the simplest sensations as ‘elements of which the complex are formed’.36 This book is now generally studied as a work of associationist psychology. Meanwhile T. S. Smith – who founded the Westminster Review with Bentham – favourably appraised Mill’s Analysis in that journal. Smith noted that analysis was a form of inquiry leading to certain and precise knowledge: had not the most successful sciences, like chemistry, used that style of reasoning? Mental science and political science ought to follow these more certain sciences by discovering the elements out of which thought and good laws were made. Smith especially

Analysis Part One

25

hoped that legislators would be trained in analysis in order to draft the best possible laws for society.37 Bentham died in June 1832, infamously willing his body to be publicly dissected. In the funeral oration at that dissection, Smith called Bentham a Newton of the moral world.38 Historians like Elie Halévy have wondered at the reasons behind Smith’s comparison. He might have been depicting the utilitarian picture of the mind as working through single states of consciousness, like ‘atoms of the psychic world’. Or Smith might have been analogizing Bentham’s ethics to universal gravitation. Both of Halévy’s points have been criticized.39 The best explanation is instead that Smith compared Bentham to Newton because of Newton’s experiments with white light, where he decomposed white light into a spectrum and then back into white light again. Bentham could be depicted as a Newton of the moral world because he had disintegrated all ethics into the interplay between the elements of pleasure and pain.40 Bentham sought moral clarity through analysis:synthesis. By analogizing Newton to Bentham it is likely that Smith thought the funeral audience also shared this belief.

Analysis:Synthesis, Political Individualism and Spontaneous Order Analysis:synthesis set out the conditions of possibility for a number of research fields, including utilitarian ethics, political economy, taxonomies arranged by nervous structure and philosophical anatomy. Common to all fields was the delegation of a system’s properties to its constitutive elements. It required the philosophic radicals to discuss political and economic individualism alongside the individual’s connection to society. It also meant that British life researchers of the 1820s and 1830s worried incessantly over how each body part was linked to the whole. Elements could be put together in a system in two ways. There was aggregation, in which simple elements were added to other simple elements. Hence water could be poured into a bucket of water, with water molecules coming into contact with other water molecules. The relationships formed during aggregation were simple and did not change the nature of the system, or the elements themselves; indeed there may have been no relationships formed at all during aggregation, becoming simply a population of unrelated elements. The nature of the system as a whole was reproduced in each element of that system. During aggregation, the properties of the system were the properties of each of its elements. Then there was composition, in which certain relationships among the elements caused properties of the more complex whole. A block placed at a location near the top of two leaning pillars became the keystone of an arch. That piece had individual properties – colour, weight, composition – but only

26

Styles of Reasoning in the British Life Sciences

became a keystone when put in a certain place in a certain way. And the keystone’s placement caused a mass of bricks to attain a new property at a systemic level – it became an arch. Researchers most committed to analysis:synthesis treated systems as aggregative. Any relationships between elements were instead treated as the properties of each element (or as irrelevant). If they were dealing with a compositional system, then any relationship between certain elements, resulting in systemic properties, was seen as an unnecessary vagueness and confusion, made invisible, or declared to be the property of each element.41 Because the most radical analysts treated all systems as aggregative, they had to deal with the problematic of spontaneous order – that because each element had the same properties of the system, when lumped together they would automatically reproduce the order found in that system. Each of the bricks that made up an arch had the property of ‘archness’ in it, so to speak. Analysis:synthesis often worked brilliantly to clarify complicated systems. Would-be political reformers intent on reshaping English society emphasized one lower level of organization – the voter, the economic individual, the clarified individual legal offence – and de-emphasized a higher level of organization. If error lurked in generalities, as Bentham insisted,42 then those generalities not only had to be broken up, but then had to be put back together again and seen as consisting only of their individual parts. Ethics was aggregative and was reinterpreted by utilitarians as no more than the interplay of the twin elements of pain and pleasure; happiness was thus seen as merely the sum total of pleasure outweighing the sum total of pain. ‘Society’ could be depicted as an aggregation of self-interested individuals. Radical democrats and political economists argued that a society organized on patron-client relationships could be pulled apart and replaced with free elections and markets that would both spontaneously arrive at optimal outcomes. For it was not the relationships between individuals that mattered, but the properties inhering in each individual (such as interests or labour). The strong individualism of the philosophic radicals and political economists emerged from the delegation of a social system’s properties to the individual people who made up that social system. In some ways analysis:synthesis helped rationalize various social systems by making them responsive to the needs of far more people in those systems. Thus Bentham spoke of corruption being caused when politicians gratified their partial and private interests at the expense of the universal interest of the people; corruption could be remedied by restoring the power of the universal interest over the partial monarchical and aristocratic interests. Restoration of the universal interest could be done through democratic reform. When more people voted, more power was given to the universal interest: the universal interest Bentham equated with the aggregate number of individual British voters, not

Analysis Part One

27

some confused holistic ‘society’. James Mill similarly believed that the interest of the entire community was identical with that of the aggregate number of male voters. Conversely, the smaller the number of those allowed to rule, the greater the likelihood of bad government.43 Similar aggregative beliefs also persisted in radical corners of British life research at the same time. Philosophical anatomists, for instance, thought in terms of aggregation. So too did the physiologists insisting on the independence of each ganglion-segment. The problematic of spontaneous order thus appeared in analytic:synthetic life research too. The properties of an entire organism were delegated to each of its elements. Neuroanatomists thus described a single ganglion as a ‘brain’. Physiologists could depict the life of the body as no more than the aggregate result of the vitality of each tissue. Neurophysiologists could depict mental activity as no more than the compounding of reflexes, or the interaction of ganglia. Phrenologists could depict mental activity as the communication of discrete mental faculties. Examples of such explanations will be reviewed in more detail below. For now a sufficient illustration of the problematic of spontaneous order is shown in the British reception of the ‘cell theory’. German researchers Matthias Schleiden and Theodor Schwann were understood to be stating that all organisms were made out of cells, making all organisms mere aggregates of these simplest possible living units. Thus in 1840 one British reviewer interpreted Schleiden and Schwann as saying that organisms consisted of ‘similar elements … each endowed with an apparently independent power of growth and self-nutrition’, with the obvious implication being that ‘the organism was an aggregate of parts endowed with independent vitality’. Therefore all animals and plants existed not due to any inherent power that resided in the entire organism, but survived only due to the ‘independent self-nutrition and reciprocal reaction of its component elements’.44 Certain Britons then repeated the view that cells were elementary individuals. John Goodsir – whom Rudolf Virchow would famously credit in his later cell researches – depicted cancerous tumours as having a few ‘reproductive individuals’ that specialized in producing new tumours. Like the tissues and organs of any animal, there was a division of labour in the tumour, ‘just as in certain communities of animals certain individuals are set aside to reproduce the swarm, the others are devoted to the duties of the hive’.45 Following Schwann’s language, Goodsir also used the image of colonial insects to draw parallels between a tumour, an animal and a community. Familiar social imagery was often used to depict the relationship of part to whole. Obviously at the time not all life researchers were analysts. Some strongly resisted the move. In 1830 the physician Leonard Stewart complained that analysis in pathology and anatomy was too fashionable.

28

Styles of Reasoning in the British Life Sciences Analysis may be carried too far … in systems of general anatomy, we see it trace all the tissues to one or two primary elements; so simple, that they cease to represent the modified structure of the organs which are variously constructed from these fundamental materials.

Stewart’s main complaint was that too much analysis caused people to see organs and tissues as isolated agents. He even worried that analysts tended to ascribe to the isolated organs and tissues under study an unwarranted ‘independent agency in the generation of malady’.46 Thus, while many life researchers tended to use analysis:synthesis, they did not simply see organisms as aggregative. There had to be something else responsible for each element to work harmoniously together. Thus in 1840 the British cell-theory reviewer noted above observed that Schleiden and Schwann had not gone to excesses. It would have been too much to call each cell a ‘monad’, with all of the higher functions of the entire individual (even its own consciousness). The reviewer approvingly saw that the two men pointed out that each cell actually led a double life, both as an individual and as part of the larger plant.47 Owen, though sympathetic to analysis:synthesis, also did not see the aggregative view as sufficient. He wondered why tissues were resolved into individual forms. He asked why a fish, bird or mammal took the shape it did – why did it not simply develop as a ‘mass of infusories’?48 Owen came down firmly on the side of composition, distinguishing motion and matter from the ‘superadded’ organizing principle, which led to higher-order life and design. ‘When a part is removed from the whole, it generally perishes. Unorganised bodies however may be subdivided indefinitely without any of the parts thereby losing the chemical properties which characterized the whole.’ Owen had wondered about the ‘ultimate efficient cause’ of organisms, noting that, while forces like light, heat and electricity were certainly at work in them and in non-living bodies, the ultimate cause was not a ‘property of the elementary parts’.49 Despite obvious debts to the noted German physiologist Johannes Müller, Owen still believed in an organizing principle coming from without, rather than an immanent vital force. He would come to propose a teleological ‘adaptive force’ that pushed downwards, imposing order upon each segment and cell, making an organism a true individual and not a mass of infusories. In his view, harmony did not emerge spontaneously from the interaction of elements. Owen’s early career is further investigated in this chapter and his views about the adaptive force are detailed in Chapter 4. Complaints about the insufficiency of analysis:synthesis in the social realm are more familiar. The analyst tended to explain social phenomena by emphasizing each individual person and the spontaneous order which emerged out of their unrestrained interactions. Explaining how political systems worked (and ought to work) by seeing those systems as the result of the aggregate choices

Analysis Part One

29

of all individual voters, or economic agents, had the result of granting each individual extraordinary powers. Such a delegation of agency was attacked by contemporaries. In 1829, Macaulay criticized James Mill’s reasoning: ‘Certain propensities of human nature are assumed; and from these premises the whole science of politics is synthetically deduced!’50 Macaulay’s attack was not just on Mill’s a priorism. It was also a critique of using analysis:synthesis to understand how governments worked. He deemed this style insufficient. Macaulay denied that the sum of individual interests added up to the interest of society as a whole. He therefore denied the possibility of spontaneous order. J. S. Mill took Macaulay’s criticisms seriously. Although born and educated to become the leading Utilitarian, eventually he would dismiss his father’s and Bentham’s legacy, partly on the grounds of their method. In 1838 he noted a crucial flaw to Bentham’s signature method: if a person’s survey ‘left any element out’, then his conclusions could not apply, whether they were about human nature or any other aspect of human life, for ‘Nobody’s synthesis can be more complete than his analysis’.51 J. S. Mill concluded that analysis:synthesis was a useful tool – but only to a point.

The Importance of Museums Unlike political and legal philosophers, however, life researchers had to examine concrete plants and animals. They had to collect, dissect, macerate, compare, preserve and store specimens, tasks that had to be carried out somewhere, by someone. Such a requirement meant that the style of analysis:synthesis in the life sciences often depended upon the physical site of the museum. The larger the collection of specimens, the more comparisons that could be made: centralized collections made investigations of common elements (such as bones or body parts in philosophical anatomy) more efficient, because more of them could be stored and it took less time to view them. Pickstone suggests that museums became truly important in Paris between 1793 and 1795, when the Revolutionary political authorities appropriated the collections belonging to King and Church, laying them out for the public as an educational display that signified a new and rational cultural order. Indeed to order these collections they often followed the method of the Encyclopédie. Perhaps de Condillac’s belief that analysis:synthesis was inherently populist explains why it was used to reorganize places like the Royal Botanical Gardens into the Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle. Properly organized museums not only enabled truths about nature to be displayed, which would teach moral lessons to all French citizens,52 but they offered the possibility that even the humblest French citizen could understand those natural truths and see them as common possessions of the French people. The dual purpose of displaying natural truths

30

Styles of Reasoning in the British Life Sciences

and teaching morality meant that at the beginning of the nineteenth century, museums were not so much collections of dead or past objects so much as they were science centres, displaying the most up-to-date knowledge and useful collections of specimens. To carry out these tasks required specialized practitioners and continuous government funding.53 The emergence and renovation of these large Parisian museums has been linked with the appearance of enormous publicly-funded hospitals, also in that city. Pickstone notes that these new hospitals made it possible for the new ‘anatomico-clinical method’ to be practised – those using this method grouped together large populations of patients according to common diseases. Such an approach replaced an earlier emphasis on the uniqueness of individual patients, each with his or her own unbalanced humoural system. By the turn of the century, diseases were no longer seen as idiosyncratic to each individual – they were depicted as universally applicable, with bodies being universally susceptible to them.54 Comparative anatomy also changed from a study of individual and unique ‘specimens’, to the investigation of those specimens’ universal properties. Just as the anatomico-clinical method was made possible by large teaching hospitals, large research museums facilitated the study and grouping of specimens according to common properties. The use of museums for comparing specimens was exemplified by the rise of the zoologist Cuvier in the late 1700s and early 1800s. Cuvier celebrated the sedentary museum-bound researcher over the romanticized and heroic figure of the field naturalist. While the field naturalist was able to study organisms in their natural context, these observations could only remain fleeting. The field naturalist could not control the encounter and could only look at individual organisms. But in a museum the researcher was able to choose his specimens carefully, at his own pace, allowing him to more efficiently survey nature in its entirety, or what, for all practical purposes, seemed to be its entirety: Cuvier’s own Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle had enormous resources, with botanical and zoological gardens, a library, lecture theatres and rooms for preparation and dissection.55 By 1822 his ‘Cabinet of Comparative Anatomy’ had been built up to include 11,486 specimen preparations, from which he compared individuals or parts of individuals. Significantly, Cuvier’s cabinet included 881 mollusc and 1,097 other invertebrate specimens, all dissected. Invertebrate specimens were an especially exotic prize, because they were more difficult and thus more expensive to preserve. Along with tissues and internal organs they had to be preserved in wine spirits, in jars that did not always seal properly. The specimens were constantly rotting, or bleaching and toughening, meaning that many had to be replaced. Yet such difficulties were endured to obtain new results: Grant considered Cuvier’s access to those ‘rare species which had long been preserved in the Museum in spirits’ to be the major reason for Cuvier’s towering

Analysis Part One

31

reputation. The Paris museums were the best possible facility for comparative anatomy and zoology.56 Other British researchers also looked at these museums with envy. As early as 1816 Lawrence praised the French government for supporting its scientists while noting that he was ‘ashamed’ at the lack of similar facilities in Britain and its failure to publicly fund its researchers.57 The contrast between the British and French organization of science motivated many Britons to voyage to Paris in order to use their collections and learn from French experts. When they returned home, such men wanted Britain to copy such facilities. One such case occurred with the founding of the Zoological Society by Sir Stamford Raffles in 1826. £1,000 that was set aside for a new London zoology museum offered some relief for envious British life researchers and Raffles’s collections were central to the new museum. Grant spent much time at the Zoological Society museum, taking his students there, and he was a strong advocate for its expansion. At the time he was also building his own comparative anatomy museum at London University. By 1829 the Zoological Society museum had accumulated too many specimens and became overcrowded, so it had to be moved. A dispute over its new location broke out. The aristocratic patrons of the Zoological Society wanted to move it closer to the menagerie in the park, while the reformist-minded democrats wanted to move the museum closer to central London to gain some additional independence from the aristocrats. Eventually the democrats won and the museum moved to the site of John Hunter’s original museum on Leicester Square.58 Those who favoured museums, however, did not necessarily prefer democratic politics. Trained in Edinburgh, Forbes then studied geology, natural history and comparative anatomy in Paris, taught six days a week by such men as Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire at the Jardin des Plantes. Yet he was a political conservative who supplemented his meagre King’s College professorship as curator of the Geological Society’s museum. The purpose of this Charing Cross institution was to display the value of geology to the public. Forbes saw the museum move to a far grander location in 1848 and by 1854, when appointed to the University of Edinburgh as Regius Professor of Natural History, he immediately announced that he would renovate his predecessor’s museum. Perhaps Forbes believed that museums were not as important for research as they were for teaching – he had, after all, pronounced that properly organized museums taught the learned and made the ignorant curious.59 Nor was it necessary to have studied in Paris to want a better museum. The Cambridge Professor of Anatomy William ‘Bone’ Clark – who was also an absentee Anglican Vicar – moved the university’s anatomical collections to a larger building in 1832. The move was prompted by embarrassment: Cuvier had given osteological casts to Oxford after learning that Cambridge had no

32

Styles of Reasoning in the British Life Sciences

room for them. Sixteen years later, Clark purchased new specimens with his own money when the Natural Sciences Tripos began. When Forbes’s friend J. G. Goodsir became curator of the University of Edinburgh anatomy and pathology museum, the latter announced his intention to create a teaching museum above all other British institutions, one where a person could learn anatomy simply by looking at the structures on display.60 Like Forbes, Clark and Goodsir seem to have been motivated more by education than by research. Many Britons made similar commitments to museums from the late 1820s onward, leading to the building or renovation of about 200 British museums until the early 1880s. It does not seem coincidental that analysis:synthesis became established among life researchers during the period that historian Nicolaas Rupke has aptly called the ‘Age of Museums’.61 Museums and analysis:synthesis went together because it was believed that it was in museums where good life science was carried out or inculcated; good life science consisted of breaking things up and then studying the pieces. The financial considerations of individuals were also important for the emergence of museums in Britain. In the late 1820s most British life researchers led an impecunious existence. Grant gave over 200 lectures a year at London University, the Aldersgate Street school of medicine, Grainger’s Theatre of Anatomy and Hall’s Sydenham College. He angrily compared his impoverishment with the more secure livings of French savants. For William Swainson the secure and salaried positions of French savants explained the better state of science in France when compared to the ‘decline of science’ in Britain.62 Museums offered new sources of income to British researchers. They supported the building or renovation of museums because they also offered new opportunities, either for them or for their friends. The view of intertwined museums, analytic:synthetic definitions of better life research and personal opportunities is made concrete by a review of Owen’s rise.

The Contingent Beginnings of Richard Owen Owen became a comparative anatomist and museum builder more by chance than by deliberate strategy. Born in 1804 in Lancaster, he opted to learn surgery because it allowed him to join the Navy, ‘the calling of his choice’. But Navy cutbacks after the Napoleonic Wars forced him to quit his midshipman’s position. So between 1820 and 1824 Owen served at least three Lancaster surgical masters, learning his skills in the workplace. One site was the county jail, where he obtained practical knowledge in surgery, apothecary and post-mortem examination: the jail gave rare chances of ‘fleshing his maiden scalpel’.63 After his prolonged apprenticeship, Owen went to the University of Edinburgh, beginning his medical studies there in the autumn of 1824. He was

Analysis Part One

33

strongly impressed by John Barclay’s extra-curricular course, which situated human anatomy amidst the structures of other animals. In 1803, Barclay had sought to clarify the confusion of contemporary anatomical terms by proposing a new nomenclature partly inspired by Lavoisier’s chemical system.64 Owen stayed in Edinburgh for only two terms, but during his time there apparently came into contact with Grant (then an instructor for Barclay). Barclay recommended that he travel to London to qualify for private medical practice or return to the Navy as a surgeon. Owen moved to London in the spring of 1825, leaving Edinburgh without obtaining a degree.65 Owen was well aware of patronage’s importance to the young researcher. His mother advised him to become a pupil to someone eminent, so that he could acquire useful skills while becoming ‘known’ to his teacher’s friends. Upon arriving in London, Owen presented Barclay’s letter of introduction to the powerful John Abernethy, then-president of the Royal College of Surgeons. Also impressed with Owen’s industry and skill, Abernethy immediately appointed him prosector for his surgical lectures at London’s ancient and wealthy St Bartholomew’s Hospital. The position was unpaid.66 Yet patronage could only do so much: although Abernethy promised Owen a permanent position at the Bart’s anatomical school, Owen was not a Hospital apprentice, which meant little chance of obtaining any job there. By early 1827 it did not look like Owen had much of a future in the London anatomical world. So he contacted the Navy, which promised him a post as an assistant-surgeon. Owen later recounted the infamously rude Abernethy’s response to the news: ‘What is all this?’ said Abernethy – ‘Where are you going?’ ‘Going to sea, Sir.’ ‘Going to sea – going to the devil!’ ‘I hope not, Sir.’ ‘Go to sea! You had better, I tell you, go to the devil at once’ – reiterated glorious John …

Faced with losing Owen, Abernethy moved quickly. He told Owen to delay his departure and secured a position for him at the Royal College of Surgeons within the week; Owen was appointed there on 6 March 1827.67 Owen now worked for William Clift, Abernethy’s acquaintance. He was to help Clift at the College’s Hunterian Museum preparing the Museum’s catalogue. In 1792 the impoverished Clift had been apprenticed to John Hunter, patron saint of British surgeons. The young man’s drawing skills had been noticed by one of Hunter’s acquaintances. When Hunter died suddenly of a heart attack at a St George’s Hospital meeting only twenty months later, Clift was asked to maintain Hunter’s enormous collection of specimens until it could be sold. In

34

Styles of Reasoning in the British Life Sciences

Figure 1.4. Royal College of Surgeons c. 1827, in S. Leigh, Leigh’s New Picture of London (London: Samuel Leigh, 1827), p. 329.

1799 Parliament purchased it for £20,000 and specified that it was to be maintained and catalogued by the newly-incorporated Royal College of Surgeons. The collection became known as the Hunterian Museum and Clift became its Conservator. He was paid £80 a year, got married and later obtained a job for his son in the Museum.68 Yet by the 1820s the College had still not produced a catalogue, leaving much of Hunter’s collection inaccessible. The College’s opponents claimed that by not living up to Parliament’s charge, the College had failed the British people, who really owned the collection. The production delay was not really Clift’s fault – more on this point below – but nonetheless there was a great deal of pressure on Clift when Owen was hired as one of his assistants in March 1827. Owen was set to work on the natural history specimens and then on the soft tissue preparations. It was not exciting work, which may explain the high turnover of Clift’s assistants before Owen arrived. One of Owen’s tasks was to re-label specimen bottles – many had no labels and had to be identified by comparing them with new additions to the collection. But other parts were more enjoyable. He attended the lectures of John Henry Green in 1827 and 1828, learning things like how nervous ganglia were repeated in every lobster segment.69 Green became one of Owen’s mentors at the Royal College of Surgeons. Owen became attracted to Clift’s daughter, Caroline, but Mrs Clift barred him from marrying her because of his low income of £120 a year. So he sought other ways to make money. Owen established a medical practice near the College and lectured on comparative anat-

Analysis Part One

35

omy at Bart’s. These were still not enough, so in 1830 Owen applied for work as a house surgeon at the Birmingham Hospital. But perhaps he had come to enjoy his Hunterian classification work – he quickly grew bored in Birmingham and returned to London and the Hunterian.70 Owen then followed his mother’s advice by becoming known to even more eminent figures than Barclay and Abernethy. When Cuvier himself called on the Hunterian Museum in 1830, he invited the French-speaking Owen to visit him in Paris. In the summer of 1831 – on vacation, of course – Owen did so, travelling with Grant, spending a month attending Cuvier and Geoffroy’s lectures and working in the galleries and dissecting-rooms of the Jardin des Plantes. On that trip he also met Henri Milne Edwards, the Anglo-Belgian who was to become Cuvier’s successor at the Muséum.71 Yet these portents of future greatness were only a few flickers of promise against a backdrop of great uncertainty. Owen’s desertion of the Birmingham Hospital for the Hunterian must have seemed foolhardy to many onlookers. For at this time there were few places for a Briton lacking an independent income to make a living doing scientific research. Indeed, in 1830 there was no chance for Owen to succeed Clift. Clift’s son William Home Clift had been groomed since 1823 to succeed his father as Conservator of the Hunterian Museum. Home Clift was just as busy as Owen at cataloguing Hunter’s collections. He worked on the more high profile osteological and teratological specimens, describing some 3,000. Also working at the Hunterian was Samuel Stuchbury, under whom Owen worked directly.72 Presumably this more senior colleague was next in line in any succession. Yet despite his later reputation for jealousy and underhand behaviour, Owen does not seem to have resented Home Clift for his future position. Owen and Home Clift became friends, sharing an interest in both music and theatre. But then their situation changed. On 11 September 1832, Home Clift was involved in a carriage accident and taken to Bart’s. Owen himself attended the injured man, who died six days later. After his son’s death Clift went into mourning, then into decline. At some point Stutchbury also left the Hunterian. It was around this time that Owen’s tendency to appropriate the work of others began, for after 1832 Owen started taking credit for Home Clift’s osteological and teratological cataloguing work. As memories of Clift’s son faded, Owen gained the reputation of being able to do the work of two men. And so he gradually became the de facto Hunterian Conservator.73 Owen saw many opportunities in his new situation. There had already been talk of renovating the Hunterian Museum and Owen seized the chance to manage such a project. Like other Britons who had visited French museums, Owen had already wanted to copy many aspects of those sites. Upon returning from a trip to the Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle in 1831, Owen reported to the College Council on how Cuvier arranged and administered his department and on how he

36

Styles of Reasoning in the British Life Sciences

classified his specimens. He was dissatisfied with how Cuvier kept each displayed species separate and so Owen played up the superiority of the Hunterian system, for it showed the relationships of different physiological systems.74 In 1833 the Hunterian’s renovation began, at an estimated cost of £16,439. Charles Barry’s redesign added a flat-roofed second gallery and a smaller additional museum, placing cases with plate glass doors along the walls. The work was officially finished in February 1838 and vast sums had been spent. One critic estimated that total spending on the Hunterian Collection between 1793 and mid-century had reached £200,000. Clift estimated in 1835 that one section of the collection, comprising 222 specimens, was worth £7,000. Such amounts are difficult to grasp or verify. Smaller figures are better at showing the project’s scale: the spirit used for the preservation of those 222 specimens cost £55 alone. At that time the yearly rent for an eight-room London house was £35.75 Cynics claimed that the Royal College of Surgeons spent these sums to gain a veneer of scientific authority. There is some truth to their charge, especially if we see museums as teaching the public about a scientific field. Education was not just a way to expand outsiders’ horizons – it was also a bid to convince them of a discipline’s value. But these sums were also justified as a way to facilitate better life research. Most life researchers sincerely believed that the new age of museums would reinvigorate British science. The Hunterian Museum was not the only major institution to be renovated: the Natural History Department at the British Museum was given more money in salaries and £1,600 a year for specimen purchase and preservation. The additional monies were distributed in 1837, only after such figures as Owen and Grant testified to a Parliamentary Select Committee about the failings of the British Museum when compared to its Continental counterparts.76 Both men also agreed on this matter. The renovations of the Hunterian Museum and British Museum show that by the mid 1830s the complaints begun by Lawrence some twenty years earlier had finally started to change British institutions. By 1837 the Hunterian Museum no longer had its collections jumbled together – its physiological series and natural history series were given their own place on the top floor and in the Museum’s smaller wing.77 As British museums emerged or changed – their growth justified by appeals to French exemplars – a virtuous circle emerged. The growth of a group of museums and other museological sites made it easier for everyone’s collections to grow. The specimens, cast-offs and hand-me-downs from one site’s collection could be used to strengthen another’s. For instance, as Owen began to catalogue Hunter’s deteriorating specimens, he was able to fill some gaps by obtaining dead animals from the Zoological Society’s Gardens. In 1835 the Society offered Owen a dead orang-utan to dissect, asking only £10 for the corpse. By 1840 Owen was allowed

Analysis Part One

37

to dissect any creature that died at their Gardens, being given priority over any other anatomist.78

Figure 1.5. British Museum c. 1827, in S. Leigh, Leigh’s New Picture of London (London: Samuel Leigh, 1827), p. 329.

The Domestication of Analysis:Synthesis: Owen’s Reinterpretation of John Hunter Before his debts to German transcendental anatomists, and before adopting Platonism to soothe worried Oxbridge patrons, Owen learned about museum organization from the French. And through them Owen learned to use analysis: synthesis in his work. Nicolaas Rupke argues that Owen hid his debts to Carl Gustav Carus by emphasizing his allegiance to Lorenz Oken. Similarly, it is apparent that Owen concealed his debts to French analysis:synthesis by emphasizing his allegiance to Hunter. He claimed that Hunter was himself motivated by analysis:synthesis and Owen used Hunter as an historical exemplar to emphasize the British roots of analysis:synthesis. Seeing Owen as using historical revisionism to cleanse analysis:synthesis of any Jacobin taint supports Desmond’s portrayal of Owen as a moderate Peelite Conservative, a scientific innovator who nonetheless sought to uphold the privileges of such medical corporations as the Royal College of Surgeons.79 Owen was already motivated by Hunter’s example. While a student in Edinburgh, he founded the ‘Hunterian Society’, following Abernethy (who championed Hunter’s theory of life and spoke of Hunter’s influence on his own views) and Clift (not only Hunter’s apprentice until Hunter’s death, but a man

38

Styles of Reasoning in the British Life Sciences

who viewed Hunter with ‘enthusiastic reverence’).80 Owen’s activities at the Hunterian Museum – beginning with his cataloguing work – best show how he made Hunter important for a new generation of British life researchers while also using Hunter to domesticate analysis:synthesis. A major reason why it took over thirty years for the Hunterian Museum’s catalogue to begin appearing was because Hunter’s manuscripts had mostly disappeared. Upon Hunter’s death, his executor and son-in-law, Everard Home, had taken them to his house, ostensibly to catalogue the Hunterian collection. Instead Home allegedly plagiarized from these papers over a long period, using them to produce a series of Royal Society papers. To cover up his theft, Home destroyed many of the manuscripts, using some for toilet paper and burning the rest. Clift had managed to copy out about half of Hunter’s manuscripts, but without all of Hunter’s notes it proved difficult to reconstruct the arrangement of the Hunterian collection, a point magnified by the collection’s sheer size.81 However Home’s destruction of the manuscripts actually gave Owen a freer hand at reclassifying and rearranging the Hunterian collection as he saw fit. The most knowledgeable historian of the Hunterian Museum, Jessie Dobson, notes that, although Clift was ostensibly in charge of catalogue preparation, it was really Owen who formulated the catalogues. Owen also helped bring out two different volumes of Hunter’s writings, one in 1837 and one in 1861. With such unparalleled access to the ruins of Hunter’s work, Owen became one of the most important guardians and interpreters of Hunter’s research. He could shape how Hunter’s frequently obscure comments were interpreted.82 In doing so, Owen could reshape Hunter’s example into a new founding myth for British comparative anatomy, not only using him to stand for a golden age to which conservatives could point with nostalgia, but also conveniently highlighting points where Hunter’s practices nicely dovetailed with Owen’s own.83 Historian L. S. Jacyna has noted how other various British surgeons, in an ‘a posteriori conscription of great names’, called on Hunter’s spirit to legitimate some practice they favoured.84 Owen was particularly good at this revisionism. Indeed, where radicals such as Grant and Lawrence cited French science as a cross-cultural icon to highlight British research failures and impoverishment, Owen’s position at the Museum meant that he was able to cite Hunter as an historical icon signalling past and future British successes. Indeed, when one looked at how the Hunterian series broke up the body into its ‘component parts’ and saw how systems ran from simplest to most complex, one recalled not only Hunter but also Aristotle. In 1837 Owen noted how Hunter, ‘our great physiologist’, had discovered a property of the developing embryo some fifty years before a French researcher presented the same discovery to the Académie as a new finding.85 Moreover, Hunter’s legacy could be used to justify the enormous

Analysis Part One

39

sums spent on the Hunterian Museum’s renovation. Its reformation would allow British research to once again outshine the French. Owen also noted how Hunter used analysis and synthesis, even before famous French life researchers. He had investigated the vital properties of the blood by subjecting it to ‘mechanical and chemical analysis’, thereby learning about its different constituents.86 In the museum, meanwhile, Having thus laboriously obtained his knowledge and his material evidences of the modifications of particular organs analytically, Hunter strove to impart the higher conclusions deducible from those evidences by presenting them in the synthetical order requisite for such generalizations; as in the arrangement which governs the disposition of the Physiological Collection in the Museum.87

Owen wrote this passage in 1861, after he had left the Hunterian Museum for the British Museum. But his account differed from others’ earlier descriptions about its arrangement. In 1816 Lawrence described the Hunterian museum as organized on the rationale, shared by Aristotle and Cuvier – of examining each organ in every animal that could possibly be procured. In 1835 Hunter’s biographer Drewry Ottley gave a more detailed description of the museum’s arrangement. For instance, the subdivision ‘digestion’ was divided into three parts. The first was devoted to teeth (their analogy with bird beaks; different varieties of teeth; how they grew). The second part displayed the stomach (starting with the simplest digestive cavities and ending with the most complex versions of stomachs). The third part displayed various glands (salivary; the pancreas, liver; gall bladder; and brain). No unitary guiding principle lay behind the scheme that Ottley described. Only one third of the display – the stomach’s increasing complexity – suggested analysis:synthesis. Nonetheless Ottley hinted at Owen’s distillation of Hunter’s work along new lines: the young man was already using Lamarckian and Cuvierian categories to rearrange some 614 of Hunter’s ‘invertebrate’ specimens. But the word ‘invertebrate’ only appeared in the English language in 1826, some thirty-three years after Hunter’s death.88 In 1837, two years after Ottley’s book appeared, Owen described how his cataloguing of the Hunterian Physiological Series was guided by degree of organ complexity. Ignoring other principles of Hunter’s – that the brain was actually a digestive organ, or that parts communicated by inter-organ ‘sympathies’, for instance – Owen depicted Hunter’s classificatory scheme as tracing the compounding nervous system through ‘progressive stages of complication’. But Owen was actually using a Cuvierian framework that appeared only after Hunter’s death. Six years later, Owen again explicitly likened Cuvier’s work to the rearranged Hunterian Museum’s organ display from simple to complex: passing from simplest to most complicated condition of each organ, both series exemplified the ‘best modern works’. Owen had used French terminology and

40

Styles of Reasoning in the British Life Sciences

frameworks to re-catalogue specimens in what he hoped would become a British rival to the Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle, while nonetheless emphasizing the ‘British’ roots of his work. By engaging in subtle anachronism, Owen emphasized the parts of Hunter’s work using the style of analysis:synthesis.89 Hunter would have been fascinated by the chemistry of Owen’s day – ‘For, what is Chemistry but a species of dissection, or unraveling of the elementary components which elude the knife and microscope of the Anatomist’.90

Owen’s Rise After the uncertainties of the early 1830s, Owen soon advanced. In 1834 he became Chair of Comparative Anatomy at Bart’s, where in 1828 he had been unable to obtain a permanent position. In December 1834 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. On his thirty-first birthday, 20 July 1835, he finally married Caroline Clift after a seven-year engagement. In April 1836 he became the first Hunterian Professor of Comparative Anatomy and Physiology at the Royal College of Surgeons after Charles Bell left the Hunterian lectureship for the University of Edinburgh. In 1837, Owen was unanimously elected Fullerian Professor at the Royal Institution in Piccadilly, beating Solly, Herbert Mayo (author of successful physiology textbooks), Robert B. Todd and Gideon Mantell (surgeon and palaeontologist). He also beat Grant, whom he intended to praise in the Hunterian Lectures of that year as the ‘learned and eloquent Professor of Comparative Anatomy’ – unfortunately a phrase cut out of his speech. In 1838 he won the Geological Society’s Wollaston gold medal and in 1840 became the first president of the Royal Microscopical Society.91 Owen’s patrons now included William Buckland, Adam Sedgwick and Whewell. Upon these Oxbridge men and others he depended for support in his museological dreams: in December 1841 he pressed the Hunterian Museum committee to link the museum’s fossil catalogue with the catalogue of presentday osteological specimens, and he would later seek permission to join the British Museum’s fossil collection with the Hunterian’s comparative anatomy specimens. Although these bids failed, Owen’s patrons helped him attain social respectability, if not equality – he was admitted to the Athenaeum in 1840. In 1842 he finally became joint Conservator of the Hunterian Museum, his salary rising to £500 per annum. When Clift retired shortly thereafter, he became its sole Conservator. Backed by Buckland, Whewell and Sedgwick, Owen was also given a Civil List Pension of £200 a year from his new-found acquaintance, Prime Minister Peel. In 1845 he was offered a knighthood, which he refused.92 Thus Owen’s social rise was made possible not only by skill and hard work. As a member of a community of manifestly unequal researchers he had skilfully cultivated patrons to whom he deferred as a social inferior. Meanwhile he too

Analysis Part One

41

became a patron himself, to whom other, more junior, researchers deferred. Those eagerly seeking his testimonials for job applications included Baly (translator of Johannes Müller’s influential physiology textbook), Carpenter, J. G. Goodsir, and later George Allman (Professor of Botany at Trinity College Dublin in the 1840s) and Huxley. At St Bartholomew’s hospital, Owen taught Arthur Farre, White Cooper and Rymer Jones.93 In another area – information on how best to arrange museum collections – Owen’s advice was solicited. At Cambridge, Clark wanted Owen to tell him whom to hire to organize his museum, as ‘your recommendation will ensure us a fit person’. The entomologist J. O. Westwood sought Owen’s advice about rearranging the museum at Oxford and then for a testimonial about his fitness to run the Zoology Department at the British Museum. Eventually the Sydney Museum board would send someone all the way from Australia to consult Owen in the selection of a curator for that institution.94 Through his efforts Owen became one centre of a dense social network of analytically-oriented life researchers. Even those who disagreed with him had to take his work seriously because of the numerous relationships and interactions he had with other life researchers.95 Grant was another such centre. Although he was less upwardly mobile than Owen, more politically radical and seemingly less interested in patron-client relationships, Grant also greatly furthered the analytic:synthetic style in life research because of the large number of like-minded students he churned out. Through the efforts of researchers like Owen and Grant and their students, most comparative anatomists and zoologists in 1830s–1840s London used the analytic:synthetic style. While there were well-known disagreements between different practitioners – the possibility of transformism, or different emphases on form or function, for example – these differences lay on the surface, hiding a deeper network of shared assumptions and methods.

2 ANALYSIS PART TWO

The previous chapter examined the style of analysis:synthesis and touched on its relationship with compound individuality. This chapter looks more closely at the neurosciences between 1830 and 1845, in which analysis progressively disintegrated the nervous system. One example was the emergence of the reflex arc. Fields to be examined include orthodox topics such as neuroanatomy and neurophysiology, and heterodox ones like phrenology. Neuroscientists saw animals as disunified when trying to answer certain analytic questions: what were the nervous elements that made up volition? Was there a central ‘seat’ in which these nervous elements were combined? If so, where was it; and if it was removed, what happened to the rest of the body? Lower animals seemed to lack the same mental characteristics as higher ones, such as volition – so how did their body parts move? Why did these parts often display an independent agency? If one denied a central coordinating location for nervous elements in lower animals, then how did these quasi-independent body parts act harmoniously? Analytically-minded neuroscientists were therefore faced with the problematic of collective action. How could they reconcile the seeming independence of body parts with their harmonious contribution to the good of the entire individual? To answer such a question, different images were used. Body parts were seen as parts of a musical instrument, or they were depicted as linked by the ‘telegraph wires’ of the nerves. But the most common tactic was to see body parts as members of a social system, cooperating with (or being forced to cooperate with) other parts. Victorian life researchers were using similar tactics to those used by contemporary economists and political philosophers. Just as a society could be disintegrated into myriad individuals – each with their own interests – so too could an individual organism be seen as though it was a group of parts.

Neurophysiology as Analysis: Vivisections Historian William Randall Albury portrays Bichat and François Magendie as analysts, French researchers who saw an organism’s life as the sum of its independent parts.1 Victorian neuroscientists also tended to focus on the simplest body elements and functions. Neuroanatomy disintegrated the nervous system – 43 –

44

Styles of Reasoning in the British Life Sciences

into its component ganglia; neurophysiology disintegrated nervous functions into their simplest elements (such as reflex arcs). In the 1820s and 1830s French analytical vivisection came to Britain through Magendie’s London lectures. He vivisected animals to demonstrate physiological functions. Magendie’s favourite specimens cannot have endeared him to a sizable portion of the British public – he preferred young puppies for his investigations, as their vertebral columns had not yet hardened around their spinal cords, facilitating his access to them. Magendie exposed the roots of an immobilized dog’s spinal nerves by cutting along its back from head to tail. For hostile reviewers, Magendie’s ‘barbarous’ methods exemplified Gallic cruelty. In one instance at Grainger’s Theatre of Anatomy the ‘most deservedly notorious’ man then began to pinch, prick and pull these nerve-roots, causing the dog to howl and struggle. His demonstrations made increasingly difficult by its writhing, Magendie made an attempt to play to the foreign crowd: suddenly looking up at the audience, ‘as if a bright thought had just struck him’, he pointed at his subject and exclaimed ‘Ah! Mon Dieu, il n’entend pas Français’.2 By the time Magendie had appeared in London, however, analytic:synthetic neuroscientific work was already present in that city’s life research, exemplified in the work of Bell. Like Magendie, Bell also sought to determine basic nervous elements and was the most prominent British vivisectionist of the day. A graduate of the Edinburgh medical school, Bell moved to London in 1804. In 1811 he married and used the dowry to buy a £2,000 share in another Theatre of Anatomy, lecturing both there and at the Middlesex Hospital.3 In 1811 Bell privately circulated a book attacking the ‘prevailing doctrine … that the whole brain is a common sensorium’, proposing instead that nerves were bundles of smaller ones. Some of these simpler nerves were dedicated to motion, some to sense and others to vital functions: Bell also used vivisection to determine those functions, irritating certain nerve-roots of rabbits and dogs to see if he could convulse their muscles. When in 1821 Magendie also claimed to have discovered the properties of specific nerves, Bell claimed priority by pointing to his privately circulated book. When others deemed his point to be insufficiently convincing, Bell and his supporters advertised his role as the reluctant British vivisector, a stark contrast to cruel Frenchmen such as Magendie.4 The Bell-Magendie priority dispute obscures their shared view that the nervous system was not unitary. The finding of what became known as the ‘BellMagendie law’ was part of a larger devolution away from a unitary centre of volition. This centre of the will, the sensorium commune – derided by Lawrence as ‘a central apartment for the superintendent of the human panoptican [sic]’ – gradually lost importance between 1820 and 1840, as research into the nervous system increasingly pronounced it to be a mass of coalesced nerves and ganglia. Indeed, by 1832 Bell saw a belief in a sensorium commune as anatomically defi-

Analysis Part Two

45

cient – instead, investigators ought to see the spinal marrow, with its repetitive sequence of ganglia, as ‘a prolonged brain’.5 Where before the 1830s the spinal cord was generally seen as a mere extension of the brain, by the mid 1830s the reverse was believed. The brain was increasingly depicted as an extrusion of the semi-autonomous ganglia of the spinal cord. These ganglia became the simplest possible sources of nervous energy, their importance confirmed by the mutually reinforcing findings of vivisection and comparative anatomy. There were even attempts at a redefinition of the term ‘brain’. In an 1835 British Association report on the current state of physiology, Clark announced that the ganglia were ‘to be considered as so many subsidiary brains’ independent of the cerebrum.6 Mayo also claimed to have discovered the distinct properties of sensory and motor nerves, beating Magendie and Bell. He disintegrated the nervous system in a particularly strong way, insisting that there was no overarching nervous centre, no central sensorium commune, because of the independent powers of ganglia. Mayo had studied under Bell between 1812 and 1815 at the Windmill Street School; eventually he bought Bell out to become the school’s owner. In 1814, he followed Bell to Middlesex Hospital as a surgical pupil, then studied medicine across the Channel in Leiden. By 1818 he was ‘one of the brightest intellects on the Middlesex Hospital’s roll of fame’, having become its house surgeon and a founder of its medical school; the next year he was a member of the Royal College of Surgeons. In 1827 Mayo was promoted, becoming Middlesex’s Surgeon, a post that he held until 1842. By 1828 Mayo was Professor of Surgery at the Royal College of Surgeons and by 1830 Professor of Anatomy at King’s College, lecturing five days a week during the school year.7 Mayo compared the single vertebrate brain to the numerous ‘brains’ of the diffused invertebrate nervous system, arriving at these points through vivisection and dissection. In his Outlines of Human Physiology – a student textbook until the late 1830s8 – Mayo frequently noted the independence of certain body parts when separated from the rest of the body. These independent parts he called ‘sentient’. When he killed a pigeon, removed its head, then scooped out its cerebrum, cerebellum and medulla oblongata, he pricked the optic nerve and the iris still reacted. Drawing on comparative anatomy, Mayo concluded that this occurred because each segment of the vertebrate spinal cord was comparable to the ganglion of each invertebrate segment. Animals of a ‘composite type of organization’, such as radiates (including starfish, several segments around a circle) and articulates (including centipedes, a successive series of segments), were animals that could live after ‘mechanical division’. They survived because of their repetitive ganglia. Keeping his terminology consistent, Mayo noted that such divided animals actually became two ‘sentient beings’.9 In 1842, Mayo exhorted readers to model the millipede and starfish nervous system by using a bead to stand for a ganglion and a silk thread to stand for the

46

Styles of Reasoning in the British Life Sciences

nerves emanating from that ganglion. To portray a starfish, they could pass the thread through five equidistant beads and then tie one end of the thread to the other. The ‘compound central nerve-organ’ could either be drawn out to form a circle (representing radiates), or drawn out to form two parallel lines (representing articulates). The decentralized nervous system meant that both kinds of animals were compound, a ‘multiple animal’ with ‘individualized’ segments each capable of independent survival.10 Mayo then mused about whether vertebrates could be seen in the same way. Was consciousness surgically divisible? Each lateral half of a vertebral animal is separately vitalized. Or the preservation of consciousness in one half is independent of its preservation in the other … Is it then possible, that by exactly severing in the median plane the two halves of the vitalizing segment, a vertebral animal might be made, temporarily, two separately conscious beings?

To this dreamy proposal a reviewer for the Medico-Chirurgical Review sardonically hoped that ‘Mr. Mayo will try’. Invoking the Judgment of Solomon, the reviewer denied the possibility of two separate volitions in the same person: Volition is either absolute or it is not. If it is, there can be no subdivision of it – if it is not, it is no longer volition. Two volitions in the frame, a central and a departmental one, would be very likely to fall out. Indeed we do not see how they should agree. The mental volition would be a kind of abstraction, willing that we should go to bed – while the cranio-spinal volition would be the means of putting on our night cap. So it would come to pass that the cranio-spinal segment would enjoy too opposite properties excited at the same time and in the same way – it would feel and it would not feel – it would will and it would not will, in short it would be an intelligent and a reflex centre. This is more than we can believe.11

He rejected Mayo’s point about volition’s divisibility not only on terminological grounds, but because it would also splinter internal authority.

The Reflex Arc, Analysis and Compound Individuality The reviewer’s hostility to Mayo’s proposal belied the point that investigations into the nature and divisibility of ‘consciousness’ were popular at the time. There was the well-known case of the ‘acephalous’ infant, born without part of its cerebrum yet showing basic life functions such as breathing, suckling and urinating. In 1833, Bell portrayed invertebrates, severely brain-damaged vertebrates and the internal organs of complex animals as dwelling on the same insentient level, all parts/animals living an aimless ‘ganglionic’ existence. In 1846 Carpenter repeated the claim: hearts and lungs, invertebrate and acephalous infant all retained the same degree of agency and sentience; the next year Todd also

Analysis Part Two

47

mentioned an ‘acelphalous monster’, probably the same kind of infant.12 They followed the venerable notion that the most complicated animals possessed a set of interior ‘lives’, following Aristotle’s threefold distinction between vegetable, animal and rational soul. Acephalous infants lacked a rational soul and perhaps an animal one too. Meanwhile vivisection also revealed the separate existence of these internal lives in higher animals. Owen held that the goal of the physiologist was to determine which elements of the nervous system were essential and which were superadded – one performed experiments to do this. Another researcher saw vivisection as removing an animal’s ‘superstructures’, reducing it to a simpler organizational level. Taking away a pigeon’s front brain-lobes destroyed its organs of perception and consciousness, but left its ‘sentient’ and lowest ‘ganglionic’ systems intact. Careful mutilation acted in the opposite direction as development, through reverse recapitulation: ‘as an animal is built up, so may we contrive carefully to unbuild him again’.13 Properly conducted vivisections even mirrored death’s natural process, with each inner life dying in the opposite order as they appeared during embryonic development. The common neurophysiological element of this ‘insentient’ and ‘ganglionic’ existence was the reflex arc. The emergence of the reflex arc was not simply an instance of materialist explanation. It also answered questions about the agency of parts and simple animals, showing how nervous power was distributed in the body. As a basic element of nervous function it was common to invertebrates, brain-damaged vertebrates and internal organs. Just as neuroanatomy showed that the nervous system was compounded from simple ganglia, so too was it shown between 1830 and 1845 that the most complex nervous functions were compounded out of simple reflexes. The reflex arc became increasingly accepted as the functional counterpart of the ganglion; neurophysiological element complemented neuroanatomical element. The reflex enabled purposive behaviour to be analysed into units rather than being seen as directed by a centre, be it volition or a sensorium commune.14 Hall proposed the existence of a reflex arc in 1830 when he cut a living newt into four pieces and then irritated the skin of these separated parts with a needle. All of the pieces, even the separate tail, ‘moved as in a living animal’, seemingly independent of volition. Yet another product of the University of Edinburgh medical school, Hall graduated in 1812 and had toured medical schools in Göttingen, Berlin and Paris. He moved to London from Nottingham in 1826, increasing his practice from £800 a year to £2,200.15 Hall’s pecuniary success freed him up to seek a scientific reputation. Hall cut up other animals after the newt and inferred that, since the will was no longer connected to other portions of the body, there must exist a separate nervous system having nothing to do with the cerebrum. Concluding that the

48

Styles of Reasoning in the British Life Sciences

separate system was centred on the ganglia of the spinal marrow, Hall called the independent actions of the newt’s body sections ‘reflex arcs’, in which the excitement of one body area moved through the local ganglia of the spinal marrow, then stimulated a different body area to move.16 The whole point of the reflex arc was its separation from volition.17 Hall saw how reflex arcs explained the simple internal lives of animals and he followed the very old strategy of placing the separate reflex system within a hierarchy of vital organs and activities. At the top sat the cerebrum and voluntary motions; then the medulla oblongata and respiratory motions; then the ganglia of the ‘medulla generally’ and reflex arcs. Below these he placed nervo-muscular fibre and irritability; and at the bottom sat the sympathetic nervous system and secretion. Although Hall kept revising the number of separate systems, he retained them in a hierarchy, for establishing foundational and superstructural nervous systems was the only way in which ‘the individuality of the sentient being can be maintained. Does one sentient being, when divided, become two?’18 In Hall’s ladder, the lowest systems were the most robust. The highest ones were more fragile and dependent on the lower systems. Violent death occurred when the lower and thus ‘foundational’ nervous systems stopped functioning, disrupting all of those above them. Hall also used the different levels of nervous system appearance and disappearance to explain reverse recapitulation: ‘Such is the order, then, in which this series of functions disappear in death; an order which is inverted when the same functions and their appropriate organs gradually come into existence, in the foetal and natal states, and in the progressive series of the animal kingdom’.19 Natural death occurred when an animal shed its nervous functions from highest to lowest. It took some time for Hall’s reflex arc to colligate others’ observations. His personality was one reason for their delay. Clarke and Jacyna call Hall a man of immense conceit – ‘evincing a paranoia’ – both quarrelsome and possessive about his claims to priority. Diana Manuel is more sympathetic, portraying a scientific pugilist railing against the ‘Old Corruption’ of the Royal Society and medical and surgical colleges.20 It is certainly clear that Hall had a flair for selfpromotion: ‘On the Reflex Function of the Medulla Oblongata and Medulla Spinalis’ not only appeared in 1833 (being read on June 20); he also independently published his paper that same year, where its cover proudly announced its origin ‘From the Philosophical Transactions’.21 Hall’s move predictably infuriated members of the research establishment. An 1837 paper for the Royal Society22 – refereed by such colleagues as Mayo – was rejected because of supposed mistakes and repetitions from previous publications. Further insulted by a perceived slight by Roget, then-secretary of the Society, Hall again published his paper independently and gave what he claimed to be all of his correspondence to Wakley. Never missing an opportunity to

Analysis Part Two

49

attack a corrupt institution while stoking a controversy likely to raise the Lancet’s sales, Wakley published the correspondence, interspersed with fire-breathing critiques of the Royal Society. Revenge attacks soon followed: Hall was accused of plagiarizing the reflex arc from Continental researchers, while the conservative Medical Gazette’s editors mocked him again and again. In such a polarized atmosphere, Hall’s supporters in the radical community – especially the new British Medical Association – were the ones championing his reflex arc.23 Hall worked to eradicate others’ opposition to his discovery by writing private letters, articles and pamphlets.24 Yet the acceptance or rejection of the reflex arc was not simply a matter of ideology. Before its attacks on him, the Medical Gazette had published two glowing accounts of Hall’s discovery. One told of Michael Faraday’s exposition of the reflex arc to a Royal Institution audience, a speech paying much attention to how the reflex theory explained the independence of various body parts.25 Indeed, important London neuroscientists supported the reflex arc because it reconciled the activities of complex animal parts with the activities of simple but whole animals. For instance, Grainger began to re-orient his neuroanatomical work around the reflex in 1837. Grainger’s background likely shaped his assent to the reflex – an early member of the London Phrenological Society, he had John Elliotson lecture at his Webb Street School, which Grainger owned with T. S. Smith.26 Grainger distinguished between two types of nervous tissue – the grey source of nervous power, and the white transmitter of that power. Grey tissue predominated in the ganglia of the sympathetic nervous system, the spinal/nervous cord and the cerebrum. White nervous fibres ended in the ganglia. Grainger decided that what mattered was the proportion of white nervous fibres and where they terminated. Animals with more white fibres that ran straight into the cerebral ganglia showed more volition. Lower animals lacking a cerebrum had their white fibres ending instead in either the ganglia of the sympathetic system or the nervous (spinal) cord. The difference not only clarified why these lower animals showed less volition; it also showed why their body parts could act so independently. Grainger therefore used Hall’s new terminology to describe the agency of body parts in a new way: lower animals displayed greater amounts of reflex activity. His findings supported the hierarchical division of the nervous system into centres, subordinate centres and peripheries.27 Grainger’s researches explained why cephalopod (such as octopus) suckers could move ‘independently of volition’ and why decapitated houseflies and crickets were able to maintain their equilibrium and even walk short distances.28 Meanwhile, one year later, Carpenter’s 1838 dissertation followed up Grainger’s point about how the reflex arc could explain the disunity of lower animals. In the autumn of 1834 this Bristol Unitarian had gone to London after

50

Styles of Reasoning in the British Life Sciences

his apprenticeship, clerking at Middlesex Hospital while taking a ‘peculiar interest’ in Grant’s comparative anatomy classes. After receiving Grant’s Certificate of Merit, Carpenter went to medical school in Edinburgh between 1835 and 1837 and again in 1839. His dissertation built on Grainger’s investigations by discussing the physiological implications of invertebrate nervous structure: all body parts acted independently because nervous systems were compartmentalized, whether in the vertebrates or invertebrates.29 Carpenter proposed two separate nervous systems: the ‘sensori-volitional’ system and the ‘reflex’. In lower animals they were separate; in higher animals, they fused, becoming a continuous ganglionic mass in the vertebrate spinal cord. By ascribing increasing importance to ‘the will’ as one ‘ascend[ed] the scale’ of the animal kingdom, Carpenter was seen by the reviewer for the Medico-Chirurgical Review (likely Grainger himself ) to be continuing Grainger’s point.30 The British and Foreign Medical Review recruited Carpenter as a contributor when he was still at Edinburgh. His anonymous 1840 article on reflex arcs soothed those who had been insulted by Hall and it encouraged others to use the reflex arc. Carpenter privately encouraged a reluctant Owen to use the reflex arc in his own work and Owen ‘completely adopted’ it soon after.31 Carpenter graciously acknowledged Owen’s public thanks for his reflex work. But he rightly worried about the mercurial Hall’s reaction: I feel much obliged to you for giving me so completely the credit of the idea; as my friend Dr. M. Hall cannot see anything in it but what he knew before. I am just now upon very good terms with him; but I know not how long it may last.32

The suspicions of the touchy Hall were not completely unjustified. As soon as Owen publicly accepted the reflex arc, others followed. Points where Hall had been anticipated by earlier researchers were again uncovered. Despite Hall’s earlier attacks on him, Mayo began to publicly compliment Hall and his reflex theory. A reviewer for the Medico-Chirurgical Review (possibly Grainger again) saw Mayo’s praise for the reflex as part of a darker campaign to gain some credit for its discovery. And Carpenter’s concerns were prophetic: a less scandalous author, his writings and terminology (such as ‘afferent’ and ‘efferent’) were increasingly used instead of Hall’s.33

Lower Animals, Disunity and the Reflex Arc It was already known how lower animals nicely displayed the principles of disunity. They were also excellent subjects for vivisection, having a ‘tenacity of life’ that meant they could survive injuries immediately fatal to higher animals. Amphibians were able to survive sectioning, for instance. Hall’s newt lived on after being cut into four, while frogs could breathe through their skin after their

Analysis Part Two

51

lungs were removed. The separated parts of other lower vertebrates also retained a life of their own: turtle and snake heads had the ability to bite days after their untimely separation.34 Invertebrates such as the centipede and starfish were also useful in neuroscientific research. These simpler animals’ diffused nervous centres enabled a researcher to precisely determine each ganglion’s role in the larger nervous network. Hence the earthworm was seen as having serially distributed ganglia, each one roughly the same size. This anatomical point was first noted by Charles Bonnet; Milne Edwards passed the observation on to Britain. There, earthworms were cut into pieces to test Bonnet’s claim. Did each earthworm segment count as an individual? In 1832 Bell answered the question negatively, noting that, when an earthworm was cut in two, only the front half moved with a purpose, because only the front half of the worm had ganglia.35 Bell was contradicted three years later by Badham – Oxford Radcliffe Travelling Fellow, MD and future deacon of Norwich. Badham found ganglia in each earthworm segment and claimed that each severed part had a will of its own. Yet, despite his delegation of agency, Badham seemingly contradicted himself: this distribution of wills, he claimed, showed that a complete earthworm, as an individual, was ‘not many, but one’.36 It is unclear why Badham discovered multiple repeating ganglia yet denied their equality. One severe reviewer suggested that Badham was terminologically confused and perhaps even incompetent.37 But Badham may also have been unable to accept an earthworm’s compound individuality because of its organizational implications. In 1838 Badham repeated his conclusions in the wider-circulating Blackwood’s Magazine. While some researchers thought that the dispersed ganglia in simpler animals acted ‘as so many equal brains’, he could not accept such disunity. For Badham, the agency of each ganglion implied a ‘conclave or council of brains in one being, and signalize the prodigious inconvenience of a plurality of brains to a single possessor’. For would such a finding not ‘disintegrate that creature, and make many individualities out of one organization? Are the pieces of a worm, then, just so many worms … and yet capable of consolidation into one existence?’ These ‘different individualities’ required an ‘exact harmony’. Did a worm have ‘a will, or a chorus of wills?’ When I walk, I indeed will to walk. I have but one brain. When a worm crawls with his twenty brains, is it his will or their wills that govern him? Were every ganglion a separate brain, there might come to be an insurrection of the wills! the balance of power in the ganglionic republic might be perpetually disturbed! and not only every motion be very difficult to be executed, but even the vital principle be often in exceeding doubt how to distribute itself, and do justice to all parties!38

Tellingly, Badham conveyed his concern by resorting to political terminology. He did not use such language simply to communicate to a general audience.

52

Styles of Reasoning in the British Life Sciences

Instead he used it to convey similar issues facing the body politic. Both social and biological systems confronted the researcher with the problematic of collective action. How was activity to be coordinated to attain common goals? How did ‘individual’ parts of a larger system act harmoniously? Even if Badham was confused, others raised similar issues. Carpenter, for instance, asked questions about the purported individuality of each earthworm segment at the beginning of the 1840s.39 In 1843 his former London University classmate Newport tried to answer Carpenter’s questions through a series of millipede vivisections. Starting out as a reluctant wheelwright apprentice, Newport taught himself entomology at the Canterbury Philosophical and Literary Institution, then became an unpaid surgeon’s apprentice. Upon visiting London University in January 1832, his entomological researches intrigued Grant so much that he obtained free lecture tickets for the penniless Newport. Newport was so impoverished that he periodically canvassed other poor friends for loans (at an interest rate of five per cent).40 Newport’s millipede investigations helped establish the universality of the reflex arc. His method of investigation once again jumped levels of organization between whole individual and disunified body part and so he too had to answer the problematic of collective action.41 Newport vivisected small adult myriapods, then known as Iulus terrestris, the white-legged snake millipede. Common to Britain, these particular millipedes were tiny, only up to ⅓ of a centimetre in length; coloured brownish-black, their integument had a waxy sheen. They were ideal for Newport’s investigations into the autonomous activity of body parts, for millipedes have a linear, diffused nervous system. Inside each segment is a pair of fused ganglia, each pair roughly the same size as its neighbours, with the millipede’s ‘brain’ at the front not much larger than the others.42

Figure 2.1. Nervous system of Iulus terrestris, in G. Newport, ‘On the Structure, Relations, and Development of the Nervous and Circulatory Systems, and on the Existence of a Complete Circulation of the Blood in Vessels, in Myriopoda and Macrourous Arachnida’, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, 133 (1843), pp. 243–302, plate 11.

To get maximum light from the sun, Newport’s worktable was probably under a south-facing window.43 Daylight was reflected by a millipede’s glossy integument, giving each segment its own white stripe. This repetitive sheen allowed the observer to distinguish over forty identically shaped and sized segments; even more segments made up the head and tail. The species was distinguished by a tail that protruded slightly upwards, and thin hairs sprouted from the tail, antennae and legs.

Analysis Part Two

53

Figure 2.2. Iulus, in W. B. Carpenter, Animal Physiology (London: H. G. Bohn, 1859), fig. 51.

The many legs made any millipede distinctive. Most of I. terrestris’s segments (from the fourth to the penultimate segment) had two pairs of legs; only the head and tail lacked them and there were three more pairs just behind the head, making over 150 translucent yellow appendages in mature specimens. Because of their large number and their similarity to one another, it would have been easier for Newport’s eye to settle on the larger pattern of leg movement rather than each individual leg. As a millipede moved across the table, there was a strange effect – while the body appeared to flow across the table, its legs seemed to move in the opposite direction, as each one rose and fell in a series of rolling motions from the rear of the animal to its front. Each tiny limb touched the ground, made a slight push and then rose again. Because each extremity was slightly out of phase with its neighbours before and after it, the motion thus appeared to be transferred from one leg to the one in front of it, and then to the one in front of it, and so on. With characteristic dexterity44 Newport grasped the tiny millipede with thumb and forefinger. Trapped, the millipede began to struggle, trying to form its protective spiral; twisting and writhing, it even exuded a mildly corrosive substance used to deter predators, but which did little harm to Newport’s thumb and finger. Newport’s other hand held a pair of small, fine scissors of the type recommended by French entomologist Hercule Straus-Durckheim, but customized enough so that other naturalists like Darwin coveted them.45 One blade, about 1⅜ inches long, was sharp and pointed. The other was blunted for the first to cut against. The scissors moved towards the front of the millipede and deftly cut off its first segment, removing with it not only the antennae, eyes and mandibles, but also the anterior ganglia inside it. Decapitated, the remaining segment-chain contorted wildly in the grasp of finger and thumb, and the segment-chain was placed back on the table. It moved ahead in a straight line, easily surmounting a low obstacle placed in front of it. But when Newport placed a higher obstacle in the segment-chain’s way it did not go around it; instead the front, wounded, part – oozing fluid – pressed against the obstacle as though trying to push it out of the way, and the legs began to move faster and faster. After a few minutes, the legs’ movements slowed down.

54

Styles of Reasoning in the British Life Sciences

After half an hour, their movement stopped. When fingers prodded it again, the pseudo-millipede moved in response, but eventually it stopped moving altogether.46 In another investigation, three of the same brownish-black millipedes moved briskly across the table’s surface. Newport then bisected each millipede at its seventh segment. The front halves now had only eight pairs of legs, so they uneasily moved along the table, slowing down after a few minutes, and finally stopping. When Newport shook the table, the halves moved again; sometimes he used a needle to gently prod the millipede at the wounded section right over the cut nervous cord, and the front section moved. After an hour, one front section had stopped moving, but the other two front parts still moved about the table when prompted, touching various objects on the table-top with their antennae.47 In another investigation, Newport cut a millipede into three parts. First he cut away the anterior piece, from the head to the fourteenth segment. He then divided the remaining posterior part in two. The frontmost section, retaining eyes and antennae, was able to touch, avoid and seek objects, but moved slowly because it had trouble balancing. The two lower parts lacked even more balance: they could not stand upright and their legs waved only when blown upon or prodded with the needle. After nine hours the anterior section no longer moved, either spontaneously or when prodded. But the legs of the middle and posterior parts still moved when irritated, an ability they held for another eighteen hours.48 Later, Newport destroyed the ganglia of a millipede’s middle segments while leaving the creature otherwise intact. He probably took a dissecting needle – resembling a scalpel, but curved and ending in a fine point instead49 – and plunged it into segments fourteen through twenty. Because the needle was curved, Newport required only slight hand movements to vary the direction of the point, destroying the ventral nervous column and its nervous centres. Then he placed the millipede on the table-top again. The front half of the millipede repeatedly turned, the antennae touching the beginning of the wound where the needle entered the fourteenth segment. But these antennae ignored the posterior wound. The legs began to move again, but the leg-waves no longer flowed uniformly from back to front. Instead the undulations seemed divided in two. One wave moved from the legs of the fourteenth segment to the front legs. The legs of the wounded segments did not move. The legs situated behind the wound moved constantly, but without any rhythm. When it stopped to investigate an object on the table, the millipede’s front legs stopped, but its legs below the wound continued to move, as if in defiance of the front half.50 Newport vivisected millipedes in other ways to see what they could do or not do with missing body parts. He used his scissors to divide the head of one millipede longitudinally. He plunged his dissection needle into another’s head,

Analysis Part Two

55

destroying all nervous centres above its oesophagus. Newport opened another’s head from above (making a slice and peeling the integument back) and removed only the nervous centres on the right side above the oesophagus. In others, he destroyed the optic ganglia; cut off the antennae as close as possible to the head; destroyed the eyes.51 Historian Ruth Leys argues that Newport confirmed the existence of the reflex arc in invertebrates in these particular investigations;52 through his vivisections he concluded that the independent activity of newlyseparate body parts was in fact reflex in nature, a point that contemporaries, even non-Britons, valued about Newport’s work.53 Reflexes were deemed strongest in body parts deprived of cerebral supervision.

The Bodily Oeconomy Such inquiries into the relationship of part to whole were common to social research too. Indeed, recovering the view of individual bodies as microcosmic social systems enriches historians’ links between life research and contemporaneous beliefs about society’s underlying pattern.54 Life researchers likened individual physiological systems to ‘oeconomies’. Georges Canguilhem has dwelled on this subject, tracing how the concept of an animal oeconomy from Walter Charleton in 1659 to Claude Bernard emphasized the necessity of well-balanced internal activities. Green used it in 1820 to describe the harmonious interaction of body parts and Hall used the phrase as late as 1848 to describe the workings of the body as a system. But, in addition to equilibrium, the view of ‘bodily oeconomies’ shows how life researchers analogized bodies to microcosmic social systems as well. Hence James Cross’s classic article shows how Hunter discussed physiological systems as ‘animal oeconomies’, likening body parts to those voluntarily participating in a market, and even using the word in one book’s title.55 In 1827 Milne Edwards transformed the animal oeconomy into the physiological division of labour. He used this heuristic device to explain the value of physiological specialization. The image then crossed the Channel and became quite popular with British researchers too. It is unclear how Milne Edwards formulated his view – historian Camille Limoges notes that he credited no economist, although there were definite parallels with Adam Smith’s famous example of the pin manufactory in his Wealth of Nations.56 Regardless of its source, Milne Edwards’s physiological division of labour emerged from the analytic:synthetic style, a point shown by comparing it directly with Smith’s image of the pin factory. Smith pointed out that a single unskilled worker made at most twenty pins a day. Yet when the task was broken down into eighteen simple tasks and divided among different specialized workers, pin production vastly increased. Smith noted that one small and imperfect

56

Styles of Reasoning in the British Life Sciences

pin manufactory that had adopted specialization had each man cooperatively making about 4,800 pins a day, 240 times more than the unspecialized worker’s output.57 It is beyond the scope of this work to determine if Smith was motivated by analysis:synthesis. ( James Mill thought that he was, giving the example of the pin manufactory as an example where an ‘immense aggregate of operations’ to make commodities was ‘divided into portions, consisting, each, of as small a number of operations as possible’ so that each operation may be ‘perfectly performed’.)58 But it is quite clear that Milne Edwards was so inspired. He called each body part an ‘atelier’ – a workshop – and imaginatively analysed animal bodies into their simplest functions. He also used the word ‘element’ to discuss the simplest possible animal workshop, wondering whether each workshop was an entire individual or body part of a more complicated individual. He proposed that all animal bodies were aggregations of such workshops.59 Milne Edwards then showed how life energy – their pin output – increased when these functions were specialized. Complicated animals had extraordinary degrees of specialization, their internal oeconomies very much like the specialized pin manufactory. Conversely, life-energy production was weaker in unspecialized physiologies. In fact Milne Edwards first proposed the physiological division of labour to understand how animals could possibly live without specialized physiological systems. Like Cuvier, Milne Edwards began his career by looking at invertebrates such as the Hydra polyp and the sea squirt.60 Simple animals and simple parts were analogous to the single unskilled worker who produced only a few pins each day. In so doing, Milne Edwards was similar to political economists by asking about rationalization. How could organisms make physiological gains and produce more life energy? One way was to add a new and unspecialized workshop element to its body. Milne Edwards gave the earthworm as an example: he saw each earthworm segment as possessing its own quasi-independent physiological system, each one coordinated by a ganglion. Each segment was a workshop element or analogous to an individual worker. Like other analysts, Milne Edwards delegated agency. More life could also be produced through specialization: just as in the pin manufactory, an organism increased its production when its organic elements took on specialized tasks. As one surveyed a collection from simplest to most complicated organism – ‘rising in the chain of being’, Milne Edwards claimed – one could note the growing specialization of physiological systems. The interior sac in which the simple Hydra collected its food became a distinct cavity in annelids (worms). Hydra’s simple opening – through which food was collected and waste excreted – was replaced in annelids by two openings, one dedicated to ingesting nutrients and the other to expelling waste. Specialization entailed adjustment. Localization had to increase, as each physiological system concentrated into a particular organ or set of organs. Spe-

Analysis Part Two

57

cialization also implied mutual dependence – separated sex organs could not exist independently because they could not feed themselves. Milne Edwards noted that other researchers, including Pierre Flourens, Magendie and Bell, had already demonstrated this seemingly necessary link between mutual dependence and specialization.61 And as specialization grew, the proportion of the nervous system to other physiological systems also increased to coordinate the higher production of life energy. Specialization and localization meant that the nervous system fused and concentrated, explaining ‘cephalization’ (discussed in the next chapter). But specialization and localization also entailed greater fragility. Returning to the pin manufactory image to explain Milne Edwards’s reasoning: while each specialized pin worker could sharpen points, straighten wires or grind metal faster than an unspecialized one, no complete pins would be made if any one specialized worker neglected his tasks. Similarly, if any higher animal lost any of its specialized and localized physiological systems through injury or lack of coordination, then the rest of its systems would probably be lost too, resulting in death. Meanwhile unspecialized organisms – such as Hydra and many plants – were hardier. Although it lacked obvious nerves, a digestive and a reproductive system, Hydra still thrived. Indeed it was thought that lack of physiological specialization not only explained hardiness, but also higher regenerative powers. As shown by Abraham Trembley, Hydra was already famous for its ability to reproduce from cuttings; Milne Edwards followed Bonnet in his fascination with the regenerative ability of the earthworm and suggested that this ability was caused by its compartmentalization.62 In the pin manufactory analogy, though each unspecialized worker could not produce many pins or life energy, they could still produce complete pins by themselves. Without the need for coordination, unspecialized animals required only diffused nervous systems at most. In the 1830s the principle of the division of labour was seen to be exceptionally important by both British social researchers and life researchers. Milne Edwards brought his principle directly to Britain by writing about it in English-language journals.63 Roget’s 1834 Bridgewater Treatise discussed it and Carpenter’s 1839 Principles of General and Comparative Physiology used the physiological division of labour as a central organizing principle, along with the view that specialization implied fragility and vice versa.64 Owen knew Milne Edwards after meeting him on his first visit to Paris,65 and believed that more complicated animals were also more specialized ones. In social research, meanwhile, others followed Smith. The ‘division of employments’ was seen as the best test of the ‘progress of civilization’ by J. S. Mill in 1836, for instance, and by the early 1850s the sociologist-philosopher Herbert Spencer would deploy Milne Edwards’s image of a physiological division of labour to understand the ‘social organism’.66

58

Styles of Reasoning in the British Life Sciences

The most famous use of Milne Edwards’s principle of the division of labour, by Darwin in 1859, also makes more sense in the light of compound individuality. The advantage of diversification in the inhabitants of the same region is, in fact, the same as that of the physiological division of labour in the organs of the same individual body – a subject so well elucidated by Milne Edwards.67

To point out that the implied resemblance between body and society was just ‘metaphorical’ and thus fanciful is unsatisfactory, if only because such an observation dissuades further historical inquiry into that relationship. For very real work was often done when a body was likened to an economic system. Seeing a body as a tiny economic or political system allowed life researchers to understand one unfamiliar realm in terms of another, more familiar and structured, area of experience. Depicting a body part as having agency, or each individual as a microcosmic economy, allowed researchers to imaginatively jump up and down levels of organization. It allowed people like Milne Edwards, Darwin and Spencer to apply principles applicable in one level to another level to depict the relationship of part to whole. It also meant that they could use language their audience understood.

Compound Individuality and Levels of Organization: Phrenology and Wiganism Because analysis:synthesis dealt with the relationships of parts to wholes, it was also common for British life researchers to portray bodies as micropolities. Hall spoke of the soul (and was directly quoted by reviewers) as ‘enthroned’ in the cerebrum, ‘receiving the ambassadors, as it were, from without, along the sentient nerves; deliberating and willing; and sending forth its emissaries and plenipotentiaries, which convey its sovereign mandates, along the voluntary nerves, to muscles subdued to volition’.68 Badham supplemented his language of a ‘ganglionic republic’ by also calling the ganglion the ‘officina’, or workshop, of sensation. Bell spoke of body parts being excluded from the ‘government of the will’. Mayo called for fellow researchers to determine the number of ‘departments’ making up the ‘public office’ of the brain. Other words denoting power and influence – ‘authority’; ‘presiding’; ‘insurrection’; ‘control’; ‘ill-regulated’; ‘higher’; ‘lower’ – were also frequently used to depict neuroscientific findings. The timing is interesting, because between 1820 and 1850 the encephalon – formerly the seat of the unitary sensorium commune – gradually lost its overall importance. The ganglia of the nervous cord and then the ganglia of the rest of the body gained prominence. To use the language of the micropolity, it can be said that during these thirty years a process of nervous delegation occurred.

Analysis Part Two

59

Where formerly the sensorium commune was the centre of the entire body, issuing commands to that body, each ganglion was increasingly depicted as the centre of its own smaller and more localized nervous system. Each ganglion became the nerve centre of a small area of the body,69 thereby gaining a kind of agency. Orthodox and heterodox neurophysiologists used micropolitical terms because they were trying to intelligibly describe power relationships between different body parts. Heterodox neurophysiologies such as phrenology and Wiganism (the forerunner of bicamerality) also used analysis:synthesis, and so they also used compound individuality to depict part:whole relations. Like radical economics and democratic politics, phrenology used the analytic:synthetic style. It also disintegrated the brain into an aggregation of mental faculties, each of which served a specific function in a division of labour. Phrenologists described the mind’s workings by referring to the interaction of simpler mental elements. Just as Bentham sought to strip away nonsense entities like natural rights by subjecting them to analytic disintegration, ambitious young men tried to strip away overly metaphysical entities like consciousness in the same way.70 Indeed Gall – whose Continental study of ‘organologie’ was transformed into ‘phrenology’ on arriving in Britain – abandoned the notion of a single consciousness. As it grew in popularity in Britain in the 1820s, Gall’s assistant Johann Gaspar Spurzheim lectured widely about the brain’s compoundness.71 Mental faculties were given agency, interests, desires and even intentions in George Combe’s wildly popular Constitution of Man (1828), which sold 72,000 copies in ten years. He noted how each faculty desired certain external objects and was ‘gratified’ when it attained them. Lower faculties were especially interested in self-gratification, even if their selfish aims frustrated the work of the higher intellectual faculties.72 Hence some critics of phrenology not only complained that phrenologists took the Molièrian tack of simply redescribing the mental phenomena under investigation. Flourens also worried that phrenology created … multiplicity, in the place of unity; dividing the intelligence, which is one and general, into twenty-seven petty and individual intelligences, and breaking up the brain into twenty-seven small brains …73

Yet shared analytic foundations meant that phrenology’s disintegration of the brain was viewed with sympathy by some orthodox neurophysiologists. As late as 1846, Carpenter – though critical of its excessive division of the brain into local faculties – granted that phrenology’s method was shared by comparative anatomists who disintegrated the nervous system into its mental elements. He even proclaimed that those ‘who now sneer at phrenology in toto, are neither anatomists nor physiologists’.74

60

Styles of Reasoning in the British Life Sciences

Like neuroscientists, phrenologists also related part to whole by resorting to familiar economic and political language. Phrenologists’ belief in the greater relative power of larger faculties was couched in the economic language of the division of labour,75 and indeed phrenology became popular at around the same time as the growing appeal of the division of labour as an heuristic device in social research and life science. Phrenologists’ delegation of mental activity to a group of mental faculties may also explain the attraction of radical democratic politics for phrenologists – both shared a similar disintegrating method. Sidney Smith’s 1838 Principles of Phrenology even likened the mind to a parliament, with each mental faculty serving as an MP. Sometimes the various faculties cooperated towards common goals. Sometimes they disagreed with each other or formed warring coalitions. Smith’s beliefs about how the mind worked matched his beliefs about how society and its economy worked, for, soon after writing the Principles, Smith became one of the leading publicists of the AntiCorn Law League.76 The League called for the repeal of tariffs on foreign wheat to free up the food market, which would presumably make food cheaper. A more prosperous economic order would spontaneously or naturally emerge out of the voluntary interactions of individuals in a free market. Indeed the image of an invisible hand is another way of referring to relations between part and whole, imaginatively personifying a complicated set of market processes. Though less well known than phrenology, Wiganism also used analysis:synthesis. In 1844 the Brighton physician Arthur Ladbroke Wigan suggested that the mind was dual because the left and right sides of the brains were independent. Each brain-half thought on its own, giving each person two distinct wills. Like other contemporary neuroscientists, Wigan explained a complex system by breaking it into two parts, then anthropomorphizing each. Mental unity was maintained only when one brain-half was stronger than the other and able to control its ‘fellow’ – the condition for any healthy brain. Insanity or delusion resulted if injury or illness caused the two brains to become equally powerful. Yet at the same time Wigan claimed that a permanent watchful ‘intellectual antagonism’ occurred as each brain-half supervised the other for any signs of weakness.77 Wigan’s speculations first appeared as a series of Lancet letters; he repackaged the correspondence as a book and dedicated it to Sir Henry Holland, the Queen’s physician. Holland himself had speculated on the mind’s duality, citing Mayo’s textbooks as support.78 Reactions to Wigan are noteworthy: apart from predictable outrage from some quarters about its materialism, many contemporaries saw Wigan’s proposals as quite ordinary. Holland was flattered but cautious. Another reviewer linked Wigan’s proposal with Johannes Müller’s work to show that Wigan’s speculations were commonplace – he compared Wigan’s double brain with the ‘several brains’ of the centipede.79 Elliotson – who

Analysis Part Two

61

had already derided the sensorium commune as the non-existent ‘throne before which the mind holds its court’ – felt that Wigan was completely unoriginal. He even accused Wigan of plagiarizing from Bell and others. In 1826 Bell had claimed that the brain halves were ‘DISTINCT BRAINS combined in function’. In fact if each half was further divided into cerebrum and cerebellum, there were actually four ‘brains’. Elliotson scoffed that Bichat and Gall had said the same thing well before Bell. Even Elliotson’s own human physiology textbooks, written and revised from the mid-1820s onward, had claimed the mind’s duality or plurality.80 Phrenologists also pointed out that Wigan’s claims of cerebral ‘duality’ were quite ordinary. James Davey, assistant surgeon at the Hanwell Lunatic Asylum – who in 1853 would also publish a book entitled New Views of Insanity: The Duality of the Mind – noted that Wigan merely followed phrenologists. Indeed Wigan’s belief in duality was incorrect – for ‘the PLURALITY of the mind is indispensable to his conclusions’. Insanity, for instance, was caused not by warring brain-halves, but by coalitions of mental faculties.81 Davey thought that Wigan had not disintegrated the brain enough. Wigan responded later that year: though troubled by phrenology’s ‘arbitrary division’ of the brain into separate faculties, he agreed with Davey’s other points. Wigan also graciously pointed out that Hewett C. Watson – Edinburgh-trained botanist and ferocious editor of the Phrenological Journal between 1837 and 1840 – had already noted the doubleness of the nervous system. Watson had speculated that this duality resulted because some body parts required guidance when they acted ‘individually’, opposing other parts – for instance when each hand performed different motions at the same time.82

Hierarchy and Internal Unity In 1847 Todd commented favourably on Wigan’s theory. But he was sceptical about the ‘confusion’ that would occur if a person had two separate and simultaneous mental processes.83 Todd’s point came out of a slight but telling misreading: he had overlooked Wigan’s insistence that mentally healthy people had to have one brain-half that was stronger than the other. Indeed none of the researchers mentioned here proposed any alternative to the hierarchical arrangement of mental elements. Wigan’s view has been noted. Hall situated the reflex arc midway in importance between will and secretion. Grainger explained how the highest organisms had the greatest amounts of voluntary control, because they had the largest proportion of white transmitting fibres ending in the cerebrum. Combe arranged mental faculties into three groups from highest intellectual parts to lowest animal ones. Even the mental parliament in Smith’s vision was bicameral, divided into a House of Commons

62

Styles of Reasoning in the British Life Sciences

and House of Lords – and when the ‘Lords’ had adjourned Smith worried that the brain’s owner might engage in villany. The recurring concern about mental ‘confusion’ reveals a common pattern amongst those who explained nervous activity by analysing it. The equality of mental elements was simply not possible. Part of this impossibility was rooted in a fear of confusion and internal anarchy. A hierarchy of mental elements seems to have been the only way for a mental analyst to guarantee internal mental unity, be it self-control or sanity. One faculty, or ganglion, or brain-half, had to have more power than its fellows. Though analysts disintegrated the mind or nervous system into a congeries of elements, they could not help but acknowledge the fact that in order to understand the workings of a mind or brain or body in its entirety, they had to refer to one element as being able to direct the activities of others. In treating systems like the brain as an aggregation of mental elements, they delegated properties of the whole system (interests, intention, agency) to each part of the system (a mental faculty), then claimed that the order of the whole system arose out of the interaction of each part. Only hierarchy guaranteed that each part would act in a coordinated way.84 In the British neurosciences between 1820 and 1850, additional levels of organization were inserted between the top and the bottom. New intermediaries appeared. The unitary sensorium commune was discredited in favour of a system of quasiindependent mental elements, resulting in a more flexible hierarchical system that granted autonomy to intermediate levels. Where volition, the mind, or the soul was previously depicted as commanding the body to carry out certain actions, now activity was seen as guided by higher nervous centres. These higher centres moderated and channelled the energies of each autonomous and potentially unruly ganglion. By the early 1840s Carpenter was to explain that, in the case of reflex arcs, harmonious movement in an individual animal could only occur when each reflex was coordinated, or guided by a higher nervous centre. Myriapods again provided the example. If the nervous cord of a centipede was cut in several places, it could move, though not ‘with a combined object’: it could not move as a whole to a desired location. When its ganglia were isolated from each other and from what he called the ‘presiding centre of the will’, each ganglion acted as the centre of reflex actions only within its local segment. The entire centipede did not show ‘consentaneous’ activity.85 A ganglion cut off from its fellows lost its membership in the whole system. Carpenter had ingeniously applied the word consentaneous to a new context. It described the ideal relationship of each ganglion to one another – guided by a higher regulatory agency – as one of agreement. Such consent was an answer to the problematic of the collective action of mental elements. It is significant that such a word implied a micropolity. Without some more powerful agent – the will, the encephalon or the intellect – all that resulted was disharmony, anarchy, insanity or confusion. Carpenter thus inserted the reflex arc into a reformulated nervous hierarchy, allowing him still to portray some nervous centres as higher and others as lower.

Analysis Part Two

63

Other terms describing a flexible hierarchy followed. By 1850 Carpenter proposed an ‘automatic apparatus’ that carried out the commands of one’s will. The will and cerebrum proposed; the automatic apparatus and cerebellum disposed. Todd described the cerebrum as issuing a ‘general mandate for the execution of a certain action’, while the cerebellum controlled the actual body parts carrying out that action.86 More popular versions of such findings were in turn adopted to convey the notion of similar flexible hierarchies in society. One author in a liberal publication assured his audience in 1862 that, although the lower nervous ‘officers’ still followed the ‘biddings of the higher powers’, they were just as important: Every part of the nervous system makes its influence felt by all the rest. A sort of constitutional monarchy exists within us; no power in this small state is absolute, or can escape the checks and limitations which the other powers impose. Doubtless the brain is King; but Lords and Commons have their seats below, and guard their privilege with jealous zeal. If the ‘constitution’ of our personal realm is to be preserved intact, it must be by the efforts of each part, lawfully directed to a common end.87

Alison Winter has noticed numerous examples like the above quote, in which neurosciences were used to represent a harmonious yet mass society. Such images portrayed society as a large body.88 In one case Spencer appropriated and generalized Carpenter’s term ‘consensus’ to depict the agreement of different people who were members of a social system. It was a useful way to denote a group’s coherence on the one hand and the autonomy of each of its members on the other. Though still necessary for the functioning of the entire system, they were still part of a larger hierarchy. Organic imagery continued to be used in other ways to express other principles at work in both society and biology. For instance, the view that simpler parts were nominally independent in both nature and culture was conveyed through Emile Durkheim’s 1893 notion of the perfectly simple society, the single-segment society. The choice of the name was taken from biology – single-segment societies were likened to invertebrate segments, both unspecialized and able to survive independently if separated from the rest of the body. A segmental society was self-sufficient and could reproduce itself.89 Durkheim’s image shows that such metaphorical language was not used to project social imagery onto the body, or biological imagery onto society. Instead such micropolitical language was used to depict a part:whole problematic encountered in both realms. Durkheim’s image of segmental societies also shows that although analysis: synthesis was eventually supplanted in many areas of biology by another style of reasoning, its methods and images were still used by people in other cultures and in other disciplines. In this sense a style of reasoning may never die out completely.

3 SYNTHESIS

The previous two chapters investigated analysis. This chapter examines the related method of synthesis. Like analysis, synthesis channelled researchers’ attention onto the problematics of spontaneous order and compound individuality. Recapitulation – the ‘parallelism’ of the development of the embryo and the place of a species on the animal scale – fascinated them, for it was a process whereby dispersed and independent parts fused together into an integrated whole. Specific research questions included: how was an embryo’s development similar to the process of insect metamorphosis, resembling the fusion of parts into a compound whole? How did monsters – frequently doubled animals, such as conjoined twins – grow, and what commonalities did they have with lower animals? This chapter also considers several questions pertinent to the history of British biology between 1830 and 1850. Why was there such an enormous emphasis upon recapitulation before von Baerian embryology really took hold in British life research? Why were there continuous discussions about more ‘perfect’ or ‘higher’ animals in a scale of being? Why was there an emphasis on ‘centripetal’ patterns of development, set against ‘centrifugal’ patterns? At an even higher level is a question relevant for historians of biology in general: what does the recurrence of a number of organisms in textbooks, lectures and research articles – here called exemplar organisms – say about how life researchers were educated?

Cephalization It has been noted how Cuvier tried to use nervous structure as one taxonomic index. He implicitly depicted animals as higher or lower according to their proportion of nervous tissue. In the mid-1830s both Grant and Owen adopted Cuvier’s method and other British researchers followed them, for Cuvier was seen as vindicated by another commonplace belief – that embryos developed by fusing parts. In so doing each part’s ganglion became concentrated in a central location. In 1834 Newport noted how it was ‘well known’ that, during development, nerves tended to ‘approach and unite with each other, the lateral cords and ganglia are more closely approximated, and the ganglia in the anterior part – 65 –

66

Styles of Reasoning in the British Life Sciences

of the body approach and coalesce into one mass’. For brevity, this book will refer to nature’s tendency to concentrate ganglia into a central nervous mass as ‘cephalization’, a slight anachronism.1 The process of developing through coalescing separate parts was one of synthesis. Analysis disintegrated a system into its discrete elements; synthesis compounded these discrete elements into more complicated structures and systems. French life researcher Etienne Serres declared that, while the comparative anatomist was an analyst – disintegrating his specimen through dissection, maceration, or the use of acids and alkalis – synthesis was a natural process. ‘Association has united and as it were confounded the elements entering into [organisms’] composition; disassociation isolates and separates them anew; art acts in an inverse sense to nature.’2 In 1824 Serres found that embryology complemented comparative anatomy. One gained new insights by interpreting the embryo’s organs as passing through simpler stages of that organ. For example, both immature molluscs and immature insects (larvae) had nervous systems with two separate strands of ganglia and nerve fibres. Both nervous systems were structurally similar and hence Serres saw a parallel between them. But as they matured only the insect’s nervous system fused and concentrated into a bulkier mass, around its oesophagus.3 The mollusc system remained in two separate strands. For Serres these two stages exemplified a more general pattern of development. Simpler and more diffused physiological systems denoted less mature or lower animals. While developing insects passed through a ‘stage’ of a dispersed nervous system, molluscs were stuck there. It is important to distinguish between two versions of recapitulation and parallelism from the period: one is more radical than the other. Johann Friedrich Meckel the Younger’s views tend to be conflated with Serres’s. The more radical view of Meckel was that, as it developed, an embryo would assume the entire form of simpler organisms as it passed through their stages of development. The more moderate view of recapitulation, however, was that individual organs and physiological systems of an embryo would take the form of organs of simpler organisms as that embryo passed through their stages of development.4 Elite researchers usually disparaged the radical view of recapitulation as too crude. Owen, for instance, complained that the ‘beautiful observation’ that the immature organs of higher species corresponded to mature organs in simpler ones was ‘misrepresented’ when someone stated that the human embryo passed through the forms of the lower classes. Stephen Jay Gould’s history of recapitulation does not distinguish between these two views, even though that work mentions the ancient but continually rediscovered principle of ‘Williston’s Law’ – that in development many identical parts get reduced to fewer more specialized organs.5 Recapitulation worked because it allowed the researcher to see that many similar parts were reduced into a few specialized organs, either during ontog-

Synthesis

67

eny or when one ‘ascended’ the animal scale from simple to complex (an image explored below). It was not only the nervous system that developed through fusion. Historian Toby Appel notes how French life researchers believed that embryonic vertebrae started not from a central point but from four separate ‘points of ossification’; these then grew together into a single tube. Meanwhile historian Edward Stuart Russell describes how Serres saw kidneys as forming through synthesis: human embryos started with twelve kidney lobes, but ended up with two mature kidneys, while lower animals had more numerous but simpler kidneys.6 Very young embryos were ‘composed of various fragments, divided and sub-divided ad infinitum’, then united along a central axis; this coalescence Serres subsumed under general laws of ‘affinity’ and ‘conjugation’.7 While it is unclear where these first embryonic parts came from, Serres was insistent that there were several points of emergence. Indeed he was a strong advocate of epigenesis and a foe of ‘pre-existence’ (i.e. preformation). But Serres certainly did not mean epigenesis in the von Baerian sense of differentiation. Instead he meant something not quite covered by the dichotomy of preformation and epigenesis. He went further by explicitly distinguishing between two different directions: centrifugal development and centripetal development. The later and better-known von Baerian view of development can be termed centrifugal epigenetic, with specialization transforming a single ovum into more tissues which were more specialized: the famous formula of homogeneity into heterogeneity. But Serres’s view of embryos growing through coalescence can instead be described as centripetal epigenetic. Because of this crucial directional difference, Serres’s view of embryology was perfectly suited to beliefs in cephalization. It allowed researchers and students to relate different issues in comparative anatomy, the neurosciences and embryology. Centripetal epigenesis was another way in which recapitulationism and parallelism were plausible to elite life researchers.

Centripetal Development Beliefs like Serres’s were very popular in 1820s and 1830s London, shown by the prevalence of such words as ‘anchylosis’ and ‘compounding’, and the explanation that development occurred as parts ‘approximated’ (approached) one another. Such terms entered English-language life research partly through review articles pointing out that development was synthetic. In 1828 Smith lauded Serres and reviewed how nerves in embryos formed first and were then ‘put in communication with the brain and spinal cord’, not the other way around. This new discovery that nerves began separate and then grew together explained why vertebrate embryos and the dispersed nervous systems of fully grown invertebrates appeared similar. Smith emphasized the nervous system’s indexical function for taxonomists: ‘The more the volume of the brain exceeds that of the spinal cord,

68

Styles of Reasoning in the British Life Sciences

the higher the animal is placed in the scale of being. In general, as we descend, the spinal cord is large, and the brain small.’8 Centripetal epigenesis also came to Britain through textbooks. Quain’s work praised Serres, distinguishing between centrifugal and centripetal development. Unorganized bodies like crystals developed from the centre out, but organized bodies developed in the reverse direction. After noting that each vertebrae was ‘soldered together along the median line’ of embryos, Quain rehearsed Serres’s point about the mutual reinforcement of analysis and synthesis in the practice of comparative anatomy. When the anatomical description of a particular part of the body is thus completed, when the structures which enter into its composition are successively examined in detail … when, in a word, the student has seen the part built up, as it were, before him, by a process resembling, as nearly as may be, a synthesis, he is naturally prompted to inquire what are the steps by which it may again be resolved into its elements, in order that he may study it for himself; or, in other words, how should he conduct its analysis or dissection?

Analysis was an artificial process of clarification; synthesis a natural process of development. Echoing de Condillac, Quain saw no better way to make a complex subject simple than by proceeding from ‘… things more simple to those more compounded’. Starting with the simplest ear of the lowest animal, one could recognize each of the ear’s additional parts as they were ‘superadded’. The lobster ear was a small fluid sac connected to the auditory nerve. Sharks’ ears possessed the sac-nerve structure, plus semicircular canals. More complicated ears added middle chambers to the canals. Finally, mammals also had external parts for collecting sound.9 To repeat, the human life researcher could perform only analysis, and had to remain satisfied with an imaginative recreation of the synthetic process. Because development as synthesis had to be envisioned, those trying to describe it often made it sound as though the life researcher himself was surveying a number of specimens before him. Description of the increasing complexity of the animal kingdom thus took the language of an imaginary climb up the scale of being, language befitting the museum-bound researcher. The image was vague enough that it could be used to describe either a collection of specimens arranged from simple to complex, or ontogeny – and such a picture seems to have been later imposed on top of the evolutionary process, subtly changing its meaning while preserving a link between ontogeny and phylogeny. The impression of an ascent was general enough to be applied to all developmental processes. One 1837 review described how the heart ‘exhibits gradually increasing complexity’ from insect dorsal canal to a more rounded ‘circulating organ’ in higher crustaceans; as we ‘ascend’, however, the heart obtained features

Synthesis

69

such as ventricles and auricles. The same review also proclaimed the victory of Serres’s ‘“Centripetal or Eccentric Theory of Development,” in opposition to the more ancient one, to which the appellation of the “Centrifugal Theory” has been given’. Albrecht von Haller had thus formerly taught that the body formed centrifugally, with heart, brain and spinal cord first appearing, then blood vessels radiating outward. Though there had been disputes over precisely which part appeared first, the general assumption of a centrifugal direction of development went unchallenged. But the now-accepted centripetal view solved other mysteries such as lateral symmetry (the young foetus was formed out of two lateral coalescing halves) and hermaphrodism (the sex organs were insufficiently coalesced).10 Three years later another reviewer scolded Britons for being out of touch: the latest invertebrate anatomy showed how separate nerves formed first, then linked with others. These nerves therefore formed a communication network.11 For his part, Owen seems to have been cautious about embracing Serres outright – by 1848 he would refer to ‘M. Serres’s so-called “law of centripetal development”’12 – yet he nonetheless saw both Hunter and William Harvey as motivated by recapitulation. By recapitulation Owen meant the coalescence of many simple parts into a few complicated ones. Hunter’s collection had a ‘philosophical’ series of preparations in which the nervous system was traced through its ‘progressive stages of Complication’ from parasite to human. Even earlier, Harvey had compared the mature insect’s simple heart to the immature chick’s heart.13 Green discussed cephalization in Royal College lectures that Owen attended. Green noted how the separate ganglia of simpler invertebrates gradually ‘increased and united’ to form a brain – since the nervous system formed an inner unity, this fusion was evidence of nature’s tendency to produce individual wholes, a process culminating in humans.14 Centripetalism also came to Britain from Germany. Friedrich Tiedemann’s Anatomy of the Foetal Brain – translated and published in Edinburgh in 1826 – praised centripetal development. Tiedemann’s own brain collection showed that it was obvious how developing nervous systems fused towards a centre. Previously, researchers were sure that the spinal marrow had developed out of the brain (perhaps supporting the Hallerian centrifugal view), but Serres had definitively shown that the brain actually emerged from the spinal marrow. The nervous system exemplified organs’ ‘gradation from the simple to the compound’.15 In 1827 C. G. Carus’s Introduction to the Comparative Anatomy of Animals appeared in London, showing the nervous element as a single ganglion-nerve combination.16 Its points were similar to Tiedemann’s. Of more importance, such points were being repeated seventeen years later in British journals. Their images of nervous coalescence were particularly striking.

70

Styles of Reasoning in the British Life Sciences

Figure 3.1. Cephalizing vertebrate brain masses, in C. G. Carus, ‘On a New Cranioscopy upon a Scientific Foundation’, London Medical Gazette, n.s. 2 (1844), pp. 680–4, on p. 683. Note the caption under the human brain discussing parallelism.

Other Germans had said similar things before Tiedemann and Carus. As early as 1811, Meckel pointed out that a simple animal had similar but poorly coordinated parts, while a more complicated animal body was an ‘assemblage of compound systems’. The resemblance of Meckel’s principle to Serres’s was duly noted by E. S. Russell and thence by Gould and has become known as the ‘Meckel-Serres Law’. But both historians seem to have neglected the process of fusion that made recapitulation meaningful.17 Meckel and Tiedemann were both taught by Cuvier, with Meckel going so far as to translate Cuvier’s work into German. Meckel was linked to Britain through London University’s attempt to make him its Chair of Comparative Anatomy. They offered him the position in 1827, but, fittingly, he wanted his museum in London, and asked for £1,000 to cover its moving costs. The University balked at this sum and offered the position to Grant instead.18

Synthesis

71

Cephalization and Recapitulation Although less expensive than Meckel, Grant taught similar principles to his students. One of the best examples of such teaching is Grant’s set of comparative anatomy lectures published by the Lancet in 1833 and 1834. (Because he depended on student tickets for income, presumably he thought that any pecuniary loss would be offset by the ensuing publicity.) It is important to dwell on the details of these and other lessons because of the later prominence of some students. Grant taught that the animal kingdom developed ‘from simple to compound’. Again relying on the image of the researcher’s ascent to view synthesis at work, he portrayed the anatomist’s task as the tracing of ‘human organs coming successively into being, and rising in complexness’, finding resemblances between developing human organs and their permanent forms in inferior animals. One example was the compounding nervous system.19 Yet reciting abstract principles was not enough. In a manner that would have been appreciated by Thomas Kuhn, Grant illustrated his principles by using examples, showing how general laws applied to ‘select zoological specimens’. In some cases he used images. He taught his students about the fusion and ‘longitudinal concentration’ of insect nervous systems during metamorphosis by showing them magnified copies of J. Moritz David Herold’s plates. Grant displayed a diagram of a starfish to show how the ganglia were arrayed in a circle of nervous filaments around its mouth.20 At other points, Grant used a more concrete teaching method. From museums and collections he brought specimens to the classroom, all displayed in various states of dissection. To gain practical knowledge his students were allowed to hold and presumably manipulate them, though their access depended upon the rarity of the specimen and mode of preservation – most lower animals, especially marine invertebrates, were difficult to obtain and preserve. He held a campanularia zoophyte (a sessile marine hydroid) aloft to show its resemblance to a plant and displayed the ‘fleshy crust’ of a gorgonia taken from the Bay of Naples to demonstrate its lack of internal organization. He passed around a crayfish for the students to see how the ‘numerous distinct elements of each segment’ had fused together into specialized organs of generation and digestion. Grant peeled back the integument of a centipede and a crayfish, to expose the ‘white lobes’ of each segment’s ganglia, telling his class that all of these equidistant nerve masses were really independent ‘brains of the segments’. He used tapeworms from Hunter’s collection to show how, in the ‘inferior helminthoid classes’, each segment was almost physiologically complete, possessing its own independent vascular system. The students were able to see how the tapeworm’s ovaries repeated in every segment, because each one glittered silver: they had been injected with mercury. On other occasions, students themselves performed dissections, in some cases

72

Styles of Reasoning in the British Life Sciences

making preparations of lobsters. They imitated Grant by peeling back the lobster shells to observe how the ganglia and nervous fibres were arranged inside.21 To emphasize each specimen’s place in the order of nature, Grant had arranged ‘all of the classes of animals … in methodical order on the tables’. While it is unclear if Grant was able to actually line his examples up from simplest to most complicated, the Lancet listed his classification system, numbered from most complicated to simplest and grouped in his new Cuvier-inspired nervous taxonomy. Familiar names are included in square brackets after these categories, many of which were used as exemplars.22 A. Spini-Cerebrata, vel Vertebrata: 1. Mammalia. 2. Aves. [birds] 3. Reptilia. 4. Amphibia. 5. Pisces. [fish] B. Cyclogangliata, vel Mollusca. 6. Cephalopoda. [squid, octopus] 7. Pteropoda. [shell-less, or ‘naked’ free-swimming mollusc] 8. Gasteropoda. [snail] 9. Conchiphera. [bivalve shellfish] 10. Tunicata. [sea squirt, salp] C. Diplo-Neura, vel Articulata. 11. Crustacea. [lobster, crab] 12. Arachnida. 13. Insecta. 14. Myriapoda. [centipede, millipede] 15. Annelida. [earthworm] 16. Cirrhopoda. [barnacle] 17. Rotifera. [microscopic marine animal with circles of cilia] 18. Entozoa. [tapeworm and other parasites, thus ‘within the body’] D. Cyclo-Neura, vel Radiata. 19. Echinoderma. [sea cucumber, starfish] 20. Acalepha. [sea anemone, jellyfish] 21. Polypiphera. [polype]

Synthesis

73

22. Poriphera. [sponge] 23. Polygastrica. [Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg’s controversial group of microscopic animals, literally ‘many-stomached’] It is clear that Grant wanted to convey such an arrangement of higher and lower animals to his students – unity of plan and its recapitulation was important. He wanted his students to imagine the grand process of synthesis ‘as we rise in the animal scale’. Grant used the image of rising in the scale at least five times in this set of 1833–4 lectures, indicating the topic’s importance to him.23 Andrew Warwick notes that Kuhn’s point – new scientists are trained by illustrating abstract principles with exemplary problems or specimens – is itself not sufficient to explain whether students have properly related principle to example. In the end, competent teachers have to decide whether their students are practising their new art correctly.24 In order to ensure that they had learned correctly, Grant made his students write examinations, forcing them to demonstrate that they could correctly apply general laws to concrete questions. Here are some test questions from one of Grant’s examinations, given in July 1831. 12. In what animals do you find the diaphragm retain perma- V: 3 nently its rudimentary state, having only its lateral and external parts formed? 16. State the changes which are observed to take place in the V: 7 Nervous System of Insects during their metamorphosis to the Pupa and the insect state. 19. Enumerate the parts of their internal structure in which the V: 7 Cephalopodous Animals resemble Birds. 20. To what extent does the metamorphosis of the Amphibia V: 13 affect their osseous, nervous, circulating, and digestive systems? 21. Describe the internal structure of amorphous animals, and V: 9 state the differences which exist between their organization and that of zoophytes. 25. Enumerate the classes of the inferior animals, in which the V: 15 permanent forms of the Circulating System are analogous to each of the stages of the development of that system in the Mammalia. 28. Where do you find the Nervous System begin to manifest V: 17 itself in ascending through the animal kingdom; and what are the principal forms it assumes in the different classes, before you arrive at animals possessing a Brain? Total: 28 Questions

Total value:

18825

74

Styles of Reasoning in the British Life Sciences

These selected recapitulationist questions are shown above because they were by far the most important on the examination. The average value of each question was just under seven marks. If a student had forgotten to study and recalled only recapitulationist principles, he would still be able to competently answer just under forty per cent of the examination. Hence questions 25 and 28, the two most valuable on the examination, required that the student be familiar with the overall arrangement of the animal kingdom and how the different physiological systems of developing animals recapitulated that arrangement. Question 28 was worth the most and dealt specifically with cephalization. Why did Grant make these two questions so significant? One likely reason is because recapitulation schemes were a useful teaching aid. They facilitated the arrangement of specimens and facts in a single and elegant pattern, one resembling a numerical series. Someone using recapitulation no longer had to use trial and error when confronted with an unfamiliar specimen, which saved time and energy.26 Grant was not the only one to use recapitulation in his lessons. Mayo used cephalization in his textbooks on the nervous system and on human physiology, while Owen used it in his Hunterian Lectures of 1842, calling the ‘unfoldings of cerebral substance’ in both embryo and progressive stages of the mature mammal to be a regular determinate law.27 Owen’s deaf protégé Rymer Jones used cephalization in his 1841 General Outline of the Animal Kingdom and Manual of Comparative Anatomy, a textbook popular with conservatives. Because of its use of the synthetic style and its assumption that development proceeded centripetally, it repeatedly dealt with the problematic of compound individuality. At one point Rymer Jones declared that separate ganglia were ‘in fact so many brains presiding over the functions attributable to the individual nerves’ and so only more complicated and fused nervous structures bestowed upon their owner the right to be called a true individual.28 Rymer Jones also used cephalization to organize the General Outline, subclassifying each of the four great divisions of animals by relating each subgroup to a particular animal, such as sea cucumbers, starfish or nautilus. He devoted a section to the discussion of how insect nervous systems fused and concentrated during metamorphosis. Because of its use of cephalization, although Rymer Jones reversed Grant’s order and used Owen’s taxonomic names for Cuvier’s four groups, the book’s structure largely followed Grant’s classification system. Rymer Jones repeatedly cited Grant’s work in his text, so he was no plagiarist. Instead both used recapitulation because it was useful. In Rymer Jones’s case, cephalization was an elegant way to arrange a wealth of material in the form of a serial argument, ideal for someone constrained by the structure of a linear textbook.

Synthesis

75

Figure 3.2. Organization of T. R. Jones’s General Outline of the Animal Kingdom (London: J. Van Voorst, 1841), p. ix.

Exemplars of Cephalization Styles of Reasoning does not match Warwick’s thoroughness in looking at examination papers to determine how well students learned their lessons. But we can use triangulation to obtain a reasonable picture of Grant’s teaching successes. Grant’s lessons indicate what kind of answer he would favour with high marks, and as the questions he assigned are known, it would follow that those doing well on Grant’s examinations would tend to be those who most thoroughly learned

76

Styles of Reasoning in the British Life Sciences

his principles and examples. As a recipient of Grant’s Certificate of Merit for the 1834–5 academic year, Carpenter was one such student who thoroughly learned from Grant. Carpenter went on to outline points similar to Grant’s in his widelyused 1839 textbook, which defined development as the fusion of simple parts into compound ones. He added that the process of fusion made recapitulationist comparisons easier: insect larvae began ‘on a level’ with annelids due to both animals’ equidistant ganglia and segments, but then these insects moved past annelids during metamorphosis.29 As another of Grant’s prized students, Carpenter’s friend Newport won the Silver Medal from London University. We also know that he followed Grant’s teachings so closely that one of his ‘juvenile essays’ (Grant’s description) largely answered Grant’s exam question 16 above and appeared in the Philosophical Transactions. It gave a minutely detailed account of cephalization during the metamorphosis of the privet hawk-moth. Combined with other papers, Newport eventually gained a Royal Medal for his work on cephalization.30 Grant and Hall would later allege that Newport had actually plagiarized from Grant and other Continentals. Indeed charges of plagiarism are one good back-handed way of learning how well students have learned their lessons. More on Newport’s case below. Of course the starfish diagram that Grant sketched for his students was in no way original to him. Certain animals, either in the flesh or on the pages of textbooks, were passed on from teacher to student, or cited by researchers like precedent-setting cases in common law.31 Solly thought that the first depictions of a starfish nervous system were Tiedemann’s 1815 drawings, for they showed the ring surrounding the oesophagus and a nervous filament running out to each ray.32 Smith’s two-part 1828 Westminster Review piece on the nervous system concurred with Solly and featured exactly the same diagram in both parts. The only difference between the two representations was the changed accompanying caption. Smith described the drawing appearing in the first ( January) article as Tiedemann’s depiction of a starfish nervous system. But the second (April) diagram omitted reference to the starfish, now making it an example of a ‘fundamental type’ of nervous system.33 Smith had subtly generalized the case. Indeed over the next eleven years the drawing of a starfish nervous circle gradually became more abstract. In 1832 Bell repeated Tiedemann’s findings of a nervous circle around a starfish mouth. In 1833 Mayo used the starfish as an example of Cuvier’s class Radiata, for its nervous circle exemplified the organization of any radiate; that year, Grant used his starfish diagram to portray the ‘lowest form’ of nervous system.34 In 1836 John Anderson gave Tiedemann’s starfish description as an example of the ‘primary nervous ring’ (as specified by philosophical anatomy), while Solly used his own starfish picture – drawn from a specimen in the King’s College museum – to illustrate an animal with equally diffused nerv-

Synthesis

77

Figure 3.3. Starfish nervous system: ‘… Tiedemann has described in the asterias, a nervous circle beneath the stomach … [see fig. 1], which exhibits the underside of an asteria; a shows the nervous circle around the mouth; b the smaller; c the central larger nervous branches to the rays of the body’. S. Smith, ‘Nervous System (Part 1)’, Westminster Review, 9 (1828), pp. 172–98, on p. 179. Smith later used the same diagram as a depiction of the ‘fundamental type’ of nervous system. ‘[The previous article showed that as we advance] from the zoophyte to man … the first rudiments of this system consist of minute and delicate threads, disposed in the form of a circle around the main organs of nutrition and reproduction … [fig. 1.] must, therefore, be considered as the primitive type of the nervous system.’ S. Smith, ‘Nervous System (Part 2)’, Westminster Review, 9 (1828), pp. 451–80, on p. 451.

Figure 3.4. The starfish nervous system fully schematized – the simple ‘knots’ represent ganglia while lines represent nerves, in W. B. Carpenter, Principles of General and Comparative Physiology (London: John Churchill, 1839), fig. 178.

78

Styles of Reasoning in the British Life Sciences

ous power.35 In 1839 Carpenter issued the above geometrical depiction of the ‘nervous circle’, all background detail omitted and consisting only of points, lines and circles – the starfish exemplifying an organization in which no ganglion had a ‘presiding’ character.36 Competent researchers had accepted the starfish as a ‘paradigm’ nervous system, taught it to students, and then extended the nervous circle of the starfish to understand other points about the general nervous system. It is noteworthy that a single starfish nervous circle shed its profane roots and was transformed into a ‘primary’, ‘fundamental’ or ideal type, for this goes against many previous histories of British life research emphasizing the primacy of theory. Often written in an antipositivist spirit, such works stress how grand abstractions – naturphilosophie, ‘archetypes’ or ‘romanticism’ – structured life researchers’ work. Such works rightly reject naive observation-statement histories – tales of life researchers only carrying out empirical investigations.37 Although it talks about grand styles of reasoning, this book differs slightly from these predecessors by emphasizing shared methods and practices instead of theories. Indeed, some viewed overt theorizing with suspicion. The philosophical anatomist Anderson – who, citing Grant and C. G. Carus, had noted how nervous systems developed more ‘perfect’ connections – was criticized precisely because of his speculations. A reviewer complained that Anderson’s work should be ‘disembarrassed of the transcendental doctrines by which they are frequently obscured’ because they formed a code that outsiders could not understand. Yet he approved of Anderson’s general assumptions. Comparative anatomy did indeed trace the gradual appearance and development of the nervous system through the concentration and superaddition of nervous parts ‘as we ascend the animal scale’.38 Cephalization was a fact observed by all competent investigators. Hence cephalization and recapitulation were not so much ‘ideas’ or ‘theories’ as routines that helped researchers decide exactly how to investigate different exemplars. Such routines related specimen to specimen and helped investigators to arrange them in similar classes called ‘stages’. When others shared the routine assumption that animals formed through coalescence, then meaningful communication between researchers was possible and matters could be decided with less difficulty. This point is made clearer by three specific examples of research occurring between 1837 and 1844. First, Grainger’s 1837 Observations on the Structure and Functions of the Spinal Cord – which, to repeat, gave anatomical support to the reflex arc – noted that, while higher animals had concentrated and integrated ganglia, those of lower animals were dispersed. This increased disunity was also accompanied by a higher proportion of white conducting nerve fibres ending in the ganglia of the spinal or nervous cord, not the cerebrum. Grainger inferred that nerves in lower animals were mostly centred on each ganglion of the spinal or nerv-

Synthesis

79

ous cord, while those of higher animals were mostly centred on the cerebrum. Combining his anatomical findings with Hall’s reflex arc and newt vivisections, Grainger could explain lower animals’ nerve activity as more independent of the cerebrum: they were more ‘reflex’. Meanwhile cerebral-based nerve activity was reinterpreted as voluntary control. Grainger’s explanation cohered with the common assumption that higher animals showed greater volition. Cephalization guided Grainger’s search for evidence, allowing him to link the new reflex arc with older work in nervous and comparative anatomy.39 Second, cephalization allowed researchers to understand mental activity – even human mental activity – as a sequence of reflexes. The highest animals could be reinterpreted in the light of knowledge about the lowest. Laycock extended reflex activity to higher and higher portions of the central nervous system, until by 1844 he had described even the highest forms of mental activity as sets of compounded reflexes. Laycock gave the findings of comparative anatomy as proof, noting how Meckel, Tiedemann, Serres and Solly had established that the brain and spinal cord were simply compounded ganglia. Laycock denied the existence of a unitary sensorium commune, depicting the sensorium not as a single point but as a ‘common circle’ formed out of several central nervous points.40 The structure strongly resembled the phrenologists’ disunified mental faculties and diffused consciousness. The common nervous circle also closely resembled the same starfish nervous system that Laycock had heard and seen Grant display in his comparative anatomy classes. Third, the assumption that recapitulation proceeded through centripetal fusion was used to refute others’ findings and analogies. Other body parts beside the nervous system developed centripetally too, meaning that more coalesced body parts were higher on the animal scale. In 1837 Owen pointed out that, as ‘we survey the ascending scale’ of animal life, the organs of respiration gradually became more concentrated. In 1843 Owen noted a rival claim to his own about the Pearly Nautilus: French researcher Achille Valenciennes had proposed that naturalists should compare cephalopods by using their suckers instead of their tentacles. Owen disagreed. He responded that the cephalic tentacles of a Pearly Nautilus were numerous and comparatively small, indicating its lower place on the scale. Because development meant a reduction in number and an increase in size and ‘perfection’, Owen pointed out that Valenciennes’s proposal was not ‘conformable with the general law of development’, for it would reverse normal expectations. After all the lowly-organized Nautilus had two large and highly concentrated suckers on each tentacle, while more highly-organized cephalopods had two hundred smaller and simpler suckers.41 Owen was confident enough to publicly reject Valenciennes’s proposal by trotting out the common belief that higher development meant more coalesced parts, even though it was contradicted by the specific case of cephalopod suckers.

80

Styles of Reasoning in the British Life Sciences

The Creation and Reception of a New Exemplar New research helped to create new exemplars or clarify extant cases. One example is Newport’s detailed two-part study of cephalization in insect metamorphosis, appearing in the Royal Society’s Philosophical Transactions in 1832 and 1834. Newport studied Sphinx ligustri (the privet hawk-moth) because it metamorphosed over a longer period than other insects, giving him more time to examine its changes. Before pupation the larva changed its skin six times, growing larger with each change. Above the larva’s oesophagus sat a ‘nodulated mass in the head which is supposed to represent the brain’ and eleven spherical ganglia were arrayed along two longitudinal nervous cords.42 Between mid-August and early September the larva stopped eating and dug an oval chamber in the ground. It entered and then metamorphosed inside the chamber. Its cerebral lobes grew as its ganglia moved closer to each other. Some segments lengthened and others shortened. Thirty days after becoming a pupa, the moth’s ‘cerebral lobes’ above the oesophagus were now the largest ganglia, as shown below.43 In another animal – the similar but more numerous nettle butterfly – Newport again saw the same process occurring during metamorphosis, ‘affording us a further proof of the adhesion of contiguous parts’.44 Newport then compared insect metamorphosis with myriapod development, dissecting Iulus terrestris, the white snake millipede described in the previous chapter. Since it was a myriapod, it did not metamorphose, so its ganglia did not coalesce. It developed only by budding new segments between its penultimate and last segment, which Newport called the ‘germinal space’.45 He likened the mature myriapod to the mature annelid (worm) and larval insect – all were similar because, at that particular developmental stage, all had grown through the budding of new and repetitive segments. Yet only the insect would surpass that stage when its segments fused during metamorphosis.46 In 1843 Newport modified Serres’s doctrine of centripetal development by seeing development as a double process. On the one hand there was ‘growth’, when a new segment budded and enlarged; on the other hand ‘aggregation’, when new body regions were ‘anchylosed’ (fused) out of two or more body parts.47 Newport’s work became a classic study of cephalization. Anderson thought Newport had established the nervous system’s ‘contraction’ during metamorphosis. Another reviewer disagreed with Newport’s implicit linear scheme, but agreed that development meant the transformation of the ‘segmental independence’ of lower animals into the ‘composite structure’ of higher ones.48 And over the next seven years, at least four researchers depicted moth-ganglia coalescence with a tripartite image similar to Newport’s. Shown below, they appeared in Roget’s Bridgewater Treatise, Solly’s The Human Brain, Rymer Jones’s General

Synthesis

81

Outline and Carpenter’s Principles of Physiology. As in his work with the starfish exemplar, Carpenter extended Newport’s moth to the rest of the insect world. He later saw Newport as confirming Tiedemann’s beliefs about vertebrate nerve development too. Brains also developed by fusing, their anterior ganglia ‘enfolding’ posterior ones during development. Analysis reinforced synthesis: as one descended the vertebrate scale it was obvious that the cerebrum gradually diminished and dispersed into its parts. A fish encephalon was comprised of at least four distinct masses strewn along its spinal cord; upon reaching Amphioxus, the simplest vertebrate, no cerebrum existed.49 Although Carpenter numbered the cerebral masses differently than had C. G. Carus, the principle of dispersal and fusion was the same. Even Owen, in his annotated copy of his 1843 Lectures on the Comparative Anatomy and Physiology of the Invertebrate Animals, attached a diagram very similar to Newport’s, depicting the fusion of ganglia during metamorphosis.50 Indeed Newport’s developmental doublet of ‘growth’ and ‘anchylosis’ seems to have been very close to Owen’s belief that animals formed through the interplay of a ‘vegetative repetition’ from below and a higher ‘teleological adaptation’ from above. Owen’s annotated 1843 Lectures on the Invertebrate Animals, a mutilated working copy for a second edition, notes his attention to Newport’s work. He scribbled a note about Newport’s 6 April 1843 Royal Society paper on myriapods, where Newport introduced his doublet: it was a paper ‘which I regret I did not hear’. Across from Newport’s discussion of the ninety-six repetitive ganglia of I. terrestris, Owen pencilled in that ‘Myriapods begin with 6 pairs [of legs] and get more, Insects with none and get six’. And Owen commented on the resemblance of the serially repeating nervous cord of I. terrestris to the serially repeating ganglia of the vertebrate spinal cord, asking ‘Are they homologous as well as analogous?’51 These points imply that Owen’s twin forces of vegetative repetition and teleological adaptation, better known from his work in vertebrate morphology (in his Nature of Limbs), actually originated in invertebrate work. The two forces are discussed in greater detail in the next chapter. Matters were complicated by charges of plagiarism against Newport himself. A more charitable interpretation is that as a student he may have learned Grant’s teachings a bit too well. His Philosophical Transactions papers very strongly resembled question 16 in Grant’s July 1831 examination: ‘State the changes which are observed to take place in the Nervous System of Insects during their metamorphosis to the Pupa and the insect state’. They also closely resembled Herold’s depiction of the ‘longitudinal concentration’ of insect nervous systems during metamorphosis. The similarity of these researches to Grant’s teachings only became public when Newport defected from Grant’s circle of friends. The ‘wily personage now shunned my sight’, complained Grant after Newport deserted him and began

82

Styles of Reasoning in the British Life Sciences

Figure 3.5. Coalescence of privet hawk-moth nervous system during metamorphosis. Depiction is from centre to left then right. Centre: Nervous system of a fully-grown larva. Left: Larva two hours before pupation. Right: 30 days after pupation. From G. Newport, ‘On the Nervous System of the Sphinx ligustri and on the Changes which it Undergoes during a part of the Metamorphoses of the Insect’, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, 122 (1832), pp. 383–98, plate 12.

Synthesis

83

Figure 3.6. Four uses of Newport’s depiction of the fusing nervous cord as the privet hawk-moth metamorphosizes. In all of these pictures except Carpenter’s, the pattern of coalescence is not depicted as moving from left to right. Top left: P. M. Roget, Animal and Vegetable Physiology, Bridgewater Treatise 5, 2 vols (London: W. Pickering, 1834), vol. 2, p. 547. Top right: S. Solly, The Human Brain (London: Longman Rees, 1836), plate 4. Bottom left: T. R. Jones, General Outline of the Animal Kingdom (London: J. Van Voorst, 1841), fig. 138, p. 304. Bottom right: W. B. Carpenter, Principles of General and Comparative Physiology (London: John Churchill, 1839), plate 6, figs 191–4.

84

Styles of Reasoning in the British Life Sciences

to cultivate powerful new mentors like Bell and Roget. Attacking Newport was therefore also a way to strike at Bell and Roget, allegedly two major corruptors of the Royal Society. Thus when Newport obtained the 1836 Royal Medal for Physiology, Grant and Hall challenged its originality in the Lancet. They charged him with stealing material from both Grant’s lectures and from French entomologists.52 Newport responded and the dispute ran for over half a year and spilled onto the pages of at least two other London journals. Privately, Carpenter consoled his former classmate about ‘the clique of detractors in the pay of our friend Marshall Hall’. If Newport did indeed plagiarize it was a hollow victory. For, although he would eventually receive another Royal Society Medal and be ‘esteemed in all lands’ for his work, he remained very poor until 1847. A shocked Swedish naturalist visiting his hero reported that Newport lived in a single tiny bedchamber, deeply impoverished and ‘in want of all things’, not even owning an ordinary good lens.53 Other charges and counter-charges flew. In 1846, Grant finally attacked the real target, Roget, for using his work without acknowledgment. Fourteen years before, Roget had sat in on 122 of Grant’s comparative anatomy and zoology lectures, ‘during which his pen was never at rest’. Grant claimed to have been happy at having such an attentive student until he found several points from his lecture appearing in Roget’s Bridgewater Treatise without acknowledgment. Roget retorted that he had lectured on comparative anatomy and physiology since 1806, so he was well aware of many points which were actually common knowledge.54 Grant himself was similarly criticized for such omissions by a reviewer – although his 1841 Outlines of Comparative Anatomy described the fusion of ganglia during metamorphosis, it did not mention Newport’s work. Similar accusations were levelled against Joseph Swan. His 1836 Illustrations of the Comparative Anatomy of the Nervous System was charged with neglecting Newport’s papers, which the reviewer noted had confirmed the previous research of Jan Swammerdam, Pierre Lyonet, Herold, Meckel, Johannes Müller, Léon Dufour, Hercule Straus Durckheim, Victor Audoin, Milne Edwards and others.55 The innocence or guilt of these people is less important than the fact that this web of charges, criticisms and cross-citations shows just how many elite London life researchers were guided by a basic belief in cephalization and recapitulation. Hence Newport’s investigation of the Sphinx ligustri metamorphosis was not important because of its purported originality, but because it gave a clear example of cephalization at work. The case could then be used by his peers in turn.

Synthesis

85

Monsters as Synthesized (Truly Compound) Organisms Newport’s view of development as a doublet of growth and anchylosis nicely cohered with beliefs about the structure of monsters. In Paris, Serres declared his ignorance of the causes of monsters, but noted how they tended to have repeating parts, such as two heads or six extremities. Gould points out Serres’s discussion of monsters in this light and even fits it into the context of Meckel’s theory of unintegrated development.56 But he misses the larger point: monsters were seen as truly compounded individuals. Other historians focus on the proposed causes of monsters. Evelleen Richards shows how Owen – by favouring Hunter’s view that monsters were caused by endogenous causes – reinforced his own conservative commitment to natural law, natural theology and functionalist explanation. Geoffroy instead emphasized his liberalism by focusing on materialist and environmentalist causes. Where Owen saw monsters as emerging out of an innate ‘disposition’ to deviate from nature, Geoffroy instead thought monsters could be created.57 Regardless of cause, however, both men were fascinated by creatures with double parts and animals lacking certain parts altogether. Geoffroy, for instance, had his law of ‘soi pour soi’. Owen saw in monsters that ‘all supernumerary parts are joined to their similar parts, as a head to a head, &c, &c’. In his Hunterian lectures of 1837 he again noted that monsters occurred when extra parts were joined to similar ones.58 The belief that monsters had additional or fewer parts manifested itself in the arrangement of the Hunterian Museum’s teratological collection. It consisted of four groups of monsters, classified according to their excess or lack of certain body parts. The first section featured the ‘preternatural’ situation of parts in its specimens, such as foetuses found in men’s bellies. The second displayed specimens with added parts, like a woman’s double uterus and vagina and a six-year-old with a superfluous head that had allegedly performed ‘mental operations, distinct from those of the lower head’. The third category contained specimens lacking certain parts – it included one-eyed pigs, or animals missing the entire face in front of the ears. The final group of the collection contained hermaphrodites such as ‘free-martins’, cattle appearing to be a female but which lacked testes or ovaries.59 When C. G. Carus paid a visit to Owen’s skull collection he remarked that, of all the specimens, The most remarkable was a monstrous formation from India, in which another skull was joined to the head of a child in such a manner, that the two crowns were united … The bony parts of the two united skulls were in Owen’s hands, and we considered attentively this extraordinary malformation.60

86

Styles of Reasoning in the British Life Sciences

Other life researchers beside Owen, Carus and Geoffroy also saw monsters as truly compound organisms. Johannes Müller explained the formation of double monsters either as the ‘concretion’ of two germs, or as the production of two embryos that then grew together. When Thomas Hodgkin, curator of Guy’s Museum of Pathology, saw a conjoined twin, he suggested that ‘these plural births, seem … to be analogous to those animals which possess a sort of community of life … in animals of a still lower grade, such as the zoophytes, which produce coral, asidia [sic], and sertularia’. Jacyna gives this example to depict Hodgkin’s belief in recapitulation.61 This anecdote also shows that less-developed animals could be depicted as at the same stage as monsters. It is also noteworthy that Hodgkin made his point using three favourite exemplar animals of the time – coral, composite sea squirts and sertularian zoophytes. Although there were concerns about whether the causes were intrinsic or extrinsic, many London life researchers of the 1830s and 1840s agreed that monsters formed in the same way as other developing organisms. They differed only in that they did not synthesize correctly. The view that monsters had either too few parts, or extra parts, was part of the problematic of compound individuality. Using members of Grant’s London University class as an example, this chapter has discussed how a new generation of analytically-minded life researchers was taught by Britons returning from Paris. These younger London-based students learned about general principles like recapitulation and cephalization through the concrete display of a number of exemplary animals, including moths, starfish, zoophytes, centipedes, millipedes, lobsters and tapeworms. They were then tested on these principles. This new generation then applied such principles in their own work, using these same animals as illustrations. The repeated use of such paradigm animals to illustrate recapitulation and parallel forms of development reveals to us the outlines of a community.

4 REGENERATION AS REPRODUCTION

By the beginning of the 1840s, Edward Forbes had twice rowed out to obtain for his cabinet the Lingthorn starfish, Luidia fragillissima. Mature specimens measured two feet across, the dorsal surface coloured brick red and the ventral surface translucent yellow. But Forbes was frustrated in his efforts by the Lingthorn’s ability to cast away its limbs. Even a limb could not be retained: each one broke into smaller fragments itself, leaving him with ‘an assemblage of rejected members’ at the bottom of his boat. When Forbes tried to scoop a second specimen from the ocean into a seawater-filled bucket to ease its transition, it still dissolved into fragments. In despair I grasped at the largest, and brought up the extremity of an arm with its terminating eye, the spinous eyelid of which opened and closed with something exceedingly like a wink of derision.1

Figure 4.1. Lingthorn starfish, in E. S. Forbes, A History of British Starfishes, and other Animals of the Class Echinodermata (London: J. Van Voorst, 1841), p. 135.

Almost twenty years later, in 1860, Laycock used Forbes’s tale to illustrate how certain animals were ‘communistic’. The Lingthorn starfish showed how nervous systems were networks of quasi-independent nervous centres.2

– 87 –

88

Styles of Reasoning in the British Life Sciences

Figure 4.2. Dredging, in P. H. Gosse, The Aquarium: An Unveiling of the Wonders of the Deep Sea (London: J. Van Voorst, 1854), p. 61.

Such animals also caused researchers to question existing notions of regeneration and reproduction. This chapter moves away from the neurosciences and begins by surveying the common assumptions about reproduction and regeneration in the 1830s and 1840s. Broadly supporting Farley’s conclusion, it shows how researchers saw regeneration and reproduction as intertwined or even interchangeable.3 Such assumptions were also a problematic of compound individuality. The style of analysis:synthesis distils the vastly complicated issues of reproduction and regeneration into the general question of how animal elements replaced themselves. We then move on to see that, by the end of the 1840s, Forbes’s associate Owen related regeneration and reproduction to other communal puzzles. Two mysteries were the ‘virgin births’ in such creatures as aphids and the emergence of young from buds. Another was metamorphosis, or the change of morphological patterns. Still another was serial homology, in which identical parts recurred in the same organism, be they vertebrae or segments. Owen sought to solve them all at one stroke with his proposal of ‘metagenesis’, the changes of form undergone by a series of individuals from egg to mature state.

Regeneration as Reproduction

89

Exemplars: Recurring Puzzles and Animal-Researcher Pairings Like the starfish and privet hawk-moth, certain animals recurred in researchers’ accounts. One of Owen’s favourite exemplary animals was the parasitic tapeworm (Taenia and its larval form Caenurus), a familiar ‘entozoon’ widely available in the medical realm because of its enjoyment of human hospitality. He had already distinguished himself with his studies of parasites, particularly the animal causing trichinosis, for they offered interesting puzzles. Like other worms, each repetitive tapeworm segment (except for the head) was quasi-independent. Each had its own physiological system and formed new tapeworms by dropping off from the other segments. Taenia was thus an excellent example of compound individuality, all the more interesting for Owen because the worm itself lived inside a host, described as ‘a little world to many animals of smaller size’. All tapeworm segments (containing both male and female sex organs) Owen later called ‘generating individuals … [with] various grades of development; some are infants in this respect; others adolescent, the hinder ones fully formed and pregnant’.4 Others also saw the tapeworm as a colony of individuals. Grant’s exhibition of tapeworms to his class and his argument that each segment could ‘be viewed as a separate being’ has been noted. Roget’s Bridgewater Treatise celebrated God’s wisdom in creating each tapeworm segment with its own independent ‘nutritive apparatus’. Although Carpenter in his 1839 textbook denied that each tapeworm segment was an individual because of the distinct head, he granted that other researchers did define tapeworms segments as individuals due to their complete ovaries. And Edinburgh physiologist Allen Thomson remarked that if

Figure 4.3. Taenia solium – the pork tapeworm – usually found in humans, in T. R. Jones, A General Outline of the Animal Kingdom (London: J. Van Voorst, 1841), p. 84.

90

Styles of Reasoning in the British Life Sciences

Figure 4.4. Repeating generative organs of Taenia solium, in R. Owen, ‘Entozoa’, in R. B. Todd (ed.), The Cyclopaedia of Anatomy and Physiology, vol. 2 (London: Sherwood, Gilbert and Piper, 1839), pp. 111–43, on p. 137.

Figure 4.5. Ovaries of simple cestoid worms – located in each joint between segments, in R. Owen, ‘Entozoa’, in R. B. Todd (ed.), The Cyclopaedia of Anatomy and Physiology, vol. 2 (London: Sherwood, Gilbert and Piper, 1839), pp. 111–43, on p. 137.

Regeneration as Reproduction

91

sexual completeness was the sign of individuality, then each segment qualified as a distinct animal.5 Researcher-animal pairings also recurred in British researchers’ accounts, illustrating certain important research issues of the 1830s and 1840s. In the case of reproduction and regeneration, such pairings included the genesis of … Polypes, by budding, so admirably described by Trembley in his work published in 1744; and of the Aphides, by internal production, discovered by Reaumur and Bonnet; and of the Nais and Nereis, by external extension, described by Otto F. Müller, in 1800; the imperfect conditions of some of the Entozoa had been detected by Nitsch and V. Baer in 1818: the two forms of the Salpae were known to Chamisso in 1819 …6

Hence they recounted Bonnet’s discovery that a number of aphids (from seven to eleven waves of progeny) appeared after a single act of sexual fertilization. The intervening generations of aphids were thus ‘virgin births’. Differing from their parents, these aphids had ‘the structure of females imperfectly developed’. In 1840 Owen pointed out that Bonnet’s aphid observations were an established, tested fact and saw this multigenerational ‘fecundating influence’ at work in lower crustaceans too. In 1846 the Linnean Society thought it worthwhile to publish Newport’s report confirming Bonnet’s work.7 Abraham Trembley’s famous eighteenth-century investigations of the Hydra (freshwater polyp) were also paradigmatic. In 1816 Lawrence told his audience how Trembley demonstrated that these animals propagated by ‘shoots’, like plants: young budded from a parent’s body. Trembley cut Hydra into two or more pieces, each of which regenerated into ‘perfect’ animals. Two Hydra pieces stuck together grew into a single animal. When he slit them halfway, longitudinally, each section sprouted a perfect head. When he turned them inside out, they were uninjured. Hydra and other simple marine invertebrates were likened to plants, befitting their older classification as zoophytes, or animal-plants. Trembley’s Hydra investigations were also mentioned by Owen, in 1837 and 1840 and by Rymer Jones at some point between 1838 and 1841.8 When John Dalyell recounted how he obtained twenty-two Hydrae in 550 days from a single specimen, a reviewer duly linked his findings to Trembley’s work. In that same year, in an 1848 paper on zoophyte reproduction, Carpenter presumed that his researchers were so familiar with Trembley’s investigations on Hydra that he did not need to repeat them.9 He presumed that his audience learned about Trembley’s work when they became competent naturalists. The third iconic researcher-animal pairing was Bonnet and earthworms. Sometimes Bonnet was replaced with Réne Antoine Réaumur or Lazzaro Spallanzani. Earthworms not only exemplified how physiological systems repeated in each segment – they also demonstrated the similarity of regeneration and repro-

92

Styles of Reasoning in the British Life Sciences

duction. Everybody assumed that, like Hydra, when earthworms were cut in two, each half grew into a complete individual. Lawrence recalled how Reaumur and Spallanzani both observed this regeneration. Milne Edwards cited the similar findings by Bonnet and Antoine Dugès and explained that the moieties survived because each earthworm segment was a copy of its neighbours. Owen’s Lectures on Invertebrates noted how Bonnet’s earthworm divisions showed earthworms’ ‘vegetative power’. In his own copy of the lectures, Owen bracketed the passage and put two exclamation marks next to it, pencilling in how Dalyell had propagated a Sabella (a marine worm) ‘just like Bonnet’.10 Other well-known animals replaced missing parts too. Dugès had cut a planarian flatworm into fragments with each section fully regenerating into a complete individual. His work was noted by Owen in 1839, Rymer Jones in 1838–41 and in the English translation of Johannes Müller’s Principles of Physiology in 1838–43.11 Roget’s 1834 Bridgewater Treatise omitted Dugès, but still saw the regeneration of planarians, Hydra, starfish and Actinia (sea anemones) as ‘very analogous to that of complete reproduction’. When HMS Beagle stopped off in Tasmania in 1836, Darwin cut planarians in half and watched each half grow into two complete individuals over two weeks. The most colourful work was Dalyell’s: he observed that certain cuts caused a second head to sprout from the planarian body, and both heads fought over which direction to take.12 ‘Naids’, marine worms including Nais and Nereis, also blurred the distinction between regeneration and reproduction. They did not merely bud new segments in the ‘germinal space’ between the final and penultimate segment – entirely new individuals budded there. In 1837 and 1843, Owen described each physiologically-compartmentalized Naid segment as an individual.13 In 1839, Thomson depicted Naids as divided into quasi-individuals budding near the tail. Each individual gained independence only when it separated, implying that the tail always survived, ‘gifted with perpetual life’. Rymer Jones made a similar point at around the same time: ‘The tail of the original Nereis is still the tail of its offspring, and, however often the body may divide, still the same tail remains attached to the hinder portion, so that this part of the animal may be said to enjoy a kind of immunity from death’.14 Salps also illustrated the similarity of regeneration and reproduction. Though related to sea squirts, salps were marine invertebrates that remained mobile. In 1839, Carpenter saw them demonstrating ‘the association of a number of single and independent beings to form a compound animal’. These ‘associated animals’ joined up ‘for mutual support and protection from injury’, forming a hollow cylinder up to fourteen inches long with an opening in either end. Their compoundness hinted at a resemblance to plants, although the colony broke up if disturbed severely enough.15

Regeneration as Reproduction

93

Yet by the 1840s and 1850s salps stood for something different. Their new interpretation came from the Continent: in 1819 the poet/naturalist Adelbert von Chamisso claimed that solitary salps produced chains of associated salps which then produced solitary salps again. He called the process generationweschel, the ‘alternation of generations’. In 1828, Milne Edwards claimed that sea squirts alternated generations. In 1835 Otto Sars, Sven Lovén and Dalyell extended Chamisso’s interpretation to other marine invertebrates. Salps figured prominently in Danish naturalist Johan Japetus Steenstrup’s 1842 Om forplantning og udvikling g jennem vexlende generationsraekker, a work then quickly translated into German, then English, entitled On the Alternation of Generations. Steenstrup’s claim created a furore until at least 1859 and Owen, Forbes, Huxley and Allman were said to have closely followed it.16 Recounting Chamisso’s observation that solitary salps produced associated ones and vice versa, Steenstrup explained the alternation of these forms as part of a larger pattern. One form was the full-grown, perfect individual; the other was the ‘supplementary individual’, called a ‘nurse’. These nurse-individuals brought about the ‘perfection’ of the other form. In Steenstrup’s view, this sequence of different forms was also a kind of metamorphosis, but one taking place over a sequence of individuals, not just one individual organism.17 The alternation of generations was a kind of ‘metamorphosis-plus’ and Steenstrup claimed that it took place in other animals like social insects and parasites.

Why did Owen call it Vegetative Repetition? Steenstrup also likened the alternation of generations in animals to metamorphosis in plants, following botanists’ tendency to depict plants as compounded out of simple leaf- or shoot-elements.18 Farley’s history argues that Steenstrup’s work caused a sudden upsurge in questions about compound individuality in the 1840s. An extraordinarily lengthy and complex discussion followed on the relationship between Steenstrup’s alternating generations and animal and plant metamorphosis, all of which centered on the problem of individuality. Are a tree and a hydrozoan polyp individuals or a colony of individuals? If a plant is a colony, what is the nature of the individuals of which it is constructed? Is the plant individual the cell or the shoot? Are larval stages of insects true individuals and thus equivalent to Steenstrup’s nurses and plant shoots?19

But such questions predated Steenstrup. In their histories Farley and Churchill point to Goethe, Oken and German naturphilosophie as the source of the belief that plants and animals were similar because both were compounded.20 But the belief that there was a link between compound individuality, lower animals and a plant-like nature seems to have informed classification schemes as early as Aris-

94

Styles of Reasoning in the British Life Sciences

Figure 4.6. ‘Production of Aphides’, in A. Thomson, ‘Ovum’, in R. B. Todd (ed.), The Cyclopaedia of Anatomy and Physiology, vol. 4 (London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longman, 1852–6), 44 (1854), pp. 33–80, on p. 33. On the left are successive forms of aphids in metagenesis; on the right the ‘fine nucleated cells’ descending from the ovarian oviducts of a viviparous (asexual) Aphis; these cells were deemed histologically identical to those in a sexually-produced egg.

Figure 4.7. Single Hydra viridis, in A. Thomson, ‘Ovum’, in R. B. Todd (ed.), The Cyclopaedia of Anatomy and Physiology, vol. 4 (London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longman, 1852–6), 43 (1852), pp. 1–32, on p. 17.

Regeneration as Reproduction

95

Figure 4.8. Group of Hydra viridis, in A. Thomson, ‘Ovum’, in R. B. Todd (ed.), The Cyclopaedia of Anatomy and Physiology, vol. 4 (London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longman, 1852–6), 43 (1852), pp. 1–32, on p. 17.

totle, or at least as old as Hunter: in one of his taxonomies he grouped all animals that propagated by ‘slips’, pieces that dropped off or were cut off. In 1837 Owen noted Hunter’s point.21 This rationale also appeared in France: following de Candolle’s point that botryllus sea squirts budded in the same way as the compound individuals called plants, Milne Edwards moved Tunicates (such as salps and sea squirts) out of the mollusc group and into the lower zoophyte group.22 Many marine invertebrates physically resembled plants. The tree-shaped sertularian polyp, for instance, had large ‘branches’ on which sat smaller branch-like polyps. Each smaller part-polyp was apparently independent. The plant-animal resemblance could also be reproductive: and everyone knew that each polyp could live independently if separated, just as everyone knew that many tree branches could survive independently if separated. For instance, in 1833 the London botanist John Lindley announced that it was widely known that ‘a tree is more analogous to a Polype than to a simple animal; that it is a congeries of vital systems, acting indeed in concert, but to a great degree independent of each other, and that it has myriads of seats of life’.23 In that same year J. S. Henslow also noted the similarity between plants (as an assemblage of buds around a common axis) and polyps. In his detailed history, Sloan sees Henslow as paraphrasing de Candolle’s 1827 discussion of plants as compound individuals,24 and Lindley may also have learned from de Candolle too. The next year, Roget cited Erasmus Darwin and others as seeing ‘each annual shoot as a collection of individual buds, each bud being a distinct individual plant, and the whole tree an aggregation of such individuals’. Roget backed up his claim not by citing de Candolle or Goethe but by pointing to the humble experiences of any gardener. Anyone with basic agricultural skills knew how even the smallest plant fragments could multiply – some fragments,

96

Styles of Reasoning in the British Life Sciences

or ‘slips’, had the power to form a complete individual plant. In 1839, Thomson compared some animals’ ability to reproduce by division with some trees’ ability to propagate by slips. Like individual polyps, slips budded from a common stem and then separated either naturally or mechanically.25 As shown by Sloan and Jonathan Hodge, Darwin – following Grant – also likened sessile marine invertebrates to trees. Both were associations of bud and branch individuals. Darwin was also following his grandfather Erasmus’s Phytologia – a work beginning with a meditation on the ‘Individuality of the Buds of Vegetables’. In 1838 he privately noted how he saw the trees at Kensington Gardens as ‘great compound animals united by wonderful & mysterious manner’. 26

Figure 4.9. Nereis, in T. R. Jones, A General Outline of the Animal Kingdom (London: J. Van Voorst, 1841), p. 221.

Figure 4.10. Nereis, in W. B. Carpenter, Principles of General and Comparative Physiology (London: John Churchill, 1839), p. 110.

Regeneration as Reproduction

97

The habit of seeing plants as compound continued into the next decade. Dalyell described polyp budding as ‘vegetating’. At an 1845 British Association talk, Forbes likened the ‘composite beings’ of sertularian zoophytes to plants (the zoophytes’ reproductive parts akin to flowers). Other attendees then spoke highly of Forbes’s analogy and proceeded to make other claims about the likeness between polypes and plants. One of these participants was Owen.27 Thus when Owen claimed that a detached and transplanted tree branch sent out roots and its buds developed into flowers, he was not simply copying Johannes Müller’s Handbuch, as Sloan has so nicely demonstrated.28 Owen (and perhaps Müller too) was also part of a much larger tradition that linked plants and zoophytes. The shared belief in a plant-animal resemblance was used to solve interesting research questions. Owen was no exception. He used it to answer one of the most important topics in the life sciences of the 1840s – the issue of regeneration and reproduction. It was suspected that there was some kind of relationship between them. Owen discussed the issue with the Welsh naturalist John Blackwall, who cut off spider limbs to investigate why they grew back.29 Owen was also well acquainted with Harry Goodsir, who performed similar investigations on crustaceans. Goodsir was curious why only the claws of crabs and lobsters grew back after removal – he found that no other body part could regenerate.30 In 1844 and 1845 Newport, now as President of the Entomological Society, noted that the ‘reproduction’ of missing articulate (insect and myriapod) limbs was an important puzzle. He argued that its solution would reveal important laws of nature and pointed to H. D. S. Goodsir’s work as one important set of inquiries into the link between regeneration and reproduction. Privately he also claimed that his own work on the ‘reproduction’ of lost insect parts had established that all articulated animals regenerated lost parts in a similar way.31 Owen thought that there was a connection between these issues and the fact that tree cuttings and polyp pieces could be propagated, like grafts on an apple tree – lower animals had some sort of inherent ‘vegetative’ power.32 The perceived similarity informed his work on metagenesis, which will be examined more closely below. Understanding Owen’s work in the light of a common interest in a vegetative power of regeneration and reproduction also clarifies his belief in a force of ‘vegetative repetition’. He had claimed that animal structures were formed out of the interaction of two opposed forces. On the one hand stood the force of vegetative repetition, which caused structures, like segments and vertebrae, to recur. On the other hand stood an ‘adaptive’ teleological force that shaped living things to their functions. Higher animals were better adapted animals – they were those in which the teleological adaptive force overcame vegetative repetition. In lower animals it was the opposite. Seeing Owen as interested only in morphological questions, E. S. Russell depicts the two opposed forces accordingly. Vegetative

98

Styles of Reasoning in the British Life Sciences

repetition thus stands for pure form, like the repetition of crystals; Russell interprets teleological adaptation to be function.33 However, although Owen was primarily interested in morphology, he also sought to answer other problems. One was the mystery of reproduction and regeneration. The two opposed forces could also explain these phenomena too. Owen called one force ‘vegetative’ because it was the same kind of power by which plants regenerated and reproduced. He believed that the regeneration of lost body parts was analogous to the reproduction of new individuals. Propagation of plants from buds or slips was one example of this underlying power. In lower animals this power was strongest. This ability grew weaker the higher one went in the animal kingdom. Other London researchers also believed that different anatomical and physiological points could be explained as an opposition between two different forces. In 1845 Forbes also claimed that one could understand organisms as a clash between animal and vegetable characteristics: animals developed their individuality by concentrating their parts. Vegetables extended their parts outward to reproduce the species. Animals such as articulates (like centipedes) took on ‘vegetable’ characteristics, shown by their repeating segments.34 In 1848 Owen used this vegetative principle to explain vertebrate morphology, using it to explain special, general and serial homology, while noting that serial homology was far ‘more conspicuously manifested by the segments of the exoskeleton of the invertebrata’.35 Where Owen obtained his force of teleological adaptation from has been the subject of far more study and controversy. Most famously, in The Politics of Evolution, Desmond sees Owen’s teleological adaptation as taken from Plato and Coleridge. In Desmond’s reading, although vegetative repetition bubbled ‘upward’, it needed to be disciplined and channelled by a ‘downward’ force like Platonic ideas or Coleridgean ‘decensive’ powers extending from God to man. In other words teleological adaptation was impressed upon matter from outside, shaping it to particular ends. Desmond argues that this external force not only explained anatomy and physiology but also social structure, thereby legitimating Owen’s Conservative political leanings. The downward and external force of teleological adaptation could be likened to the hand of God or some external intelligence; such a force was necessary for there to be any kind of organic or social order at all. Nature could be seen as a form of society or vice versa – just as any society or ethical system required a natural hierarchy in which principles were handed down from God to God’s representatives on earth and thence to those who obeyed them, so too was nature ordered by principles external to it in the same way. Hierarchical political authorities such as the aristocracy and Church of England were thus legitimated. Many believed that it was dangerous to believe that nature organized itself, for this led to democratic and levelling

Regeneration as Reproduction

99

upheavals such as the Jacobin Terror in France. Science, then, was a way to change society.36 Desmond has been hastily construed to mean that one’s scientific views were simply in the service of one’s political views. In one of the most painstaking and interesting critiques of Desmond, Nicolaas Rupke sees Owen’s Platonism as created retrospectively to please Oxbridge patrons like Sedgwick and Whewell.37 Boyd Hilton, meanwhile, has tried to expand the terms of the debate.38 But these critiques do not seem to blunt the underlying difficulty raised by Jacyna about a metaphysical problem faced by British life researchers of the early nineteenth century. Jacyna’s thesis – largely followed by Desmond in The Politics of Evolution – is that there were two different views about life and organization. Was life a product of the organization of matter, or was it imposed upon matter from without? Was order ‘immanent’ to matter or was it ‘transcendent’, external to it?39 Not only could one’s life research be shaped by one’s answer to these questions – one’s politics could also be shaped by that answer if (and only if ) one believed that society and its institutions ought to be rationalized according to how nature truly operated. Jacyna’s point and thus Desmond’s can be reinterpreted to mean that life researchers of the period were interested in solving the problematic of spontaneous order. Different groups put forward different answers to solve it: in 1840 everyone in the life sciences gave either a Benthamite or Coleridgean answer.40 The Benthamite answer to this problem – that spontaneous order was possible – has been discussed in Chapter 1. The Coleridgean answer was the proposal of the idealist Divine Presence or Logos. The belief that Desmond and Jacyna are claiming that politics drove science is incorrect. One’s politics tended to be shaped by one’s answer to whether spontaneous order was possible – but those politics were not determined by that answer. Matters of agency and determinism are revisited in the conclusion. Owen sought to answer his own questions about spontaneous order. To repeat, he believed that the mere aggregation of organic elements was insufficient to explain the harmonious structures of higher organisms; thus in 1840 he wondered aloud why Buffonian or Okenian ‘organic particles’ – such as infusoria and cells – developed into particular forms and why a developing fish, bird or mammal did not remain a teeming ‘mass of infusories’. Harmonious structure – the ‘subordination’ of interdependent parts to the well-being of the whole animal – indicated that a ‘ruling principle’ governed and guided the developmental process.41 Owen’s belief also cohered with the widespread support of recapitulation – the view that embryos developed centripetally. Higher levels of teleological adaptation meant that separate pieces became integrated into a more complicated individual.

100

Styles of Reasoning in the British Life Sciences

Owen’s 1848 letter to the Oxford Reverend Daniel Conybeare described the tapeworm as the paradigm of vegetative repetition in animals. Its 500 segments allowed it to suffer immense mutilations without it being worse off as an ‘individual worm’; no ‘individual joint’ was so important to the whole worm that its removal would harm the entire organism. But higher animals were not so organized. To understand their structure, Owen told his ‘dear Dean’ to imagine the worm ascending the scale of being. Such a rise meant that the adaptive force became more important. Each joint had to lose some of its independence, increasingly becoming an integral part of a larger individual. If a single joint was now removed, it would harm the larger whole. Moreover, the removal of some parts caused more damage than the removal of other parts – some parts were more important than others. Unity and hierarchy had been imposed by the adaptive force.42 Owen’s views nicely legitimated the place of patrons like Conybeare, while also answering the technical question of how segments became integrated. Depicting Owen’s dual forces as a solution to puzzles in invertebrate morphology also clarifies their later application to vertebrate morphology, as shown in his discussion of the vertebrate archetype. It is well known how his archetype, depicted as a kind of fish-like form, was used to determine general homology, where the placement of a particular animal’s bone was compared to the placement of a similar bone in other animals. Many are also aware that Owen’s abstract fish-like vertebrate archetype lived on in Darwin’s evolutionary work, reinterpreted as the ancestor of present-day vertebrates.43 However Owen’s archetype work also pertained to serial homology – the repetition of similar parts in the same body. He seems to have been informed by his invertebrate research when he saw vertebrates as segmental. ‘I define a vertebra as one of those segments of the endo-skeleton which constitute the axis of the body, and the protecting canals of the nervous and vascular trunks: such a segment may also support diverging appendages.’ A ‘vertebra’ was not simply a set of bones; it referred to an entire body segment and the organs within. The entire vertebrate skeleton could therefore be seen as a ‘harmonized sum of a series of essentially similar segments’.44 Sloan notes that although Owen initially disdained the view that the skeleton could be seen as the repetition of a single structural element, his vertebrate archetype showed that he changed his mind. Drawing attention to Owen’s view that vertebrates were segmented, Ronald Amundson notes that the Nature of Limbs actually depicts two archetypes.45 Just as an individual body was composed of vertebral segments, so too could each vertebral segment be itself broken up into ‘autogenous elements’ nesting within them. Owen presumed that each ‘ideal’ vertebra grew to protect vital centres. Sometimes it expanded to encompass the lungs or heart, forming bones like ribs; sometimes it grew to protect nervous centres, forming a cranium. The letter ‘h’

Regeneration as Reproduction

101

in figure 4.11 represents the ‘haemal axis’ that grew out to protect the vascular centres; ‘n’ represents the ‘neural axis’ which would protect the nervous centres. A belief in a number of discrete elements (whether ideal or empirical) may help explain Owen’s support for the vertebral theory of the skull.

Parthenogenesis then Metagenesis Owen then fit vegetative repetition into his work on parthenogenesis. Parthenogenesis was a project that colligated findings from reproduction and regeneration research, the neurosciences and morphology. While savagely attacked by Huxley as overly mystical and obscure, parthenogenesis and Owen’s rationale for it appear reasonable when they are situated within the analytic:synthetic style. In 1837, Owen claimed that the death of biological individuals and birth and development of new ones was ‘perhaps the most difficult problem in the whole range of general Physiology’. By way of an answer he used Johannes Müller again, speaking of an ‘organizing energy’ that obeyed conservation and that was gradually used up during an individual’s lifetime. Such energy persisted not only in individuals; it was also passed on through its reproductive germs, where it was most potent.46 Thomson noted how Owen came up with parthenogenesis in his 1843 Lectures on the Invertebrate Animals,47 though at the time Owen had no name for the process. Owen speculated on the reasons for the ‘virgin births’ of aphids, ‘one of the most marvellous and inexplicable phenomena in physiology’, by referring to the new cell theory. Later defined by Owen as the point that all living things were made up of ‘fissiparous’ cells,48 the appeal of the cell theory was that it meant that cells were the most important elements of the body. Perhaps we can even see cells as Owen’s third and smallest archetype. All embryos emerged from ovarian ‘nucleated’ cells. It is unclear what Owen meant by ‘nucleated’. Sex bestowed a ‘fecundating principle’ upon those cells, which caused them to multiply through division and ‘metamorphose into a tissue’. Such metamorphoses used up the fecundating principle: on turning into one kind of tissue, a cell lost any potential to become another kind. But some of the ovarian nucleated cells were ‘vitelline’ (of the yolk) and retained more of the fecundating principle. Although as fissiparous cells the original number of nucleated yolk-cells divided and multiplied, most of them did not immediately turn into tissues. Instead, Owen claimed, they stayed in a ‘primitive state’ and floated around with blood cells in the young organism’s circulatory system. During development, each one would eventually be transformed into tissues. Presumably such cells possessing the fecundating principle would also be useful in regenerating new tissues – these nucleated yolk-cells acted as a kind of reserve supply of the fecundating principle, analogous to how embryos obtain nutrition

102

Styles of Reasoning in the British Life Sciences

from yolks. The comparison was not far-fetched for the time. Because tissues are constantly regenerated in an animal’s lifetime, only four years earlier Carpenter had likened the reproductive and regenerative process to nutrition, and vice versa – ‘nutrition has been not unjustly spoken of as a perpetual generation’.49 Owen’s belief that the nucleated yolk-cells resided in the blood may have been formulated to answer the common belief in the vital and restorative properties of blood, properties that Harvey proclaimed and that Hunter studied.50 For Owen, development, reproduction and regeneration were all part of a single process. Younger organisms regenerated more easily than did older ones because they had not used up all of their fecundating principle-laden nucleated yolk-cells. Simpler organisms more easily regenerated and reproduced, for less structure required less fecundating principle to develop. In mature plants, aphids and jellyfish, this energy had not been used up and so there were still nucleated yolk-cells floating about in their circulatory systems. Somehow these remaining cells went on to create the tissues and organs of ‘an entirely new individual’. There was no need for a replenishment of the fecundating principle through sex, resulting in ‘virgin births’.51 Again, if Owen’s point seems too far-fetched, Johannes Müller’s contemporaneous physiology textbook made a similar point. It distinguished between two forms of reproduction: the multiplication of specialized cells forming the same kind of tissue, and the multiplication of ‘primitive’ cells that recreated the entire embryonic organism.52 Owen’s nucleated yolk-cells seem to have been similar to Müller’s ‘primitive’ cells. Over the next six years Owen refined his views, changing details but not the general foundations. He discussed them most extensively in his 1849 On Parthenogenesis, or, the Successive Production of Procreating Individuals from a Single Ovum. The fecundating principle that stimulated the development of the ovum he relabelled ‘spermatic force’. But spermatic force was not actually necessary for the development of the ovum. Owen believed that in many cases unfertilized germ-cells could still produce simple organisms, because an ovum would spontaneously pass through the same early phases of development even without spermatic force. Simple organisms required less energy to produce. One sympathetic commentator likened spermatic force’s effect to an extra pair of horses put on a carriage, allowing that carriage to travel farther over difficult terrain.53 The ‘virgin birth’ of certain aphids was conversely like travel over very easy terrain, requiring less energy. The entire process of ‘virgin births’ Owen renamed ‘parthenogenesis’, an amalgamation of the Greek words parthenos (virgin) and gignomai (to be born), defining it as occurring In proportion to the number of generations of germ-cells, with the concomitant dilution of the spermatic force, and in the ratio of the degree and extent of the conversion of these cells into the tissues and organs of the animal is the perfection of the individual, and the diminution of its power of propagating without the reception of fresh spermatic force.54

Regeneration as Reproduction

103

Figure 4.11. ‘Ideal typical vertebra’, in R. Owen, On the Nature of Limbs (London: J. Van Voorst, 1849), p. 43. Non-italicized words in the diagram denote the primary ‘autogenous elements’ emerging out of ‘distinct centres of ossification’. Italicized words represent the secondary ‘processes’ growing out of the autogenous elements. Autogenous elements ossified first through vegetative repetition, then larger bones grew out to protect vital centres, exemplifying teleological adaptation.

‘Generation’ denoted a single wave of progeny. Spermatic force helped to build up new tissues or new individuals, but was diluted or used up in their construction, like credit used up in a series of transactions. Higher and more complicated organisms needed more spermatic force to build up their tissues and organs, making sexual fertilization necessary to produce each new generation. Sex ‘recharged’ spermatic force. Simpler organisms carried spermatic force over into subsequent individuals. Owen used parthenogenesis to answer several popular questions: the budding of new individuals, vegetative repetition and a hierarchical chain of being. Lower animals and plants requiring less spermatic force to develop displayed greater ‘vegetative repetition’ and were ‘associated colon[ies] of simple organized individuals’. Quoting Hunter, Steenstrup and Forbes for support, he criticized the ‘common’ notion that only the entire plant was a single individual: instead, they were colonies. The colonial view also applied to lower animals like polyps: just as leaves were the individuals of a tree, so too were the polyps of a colony its individual digestive organs. Leaves and polyps were related to the larger whole as ‘members of a regiment or a corporation constitute one organized whole’.55

104

Styles of Reasoning in the British Life Sciences

Owen accentuated this corporate individuality by matching up successive generations of aphids, polyps and leaves in the book’s frontispiece. Owen also renewed his discussion about nucleated yolk-cells as repositories of spermatic force. Hydra could be cut into many pieces, each of which regenerated into a new Hydra, not merely because it was simple: it did so because many nucleated yolk-cells were dispersed throughout its body. These cells were situated in the middle tissue between outer integument and inner digestive level: each one had the potential to become a complete Hydra.56 Indeed Owen considered his explanation to be more than an empty verbalism because of his proposal that spermatic force was located in nucleated yolk-cells. He thus believed that such cells would be found. Owen seems to have believed that J. G. Goodsir’s ongoing cellular researches would support his speculations. In 1845 Goodsir had claimed that just as any organism originated from the ‘germinal spot’ of the ovum, so too did various body parts later arise ‘each from its own centre’. These centres were ‘mother’ cells. Different bodily ‘departments’ thus centred upon this ‘capital cell’, the ‘mother of all those within its territory’. Goodsir called them cellular ‘centres of nutrition’ (again note the similarity between reproduction, regeneration and nutrition) and in 1855 Owen went so far as to call his nucleated yolk-cells ‘centres of development’. J. G. Goodsir also believed that these important centres of nutrition accreted in certain places and formed ‘germinal membranes’. It was this exact point that his brother was following up just before his disappearance. H. D. S. Goodsir had speculated that these membranes focused the animal’s regenerative power. Points where regeneration was known to occur – such as the tip of each lobster leg’s first joint – were where such germinal membranes were located.57 Owen’s On Parthenogenesis mentioned this view of H. D. S. Goodsir’s and Owen explained that germinal membranes were aggregates of nucleated yolk-cells. When a lobster replaced a lost claw, or a Hydra regenerated, the new growth was caused by spermatic force.58 As Conservator of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh since 1843, H. D. S. Goodsir was one of the rising stars of British life research. He was favourable to Owen’s research projects and socially acquainted with Edward Forbes, Newport and Owen. Goodsir became an assistant surgeon and set sail on HMS Erebus in May 1845. Unfortunately this boat accompanied HMS Terror on the Franklin Expedition, on a search for the fabled Northwest Passage; the expedition disappeared and Goodsir with it, depriving Owen of a key supporter.

Regeneration as Reproduction

105

The Acceptance of Metagenesis There were cultural links to Owen’s assertions, some meanings of which have already been pointed out by Farley. Farley notes how the doctrine of spermatic force had obvious masculine overtones, emphasizing the importance of male sexual fertilization while minimizing the role of women in the reproductive process. Women could be seen as little more than passive receptacles of spermatic energy. Spermatic force strengthened the cultural perception of women as physiologically specialized child-bearers.59 Spermatic force also reinforced beliefs about male sexual continence. For this force caused the development of higher organic life forms. Using up valuable spermatic force on sex or self-gratification meant that the energy used to repair the body – keeping it healthy – would be wasted. In 1853 Spencer developed Owen’s point further by proposing that spermatic force was particularly important in growing and repairing nervous tissue.60 Too much energy spent on generation meant less energy for the growth and repair of nervous tissue – explaining the link between male masturbation and a lack of intelligence. There were predecessors to Owen’s 1843 argument that ‘fecundating virtue’ was stored in nucleated yolk-cells, lingering on in the blood vessels of mature organisms for later developmental use. Again, while Sloan has shown just how close Owen’s 1837 Hunterian Lectures were to points made in Johannes Müller’s Handbuch,61 there were similar points being made in the medical literature too. In 1841 one James Smythe argued in the Lancet that spermatic fluid was not supposed to be eliminated from the body, like urine. Instead, except for the occasional act of generation, spermatic fluid was to be ‘received into the circulation, and thence distributed to every part of the system’.62 Nor does it seem unrelated that Owen’s doctrine of ‘spermatic force’ was preceded by two years by the 1847 English translation of Claude-François Lallemand’s Les Pertes Seminales Involontaires. Historian Michael Mason claims that it was around this time that ‘spermatorrhoea’ – the term given to the involuntary emission of spermatic fluid – started to be taken seriously by British doctors. Spermatorrhoea was not a normal condition: it was a pathology. Ellen Roseman even calls the period from the mid-1840s to the 1890s the ‘spermatorrhoea panic’. While condemnations of male masturbation and spermatic emissions are at least as old as Galen,63 Owen’s technical arguments about spermatic force may help explain why serious and otherwise competent doctors could accept that emissions of spermatic fluid were dangerous to a man’s health. It sapped him of his regenerative powers, even shortening his life span. Spermatic energy thus reinforced certain cultural and medical prejudices while also solving highly technical problems in comparative anatomy and physiology.

106

Styles of Reasoning in the British Life Sciences

Thus Owen felt that ‘parthenogenesis’ solved many pressing mysteries and told others about it. He sent copies of On Parthenogenesis to Continental researchers like Julius Victor Carus, Henri de Blainville, Arnand de Quatrefages, Milne Edwards, Ehrenberg and Johannes Müller. British institutions getting copies included the College of Surgeons and the Athenaeum, and individuals such as Rymer Jones, Lindley, William Sharp Macleay (in Sydney), Carpenter

Figure 4.12. Analogies between aphid, zoophyte and plant, in R. Owen, On Parthenogenesis (London: J. Van Voorst, 1849), frontispiece, pp. 59–60. ‘[In the Aphid] (fig. 3) … we have, in fact, at length “male (h) and female (i) individuals”, preceded by reproductive individuals (e, e) of a lower or arrested grade of organization, analogous to the gemmiparous polypes of the zoophyte (e, e, fig. 2) and the leaves (e, e, fig. 1) of the plant.’ Figures 4–13 depict the transformation of the single germ-cell into secondary cells, forming a larger ‘germ-mass’.

Regeneration as Reproduction

107

and Darwin received On Parthenogenesis too. Owen even sent Prime Minister Peel a copy.64 Forbes listened with ‘great delight’ to Owen but took exception to the statement that only foreigners had made significant contributions to the study of reproduction and regeneration. Had Owen not looked at the work of the ‘British Spallanzani’, Dalyell, at John Reid’s work on jellyfish development, or Forbes’s own recent work on compound individuality in jellyfish? There were also favourable responses to Owen’s belief that the spermatic force was contained in nucleated yolk-cells. Thomson thought that spermatic force might explain why the simplest animals – the infusoria – could divide easily: because they were little more than ‘nucleated cells’, like those contained in Hydra’s middle layer. In 1857 the writer and beginner naturalist George Henry Lewes was somewhat critical of Owen’s work, doubting the existence of these nucleated yolk-cells. Nonetheless he deemed Owen to be the first to solve the ‘alternation of generations’ with more than an empty verbalism, because of his claim that spermatic force resided in particular cells. And there were other complaints. Thomson leavened his praise with grumbles about terminology: Owen’s use of the word ‘nucleated’ to denote yolk-cells was problematic, for no one had yet agreed on what ‘nucleated’ meant. The term ‘parthenogenesis’ was also awkward for it implied that the process occurred only in females. Owen privately complained about the preconceptions behind such confusion: researchers such as Thomson assumed that parthenogenesis happened only in females because partheno-, as Greek for ‘the virgin state’, was taken to mean purity and chastity.65 But Owen was not wedded to the term, for he responded to such criticisms by replacing ‘parthenogenesis’ with ‘metagenesis’. This name was more suitable because it indicated a more general form of reproduction than parthenogenesis (in 1855 he defined meta as denoting ‘change’ in Greek; gignomai now stood for ‘I produce’).66 ‘Metagenesis’ he defined as a series of morphological changes extending over multiple individuals, while ‘metamorphosis’ described a sequence of different forms in only one individual. Metagenesis was a closed but recurring cycle from egg to mature state in which organisms became more perfect: in animals, most perfect meant that forms developed the most concentrated nervous system possible. Hence insects ‘perfect[ed]’ their development by metamorphosizing, shifting from larva to pupa to imago.67 They grew perfect by cephalizing. By 1851 Owen seems to have fully replaced ‘parthenogenesis’ with ‘metagenesis’ in his public writings, for which he was duly praised. J. V. Carus thanked Owen, as metagenesis ‘wonderfully’ expressed Steenstrup’s term generationwechsel. Thomson also thought metagenesis to be a far better term, precisely because it depicted a change of form through a sequence of different individuals. Forbes characteristically used humour to show his happiness. He noted that the question of parasites and their alternation of generations not only made Owen’s

108

Styles of Reasoning in the British Life Sciences

audience feel ‘somewhat uncomfortable internally’ – it also made them scratch their heads and think. Forbes saw in Owen’s work the recurrence of Linnaeus’s old question about a hierarchy of organizational levels. Was it possible that just as parasites persecuted their hosts, those hosts themselves were parasitic upon the earth?68 Meanwhile Owen’s continued social rise between 1842 and 1851 accompanied his increasingly ambitious theorizing. In 1845 he was elected to the elite dining society The Club (originally founded by Dr Johnson) and socialized at the highest levels of British society. He maintained social links with Sir Robert Peel after being awarded his civil list pension, in 1846 proposing to Peel that the British Museum’s specimen collection be merged with those of the Hunterian Museum. Owen befriended such people as Lord John Russell, Lord Tennyson, Charles Dickens, George Eliot, Edwin Chadwick and Henry Acland. In 1846 he also obtained one of the Royal Society’s medals. He had already worked on its council five different times. Though frustrated in his attempts to join the Council of the Royal College of Surgeons, he participated on committees and acted as a juror and catalogue annotator for the Great Exhibition of 1851. Best symbolizing Owen’s climb to the highest points of the British scientific world was his award of the occupancy of Sheen Lodge in Richmond Park in 1852.69 Through hard work, skill, the quiet and skilful cultivation of a social network and good luck, Owen had shown that a career in science could indeed pay. Forbes’s humorous anecdote about the disintegrating Lingthorn starfish that began this chapter signified a deeper system of questions and interlocking beliefs in the British life sciences. Owen set out to answer these questions. His proposal of the term ‘metagenesis’ and its acceptance in 1851 can be seen as the high point of the Owenian system. It described a process Owen put forward as an answer to several analytic:synthetic problems that interested life researchers of the period. But the period of Owen’s triumph was to be very short-lived. By 1852 his work would be challenged by people applying a different style of reasoning to many of the same exemplar animals, trying to reinterpret them for a new and less medically-oriented audience.

5 1837: THE ACCESSION OF PALAETIOLOGY

This chapter discusses the style of ‘palaetiology’. The term is Whewell’s, set out in his 1837 History of the Inductive Sciences to denote the historic sciences. In palaetiology one investigated how the present state of things had emerged from its origins.1 Just as Bentham suspected of analysis:synthesis, it is likely that palaetiology has been with humanity for a very long time, although there are differences of opinion on this point.2 The next two chapters note how palaetiology grew in importance in British life science, becoming an acceptable alternative to analysis:synthesis only in the early 1850s. It provided a different set of interlocking assumptions and explanations. A new group of British life researchers used it not only to reinterpret exemplary animal cases but also to overthrow analytic:synthetic science, which they felt was antiquated. One of the key distinctions between analysis:synthesis and palaetiology in the life sciences was a difference in the direction in which development was believed to proceed. Again, analysis:synthesis depicted development occurring centripetally, from a circumference inwards to a centre. But palaetiology instead showed development as occurring centrifugally, starting from a central point and ramifying outwards. Though there were attempts at compromise, researchers seem to have been constrained to commit to one style or the other. It is shown below that even when an analytic:synthetic researcher appropriated work or methodology from palaetiology, he turned it to analytic:synthetic ends and vice versa. These commitments tended to pull life researchers into two different camps. They differed on what kinds of evidence to use to solve various puzzles. Indeed each camp valued certain problems over others. Clashes heightened the differences between the groups. When members from each style argued, sometimes they could not even agree on what it was they were arguing about. The infamous Owen-Huxley disputes can therefore be seen as fights between representatives of two different camps and thus two different styles of reasoning.

– 109 –

110

Styles of Reasoning in the British Life Sciences

William Whewell and Palaetiology, 1837 In 1837 and 1840 Whewell called certain sciences ‘palaetiological’ because they examined the origin and ‘early progress’ of human and natural phenomena. In grouping together different fields he was not so much a pontificator – setting out rules that should be followed by researchers – as someone setting out ‘exemplar disciplines’ to be copied by people in other fields.3 Palaetiological work included investigations into fossils; glimpses at the beginnings of cities, states and customs; geology; comparative archaeology; and comparative philology. Geology, for example, studied the existing structure of the earth, then investigated the conditions which caused that structure to emerge. Charles Lyell’s work was thus an example of a palaetiological inquiry. Whewell thought it significant that Principles of Geology quoted one work more frequently than any geology book: Prichard’s 1813 Researches into the Physical History of Man, a work combining physiology with history and the philosophical comparison of languages.4 Prichard’s influence on the British life sciences is discussed below. Whewell thought palaetiology was distinctive in three ways. First, it applied an historical perspective to phenomena that other kinds of sciences had already extensively studied. The workings of the solar system could not only be described mechanically (how certain forces operated at all times and under all circumstances, on bodies from planets to people). They could also be investigated historically (the nebular hypothesis discussed how the solar system emerged from the condensation of dispersed matter, out of which emerged planets and people). Second, palaetiology emphasized particularity and individuality. All mountains formed through a sequence of geological forces. But the specific mountain range known as the Alps emerged out of a particular sequence of geological forces not copied anywhere else. Third, Whewell asserted that palaetiology described change from simple states to more complex ones. ‘[P]henomena at each step become more and more complicated, by involving the results of all that has preceded, modified by supervening agencies.’5 Other historians see a palaetiological style of reasoning but use different words for it. Theodore Merz’s magisterial history of the sciences devotes a chapter to what he calls the ‘genetic view of nature’, a framework where historical questions were posed about how things came to be and where answers were sought for these queries. Merz believes that the genetic view was a new one, emerging only at the beginning of the nineteenth century and gradually gaining authority. His examples of genetic work include Huttonian and Lyellian geological uniformitarianism, Malthusian political economy, Lamarckian species modification, Robert Chambers’s Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (1844) and Darwin’s Origin of Species (1859). Merz claims that the Origin fully ‘ushered in’ the genetic view. Findings made in one genetic field strengthened other such

1837: The Accession of Palaetiology

111

fields. Palaeontological findings reinforced geological work by providing fossils with which to date different strata; embryology revealed similar forms among young organisms of diverse groups.6 Historian William Coleman has also depicted a similar historicist view. He links changes in comparative philology with transformations of the life sciences. In the eighteenth century philologists studied ideas to ‘analyze the words giving them expression’ in the hope of discovering a universal grammar. Nineteenthcentury explanations for languages, however, tended to be genetic, pointing to common origins. Languages came to be depicted as dynamic entities that spread outwards. The latest historian to investigate palaetiology has been Stephen Alter, who has linked Whewell’s term with the emergence of comparative philology and Darwinian descent with modification. Like Darwin’s proposal, the nineteenth-century comparative philologist looked for common ancestors of present-day languages.7 All three historians note how palaetiological researchers sought the origins of systems and organizations, be those origins spatial, temporal, or both.

Martin Barry and the Introduction of von Baerian Embryology to Britain, 1837 The most significant example of palaetiological life research in Britain was the new field of von Baerian embryology. It was introduced from the German language by Barry, a Quaker who peppered his correspondence with ‘thees’ and ‘thys’. In 1833 he had graduated as an MD from Edinburgh. An inheritance freed him from medical practice, so he went to the Continent to study with Tiedemann and Schwann. There he learned the new embryology of von Baer and then wrote a synopsis for the readers of the Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal.8 Like Whewell’s ‘palaetiology’, von Baerian embryology also appeared in English in 1837. Von Baer’s work flouted conventional wisdom by ignoring the Cuvierian rationale of using nervous structure to classify animals. Degrees of volition and ‘animality’ were not only irrelevant; the Baltic German/Estonian embryologist mocked them as anthropocentric. Taxonomies of nervous structure unwittingly emphasized that humans were the highest animals. But what if a civilization of birds sought to classify nature? They might have instead used wing or beak size, situating themselves at the head of the animal kingdom. A civilization of cows might have ranked by stomach perfection and thereby elevated their group. Instead von Baer wanted researchers to carefully distinguish between type of organization (articulate; vertebrate; mollusc and radiate) and grade of development. By development von Baer did not mean the concentration of the nervous system or the coalescence of any other part. Instead development meant the

112

Styles of Reasoning in the British Life Sciences

greater ‘heterogeneity’ of an organism’s parts, by which he meant their specialization and differentiation.9 Embryos repeated the taxonomic layout of the animal kingdom as they developed. They began as a single unspecialized and ‘homogeneous’ ‘animal rudiment’ and ended up as a ‘heterogeneous’ mass of specialized tissues. The formula of homogeneity to heterogeneity in embryology has been frequently rehearsed in other histories of science.10 Merz sees von Baerian embryology as another instance of the new ‘genetic’ view of nature.11 It was palaetiological because it emphasized a centrifugal direction of development outwards from a single fertilized ovum. Nonetheless von Baer himself likened the embryo’s path along the increasingly specialized groups of the animal kingdom to the ‘so-called méthode analytique of the French systematists, continually separating itself from its allies, and at the same time passing from a lower to a higher stage of development’.12 Figure 5.1 shows this process. There is, however, an enormous difference between what von Baer saw as analysis and the style of analysis:synthesis described in the first four chapters – large enough to justify the flouting of actor’s categories. In the style of analysis:synthesis, an organism was disintegrated into its simplest elements and treated as their sum. Each part was nominally independent and higher organisms regarded as their syntheses. But von Baerian development differed in two ways. It depicted mature and more complex organisms not as more compounded, but as more specialized. And von Baer also emphasized time and potential. What matters in the diagram below is not disintegration into simpler parts, but a temporal sequence. Analysts’ bifurcating diagrams were used either to break organizations into simpler parts, or to determine whether an organization had or did not have a specific attribute (hence Bentham’s distinction between physical and logical analysis). But the bifurcating diagram shown above is different. While it does make logical distinctions, it has also smuggled in temporality, making distinctions not only over whether an embryo has or does not have a specific attribute, but whether it will have or will not have that attribute. At the fourth stage of von Baer’s diagram, the alternative is between whether an embryo has/will have an umbilical cord or whether it does not have/will not have one. Development thus becomes a sequence of possible divergences. In analytic:synthetic views of ontogeny as cephalization and centripetal development, greater attention was paid to simpler elements. Understanding simpler parts meant that one better understood the complicated systems they made: knowing how a ganglion worked meant that one also knew how a cerebrum worked. The elements were seen as most important, for the whole depended upon the elements, but the elements did not depend upon the whole. Again, these presumptions made one set of questions possible. How could seemingly independent elements act collectively? Were ganglia really little ‘brains’? Were cells elementary individuals? Life researchers using the style of analysis:

1837: The Accession of Palaetiology

113

synthesis were constrained by that style to consider such questions, even if they answered them with a ‘no’. In palaetiology, however, greater attention was paid to earlier developmental stages because in so doing one could better understand the later stages, no matter how much more complicated. Instead of simpler parts being more important, earlier stages or changes were more important. Moreover, later stages’ appearance depended on the appearance of earlier stages – making ‘upstream’ stages or changes far more significant than ‘downstream’ ones.13 The same was the case in comparative philology or von Baerian embryology. Without an earlier IndoEuropean language as ancestor, there could be no English or German language and even small differences in Indo-European would have resulted in enormous changes in its descendants. Without an earlier vertebrae there could be no mammal or reptile and tiny changes in a single vertebra might have enormous effects on the embryo’s later stages (such as killing the embryo). Palaetiology’s emphasis on time therefore changed the possibilities out of which certain problematics arose. Problematics of spontaneous order, collective action and compound individuality – so important to analysts – were deemed unimportant by palaetiologists. In life research the palaetiologist saw the matter of an organism’s unity as unimportant, even absurd; for development was instead an array of increasingly specialized options. The greater importance of upstream stages and changes constrained palaetiologists to instead move ever earlier and ever more centrally and minutely, seeking an origin, for it was the most important stage of any organization. (Perhaps it was with palaetiology that heredity also became a new problematic.) In the life sciences in particular this focus on origins entailed an intense interest in how all organisms began. Hence specific questions, such as the distinction between sexual and asexual reproduction, or the difference between a ‘bud’ and ‘ovum’, became more important. Barry’s introduction of von Baerian embryology to a British audience emphasized origins. He used von Baer’s historicist reinterpretation of the term ‘analysis’ and exhorted fellow British researchers to examine every organ, material and function with the new question, ‘how did they originate?’14 And if they were to study differentiation, focusing on the vitally important upstream stages more than downstream ones, Barry argued, then they ought to think of development as a tree. Taxonomists unaware of von Baer had been chasing after illusions, he said, for Their attention has been directed to the groupings of the twigs, – as if thus they were to find their natural connections, without even looking for assistance towards the branches, or the trunk that gave them forth … It is only now that a way is beginning to be opened, by which it may by and by be possible to proceed in an opposite direction; viz. from trunk to branches and to twigs … [If this is accomplished it has to be through] … the History of Development or Embryology, both human and com-

114

Styles of Reasoning in the British Life Sciences parative; a science almost new, and regarding which, there prevails in this country the profoundest ignorance and indifference.15

Barry backed up his image with two diagrams of ramifying developmental pathways, one entitled ‘The Tree of Animal Development’. Both were tree-like because the pathways were centrifugal, diverging away from a single origin. Figure 5.2 shows the variety of species that emerged from

5.1. ‘Scheme of the progress of development’, in K. E. von Baer, Entwickelungsgeschichte der Thiere (Königsberg: Börntrager, 1828), p. 225.

1837: The Accession of Palaetiology

115

the initial structural unity of the vertebrate ‘germ’. Point A stood for the germ; points B, C, D and E showed how that germ differentiated into fish, reptiles, birds and mammals respectively. The more complicated diagram in Figure 5.3 is more comprehensive: points 1, 2, 3, 4 and so on denote increasingly specialized developmental options. Thus a fertilized ovum might develop along the foreground path, becoming first a vertebrate, then becoming a mammal and then a human.16 Barry explicitly noted how von Baerian embryology contradicted Serres’s. Although Serres and successors saw the embryo developing centripetally – from a number of peripheral parts that appeared and then fused towards a centre, becoming a compound mass – they were mistaken. No new parts were added. No part appeared in isolation and then fused with the rest. Von Baer’s importance was his reversal of development’s direction, said Barry: von Baer saw the embryo developing centrifugally instead, developing ‘from the centre towards the periphery’. One extant undifferentiated part actually transformed into several more specialized parts. Barry even noted that the new embryology was not simply directionally different – it had different cultural origins. No longer should British researchers see themselves as second-rate French researchers: now they should look to German life science and see themselves as inferior to its workers instead.17 By about 1844, Barry’s urgings had drifted out to other British life researchers. They saw von Baerian embryology as novel and fruitful enough to be taken seriously. J. G. Goodsir’s work on ‘nutritional centres’ followed Barry’s insights – he noted that, while Barry might have been wrong about some points, he deserved credit for insisting on a ‘central origin of all organic form’, an original ‘parent centre’. Owen also embraced von Baerian principles, using Barry’s two papers to inform his 1843 Lectures on the Invertebrate Animals; Sloan suspects that Owen may have also used Barry’s work to inform his 1837 Hunterian Lectures.18 But von Baer’s embryology was swallowed up in Owen’s system of interlocking beliefs and used to serve analytic:synthetic ends. Following Cuvier, Owen already saw the study of the developing organism as necessary for its true classification – in 1837 he gave the example of the mature sessile barnacle, which did not resemble its mobile younger self. He then applied it to morphology, using von Baer’s system to distinguish between the homology (identity) and mere analogy (functional resemblance) of two body parts – homologies only existed between adults of the same embranchement.19 The objects of Owen’s research were always simpler elements: von Baer helped him understand the similarities of body parts in two different animals. Despite his use of it, however, Owen would later openly claim that von Baerian embryology was ‘over-valued’ as a test of homology. For his part Huxley did

116

Styles of Reasoning in the British Life Sciences

not think that Owen really understood its underlying assumptions.20 Seeing Owen using the tools of von Baer – but not grasping their full intent – clarifies Evelleen Richards’s point that Owen did not understand the underlying principles of von Baerian embryology until 1853, with Huxley’s new translation.21 Fixed in one holistic mentality, Owen was unable to grasp an entirely different style of reasoning. Nonetheless Owen found von Baerian embryology useful enough to want to be known as its first British user, regardless of whether he properly understood it or not. A claim of such ‘property rights’ was one of the perquisites of being the premier British life researcher. But Owen’s declaration of priority led to a conflict with Carpenter, who also claimed to have used von Baer’s work first.

William B. Carpenter and the Reinterpretation of Zoophytes After working on his textbook, the reflex arc and other work on the structure and function of the nervous system, by the beginning of the 1840s Carpenter returned to Bristol. There, he practised medicine, carried out research and wrote books, such as the three-volume Popular Cyclopaedia of Natural Science (1841– 3). He married in 1840 and began a family. While in Bristol he relentlessly cultivated Owen, nine years his senior. He dropped names of Owen’s Oxbridge associates, pointed out similarities in their researches, sought his testimonials for jobs and invited Owen to informal London meetings of naturalists. He also sent gifts like sea squirt preparations. By 1844 Carpenter made a riskier move. He moved his family to London, declaring that he wanted to follow Owen’s career path, providing his family with the ‘barest comforts of life’ while setting medicine aside and only doing research. That year, Carpenter obtained the Fullerian Professorship at the Royal Institution as well as becoming a Fellow of the Royal Society. When Owen finally sent a gift in return (an unnamed textbook), Carpenter declared himself pleased by this ‘mark of approval from the “facile princeps” in the vast science of Biology’. When in 1847 Carpenter took over as editor of the British and Foreign Medical Review (renamed the British and Foreign Medico-Chirurgical Review), he wrote favourable reviews of Owen’s work, including his proposal of the vertebrate archetype.22 In his first years as a life researcher, Carpenter’s work on reflexes and compartmentalized nervous systems shows him to have been interested in analytic: synthetic problematics. In 1839, for instance, he explored the similarity between plant and lower animal reproduction and regeneration.23 Yet as Carpenter established himself in London he gradually shed his status as Owen’s client. He wanted to be seen as independent. His desire for originality helped to push him away from Owen’s doctrines and from the style of analysis:synthesis. By the late 1840s Carpenter switched to palaetiology.

1837: The Accession of Palaetiology

117

Figure 5.2. Untitled diagram of elaboration of development, in M. Barry, ‘On the Unity of Structure in the Animal Kingdom’, Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal, 22 (1837), pp. 116–41, on p. 134.

Figure 5.3. ‘The Tree of Animal Development’, in M. Barry, ‘Further Observations on the Unity of Structure in the Animal Kingdom, and on Congenital Anomalies, including “Hermaphrodites”’, Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal, 22 (1837), pp. 345–64, on p. 346.

118

Styles of Reasoning in the British Life Sciences

Carpenter’s migration occurred partly because of social commitments. Carpenter was socially acquainted with Barry, who for instance read one of Carpenter’s papers at the Royal Society. But, more importantly, Carpenter was connected with Prichard, the fount of palaetiology. Carpenter made friends with Prichard after returning to Bristol from Edinburgh in 1840, and Carpenter’s son noted how his father ‘looked up [to Prichard] with an almost filial reverence and gratitude’.24 In 1848 Carpenter wrote an anonymous Edinburgh Review piece on Prichard’s ‘Science of Races’, showing how Prichard’s work was analogous to geology and comparative philology: all three fields were sciences of the past. Indeed, Carpenter believed philology to be similar to ethnology because both sciences were genealogical, showing how languages and races both stemmed from common origins. The careful philologist could even determine when a language had detached from another: dialects and languages with more similar words and inflections had separated more recently than those with fewer similar words and inflections. Carpenter also used the image of a tree to convey this genealogical process of separation. Although it was the most ancient Asian language, Chinese was likely an ‘offset from one of the great Asiatic stocks … the severed branch being preserved the original character more completely than the main trunk and its other ramifications have done’. Carpenter also hoped that more would be learned about various Native American languages when we gained a ‘more profound knowledge of the roots, and by the application of the principle of secondary formation, overgrowing, sometimes luxuriantly, the ancient stock of roots’.25 In 1848 Carpenter also began to use von Baerian principles to clear up confusion in the life sciences, in that year and the next writing two anonymous papers for his British and Foreign Medico-Chirurgical Review.26 Carpenter now believed that the ways in which zoophyte reproduction was likened to vegetable reproduction were incoherent. He quoted Barry’s statement that British researchers were looking at the tree of life in the wrong direction. Since development was now known to occur in a centrifugal direction from a single point, Carpenter now thought that the best life researches were those which investigated the origins and beginnings of animals. It was far more important than illusory puzzles such as the alternation of generations.27 Farley distinguishes between the pattern-oriented ‘morphologists’ such as Owen, who immediately accepted Steenstrup’s work, and the process-oriented ‘physiologists’, who did not. Morphologists interpreted the word ‘generation’ as a noun, a morphological state. Thus in zoophytes, the ‘alternation of generations’ meant that a medusoid child resembled its medusoid grandparent but not its polypoid parent. The physiologists instead proceeded to interpret ‘generation’

1837: The Accession of Palaetiology

119

as a verb, an act, like sexual fertilization.28 This chapter follows Farley’s work and builds on it: ‘morphologists’ were analysts. ‘Physiologists’ were palaetiologists. Carpenter seems to have been the first Briton to reinterpret Steenstrup’s word ‘generation’ to signify the act of reproduction. In so doing he was also one of the first to discard much of the discussion about what really constituted a biological individual. Instead he provided a simple answer: the individual began with the act of sexual generation. Where analysts defined an individual by criteria of independence, boundaries and localization of vitality, Carpenter used palaetiology to define an individual. Temporal criteria defined an individual by its origins. Sexual fertilization was the earliest possible point where an organism’s differentiation and development began and so it could be depicted as the root of the von Baerian tree of differentiating development. Since sexual reproduction occurred more rarely than asexual reproduction, it was also easier to distinguish. In his 1848 and 1849 zoophyte reproduction papers, Carpenter distinguished between two forms of reproduction: ‘gemmiparous’ reproduction (the budding of new cells) and ‘oviparous’ reproduction (occurring only in germs produced by special organs). Oviparous reproduction occurred only after two sexual organs interacted, fertilizing the sexual germ known as an ‘ovum’. Churchill – on whose history this chapter also heavily relies – notes that Carpenter’s distinction gave paramount importance to sexual reproduction.29 But it is important not to retrospectively substitute ‘asexual’ for ‘gemmiparous’ reproduction and ‘sexual’ for ‘oviparous’ reproduction, for the word ‘asexual’ had only recently been introduced to British life research, in 1830 by the botanist Lindley. Lindley used this word to describe flowerless plants, but in doing so he also emphasized a certain kind of reproduction by signifying what it lacked: sex. The OED notes that ‘asexual’ was first used in zoology only in 1858, by Lewes (referring to zoophyte reproduction). Before ‘asexual’ was used in British zoology, researchers called such reproduction ‘vegetative’, denoting not so much an activity as an inherent power. Carpenter was nonetheless dissatisfied with the term ‘gemmiparous’ and the notion of a ‘vegetative’ mode of reproduction. He criticized Owen for holding an outdated view. To speak of a ‘vegetative’ mode of reproduction or of ‘vegetative’ repetition was not only vague: it was meaningless. For plants sexually reproduced too. By focusing on sexual origins, Carpenter cut through much confusion. Regeneration he depicted as qualitatively different from sexual reproduction for it did not require sexual fertilization.30 A new analogy between plants and simple animals should be used: not based upon morphological similarities or inherent powers, but on reproductive processes shared by plants and animals. Hence the similarity between a zoophyte and a tree was not the putative independence of each polyp or leaf. Given Carpenter’s new analogy, they resembled one another because the way that certain germs detached from Hydra was analogous to the

120

Styles of Reasoning in the British Life Sciences

detachment of seeds from plants. Both parts detached only after sexual fertilization and so both parts were really ova. Just as plants grew from sexually fertilized seeds, so too did animals grow from sexually fertilized ova. Any later development of those ova – the budding of new leaves or body parts – was growth, which like regeneration did not rely on sexual fertilization.31 Unlike Owen, Carpenter put the process of development first; the organs responsible for them were less important. His distinction was able to cut through a bewildering range of terms for reproductive tissues – ova, buds, bud-germs, gemmae, spores, winter ova, ephippial ova and statoblasts – and reduce them to only two types. Given Carpenter’s new distinction, oviparous generation took place in ova, which produced new tissues only after sexual fertilization; gemmiparous generation occurred in buds, which had the ‘spontaneous’ power to produce new tissues without impregnation. His reasoning appears somewhat circular – of course oviparous generation occurs in ova. But we can see Carpenter’s new qualitative distinction as rooted in a different way of seeing body parts. He now viewed reproductive masses in terms of their potential. It was a new way of looking at evidence: being willing to closely observe different germs’ changes over time, and seeing them go through such changes as sexual fertilization.32 Both plants and animals reproduced oviparously and gemmiparously. Carpenter’s new resemblance enabled new findings to be made. Steenstrup had claimed that hydroid zoophytes ‘alternated’ between the mobile medusoid form and the sessile polypoid form. But when Carpenter reinterpreted generation to mean the act of sexual reproduction, he reformulated Steenstrup’s work too. What distinguished medusoids from polypoids was not their independence and mobility, but instead their oviparous reproduction. What distinguished polypoids from medusoids was not the fact that they formed sessile colonies with other polyps; instead polypoids were distinct from medusoids because they reproduced gemmiparously. Given the new distinction, Carpenter concluded that all hydroids had to reproduce both sexually and asexually. Even Hydra had to reproduce sexually, although its legendary regenerative abilities were caused by its high budding powers. The new point made him confident enough to exhort others to look for new evidence. Sertularian zoophytes represented the ‘most complete evolution’ of the polypoid morphological type because they were sessile. But Carpenter now assumed that they had to reproduce by ova at some point, though no evidence had yet been found.33 The matter of compound individuality became far less important for Carpenter. ‘Now if we look to what a part can develope [sic] or become, instead of to what it is, as our test of individuality, we shall find ourselves reduced to a state of great perplexity.’ Using independence as a criterion of biological individuality had led to debates about whether body parts were also individuals. By insisting that the biological individual was simply the entire product of the sexually

1837: The Accession of Palaetiology

121

fertilized ovum, there was no longer a problematic of compound individuality. Carpenter’s new definition meant that a ‘medusoid’ was merely a body part – independent to be sure, but only one fraction of a larger individual hydroid life cycle. Indeed, he announced that the only difference between higher and lower organisms was the ability of lower organisms’ parts to stay separate and independent.34 Before Carpenter, no one had any trouble with defining biological individuals by their independence. Carpenter was the first to proclaim that there was a problem: ‘confusion’, as always, was proclaimed retrospectively, by young researchers in a different style of reasoning.35 In a few years other researchers, such as Huxley, would take up Carpenter’s challenge and also see debates over biological individuality as meaningless. But in 1848 Carpenter was one of the few who was willing to see evidence – specimens, body parts – temporally, in terms of their potential. Someone used to thinking about his specimens only in terms of their static structure would be unable to distinguish between ova and bud and would therefore be unable to acknowledge the crucial importance that Carpenter placed on sexual reproduction, with all of the ingenious likenesses that followed. Indeed, Huxley would later acknowledge that he could see no histological difference between an aphid’s ovum and an aphid’s bud.36 Carpenter’s proposal was immediately rejected by Forbes and later by Allen Thomson. They did this partly because of the histological similarity between ovum and bud and partly because using independence as a criterion of biological individuality had been unproblematic. It was one way to solve taxonomic puzzles, for instance. A zoophyte was to be placed in a lower group if it was found that its polyp-parts could be detached without injuring either it or the entire zoophyte, for its lack of injury signified the true independence of those polyps. (What actually counted as an ‘injury’ to the promethean hydroid was never made clear.) In 1843 Forbes had one such taxonomic dispute with Arthur Hill Hassall, but both men implicitly used independence as a way to classify.37 In 1848 Forbes still thought the criterion of independence was useful when he publicly denied Carpenter’s historicist redefinition of individuality. Forbes thought that ‘popularly we look upon the whole plant as an individual. Yet every botanist knows that it is a combination of individuals, and if so, each series of buds must certainly be strictly regarded as generations.’ Even as late as 1854, Thomson also argued that any animal body able to move about separately and independently should be called a distinct individual, not a part. He even called Carpenter’s views ‘arbitrary’ because more research was needed into the minute structural differences between buds and ova.38 Either they misunderstood him or they were unwilling to set aside a definition that had worked well enough up to that point.

122

Styles of Reasoning in the British Life Sciences

Vivaria and Questions of Evidence Apart from exceptions like Trembley’s Hydra work, in 1848 great portions of the life cycles of marine animals and invertebrates remained mysterious. Even portions of the life cycles of extremely familiar creatures could only be imaginatively recreated. In his 1843 lectures on invertebrates, Owen taught about social insects by showing his class preparations of their nests and bodies. Preparation 3,104 was a portion of a wasps’ nest, cut away to reveal preserved wasp larvae ‘in every stage of growth’, while 3,117 to 3,123 showed stages of the humble bee’s transformation from larva to imago. Aside from these dioramas Owen could only relate stories about the bees’ life cycle: his audience was to imagine how only a few impregnated humble-bee females lived through the winter to set up further colonies. He continued to use this static museum-based evidence in his lessons until at least 1855, repeating these stories and even adding new preserved specimens like a termite colony.39 The life cycles of marine invertebrates were even more difficult to view because of their life in an alien environment. Such creatures were already difficult enough to procure for museums. In the mid-1840s a British museum-based life researcher would be used to seeing marine invertebrates – if at all – as masses of hardened tissue, dead and preserved, bleached in wine spirits and encased in a glass jar. Since they were not alive they did not change; they could be dissected into various tissues, but only imaginatively reconstructed. They had no further potential for transformation. A field naturalist might be able to view some life cycles of marine invertebrates, usually on the seashore, but usually not in a controlled way or over a long period. Forbes’s dredging expeditions, for instance, were to collect specimens for a museum and his cabinet. In a series of careful examinations in 1837, Owen’s pupil Farre studied zoophytes in glass troughs filled with sea water. But he does not seem to have filled the troughs with new sea water every day, keeping them alive to see how they developed.40 It was easier to see terrestrial vertebrate embryos develop over a long period. Harvey had already long ago observed the development of a chick’s heart. Around 1840 such observations even offered popular, albeit expensive, entertainment: at 121 Pall Mall Street there sat the Eicallobion, a machine for the artificial incubation of bird eggs. For a shilling, people could bring an egg to this building, write their initials on the shell, place it inside the machine and wait for it to hatch; other spectators – once again for a shilling a visit – came to watch the eggs grow. Budding embryologists could pay a shilling to see unclaimed eggs broken open and see the bird inside in a ‘nascent or partly formed state’. For a guinea they would receive twenty-one admission tickets, having an egg broken each day of the maturation cycle.41

1837: The Accession of Palaetiology

123

But such an undertaking was far more difficult with marine invertebrates. Most investigations of such living organisms and their larvae were carried out in ocean tidal pools, in places like Edinburgh (conveniently near the Firth of Forth) and in northern England. Darwin and Grant carried out such investigations while in Edinburgh.42 But in these trips to tidal pools – local field expeditions, as it were – it was difficult to control one’s specimens. The young of marine invertebrates were often microscopic, had different forms from their parents, or had enormous ranges, so they were difficult to trace back to their parents. Was a white moving speck the same white speck as that which was observed two weeks ago? If so, how had it changed? Such questions were difficult or impossible to answer during trips to the tidal pool. There were nonetheless private attempts to create equivalent Eicallobia for marine invertebrates. Two significant projects were those of Dalyell and Reid, both of Edinburgh. Dalyell believed that hasty scrutiny caused the most mistakes in natural history, particularly when it came to small marine animals. So despite the pre-1845 taxes on glass which kept it four times as expensive as its cost of production, the wealthy baronet had ‘capacious glass vessels’ made for his sea creatures. He ensured that the environment in which they lived stayed fresh by having sea water carted to his residence each morning, which required large sums of money and patient attention. But these artificial marine environments allowed new findings to be made over long periods. Over a 55–day period Dalyell cut twenty-two polyps from the single stem of a single branched marine invertebrate (Tubularia indivisa) and was able to closely observe its Promethean recoveries. He watched his extraordinarily long-lived sea anemone, ‘Grannie’, spawn 230 young in a single night;43 their confinement allowed Dalyell to count them accurately. Reid also kept marine invertebrates alive for long periods in the same way, in one case maintaining a jellyfish colony for at least seventeen months.44 Indeed, Carpenter backed up his emphasis on zoophyte sexual reproduction, and his distinction between bud and ova, by using Dalyell and Reid’s observations of marine invertebrate life cycles.45 By the end of the 1840s such evidence became far easier to obtain after the glass tax was removed and new ways emerged to keep captive marine animals alive for longer periods. By the early 1850s the term ‘vivarium’ was applied to artificial marine environments like Dalyell and Reid’s; they became famous at the 1851 Exhibition when Nathaniel Ward showed off his closed glass cases which housed plants and animals. Since 1829 Ward had been trying to grow ferns and mosses in the garden of a house surrounded by smoky factories, but the plants always died. Serendipitously he discovered that grass, ferns and a moth could together survive inside a sealed glass bottle, the plants requiring no fresh water for seventeen years because of its recirculation, the soot kept out. From 1839 on he attempted different com-

124

Styles of Reasoning in the British Life Sciences

binations of plants and animals, in one case placing aquatic plants and ‘gold and silver fish’ in about twenty gallons of fresh water. They lived there for several years without any need for a change of water. This water-filled aquatic environment Ward called an ‘aqua-vivarium’, which was later shortened to ‘aquarium’.46 Ward’s discovery was extended to marine animals too. Philip Henry Gosse noted in his 1853 Naturalist’s Rambles on the Devonshire Coast that aquatic plants (either freshwater or marine) could keep animals alive and in 1854 he suggested that ‘parlour aquariums’ made an excellent addition to one’s house. His suggestions appeared around the same time as the opening of the ‘Fish House’ at Regent’s Park, a great success with visitors that other British towns quickly copied. Many wealthy Britons also bought or built aquariums for their houses. By 1856, the ‘mania’ for freshwater and marine aquaria was raging at ‘fever point’ – many had seen the financial opportunities of becoming aquarium suppliers. Prices fell as competition increased, allowing ordinary Britons to also purchase aquaria for themselves.47 Throughout the 1850s, then, to use Matthew Goodrum’s phrase, ponds and tidal pools were uprooted and brought indoors,48 facilitating the observation of water animals’ development. Where did one buy aquarium animals? Many dealers were located in Covent Garden, though they were not always trustworthy and had limited stock. The aficionado instead went to one of London’s six specialized aquarium dealers (or ordered from their catalogue; some had shipping arrangements with railway companies). These dealers were more expensive, but they knew more than the Covent Garden merchants. The best specialized dealer was acknowledged to be William Alford Lloyd’s Aquarium Warehouse, which occupied 19, 20 and 20A Portland Road, Regent’s Park. Though he carried some freshwater aquaria and specimens, he focused on the more difficult marine aquaria and claimed to stock over 14,000 specimens. Lloyd’s mission was also educational: he began his business out of his frustration with careless aquarium owners who doomed their miniature ecosystems to an early and slimy death, so he crusaded against improperly built, situated or maintained aquaria – even those of the Fish House. Beginning in the spring of 1855, the store’s yearly catalogues grew larger and larger as Lloyd’s fourteen marine collectors, ranged from Dover to Scotland, sent on their finds.49 As of 1858 the Warehouse’s prices ranged from one pence (for a common shrimp) to ten shillings (for a mass of Polynoe cirrata, colonial worms which built their own tubes). Most of his marine animals were zoophytes – he stocked Hydra, sea anemones, sea cucumbers, feather stars, starfish, jellyfish, planarians, lobsters, barnacles and sea squirts. One could also purchase a surprise grab-bag: microscopic larvae of various species which if attentively cared for would grow into mature specimens. Against our common view of aquaria today there were only a few kinds of vertebrates on offer: carp, newts, frogs and goldfish. Lloyd

1837: The Accession of Palaetiology

125

also supplied custom-built aquaria, sea water by the gallon, packets of Gosse’s powder for making artificial sea water and even small fish hatcheries.50 Lloyd also sold books at a discount of sixteen per cent – by 1858 he stocked one book by C. D. Badham, two by Dalyell, four by Forbes, three by Rymer Jones, two by Owen and fifteen by Gosse.51 Through the aquarium work of Gosse, Lloyd and other marine collectors, the controlled observation of marine invertebrates became far more widespread through the improvement of aquaria. How did such vivaria differ from the zoos and gardens attached to museums? One key distinction lay in the uses to which these gardens were put – in the British case of the Zoological Society, the park was to be used not only to help British natural history but also to help restock aristocrats’ hunting and fishing grounds.52 Aquaria also allowed the specimen’s environment to be controlled. One visitor to Lloyd’s store was told to look at a tiny white speck on one of the tubes of the colonial worms. Upon closer examination it turned out to be a minute polyp that would eventually turn into a jellyfish.53 Aquaria also allowed the specimens to be kept separate from one another. In the mid-1850s John Lubbock used ‘vivaria’ to keep male Daphnia (water fleas) separate from female ones to determine whether sexual reproduction had in fact occurred. Without such isolation one could not distinguish between sexual and asexual reproduction in these animals.54 Lubbock’s work will be investigated in more detail in the next chapter. Through the spread of aquaria, by the early 1850s researchers became far more willing to accept the kinds of evidence that Carpenter used to support a new emphasis upon sexual reproduction. Indeed just as the rise of different British museums strengthened one another’s collections, a similar virtuous circle arose for vivaria too. Lloyd’s store was one example of a supply chain from seashore to customer. In turn it seems as though the spread of aquaria strengthened the view of animals not as collections of discrete and unchanging parts but as changing and dynamic entities interacting with other entities within a larger environment. Lloyd’s continuing concern for his animals’ wellbeing, even after he had sold them, exemplifies this change.

Huxley, Palaetiologist Where Carpenter switched to palaetiology after his training, Huxley – twelve years Carpenter’s junior – grew up with it. Although he used static archetypes in his early morphologizing, his developmentalist training was at least as important. Huxley attended Charing Cross Hospital Medical School and was trained by the physiologist Thomas Wharton Jones (another Edinburgh product). Wharton Jones was well versed in embryology, having described the nucleus of the human ovum in 1835.55

126

Styles of Reasoning in the British Life Sciences

Figure 5.4. ‘Cabinet Aquarium’, in S. Hibberd, The Book of the Aquarium and Water Cabinet; or, Practical Instructions on the Formation, Stocking, and Management, in all Seasons, of Collections of Fresh Water and Marine Life (London: Groombridge, 1856), frontispiece. Note that only one vivaria contains fish; the rest contain plants and invertebrates.

1837: The Accession of Palaetiology

127

Huxley also followed Barry’s decree to learn from German science, not French. His other favourite teacher at Charing Cross was George Fownes, who taught organic chemistry after having obtained a German PhD.56 Huxley taught himself German and quoted the botanist Matthias Schleiden in his 1846–7 notebooks: the ‘leading principle’ of a truly scientific morphology ‘can be Development alone’. ‘Without the study of Development there exists no Science of Botany’. Huxley even redefined ‘identity’, privately describing affinity as the ‘resemblance of development’ and any lesser form of resemblance as mere ‘analogy’.57 Huxley also noted a similarity between comparative anatomy/zoology and comparative philology. Where the former fields studied animal form, philology was ‘the science of verbal forms’. Comparative philology also distinguished between analogy and affinity – letters or sounds of a root were the basic parts of a language, akin to the ‘organic elements’ of an animal. But merely analysing words into their component roots and finding similarities was not enough to establish a relationship between two languages. The philologist also had to consider the languages’ origins. It was only when the philologist showed how certain words emerged from similar roots that the languages could be said to be ‘kindred’. Indeed, by the end of these notebooks Huxley had changed terminology, replacing ‘affinity’ with ‘kindred’. Huxley speculated further: perhaps the law adding prefixes and suffixes to certain words was the same law that governed an animal’s development. When one knew exactly how a language developed (its ‘general laws’), one could deductively form it, he thought. So too in zoology: it might also become a deductive science if one knew how its zoological elements developed. Huxley was imitating von Baerian embryology:58 he reinterpreted ‘elements’ to stand not for the simplest possible independent forms of a language, but as potential branching points. Linguistic and zoological ‘elements’ were stages from which occurred further specialized development. In December 1846 Huxley set off to Australasia on HMS Rattlesnake, using his oceanic setting to find and dissect rare marine invertebrates not located in British museums and to observe how they developed and reproduced over time. He made his scientific reputation by showing that many marine invertebrates, including polyps and acalephs (siphonophores, such as the Portuguese Mano’-War) were made of two different membranes, the ‘foundation layers’ of the endo- and ectoderm. One properly classified these confusing animals by doing it at the level of their common tissues.59 Huxley picked out members of this group by classifying the tissues with the most potential to become differentiated and more specialized. Just as he had seen it done in comparative philology, Huxley redefined organic elements in terms of their possibilities, classifying from the root of a ramifying tree of embryological development.

128

Styles of Reasoning in the British Life Sciences

Figure 5.5. One of Lloyd’s Aquarium Warehouse’s three rooms, in W. A. Lloyd, A List, with Descriptions, Illustrations, and Prices, of Whatever Relates to Aquaria (London: Hayman Brothers, 1858), p. 6.

Like Carpenter, Huxley was also unhappy with the problematic of compound individuality. Defining individuals by their independence led to difficulties – were the detached and free-swimming sexual parts of marine invertebrates entire individuals, or ‘mere organs?’ Was this question even important?60 To answer problems like these, Huxley read Owen’s cutting-edge On Parthenogenesis on the decks of the Rattlesnake. He copied out Owen’s writings about different puzzling animals: Gregarina was a single-celled parasite whose young appeared in its interior as ‘germ-masses’. Nais alternated generations and budded young from between its last and penultimate segments where nucleated yolk-cells were concentrated. Nucleated yolk-cells explained the reproductive and regenerative powers of annelids, ‘compound hydriform polyps’ and aphids. Huxley especially paid attention to Owen’s observations on the nucleated yolk-cells, copying verbatim Owen’s explanation that the retained ‘sperm-force’ was kept in ‘nucleated’ cells identical to the ‘progeny’ of the fertilized germ-cell.61 Huxley appeared at exactly the right place and at the right time as palaetiology began to encroach upon analysis:synthesis in London life science. He was not as brilliantly innovative as Carpenter had been – instead Huxley’s early achievement was to take up many of Carpenter’s technical points and advance them in a consistent way. It was especially Huxley’s thwarted career ambitions in the early 1850s that made him such a forceful champion of palaetiology in the life sciences. While the older and more established Carpenter remained generally deferential to Owen, the younger Huxley had no such achievements. And

1837: The Accession of Palaetiology

129

Figure 5.6. ‘Portable fish-hatching apparatus’, costing £10 10s., in W. A. Lloyd, A List, with Descriptions, Illustrations, and Prices, of Whatever Relates to Aquaria (London: Hayman Brothers, 1858), p. 82.

130

Styles of Reasoning in the British Life Sciences

his acceptance of Owen as facile princeps of life researchers would decline. He would combine this new technical understanding of biology with a rejection of Owen, his work and its presuppositions. For though Huxley must have been well acquainted with metagenesis after copying out whole passages by Owen, he misunderstood – either deliberately or accidentally – the very problematics that metagenesis was designed to explain. His forthcoming conflict of interest gave him no reason to sympathetically engage with the assumptions underlying Owen’s work.

6 ALTERNATIVE EXPLANATIONS AND NEW GENERATIONS, 1850–1858

HMS Rattlesnake returned to England in October 1850. Travelling to London, Huxley gave a letter to Owen from his Australian mentor Macleay. Macleay had been one of the first British researchers to travel to the Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle after the war, working with Cuvier, Geoffroy St-Hilaire and the entomologist P. A. Latreille.1 The letter was a communication from one patron to another: Macleay would consider any favour Owen did for Huxley as a favour for Macleay himself. He recommended Huxley’s researches and drawings on the ‘lower pelagic animals’ as especially relevant to ‘the subject of your “Parthenogenesis”’. Owen then applied to the Admiralty for another appointment for Huxley in order for the young surgeon to prepare his Rattlesnake materials.2 He saw Huxley as a talented researcher who would advance his own work on parthenogenesis and metagenesis (hereafter simply metagenesis). But in the early 1850s Huxley started to turn on him and to subvert metagenesis, as palaetiology spread to a larger community. The first two thirds of this chapter thus examine the clash of different styles of reasoning. This fight occurred between Owen and Huxley over the reality of metagenesis and spermatic force. Huxley rejected spermatic force by denying the validity of Owen’s evidence. The last third of the chapter then looks at Huxley’s drive to professionalize life science. This problematic term, ‘professionalize’, is not used to denote a move to make the field soon to be known as biology more specialized, more laboratory-based or more independent. Instead ‘professionalize’ is used here to refer to a more negative process: the systematic exclusion of those life researchers identified as outsiders. Huxley sought to restrict entry to his group, keeping the supply of scientists artificially scarce and their work adequately remunerative. One famous example of this boundary-strengthening can be seen in his well-known rejection of the Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation. Perhaps a related but more serious threat was the ‘populist’ science of Lewes, an alternative model to Huxley’s cadre of elite biologists. Lewes exemplified a kind of life science in which self-taught researchers went out to the seashore and investigated organisms for themselves. Lewes’s work is additionally relevant because of his – 131 –

132

Styles of Reasoning in the British Life Sciences

belief that consciousness was not located in the head but was instead diffused throughout the body. During the 1850s Huxley was involved in a two-front war – on one front he attacked Owen; on the other he denounced ‘quack’ life researchers like the Vestigarian. Huxley and his associates gradually restricted Owen’s ability to intelligibly discuss entities such as spermatic force or problematics like compound individuality. Meanwhile Lewes’s ability to make definitive pronouncements on new findings in the life sciences was denied. This chapter is therefore less of a tale about what life researchers intended and more of a story about how certain people were increasingly excluded.

Huxley Cultivates London Mentors Where Owen was the English Cuvier, Huxley sought to be the British Müller. He made money and a name for himself by bringing German findings to a British audience, just as French work had been imported a generation before. With Arthur Henfrey,3 Huxley translated von Baer’s embryological works, using as an epigraph Goethe’s statement that every translator was ‘a broker in the great intellectual traffic of the world’. Huxley’s network grew as senior researchers solicited his opinion on the latest German findings,4 and his new intermediary position enabled him to highlight certain points favourable to his own scientific practices, such as the correct use of von Baerian embryology. One point on which he insisted was von Baer’s view that development was ‘the sole basis of zoological classification’.5 Huxley even cited his own work in these translations, associating his own researches with German work. He also used his translations to flatter patrons: his long footnote to a histology text by Albert Kölliker (done with his friend the surgeon George Busk) championed Owen’s more ‘scientific’ nomenclature for the teeth over Kölliker’s, because such terms – including ‘deciduous molars’ and ‘premolars’ – had ‘recourse to development’.6 In 1851 Huxley publicly acknowledged that Owen’s theory of metagenesis was an attempt to ‘unite all the aberrant generative processes of the Invertebrata … under its conditions, and to express them in its terms’.7 Owen, with Forbes, sat at the top of a pecking order of researchers that Huxley compiled in the year after returning to London. They were followed ‘far below’ by: J. G. Goodsir, who could not write clearly; Darwin, who lacked good health; Thomas Bell, who lacked originality; and Newport, who was industrious but needed more learning. Bringing up the rear were Grant and Rymer Jones, men who had ‘mistaken their vocation’.8 Huxley cultivated the top three members of this group. His pursuit of Owen has been noted. He flattered Goodsir by telling him that his ‘admirable memoirs’ were the model for his own papers. Forbes – ‘a great friend of mine’, he told Macleay – supported Huxley in his applications for research monies and

Alternative Explanations and New Generations

133

Royal Society publications.9 Forbes provided moral and intellectual support for Huxley; Owen less so, although both men showed that one could make a living as a museum researcher without having to fall back on medical practice. Huxley had another example in Carpenter, who had also committed to support himself and his family through science. Carpenter’s reputation had been secured through his textbooks, review articles and editorships, and by the 1850s he was becoming involved with the University of London. Carpenter supported Huxley in small ways at first, writing testimonials for professorships; in turn Huxley corrected the proofs of the latest edition of Carpenter’s Comparative Physiology.10

Zoöids and Individuality Huxley had also taken up Carpenter’s definition of a biological individual: defined not by its independence, but as the entire product of a single sexuallyfertilized ovum. Questions about independent body parts being individuals were thus made irrelevant – they merely ‘simulate[d]’ individuals. It is likely that Huxley saw Carpenter’s 1848 and 1849 zoophyte articles in Macleay’s Australian library, for it was on Rattlesnake, off the coast of West Africa in the autumn of 1850, where Huxley privately began calling each false individual a ‘zoöid’, imitating yet subtly misinterpreting the botanical term ‘phytoid’.11 After all, ‘phytoid’ referred to the many static bud – and leaf – individuals composing a larger plant, which was an interpretation Huxley explicitly stood against. After his return Huxley grew bolder and publicly used the new word in 1851, announcing that the distinction between zoöid and individual was ‘founded upon the surest zoological basis, – a fact of development’. Although other life researchers had not seen any puzzle regarding compound individuality, Huxley made it seem important by pointing to Carpenter’s ‘clear and masterly’ treatment of that paradox.12 Perhaps Huxley’s triumphant solution of Carpenter’s irrelevant problem resembles nothing so much as the mythical Baron Munchausen’s ability to lift himself up by his own bootstraps. By using ‘zoöid’ Huxley stayed consistent with the temporal definition of a biological individual, and if he could persuade others to use his new word, then they would also take up that definition. Despite Carpenter’s rejection after pointing out the paradox of the conventional definition of individuality as independence, Huxley charged in. He wielded Carpenter’s new temporal definition of individuality as though it solved an age-old problem bedevilling generations of researchers. Huxley applied ‘zoöid’ to animals that had previously exemplified compound individuality. The aphid was not a sequence of individuals: it was a single individual composed of nine to eleven zoöids, all budded after an initial act of sexual fertilization. Sertularian

134

Styles of Reasoning in the British Life Sciences

polyps were not colonies of numerous individuals, but a single individual made up of zoöids.13 Huxley then became bolder and deployed the temporal definition of individuality against the work of Johannes Müller and Steenstrup. Steenstrup was mistaken for using independence to define an individual, because using independence meant that sperm – and cancer-cells also counted as individuals.14 On 12 April 1852 Allman – a Dubliner who worked on freshwater zoophytes and who already valued Huxley’s Rattlesnake findings – cautiously complimented Huxley for his review of Müller and Steenstrup. Huxley did not even have to confess authorship of the piece because his point was so new and distinctive. By 2 May Allman had retreated somewhat – he was not sure that the matter was ‘otherwise in controversy’. He had previously used the term ‘compound’ to describe zoophytes. By the end of the month, however, he told Huxley that he had ‘demolished’ the ‘specious fictions’ of the alternation of generations and ‘its cousin parthenogenesis’, though dampening this a bit by telling Huxley he could not concur with all of his conclusions. By the next year Allman had been fully converted, shown by his public use of the term ‘zoöid’ to refer to freshwater polyps, complimenting Huxley and Carpenter for avoiding ambiguous definitions of individuality. Allman declared that ‘zoöid’ allowed researchers to avoid the confusion accompanying the term ‘individual’ when it served as ‘the logical element of a species’.15 Now three zoophyte researchers saw confusion where none had previously existed – Allman’s conversion was of great importance if three people make a community. Others, however, still saw no difficulty and remained sceptical of Huxley’s new term. Darwin circularly used the old criterion of independence, doubting whether ‘creatures having so plainly the stamp of individuality as have many of your zooids will ever cease to be called individuals’.16 Thomson also found ‘zoöid’ unnecessary. Nonetheless he took up Huxley’s distinction between ‘true ova’ and mere ‘reproductive bodies’ – true ova were single cells undergoing special development, while other ‘reproductive bodies’ were aggregations of cells that simulated true ova. Sex thus became the only way to distinguish ‘true’ ova from various other kinds of reproductive masses like the various buds, gemmae, winter ova and ephippial ova discussed in the previous chapter.17 However life researchers could still find no structural difference between ova and reproductive bodies. On 30 April 1852 – two weeks after being congratulated by Allman – Huxley gave a Friday evening lecture at the Royal Institution. His audience included Michael Faraday, Forbes, Huxley’s old physiology teacher Wharton Jones, Huxley’s brother’s family, other relatives, wealthy members of society and ‘fashionable ladies’. Although only 323 people were present at the lecture – filling about half of the theatre – it was a great honour for one so young as it was his first public appearance. Upon being invited to lecture Huxley had told Faraday

Alternative Explanations and New Generations

135

– ‘the little guy’ – that he would ‘introduce some peculiar speculations of his own’ to zoology. While he realized that only Carpenter approved of his palaetiological redefinition of individuality, Huxley wanted to appeal to a non-specialist audience. He also hoped to win over Forbes and ‘some others’ to his perspective.18 Huxley’s lecture seems to have been pitched as a response to Rymer Jones’s Royal Institution talks given over the previous seven years. There, Rymer Jones claimed that all animals were compound: Every animal, during the progress of its life, plays the parts of many different animals; and that under such diversified forms, that at successive periods of its existence it cannot in strictness be regarded as the same creature … every living being is, in fact, a succession of perfectly distinct animals growing one out of the other.

Metamorphosis showed a sequence of distinct forms. A frog had earlier been a fish, a tadpole with gills and even an egg; while a butterfly was first a caterpillar, then a pupa.19 Huxley now gainsaid Rymer Jones with his HMS Rattlesnake observations. As he lectured, he drew various creatures ‘commonly called Compound Animals’. One was the salp, which appeared in two different forms: Salpa democratica and Salpa mucronata. S. democratica grew a tube from which a chain of minute buds spontaneously grew; these buds turned into a long chain of ‘individual’ S. mucronata. The chain of S. mucronata separated over time and each one grew an egg. When it detached, the egg then matured into a solitary S. democratica and the cycle repeated. Huxley noted that both salp forms were highly organized, and no one would ordinarily think of either form as anything else than a distinct individual.20 This ordinary view of salps was confused, charged Huxley. For it used independence, derived from our experience of higher animals, to view lower ones. The entire developmental cycle, starting with the act of sexual fertilization, counted as an ‘individual’ – a novel point on which he and Carpenter stood ‘almost alone’.21 Huxley therefore reinterpreted the salp, formerly used to exemplify the morphological problem of the alternation of generations. Throughout his talk Huxley left Rymer Jones’s name unmentioned, but he contradicted one of Rymer Jones’s examples. It was the sum of caterpillar, chrysalis and butterfly that made up the individual insect: to speak of each form as a distinct individual was nonsense. The moulting of a caterpillar’s skin was merely ‘concentric fission’, the separation of one part from another. Unlike the rest of the caterpillar, the separated skin could not live independently, so it died. The alternation of forms in salps was simply another form of moulting where all of the parts still lived on after separation. S. democratica Huxley likened to a caterpillar skin that happened to live after S. mucronata budded from it.

136

Styles of Reasoning in the British Life Sciences

The difference between a caterpillar skin and S. democratica was only one of degree. So too was the distinction between moulting, fission and budding. The multiplication of an individual’s forms, of zoöids, was simply a case of ‘irrelative repetition’, like the budding of myriapod and annelid segments.22 Huxley had built on Carpenter’s work to develop a powerful alternative explanation to the problem of the alternation of generations. Huxley must have also entertained the audience, for he was invited to lecture in April of the following year; he gave a Friday evening lecture at the Royal Institution every year until 1863.23 But he had wisely left out large portions of his talk, a major attack on the work of Steenstrup and Owen.24 In the omitted section, Huxley examined the ‘common’ notion of lower invertebrates as ‘compound’, then proceeded to systematically misinterpret Steenstrup by using his new definition of biological individuality. He claimed that Steenstrup defined a ‘generation’ as the progeny of a sexually-fertilized ovum. Steenstrup had not. From that ovum, said Huxley, came one form of animals, but from a second ‘generation’ came animals formed by gemmation. The gemmation origin of the second generation meant that it was not another individual but akin to a butterfly’s moulted skin or S. democratica. For Huxley, all that mattered was an animal’s origin: because of their asexual origins zoöids did not qualify as a second ‘generation’, which overthrew the entire theory of the alternation of generations. Huxley also noted how the emphasis on sexual and asexual origins undermined Owen’s doctrine of metagenesis, which was merely a restatement of Steenstrup. He saw ‘spermatic virtue’ as a verbalism. In his own microscopic investigations on highly regenerative animals, like polyps, Huxley had found no nucleated yolk-cells containing spermatic energy, or any evidence that such energy could be transmitted. No one knew what ‘nucleated’ meant. And semen never came into contact with primary embryo cells anyway.25 Huxley privately charged Owen with fitting evidence to a spurious theory. But he ignored the fact that Owen’s points were based on different premises. He had proposed spermatic force only after making broad comparisons between highly regenerative and less regenerative animals – between Hydra and humans. The regenerative differences between simple and complicated animals were a pressing question facing the community, prompting Owen’s search for some explanation of these differences. Moreover, Huxley privately recognized some troubles in his own temporal definition of an individual. To a person interested in morphology, the emphasis on origins was irrelevant. Morphological and anatomical distinctions between a zoöid and an individual were not always easy to make. Nereis worms appearing by gemmation were shaped exactly like those emerging out of a sexually-fertilized ova. Nonetheless Huxley assumed that there had to be differences between the two. He likened the two different origins of Nereis to trees produced by grafts or

Alternative Explanations and New Generations

137

Figure 6.1. Salpae buds, in T. H. Huxley, ‘Drawings’, Huxley Papers, College Archives, Imperial College London, vol. 74, plates 4, 5 and 10. These drawings very closely follow Otto Sars’s drawings of salps, and Huxley (or an archivist) refers to Sars in a scrawled note at the top of plate 4.

138

Styles of Reasoning in the British Life Sciences

by fertilized seeds: though trees produced in both ways seemed exactly the same, they were qualitatively different, though Huxley did not say how. Nereis’s situation was similar, with zoöids formed by gemmation being qualitatively different from those emerging from fertilized ova.26 Huxley’s theory was proposed first and evidence was then to be found to support it. Huxley saw origins as more important than morphological similarity, which was his fundamental technical difference with Owen. Yet, despite his misgivings, as late as 1854 Huxley still publicly believed Steenstrup’s theory of the alternation of generations to be one of the ‘best established and most notorious scientific generalizations of the day’.27 But his coming public fight with Owen would push any of his ambivalence to the side, sharpening his opposition to the Alternation of Generations, to the doctrine of spermatic force and to Owen himself.

Private Attacks upon Owen Begin In November 1851 Huxley complained to Macleay that while Owen had helped him in some cases, he was still guilty of some ‘ill natured tricks’. Huxley also said that, although Owen was a good comparative osteologist, he got lost when it came to abstractions: On Parthenogenesis was one example.28 Huxley publicly cultivated Owen as a patron while privately starting to question his competence. By November 1852 Huxley’s failure to obtain a scientific posting hastened his rejection of Owen and how British science was organized. Huxley’s growing reputation – with successful papers, Fellowship of the Royal Society and even a Royal Medal by that date – had amounted to little while he watched scientific inferiors obtain jobs. Huxley told his Australian fiancée Henrietta that he had to go to the 1852 British Association meeting in Belfast, because there were people whose scientific reputations were undeservedly great, whereas ‘your Hal rather flatters himself that per contra – he is better than his reputation’.29 The rejections stung. Huxley had unsuccessfully sought jobs at Toronto (1851) and Aberdeen (1852), in the Toronto case losing to a well-connected candidate. And despite a separation of two years he could not bring Henrietta to England until he had made enough money, something that could happen only after he secured a steady income. Other personal troubles occurred too. Despite his triumphant Royal Institution lecture in April 1852, Huxley’s mother died that month and his father later became physically and mentally incapacitated. He considered following his friends by emigrating to Australia, returning to Henrietta.30 Huxley was an extraordinarily hard worker, skilled writer and researcher and tactical wizard. But underlying his eventual success was his ability to redefine what counted as good life science. For Huxley, first-rate work was redefined as Germanizing embryological work. He fused technical and practical skill with ambition by using a different style of reasoning to make new innovations while

Alternative Explanations and New Generations

139

trying to make another style less relevant. Huxley even wrote to Henrietta of his need to destroy old systems – ‘however painful for oneself this destruction of things that have been holy examples – it is the only hope for a new state of belief – that this destruction take place’.31 Holy examples also applied to popular scientific systems. There was not only a conflict of mentalities; there also was a conflict of interests. Because Huxley sought to overthrow the old system, he decided to shine a bright light on its underlying assumptions and publicize its flaws and paradoxes.32 Carpenter had tried to do the same thing, but not as forcefully. He did not see his interests conflicting with Owen’s as strongly as Huxley believed his did. When we fuse conflicts of interests and clashes of styles of reasoning, we begin to explain certain historiographic puzzles. One is Owen’s legendary ‘sneakiness’, a matter which Paul White suggests requires historical explanation.33 White grounds much of Huxley’s rejection of Owen in changing views of how researchers ought to conduct themselves. In the traditional world of Owen, patrons helped clients in return for their condescension and deference – their world was a manifestly unequal one. In the 1851 world of gentlemanly science, then, it was considered normal to take some credit for others’ discoveries. But Huxley rejected such a view, contrasting Owen and Forbes accordingly. Owen would help young researchers but only in return for their deference; Forbes helped junior researchers like Huxley without it. Forbes’s stance earned Huxley’s respect. White concludes that Huxley’s rise was part of the emergence of a new method of conducting oneself as a scientist – it was more important to speak the truth, not to be a deferent client.34 This new ideal accompanied Huxley’s meritocratic notion of scientists as protected and competent professionals with coherent careers. Other historians’ perspectives on the Huxley-Owen dispute can be seen in the light of a clash of styles of reasoning. Nicolaas Rupke observes that Huxley attacked Owen because Owen represented the scientific ‘establishment’ and that his homologizing programme – cutting edge at the beginning of the 1850s – suddenly declined because of his failure to cultivate a coherent group of supporters. This chapter suggests that Owen’s homologizing programme was eclipsed because questions about origins also became more important. Meanwhile, Merz notes that around 1860 the ‘morphological period’ of inquiry into animals’ shapes was replaced by the ‘genetic period’ into how forms changed.35 Though Merz gives Darwin’s Origin of Species as the hinge on which two periods turned, the emergence of the ‘genetic period’ in the life sciences might be pushed back to 1837, with Barry’s work on von Baer. Huxley was only one member of an emerging palaetiological community of life researchers. Carpenter, another group member, joined Huxley out of frustration with Owen. By 1851 Carpenter had risen further in the world, and was now principal

140

Styles of Reasoning in the British Life Sciences

of the newly-constructed University Hall. With this more secure institutional affiliation, he wanted to correct a public image of himself that had become ever stronger in the ten years since he had confided to Owen that ‘I know that I’m regarded as more of a compiler than I ought to be’. It was extremely important to him that he be known as an ‘original and independent’ discoverer.36 So Carpenter claimed priority for the use of von Baer’s embryological law. It was a claim that had been supported by a reviewer in the 1840 number of the Annals and Magazine of Natural History – but Owen, as facile princeps, claimed to have used it first, in his 1843 Lectures on the Invertebrate Animals.37 A private priority dispute thus arose between the two men by the early 1850s. In 1851, Carpenter told Owen that he would soon state his priority in using von Baer’s law – hopefully the Quarterly Review would ‘then give me the credit for sometimes presenting myself as an original “discoverer”’. He would claim to have first used it in 1845, an extraordinary concession considering his public recognition. But Owen remained unsatisfied. Carpenter retreated slightly by 1853, promising not only to show Owen the proofs where he claimed priority, but also to recognize where Owen used von Baer’s law first (mainly in zoology). He hoped that Owen would find these proofs ‘unexceptionable’,38 but Owen disagreed. By 1854 Carpenter told Owen he would no longer claim any priority in using von Baer. Indeed, he would no longer even perform original research. At least his textbook was popular, he sighed: It is probable that the rest of my life will be so much occupied in Educational matters, that I must be content to see younger men taking the place that I had hoped to occupy as a discoverer, and satisfy myself with endeavouring to qualify them for a philosophical appreciation of what they may have the good fortune to find out.39

Huxley was one of these ‘younger men’. He had publicly flattered Carpenter by noting – in his own 1853 translation of von Baer, no less – that Carpenter was the only English physiologist to have drawn attention to von Baer’s principles. He did not mention Owen. By 1855 Huxley again publicly praised Carpenter as the only Briton or Francophone, save Barry, who laid out the von Baerian laws that were ‘to Biology what Kepler’s great generalizations were to Astronomy’. Huxley even echoed Carpenter’s private fears, noting that he was someone ‘stinted of his fair share by his scientific brethren’ because of his reputation as a ‘compiler’. Yet the ‘Blackstone of the laws of nature’ deserved praise because of his clear view of physiology.40 At a Royal Institution talk, Huxley also expanded on the centrifugal likenesses between von Baerian embryology and comparative philology by comparing two seemingly unrelated sets of words in the Indo-Germanic languages. Hemp, Hennep and Hanf were modifications of one word, while Cannabis, Canapa and Chanvre were modifications of another. Huxley pointed out that, although they

Alternative Explanations and New Generations

141

did not appear to have any affinity, Hemp and Cannabis were linked because they had modified by ‘known developmental laws of the same root’. So too did such a principle apply to animals: each embryo resembled one another because they were based on common plans, then became increasingly unique and distinct through specialization.41 Huxley’s career misfortunes eventually ended, and by June 1854 he finally obtained a stable scientific position. In 1853 he had sought the Professorship of Physiology at King’s College London, but lost out to Lionel Smith Beale. Edward Forbes, who lectured at the Government School of Mines on Jermyn Street, became Professor of Natural History in Edinburgh and so had Huxley finish his London course. By July, Huxley was appointed lecturer on natural history there, receiving about £200 a year. He finally married Henrietta on 21 July the next year, with the small party including Carpenter and his wife.42 Huxley’s allies were also moving up in the life sciences in the mid-1850s. Henfrey obtained Forbes’s Professorship of Botany at King’s College London in 1854. Busk would cut back on his surgical duties to practise natural history full time and by 1856 succeeded Owen as the Hunterian Professor of Comparative Anatomy.43 By 1855 Carpenter was also privately ridiculing Owen’s incompetence against an idealized Germanic science. In a letter to Huxley, Carpenter mocked the second edition of Owen’s Lectures on the Invertebrate Animals – he and Busk ‘roared over [Owen’s] absurdities … What will the Continentals think of us?’ In 1856 Carpenter became University College London’s registrar and worked to expand science degrees, creating new opportunities for Huxley and his group.44 Allman admitted to Huxley that he had not yet seen Owen’s book, but ‘what you tell me does not in the least surprise me’. He was reluctant to criticize Owen because he still needed his testimonials for the Chair of Natural History at Edinburgh; Owen was Allman’s champion against a candidate supported by the powerful geologist Roderick Murchison. In fact Allman was helpful enough to privately tell Owen when Huxley dropped out of the competition. Allman did indeed get the Edinburgh position,45 vacated by the death of Forbes, who had unexpectedly died of kidney disease in November 1854, after holding the position for less than six months. His death was significant because it meant that Owen had lost a prominent analytic:synthetic ally in the prime of his career. Forbes’s passing also meant that Huxley had one less personal tie to the old analytic:synthetic world of life science and with the disappearance of these private restraints he seems to have become more openly militant. In the new year he attacked Owen publicly.

142

Styles of Reasoning in the British Life Sciences

Public Attacks upon Owen Begin The critiques started cautiously, anonymously, in specialized reviews. Where Owen wrote for large audiences in prestigious reviews like the Quarterly, the palaetiologists clawed away at him from below, in the expert medical and naturalist journals. One venue was the British and Foreign Medico-Chirurgical Review; as its former editor, Carpenter seems to have put in a word for Huxley to write reviews for them. Huxley’s first piece was an attack on the cell-theory’s declaration that each cell was an individual. Repeating his private quote of Schleiden, Huxley claimed that ‘before histology can be said to be complete, we must have a histological development as well as a histological anatomy’.46 He mildly sniped at Owen in his 1854 review of the Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation and decided to escalate. The second edition of Owen’s Lectures on the Invertebrate Animals presented a golden opportunity for attack. Nicolaas Rupke has correctly characterized Huxley’s critique as savage and Owen’s work as out of date, but does not say why.47 Huxley attacked Owen’s Lectures because it did not give development – his definition of development, anyway – the importance he thought it deserved. Huxley’s criticism ignored Owen’s prior invertebrate researches and depicted him as a man in a foreign domain. Though Owen was ‘second to none’ in vertebrate anatomy, his work in invertebrate zoology had not kept up with its recent ‘advances’. He sniffed that it would be best if famous researchers confined themselves to one area: their authority attained in one field led to misleading conclusions when they strayed into others. Von Siebold’s new (1854) textbook on invertebrates was better because it used development: seeing how an embryo differentiated clarified whether a simple invertebrate organ was really a kidney, ovary or liver.48 Huxley also supported his anti-Owen group by citing them, referring to Carpenter’s two articles on zoophyte reproduction to show how Steenstrup and Owen were mistaken. He also noted how Allman and Huxley went unmentioned in Owen’s work – had they been ignored because they rejected metagenesis? Huxley the anonymous reviewer also strongly publicized his own work, mentioning his own name seven times in a single paragraph.49 Huxley also attacked Owen’s work by using Carpenter’s reinterpretation of the plant-polyp resemblance. He criticized the meaninglessness of Owen’s classifications: he had ignored others’ work by using a ‘now-exploded’ taxonomic principle, just as his ‘confused’ follower Rymer Jones was still doing. Huxley neglected to mention the exploded principle – of nervous system complexity as a taxonomic index – or its rationale. He made exactly the same critique in another review of Rymer Jones’s work.50

Alternative Explanations and New Generations

143

Reproductive Masses: ‘Buds’ or ‘Pseudova’? By 1855 the exciting new life research focused on origins. How did one distinguish between different reproductive germs? One who tried to answer such a question was the young John Lubbock. Though Lubbock disagreed with some of Huxley’s definitions, he had to adopt conventional terminology for others to understand him. Son of the wealthy banker and astronomer Sir John William Lubbock, in 1856 John Lubbock studied the changes in the reproductive germs of tiny Daphnia, the water flea. The transparent Daphnia was ideal for observation and could be seen to produce two kinds of reproductive masses. One kind – the agamic – was shed when the parent Daphnia shed its skin. The other kind – the ephippial – remained inside the parent for longer, even after moulting. Lubbock looked for different changes in the two reproductive masses, and was particularly interested in whether the ephippial mass needed sexual fertilization to develop. Lubbock obtained Daphnia schaefferi (the largest possible water flea) from a nearby pond and placed them in ‘vivaria’. These small glass vessels were filled with microscopic plants that oxygenated the water and kept the animals alive over long periods. Using vivaria also allowed him to separate male Daphnia from females, thereby controlling instances of sexual fertilization – without isolation, he could not distinguish between sexual and asexual reproduction. Every few hours Lubbock placed his specimens in small glass cells under a microscope to view them and their reproductive masses.51 Like Owen and Huxley, Lubbock saw no structural difference between agamic and ephippial masses. Both masses sat in the Daphnia’s ovary, further eliding any static distinction. Instead Lubbock studied their development, meaning that his investigations were constrained in certain ways. Even his use of the word agamic – imported into zoology from botany via Germany, signifying a reproductive mass by its mode of reproduction52 – implicitly identified that mass by its change. Inspired by Carpenter, Lubbock also called all of the reproductive masses ‘eggs’, whether they required sexual fertilization or not. Lubbock noted how his use of the word egg was unconventional and even admitted that a new name was needed to denote reproductive masses that did not need sexual fertilization to develop. But Lubbock still insisted on using the word eggs because he believed that the water-flea’s reproductive masses resembled them more closely than they did ‘gemmae’.53 Lubbock used these unconventional and implicitly sexualized definitions of reproductive masses because of back-channel communications. He appears to have sent his very first letter to Huxley on the matter of the reproduction of Daphnia, soliciting Huxley’s advice and promising Huxley the chance to view his paper before publication. Huxley’s advice kept Lubbock away from the Owe-

144

Styles of Reasoning in the British Life Sciences

nian camp, for Lubbock had initially called the dark masses shown in Figure 6.2 ‘mother cells’, a phrase reminiscent of Owen’s language about nucleated yolkcells.54 On viewing Lubbock’s page proofs, Huxley did not entirely agree with Lubbock’s depiction of his position either and so Lubbock subtly altered his wording. LUBBOCK’S PROPOSED WORDING, 1856 Prof Huxley also might at first be supposed to advocate the essential difference between eggs and buds, since he has proposed to designate the whole product of each egg or rather each act of coition, as the individual and to call the separate specimens obtained by budding or Parthenogenesis, zooids … Huxley however proposes the nomenclature merely as being in his opinion the most convenient and not expressing any essential difference between eggs and buds, which he, like Prof. Owen, believes merge imperceptibly into one another.55

LUBBOCK’S PUBLISHED WORDING, 1857 Prof. HUXLEY might be supposed to agree with the naturalists as to the essential difference between eggs and buds above-mentioned, since he has proposed, developing the idea of which we owe the germ to DR. CARPENTER, to extend the use of the word ‘individual’ to the whole product of one impregnation, and to designate as ‘zooids’ the independent forms of the individual. Prof. HUXLEY, however, proposes this system of nomenclature merely as convenient, and not as expressing any fundamental, structural, or potential difference between eggs and buds.56

Figure 6.2. A water flea and its reproductive parts, in J. Lubbock, ‘An Account of the Two Methods of Reproduction in Daphnia’, Philosophical Transactions, 147 (1857), pp. 79–100, on p. 100, plate 7. Top left: male Daphnia schaefferi. Top right: part of a female Daphnia schaefferi – the black portion is the location of all of the ovarian masses. Bottom: single reproductive mass, initially called a ‘mother cell’ by Lubbock – the three black dots inside (‘g’) are each potential ‘germinal vesicles’.

Alternative Explanations and New Generations

145

Carpenter was mentioned in the new version and now Lubbock played down the strong similarity between Owen’s position and Huxley’s. Yet Lubbock was not Huxley’s creature. He criticized Huxley for various mistaken observations and for his new temporal definition of biological individuality. Von Siebold had shown that male honeybees emerged from unfertilized eggs but, under Huxley’s definition, they would not count as individuals.57 In 1858, Huxley responded to Lubbock’s call for a new word for reproductive masses that developed without sex: he coined the word pseudova. Like ‘agamic’, ‘pseudova’ identified a kind of tissue by a property that it lacked – the requirement of sexual fertilization for further development. And once again Huxley fell back on Carpenter’s zoophyte papers of 1848 and 1849 to reinterpret Bonnet’s famous example of aphids’ ‘virgin births’. These were analogous to the gemmation of plant leaves. Moreover, there was no structural difference between different kinds of reproductive masses – distinctions between an ‘ovum’ and ‘pseudovum’ only appeared after a certain period of growth. While a pseudovum ‘spontaneously’ developed into an embryo, the ovum needed to come into contact with sperm, otherwise it would not develop into an embryo. So much for Huxley’s correction of Lubbock that he saw no potential difference between eggs and buds. Nonetheless Lubbock found Huxley’s term ‘pseudovum’ convenient and appropriate while still emphasizing that no strict boundary could be drawn between eggs and pseudova.58 Although he disagreed with Huxley’s definition of a biological individual, he used the term inspired by that definition. Huxley’s reinterpretation of aphids’ ‘virgin births’ was a conscious effort to deny Owen one of his leading examples of metagenesis. Imitating Carpenter’s charges of confusion some ten years prior, he attacked Owen while ignoring the issues that Owen thought were worth studying. The greater regenerative ability of simple organisms was now uninteresting. Where Owen believed that nucleated yolk-cells could either produce new tissues (regeneration) or new individuals (reproduction), Huxley misinterpreted him as believing that these nucleated yolk-cells could only produce new individuals. In one 1856 lecture he ridiculed Owen’s belief that nucleated yolk-cells could be found all over the human body – not merely in our sex organs, but in places under the skin. ‘[N]evertheless, no one feels any alarm lest a nascent wart should turn out to be an heir.’ And why did full-grown Minervas not spring from our sperm-force-laden scalp? he asked in 1858, making Owen look ridiculous. Huxley played to his audience’s greater familiarity with vertebrate and vertebrate reproduction, shaping their expectations about what was possible and impossible in the far more diverse world of invertebrates. Huxley began his speaking career by complaining about those ‘only aware of vertebrates’ and their reproductive patterns – but only six years later, he was himself using the same tactic. And he was disingenuous when he grumbled that Owen’s metagenesis was supported by too few examples – only

146

Styles of Reasoning in the British Life Sciences

Hydra and aphids. For Huxley’s own private notes from On Parthenogenesis show how he copied out other plants and animals cited by Owen as examples of parthenogenesis.59 Huxley’s public condemnations were further contradicted by his own private writings. His most famous critique of spermatic force, in 1858, was that Owen was relying on Molièrian ‘verbal entities’. Spermatic force was merely a rhetorical flourish like dormative virtues, a needless confusion with no scientific value. Yet in that same year Huxley himself considered invisible entities, privately musing to J. D. Hooker about an unseen ‘plane of differentiation’ from which cells transformed into specialized tissue. Huxley also proposed an entity for which he had no evidence, but which made sense given his observations and interest in differentiation. But then how was the plane of differentiation any different from Owen’s spermatic force? Huxley’s demolition work was grounded in deliberate misinterpretation. Attacking an opponent’s overly metaphysical position is a tactic at least as old as Galileo’s critique of the Aristotelians. It does not merely signify disagreement – it is also a moralizing rhetorical gambit, a way of asserting the incompetence of one’s opponent.60 Huxley deliberately polarized the dispute. What did Owen make of Huxley’s condemnation? As the leading British biologist of the 1850s, Owen rarely answered these criticisms of parthenogenesis and metagenesis, believing that any response to these charges was beneath him. But his silence does not mean he did not care. Privately he paid attention. As if to remind himself of the young fanatic at the door he even cut out a passage from one criticism and pasted it on the inside cover of his annotated copy of On Parthenogenesis. It read: ALTERNATION OF GENERATIONS. – You are wrong. The idea involved in the term unhappily is still expressed in our ‘text-books’. The researches of Huxley, Quatrefages, and a host of others showed that the sum of all the phases of an ovum is one animal.

Underneath this passage, Owen scribbled to himself: ‘So that one animal may consist of many individuals, or “many individuals in one individual”’.61 Owen simply did not recognize Huxley’s new definition of biological individuality, and never used the term ‘zoöid’ either in private or in public. When Owen did defend himself, he did so quietly. One place was in the footnotes of an 1857 translation of von Siebold’s book on parthenogenesis. Noting that von Siebold’s topic – reproduction by virgin females – seemed quite close to Owen’s work on metagenesis, the translator W. S. Dallas thoughtfully submitted his proof sheets to Owen. Owen ‘enriched them with some valuable notes’ and in turn related von Siebold’s text to the work of Hunter.62 He even found points of agreement between that German’s work, his own and Hunter’s:

Alternative Explanations and New Generations

147

Huxleyian subversives and Owenian conservatives could both pluck supporting material from von Siebold. While Huxley used its developmentalist orientation as an ideal of what good British research should become, Owen linked von Siebold’s work to a long and mostly British tradition. Von Siebold wondered what Owen meant by describing the reproduction of asexual larval creatures – such a term should only be applied to females with ‘true’ ova. Perhaps Owen had mistakenly applied the term to the emergence of new individuals either from fertilized ova or through germ-cell division. In an enormous footnote, Owen complained that he had been misunderstood. He had distinguished between the production of sexual and asexual organisms, but his focus was different. Owen was interested in tissue complexity, not the origins of new creatures. And his whole point had been that nucleated yolk-cells growing into an organism were histologically the same, whether they originated from a sexually-fertilized ovum or from the ‘spontaneous fission’ of an asexual germ.63 Owen’s private notes also show his differences with Huxley’s palaetiologists and his continuing fascination with the problematic of compound individuality. Metagenesis64 applied to either sex, which minimized the importance of whether one’s reproductive germs were ‘true’ ova or not. He also cited the same exemplar animals that he had in the 1840s – tapeworms, annelids and salps reproduced metagenetically, alternating between single and multiple individuals. Owen even extended metagenesis to the same exemplar animals that Huxley had cited in support of his new definition of individuality. He sought to re-establish their compoundness. The closed end ‘of the association/colony’ of Pyrosoma (a pelagic marine invertebrate related to salps and sea squirts) was actually formed by four primitive individuals. And ‘agamous’ salps were equivalent to sexual ones65 – both salp-forms had reproductive masses out of which new organisms emerged. Owen was more interested in the animal shapes that emerged from reproduction, but as private scribblings, Owen’s clarifications could do little to convince other researchers. Meanwhile others had passed on, such as the industrious Newport, whose discovery that the sperm actually penetrated the eggs seems to have been part of some larger project on spermatic force. He was strongly supported by Owen, but he died from a fever caught while capturing frogs in a London marsh.66 Huxley’s May 1858 Royal Institution barbs about Athena-like aphids seems to have been the end of his public criticisms of metagenesis, as he began to pick new fights with Owen over the existence of the hippocampus minor in nonhuman brains – the conclusion studies this in more detail. Owen was not quite done with metagenesis, however. He responded to his tormenter in the late summer of that year, using his Presidential Address to the British Association to attack the growing hegemony of embryology while also defending metagenesis. Owen declared that embryology alone should not be a decisive test of homol-

148

Styles of Reasoning in the British Life Sciences

ogy – though it could be used to properly classify certain invertebrates due to their larvae (such as barnacles), he thought it over-valued and even noted cases where a myopic focus on embryology alone would lead to incorrect conclusions. Owen also defended metagenesis, summarizing his position for the audience: metamorphosis occurred when an individual animal changed form; metagenesis occurred when a sequence of individuals changed form. Both were closed cycles of morphological change.67 But Owen had taken little account of the previous decade’s research. When he did note it, he used it to emphasize the resemblance of regeneration and reproduction. He saw in Lubbock’s Daphnia researches the point that there was no histological distinction between buds and eggs, placing Lubbock’s work in a long and distinguished line running from Trembley and Bonnet to Hunter and himself. Owen continued to ignore the new resemblance fashioned by Carpenter – that plants resembled polyps because of their sexual and asexual modes of reproduction. Instead, he once again focused on the older resemblance of independent plant parts and body parts, relating his work to Hunter (whose papers he would publish three years later in 1861). Hunter’s ‘first principle’ was that every part of a plant was a potential whole and Hunter also applied this compound individuality to simpler animals such as hydroids and parasitic entozoa.68 By delving into these technical disputes this chapter largely agrees with Churchill’s history. By 1858, although many researchers were aware of diverse modes of reproduction, in which the sexual fertilization of eggs of separate biological individuals made up only a small part, many elite British researchers still insisted on the primacy of sexual reproduction. They ignored a broad range of alternative reproductive models. Their emphasis on sex affected definitions of biological individuality and the names that one called various localized reproductive masses.69 It was mainly a new generation of elite British researchers that emphasized the primacy of sexual reproduction; older ones were less concerned with the matter. It was an established fact for all of these researchers, whether analyst:synthesist or palaetiologist, that reproductive masses were histologically identical. What counted was what different groups then did with this fact. Owen saw the static identity of all reproductive masses to mean that all such masses could form new individuals, although these reproductive masses were often used to regenerate extant individuals. It was the structural resemblance of the reproductive masses that mattered and so reproduction was deemed equivalent to regeneration. Huxley and others did not care that reproductive masses structurally resembled each other. They sought differences in new, temporal ways, which highlighted certain activities like sex and redefined individuality. The shifting conventional uses of new terms, shaped by the new habit of palaetiology, channelled research into new areas.

Alternative Explanations and New Generations

149

Professionalization as Exclusion Owen’s views on metagenesis were not decisively refuted in the 1850s. Instead young researchers moved onto different topics they found more interesting, and interest in the topic waned. Nonetheless Huxley never forgot about spermatic force, later privately comparing Owen’s On Parthenogenesis to August Weismann’s continuity of the germ-plasm.70 Owen himself seems to have dropped the subject and cultivated few successors. Yet Huxley and his group worked hard to produce descendants. One way to win over new life researchers was to keep producing new words. Zoöid (1852) was the first successful case of Huxley’s strategy. The word redefined zoological individuality. He then attacked the colonial implications of the cell-theory by denying that cells were themselves independent organisms: plants were composed only of a periplast (1853) that grew and developed, and endoplasts (1853), fixed bodies containing nitrogen. These two words emphasized function and development over structure.71 Pseudova (1858), already noted, defined reproductive germs through the presence or absence of sexual fertilization. Polypite (1859) denoted a zoophyte-part that others had seen as an individual, like part of a polyp-colony; Huxley used that word to denote what he defined as a stomach.72 These words allowed palaetiologists to refer to troublesome, seemingly independent parts without granting them undue independence. The salps that Carpenter in 1839 had called ‘an association of a number of single and independent beings to form a compound animal’ could now be seen as a collection of ‘zoöids’ emerging out of ‘pseudova’. Just as he had invented his most famous word, agnosticism – thereby controlling any ensuing debate by defining not only his own position but also his enemies’ – Huxley sought to close off the very possibility of referring to plants and animals as compound. Perhaps this process was a sort of ‘dynamic nominalism’, for as new descriptions for these organisms appeared, new possible interactions with them appeared as well. But coining new words also meant that certain possible interactions were closed off too. To borrow Jardine’s language, Huxley’s invention of new words helped to make the problematic of compound individuality an ‘unreal’ one that no longer troubled ambitious young scientists.73 The problem instead lived on mainly in philosophical speculation. Huxley usually succeeded in having his new terms taken up by colleagues. Allman’s quick adoption of ‘zoöid’ is one example; Lubbock’s use of ‘pseudova’ is another. Even more importantly, these and other associates continued to use Huxley’s words into the 1860s and beyond.74 But the chief way of enforcing the uptake and proper use of his terminology was to develop links with educational institutions. Students would have no choice but to use such terms if they

150

Styles of Reasoning in the British Life Sciences

were to be given credentials that marked them as competent. By 1856 Huxley, along with Joseph Hooker and Busk, was part of a group that self-consciously set out to change life research by changing examinations and textbooks. They were examiners at the University of London, probably helped out by its registrar Carpenter. Carpenter had been a University examiner in physiology and comparative anatomy since 1847; now Huxley examined on the same topic too. Hooker, Huxley and Busk were all examiners for the Army, Navy, Indian Army and Apothecaries Company and by 1860 all four men were examiners for the University of London’s new BSc degree.75 Just as Grant had ensured that his students learned their lessons properly, so too did these men now ensure that their students (or others’) learned life science to their satisfaction. By 1860 new biologists started to use Huxley’s terms, while the word ‘compound’ seems to have disappeared from their vocabulary. Hence E. Ray Lankester, one of Huxley’s students, explicitly introduced Huxleyian terminology into his first major article. Then a new generation of biologists were compelled to use these terms: by 1877 we can see Oxford students copying out from their teacher, Lankester, that the sea squirt Botryllus, depicted below, was no longer a group of individuals forming a colony. They were instead a collection of ascidiozooids (coined by Huxley in 1877) united into an ascidarium (also Huxley in 1877).76 This means that what differentiated ‘professionals’ from ‘amateurs’ was not simply the possession of a certificate or other credentials; the proper use of terminology was also a way to enforce a distinction between the two groups. David Allen observes that, by the last quarter of the century, various biological disciplines became increasingly jargon-heavy, its practitioners speaking private and dense codes to separate themselves from newly-created and newly-demoralized outsiders. Outsiders needed translators, a process favouring popularizers.77 New words helped to differentiate elite insider biologists from what became under-labourer natural historians as much as any move to a South Kensington laboratory. These strategies were not only attempts to maintain cultural authority. They were also moves to ensure that the careers of elite biologists were protected from a fluctuating labour market, maintaining the stability of their professional expectations. Huxley defended his nascent world of scientific specialists who relied on institutional credentials out of an opposition to the aristocratic and clerical patronage of men of science. But what about alternatives to credentialed scientific specialists? Huxley was afraid of one such alternative: the deliberately anti-specialist works of science such as Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation. In 1844 this anonymously-published work proposed a developmentalist account of a world governed only by natural laws. It became massively popular. But despite the author’s care to use up-to-date facts from different fields, scientific

Alternative Explanations and New Generations

151

specialists found faults with it in their particular areas of expertise. Central to Huxley’s review was his concern that the public might confuse Vestiges’s ‘foolish fancies’ with science. His vicious review of this work can be seen as an example of a larger antipathy to what can be called populist life research. Other scholars have dealt extensively with Huxley and other specialists’ treatment of Vestiges,78 and so the matter will not be discussed here. A different example of this alternative model will be examined: Lewes’s foray into biology and the neurosciences in the 1850s and 1860s. The case is less well known than the Vestiges affair, but it is more relevant to the discussion of scientific credentials and the proper use of conventional biological terms. For Lewes’s work exemplified populist life research, a form of science practised in a widespread way, and something explicitly set against specialized experts. Lewes is best known as a playwright, editor, journalist and partner of author Mary Ann Evans (George Eliot). But he also moved into technical issues in the life sciences, beginning with his 1853 Comte’s Philosophy of the Sciences. The book claimed to have updated Comte’s work with the latest scientific findings. Huxley condemned it in a piece for the Westminster Review: Lewes had made mistakes ‘not excusable even on the plea of mere book-knowledge’. The criticism has been seen to imply that hands-on experience was required for anyone professing to speak for science.79 While this was certainly the case, Huxley was also

Figure 6.3. Colonial Botryllus sea squirts, in T. H. Huxley, Papers of T. H. Huxley, College Archives, Imperial College London, Rattlesnake Notebook, 50.59.

152

Styles of Reasoning in the British Life Sciences

irritated on technical grounds: Lewes’s updated facts were incompatible with the von Baerian embryology Huxley was championing at the time. He singled out Lewes’s embryology as particularly odious. Probably assisted by Owen – who was helping him write a book about Goethe’s science – Lewes claimed that embryos developed through a ‘series of metamorphoses’ in a process of fusion and coalescence. Huxley responded that von Baerian embryology proved him incorrect – the entire ‘rudiment’ of the cerebrum appeared first, then differentiated.80 In his opinion a dearth of hands-on experience and an ignorance of new scientific facts were intertwined. Huxley’s critiques of Vestiges and Comte’s Philosophy of the Sciences were police actions. They helped to strengthen what Paul White has seen as an emerging boundary between original scientific research published in money-losing specialist journals and profitable generalist periodicals popularizing broad scientific principles. Such a boundary made possible the very notion of a ‘diffusion’ of scientific findings from specialists to a broad audience. But his critiques were still far away from the work of the 1860s and 1870s, when he and other scientific naturalists would write works of popular science to explicitly correct the public record.81 In the 1850s Huxley’s severe criticisms were rooted in his frustrated career ambitions. He had suffered for his career, undergoing years of training and forgoing other opportunities. So why should he allow mere book learners to reap the benefits of work that he and others had carried out? Huxley had clear economic reasons for his frustration. Works by the Vestigarian and Lewes threatened to transform science into an oversupplied item. If Huxley was to turn his training and research into a career that yielded a steady and predictable income, he had to turn the right to discuss science into a scarce resource. The more comprehensively that he and others controlled the right to speak authoritatively about science, the more remuneration that would presumably follow.82 Therefore the professionalization of life researchers into biologists was not to be carried out simply by more education, credentials, laboratories and professional associations. There was also a negative element: biology had to be monopolized by excluding potential competitors or even kicking out existing members. To use Weberian terminology, Huxley sought to turn biologists into a status group.83 After all, Huxley had seen other groups’ attempts to establish jurisdiction over certain fields. His surgeon’s training must have made him aware of that profession’s long history of various territorial disputes with physicians, apothecaries and barbers in their attempt to enhance surgery’s reputation. Indeed Huxley emphasized the matter of jurisdiction in his writings. In one Westminster article he denied the ability of ‘an ignorant jury under the guidance of legal prejudices’ to determine whether a defendant was insane – rather than offer a new legal test of insanity, it was better to have it tested by ‘a tribunal of medical men’. A court

Alternative Explanations and New Generations

153

of doctors was not competent to get involved in subtle judicial questions – and nor could lawyers be competent to judge questions of psychological medicine.84 Huxley was not only defending the unique character and utility of medical knowledge; he was also implying that a decision would be just and correct only if a certain group of specialists was consulted. In 1857 Huxley similarly commented on George Allarton’s Mysteries of Medical Life, a gossipy medical tell-all. Noting that ‘it is an ill bird that befouls its own nest’, he accused Allarton of holding up the medical profession to the contempt of the public instead of properly displaying its ‘nobler aspect’. He asked why Allarton revealed the sordid details of the profession. After all, he was not an embittered unlicensed practitioner, but a member of the College of Surgeons who had sworn to uphold the ‘dignity of the profession’. It was because Allarton was really a failure as a surgeon: ‘We can only suppose that its author, not having succeeded in practice according to his own estimate of his merits, has sought to saddle his failure on the unfair proceedings of others, instead of honestly examining how far the fault may lie in himself ’.85 Once again Huxley contradicted his earlier private writings, making his conclusion about Allarton’s incompetence only after he himself had attained a steady scientific post at the School of Mines. Huxley’s placid view of 1857 can be contrasted against how his gorge rose only five years before: the outsider having to go to the 1852 British Association meeting where obvious scientific inferiors corruptly held paid positions. The practices and ideals of groups to which Huxley did not belong he deemed dishonest and incompetent. But once he became a member, he ascribed competence retrospectively. Good work came only from those who belonged to the same groups as he did – then their practices became unremarkable. As an insider, Huxley did not apply his insights and criticisms to himself. Huxley’s exclusionary goals show his reviews of the 1850s to be both addressing and shaping four different audiences for biology. Whether a moralizing sermon or a polemic, they were intended to shape ideals of how members of these different groups ought to conduct themselves. These were natural historians, other elite researchers, orthodox popularizers and heterodox ‘populist’ life researchers. First, natural historians: Huxley sought to delegate routine work to groups – like naturalists and natural historians – who would thereby be subordinated to ‘elite’ researchers. Routine work was not only notoriously repetitive, but it required less need for inference and training. Huxley disdained collecting and describing species as mere detail work and so believed that such tasks should be delegated.86 By setting aside such errands to those who were now seen as less skilled, time could be freed up for original life research. This process was only truly fulfilled with Huxley’s training of laboratory-based biologists in the 1870s.

154

Styles of Reasoning in the British Life Sciences

The second group was composed of other elite researchers: Huxley not only praised those workers he admired, but also criticized those whose work he disliked. Exemplars could also be negative. Thus at one point Huxley told his students that for all of Ehrenberg’s imagination and industry, the microscopical investigations and his discovery of the ‘polygastric’ infusoria exemplified what scientists should not do. In another anonymous review Huxley singled out the ‘contemptible ignorance’ of Cambridge University’s Clark: in his mollusc work, Clark had answered questions already solved by other researchers, yet still claimed his originality.87 Elite researchers ought to be performing highly disciplined and yet original work by keeping abreast of others’ contributions. The third group was the popularizers: Huxley saw these people as useful because they persuaded the public that elite life researchers were performing valuable services that should be rewarded. Works such as Charles Kingsley’s Glaucus created sympathy for men of science and was ‘without the least pretension to scientific lore’.88 By condescending to Kingsley, Huxley was publicly asserting his own group’s authority to judge such works as competent or incompetent. Elite researchers could subordinate the mere popularizer by making a loaded compliment that the popularizer could not return. Fourth was the populist life researcher, who offered the most danger to Huxley’s position as scientific specialist. Lewes was one such populist. He saw himself as part of an alternative model of knowledge’s organization, one explicitly opposed to specialization and professionalization. With his lover George Eliot, Lewes saw the entire point of the Westminster Review articles as being syntheses of various specialist fields and pronouncements on their cultural importance. Lewes’s introduction to the work of Comte was an attempt to carry this vision outside the Westminster: Comte was a person who genuinely sought to merge philosophy with science and Lewes believed he was honouring a fellow-traveller’s vision. Eliot was thus horrified by Huxley’s Westminster critique of Lewes because it was an attack from a specialist’s perch. Huxley was not participating in the generalist Westminster vision and was merely content to score points by attacking Lewes’s slightly outdated reading of embryology. Eliot saw Huxley’s complaint about mere ‘book learning’ correctly: as part of a larger attempt to close off scientific fields to untrained outsiders. She thought specialist attacks like Huxley’s would taint the entire Westminster enterprise and thus tried but failed to suppress his review.89 In fact Lewes responded to Huxley’s challenge that only original inductive work could be counted as truly ‘scientific’. He trained himself to observe with a friend’s microscope, then studied dissection. He then even learned the extremely difficult task of vivisection. Between May and August of 1856 Lewes conducted what he thought to be original research at Ilfracombe and Tenby on marine animals. He paid special attention to marine invertebrates. But his first articles on

Alternative Explanations and New Generations

155

the subject did not appear in the Annals and Magazine of Natural History or other specialist and non-paying journals, but in the more widely read and high-paying Blackwood’s Magazine. Eventually he collected these articles into his 1858 book Sea-Side Studies, which did well – the first edition sold 1,250 copies, prompting a second edition. On receiving congratulatory letters from Owen, Carpenter, the physiologist Sharpey and even from Huxley, Lewes thought himself to be a member of the scientific community, no longer a mere ‘literary alien’.90 Yet Huxley’s congratulatory letter hid some of his anger. He had anonymously criticized Lewes’s work by doubting the originality of Lewes’s discoveries. Huxley anonymously reviewed a new Manual of Sea Anemones that capitalized on the recent taste for marine aquaria. Huxley thought that its author, Lewes’s friend Reverend George Tugwell, should not have ventured ‘into the domain of science at all’. For Tugwell had committed the ‘ridiculous blunder of attributing to Mr. G. H. K. Lewes … the discovery of the real ovaries’ of sea anemones. Huxley pointed out that it had not been Lewes who discovered this – the ovaries had long been known to researchers – although he did not mention who had actually been the discoverer. Lewes comforted Tugwell about the review, actually mistaking the reviewer’s identity: ‘Carpenter is savage with you in the West. Rev. because you praise me whom he hates for having exposed his blunders, poor noodle. You see how small these small men are!’91 Lewes may have mistaken Huxley for Carpenter because he had taken up Huxley’s challenge and performed his own observations, which he presumed gave him some claim to be a legitimate man of science. Huxley was also concerned with Lewes’s advocacy of compound individuality. In the late 1850s Lewes argued for compound individuality particularly forcefully, at a time when Huxley was trying to erase the notion from the public memory. Privately, Lewes noted his disagreement ‘as regards the “individual”’ to Huxley. But it was Lewes’s Blackwood’s Magazine articles that artfully brought compound individuality to a general audience. In one investigation echoing Bonnet’s, Lewes cut some Naids in two and threw their heads away, only to watch them be reproduced. Lewes saw the process in other worms too and noted that it was as though a head were suddenly to be developed out of your lumbar vertebrae, yet still remain attached to the column, and thus produce a double-headed monster, more fantastic than fable.

Sometimes Lewes saw the continuous budding of new heads, creating up to six worms forming a continuous line with only one tail. Eventually some would separate. With such a display, how could one differentiate between part, individual and group? He even interpreted Huxley’s work on aphid pseudova to mean that growth and generation were identical.92

156

Styles of Reasoning in the British Life Sciences

Lewes was even more dangerous because of his link with Owen. In addition to helping Lewes on Goethe’s science, Owen gave Lewes legitimacy as a man of science. In September 1858 Owen invited Lewes to submit his paper ‘On the Spinal Chord as a Sensational and Volitional Centre’ for that year’s British Association Meeting. Lewes agreed, but was sick and unable to attend the meeting, so Owen, President for that year, actually read Lewes’s paper in his place. Ideology does not seem to have mattered: at the 1859 British Association meeting, Owen the Conservative read yet another paper written by Lewes, the notorious adulterous freethinking liberal.93 The careful plans of Huxley and his group to ensure well-trained successors through their control of education and examinations were then further threatened. For Lewes published his British Association papers in a larger Physiology of Common Life (1859). Explicitly a hybrid work, Lewes declared Physiology to be a textbook for medical students, a work of popular science and review of his own investigations on animals ranging from molluscs, crabs and spiders to cats, pigs and humans. The emerging demarcation between writer of popular science and elite researcher was openly defied by the populist Physiology. Lewes insisted that, unlike other popular writers who felt ‘bound to act as ‘middle-men’ between scientific authorities and the public, and to expound facts and doctrines as they found them’, he would investigate all of the professors’ points himself, openly stating where he found them correct or incorrect.94 Lewes’s discussion of Naid reproduction actively wrestled with Owen’s metagenesis – though disagreeing with Owen in several places, Lewes supported Owen’s larger effort to discover links between reproduction and regeneration. He kept the discussion of Owen’s metagenetic programme alive. The Physiology also wandered into the neurosciences and straight into the problem of compound individuality. Taking up previous German efforts to oppose the reflex arc with the proposal of a ‘spinal soul’ diffused throughout the body,95 Lewes concluded that the brain was not the ‘exclusive centre’ of mind or soul. Instead, mind and soul were dispersed throughout the nervous system. It was incorrect to insist on a unitary sensorium commune because the ganglia inside the brain were histologically identical to those outside it. Each ganglion outside the brain – made of the same kind of tissue as a ganglion inside the brain – had to exhibit similar functions. The ascription of similar functions to similar tissues he declared a matter of ‘simple logic’. Since each ganglion was a nerve centre, degrees of volition could take place both inside and outside the brain. Lewes saw the nervous system in an analytic:synthetic way, believing that the properties of the whole could be understood with knowledge only of each part. For him, to reason logically was to reason analytically:synthetically. Lewes specifically criticized the work of Carpenter and other contemporary neuroscientists. Carpenter, extending reflex action to the workings of the brain,

Alternative Explanations and New Generations

157

had called such activity ‘unconscious’ in order to preserve the unity of consciousness and the unique nature of ‘sensibility’. He held that, although the rest of the body’s ganglia were made of the same kind of tissue as the brain’s ganglia, sensibility could be found only in the brain. For Lewes, however, Carpenter’s distinction did not follow. He thought that perhaps it was a terminological problem and corrected Carpenter. He declared that all ganglia, regardless of their location, possessed ‘sensibility’. And if all ganglia possessed the similar function of sensibility then this implied no sole seat of sensation or consciousness.96 Most controversially, Lewes’s point meant that brainless or decapitated animals possessed some measure of sensation and volition. Lewes vivisected newts to establish the sensibility of each body part. He divided their spinal cord halfway down their backs. But he did not explain the resulting independent but uncoordinated activity in the lower half of the newt by calling it ‘reflex’: instead Lewes argued that some sensibility and consciousness remained there. Because the brain, like the spinal cord, was compounded out of ganglia, ‘it is one, only in the sense that a government or army is one: it is the union of several individual centres’. To better describe the relationship of part to whole, Lewes reverted to political and social imagery. ‘There is no longer one seat of government, but two seats. There has been a “repeal of the union.” Parliament sits in Dublin, as well as in Westminster.’ A more hostile image depicted ganglia as soldiers: one under ‘Cromwell’ did not obey those of ‘Rupert’, or vice versa.97 Did Lewes’s beliefs about order and control in the nervous system follow his views about order and control in society? There are some hints: Lewes drew ethical principles from the compoundness of all animals. ‘We cannot isolate ourselves if we would. The thoughts of others, the sympathies of others, the needs of others, – these too make up our life; without these we should quickly perish.’ What about his views on the organization of science? Lewes’s populist views on who could practise science seem to have imitated his principle of the presence of sensibility in all ganglia. ‘Sensibility’ was not a special property of only some parts of the body politic – it was not a qualitative distinction. Just as each element of the nervous system possessed some measure of volition, so too should everyone investigate nature. Man as interpreter of nature should be careful … lest he suffer this ministry to sink into a priesthood, and let this interpretation to degenerate into an immovable dogma. The suggestions of apathy, and the prejudices of ignorance, have at all times inspired the wish to close the temple against new comers. Let us be vigilant against such suggestions, and keep the door of the temple ever open.98

Lewes seems to have been an analyst like Owen, albeit a more radical one. He believed in spontaneous order and did not insert some form of hierarchy to maintain agreement. As a radical analyst he does not seem to have worried about

158

Styles of Reasoning in the British Life Sciences

how organizations, either living or social, maintained their continuity and their harmony. Lewes’s case would be trivial were it not for the fact that his Physiology was quite successful for a textbook. By March 1859 he had sold more than 6,000 copies, with demand steady. It was bought by many Edinburgh medical students, signifying a growing role in the training of the next generation of biologists.99 Elite life researchers therefore began to view him and the Physiology with alarm, shown by an astonishing 1860 review in the British and Foreign Medico-Chirurgical Review. Although it is unclear who wrote the review,100 it began with Huxley’s earlier complaint about Lewes’s work on Comte – that Lewes lacked the ‘practical familiarity with the sciences from which he professed to draw his illustrations’. The tone of the review was one of concern for disregarded conventions; it wanted to protect students who would otherwise be hoodwinked by Lewes’s dangerous book. Lewes’s attempts to study nature for himself seemed honest, but could ‘a man of mature years, whose previous pursuits have been of a very different character, and who has adopted certain styles of thought and a certain method of philosophizing which have tended to foster an overweening confidence in his own sagacity’ be qualified to comment on physiology? He lacked the necessary training. A more modest man would not have so quickly questioned the field’s conventions. Lewes violated scientific norms – instead of caution and profundity he was too clever, immodest, dogmatic and rhetorically unscrupulous.101 The reviewer slipped into the qualitative distinction between consciousness as a sole possession of the cerebrum, and all nervous activity other than consciousness. Lewes had concluded that there were two disconnected centres of mind in a paralysed person, with the lower half actually possessing a second ego. A ‘… distinct personality is established, having, it is true, a very limited capacity, but possessing at least as much as a Mollusk’. Lewes’s views thus reinterpreted, the reviewer easily dismissed them as a paradox – a confusion resulting from Lewes’s idiosyncratic use of words like ‘sensibility’ and ‘consciousness’. It was caused out of disrespect for existing physiological conventions. Others would not carry on a conversation with someone who used terms in any way he chose – and so, the reviewer concluded, should the same treatment be given to Lewes. Established physiologists ought to ignore him for he was no danger to them. What instead worried the reviewer was the possible effect that the Physiology might have on students. He loathed Lewes’s attempt to merge textbook, popular science work and original research. Combined with his previous literary reputation and views on compound individuality this fusion of different genres made Lewes a ‘most dangerous guide to the Student, who is apt to attach more value to the cleverness and brilliancy of a superficial dogmatist’.102

Alternative Explanations and New Generations

159

Lewes’s work was a continuation of the Westminster Review model of Victorian knowledge, a wide-ranging synthesis in which the most important aspects of scientific research were judged by a well-informed, though unspecialized, reviewer. Lewes supplemented his book learning by following the inductive path prescribed by Huxley’s earlier mockery. He assumed that through patient observation and description, combined with theoretical insight, he too would be seen as a competent life researcher: distinguished by what he did rather than by who he was. But by not deferring to the emerging linguistic conventions of the group he depicted as a ‘priesthood’, Lewes was not recognized by them and was thus unable to shape the training of future researchers. With no sympathetic professors or examiners, his attempt at redefinition failed. A decade later he would complain that his views on the histological identity of nerve centres – with the connotation that they were all potentially independent – had not been accepted.103 Lewes’s larger project seems to have been a revival of analysis: synthesis in the life sciences for the 1860s – combined with an attempt to bypass emerging priesthoods such as Huxley’s – but he did not succeed.

CONCLUSION

By 1858, one year before the publication of Darwin’s Origin of Species, the world of British life research had already considerably changed from that of the early 1840s. A young London life researcher in the 1840s was taught to some extent to see an organism as an aggregate of elements – bones, nervous ganglia, segments or physiological compartments. Higher organisms’ elements were more integrated than lower organisms’ elements. In turn we can see nine explanatory principles emerging from these points and reinforcing each other. 1. vivisection. Certain living organisms survived bilateral sectioning while others died immediately, because those organisms surviving such work were aggregations of simpler quasi-independent elements that did not require each other to survive. Each element thus acted as a separate compartment. A lower organism’s survivability could even be explained by seeing it as an aggregate of quasi-individuals. 2. homologizing. Homologies between different individuals (general homology) allowed researchers like Owen to imaginatively liken them to homologies within individuals (serial homology). Analysis:synthesis gave the ability for a person to jump levels of organization in this way, because it was possible to depict the relationship of part to whole: whether an entity was a part or a whole depended only on one’s perspective. 3. the physiological division of labour. Point 1 noted that animals able to survive extensive vivisection were simpler creatures with less specialized systems which repeated in each element. Conversely those animals dying quickly during vivisection were more complex, with more specialized and often localized physiological systems that could produce more life. Although they were more vulnerable, this specialization meant that these animals could produce more life energy. 4. a hierarchy of general physiological systems. These higher animals also possessed several levels of physiological systems. Their vivisection revealed that some of their physiological systems depended on others, making these supporting systems ‘foundational’ ones. While the removal or destruction of certain body parts (such as the medulla oblongata) immediately caused the death of the entire

– 161 –

162

Styles of Reasoning in the British Life Sciences

animal, the removal or destruction of other parts caused only certain functions to be lost. Aristotle’s point was thus reaffirmed: there existed a hierarchy of different lives in a single organism. On a related point, natural death could be seen as the ordered loss of physiological systems from highest to most foundational. 5. a hierarchy of neurophysiological systems and neuroanatomical structures. Following the above point more specifically, higher organisms had within them the processes and structures sufficient for lower ones to survive – ganglia and reflexes. Their body parts could therefore be deemed equivalent to complete lower organisms – say, a human intestine and an annelid depicted as being on the same stage of development. This reinforced point 9 below, that the development of the individual was parallel to the place of its species on the animal scale. Points 1, 3, 4 and 5 in turn supported, and were supported by, the following points. 6. embryological development as synthesis. Embryos developed centripetally, with quasi-independent elements coalescing into concentrated systems. These mature systems were referred to as ‘perfect’. The process resembled insect metamorphosis, where dispersed nervous centres fused into more concentrated and integrated ones, resulting in more complicated nervous structures and thus functions (for instance, volition compounded out of reflexes). 7. teratology. Monsters were those organisms that had not developed properly, possessing either too many repeating parts or too few. Either there were too many individuals in one body (even forming conjoined individuals) or too few. This explained the term ‘arrested development’ – such monsters of higher animals could be likened to lower compound animals like Botryllus sea squirts and other colonial organisms. 8. nervous system as taxonomic index. Supporting and being supported by point 5 was the belief that the nervous system allowed the researcher to differentiate higher from lower animals regardless of embranchement. This was because, as a communication network between different body parts, the nervous system was qualitatively different from other physiological systems. More nervous centres meant higher amounts of nervous activity, even volition, because nerve centres mediated reflexes. More nervous centres even meant volition, only found in the highest animals, because volition was compounded out of many reflexes, presupposing the existence of many nerve centres. An octopus, for instance, sat at the top of the mollusc embranchement because of the greater concentration of its nervous centres. This compounding of ganglia was a process of the embryo’s development, which reinforced the next point. 9. recapitulation or parallelism. ‘Recapitulation’ here refers not to the repetition of entire animal forms during development, but to the tendency of individual body parts to coalesce and concentrate during development. This emphasized points 3, 6 and 8: one version of recapitulation was cephalization, a

Conclusion

163

developmental tendency (albeit realized in only some animals) to form a ‘head’ in which nervous centres were concentrated. Cephalization was a version of recapitulation because the process occurred both during an embryo’s development or as one ‘ascended’ the scale of being, surveying simple to complex species from polyp to human. This in turn highlighted point 5: those at the top of the scale had an increased sense of selfhood and volition because of the concentration of their nervous matter. That this developmental process and taxonomy was anthropocentric – humans had the highest proportion of nervous material of all animals and hence the greatest amount of volition – made the system all the more appealing. By 1858, however, this system had started to unravel as some of the above points came in for criticism. The most famous example of this criticism occurred when in 1858 Owen continued his earlier efforts to classify by nervous structure: he now extended this scheme to mammals. The lowest mammals he called Lyencephala, ‘loose brained’ because of the ‘disconnected state’ of their cerebral hemispheres. Next was the Lissencephala, ‘smooth brained’ because, although their hemispheres were more connected, there were few convolutions. Then came Gyrencephala – ‘winding brained’ (to denote their increased convolutions); and finally Archencephala – ‘(over)ruling brain’, in which their cerebral hemispheres covered the olfactory lobes and cerebellum. Owen explicitly cited his 1842 Hunterian Lectures on the comparative anatomy of the nervous system to support his new project. His reclassification of mammals followed his earlier cephalization-groupings like Homogangliata and Heterogangliata. It was governed by the belief that higher mammals had more concentrated brains and that embryos formed through synthesis. In 1861 Huxley attacked Owen, not for his underlying belief in cephalization, but for only two sentences in a thirty-seven page paper. In those two sentences, Owen offhandedly remarked that humans had a special posterior lobe called the ‘hippocampus minor’.1 Huxley proclaimed that such a lobe also existed in other animals and so there was no dividing line between humans and animals. He argued that the entire rationale of Owen’s taxonomy was to distinguish human brains from other mammalian brains – and thus humans from (other) animals – by their sole possession of the hippocampus minor. Huxley misinterpreted Owen’s point as an attempt to deny the link between humans and animals and thus Darwin’s larger evolutionary project. But the Origin of Species appeared a year after Owen’s reclassification, meaning that Owen’s taxonomy was pressed unwittingly into a project that he could not have intended in 1858: the denial of Darwinism. Owen was therefore forcibly turned into an enemy of the new community of Huxley’s group of life researchers, now called Darwinists, giving Huxley new reason to besmirch his old enemy. But he could reinvigorate opposition to Owen only by ignoring Owen’s underlying belief

164

Styles of Reasoning in the British Life Sciences

in cephalization, and with it the utility of the nervous system for taxonomy. Once again an argument could only be brought about through misinterpretation. By 1894 William Henry Flower’s entry on Owen for the Dictionary of National Biography passed over Owen’s neuroanatomical taxonomy in embarrassed silence, noting only that it was open to criticism. Like Huxley’s post-mortem assessment of Owen’s place in biology, Flower’s evaluation was another instance of history rewritten by evolutionary victors. Flower was a Huxley ally and had publicly supported him at a British Association meeting during the hippocampus controversy – actually carrying about a monkey’s brain in his pocket for the purpose of refuting Owen’s neuroanatomical observation. Ironically Flower was appointed conservator of the Hunterian Museum in 1861 with Huxley’s assistance, and nine years later he had become its Chair of Comparative Anatomy and Physiology.2 In the meantime other points seem to simply have become less interesting as areas of research. By 1858 British biology had adopted Carpenter’s palaetiological suggestions. Huxley ensured that these views were being taken up by instilling the proper use of von Baerian embryology. As an examiner he ensured that new students were properly following its principles. Over time actions like Huxley’s created a new community of like-minded life researchers committed to a set of assumptions at odds with those of analysis:synthesis. While it is outside the scope of this book to set out palaetiology’s self-authenticating web of beliefs, origins, variation and perhaps heredity can be tentatively identified as three new problematics of the style. Exciting new research began to move to these three areas. How much the emergence of palaetiologists helped the favourable reception of Darwin’s Origin of Species is also a matter for more research. But it is clear that a new emphasis on time and origins that predated the Origin of Species was already changing the conditions of inquiry in the life sciences in London. Conversely old problematics had become either meaningless or trivial in the 1860s. Every small victory of Huxley’s palaetiologists gradually restricted the possibilities available to anyone trying to carry out analytic:synthetic life research. The problematics of collective action, spontaneous order and compound individuality seem to have become less important, becoming more of a philosophical quibble than a legitimate area for ambitious young life researchers seeking to make their mark. Thus St George Mivart, one of Owen’s few followers, was to complain in 1871 that serial homology in everything from lobsters to vertebrates had not attracted the attention that it deserved.3 To be sure there were exceptions, such as Spencer’s 1864–7 proposal of ‘levels of individuality’, but as a self-described ‘philosopher’ Spencer never really seemed to get much attention from the increasingly specializing biologists. In this respect the former Westminster Review contributor’s fate resembled that of Lewes, his generalizing friend.4

Conclusion

165

Individual Agency and Styles of Reasoning? This point about the gradual erosion of possibilities obliges us to consider the role of agency and determinism: they are two opposed poles between which this book has tried to navigate. First, agency: no individual researcher was completely free, perfectly rational or in possession of perfect information. To use Arnold Davidson’s phrase, there was no ‘epistemological transparency’ for the people discussed here.5 Second, determinism: although individual researchers belonged to different styles of reasoning they were not subordinated to them, being forced to follow them. Instead, styles of reasoning laid out an underlying configuration of possibilities within which individual commitments (research decisions, public statements, private pleas and so on) could be made. By setting out limitations in certain areas, they channelled future research into other fields or problematics. By setting out a range of possibilities, styles of reasoning formed part of a researcher’s context. Interestingly, a researcher could change his style, prompted by conflicts of interest. For several London life researchers discussed here, the switch seems to have been a complete one. Figure 1.1 shows how Carpenter and Allman shifted styles and made fruitful new discoveries by moving their research to new problematics. It is possible that Darwin also switched his style from analysis:synthesis to palaetiology, for instance as shown by his changing portrayal of the tree of life: described as the compound organisms of Kensington Gardens in 1837, then by his 1859 depiction of trees as diverging taxa.6 But the dichotomy between agency or determinism is a false one. The individuals depicted here did not heroically struggle against obstacles set in their way. They needed styles of reasoning to proceed in their researches, as categories with which to think, listen, view, grasp, manipulate, read and explain. Conversely styles of reasoning were not ‘structures’ with their own inherent powers. They were produced by individual people interacting with each other. A better approach might instead be to see styles of reasoning as an accumulation of manifold actions taken and commitments made by life researchers. Not only was each action or commitment made possible by one’s own previous actions and commitments; they were also made possible by the previous actions and commitments of other people. Such a situation has been described by Howard Becker as one of intercontingency.7 Intercontingency was at work when Allman used the word zoöid to describe asexually-budded invertebrate parts that simulated individuals. In order for Allman to have used zoöid, it was necessary for Huxley to have coined and publicized the term with the aim of redefining biological individuality along palaetiological criteria. Other researchers such as Carpenter also had to draw attention to an apparently ‘confused’ definition of biological individuality

166

Styles of Reasoning in the British Life Sciences

requiring clarification. Behind those immediately necessary conditions lay an unthinkably complex chain of events. Huxley had to win a scholarship to Charing Cross Hospital Medical School in order to qualify as a surgeon for the voyage on HMS Rattlesnake to carry out his researches. Carpenter had to be recruited to contribute to the British and Foreign Medical Review in 1836 if he was to later become its editor and publish articles challenging traditional definitions of biological individuality. And so on. Seeing styles of reasoning as intercontingent therefore shows context not to be merely a vague set of social and cultural conditions surrounding people’s technical researches. They were formed out of the concrete activities of other people. Even institutions such as museums emerged out of manifold activities and commitments. Everything that happened in Huxley’s life not only depended upon his actions and choices, but on the actions and choices of others. If one person changed a single action in his life, then so too would it change the possible future actions of other people. Both friends and bitter enemies were thus inextricably bound together in this way. This does not mean that every action and commitment was simply connected to everything else. There were degrees of contingency, as path dependence increasingly hardened and restricted one’s set of possible research directions. The river not only cut its own banks – it cut them deeper and deeper over time. Indeed these points can best be conveyed by using metaphors and images. Intercontingency might be likened to the image of the Go board used by Bruno Latour and Steve Woolgar to describe work in a laboratory. At the beginning of a game a player can put down their stone almost anywhere they want, meaning almost complete freedom of action. As the game progresses, however, more and more stones are put down and it becomes increasingly difficult to put down stones anywhere. Earlier moves gradually restrict future moves in a progressive erosion of possible choices. Some become impossible; some become less likely; and at the end of the game of Go, note Latour and Woolgar, certain moves actually become necessary.8 But Latour and Woolgar’s image holds only if one wants to continue playing the game of Go – a player can walk away from the table. They might even kick it over. So too was this the case for the life researchers depicted here. In the mid-1840s, prompted by a bad case of gout, Mayo left life research entirely for the somewhat more relaxing occupation of physician at a German spa.9 Desertions like Mayo’s seem to have been exceedingly uncommon, even rarer than stylistic shifts like Carpenter’s. Yet both of these cases show that one’s style of reasoning – or one’s politics, for that matter – did not determine one’s research. Intercontingency shows that, although constrained, individuals still had to make important commitments bounded by certain limits. Allman still had to decide whether or not to use the term ‘zoöid’. Huxley had to accept the posting on HMS Rattlesnake and then physically get on that boat. Owen

Conclusion

167

still had to articulate a satisfactory theory of teleological adaptation. Intercontingency means that, while various prior activities were necessary for certain possible actions to be taken, they were not sufficient for a particular action to be taken or commitment to be made.10 To end this book on an anti-Hegelian note, styles of reasoning could only ever be partially cunning.

NOTES

The following abbreviations are used in the notes: DNB

Huxley Papers Newport Corr. ODNB Owen Coll. Owen Corr. Todd

L. Stephen (ed.), Dictionary of National Biography (London: Smith, Elder and Co., 1885–90); L. Stephen and S. Lee (eds), Dictionary of National Biography (London: Smith, Elder and Co., 1890–1); S. Lee (ed.), Dictionary of National Biography (London: Smith, Elder and Co., 1894–1901). Papers of T. H. Huxley, College Archives, Imperial College London. Linnean Society Manuscripts No. 236: George Newport Correspondence. H. C. G. Matthew and B. Harrison (eds), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004). Richard Owen Collection, Library & Information Services, Natural History Museum (London). Richard Owen Correspondence, Library & Information Services, Natural History Museum (London). R. B. Todd (ed.), The Cyclopaedia of Anatomy and Physiology, 5 vols: vol. 1 (London: Sherwood, Gilbert and Piper, 1836); vol. 2 (London: Sherwood, Gilbert and Piper, 1839); vol. 3 (London: Sherwood, Gilbert and Piper, 1847); vol. 4 (London: Longman, Brown, Green and Longmans, 1852–6); vol. 5: supplemental (London: Longman, 1859).

Introduction 1.

2.

These points that characterize mentalities – mutually reinforcing beliefs shared by a community of ‘ordinary’ people – have been taken from P. Burke, ‘Strengths and Weaknesses in the History of Mentalities’, in P. Burke, Varieties of Cultural History (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997), pp. 162–82, on p. 162. In addition to ‘mentalities’ other historians’ terms for these categories include Hélène Metzger’s ‘mental a priori’; Ludwik Fleck’s ‘thought-styles’; Gerald Holton’s ‘themata’; Nicholas Jardine’s ‘scenes of inquiry’; and John Pickstone’s ‘ways of knowing’. Thomas Kuhn’s notion of ‘paradigms’ is also applicable, though this book is more interested in the term not as a ‘disciplinary matrix’ but as an exemplary problem used to teach new scientific recruits. The best overview of styles of reasoning is R. Iliffe, ‘“Rational Artistry”, Review of Styles of Scientific Thinking in the European Tradition by Alistair Crombie’, History of Science, 36 (1998), pp. 329–57. See also R. G. Collingwood, An Autobiography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1939), pp. 29– 30; I. Hacking, Historical Ontology (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002), pp. 181–2; J. Harwood, Styles of Scientific Thought: The German Genetics Community, 1900–1933 (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1993); G. J. Holton, Thematic Origins of Scientific Thought, 2nd edn (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988), pp. 41–2, 83–4; N. Jardine, The Scenes of Inquiry: On the Reality of Questions in the Sciences, 2nd edn (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2000), pp. 3–4. – 169 –

170 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

9. 10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

15.

Notes to pages 3–9 See for instance N. Oreskes, The Rejection of Continental Drift: Theory and Method in American Earth Science (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), p. 5. Though it should properly be ‘analyst:synthesist’, the word ‘analyst’ is used for brevity. T. H. Huxley, ‘The Connection of the Biological Sciences with Medicine’, Science, 2:63 (1881), pp. 426–9, on p. 429. Collingwood, An Autobiography, p. 55. Jardine, The Scenes of Inquiry, pp. 56–8. R. E. Grant, An Essay on the Study of the Animal Kingdom: Being an Introductory Lecture Delivered in the University of London, on the 23rd of October, 1828, 2nd edn (London: John Taylor, 1829), p. 1. S. Butler, Evolution, Old and New, 20 vols (New York: E. P. Dutton & Co, 1923), vol. 5, pp. 304–5. F. B. Churchill, ‘Sex and the Single Organism: Biological Theories of Sexuality in the Mid19th Century’, Studies in History of Biology, 3 (1979), pp. 139–77; J. Farley, Gametes and Spores: Ideas About Sexual Reproduction, 1750–1914 (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982). W. Coleman, Biology in the Nineteenth Century: Problems of Form, Function, and Transformation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977); J. T. Merz, A History of European Thought in the Nineteenth Century, 4 vols (1904–12; New York: Dover Reprints, 1965); R. J. O’Hara, ‘Mapping the Space of Time: Temporal Representation in the Historical Sciences’, in M. T. Ghiselin and G. Pinna (eds), New Perspectives on the History of Life: Essays on Systematic Biology as Historical Narrative (San Francisco, CA: Memoirs of the California Academy of Sciences, 1996). S. J. Gould, Ontogeny and Phylogeny (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1977); E. Richards, ‘A Question of Property Rights: Richard Owen’s Evolutionism Reassessed’, British Journal for the History of Science, 20 (1987), pp. 129–71; R. J. Richards, The Meaning of Evolution: The Morphological Construction and Ideological Reconstruction of Darwin’s Theory (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1992). S. Forgan, ‘The Architecture of Display: Museums, Universities and Objects in Nineteenth Century Britain’, History of Science, 32 (1994), pp. 139–62; N. A. Rupke, Richard Owen: Victorian Naturalist (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1994). R. Cooter, The Cultural Meaning of Popular Science: Phrenology and the Organization of Consent in Nineteenth-Century Britain (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984); S. Shapin, ‘Phrenological Knowledge and the Social Structure of Early 19th-Century Edinburgh’, Annals of Science, 32 (1975), pp. 219–43; J. van Wyhe, Phrenology and the Origins of Victorian Scientific Naturalism (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004). On phrenology’s links with the neurosciences see R. M. Young, Mind, Brain, and Adaptation in the Nineteenth Century: Cerebral Localization and Its Biological Context from Gall to Ferrier (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990). I. A. Burney, ‘Medicine in the Age of Reform’, in J. Innes and A. Burns (eds), Rethinking the Age of Reform: Britain 1780–1850 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), pp. 163–81; A. Desmond, ‘The Making of Institutional Zoology in London, 1822–1836’, History of Science, 23 (1985), pp. 153–85, 223–50; A. Desmond, The Politics of Evolution: Morphology, Medicine, and Reform in Radical London (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1989); B. Hilton, ‘Politics of Anatomy and an Anatomy of Politics, c. 1825–50’, in S. Collini, R. Whatmore and B. Young (eds), History, Religion, and Culture: British Intellectual History 1750–1950 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), pp. 179–97.

Notes to pages 10–16

171

16. J. W. Gruber, ‘Sir Richard Owen (1804–1892)’, ODNB; L. S. Jacyna, ‘Samuel Solly (1805–1871)’, ODNB; Richards, ‘A Question of Property Rights’; Rupke, Richard Owen; P. R. Sloan, ‘On the Edge of Evolution: Introductory Essay’, in R. Owen, The Hunterian Lectures in Comparative Anatomy, May and June 1837, ed. P. R. Sloan (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1992), pp. 1–72. 17. R. Barton, ‘“Huxley, Lubbock, and Half a Dozen Others”: Professionals and Gentlemen in the Formation of the X Club, 1851–1864’, Isis, 89 (1998), pp. 410–44; A. Desmond, ‘Redefining the X Axis: “Professionals”, “Amateurs” and the Making of Mid-Victorian Biology: A Progress Report’, Journal of the History of Biology, 34 (2001), pp. 3–50; M. Fichman, ‘Biology and Politics: Defining the Boundaries’, in B. Lightman (ed.), Victorian Science in Context (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1997), pp. 94–118; P. White, Thomas Huxley: Making the ‘Man of Science’ (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003).

1 Analysis Part One 1.

2. 3.

4. 5.

6. 7.

8. 9.

A. H. Barr, Cubism and Abstract Art (1936; New York: Arno Press, 1966); R. Collins, The Sociology of Philosophies: A Global Theory of Intellectual Change (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1998); M. J. S. Rudwick, The Great Devonian Controversy: the Shaping of Scientific Knowledge among Gentlemanly Specialists (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1985), pp. 424–5. In this I have been strongly influenced by Edward Tufte’s Envisioning Information (Cheshire, CN: Graphics Press, 1990) and Visual Explanations: Images and Quantities, Evidence and Narrative (Cheshire, CN: Graphics Press, 1997). J. Bentham, Chrestomathia (1838–43), ed. M. J. Smith and W. H. Burston (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983), pp. 261–2. ‘Analyse (en logique)’, in D. Diderot (ed.), Encyclopédie ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences des arts et des métiers par une société de gens de lettres (Paris: Samuel Faulche & Compagnie, 1751), pp. 401–3; W. R. Albury, ‘The Logic of Condillac and the Structure of French Chemical and Biological Theory, 1780–1801’ (unpublished PhD thesis, Johns Hopkins University, 1972), p. 34; Bentham, Chrestomathia, pp. 261–2, 267–8; E. Grosholz, Cartesian Method and the Problem of Reduction (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991), pp. 4–5. ‘Analyse (en logique)’. Those interested in these definitions may wish to see William Randall Albury’s painstaking differentiations in his ‘The Logic of Condillac’, pp. 60–4, and his ‘Introduction’ to E. de Condillac, La logique / Logic (1781), trans. and ed. W. R. Albury (New York: Abaris Books, 1980), pp. 7–30, on p. 17. Albury notes how these French authors gradually merged the notion of algebraic analysis with physical decomposition. E. de Condillac, La logique / Logic, pp. 79–81. Albury, ‘The Logic of Condillac’, pp. 60–4; W. Bechtel and R. C. Richardson, Discovering Complexity: Decomposition and Localization as Strategies in Scientific Research (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993), pp. 18–21; J. Simon, ‘Analysis and the Hierarchy of Nature in Eighteenth-Century Chemistry’, British Journal for the History of Science, 35 (2002), pp. 1–16, on pp. 3–4. De Condillac, La logique / Logic, pp. 43, 73, 79–81. Albury, ‘Introduction’, pp. 26–7; W. R. Albury, ‘The Order of Ideas: Condillac’s Method of Analysis as a Political Instrument in the French Revolution’, in J. Schuster and R. R.

172

10.

11.

12.

13.

14. 15. 16.

17.

Notes to pages 16–19 Yeo (eds), The Politics and Rhetoric of Scientific Method: Historical Studies (Dordrecht: Reidel, 1986), pp. 203–26, on pp. 210–13. Other analytical sciences in France listed by Pickstone include mineralogy (Haüy); geology/stratigraphy, botany (de Candolle); clinical medicine (Laennec), experimental physiology (Magendie) and analytical technology (Betancourt). J. V. Pickstone, ‘Museological Science: The Place of the Analytical/Comparative in Nineteenth-Century Science, Technology and Medicine’, History of Science, 32 (1994), pp. 111–38, on p. 117. Elements were not reducible into different domains – thus mental faculties would not be reduced further into chemical compounds. W. R. Albury, ‘Experiment and Explanation in the Physiology of Bichat and Magendie’, Studies in History of Biology, 1 (1977), pp. 47–131, on pp. 90–1, 243; Coleman, Biology in the Nineteenth Century, pp. 20–1; Pickstone, ‘Museological Science’, p. 117. T. A. Appel, The Cuvier-Geoffroy Debate: French Biology in the Decades before Darwin (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987), pp. 69–70; P. F. Rehbock, The Philosophical Naturalists: Themes in Early Nineteenth-Century British Biology (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1983), p. 22. Phrenology is discussed in Chapter 2; Serres’s distinctive view of embryology in Chapter 3. W. Coleman, Georges Cuvier, Zoologist: A Study in the History of Evolution Theory (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1964), pp. 85–91; K. Figlio, ‘The Metaphor of Organization: An Historiographical Perspective on the Bio-Medical Sciences of the Early Nineteenth Century’, History of Science, 14 (1976), pp. 17–53, on pp. 23–4; M. P. Winsor, Starfish, Jellyfish, and the Order of Life: Issues in Nineteenth-Century Science (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1976), p. 12. R. D. Grainger, Elements of General Anatomy (London: S. Highley, 1829), p. 525. G. Cuvier, Leçons d’anatomie comparée (Paris: Baudoin, 1805), pp. 94–5, 97. Grainger, Elements of General Anatomy, pp. 474–5; R. Owen, ‘Articulata’, in Todd, vol. 1, pp. 244–6, on p. 244; R. Owen, ‘Cephalopoda’, in Todd, vol. 1, pp. 517–61, on p. 547; R. Owen, The Hunterian Lectures, p. 254. Indeed both Owen and the transcendental anatomist John Anderson thought that Julien-Joseph Virey preceded Cuvier in arranging the animal kingdom by nervous structure. J. Anderson, ‘Sketch of the Comparative Anatomy of the Nervous System; with Remarks on Its Development in the Human Embryo’, London Medical Gazette, 18 (1836), pp. 863–9, 906–12, on pp. 864–5; R. Owen, ‘On the Animal Kingdom Generally – Museum Lectures’, MS (n.d.), Richard Owen Papers, Royal College of Surgeons, London. On Owen’s continuing use of these names, even in 1852, see [W. J. Broderip and R. Owen], ‘Professor Owen – Progress of Comparative Anatomy’, Quarterly Review, 90 (1852), pp. 362–413, on pp. 382–3. Vertebrates were Spini-Cerebrata because the ganglia of the nervous system were partially protected by bones; molluscs became Cyclo-Gangliata because the ganglia were more concentrated around the rounded mouth; articulates the Diplo-Neura because of their double nervous cord running along the body’s length; and radiates the Cyclo-Neura because their nervous structure was arranged in a circle around the mouth, but with far fewer ganglia. ‘Review of Outlines of Comparative Anatomy by Robert E. Grant’, MedicoChirurgical Review, n.s. 23 (1835), pp. 376–88, on p. 381; Grant, Study of the Animal Kingdom, p. 33; R. E. Grant, ‘Baron Cuvier’, The Foreign Review and Continental Miscellany, 5 (1830), pp. 342–80, on p. 368; R. E. Grant, ‘Animal Kingdom’, in Todd, vol. 1, pp. 107–18, on pp. 107–8.

Notes to pages 19–23

173

18. ‘Mr. Solly on the Nervous System: Configuration and Development of the Nervous System’, Lancet, 2 (1836–7), pp. 199–200; L. S. Jacyna, ‘Samuel Solly’; T. R. Jones, ‘Gasteropoda’, in Todd, vol. 2, pp. 377–403, on p. 392; T. R. Jones, A General Outline of the Animal Kingdom, and Manual of Comparative Anatomy (London: J. Van Voorst, 1841), pp. 3–12; J. S. Schwartz, ‘Thomas Rymer Jones (1810–1880)’, ODNB; S. Solly, The Human Brain, its Configuration, Structure, Development, and Physiology (London: Longman Rees, 1836), pp. 4, xiii–xvi, 15–16. 19. Desmond, The Politics of Evolution, pp. 86–7. 20. R. E. Grant, ‘Lectures on Comparative Anatomy and Animal Physiology’, Lancet, 1 (1833), pp. 89–100, 121–8, 153–9, 193–200, 225–36, 265–79, 345–53, 393–402, 425–33, 473–81, 505–14, 537–46, 569–77, 617–25, 649–57, 659–707, 729–38, 761–71, 809–16, 841–8, 873–83, 905–11, 953–62; 2 (1834), pp. 1-10, 65–73, 98– 106, 129–39, 177–86, 209–16, 257–65, 289–96, 337–45, 369–76, 401–10, 433–40, 482–7, 513–20, 545–54, 578–86, 609–16, 641–8, 673–81, 705–13, 737–45, 785–94, 817–24, 865–74, 913–20, 945–1036, on 1 (1833), p. 89. 21. Grant thought that Cuvier’s system did not work in some animals – sponges lacked any nervous system at all, and were analogized to plants. Nonetheless he could still see sponges as compounded out of elementary ‘little vesicles’. Grant, ‘Lectures on Comparative Anatomy’, p. 195; P. R. Sloan, ‘Darwin’s Invertebrate Program, 1826–1836: Preconditions for Transformism’, in D. Kohn (ed.), The Darwinian Heritage (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985), pp. 71–120, on pp. 76–7. For another such statement about how zoophytes served as simple models for more complicated animals see the well-respected George Johnston’s A History of the British Zoophytes (Edinburgh: W. H. Lizars, 1838), pp. viii–ix. 22. Jacyna, ‘Samuel Solly’, p. 537. 23. G. T. Bettany, ‘Robert Edmond Grant (1793–1874)’, DNB (1890); J. F. Clarke, Autobiographical Recollections of the Medical Profession (London: J. & A. Churchill, 1874), pp. 36–7; Grant, Study of the Animal Kingdom, p. 34. 24. R. E. Grant, ‘Address on the Study of Medicine’, Lancet, 1 (1833), pp. 41–50, on p. 46. 25. ‘Letter of G. Newport to J. Clarke’, [1846], Newport Corr. 41. 26. W. F. Bynum, ‘Richard Quain (1800–1887)’, ODNB; D. A. Power and M. Bevan, ‘Jones Quain (1796–1865)’, ODNB. 27. J. Quain, The Elements of Anatomy, 3rd edn (London: John Taylor, 1834), pp. v–ix, xii– xiii; A. H. Sykes, ‘William Sharpey (1802–1880)’, ODNB. 28. Burney, ‘Medicine in the Age of Reform’, pp. 165–6; Desmond, The Politics of Evolution, pp. 5–6, 28–30. Richard Grainger was a moderate phrenologist who insisted that life was not dependent on organization – see his Elements of General Anatomy, p. 8. Meanwhile, although charged with materialism for his proposal of the reflex arc, the strongly Christian Marshall Hall not only insisted upon an immaterial soul, he thought that the reflex arc actually proved its existence. This was due to the apparent ‘spontaneity’ of certain activities over the ‘reactive’ nature of reflex activities, implying that only a soul could cause this spontaneity. R. Leys, From Sympathy to Reflex: Marshall Hall and his Opponents (New York: Garland, 1990), p. 318. 29. J. Bentham, An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789), ed. J. H. Burns and H. L. A. Hart (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2005), p. 188. 30. S. Jacobs, ‘Bentham, Science and the Construction of Jurisprudence’, History of European Ideas, 12 (1990), pp. 583–94, on p. 585.

174

Notes to pages 23–7

31. J. S. Mill, ‘Bentham’ [1838], in J. S. Mill, Essays on Politics and Culture, ed. G. Himmelfarb (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1962), pp. 77–120, on pp. 82–5. Italics in original. 32. Bentham, Chrestomathia, pp. 267–8, esp. footnote a; G. McOuat, ‘The Logical Systematist: George Bentham and his Outline of a New System of Logic’, Archives of Natural History, 30 (2003), pp. 203–23, on p. 208. Bentham sought to refine de Condillac’s work by trying to distinguish between physical analysis and logical analysis (the method of bifurcating division, in which a complex word has or does not have a specific property). 33. Romilly was the uncle and patron of the physician and physiologist Peter Mark Roget; as a young man at the beginning of the century Roget performed some experiments for Bentham. W. Thomas, The Philosophic Radicals: Nine Studies in Theory and Practice 1817–1841 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979), pp. 16, 25, 43. 34. J. R. Dinwiddy, Radicalism and Reform in Britain, 1780–1850 (London: Hambledon Press, 1992), p. 352. 35. J. Mill, Elements of Political Economy, 3rd edn (London: Baldwin, Cradock, and Joy, 1826), pp. 13–14. 36. J. Mill, Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind (London: Baldwin and Cradock, 1829), pp. 1–2; J. Mill, ‘Government’ [1820], in J. Mill, Political Writings, ed. T. Ball (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), pp. 1–42, on p. 4. 37. S. Smith, ‘Phenomena of the Human Mind’, Westminster Review, 13 (1830), pp. 265–92, on p. 275. 38. Dinwiddy, Radicalism and Reform in Britain, p. 422. As an ‘auto-icon’ the skeleton was reassembled, clothed in one of his suits, and seated on a chair in a glass-fronted box. Smith also wanted to preserve the face (making the auto-icon’s visage more realistic than a statue’s) to inspire future generations, but this part of his work went badly. He drew off the head’s fluids, placing it in an air pump over sulfuric acid, but this had the hideous effect of draining all expression from the face. Bentham’s head is now kept in a box at University College, with the auto-icon’s head being a wax model taken from a bust of Bentham’s head made in his lifetime. 39. E. Halévy, The Growth of Philosophic Radicalism, trans. M. Morris (London: Faber & Gwyer, 1928), p. 502; Jacobs, ‘Bentham, Science and the Construction of Jurisprudence’, p. 583. 40. Bentham, Principles of Morals and Legislation, pp. 1–2; R. K. Webb, ‘(Thomas) Southwood Smith (1788–1861)’, ODNB. 41. For this complicated and subtle point I am indebted to Elihu Gerson. 42. Mill, ‘Bentham’, p. 85. 43. Bentham called for ‘virtually Univeral Suffrage’, allowing women and the poor to vote; he even mulled the possibility of ‘idiots, and infants in leading-strings’ being given the vote. James Mill, however, did not think that women and the young should be allowed to vote as their interests were adequately supervised by the male head of the household. J. Bentham, Plan of Parliamentary Reform, in the Form of a Catechism, with Reasons for Each Article (London: T. J. Wooler, 1818), pp. 15, 25; Mill, ‘Government’. 44. ‘Schwann on the Structure of Plants and Animals, a Review of Mikroskopische Untersuchungen Über Die Uebereinstimmung in Der Struktur Und Dem Wachsthum Der Thiere Und Pflanzen, Berlin, 1839’, British and Foreign Medical Review, 9 (1840), pp. 495–528, on p. 524. 45. J. Goodsir, H. Lonsdale and W. Turner, The Anatomical Memoirs of John Goodsir, 2 vols (Edinburgh: A. and C. Black, 1868), vol. 2, pp. xiv–xv. For Goodsir’s work on cells in

Notes to pages 27–32

46.

47. 48. 49. 50.

51. 52.

53.

54.

55. 56.

57.

58. 59.

60.

175

general see L. S. Jacyna, ‘John Goodsir and the Making of Cellular Reality’, Journal of the History of Biology, 16 (1983), pp. 75–99. Burney, ‘Medicine in the Age of Reform’, pp. 174–5; L. Stewart, ‘Modern Medicine Influenced by Morbid Anatomy’, London Medical Gazette, 6 (1830), pp. 8–16, on pp. 9–11. ‘Schwann on the Structure of Plants and Animals’, pp. 501, 525. R. Owen, ‘Hunterian Lectures on Generation’, MS (1840), Owen Coll. 38.1. Owen, The Hunterian Lectures, pp. 212–14. T. B. Macaulay, ‘Mill on Government (Edinburgh Review, March 1829)’, in T. B. Macaulay, Critical, Historical and Miscellaneous Essays (New York: Sheldon and Company, 1861), pp. 5–51, on p. 8. Mill, ‘Bentham’, p. 91. Appel, The Cuvier-Geoffroy Debate, p. 18; D. Outram, ‘New Spaces in Natural History’, in N. Jardine, J. A. Secord and E. C. Spary (eds), Cultures of Natural History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 249–65, on pp. 257–8; Pickstone, ‘Museological Science’, p. 119; E. C. Spary, Utopia’s Garden: French Natural History from Old Regime to Revolution (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2000), pp. 158–9. Appel, The Cuvier-Geoffroy Debate, pp. 11, 18; Forgan, ‘The Architecture of Display’, p. 140; Pickstone, ‘Museological Science’, pp. 117–19, 123–4; J. V. Pickstone, Ways of Knowing: A New History of Science, Technology and Medicine (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2001), p. 132. Pickstone includes surveys as museological institutions because the specimens were not always so easy to pick up and put in a specialized site; researchers collected data while hospitals ‘collected’ patients. The Jardin / Muséum is discussed in greater detail in Spary, Utopia’s Garden, pp. 221–7. In this sense, the patients in large hospitals were ‘disease-specimens’ to be classified and compared, a point which leads John Pickstone to call these hospitals part of a more general group of ‘museological institutions’. Burney, ‘Medicine in the Age of Reform’, pp. 166–7; Pickstone, Ways of Knowing, p. 109. Outram, ‘New Spaces in Natural History’, pp. 250, 259–62. Appel, The Cuvier-Geoffroy Debate, p. 36; Grant, ‘Baron Cuvier’, pp. 350–1; A. Larsen, ‘Equipment for the Field’, in N. Jardine, J. A. Secord, and E. C. Spary (eds), The Cultures of Natural History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 358–77, on pp. 358–60. Martin Rudwick has discussed the importance of museums in a similar way in his Bursting the Limits of Time: The Reconstruction of History in the Age of Revolution (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2005), pp. 38–9. W. Lawrence, An Introduction to Comparative Anatomy and Physiology; Being the Two Introductory Lectures Delivered at the Royal College of Surgeons, on the 21st and 25th of March, 1816 (London: J. Callow, 1816), pp. 86–8. Desmond, ‘The Making of Institutional Zoology’, pp. 232–3, 235, 237–8; Grant, ‘Baron Cuvier’, pp. 342–3. G. T. Bettany, ‘Edward Forbes (1815–1854)’, DNB (1889); Forgan, ‘The Architecture of Display’, pp. 144–5; D. McLean, London as it is To-Day: Where to Go, and What to See during the Great Exhibition (London: H. G. Clarke & Co, 1851), pp. 126, 236; G. Wilson and A. Geikie, Memoir of Edward Forbes, FRS (London: Macmillan and Co., 1861), pp. 226–8; C. Yanni, Nature’s Museums: Victorian Science and the Architecture of Display (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999), pp. 51–3. J. W. Clark, ‘William Clark (1788–1869)’, DNB (1887); J. W. Clark and M. Bevan, ‘William Clark (1788–1869)’, ODNB; C. Creighton, ‘John Goodsir (1814–1867)’,

176

61. 62.

63. 64.

65. 66. 67. 68.

69.

70. 71.

72. 73.

74. 75.

Notes to pages 32–6 DNB (1890); D. Heppell, ‘John Goodsir’, in C. C. Gillispie (ed.), Dictionary of Scientific Biography (New York: Scribner’s, 1972); Yanni, Nature’s Museums, p. 36. Rupke, Richard Owen, pp. 13–14. Clarke, Autobiographical Recollections, pp. 36–7; Desmond, ‘The Making of Institutional Zoology’, p. 170; Desmond, The Politics of Evolution, pp. 30, 84–5; A. Desmond, ‘Robert Edmond Grant (1793–1874)’, ODNB. [Broderip and Owen], ‘Professor Owen’, pp. 363–4; W. H. Flower, ‘Richard Owen (1804–1892)’, DNB (1894). While not using the term ‘analysis’, Barclay nonetheless recalled how Lavoisier’s key contribution was to find a new simple element, oxygen, and show how oxygen entered into various compounds, forming oxides. J. Barclay, A New Anatomical Nomenclature, relating to the Terms which are Expressive of Position and Aspect in the Animal System (Edinburgh: Ross and Blackwood, 1803), pp. 5–7, 99–101; L. Rosner, ‘John Barclay (1758–1826)’, ODNB. [Broderip and Owen], ‘Professor Owen’, pp. 363–4; Gruber, ‘Sir Richard Owen’; Sloan, ‘On the Edge of Evolution’, p. 8. R. Owen, ‘Hunterian Lectures on Generation’, Owen Coll. 38.1. Gruber, ‘Sir Richard Owen’; L. S. Jacyna, ‘John Abernethy (1764–1831)’, ODNB. [Broderip and Owen], ‘Professor Owen’, pp. 363–4. McLean, London as it is To-Day, p. 304 – the £20,000 figure for the Hunterian Museum is given on pp. 241–2. J. Dobson, ‘John Hunter’s Museum’, in Z. Cope (ed.), The Royal College of Surgeons of England: A History (London: Anthony Blond, 1959), pp. 274– 306, on p. 278; P. R. Sloan, ‘William Clift (1775–1849)’, ODNB. By 1813 Clift’s salary was raised to £300 and he was given apartments inside the College. J. H. Green, ‘Introductory Hunterian Lecture on the Comparative Anatomy of the Birds, 27 March 1827’, in R. Owen, The Hunterian Lectures, pp. 303–21, on p. 319; Sloan, ‘On the Edge of Evolution’, p. 39. J. Dobson, ‘An Account of the Life and Achievements of Richard Owen’, MS (1981), Owen Coll. 86, f. 4; Flower, ‘Richard Owen’; Gruber, ‘Sir Richard Owen’. Over the next two decades they would exchange research materials. Milne Edwards had Owen’s first major work translated for a French audience, and on a London trip in the early 1840s he brought his students to meet Owen. Dobson, ‘Achievements of Richard Owen’, Owen Coll. 86, f. 14; Flower, ‘Richard Owen’; H. Milne Edwards to R. Owen, 7 June 1841, Owen Corr. 10/294; R. S. Owen, The Life of Richard Owen, 2 vols (London: J. Murray, 1894), vol. 1, p. 200; Sloan, ‘On the Edge of Evolution’, pp. 40–1. Ibid., p. 14. F. Austin, ‘William Home Clift (1803–1832)’, ODNB; Dobson, ‘John Hunter’s Museum’, pp. 279–80; Sloan, ‘On the Edge of Evolution’, p. 43. William Home Clift goes unmentioned, for instance, in [Broderip and Owen], ‘Professor Owen’. Sloan, ‘On the Edge of Evolution’, p. 41. Dobson, ‘John Hunter’s Museum’, p. 282; Yanni, Nature’s Museums, pp. 47–50; Robert Knox, Great Artists and Great Anatomists: A Biographical and Philosophical Study (London, 1852), p. 21, cited in L. S. Jacyna, ‘Images of John Hunter in the 19th Century’, History of Science, 21 (1983), pp. 85–108, on p. 99; W. H. Clift to R. Owen and C. Clift, 22 July 1835, Owen Corr. 7/136; J. Burnett, A History of the Cost of Living (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1969), p. 235. The house in question was Thomas Carlyle’s.

Notes to pages 36–40

177

76. Robert Knox, Great Artists and Great Anatomists, p. 21, cited in Jacyna, ‘Images of John Hunter’, p. 99; A. E. Gunther, The Founders of Science at the British Museum 1753–1900 (Suffolk: Halesworth Press, 1981), pp. 75–85. 77. Owen, The Hunterian Lectures, p. 129, nn. 12–15. 78. W. H. Clift to R. Owen and C. Clift, 22 July 1835, Owen Corr. 7/136; Desmond, ‘The Making of Institutional Zoology’, p. 241; Flower, ‘Richard Owen’. 79. Desmond, The Politics of Evolution, pp. 354–8; Owen, The Hunterian Lectures, p. 191; Rupke, Richard Owen, pp. 60–4, 68, 199–200. 80. Flower, ‘Richard Owen’; Jacyna, ‘John Abernethy’; J. F. Payne, ‘John Abernethy (1764– 1831)’, DNB (1885). 81. Desmond, The Politics of Evolution, pp. 246–8; D. Ottley, ‘Life of John Hunter’, in J. F. Palmer (ed.), The Works of John Hunter, FRS, 4 vols (London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, Green, and Longman, 1835–7), vol. 1, pp. 1–198, on pp. 152–3; Sloan, ‘William Clift’. 82. Dobson, ‘John Hunter’s Museum’, p. 280. There were often complaints about Hunter’s rich but obscure musings – for instance see Ottley, ‘Life of John Hunter’, p. 186; H. T. Buckle, History of Civilization in England, 2 vols (London: J. W. Parker, 1857), vol. 2, pp. 549–53. 83. For thoughts on the use of histories as legitimations of scientific disciplines see Jardine, The Scenes of Inquiry, pp. 129–31. 84. Jacyna, ‘Images of John Hunter’, p. 105. 85. R. Owen, ‘Preface’, in Palmer (ed.), The Works of John Hunter, FRS, vol. 4, pp. i–xl, on p. xiii; Owen, The Hunterian Lectures, pp. 91, 109, 133, nn. 64–13. 86. Owen, ‘Preface’, p. xii. 87. R. Owen, ‘Observations on Palaeontology’, in John Hunter, Essays and Observations on Natural History, Anatomy, Physiology, Psychology, and Geology, ed. R. Owen, 2 vols (London: J. Van Voorst, 1861), vol. 1, pp. 281–340, on pp. 282–3. Emphasis added. 88. Lawrence, Comparative Anatomy and Physiology, pp. 88–94; Ottley, ‘Life of John Hunter’, pp. 158–61. The Hunterian Museum’s Physiological Series was divided in two: the first looked at a particular organ in a mature human, comparing it with that organ in other mature animals; the second examined an organ as it developed from conception to maturity. 89. Owen, ‘Preface’, p. xvi; J. Hunter, Observations on Certain Parts of the Animal Oeconomy (London: n.p., 1786), pp. 116–17; R. Owen, Lectures on the Comparative Anatomy and Physiology of the Invertebrate Animals (London: Longman Brown, 1843), pp. 3–4; Owen, ‘Observations on Palaeontology’, vol. 1, pp. 281–4; Owen, The Life of Richard Owen, vol. 1, pp. 213–15. 90. Owen, The Hunterian Lectures, pp. 242–3. 91. Dobson, ‘John Hunter’s Museum’, p. 283; Flower, ‘Richard Owen’; Owen, The Hunterian Lectures, p. 202, nn. 93–5; Sloan, ‘On the Edge of Evolution’, p. 47. Because the Royal College of Surgeons prevented concurrent appointments, however, Owen turned down the offer of Fullerian Professor and Grant was appointed instead. Rupke, Richard Owen, pp. 19, xiii. 92. Dobson, ‘John Hunter’s Museum’, p. 285; Gruber, ‘Sir Richard Owen’; Rupke, Richard Owen, pp. 53–5. Yet regarding Owen’s fragile status – as someone who was not a social equal of his patrons – see J. A. Secord, Victorian Sensation: The Extraordinary Publication, Reception, and Secret Authorship of Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2000), pp. 421–6.

178

Notes to pages 41–5

93. G. Allman to R. Owen, 7 January 1849, Owen Corr. 1/123–4; W. Baly to R. Owen, 1 March n.d., Owen Corr. 2/102; W. B. Carpenter to R. Owen, 23 August 1842, Owen Corr. 6/304–5; J. Goodsir to R. Owen, 23 January 1846, Owen Corr. 13/184–5; R. Owen, ‘Memoirs’ (1868–89), Owen Coll. 24, f. 8. 94. W. Clark to R. Owen, 28 January 1838, Owen Corr. 7/181; W. S. MacLeay to R. Owen, 28 February 1859, Owen Corr. 17/335; J. O. Westwood to R. Owen, 30 May 1833, Owen Corr. 26/277–8; J. O. Westwood to R. Owen, 1 January 1850, Owen Corr. 26/282. 95. This point that elite researchers have the most interactions with other researchers – ensuring that although they may be disbelieved, they cannot be ignored – is taken from M. J. S. Rudwick, The Great Devonian Controversy: The Shaping of Scientific Knowledge among Gentlemanly Specialists (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1985), pp. 436–7, 456.

2 Analysis Part Two 1. 2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

Albury, ‘Experiment and Explanation’, pp. 90–1. ‘On Experiments on Living Animals’, London Medical Gazette, 20 (1837), pp. 804–8, on pp. 805–6; P. F. Cranefield, The Way In and the Way Out: François Magendie, Charles Bell, and the Roots of the Spinal Nerves (Mount Kisco, NY: Futura Publishing Co., 1974), p. 11; R. D. French, Antivivisection and Medical Science in Victorian Society (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1975), p. 20; D. E. Manuel, ‘Marshall Hall (1790–1857): Vivisection and the Development of Experimental Physiology’, in N. A. Rupke (ed.), Vivisection in Historical Perspective (London: Croom Helm, 1987), pp. 78–104, on pp. 94–5. There were at least two different London ‘Theatres of Anatomy’; Grainger’s ‘Theatre’ was located on Webb Street; Bell’s on Windmill Street. L. S. Jacyna, ‘Sir Charles Bell (1774–1842)’, ODNB; McLean, London as it is To-Day, p. 302. Bell even announced that he cut the spinal cord in his test animals, so that pain could not be felt. This was applauded by the London Medical Gazette: see ‘On Experiments on Living Animals’, pp. 806–7. P. Amacher, ‘Charles Bell’, in C. C. Gillispie (ed.), Dictionary of Scientific Biography (New York: Scribner’s, 1970); C. Bell, ‘Lectures on the Physiology of the Brain and Nervous System’, London Medical and Surgical Journal, 1 (1832), pp. 682–5, 752–7, on pp. 684, 753; French, Antivivisection, p. 19; N. Moore, ‘Charles Bell (1774–1842)’, DNB (1885); G. Rice, ‘The Bell-Magendie-Walker Controversy’, Medical History, 31 (1987), pp. 190–200, on pp. 190–1. L. S. Jacyna, ‘Principles of General Physiology: The Comparative Dimension to British Neuroscience in the 1830s and 1840s’, Studies in History of Biology, 7 (1984), pp. 47–92, on pp. 50–1. The functional differentiation became known as the ‘Bell-Magendie law’. Bell, ‘Physiology of the Brain’, pp. 682–3, 753; W. Lawrence, Lectures on Physiology, Zoology, and the Natural History of Man (London: J. Callow, 1819), p. 87. W. Clark, ‘Report on Animal Physiology’, British Association for the Advancement of Science (1835), pp. 95–142, on pp. 102–3; E. Clarke and L. S. Jacyna, Nineteenth-Century Origins of Neuroscientific Concepts (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1987), pp. 30–1; L. S. Jacyna, ‘Somatic Theories of Mind and the Interests of Medicine in Britain, 1850–1879’, Medical History, 26 (1982), pp. 233–58, on p. 235. ‘Account of the Metropolitan Hospitals, Medical Schools, and Lectures for the Session Commencing October 1832’, Lancet, 1 (1832–3), pp. 3–11, on p. 5; P. F. Cranefield,

Notes to pages 45–8

8. 9. 10. 11.

12.

13.

14.

15.

16.

17.

18. 19.

179

‘Herbert Mayo (1796–1852)’, ODNB; G. Gordon-Taylor and E. W. Walls, Sir Charles Bell, His Life and Times (Edinburgh: E. & S. Livingstone, 1958), pp. 129–30. Jacyna, ‘Principles of General Physiology’, p. 76; C. H. Mayo, ‘Herbert Mayo (1796– 1852)’, DNB (1894). H. Mayo, Outlines of Human Physiology, 3rd edn (London: Burgess and Hill, 1833), pp. 230–1, 220–2. H. Mayo, The Nervous System and Its Functions (London: John W. Parker, 1842), pp. 15–16. ‘Review of The Nervous System and its Functions by Herbert Mayo’, Medico-Chirurgical Review, n.s. 37 (1842), pp. 16–40, on pp. 20, 22, 24; Mayo, The Nervous System and its Functions, pp. 14–16, 28–9, 57. C. Bell, ‘Lecture 14 on the Hunterian Preparations’, Lancet, 1 (1833), pp. 878–81, on p. 880; [W. B. Carpenter], ‘Noble on the Brain and its Physiology’, British and Foreign Medical Review, 22 (1846), pp. 488–544, on p. 508; W. Griffin, ‘Physiological Problem’, London Medical Gazette, 24 (1839), pp. 74–81, 108–14, 188–96, on pp. 189, 190, 192–3; R. B. Todd, ‘Physiology of the Nervous System’, in Todd, vol. 3, pp. 720g–723g, on p. 720y. Griffin, ‘Physiological Problem’, p. 190; R. Owen, ‘Lectures on the Sympathetic and Nervous System – Rough Outline’, MS (1846), Richard Owen Papers, Royal College of Surgeons, London. Jacyna, ‘Principles of General Physiology’, p. 78; R. Smith, ‘The Background of Physiological Psychology in Natural Philosophy’, History of Science, 11 (1973), pp. 75–123, on pp. 83–4. G. T. Bettany, ‘Marshall Hall (1790–1857)’, DNB (1890); C. Hall, Memoirs of Marshall Hall (London: R. Bentley, 1861), pp. 85–6; M. Hall, ‘A Brief Account of a Particular Function of the Nervous System’, Proceedings of the Committee of Science and Correspondence of the Zoological Society of London, 2 (1832), pp. 190–2, on p. 190; D. E. Manuel, Marshall Hall (1790–1857): Science and Medicine in Early Victorian Society (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1996), pp. 243–4. E. Clarke, ‘Marshall Hall’, in C. C. Gillispie (ed.), Dictionary of Scientific Biography (New York: Scribner’s, 1972); M. Hall, On the Reflex Function of the Medulla Oblongata and Medulla Spinalis (London: Joseph Mallett, 1833), pp. 14–17, 39–40; M. Hall, ‘On the Reflex Function of the Medulla Oblongata and Spinalis, or the Principle of Tone in the Muscular System’, Abstracts of the Papers printed in the Philosophical Transactions (1837), p. 210. The reflex arc was supposed to be involuntary; against this one of Hall’s adversaries, George Paton, insisted that the soul and thus voluntary activity also existed in the spinal cord, leading to later talk of a ‘spinal soul’ by Edward Pflüger and G. H. Lewes. Where Hall insisted that a decapitated animal could not feel pain, the extension of the soul to the spinal cord meant that decapitated animals could feel pain. ‘Review of Edward Pflüger’s The Sensorial Functions of the Spinal Cord in Vertebrate Animals’, British and Foreign Medico-Chirurgical Review (American edn), 11 (1853), 375–6; Manuel, ‘Marshall Hall’, pp. 89–90. Hall, Lectures on the Nervous System and its Diseases, 1836, pp. 127–8, cited in Leys, From Sympathy to Reflex, p. 196. Emphasis presumably in original. Hall, On the Reflex Function, pp. 45–7. Note also that the view that ‘lower’ nervous systems were hardier than ‘higher’ nervous systems was repeated in John Hughlings

180

20.

21.

22.

23.

24.

25.

26.

27.

28. 29.

Notes to pages 48–50 Jackson’s later evolutionary views. I am grateful to an anonymous reviewer for pointing this out. Clarke and Jacyna, Neuroscientific Concepts, pp. 114–15; Manuel, Marshall Hall, pp. 156–8. Clarke and Jacyna’s view is more likely, particularly in light of the wealthy Hall’s increasingly petty attacks on the penniless and slightly pathetic George Newport. Hall, On the Reflex Function. In doing this Hall was copying his friend Thomas Wakley’s example. Wakley, editor of the medical journal the Lancet, undermined the monopolist medical schools by publishing their instructors’ lectures to a vast audience, a feat made newly possible by the ability to print and distribute works at a far lower cost. Hall also seems to have been appealing to public opinion. For Wakley’s declaration of his aims see Report of the Trial, Cooper versus Wakley, for Libel (London: S. Highley, 1829), pp. 9, 151. M. Hall, ‘On the Function of the Medulla Oblongata and Medulla Spinalis, and on the Excito-Motory System of Nerves’, Abstracts of the Papers printed in the Philosophical Transactions (1837), pp. 463–4. Mayo had earlier supported Hall’s application to become a member of the Royal Society. ‘Marshall Hall Again’, London Medical Gazette, 21 (1837–8), pp. 985–6; ‘Complete Anticipation of Dr. Marshall Hall’s Doctrine of “the Reflex Function”, by Prochaska’, British and Foreign Medical Review, 5 (1838), pp. 623–5; Clarke and Jacyna, Neuroscientific Concepts, pp. 118–19; Desmond, The Politics of Evolution, p. 129; Manuel, Marshall Hall, pp. 224, 190–3. Public complaints include M. Hall, A Letter Addressed to the Earl of Rosse, President-Elect of the Royal Society, 2nd edn (London: n.p., 1848). M. Hall to R. Owen, 12 July 1837, Owen Corr. 14/220–1. ‘Faraday’s Exposition of Marshall Hall’s Reflex Action of the Spinal Marrow’, London Medical Gazette, 19 (1837), pp. 828–9; M. Hall, ‘Dr. Marshall Hall on the Nervous System’, London Medical Gazette, 17 (1836), pp. 632–41. By 1840, however, Grainger deserted phrenology because it was not supported by the facts of physiology. His apostasy may have been quickened by a realization that its radical message hindered his professional advancement: in 1842 he was hired as a lecturer at his former hospital, St Thomas’s, in general anatomy and physiology. He also helped catalogue its museum collection. By 1846 Grainger had closed his Webb Street School and was respectable enough to become a member of the Council of the Royal College of Surgeons. ‘Account of the Metropolitan Hospitals’, p. 5; N. Hervey, ‘Richard Dugard Grainger (1801–1865)’, ODNB. ‘Review of Observations on the Structure and Functions of the Spinal Chord by R. D. Grainger’, Lancet, 2 (1838), pp. 127–8; ‘Some Recent Publications on Anatomy’, Medico-Chirurgical Review, n.s. 28 (1838), pp. 116–36, on p. 122; G. T. Bettany, ‘Richard Dugard Grainger (1801–1865)’, DNB (1890); R. D. Grainger, Observations on the Structure and Functions of the Spinal Cord (London: S. Highley, 1837), pp. 42–4; R. D. Grainger, ‘Illustrations of the Medical Uses of Comparative Anatomy’, Lancet, 1 (1842– 3), p. 93; Leys, From Sympathy to Reflex, pp. 301–2. Grainger, Observations on the Spinal Cord, pp. 61–4. W. B. Carpenter and J. E. Carpenter, Nature and Man: Essays Scientific and Philosophical (New York: Appleton, 1889), pp. 10, 15, 18, 26; Desmond, The Politics of Evolution, pp. 212–16; Leys, From Sympathy to Reflex, pp. 306–8; R. Smith, ‘William Benjamin Carpenter (1813–1885)’, ODNB.

Notes to pages 50–3

181

30. ‘Notices of Some New Works: Inaugural Dissertation on the Physiological Inferences to be Deduced from the Structure of the Nervous System in the Invertebrated Classes of Animals, by William B. Carpenter’, Medico-Chirurgical Review, n.s. 11 (1839), pp. 497–8. Grainger was one of the owner/editors of the Medico-Chirurgical Review. Hervey, ‘Richard Dugard Grainger’. Eventually Carpenter’s distinction between the ‘sensori-volitional’ and the ‘reflex’ nervous systems was overturned. 31. Carpenter and Carpenter, Nature and Man, p. 18; Leys, From Sympathy to Reflex, pp. 223, 310–11. 32. W. B. Carpenter to R. Owen, 26 June 1842, Owen Corr. 6/302–3. Emphasis in original. 33. ‘Review of the Nervous System and Its Functions’, pp. 21–2; Carpenter and Carpenter, Nature and Man, p. 22; Leys, From Sympathy to Reflex, p. 228. 34. W. B. Carpenter, Principles of General and Comparative Physiology (London: John Churchill, 1839), pp. 5, 139–40; ‘On Experiments on Living Animals’, p. 807; Manuel, Marshall Hall, p. 189; Todd, ‘Physiology of the Nervous System’, p. 720u. 35. Bell, ‘Physiology of the Brain’, p. 684; H. Milne Edwards, ‘Annelida’, in Todd, vol. 1, pp. 164–73, on pp. 172–3. 36. C. D. Badham, ‘On the Nervous Circle of Sir Charles Bell’, London Medical Gazette, 15 (1835), pp. 71–4, on p. 73; R. Garnett, ‘Charles David Badham (1806–1857)’, DNB (1885); G. Hudson, ‘Charles David Badham (1805–1857)’, ODNB. 37. ‘Dr. Badham on Insect Life’, British and Foreign Medical Review, 21 (1846), pp. 494–5. 38. C. D. Badham, ‘On the Supposed Sensibility and Intelligence of Insects’, Blackwood’s Magazine, 43 (1838), pp. 589–606, on pp. 590–1. Emphases in original. 39. W. B. Carpenter, ‘Lecture 3 on the Nervous System’, London Medical Gazette, 27 (1840– 1), pp. 938–45. 40. J. Forbes to G. Turmaine, 21 May 1854, Newport Corr. 25; W. B. Carpenter to [ J. Forbes], ‘Testimonial for George Newport’, 17 August 1844, Newport Corr. 73; G. Newport, ‘Promissory Notes’ to T. Wilkinson, W. Philpot, G. Philpot, S. Philpot, Charles Philpot and Thomas Glover, 1835–46, Newport Corr. 73; ‘Obituary Notice of George Newport’, Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, 7 (1855), pp. 278–85, on pp. 278–80, 283; J. D. Coggon, ‘George Newport (1803–1854)’, ODNB. 41. Unfortunately Newport’s private notes on these experiments could not be located, and so missing information is supplemented with work from contemporary handbooks in comparative anatomy and physiology. 42. G. Newport, ‘On the Structure, Relations, and Development of the Nervous and Circulatory Systems, and on the Existence of a Complete Circulation of the Blood in Vessels, in Myriapoda and Macrourous Arachnida’, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, 133 (1843), pp. 243–302, on p. 247. I. terrestris is now known as Tachypodoiulus niger. See J. G. Blower, Millipedes: Keys and Notes for the Identification of the Species (London: Linnean Society of London, 1985), pp. 135–8; S. P. Hopkin and H. J. Read, The Biology of Millipedes (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), p. 229. 43. A. Tulk and A. Henfrey, Anatomical Manipulation; or, the Methods of Pursuing Practical Investigations in Comparative Anatomy and Physiology (London: J. Van Voorst, 1844), pp. 6–7. 44. G. C. Boase, ‘George Newport (1803–1854)’, DNB (1894). 45. Indeed, Charles Darwin wrote to Newport asking if he could borrow his scissors in order to have copies made for both himself and John Lubbock. Three weeks later Darwin described with horror how a ‘Mr. Weiss’ had ‘stupidly’ tried to sharpen and polish

182

46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53.

54.

55.

56.

57.

58. 59. 60.

Notes to pages 53–6 Newport’s prized tool. C. Darwin to G. Newport, 24 July [1851], Newport Corr. 13; C. Darwin to G. Newport, 12 August [1851], Newport Corr. 14. Newport, ‘On the Structure of the Nervous System in Myriapoda’, pp. 265–6. Ibid., p. 266. The needle was in fact irritating the nervous cord. Ibid., p. 266. Tulk and Henfrey, Anatomical Manipulation, p. 55. Newport, ‘On the Structure of the Nervous System in Myriapoda’, p. 267. Ibid., pp. 268–9. Leys, From Sympathy to Reflex, pp. 307–8, 310–11. W. B. Carpenter to [ J. Forbes], 17 August 1844, Newport Corr. 73; W. F. Erichson, ‘Insecta’, in Reports on Zoology for 1843–1844, trans. G. Busk, A. Tulk and A. H. Haliday (London: Ray Society, 1847), ppp. 116–94, on pp. 117–18. Works on this subject include Cooter, The Cultural Meaning of Popular Science, pp. 113, 47, 84–6, 6–7, 10–11, 32; Desmond, The Politics of Evolution, pp. 5–7; M. Douglas, How Institutions Think (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1986), pp. 48–9; L. S. Jacyna, ‘Immanence or Transcendence: Theories of Life and Organization in Britain, 1790–1835’, Isis, 74 (1983), pp. 311–29, on pp. 327–8; C. Lawrence, ‘The Nervous System and Society in the Scottish Enlightenment’, in B. Barnes and S. Shapin (eds), Natural Order: Historical Studies of Scientific Culture (London: Sage, 1979), pp. 19–40, on pp. 27–32, 35; Shapin, ‘Phrenological Knowledge’, pp. 235–8; S. Shapin, ‘Homo Phrenologicus: Anthropological Perspectives on an Historical Problem’, in Barnes and Shapin (eds), Natural Order, pp. 41–71, on p. 61. G. Canguilhem, Ideology and Rationality in the History of the Life Sciences (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1988), pp. 87–8, 92, 131; S. J. Cross, ‘John Hunter, the Animal Oeconomy, and Late Eighteenth-Century Physiological Discourse’, Studies in History of Biology, 5 (1981), pp. 1–110; J. H. Green, The Dissector’s Manual (London: E. Cox, 1820), p. lii; Hall, A Letter Addressed to the Earl of Rosse, pp. 10–11; Hunter, Observations on the Animal Oeconomy. Canguilhem, Ideology and Rationality, pp. 87–8; C. Limoges, ‘Milne-Edwards, Darwin, Durkheim and the Division of Labour: A Case Study in Reciprocal Conceptual Exchanges between the Social and the Natural Sciences’, in I. B. Cohen (ed.), Natural Sciences and the Social Sciences (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic, 1994), pp. 317–43, on pp. 322–3. To keep this account contemporaneous with life research, this book uses a popular work on political economy of the day: [ J. Marcet], Conversations on Political Economy, 5th edn (London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green, 1824), pp. 76–8. Mill, Elements of Political Economy, pp. 11–12. H. Milne Edwards, ‘Organisation’, in Dictionnaire Classique d’histoire naturelle (Paris: Rey et Gravier, 1827), pp. 332–44, on pp. 340–1. Winsor, Starfish, Jellyfish, and the Order of Life, pp. 31, 23. O. Perru, ‘ Zoonites et unité organique: les origines d’une lecture spécifique du vivant chez Alfred Moquin-Tandon (1804–1863) et Antoine Dugès (1797–1838)’, History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences, 22 (2000), pp. 249–72, on p. 266, argues that Milne Edwards obtained his notion of the ‘division of labour’ from Dugès’s ‘distribution of labour’, given in 1832. Although Dugès certainly believed in the coloniality of all organisms, Milne Edwards was mentioning a ‘division du travail’ five years earlier than Dugès, in 1827. See Milne Edwards, ‘Organisation’, pp. 340–1.

Notes to pages 57–9

183

61. Ibid., pp. 340–1, 343–4; H. Milne Edwards, Élémens de Zoologie (Paris: Crochar, 1834), pp. 8–11. See also Limoges, ‘Milne-Edwards and the Division of Labour’, pp. 319–21. 62. Milne Edwards, ‘Annelida’, pp. 172–3. 63. Ibid.; H. Milne Edwards, ‘Crustacea’, in Todd, vol. 1, pp. 750–87. 64. Carpenter, Principles of Physiology, pp. 391–3; P. M. Roget, Animal and Vegetable Physiology Considered with Reference to Natural Theology, Bridgewater Treatise 5, 2 vols (London: W. Pickering, 1834), vol. 2, p. 105. Camille Limoges argues that Roget’s use of the physiological division of labour was independent of Milne Edwards: see Limoges, ‘Milne-Edwards and the Division of Labour’, p. 318. 65. Dobson, ‘Achievements of Richard Owen’, Owen Coll. 86, f. 14; Flower, ‘Richard Owen’; H. Milne Edwards to R. Owen, 7 June 1841, Owen Corr. 10/294; Owen, The Life of Richard Owen, vol. 1, p. 200. 66. J. S. Mill, ‘Civilization’ [1836], in Mill, Essays on Politics and Culture, pp. 45–76, on pp. 48–50; H. Spencer, Social Statics: Or, the Conditions Essential to Human Happiness Specified and the First of Them Developed (London: J. Chapman, 1851), p. 451. 67. C. Darwin, On the Origin of Species. A Facsimile of the First Edition (1859; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1964), pp. 115–16. 68. Badham, ‘The Nervous Circle of Sir Charles Bell’, p. 73; C. Bell, Idea of a New Anatomy of the Brain (1811; London: Dawson’s Reprints, 1966), p. 4; Mayo, The Nervous System and its Functions, p. 73. M. Hall, ‘Lectures on the Theory and Practice of Medicine’, Lancet, 1 (1837), pp. 649–57, on p. 649; ‘Review of On the Diseases and Derangements of the Nervous System by Marshall Hall’, Medico-Chirurgical Review, n.s. 35 (1841), pp. 306–37, on p. 306, emphasis in original (from review). This anonymous reviewer also believed Hall to have dealt materialism ‘a mortal blow’, a view contrary to many historians’ views of the reflex arc’s materialist ‘implications’. 69. Jacyna, ‘Principles of General Physiology’, pp. 50–3. 70. On this point see Shapin, ‘Phrenological Knowledge’. 71. For J. G. Spurzheim’s discussion of the brain’s compoundness see his Essays on Phrenology (Philadelphia, PA: H. C. Carey and I. Lea, 1822), pp. xviii–xxiii; J. G. Spurzheim, Outlines of Phrenology, 3rd edn (Boston, MA: Marsh Capen & Lyon, 1834), pp. 10–11, 82–3. Van Wyhe’s ‘History of Phrenology on the Web’, http://pages.britishlibrary.net/ phrenology/ (accessed 1 November 2006), provides a splendid resource for the historian interested in phrenology. 72. G. Combe, The Constitution of Man Considered in Relation to External Objects, 5th edn (Boston, MA: Marsh, 1835), pp. 55–6, 59; van Wyhe, Phrenology and Scientific Naturalism, p. 128. For the figure of 72,000 in sales see J. van Wyhe, ‘The Authority of Human Nature: The Schädellehre of Franz Joseph Gall’, British Journal for the History of Science, 35 (2002), pp. 17–42, on p. 22. 73. ‘Phrenology Examined, translated from the Gaz. Med. de Paris’, Medical Times, 7 (1842), pp. 104–5, on p. 105. Emphasis in original. This article was found in Owen’s papers at the Royal College of Surgeons. Flourens was opposed to such multiplicity and was seen as ‘decisively’ refuting phrenology with his removal or destruction of portions of a pigeon’s cerebrum thought to correspond with various mental faculties. 74. [Carpenter], ‘Noble on the Brain’, pp. 518–19. Other anonymous reviewers for the British and Foreign Medical Review were sympathetic toward phrenology: see also ‘Notes on Phrenology’, British and Foreign Medical Review, 9 (1840), pp. 190–215, on p. 197; ‘Dr. Combe on Phrenology’, British and Foreign Medical Review, 22 (1846), pp. 230–1.

184

Notes to pages 60–3

75. Cooter, The Cultural Meaning of Popular Science, pp. 3, 111–12; D. De Giustino, Conquest of Mind: Phrenology and Victorian Social Thought (London: Croom Helm, 1975), p. 18. 76. S. Smith, The Principles of Phrenology (Edinburgh: William Tait, 1838), pp. 36–7. Sidney Smith should not be confused with the curate and Bentham popularizer Sydney Smith. G. M. Murphy, ‘Sidney Smith (1805–1881)’, ODNB. 77. A. L. Wigan, ‘The Duality of the Mind, Proved by the Structure, Function, and Diseases of the Brain’, Lancet, 1 (1844), pp. 39–41, on p. 40; A. L. Wigan, A New View of Insanity: The Duality of the Mind Proved by the Structure, Functions, and Diseases of the Brain (1844; Malibu, CA: Simon, 1985), pp. 74–5, 298. 78. H. Holland, Chapters on Mental Physiology (London: Longman, Brown, Green and Longmans, 1852), pp. 185–8. 79. ‘Review of A New View of Insanity by A. L. Wigan’, Journal of Psychological Medicine and Mental Pathology, 1 (1848), pp. 218–29, on pp. 220, 224–6. This reviewer quoted from Baly’s translation of Müller’s Handbuch, vol. 1, pp. 813–24, and Solly’s 1847 edition of his Human Brain, pp. 30–96. 80. Elliotson quoted from Charles Bell’s Anatomy and Physiology of the Human Body, vol. 2, p. 401, and his own Human Physiology, both its fourth edition (1828), p. 55, and its fifth edition (1845), p. 21. J. Elliotson, ‘Review of A New View of Insanity, by A. L. Wigan’, The Zoist, 5 (1847–8), pp. 209–34, on pp. 211–14, 221–3. 81. J. Davey, ‘The Duality of the Mind Known to the Early Writers on Medicine’, Lancet, 1 (1844), pp. 377–8, on p. 377; J. van Wyhe, ‘James George Davey’, in B. Lightman (ed.), Dictionary of Nineteenth-Century British Scientists (Thoemmes: Bristol, 2004). Others responding to Wigan included Dublinensis, ‘The Duality of the Mind’, Lancet, 1 (1844), p. 186; M. Ryan, ‘The Non-Duality of the Brain’, Lancet, 1 (1844), p. 154; and J. Sheppard, ‘The Duality of the Mind’, Lancet, 1 (1844), pp. 305–6. 82. G. S. Boulger, ‘Hewett Cottrell Watson (1804–1881)’, DNB (1899); Holland, Chapters on Mental Physiology, pp. 185–9; H. Watson, ‘What Is the Use of the Double Brain?’, Phrenological Journal, 9 (1834–6), pp. 608–11; A. L. Wigan, ‘Dr. Wigan on Duality of the Mind’, Lancet, 1 (1844), p. 451; Wigan, A New View of Insanity, pp. 300–4. 83. Todd, ‘Physiology of the Nervous System’, pp. 722z–723b. 84. When discussing autonomy it is difficult to disentangle levels of organization from chains of command: the larger unit’s freedom of action necessitates that smaller units are also less powerful. For instance, a person’s free will implies that their volition directs the activities of lower parts; after all this is what is entailed by the phrase ‘self control’. 85. Carpenter, ‘Lecture 3 on the Nervous System’, pp. 939–40. Carpenter used this word more than thirty years before the OED claims that ‘consentaneous’ was used in neurophysiology. 86. Carpenter and Carpenter, Nature and Man, pp. 60–1; R. B. Todd, The Physiological Anatomy and Physiology of Man, 2 vols (London: Parker, 1859), vol. 1, p. 205. 87. J. Hinton, ‘What Are the Nerves?’ Cornhill Magazine, 5 (1862), pp. 153–66, on p. 166. 88. A. Winter, Mesmerized: Powers of Mind in Victorian Britain (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1998), pp. 341–3. 89. E. Durkheim, De la division du travail social (Paris: Alcan, 1893), pp. 207–10, 287–90. See also E. Perrier, Les colonies animales et la formation des organismes (Paris: Masson, 1881), pp. 760–4, 768–70. Durkheim referred to Perrier seven times over three pages (pp. 208–10) – citing the biologist’s argument that all organisms are structurally colo-

Notes to pages 63–70

185

nial – to back up his point that simple ‘segmental’ societies resembled simple organisms or the segments of more complicated ones.

3 Synthesis 1.

2.

3.

4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

9. 10.

11.

12. 13. 14. 15.

16. 17.

18.

Newport, ‘On the Nervous System of the Sphinx ligustri (Part 2) during the Latter Stages of its Pupa and its Imago State’, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, 124 (1834), pp. 389–423, on p. 404. ‘Cephalization’ was coined in 1862 by the American James D. Dana, according to the OED; it first appeared in his Manual of Geology. E. S. Russell, Form and Function: A Contribution to the History of Animal Morphology (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1982), pp. 94–5; E. R. A. Serres, ‘On the Laws of the Development of Organs (Part 4)’, Medical Times, 7 (1842), pp. 115–16. E. Richards, ‘The German Romantic Concept of Embryonic Repetition and its Role in Evolutionary Theory in England up to 1859’ (unpublished PhD thesis, University of New South Wales, 1977), pp. 94–6, 155; E. R. A. Serres, ‘Explication du système nerveux des animaux invertébrés’, Annales des Sciences Naturelles, 3 (1824), pp. 377–80, on pp. 379–80. Evelleen Richards has made this point – see her ‘The Concept of Embryonic Repetition’, pp. 94–6. Gould, Ontogeny and Phylogeny, p. 46; Owen, The Hunterian Lectures, p. 192. Appel, The Cuvier-Geoffroy Debate, p. 110; Russell, Form and Function, pp. 80–2. Desmond, The Politics of Evolution, pp. 52–3; Richards, ‘A Question of Property Rights’, p. 133; Serres, ‘Development of Organs (Part 4)’, pp. 115–16. S. Smith, ‘Nervous System (Part 1)’, Westminster Review, 9 (1828), pp. 172–98, on p. 186; S. Smith, ‘Nervous System (Part 2)’, Westminster Review, 9 (1828), pp. 451–80, on p. 459. Quain, The Elements of Anatomy, pp. 18–19, 12, 3–6. ‘Review of Philosophie Anatomique by Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire; Histoire des Anomalies de l’Organization by Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire; and Sketch of the Comparative Anatomy of the Nervous System by John Anderson’, Medico-Chirurgical Review, n.s. 27 (1837), pp. 83–128, on pp. 87–8, 114. Ibid., pp. 87–8, 114, 101–5; ‘Review of Illustrations of the Comparative Anatomy of the Nervous System by Joseph Swan’, Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal, 53 (1840), pp. 228–35, on pp. 234–5. R. Owen, On the Archetype and Homologies of the Vertebrate Skeleton (London: J. Van Voorst, 1848), p. 88. See also Owen, The Hunterian Lectures, p. 203, nn. 98–7. Ibid., pp. 175–6, 182. Green, ‘Comparative Anatomy of the Birds’, pp. 320–1; Sloan, ‘On the Edge of Evolution’, pp. 34–5. F. Tiedemann, The Anatomy of the Foetal Brain, with a Comparative Exposition of its Structure in Animals, trans. L. Jourdan Antoine-Jacques and W. Bennett (Edinburgh: John Carfrae, 1826), pp. 23–4, 149–50, 8–9, 2–3. Richards, ‘The Concept of Embryonic Repetition’, pp. 190–2. Gould, Ontogeny and Phylogeny, pp. 483, 46; J. F. Meckel, Manual of General, Descriptive, and Pathological Anatomy, trans. A. J. L. Jourdan, 3 vols (Philadelphia, PA: Carey and Lea, 1832), vol. 1, pp. 26, 31–2; Russell, Form and Function, pp. 94–5. Desmond, The Politics of Evolution, pp. 82–3; P. M. H. Mazumdar, ‘Anatomical Physiology and the Reform of Medical Education, London 1825–1835’, Bulletin of the History

186

19. 20. 21.

22.

23.

24. 25.

26.

27.

28. 29. 30. 31.

Notes to pages 70–6 of Medicine, 57 (1983), pp. 230–46, on p. 236; Richards, The Meaning of Evolution, pp. 43, 49. Grant, ‘Address on the Study of Medicine’, pp. 44–5; Grant, ‘Lectures on Comparative Anatomy’, pp. 399–400. Ibid., pp. 483, 514–15. Ibid., pp. 674–5. Students sometimes took specimens out of the classroom to work on them at home. Thus see the farcical ‘affair of the lobster’ discussed in R. E. Grant, ‘Further Observations on Dr. Hall’s Statement Regarding the Motor Nerves of Articulata’, Lancet, 1 (1837–8), pp. 897–900; R. E. Grant, ‘Reply to Mr. Newport’s Insinuations Respecting the Writings of Dr. Marshall Hall and Dr. Grant’, Lancet, 1 (1837–8), pp. 746–8, on p. 747. Specific animal groupings of the time – along with their exemplars – have been determined by using the glossaries in R. Owen, Lectures on the Comparative Anatomy and Physiology of the Invertebrate Animals, 2nd edn (London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1855); and Winsor’s Starfish, Jellyfish, and the Order of Life. The taxonomy appears in Grant, ‘Lectures on Comparative Anatomy’, pp. 158–9. Grant’s five mentions of an observer’s ‘ascent’ up the animal scale can be found on pp. 153, 270, 294–5, 641, 707. ‘Polygastrica’ was Ehrenberg’s term to denote microscopic animals with tiny organs, as in higher animals. Thus he claimed to have seen multiple stomachs and eyes. Many suspected – and by the 1840s it was shown – that this was an optical illusion caused when vacuoles were coloured by his stains. T. H. Huxley, ‘Lecture 3 on General Natural History’, Medical Times & Gazette, n.s. 33:869 (1856), pp. 507–11, on p. 507; F. B. Churchill, ‘The Guts of the Matter – Infusoria from Ehrenberg to Butschli – 1838–1876’, Journal of the History of Biology, 22 (1989), pp. 189–213. A. Warwick, Masters of Theory: Cambridge and the Rise of Mathematical Physics (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2003), p. 230. Selected questions from an exam given Saturday, 8 July 1831, from R. B. Freeman, Notes on Robert E. Grant, MD (London: Department of Zoology and Comparative Anatomy, University College London, 1964), pp. 9–11. Various notes on the use of recapitulating series to assist teaching can be found in B. Barnes, T. S. Kuhn and Social Science (New York: Columbia University Press, 1982), pp. 18–20; D. Bloor, ‘Durkheim and Mauss Revisited: Classification and the Sociology of Knowledge’, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 13 (1982), pp. 267–97, on pp. 270–1; P. Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977), pp. 87–8; Douglas, How Institutions Think, p. 90; T. S. Kuhn, The Essential Tension: Selected Studies in Scientific Tradition and Change (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1977), pp. xix, 305–7. Mayo, Outlines of Human Physiology, pp. 220–2; Mayo, The Nervous System and its Functions, pp. 84–7; R. Owen, ‘Lectures on the Anatomy and Physiology of the Nervous System’, Medical Times, 7 (1842), pp. 101–3, on p. 101. Jones, Outline of the Animal Kingdom, pp. 186–7, 692. Carpenter, Principles of Physiology, pp. vi, 442–4. For the wide use of this textbook see Carpenter and Carpenter, Nature and Man, p. 65. A. Retzius to J. Forbes, 4 August 1846, Newport Corr. 48. This is to combine the discussion of tools, commensal laboratory creatures and exemplary materials of A. E. Clarke and J. H. Fujimura (eds), The Right Tools for the Job (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992); R. E. Kohler, Lords of the Fly: Drosophila Genetics and the Experimental Life (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1994); and J. A.

Notes to pages 76–80

32. 33. 34.

35. 36.

37. 38.

39. 40.

41.

42.

43. 44. 45.

46.

47. 48.

187

Mendelsohn, ‘Lives of the Cell’, Journal of the History of Biology, 36 (2003), pp. 1–37, on pp. 33–4; with the ‘exemplar’ approach discussed in Barnes, T. S. Kuhn and Social Science, pp. 17, 24–5; and Kuhn, The Essential Tension, pp. xix, 229, 307–8. Solly, The Human Brain, pp. 13–15. Smith, ‘Nervous System (Part 1)’, p. 179; Smith, ‘Nervous System (Part 2)’, p. 451. Bell, ‘Lectures on the Physiology of the Brain’, p. 684. Although Grant explicitly referred to this diagram in his ‘Lectures on Comparative Anatomy’, p. 483, it was not published. Mayo, Outlines of Human Physiology, pp. 220–2. Anderson, ‘The Comparative Anatomy of the Nervous System’, p. 867; Solly, The Human Brain, pp. 33, 13–15, 173. W. B. Carpenter, ‘Lecture 2 on the Nervous System’, London Medical Gazette, 27 (1840– 1), pp. 858–67, on p. 861. Emphasis in original. The example of the starfish nervous ring occurred at least twice more, in Jones, Outline of the Animal Kingdom, pp. 158–9; and Mayo, The Nervous System and its Functions, pp. 14–15. L. S. Jacyna, ‘The Romantic Programme and the Reception of Cell Theory in Britain’, Journal of the History of Biology, 17 (1984), pp. 13–48, explicitly makes this argument. ‘Review of The Human Brain, its Configuration, Structure, Development and Physiology by Samuel Solly, The Practical Anatomy and Elementary Physiology of the Nervous System by F. Le Gros Clark, Sketch of the Comparative Anatomy of the Nervous System by John Anderson’, Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal, 47 (1837), pp. 477–85, on pp. 478– 9; Anderson, ‘Comparative Anatomy of the Nervous System’, pp. 867–9, 864, 906. Bettany, ‘Richard Dugard Grainger’; Grainger, Observations on the Spinal Cord, pp. 42– 4; Leys, From Sympathy to Reflex, pp. 301–2. M. Barfoot, ‘Thomas Laycock (1812–1876)’, ODNB; Clarke and Jacyna, Neuroscientific Concepts, p. 143; T. Laycock, ‘Analytical Essay on Irregular and Aggravated Forms of Hysteria’, Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal, 52 (1839), pp. 43–86, on p. 53. See also F. E. James, ‘The Life and Work of Thomas Laycock 1812–1876’ (unpublished PhD thesis, University of London, 1996). R. Owen, ‘On the Structure and Homology of the Cephalic Tentacles in the Pearly Nautilus’, Annals and Magazine of Natural History, 12 (1843), pp. 305–11, on pp. 306, 310–11; Owen, The Hunterian Lectures, p. 258. G. Newport, ‘On the Nervous System of the Sphinx ligustri and on the Changes which it Undergoes during a Part of the Metamorphoses of the Insect’, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, 122 (1832), pp. 383–98, on pp. 383–4. Ibid., pp. 389–93. Newport, ‘On the Nervous System of the Sphinx ligustri (Part 2)’, pp. 412–16. G. Newport, ‘On the Organs of Reproduction, and the Development of the Myriapoda’, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, 131 (1841), pp. 99–130, on pp. 99, 117, 122. They were analogous in that where the larval insect cast off its skin immediately upon leaving the shell, the myriapod did not cast it off until some period after leaving the ovum. G. Newport, ‘Insecta’, in Todd, vol. 2, pp. 853–994, on pp. 942, 948; Newport, ‘On the Organs of Reproduction’, p. 120; G. Newport, ‘Monograph of the Class Myriapoda, Order Chilopoda’, Transactions of the Linnean Society of London, 19 (1845), pp. 265–302, 349–440, on pp. 268–9, 266. Newport, ‘On the Structure of the Nervous System in Myriapoda’, p. 244. ‘Mr. Newport’s Researches in Natural History, &c’, British and Foreign Medical Review, 20 (1845), pp. 487–508, on p. 491; Anderson, ‘Comparative Anatomy of the Nervous

188

49. 50. 51.

52.

53.

54.

55.

56.

57.

58. 59. 60.

Notes to pages 80–5 System’, pp. 910–11; W. B. Carpenter to [ J. Forbes], 17 August 1844, Newport Corr. 73. [Carpenter], ‘Noble on the Brain’, pp. 503–4. R. Owen, ‘Lectures on the Comparative Anatomy and Physiology of the Invertebrate Animals (Annotated)’, MS (1843), Owen Coll. 7, interleaving facing p. 210. Ibid., ‘which I regret I did not hear’ – interleaved between pp. 190–3, discussion of repetitive ganglia interleaved between pp. 198–9, ‘homologous as well as analogous?’, interleaved between pp. 199–200. R Coggon, ‘George Newport’; G. Newport, ‘Mr. Newport’s Second Reply to Professor Grant’, Lancet, 2 (1837–8), pp. 118–20, on p. 119. One French entomologist from whom Newport was alleged to have plagiarized was Pierre Lyonnet. Owen gave some credence to the charges, for he later obliquely noted that Lyonnet’s description of the coalescence of the butterfly nervous system during metamorphosis predated Newport’s work. Instead of using Newport’s moth diagrams, he used Lyonnet’s, from his 1828 Considerations générales sur l’anatomie comparée des animaux articulées. Owen, Lectures on the Invertebrate Animals, 1st edn, p. 209. ‘The Rival Discoverers’, London Medical Gazette, 21 (1837–8), pp. 903–6; W. B. Carpenter to G. Newport, 1 July 1847, Newport Corr. 12; Desmond, ‘Robert Edmond Grant’; Grant, ‘Reply to Mr. Newport’s Insinuations’, p. 747; G. Newport, ‘On the Anatomy of Certain Structures in Myriapoda and Arachnida which have been thought to have Belonged to the Nervous System’, London Medical Gazette, 21 (1837–8), pp. 970–3; A. Retzius to J. Forbes, 4 August 1846, Newport Corr. 48. The next year, supported by testimonials about his good but retiring character from Richard Owen, James Scott Bowerbank, W. B. Carpenter, J. E. Gray, Hermann Burmeister and John Forbes, Newport received a £100 a year pension from the Queen. R. E. Grant, ‘Dr. Roget’s Bridgewater Treatise’, Lancet, 1 (1846), pp. 445–6; P. M. Roget, ‘Dr. Roget’s Rejoinder to Dr. Grant’, Lancet, 1 (1846), pp. 482–3, on p. 483. Roget claimed that he offered to acknowledge Grant wherever Grant explicitly indicated his priority, but that Grant rejected his proposal. ‘Review of Outlines of Comparative Anatomy’, p. 384; ‘Review of Illustrations of the Comparative Anatomy of the Nervous System by Joseph Swan’, Medico-Chirurgical Review, n.s. 24 (1836), pp. 435–9, on p. 437; Grant, ‘Lectures on Comparative Anatomy’, pp. 514–15. Gould, Ontogeny and Phylogeny, p. 51; E. R. A. Serres, Anatomie comparée du cerveau, dans les quatre classes des animaux vertébrés, 2 vols (Paris: Gabon, 1824–6), vol. 1, pp. lxiii–lxiv. Geoffroy was interested in human monstrosities – linking them to accidents during a normal pregnancy. Owen, ‘Preface’, p. xxv; Owen, The Hunterian Lectures, p. 185; Richards, ‘The Concept of Embryonic Repetition’, p. 98; Richards, ‘A Question of Property Rights’, pp. 148–9, 157; E. Richards, ‘A Political Anatomy of Monsters, Hopeful and Otherwise: Teratogeny, Transcendentalism, and Evolutionary Theorizing’, Isis, 85 (1994), pp. 377–411, on pp. 394–5, 398–9. Owen, ‘Preface’, pp. xxv–xxvi; Owen, The Hunterian Lectures, p. 185. Ottley, ‘Life of John Hunter’, pp. 181–3. C. G. Carus, The King of Saxony’s Journey through England and Scotland in the Year 1844 (London: Chapman & Hall, 1846), pp. 93–4, cited in Richards, ‘A Political Anatomy of Monsters’, p. 396.

Notes to pages 86–92

189

61. J. Müller, Elements of Physiology, trans. W. Baly, 2 vols (London: Taylor and Walton, 1838–43), vol. 2, p. 403; Thomas Hodgkin, ‘The History of an Unusually-Formed Placenta, and Imperfect Foetus, and of Similar Examples of Monstrous Productions’, Guy’s Hospital Reports, 1 (1836), pp. 218–26, on pp. 224–5, cited in Jacyna, ‘The Reception of Cell Theory in Britain’, p. 37.

4 Regeneration as Reproduction 1.

E. S. Forbes, A History of British Starfishes, and other Animals of the Class Echinodermata (London: J. Van Voorst, 1841), pp. 135–9. 2. T. Laycock, Mind and Brain (1860; New York: Arno Press, 1976), pp. 259–60. 3. Farley, Gametes and Spores, p. 72. 4. [Broderip and Owen], ‘Professor Owen’, pp. 385–6; R. Owen, ‘Entozoa’, in Todd, vol. 2, pp. 111–43, on p. 137; Owen, ‘Lectures on the Invertebrate Animals (Annotated)’, Owen Coll. 7. Owen declared that he had been motivated to find the parasite causing trichinosis because of his opposition to spontaneous generation. Interestingly, Owen also singled out von Baer as one supporter of spontaneous generation in his ‘Hunterian Lectures on Generation’, Owen Coll. 38.1. 5. Carpenter, Principles of Physiology, pp. 106, 109; Grant, ‘Lectures on Comparative Anatomy’, p. 487; Roget, Animal and Vegetable Physiology, vol. 2, pp. 82–3; A. Thomson, ‘Ovum’, in Todd, vol. 4, 43 (1852), pp. 1–32; 44 (1854), pp. 33–80; 48 (1856), pp. 81–142, on 43, p. 29. 6. Ibid., 44, p. 35. 7. They were imperfectly developed in that they lacked wings. G. Newport, ‘Note on the Generation of Aphides’, Transactions of the Linnean Society of London, 20 (1851), pp. 281–3; Owen, ‘Hunterian Lectures on Generation’, Owen Coll. 38.1. Newport’s paper was read in 1846, but the Linnean Society – almost as slow as the Ray Society at publishing – only printed it in 1851. 8. Lawrence, Comparative Anatomy and Physiology, pp. 57–9. Jones, Outline of the Animal Kingdom, pp. 22–6; Owen, ‘Hunterian Lectures on Generation’, Owen Coll. 38.1; Owen, The Hunterian Lectures, p. 214. 9. ‘Review of On the Alternation of Generations by J. J. Steenstrup’, Medico-Chirurgical Review, n.s. 45 (1846), pp. 22–34, on p. 34; [W. B. Carpenter], ‘On the Development and Metamorphoses of Zoophytes’, British and Foreign Medico-Chirurgical Review, 1 (1848), pp. 183–214, on p. 195. 10. Lawrence, Comparative Anatomy and Physiology, pp. 16–20; Milne Edwards, ‘Annelida’, pp. 172–3; Owen, ‘Lectures on the Invertebrate Animals (Annotated)’, Owen Coll. 7. 11. Jones, Outline of the Animal Kingdom, pp. 89–91; Müller, Elements of Physiology, vol. 1, pp. 401–4, 18–19; Owen, ‘Entozoa’, pp. 137–9. 12. J. G. Dalyell, Observations on Some Interesting Phenomena in Animal Physiology, Exhibited by Several Species of Planariae (Edinburgh: Archibald Constable, 1814), p. 64; C. Darwin, ‘Brief Descriptions of Several Terrestrial Planariae, and of Some Remarkable Marine Species, with an Account of Their Habits’, Annals and Magazine of Natural History, 14 (1844), pp. 240–51, on p. 244; C. Darwin, Journal of Researches into the Natural History and Geology of the Countries Visited During the Voyage of H. M. S. Beagle Round the World, under the Command of Capt. Fitz Roy, new edn (New York: Appleton, 1871), pp. 26–7; Roget, Animal and Vegetable Physiology, vol. 2, pp. 586–7.

190

Notes to pages 92–7

13. Owen, ‘Lectures on the Invertebrate Animals (Annotated)’, Owen Coll. 7; Owen, The Hunterian Lectures, p. 214. 14. Jones, Outline of the Animal Kingdom, p. 221; A. Thomson, ‘Generation’, in Todd, vol. 2, pp. 424–80, on p. 432. It is difficult to determine precisely which researcher wrote first because Jones’s work was issued as a serial. 15. Carpenter, Principles of Physiology, pp. 100–1. 16. J. Lubbock, ‘On the Ova and Pseudova of Insects’, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, 149 (1859), pp. 341–69, on p. 341; Winsor, Starfish, Jellyfish, and the Order of Life, pp. 53–4. Steenstrup has probably been given too much credit for beginning the debate over reproductive patterns in lower invertebrates. Huxley for instance gave Chamisso priority over Steenstrup, a point noticed by contemporaries: G. H. Lewes, Sea-Side Studies at Ilfracombe, Tenby, the Scilly Isles, and Jersey, 2nd edn (Edinburgh: W. Blackwood and Sons, 1860), pp. 288–9. 17. Churchill, ‘Sex and the Single Organism’, p. 145; J. J. Steenstrup, On the Alternation of Generations, or, the Propagation and Development of Animals through Alternate Generations, trans. G. Busk (London: Ray Society, 1845), pp. 38–9, 106–8, 1, 6. 18. Farley, Gametes and Spores, pp. 78–80. Steenstrup, On the Alternation of Generations, p. 115. 19. Farley, Gametes and Spores, p. 80. 20. Churchill, ‘Sex and the Single Organism’, pp. 145, 150; Farley, Gametes and Spores, pp. 72–4. 21. Owen, ‘Preface’, p. xxviii. The other classes of animals included Vivipara (like Linnaeus’s mammals), Ovovivipara (eggs hatched in the body), and Ovipara (eggs hatched outside the body). 22. A. P. de Candolle, Organographie végétale, ou description raisonnée des organes des plantes, 2 vols (Paris: Deterville, 1827), vol. 2, p. 235. Milne Edwards’s new group was called ‘molluscoid’: [Carpenter], ‘On the Development of Zoophytes’, p. 195. 23. J. Lindley, On the Principal Questions at Present Debated in the Philosophy of Botany (London: Richard Taylor, 1833), p. 32. I thank Sara Scharf for alerting me to this passage. 24. P. R. Sloan, ‘Darwin, Vital Matter, and the Transformism of Species’, Journal of the History of Biology, 19 (1986), pp. 369–445, on pp. 384–5. 25. Roget, Animal and Vegetable Physiology, vol. 1, p. 89, vol. 2, p. 585; Thomson, ‘Generation’, pp. 424–5. 26. C. Darwin, Notebooks, 1836–1844: Geology, Transmutation of Species, Metaphysical Enquiries, ed. P. H. Barrett, P. J. Gautrey, S. Herbert, D. Kohn and S. Smith (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1987), note M41, p. 529. This entry is dated about autumn 1838. See also that page’s footnote 41–1, on Erasmus Darwin’s note on the resemblance between the tree – a ‘congeries of living buds’, and the coralline (a marine invertebrate) – a ‘congeries of a multitude of animals’. M. J. S. Hodge, ‘Darwin as a Lifelong Generation Theorist’, in D. Kohn (ed.), The Darwinian Heritage (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985), pp. 207–43, on pp. 210, 212–13. 27. R. Q. Couch, ‘On the Morphology of the Different Organs of Zoophytes’, Annals and Magazine of Natural History, 15 (1845), pp. 161–6, on pp. 161–2; J. G. Dalyell, Rare and Remarkable Animals of Scotland, 2 vols (London: J. Van Voorst, 1847), vol. 1, pp. 5–7; E. S. Forbes, ‘On the Morphology of the Reproductive System of Sertularian Zoophytes, and its Analogy with that of Flowering Plants’, British Association for the Advancement of Science, (1845), pp. 68–9.

Notes to pages 97–101

191

28. Owen, The Hunterian Lectures, pp. 213–14; Sloan, ‘Darwin and the Transformism of Species’, pp. 411–12. 29. J. Blackwall, ‘Researches Having for their Object the Elucidation of Certain Phaenomena in the Physiology of the Araneidea’, Annals and Magazine of Natural History, 2nd series, 1 (1848), pp. 173–80, on pp. 173–4, 176–7. For Owen’s link with Blackwall, see J. W. Gruber and J. C. Thackray, Richard Owen Commemoration: Three Studies (London: Natural History Museum Publications, 1992), pp. 36–7. 30. For an example of Goodsir’s regeneration research see his ‘Mode of Reproduction of Lost Parts in the Crustacea’, in J. Goodsir and H. Goodsir, Anatomical and Pathological Observations (Edinburgh: Myles MacPhail, 1845), pp. 74–8. 31. G. Newport, An Address Delivered at the Anniversary Meeting of the Entomological Society of London 22 Jan 1844 (London: Richard and John E. Taylor, 1844), p. 5; G. Newport, An Address Delivered at the Adjourned Anniversary Meeting of the Entomological Society of London on the 10th of February, 1845 (London: Richard and John E. Taylor, 1845), pp. 12–13; G. Newport to J. Clarke, ‘Testimonial on behalf of R. E. Grant’ [1846], Newport Corr. 41 32. R. Owen, ‘Definitions from Museum Lectures on the Animal Kingdom’, MS (n.d.), Richard Owen Papers, Royal College of Surgeons, London; Rupke, Richard Owen, pp. 172, 197. 33. Owen, On the Archetype, pp. 170–1; Russell, Form and Function, pp. 111–12. 34. ‘Edward Forbes’s Royal Institution Lecture, on some Important Analogies between the Animal and Vegetable Kingdom’, Annals and Magazine of Natural History, 15 (1845), pp. 210–12, on pp. 211–12. 35. Owen, On the Archetype, p. 171. 36. Desmond, The Politics of Evolution, pp. 346–7, 13, 3. 37. Rupke nicely shows how Owen’s definition of an ‘archetype’ was actually taken from Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary of the English Language, and concludes that Owen had little inclination for abstractions. Rupke, Richard Owen, pp. 198–202. 38. While Hilton’s suggestions do not quite pertain to the immediate technical issues concerning the life researchers in this book, one wonders how his quadrant might be related to Mary Douglas’s ‘grid-group’ scheme. Hilton, ‘Politics of Anatomy’, pp. 185–6. 39. Jacyna, ‘Immanence or Transcendence’, pp. 311, 321–3. 40. D. Bloor, ‘Coleridge’s Moral Copula’, Social Studies of Science, 13 (1983), pp. 605–19, on pp. 605–6, 618; J. S. Mill, Mill on Bentham and Coleridge (1838, 1840), ed. F. R. Leavis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980), pp. 102–3. 41. Owen, ‘Hunterian Lectures on Generation’, Owen Coll. 38.1. 42. R. Owen to R. W. D. Conybeare, 13 March 1848, Richard Owen Papers, Royal College of Surgeons, London. 43. Richards, The Meaning of Evolution, pp. 165–6. 44. Owen, On the Archetype, p. 81; R. Owen, On the Nature of Limbs (London: J. Van Voorst, 1849), p. 119. Emphasis in original. 45. R. Amundson, The Changing Role of the Embryo in Evolutionary Thought: Roots of EvoDevo (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), p. 84; Sloan, ‘On the Edge of Evolution’, p. 63. 46. Owen, The Hunterian Lectures, pp. 228–30; Sloan, ‘Darwin and the Transformism of Species’, p. 414. 47. Thomson, ‘Ovum’, 44, p. 37.

192

Notes to pages 101–8

48. ‘Fissiparous’ Owen later defined as the ‘self-cleavage of the individual into two parts’. Owen, Lectures on the Invertebrate Animals, 2nd edn, p. 673. 49. Carpenter, Principles of Physiology, pp. 391–3. 50. Owen, The Hunterian Lectures, p. 167. 51. Owen, Lectures on the Invertebrate Animals, 1st edn, pp. 233–4, 245–6. 52. F. Duchesneau, ‘Vitalism and Anti-Vitalism in Schwann’s Program for the Cell Theory’, in G. Cimino and F. Duchesneau (eds), Vitalisms from Haller to the Cell Theory (Florence: L. S. Olschki, 1997), pp. 225–52, on p. 249. 53. G. H. Lewes, ‘New Sea-Side Studies’, Blackwood’s Magazine, 82 (1857), pp. 222–40, on pp. 239–40. 54. R. Owen, On Parthenogenesis, or, the Successive Production of Procreating Individuals from a Single Ovum: A Discourse Introductory to the Hunterian Lectures on Generation and Development (London: J. Van Voorst, 1849), p. 69. 55. Ibid., pp. 56–7, 61–2. 56. These derivative germ-cells were not everywhere in Hydra – its tentacles could not reproduce anything but other tentacles. Ibid., pp. 7, 48–9. 57. Goodsir and Goodsir, Anatomical and Pathological Observations, pp. 1–3, 74–5; Owen, Lectures on the Invertebrate Animals, 2nd edn, pp. 643–5. 58. Owen, On Parthenogenesis, pp. 72–3, 48–9, 7. 59. See Farley, Gametes and Spores – ‘A Sexless Age’. 60. H. Spencer, ‘A Theory of Population, Deduced from the General Law of Animal Fertility’, Westminster Review, 57 (1852), pp. 468–501, on p. 492. 61. Sloan, ‘Darwin and the Transformism of Species’, pp. 411–12. 62. J. Smythe, ‘Miscellaneous Contributions to Pathology and Therapeutics: Impotence and Sterility’, Lancet, 26 August 1841, pp. 779–785, on p. 784, quoted in R. Darby, ‘Pathologizing Male Sexuality: Lallemand, Spermatorrhea, and the Rise of Circumcision’, Journal of the History of Medicine, 60 (2005), pp. 283–319, on p. 283. 63. M. Mason, The Making of Victorian Sexuality (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), pp. 297–8. 64. R. Owen, ‘On Parthenogenesis (Annotated)’, MS (n.d.), Owen Coll. 18. On this work is a list of people with check-marks next to their names, so it is probably a register of those to whom copies were sent. 65. E. S. Forbes to R. Owen, [1848], Owen Corr. 12/320–3; Lewes, ‘New Sea-Side Studies’, pp. 234–6; Thomson, ‘Ovum’, 44, pp. 37–8; Owen, ‘On Parthenogenesis (Annotated)’, Owen Coll. 18. 66. Owen, Lectures on the Invertebrate Animals, 2nd edn, p. 676. 67. R. Owen, ‘Professor Owen on Metamorphosis and Metagenesis’, Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal, 50 (1851), pp. 269–78. 68. J. V. Carus to R. Owen, 1 October 1851, Owen Corr. 6/365–6; Thomson, ‘Ovum’, 44, p. 38; E. S. Forbes to R. Owen, n.d., Owen Corr. 12/324–5. 69. Official Descriptive and Illustrated Catalogue of the Great Exhibition, 3 vols (London: William Clowes and Son, 1851), vol. 1, pp. 37, 44, 88; Flower, ‘Richard Owen’; Gruber, ‘Sir Richard Owen’; Rupke, Richard Owen, pp. 62–3, 53.

Notes to pages 109–13

193

5 1837: The Accession of Palaetiology 1.

2. 3. 4.

5.

6. 7.

8. 9.

10.

11. 12. 13.

The word combined ‘aetiological’ – from a cause – with ‘palae’, meaning beings that formerly existed. W. Whewell, History of the Inductive Sciences, 3rd edn, 3 vols (1857; London: Cass, 1967), vol. 3, pp. 397–9. Martin Rudwick, for instance, instead believes that thinking about phenomena historically is a more recent trend – see his Bursting the Limits of Time, p. 53. Thoughts on ‘exemplar disciplines’ are taken from Jardine, The Scenes of Inquiry, pp. 103–4. Whewell, History of the Inductive Sciences, 3rd edn vol. 3, pp. 397–9; W. Whewell, The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences: Founded Upon Their History, 2nd edn (1847; New York: Johnson Reprints, 1967), pp. 637–8. W. Whewell, History of the Inductive Sciences: From the Earliest to the Present Times, 3 vols (London: J. W. Parker, 1837), vol. 3, p. 399; Whewell, Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, pp. 637–8, 645–8, 654–5. On the importance of this ‘style’, see M. J. S. Hodge, ‘The History of the Earth, Life, and Man: Whewell and Palaetiological Science’, in M. Fisch and S. Schaffer (eds), William Whewell: A Composite Portrait (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), pp. 255–88. Merz, A History of European Thought, vol. 2, pp. 363–6. S. Alter, Darwinism and the Linguistic Image: Language, Race, and Natural Theology in the Nineteenth Century (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999), pp. 2, 13–14; Coleman, Biology in the Nineteenth Century, pp. 10–11. Another interesting parallel is historical biblical criticism. Fourteen years before the uproar caused by Essays and Reviews (1860) there appeared a translation of David Friedrich Strauss’s Leben Jesu, the book that examined the veracity of Biblical accounts by reconciling them with historical accounts. Anonymously translated from German into English by George Eliot in 1846, it began from the premise that for something in the Bible to be seen as ‘historically valid’ it had to cohere with other accounts. ‘Historical’ was thus a form of praise. D. F. Strauss, The Life of Jesus Critically Examined, 4th edn, trans. G. Eliot (1846), ed. P. C. Hodgson (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1972), pp. 88, 91. G. L. Asherson, ‘Martin Barry (1802–1855)’, ODNB; M. Barry to R. Owen, 3 August [c. 1844], Owen Corr. 2/261–2. K. E. von Baer, ‘Fragments relating to Philosophical Zoology’, in A. Henfrey and T. H. Huxley (eds), Scientific Memoirs, Selected from the Transactions of Foreign Academies of Science and from Foreign Journals (London: Taylor and Francis, 1853), pp. 176–238, on p. 231. Three good discussions of von Baerian embryology are to be found in D. Ospovat, ‘The Influence of Karl Ernst von Baer’s Embryology, 1828–1859: A Reappraisal in Light of Richard Owen’s and William B. Carpenter’s “Palaeontological Application of Von Baer’s Law”’, Journal of the History of Biology, 9 (1976), pp. 1–28; Richards, ‘A Question of Property Rights’; Richards, Meaning of Evolution, pp. 108–11. Merz, A History of European Thought, vol. 2, ch. 9, ‘On the Genetic View of Nature’, pp. 276–366, esp. pp. 299–306. Von Baer, ‘Fragments relating to Zoology’, pp. 214–16. Italics in original. On modern versions of this point see J. C. Schank and W. C. Wimsatt, ‘Generative Entrenchment and Evolution’, PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association, 2 (1986), pp. 33–60.

194

Notes to pages 113–19

14. M. Barry, ‘Researches in Embryology, Second Series’, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, 129 (1839), pp. 307–80, on p. 308, n. Emphasis in original. 15. M. Barry, ‘Further Observations on the Unity of Structure in the Animal Kingdom, and on Congenital Anomalies, including “Hermaphrodites”; with some Remarks on Embryology, as Facilitating Animal Nomenclature, Classification, and the Study of Comparative Anatomy’, Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal, 22 (1837), pp. 345–64, on pp. 362–4. 16. The similarity of the curves indicated resemblances (but not identities) that appeared during development. M. Barry, ‘On the Unity of Structure in the Animal Kingdom’, Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal, 22 (1837), pp. 116–41, on pp. 134–5. 17. Barry, ‘Further Observations on the Unity of Structure’, pp. 362–4; Barry, ‘On the Unity of Structure in the Animal Kingdom’, p. 123. 18. Goodsir and Goodsir, Anatomical and Pathological Observations, p. 2, fn.; Sloan, ‘On the Edge of Evolution’, p. 62. 19. Owen, The Hunterian Lectures, pp. 193, 191; A. L. Panchen, ‘Richard Owen and the Concept of Homology’, in B. K. Hall (ed.), Homology: The Hierarchical Basis of Comparative Biology (Toronto: Academic Press, 1994), pp. 21–62, on p. 50; Richards, ‘The Concept of Embryonic Repetition’, p. 218; Richards, ‘A Question of Property Rights’, p. 139. 20. T. H. Huxley to C. Darwin, [before 3 October 1857], in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 6: 1856–7, ed. F. Burkhardt and S. Smith (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), pp. 461–2; R. Owen, ‘Presidential Address’, British Association for the Advancement of Science (1859), pp. xlix–cx, on pp. lxix–lxx. 21. Owen, ‘Presidential Address’, pp. lxix–lxx; Richards, ‘A Question of Property Rights’, pp. 133, 142–3, 170. 22. It is unlikely that Owen lacked specimens of these common compound sea squirts, and so this offer was more of a way to ‘remember himself ’ to Owen. W. B. Carpenter to R. Owen, 23 August 1842, Owen Corr. 6/304–5; W. B. Carpenter to R. Owen, 23 September 1842, Owen Corr. 6/308–11; W. B. Carpenter to R. Owen, 1 October 1843, Owen Corr. 6/325–6; W. B. Carpenter to R. Owen, 4 July 1845, Owen Corr. 6/329–30; Rupke, Richard Owen, p. 183; Smith, ‘William Benjamin Carpenter’. 23 Carpenter, Principles of Physiology, pp. 391–3. 24. Regarding one of his papers under consideration at the Royal Society, Carpenter asked Barry to withdraw it if looked like the paper was going to be rejected. W. B. Carpenter to R. Owen, 23 June 1843, Owen Corr. 6/321–4; Carpenter and Carpenter, Nature and Man, p. 26. 25. [W. B. Carpenter], ‘Ethnology, or the Science of Races’, Edinburgh Review, 88 (1848), pp. 429–87, on pp. 432–3, 473–4, 477. In the final point about American languages, Carpenter quoted from Chevalier Bunsen’s 1848 British Association for the Advancement of Science report. 26. Though anonymously written, other researchers like E. S. Forbes seem to have immediately known Carpenter’s authorship. 27. [Carpenter], ‘On the Development of Zoophytes’, pp. 188–9. 28. Farley, Gametes and Spores, pp. 78–81. 29. Churchill, ‘Sex and the Single Organism’, p. 151. 30. [Carpenter], ‘On the Development of Zoophytes’, pp. 192–4.

Notes to pages 120–3

195

31. [W. B. Carpenter], ‘Owen and Paget on Reproduction and Repair’, British and Foreign Medico-Chirurgical Review, 4 (1849), pp. 409–49, on pp. 441–2. Emphasis in original. [Carpenter], ‘On the Development of Zoophytes’, pp. 204–5. 32. Ibid., pp. 196–8. Churchill notes that, although this essay review was published before Owen’s On Parthenogenesis, it referred to Owen’s 1848 Hunterian Lectures, which contained many of the same statements. Churchill, ‘Sex and the Single Organism’. 33. [Carpenter], ‘On the Development of Zoophytes’, pp. 211–13. 34. Ibid., pp. 192–4. 35. Farley, for instance, portrays Steenstrup’s use of the term ‘generations’ as confused because he defined it morphologically. Farley, Gametes and Spores, pp. 75, 78. But one must distinguish between a word’s initial use by an author and then how it is used by others. Hence Galileo differentiated the Aristotelian concept of ‘speed’, into both ‘average speed’ and ‘instantaneous speed’, giving concrete examples of problems that arose if this distinction was not made. Carpenter’s strategy was very similar to Galileo’s, revealing a problem where none had previously been seen. Barnes, T. S. Kuhn and Social Science, pp. 36–8. 36. T. H. Huxley, ‘On the Phenomena of Gemmation’, Proceedings of the Royal Institution, 2 (1858), pp. 534–8, on pp. 536–7. 37. A. H. Hassall, ‘Observations on Two of Professor Edward Forbes’s “Retrospective Comments”’, Annals and Magazine of Natural History, 12 (1843), pp. 117–20, on pp. 117–18. The zoophyte was Coryne; Hassall’s proposed genus, Echinocorium. Their fight was over Forbes’s argument that independence meant an animal could be detached without injury. Hassall thought that, since these animals regenerated so easily, Forbes’s criterion was meaningless. 38. E. S. Forbes, A Monograph of the British Naked-Eyed Medusae (London: Ray Society, 1848), pp. 87–8. Forbes worried that Carpenter would be angry at being ‘pitched into’, but genially assumed that since he was backing Carpenter for a new position at the ‘Godless’ (University) College, this irritation would quickly diminish. E. S. Forbes to R. Owen, 2 November 1848, Owen Corr. 12/308–9; Thomson, ‘Ovum’, 44, p. 36. 39. Owen, Lectures on the Invertebrate Animals, 1st edn, pp. 239–41; Owen, Lectures on the Invertebrate Animals, 2nd edn, pp. 426–9. 40. A. Farre, ‘Observations on the Minute Structure of some of the Higher Forms of Polypi, with Views of the More Natural Arrangement of the Class’, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, 127 (1837), pp. 387–427, on pp. 390–1. 41. Portable Eicallobia were even promoted for gentlemen, who were advised that the spectacle of hatching birds would provide a splendid subject for any ‘Evening Conversazione’. A. Booth, The Stranger’s Intellectual Guide to London for 1839–40 (London: Henry Hooper, 1839), advertisement at end. 42. M. Goodrum, ‘The British Sea-Side Studies, 1820–1860: Marine Invertebrates, the Practice of Natural History, and the Depiction of Life in the Sea’ (unpublished PhD thesis, Indiana University, 1997), pp. 92–3; Sloan, ‘Darwin’s Invertebrate Program’, pp. 73–4. 43. Dalyell, Rare and Remarkable Animals, vol. 1, pp. 36–7. Grannie outlived Dalyell by thirty-six years, and was obituarized in The Times and The Scotsman when it finally passed away in 1887, age sixty-six. K. Dalyell, ‘Sir John Graham Dalyell, Sixth Baronet (1775–1851)’, ODNB; D. E. Allen, The Naturalist in Britain: A Social History (London: A. Lane, 1976), pp. 132–3, 137.

196

Notes to pages 123–8

44. J. Reid, ‘Observations on the Development of the Medusae’, Annals and Magazine of Natural History, 2nd series, 1 (1848), pp. 25–35, on pp. 25–6, 33–4. 45. [Carpenter], ‘On the Development of Zoophytes’, pp. 196–8. 46. Catalogue of the Great Exhibition, vol. 1, pp. 466–7; Allen, The Naturalist in Britain, pp. 133–6. 47. ‘The Aquarium Mania’, Titan, 23 (1856), pp. 322–30, on p. 323. 48. Goodrum, ‘The British Sea-Side Studies’, pp. 278–83. 49. ‘The Aquarium Mania’, pp. 324–5, 327; W. A. Lloyd, A List, with Descriptions, Illustrations, and Prices, of Whatever Relates to Aquaria (London: Hayman Brothers, 1858), pp. 5–6, 160–3; R. Stott, ‘Through a Glass Darkly: Aquarium Colonies and NineteenthCentury Narratives of Marine Monstrosity’, Gothic Studies, 2 (2001), pp. 305–27, on p. 306. 50. Lloyd, Whatever Relates to Aquaria, pp. 23–30, 39–40, 43. 51. Ibid., p. 111. Relevant books and their prices included Allman’s British Freshwater Polyzoa (21s.); Badham’s Ancient and Modern Fish-Tattle (12s.); Carpenter’s The Microscope and its Revelations (12s. 6d.); Clark’s History of British Marine Testaceous Mollusca (15s.); Dalyell’s Power of the Creator displayed in the Creation (£10 10s., discounted) and Rare and Remarkable Animals of Scotland (£6 6s.); E. S. Forbes’s Catalogue of Mollusca (3s.), History of Star Fishes (15s.), Naked Eyed Medusae (21s.); Forbes and S. Hanley’s History of British Mollusca (£13); Rymer Jones’s General Outline of the Animal Kingdom (31s. 6d.), Natural History (12s. per vol) and Aquarium Naturalist (18s.); Lewes’s Sea-Side Studies (10s. 6d.) and Owen’s Lectures on the Invertebrate Animals, 2nd edn (21s.) and Lectures on Vertebrates: Fish (14s.). 52. Desmond, ‘The Making of Institutional Zoology’, pp. 232–3. See Booth, The Stranger’s Intellectual Guide to London, pp. 57–8 for one contemporary explanation of the Zoological Society’s initial purpose – the domestication (and consumption) of non-native animals. 53. ‘The Aquarium Mania’, p. 326. 54. J. Lubbock, ‘An Account of the Two Methods of Reproduction in Daphnia’, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, 147 (1857), pp. 79–100, on pp. 79–81. 55. A. Desmond, Huxley: From Devil’s Disciple to Evolution’s High Priest (London: Penguin, 1997), pp. 174, 25; M. A. Di Gregorio, T. H. Huxley’s Place in Natural Science (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1984). 56. Desmond, Huxley, p. 27. 57. T. H. Huxley, ‘Some Considerations Upon the Meaning of the Terms Analogy and Affinity’, MS [1846–7], Huxley Papers 37.1–21, ff. 11, 13–15, 20. 58. Ibid., f. 21. Because of the dating it is unclear if he had read von Baer by this point, though this is likely. This similarity is also discussed in S. L. Lyons, Thomas Henry Huxley: The Evolution of a Scientist (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1999), pp. 71–2. 59. Di Gregorio, T. H. Huxley’s Place in Natural Science, pp. 3–4; Winsor, Starfish, Jellyfish, and the Order of Life, p. 61. 60. T. H. Huxley, ‘On the Anatomy and the Affinities of the Family of the Medusae’, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, 139 (1849), pp. 413–34, on p. 430. 61. T. H. Huxley, ‘Notes on Owen’s Parthenogenesis’, MS [1849–50], Huxley Papers, Rattlesnake Notebook, 50.13–19, f. 19.

Notes to pages 131–4

197

6 Alternative Explanations and New Generations 1.

2. 3.

4.

5. 6.

7.

8. 9. 10.

11.

12. 13. 14. 15.

Macleay was attached to the Board that processed British claims upon the defeated French government in 1815. J. Holland, ‘William Sharp Macleay (1792–1865)’, in B. Lightman (ed.), Dictionary of Nineteenth-Century British Scientists (Bristol: Thoemmes, 2004). W. S. MacLeay to R. Owen, 28 April 1850, Owen Corr. 17/331–2; R. Owen to Sir F. Baring (Draft), Richard Owen Papers, Royal College of Surgeons, London. Henfrey, five years Huxley’s senior, had also trained as a surgeon. He lectured at a medical school associated with St George’s Hospital, London, and had founded a journal, the Botanical Gazette, whose three-year lifespan had ended in 1851. Henfrey’s translation work was probably done to replenish his accounts. D. J. Mabberley, ‘Arthur Henfrey (bap. 1820, d. 1859)’, ODNB. The well-regarded Newcastle naturalist Albany Hancock asked Huxley to confirm some of Albert Kölliker’s findings on cephalopod anatomy, and a long correspondence ensued between senior and junior naturalist. A. Hancock to T. H. Huxley, 16 May 1852, Huxley Papers 17.252–6. Von Baer, ‘Fragments’, p. 176. A. Kölliker, Manual of Human Histology, trans. G. Busk and T. H. Huxley, 2 vols (London: Sydenham Society, 1853), footnote in vol. 2, pp. 60–1. Busk, older than Huxley, was first surgeon on HMS Dreadnought, a hospital ship docked at Greenwich. He had been President of the Microscopical Society in 1848–9 and appointed a Fellow of the Royal Society the next year. B. B. Woodward and Y. Foote, ‘George Busk (1807–1886)’, ODNB. T. H. Huxley, ‘Report upon the Researches of Prof. Müller into the Anatomy and Development of the Echinoderms’, Annals and Magazine of Natural History, 2nd series 8 (1851), pp. 1–19, on p. 13. T. H. Huxley to W. S. MacLeay, 9 November 1851, Huxley Papers 30.3–8. T. H. Huxley to J. Goodsir, 20 January 1850 (Draft), Huxley Papers 17.72–3; T. H. Huxley to W. S. MacLeay, 9 November 1851, Huxley Papers 30.3–8. Desmond, Huxley, p. 180; J. V. Jensen, Thomas Henry Huxley: Communicating for Science (Cranbury, NJ: Associated University Presses, 1991), p. 47; White, Thomas Huxley, pp. 35, 37–8. T. H. Huxley, ‘On Animal Individuality’, MS (n.d.), Huxley Papers 38.2–52, f. 38.5; T. H. Huxley, Untitled MS (5 September 1850), Huxley Papers 63.8. This is mislabelled as 1880 in W. R. Dawson, The Huxley Papers; a Descriptive Catalogue of the Correspondence, Manuscripts and Miscellaneous Papers of the Rt. Hon. Thomas Henry Huxley, PC, DCL, FRS, Preserved in the Imperial College of Science and Technology, London (London: Macmillan, 1946), p. 196. The OED gives ‘phytoid’ as coined in W. B. Carpenter’s Vegetable Physiology (1858), but Huxley’s use predates this. T. H. Huxley, ‘Observations upon the Anatomy and Physiology of Salpa and Pyrosoma’, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, 141 (1851), pp. 567–93, on p. 579, n. Ibid., p. 579. Huxley, ‘Report Upon the Researches of Prof. Müller’, p. 14. G. Allman, ‘On the Present State of our Knowledge of the Freshwater Polyzoa’, British Association for the Advancement of Science (1851), pp. 305–27, on pp. 305, 307; G. Allman to T. H. Huxley, 2 May 1852, Huxley Papers 10.61–2; G. Allman to T. H. Huxley, 12 April 1852, Huxley Papers 10.54–60; G. Allman to T. H. Huxley, 30 May 1852,

198

16. 17.

18.

19.

20.

21. 22. 23. 24.

25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32.

33.

34. 35. 36.

Notes to pages 134–40 Huxley Papers 10.63–4; G. Allman, ‘On the Anatomy and Physiology of Cordylophora, a Contribution to our Knowledge of the Tubularian Zoophytes’, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, 143 (1853), pp. 367–84, on p. 379. Emphasis in original. C. Darwin to T. H. Huxley, 17 July [1851], Huxley Papers 5.2–3. Thomson, ‘Ovum’, 48, pp. 119, 130, 131. Because Thomson’s article appeared in three parts – in 1852, 1854 and 1856 – we can see Thomson gradually changing from an initial cautious embrace of Owen’s position in 1852 to an acceptance of Huxley’s by 1856. It is emblematic of the shift of conventional wisdom about sexual reproduction over a fouryear period. Desmond, Huxley, p. 176; T. H. Huxley to W. S. MacLeay, 9 November 1851, Huxley Papers 30.3–8; T. H. Huxley to H. Heathorn, 27 February 1852, T. H. Huxley–Henrietta Heathorn Correspondence, Huxley Archives, Imperial College London, HH 189; Jensen, Thomas Henry Huxley, pp. 54–5. T. R. Jones, The Natural History of Animals, Being the Substance of Three Courses of Lectures Delivered before the Royal Institution of Great Britain, 2 vols (London: J. Van Voorst, 1845–52), vol. 2, pp. 41, vol. 1, pp. 296–8. Huxley, ‘On Animal Individuality’, Huxley Papers 38.2–52, ff. 16–18. It is unclear why the S. democratica bore this name – contrary to what one might expect from the name, it was the solitary form of the salp. S. mucronata was the one forming the salp-association. Ibid., f. 42. Ibid., ff. 28–34, 36–8. Jensen, Thomas Henry Huxley, p. 60. This aborted attack is evident because the Huxley Papers at Imperial College not only contain the clean longhand account of his talk – with his own page numbering – but also a messier draft version of the lecture, with a different pagination. Huxley, ‘On Animal Individuality’, Huxley Papers 38.2–52, ff. 7–8. Ibid., f. 9. [T. H. Huxley], ‘Review of The Vestiges of Creation’, British and Foreign Medico-Chirurgical Review, 13 (1854), pp. 332–43, on p. 341. T. H. Huxley to W. S. MacLeay, 9 November 1851, Huxley Papers 30.3–8. T. H. Huxley to H. Heathorn, 28 August 1852, T. H. Huxley–Henrietta Heathorn Correspondence, Huxley Archives, Imperial College London, HH 221. A. Desmond, Archetypes and Ancestors: Palaeontology in Victorian London, 1850–1875 (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1984), pp. 27–8. T. H. Huxley to H. Heathorn, 23 September 1851, T. H. Huxley–Henrietta Heathorn Correspondence, Huxley Archives, Imperial College London, HH 166. This point is informed by Peter Burke, who calls for the fusion of a history of mentalities with interest-based explanations, for he notes that conflicts of interest can lead to a change of mentalities; this insight can be applied to styles of reasoning. Burke, ‘History of Mentalities’, p. 176. For a view of Huxley’s own ‘sneaky’ personality, see his treatment of H. C. Bastian when Bastian promoted spontaneous generation. J. E. Strick, Sparks of Life: Darwinism and the Victorian Debates over Spontaneous Generation (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000); White, Thomas Huxley, pp. 64–5. Ibid., pp. 37–8, 45. Merz, A History of European Thought, vol. 2, pp. 270–5; Rupke, Richard Owen, p. 211. G. T. Bettany, ‘William Benjamin Carpenter (1814–1885)’, DNB (1886); W. B. Carpenter to R. Owen, 23 August 1842, Owen Corr. 6/304–5; W. B. Carpenter to R.

Notes to pages 140–2

37.

38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43.

44. 45.

46.

47.

48.

49.

199

Owen, 23 June 1843, Owen Corr. 6/321–4; M. Deacon, ‘William Benjamin Carpenter (1813–85)’, in B. Lightman (ed.), Dictionary of Nineteenth-Century British Scientists (Bristol: Thoemmes, 2004). In 1840 one reviewer had already noted that Carpenter’s 1839 Principles of General and Comparative Physiology was the first to apply von Baer’s zoological law to plants. ‘Review of Principles of General and Comparative Physiology by William B. Carpenter’, Annals and Magazine of Natural History, 4 (1840), pp. 111–16, on pp. 112–13; Richards, ‘A Question of Property Rights’, p. 139; Rupke, Richard Owen, p. 153. W. B. Carpenter to R. Owen, 20 October 1851, Owen Corr. 6/333–4; W. B. Carpenter to R. Owen, 2 August 1853, Owen Corr. 6/335–6. W. B. Carpenter to R. Owen, 11 February 1854, Owen Corr. 6/337–8. Emphasis in original. [T. H. Huxley], ‘Contemporary Literature: Science [1855a]’, Westminster Review, 63 (1855), pp. 239–53; von Baer, ‘Fragments’, p. 176. T. H. Huxley, ‘On the Common Plan of Animal Forms’, Proceedings of the Royal Institution, 1 (1854), pp. 281–3, on pp. 282–3. T. H. Huxley, L. Huxley and J. Strachey, Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley, 2 vols (London: Macmillan, 1900), vol. 1, pp. 128–9. H. W. Lyle, King’s and Some King’s Men (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1935), p. 52; Mabberley, ‘Arthur Henfrey’; W. F. R. Weldon, ‘Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–1895)’, DNB (1901); Woodward and Foote, ‘George Busk’. W. B. Carpenter to T. H. Huxley, 16 July 1855, Huxley Papers 12.78–9; Smith, ‘William Benjamin Carpenter’. G. Allman to R. Owen, 6 December 1854, Owen Corr. 1/126–7; G. Allman to R. Owen, 8 February 1855, Owen Corr. 1/132; G. Allman to T. H. Huxley, 20 May 1855, Huxley Papers 10.71; G. Allman to T. H. Huxley, 1855, Huxley Papers 10.74–5; G. Allman, Introductory Lecture Delivered to the Students of the Natural History Class in the University of Edinburgh on the Opening of the Winter Session 1855 (Edinburgh: A. & C. Black, 1855). T. H. Huxley, M. Foster and E. R. Lankester, The Scientific Memoirs of Thomas Henry Huxley, 4 vols (London: Macmillan, 1898), vol. 1, pp. 247–8. This is a reprint of T. H. Huxley, ‘The Cell-Theory’, British and Foreign Medico-Chirurgical Review (American edn), 12 (1853), pp. 285–314. Huxley was paraphrasing Matthias Schleiden’s own statements – already copied out in his early notebooks – that morphology should be guided only by development. See also M. L. Richmond, ‘T. H. Huxley’s Criticism of German Cell Theory: An Epigenetic and Physiological Interpretation of Cell Structure’, Journal of the History of Biology, 33 (2000), pp. 247–89, for a more detailed look at Huxley’s criticism. Rupke, Richard Owen, p. 115. Desmond notes that this review probably marked the outbreak of hostilities between Huxley and Owen. Desmond, Archetypes and Ancestors, p. 38. [T. H. Huxley], ‘Owen and Rymer Jones on Comparative Anatomy’, British and Foreign Medico-Chirurgical Review, 18 (1856), pp. 1–21, on pp. 2–3; C. T. E. von Siebold, Anatomy of the Invertebrata, trans. W. I. Burnett (London: Trùbner and Co, 1854), pp. ix–x. [Huxley], ‘Owen and Rymer Jones on Comparative Anatomy’, pp. 14, 18–19. Ironically Huxley’s strategy of self-reviewing followed Owen’s – one example is [Broderip and Owen], ‘Professor Owen’. On this tactic see Rupke, Richard Owen, p. 135.

200

Notes to pages 142–7

50. [Huxley], ‘Owen and Rymer Jones on Comparative Anatomy’, pp. 14–18. Earlier, Huxley had privately made similar complaints – in 1851 he complained that Owen’s solution to the confusion of radiates – dividing them into Nematoneura and Acrita – was not helpful as he did not think that general propositions were implied in this division. So he may have been ignorant of Owen’s use of nervous structure as a taxonomic index. T. H. Huxley, ‘Arrangement of Radiata’, MS [1851], Huxley Papers 37.43–52. His critique of Rymer Jones appeared in [T. H. Huxley], ‘Contemporary Literature: Science [1856]’, Westminster Review, 65 (1856), pp. 254–71, on pp. 262–4. 51. Lubbock, ‘Two Methods of Reproduction in Daphnia’, pp. 79–81. 52. The OED gives ‘agamic’ as appearing in English in 1850 with the translation of Alexander von Humboldt’s Views of Nature, as in ‘agamic’ plants. 53. Lubbock, ‘Two Methods of Reproduction in Daphnia’, pp. 98–9. 54. J. Lubbock to T. H. Huxley, 4 December 1856, Huxley Papers 22.53; J. Lubbock to T. H. Huxley, 8 December 1856, Huxley Papers 22.54; J. Lubbock to T. H. Huxley, 10 December 1856, Huxley Papers 22.56. 55. J. Lubbock to T. H. Huxley, 19 December 1856, Huxley Papers 22.60–1. 56. Lubbock, ‘Two Methods of Reproduction in Daphnia’, p. 99. 57. Ibid., p. 99. 58. Churchill, ‘Sex and the Single Organism’, p. 151; Huxley, ‘On the Phenomena of Gemmation’, pp. 536–7; Lubbock, ‘On the Ova and Pseudova of Insects’, p. 341. 59. Huxley, ‘On Animal Individuality’, Huxley Papers 38.2–52, f. 2; T. H. Huxley, ‘Lecture 2 on General Natural History’, Medical Times & Gazette, n.s. 33:868 (1856), pp. 481–4, on p. 482; Huxley, ‘On the Phenomena of Gemmation’, p. 537; Huxley, ‘Notes on Owen’s Parthenogenesis’, Huxley Papers, Rattlesnake Notebook, 50.13–19. 60. The plane of differentiation could be in either animals or plants. T. H. Huxley to J. D. Hooker, January 1858 (Draft), Huxley Papers 2.29–32. For Huxley’s critique see Huxley, ‘On the Phenomena of Gemmation’, pp. 537–8. For Galileo’s similar strategy see M. Biagioli, Galileo, Courtier: The Practice of Science in the Culture of Absolutism (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1993), pp. 211–12, 235–40. 61. Owen, ‘On Parthenogenesis (Annotated)’, Owen Coll. 18. It is unclear which journal this cut-out was from, or when it was pasted into Owen’s annotated copy. 62. Von Siebold claimed that a male insect’s semen often remained for years in a ‘seminal receptacle’, in female insects, capable of impregnating eggs. This explained why a queen, fertilized only once at coitus, could lay eggs for years. Viviparous aphids lacked these seminal receptacles, which oviparous aphids possessed. C. T. E. von Siebold, On True Parthenogenesis in Moths and Bees, trans. W. S. Dallas (London: J. Van Voorst, 1857), pp. v–vii. Dallas would later translate works for Owen’s eventual foe, Charles Darwin. 63. Ibid., pp. 10–11, n. 64. Owen himself used the term parthenogenesis in these private notes (to this particular paragraph of this chapter). Owen’s later term for parthenogenesis, ‘metagenesis’, is reluctantly used for consistency, to clarify a complicated topic, and to better distinguish his position. 65. Owen, ‘On Parthenogenesis (Annotated)’, Owen Coll. 18; R. Owen, ‘Lectures on the Comparative Anatomy and Physiology of the Invertebrate Animals (second ed.) (Annotated)’, MS (1855), Owen Coll. 8. Notes appear on interleaving facing p. 482 and on interleaving facing p. 484. 66. Coggon, ‘George Newport’; R. Owen to G. Newport, ‘Testimonial for George Newport’, 25 October 1844, Newport Corr. 44.

Notes to pages 148–51

201

67. He warned that embryology alone might not be a decisive judge of homologies: developing cephalopods, for example, resembled vertebrates, not the gastropods to which they properly belonged. Owen, ‘Presidential Address’, pp. lxix–lxx, lxxvi; Richards, ‘A Question of Property Rights’, p. 170. 68. Flower, ‘Richard Owen’, J. Hunter, Essays and Observations on Natural History, Anatomy, Physiology, Psychology, and Geology, ed. R. Owen, 2 vols (London: J. Van Voorst, 1861); Owen, ‘Presidential Address’, pp. lxxiv–lxxv; for ‘first principle’ see pp. lxx–lxxii. 69. Churchill, ‘Sex and the Single Organism’, pp. 151, 166. 70. When August Weismann proposed the continuity of the germ plasm in 1883, Huxley privately noted how similar Weismann’s proposal was to Owen’s theory, even matching up statements of the two men side by side for comparison. Huxley saw Weismann’s ‘germ plasm’ as a sort of persistent force affecting complexity and growth. He criticized using a telling example: that unlike vertebrates, polyps had no specialized generative organs, and any of their parts could become a new individual. Because Weismann could not localize the cells in which the germ plasm was located, his hypothesis was just as flawed as Owen’s spermatic force and the supposed ‘nucleated’ cells which transmitted it. T. H. Huxley, ‘Weismann and Keimplasm’, MS (n.d.), Huxley Papers 41.118–23, ff. 118–19. Weismann himself acknowledged its similarity with Owen’s theory, a point noted by Frederick Churchill in his ‘Sex and the Single Organism’, pp. 172–3, n. 15. Huxley’s misinterpretation of Weismann might be better explained if he is seen as relatively uninterested in Weismann’s proposal from the perspective of heredity. 71. Huxley et al., The Scientific Memoirs, vol. 1, pp. 255–6; Richmond, ‘Huxley’s Criticism of German Cell Theory’, pp. 266–70. 72. T. H. Huxley, The Oceanic Hydrozoa: A Description of the Calycophoridae and Physophoridae Observed During the Voyage of HMS ‘Rattlesnake’, in the Years 1846–1850 (London: Ray Society, 1859), pp. 8–9. 73. I. Hacking, ‘Making up People’, in M. Biagioli (ed.), The Science Studies Reader (New York: Routledge, 1999), pp. 161–71, on p. 166; Jardine, The Scenes of Inquiry, p. 51; B. Lightman, ‘Fighting Even with Death: Balfour, Scientific Naturalism and Thomas Henry Huxley’s Final Battle’, in A. Barr (ed.), Thomas Henry Huxley’s Place in Science and Letters: Centenary Essays (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1997), pp. 323–50, on p. 325. I am grateful to Darrin Durant for raising this point. 74. For instance see the important G. Allman, A Monograph of the Gymnoblastic or Tubularian Hydroids, 2 vols (London: Ray Society, 1871), vol. 1, p. 22. 75. Barton, ‘“Huxley, Lubbock, and Half a Dozen Others”’, pp. 426–7; Bettany, ‘William Benjamin Carpenter’; Carpenter and Carpenter, Nature and Man, p. 41. 76. E. R. Lankester, ‘On Some New British Polynoïna’, Transactions of the Linnean Society of London, 25 (1867), pp. 373–88, on p. 373; D. A. Power, ‘Lectures on Zoology by E. Ray Lankester, Oxford’, MS (1876–7), Royal College of Surgeons of England; OED. 77. Allen, The Naturalist in Britain, pp. 182, 192; J. R. Topham, ‘Scientific Publishing and the Reading of Science in Nineteenth-Century Britain: A Historiographical Survey and Guide to Sources’, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 31 (2000), pp. 559–612, on p. 560. 78. [Huxley], ‘Review of the Vestiges of Creation’, p. 343; B. Barnes, D. Bloor and J. Henry, Scientific Knowledge: A Sociological Analysis (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1996), pp. 157–9, 161–8; Secord, Victorian Sensation, pp. 499–506. 79. White, Thomas Huxley, pp. 72–5.

202

Notes to pages 152–8

80. [T. H. Huxley], ‘Contemporary Literature: Science [1854]’, Westminster Review, 61 (1854), pp. 254–70, on pp. 255–6; Rupke, Richard Owen, p. 187. 81. R. Cooter and S. Pumfrey, ‘Separate Spheres and Public Places: Reflections on the History of Science Popularization and Science in Popular Culture’, History of Science, 32 (1994), pp. 237–67; Topham, ‘Scientific Publishing and the Reading of Science’, pp. 598–9; White, Thomas Huxley, pp. 72–5. 82. This point about restricting supply is taken from H. J. Perkin, The Rise of Professional Society: England since 1880 (London: Routledge, 1990), pp. 7–8. 83. For a survey of the career of the word ‘profession’ applied to biology see Desmond, ‘Redefining the X Axis’. On Weberian status groups see B. Barnes, The Elements of Social Theory (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995), pp. 130–3, 142, 145–6; R. Collins, Weberian Sociological Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), pp. 128–32. 84. [Huxley], ‘Contemporary Literature: Science [1856]’, p. 269. The word ‘jurisdiction’ is taken from the definition used in A. D. Abbott, The System of Professions: An Essay on the Division of Expert Labor (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1988), p. 33. 85. [T. H. Huxley], ‘Contemporary Literature: Science [1857]’, Westminster Review, 67 (1857), pp. 270–88, on pp. 287–8. 86. For Huxley’s distaste for collecting species and the growth of this attitude among biologists see Allen, The Naturalist in Britain, pp. 180, 183–4. On delegation see Abbott, The System of Professions, pp. 125–6. 87. Huxley, ‘Lecture 3 on General Natural History’, p. 507. Huxley was referring to Ehrenberg’s ‘polygastric’ thesis. [T. H. Huxley], ‘Contemporary Literature: Science [1855b]’, Westminster Review, 64 (1855), pp. 240–63, on pp. 243–5. 88. [Huxley], ‘Contemporary Literature: Science [1855b]’, p. 246. This point about using the media to obtain public sympathy for a profession is emphasized in Abbott, The System of Professions, pp. 60–1. 89. White, Thomas Huxley, pp. 68, 72–5. 90. G. H. Lewes to John Blackwood, 30 January 1859, in W. Baker (ed.), The Letters of George Henry Lewes, 3 vols (Victoria: ELS University of Victoria, 1995), vol. 1, p. 281; R. Ashton, G. H. Lewes: A Life (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), pp. 169, 173–4. 91. G. H. Lewes to Rev. George Tugwell, 6 January 1857, in Baker (ed.), The Letters of George Henry Lewes, vol. 1, pp. 259–60; [Huxley], ‘Contemporary Literature: Science [1857]’, pp. 280–1. 92. Lewes, Sea-Side Studies, pp. vii–ix, 62–6, 298; G. H. Lewes to T. H. Huxley, [c. 1858], Huxley Papers 21.219. 93. Ashton, G. H. Lewes, pp. 192, 194; G. H. Lewes, ‘Necessity of a Reform in Nerve-Physiology’, British Association for the Advancement of Science (1859), pp. 166–7. 94. G. H. Lewes, The Physiology of Common Life, 2 vols (Edinburgh: W. Blackwood, 1859), vol. 1, pp. v–vi. 95. On Pflüger’s ‘spinal soul’ see Leys, From Sympathy to Reflex, pp. 234, 242–3. 96. Lewes, The Physiology of Common Life, vol. 2, pp. 421–2, 4–5, 43–4, 19–23, 192–4, 234, 83–4. 97. Ibid., vol. 2, pp. 249–52. 98. G. H. Lewes, ‘Studies in Animal Life’, Cornhill Magazine, 1 (1860), pp. 61–74, 682–90, on pp. 74, 683, 685. 99. G. H. Lewes to Rev. George Tugwell, 23 March 1859, in Baker, The Letters of George Henry Lewes, vol. 1, pp. 282–3; Ashton, G. H. Lewes, p. 193.

Notes to pages 158–67

203

100. Huxley’s catalogue of writings and Carpenter’s catalogue of writings do not list this review. 101. ‘Review of The Physiology of Common Life by G. H. Lewes’, British and Foreign MedicoChirurgical Review (American edn), 25 (1860), pp. 308–21, on pp. 308–10. 102. Ibid., pp. 320–1, 308–9. 103. G. H. Lewes to Joseph Norman Lockyer, 4 December 1873, in Baker, The Letters of George Henry Lewes, vol. 2, pp. 195–9.

Conclusion 1.

R. Owen, ‘On the Characters, Principles of Division, and Primary Groups of the Class Mammalia’, Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London (1858), pp. 1–37, on pp. 14, 17–18, 19–20. The exact quote: ‘[Archencephala’s] posterior development is so marked, that anatomists have assigned to that part the character of a third lobe; it is peculiar to the genus Homo, and equally peculiar is the ‘posterior horn of the lateral ventricle’, and the ‘hippocampus minor’, which characterize the hind lobe of each hemisphere. The superficial grey matter of the cerebrum, through the number and depth of the convolutions, attains its maximum of extent in Man.’ 2. Flower, ‘Richard Owen’; T. H. Huxley, ‘On the Brain of Ateles Paniscus’, Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London (1861), pp. 247–60, on pp. 247–8. Flower played a key role in the hippocampus controversy by helping Huxley ambush Owen in public. During the 1862 British Association for the Advancement of Science meeting, after Huxley’s critique of Owen’s neuroanatomical claims, Flower stood up and announced that he just happened to have a monkey brain in his pocket. He showed the audience that this brain did indeed also possess a hippocampus minor. Flower’s convenient presentation was judged as a vindication of Huxley’s claim. K. Fletcher, ‘Sir William Henry Flower (1831–1899)’, ODNB. 3. S. G. J. Mivart, On the Genesis of Species (London: Macmillan, 1871), pp. 161–3. 4. H. Spencer, The Principles of Biology, 2 vols (London: Williams and Norgate, 1867), vol. 1, pp. 204–8, vol. 2, pp. 87–102. His points seem to have been independent of Haeckel’s similar ‘tectology’, espoused in E. Haeckel, Generelle Morphologie Der Organismen, 2 vols (Berlin: Reimer, 1866). A. R. Wallace was surprised by the neglect of Spencer’s proposals – see A. R. Wallace, ‘Wallace on the Origin of Insects’, Nature, 5 (1872), pp. 350–1. On this issue see J. Elwick, ‘Herbert Spencer and the Disunity of the Social Organism’, History of Science, 41 (2003), pp. 35–72. 5. A. I. Davidson, The Emergence of Sexuality: Historical Epistemology and the Formation of Concepts (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001), pp. 160–3. 6. Darwin, Notebooks, 1836–1844, note M41, p. 529; Darwin, On the Origin of Species, pp. 514–15. 7. On ‘intercontingency’ see H. S. Becker, ‘“Foi Por Acaso”: Conceptualizing Coincidence’, Sociological Quarterly, 35 (1994), pp. 183–94, on pp. 189–91; H. S. Becker, Tricks of the Trade: How to Think About Your Research While You’re Doing It (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1998), pp. 34–5. 8. B. Latour and S. Woolgar, Laboratory Life: The Social Construction of Scientific Facts (Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, 1979), pp. 248–9. 9. Cranefield, ‘Herbert Mayo’; Mayo, ‘Herbert Mayo’. 10. Becker, ‘Conceptualizing Coincidence’, pp. 187–8.

WORKS CITED

The following abbreviations are used in the works cited list: DNB

L. Stephen (ed.), Dictionary of National Biography (London: Smith, Elder and Co., 1885–90); L. Stephen and S. Lee (eds), Dictionary of National Biography (London: Smith, Elder and Co., 1890–1); S. Lee (ed.), Dictionary of National Biography (London: Smith, Elder and Co., 1894–1901).

ODNB H. C. G. Matthew and B. Harrison (eds), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004). Todd

R. B. Todd (ed.), The Cyclopaedia of Anatomy and Physiology, 5 vols: vol. 1 (London: Sherwood, Gilbert and Piper, 1836); vol. 2 (London: Sherwood, Gilbert and Piper, 1839); vol. 3 (London: Sherwood, Gilbert and Piper, 1847); vol. 4 (London: Longman, Brown, Green and Longmans, 1852–6); vol. 5: supplemental (London: Longman, 1859).

Manuscript Sources Linnean Society Manuscripts No. 236: George Newport Correspondence. Papers of T. H. Huxley, College Archives, Imperial College London. Richard Owen Correspondence, Library & Information Services, Natural History Museum (London). Richard Owen Collection, Library & Information Services, Natural History Museum (London). Richard Owen Papers, Royal College of Surgeons, London.

Printed Sources ‘Analyse (en logique)’, in D. Diderot (ed.), Encyclopédie ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences des arts et des métiers par une société de gens de lettres (Paris: Samuel Faulche & Compagnie, 1751), pp. 401–3. Report of the Trial, Cooper versus Wakley, for Libel (London: S. Highley, 1829). ‘Account of the Metropolitan Hospitals, Medical Schools, and Lectures for the Session Commencing October 1832’, Lancet, 1 (1832–3), pp. 3–11. ‘Review of Outlines of Comparative Anatomy by Robert E. Grant’, Medico-Chirurgical Review, n.s. 23 (1835), pp. 376–88.

– 205 –

206

Styles of Reasoning in the British Life Sciences

‘Review of Illustrations of the Comparative Anatomy of the Nervous System by Joseph Swan’, Medico-Chirurgical Review, n.s. 24 (1836), pp. 435–9. ‘Mr. Solly on the Nervous System: Configuration and Development of the Nervous System’, Lancet, 2 (1836–7), pp. 199–200. ‘Review of Philosophie Anatomique by Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire; Histoire des Anomalies de l’Organization by Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire; and Sketch of the Comparative Anatomy of the Nervous System by John Anderson’, Medico-Chirurgical Review, n.s. 27 (1837), pp. 83–128. ‘Review of The Human Brain, its Configuration, Structure, Development and Physiology by Samuel Solly; The Practical Anatomy and Elementary Physiology of the Nervous System by F. Le Gros Clark; Sketch of the Comparative Anatomy of the Nervous System by John Anderson’, Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal, 47 (1837), pp. 477–85. ‘Faraday’s Exposition of Marshall Hall’s Reflex Action of the Spinal Marrow’, London Medical Gazette, 19 (1837), pp. 828–9. ‘On Experiments on Living Animals’, London Medical Gazette, 20 (1837), pp. 804–8. ‘Marshall Hall Again’, London Medical Gazette, 21 (1837–8), pp. 985–6. ‘The Rival Discoverers’, London Medical Gazette, 21 (1837–8), pp. 903–6. ‘Review of Observations on the Structure and Functions of the Spinal Chord by R. D. Grainger’, Lancet, 2 (1838), pp. 127–8. ‘Complete Anticipation of Dr. Marshall Hall’s Doctrine of “the Reflex Function”, by Prochaska’, British and Foreign Medical Review, 5 (1838), pp. 623–5. ‘Some Recent Publications on Anatomy’, Medico-Chirurgical Review, n.s. 28 (1838), pp. 116–36. ‘Notices of Some New Works: Inaugural Dissertation on the Physiological Inferences to be Deduced from the Structure of the Nervous System in the Invertebrated Classes of Animals, by William B. Carpenter’, Medico-Chirurgical Review, n.s. 11 (1839), pp. 497–8. ‘Review of Illustrations of the Comparative Anatomy of the Nervous System by Joseph Swan’, Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal, 53 (1840), pp. 228–35. ‘Review of Principles of General and Comparative Physiology by William B. Carpenter’, Annals and Magazine of Natural History, 4 (1840), pp. 111–16. ‘Notes on Phrenology’, British and Foreign Medical Review, 9 (1840), pp. 190–215. ‘Schwann on the Structure of Plants and Animals, a Review of Mikroskopische Untersuchungen Über Die Uebereinstimmung in Der Struktur Und Dem Wachsthum Der Thiere Und Pflanzen, Berlin, 1839’, British and Foreign Medical Review, 9 (1840), pp. 495–528. ‘Review of On the Diseases and Derangements of the Nervous System by Marshall Hall’, MedicoChirurgical Review, n.s. 35 (1841), pp. 306–37. ‘Review of The Nervous System and its Functions by Herbert Mayo’, Medico-Chirurgical Review, n.s. 37 (1842), pp. 16–40. ‘Phrenology Examined, translated from the Gaz. Med. de Paris’, Medical Times, 7 (1842), pp. 104–5. ‘Edward Forbes’s Royal Institution Lecture, on some Important Analogies between the Animal and Vegetable Kingdom’, Annals and Magazine of Natural History, 15 (1845), pp. 210–12.

Works Cited

207

‘Mr. Newport’s Researches in Natural History, &c’, British and Foreign Medical Review, 20 (1845), pp. 487–508. ‘Review of On the Alternation of Generations by J. J. Steenstrup’, Medico-Chirurgical Review, n.s. 45 (1846), pp. 22–34. ‘Dr. Badham on Insect Life’, British and Foreign Medical Review, 21 (1846), pp. 494–5. ‘Dr. Combe on Phrenology’, British and Foreign Medical Review, 22 (1846), pp. 230–1. ‘Review of A New View of Insanity by A. L. Wigan’, Journal of Psychological Medicine and Mental Pathology, 1 (1848), pp. 218–29. Official Descriptive and Illustrated Catalogue of the Great Exhibition, 3 vols (London: William Clowes and Son, 1851). ‘Review of Edward Pflüger’s The Sensorial Functions of the Spinal Cord in Vertebrate Animals’, British and Foreign Medico-Chirurgical Review (American edn), 11 (1853), pp. 375–6. ‘Obituary Notice of George Newport’, Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, 7 (1855), pp. 278–85. ‘The Aquarium Mania’, Titan, 23 (1856), pp. 322–30. ‘Review of The Physiology of Common Life by G. H. Lewes’, British and Foreign Medico-Chirurgical Review (American edn), 25 (1860), pp. 308–21. Abbott, A. D., The System of Professions: An Essay on the Division of Expert Labor (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1988). Albury, W. R., ‘The Logic of Condillac and the Structure of French Chemical and Biological Theory, 1780–1801’ (unpublished PhD thesis, Johns Hopkins University, 1972). —, ‘Experiment and Explanation in the Physiology of Bichat and Magendie’, Studies in History of Biology, 1 (1977), pp. 47–131. —, ‘Introduction’ to E. de Condillac, La logique / Logic, trans. and ed. W. R. Albury (New York: Abaris Books, 1980), pp. 7–30. —, ‘The Order of Ideas: Condillac’s Method of Analysis as a Political Instrument in the French Revolution’, in J. Schuster and R. R. Yeo (eds), The Politics and Rhetoric of Scientific Method: Historical Studies (Dordrecht: Reidel, 1986), pp. 203–26. Allen, D. E., The Naturalist in Britain: A Social History (London: A. Lane, 1976). Allman, G., ‘On the Present State of our Knowledge of the Freshwater Polyzoa’, British Association for the Advancement of Science (1851), pp. 305–27. —, ‘On the Anatomy and Physiology of Cordylophora, a Contribution to our Knowledge of the Tubularian Zoophytes’, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, 143 (1853), pp. 367– 84. —, Introductory Lecture Delivered to the Students of the Natural History Class in the University of Edinburgh on the Opening of the Winter Session 1855 (Edinburgh: A. & C. Black, 1855). —, A Monograph of the Gymnoblastic or Tubularian Hydroids, 2 vols (London: Ray Society, 1871). Alter, S., Darwinism and the Linguistic Image: Language, Race, and Natural Theology in the Nineteenth Century (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999).

208

Styles of Reasoning in the British Life Sciences

Amacher, P., ‘Charles Bell’, in C. C. Gillispie (ed.), Dictionary of Scientific Biography (New York: Scribner’s, 1970). Amundson, R., The Changing Role of the Embryo in Evolutionary Thought: Roots of Evo-Devo (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005). Anderson, J., ‘Sketch of the Comparative Anatomy of the Nervous System; with Remarks on Its Development in the Human Embryo’, London Medical Gazette, 18 (1836), pp. 863–9, 906–12. Appel, T. A., The Cuvier-Geoffroy Debate: French Biology in the Decades before Darwin (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987). Asherson, G. L., ‘Martin Barry (1802–1855)’, ODNB. Ashton, R., G. H. Lewes: A Life (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991). Austin, F., ‘William Home Clift (1803–1832)’, ODNB. Badham, C. D., ‘On the Nervous Circle of Sir Charles Bell’, London Medical Gazette, 15 (1835), pp. 71–4. —, ‘On the Supposed Sensibility and Intelligence of Insects’, Blackwood’s Magazine, 43 (1838), pp. 589–606. Baker, W. (ed.), The Letters of George Henry Lewes, 3 vols (Victoria: ELS University of Victoria, 1995). Barclay, J., A New Anatomical Nomenclature, relating to the Terms which are Expressive of Position and Aspect in the Animal System (Edinburgh: Ross and Blackwood, 1803). Barfoot, M., ‘Thomas Laycock (1812–1876)’, ODNB. Barnes, B., T. S. Kuhn and Social Science (New York: Columbia University Press, 1982). —, The Elements of Social Theory (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995). Barnes, B., D. Bloor and J. Henry, Scientific Knowledge: A Sociological Analysis (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1996). Barr, A. H., Cubism and Abstract Art (1936; New York: Arno Press, 1966). Barry, M., ‘On the Unity of Structure in the Animal Kingdom’, Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal, 22 (1837), pp. 116–41. —, ‘Further Observations on the Unity of Structure in the Animal Kingdom, and on Congenital Anomalies, including “Hermaphrodites”; with some Remarks on Embryology, as Facilitating Animal Nomenclature, Classification, and the Study of Comparative Anatomy’, Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal, 22 (1837), pp. 345–64. —, ‘Researches in Embryology, Second Series’, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, 129 (1839), pp. 307–80. Barton, R., ‘“Huxley, Lubbock, and Half a Dozen Others”: Professionals and Gentlemen in the Formation of the X Club, 1851–1864’, Isis, 89 (1998), pp. 410–44. Bechtel, W., and R. C. Richardson, Discovering Complexity: Decomposition and Localization as Strategies in Scientific Research (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993). Becker, H. S., ‘“Foi Por Acaso”: Conceptualizing Coincidence’, Sociological Quarterly, 35 (1994), pp. 183–94. —, Tricks of the Trade: How to Think About Your Research While You’re Doing It (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1998).

Works Cited

209

Bell, C., Idea of a New Anatomy of the Brain (1811; London: Dawson’s Reprints, 1966). —, ‘Lectures on the Physiology of the Brain and Nervous System’, London Medical and Surgical Journal, 1 (1832), pp. 682–5, 752–7. —, ‘Lecture 14 on the Hunterian Preparations’, Lancet, 1 (1833), pp. 878–81. Bentham, J., An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789), ed. J. H. Burns and H. L. A. Hart (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2005). —, Plan of Parliamentary Reform, in the Form of a Catechism, with Reasons for Each Article (London: T. J. Wooler, 1818). —, Chrestomathia (1838–43), ed. M. J. Smith and W. H. Burston (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983). —, Political Tactics (1838–43), ed. M. James, C. Blamires and C. Pease-Watkin (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999). Bettany, G. T., ‘William Benjamin Carpenter (1814–1885)’, DNB (1886). —, ‘Edward Forbes (1815–1854)’, DNB (1889). —, ‘Marshall Hall (1790–1857)’, DNB (1890). —, ‘Richard Dugard Grainger (1801–1865)’, DNB (1890). —, ‘Robert Edmond Grant (1793–1874)’, DNB (1890). Biagioli, M., Galileo, Courtier: The Practice of Science in the Culture of Absolutism (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1993). Blackwall, J., ‘Researches Having for their Object the Elucidation of Certain Phaenomena in the Physiology of the Araneidea’, Annals and Magazine of Natural History, 2nd series, 1 (1848), pp. 173–80. Bloor, D., ‘Durkheim and Mauss Revisited: Classification and the Sociology of Knowledge’, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 13 (1982), pp. 267–97. —, ‘Coleridge’s Moral Copula’, Social Studies of Science, 13 (1983), pp. 605–19. Blower, J. G., Millipedes: Keys and Notes for the Identification of the Species (London: Linnean Society of London, 1985). Boase, G. C., ‘George Newport (1803–1854)’, DNB (1894). Booth, A., The Stranger’s Intellectual Guide to London for 1839–40 (London: Henry Hooper, 1839). Boulger, G. S., ‘Hewett Cottrell Watson (1804–1881)’, DNB (1899). Bourdieu, P., Outline of a Theory of Practice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977). [Broderip, W. J., and R. Owen], ‘Professor Owen – Progress of Comparative Anatomy’, Quarterly Review, 90 (1852), pp. 362–413. Buckle, H. T., History of Civilization in England, 2 vols (London: J. W. Parker, 1857). Burke, P., ‘Strengths and Weaknesses in the History of Mentalities’, in P. Burke, Varieties of Cultural History (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997), pp. 162–82. Burnett, J., A History of the Cost of Living (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1969). Burney, I. A., ‘Medicine in the Age of Reform’, in J. Innes and A. Burns (eds), Rethinking the Age of Reform: Britain 1780–1850 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), pp. 163–81.

210

Styles of Reasoning in the British Life Sciences

Butler, S., Evolution, Old and New, 20 vols (New York: E. P. Dutton & Co, 1923). Bynum, W. F., ‘Richard Quain (1800–1887)’, ODNB. Canguilhem, G., Ideology and Rationality in the History of the Life Sciences (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1988). Carpenter, W. B., Principles of General and Comparative Physiology (London: John Churchill, 1839). — ‘Lecture 2 on the Nervous System’, London Medical Gazette, 27 (1840–1), pp. 858–67. —, ‘Lecture 3 on the Nervous System’, London Medical Gazette, 27 (1840–1), pp. 938–45. —, Animal Physiology (London: H. G. Bohn, 1859). [Carpenter, W. B.], ‘Noble on the Brain and its Physiology’, British and Foreign Medical Review, 22 (1846), pp. 488–544. —, ‘Ethnology, or the Science of Races’, Edinburgh Review, 88 (1848), pp. 429–87. —, ‘On the Development and Metamorphoses of Zoophytes’, British and Foreign MedicoChirurgical Review, 1 (1848), pp. 183–214. —, ‘Owen and Paget on Reproduction and Repair’, British and Foreign Medico-Chirurgical Review, 4 (1849), pp. 409–49. Carpenter, W. B., and J. E. Carpenter, Nature and Man: Essays Scientific and Philosophical (New York: Appleton, 1889). Carus, C. G., ‘On a New Cranioscopy upon a Scientific Foundation’, London Medical Gazette, n.s. 2 (1844), pp. 680–4. Churchill, F. B., ‘Sex and the Single Organism: Biological Theories of Sexuality in the Mid19th Century’, Studies in History of Biology, 3 (1979), pp. 139–77. —, ‘The Guts of the Matter – Infusoria from Ehrenberg to Butschli – 1838–1876’, Journal of the History of Biology, 22 (1989), pp. 189–213. Clark, J. W., ‘William Clark (1788–1869)’, DNB (1887). Clark, J. W., and M. Bevan, ‘William Clark (1788–1869)’, ODNB. Clark, W., ‘Report on Animal Physiology’, British Association for the Advancement of Science (1835), pp. 95–142. Clarke, A. E., and J. H. Fujimura (eds), The Right Tools for the Job (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992). Clarke, E., ‘Marshall Hall’, in C. C. Gillispie (ed.), Dictionary of Scientific Biography (New York: Scribner’s, 1972). Clarke, E., and L. S. Jacyna, Nineteenth-Century Origins of Neuroscientific Concepts (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1987). Clarke, J. F., Autobiographical Recollections of the Medical Profession (London: J. & A. Churchill, 1874). Coggon, J. D., ‘George Newport (1803–1854)’, ODNB. Coleman, W., Georges Cuvier, Zoologist: A Study in the History of Evolution Theory (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1964). —, Biology in the Nineteenth Century: Problems of Form, Function, and Transformation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977).

Works Cited

211

Collingwood, R. G., An Autobiography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1939). Collins, R., Weberian Sociological Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986). —, The Sociology of Philosophies: A Global Theory of Intellectual Change (Cambridge MA: Belknap Press, 1998). Combe, G., The Constitution of Man Considered in Relation to External Objects, 5th edn (Boston, MA: Marsh, 1835). Cooter, R., The Cultural Meaning of Popular Science: Phrenology and the Organization of Consent in Nineteenth-Century Britain (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984). Cooter, R., and S. Pumfrey, ‘Separate Spheres and Public Places: Reflections on the History of Science Popularization and Science in Popular Culture’, History of Science, 32 (1994), pp. 237–67. Couch, R. Q., ‘On the Morphology of the Different Organs of Zoophytes’, Annals and Magazine of Natural History, 15 (1845), pp. 161–6. Cranefield, P. F., The Way In and the Way Out: François Magendie, Charles Bell, and the Roots of the Spinal Nerves (Mount Kisco, NY: Futura Publishing Co., 1974). —, ‘Herbert Mayo (1796–1852)’, ODNB. Creighton, C., ‘John Goodsir (1814–1867)’, DNB (1890). Cross, S. J., ‘John Hunter, the Animal Oeconomy, and Late Eighteenth-Century Physiological Discourse’, Studies in History of Biology, 5 (1981), pp. 1–110. Cuvier, G., Leçons d’anatomie comparée (Paris: Baudoin, 1805). Dalyell, J. G., Observations on Some Interesting Phenomena in Animal Physiology, Exhibited by Several Species of Planariae (Edinburgh: Archibald Constable, 1814). —, Rare and Remarkable Animals of Scotland, 2 vols (London: J. Van Voorst, 1847). Dalyell, K., ‘Sir John Graham Dalyell, Sixth Baronet (1775–1851)’, ODNB. Darby, R., ‘Pathologizing Male Sexuality: Lallemand, Spermatorrhea, and the Rise of Circumcision’, Journal of the History of Medicine, 60 (2005), pp. 283–319. Darwin, C., Notebooks, 1836–1844: Geology, Transmutation of Species, Metaphysical Enquiries, ed. P. H. Barrett, P. J. Gautrey, S. Herbert, D. Kohn and S. Smith (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1987). —, ‘Brief Descriptions of Several Terrestrial Planariae, and of some Remarkable Marine Species, with an Account of their Habits’, Annals and Magazine of Natural History, 14 (1844), pp. 240–51. —, The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 6: 1856–7, ed. F. Burkhardt and S. Smith (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990). —, On the Origin of Species. A Facsimile of the First Edition (1859; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1964). —, Journal of Researches into the Natural History and Geology of the Countries Visited During the Voyage of H. M. S. Beagle Round the World, under the Command of Capt. Fitz Roy, new edn (New York: Appleton, 1871). Davey, J., ‘The Duality of the Mind Known to the Early Writers on Medicine’, Lancet, 1 (1844), pp. 377–8.

212

Styles of Reasoning in the British Life Sciences

Davidson, A. I., The Emergence of Sexuality: Historical Epistemology and the Formation of Concepts (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001). Dawson, W. R., The Huxley Papers; a Descriptive Catalogue of the Correspondence, Manuscripts and Miscellaneous Papers of the Rt. Hon. Thomas Henry Huxley, PC, DCL, FRS, Preserved in the Imperial College of Science and Technology, London (London: Macmillan, 1946). de Candolle, A. P., Organographie végétale, ou description raisonnée des organes des plantes, 2 vols (Paris: Deterville, 1827). de Condillac, E., La logique / Logic (1781), trans. and ed. W. R. Albury (New York: Abaris Books, 1980). De Giustino, D., Conquest of Mind: Phrenology and Victorian Social Thought (London: Croom Helm, 1975). Deacon, M., ‘William Benjamin Carpenter (1813–85)’, in B. Lightman (ed.), Dictionary of Nineteenth-Century British Scientists (Bristol: Thoemmes, 2004). Desmond, A., Archetypes and Ancestors: Palaeontology in Victorian London, 1850–1875 (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1984). —, ‘The Making of Institutional Zoology in London, 1822–1836’, History of Science, 23 (1985), pp. 153–85, 223–50. —, The Politics of Evolution: Morphology, Medicine, and Reform in Radical London (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1989). —, Huxley: From Devil’s Disciple to Evolution’s High Priest (London: Penguin, 1997). —, ‘Redefining the X Axis: “Professionals”, “Amateurs” and the Making of Mid-Victorian Biology: A Progress Report’, Journal of the History of Biology, 34 (2001), pp. 3–50. —, ‘Robert Edmond Grant (1793–1874)’, ODNB. Di Gregorio, M. A., T. H. Huxley’s Place in Natural Science (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1984). Dinwiddy, J. R., Radicalism and Reform in Britain, 1780–1850 (London: Hambledon Press, 1992). Dobson, J., ‘John Hunter’s Museum’, in Z. Cope (ed.), The Royal College of Surgeons of England: A History (London: Anthony Blond, 1959), pp. 274–306. Douglas, M., How Institutions Think (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1986). Dublinensis, ‘The Duality of the Mind’, Lancet, 1 (1844), p. 186. Duchesneau, F., ‘Vitalism and Anti-Vitalism in Schwann’s Program for the Cell Theory’, in G. Cimino and F. Duchesneau (eds), Vitalisms from Haller to the Cell Theory (Florence: L. S. Olschki, 1997), pp. 225–52. Durkheim, E., De la division du travail social (Paris: Alcan, 1893). Elliotson, J., Review of A New View of Insanity, by A. L. Wigan’, The Zoist, 5 (1847–8), pp. 209–34. Elwick, J., ‘Herbert Spencer and the Disunity of the Social Organism’, History of Science, 41 (2003), pp. 35–72. Erichson, W. F., ‘Insecta’, in Reports on Zoology for 1843–1844, trans. G. Busk, A. Tulk and A. H. Haliday (London: Ray Society, 1847), pp. 116–94.

Works Cited

213

Farley, J., Gametes and Spores: Ideas About Sexual Reproduction, 1750–1914 (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982). Farre, A., ‘Observations on the Minute Structure of some of the Higher Forms of Polypi, with Views of the More Natural Arrangement of the Class’, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, 127 (1837), pp. 387–427. Fichman, M., ‘Biology and Politics: Defining the Boundaries’, in B. Lightman (ed.), Victorian Science in Context (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1997), pp. 94–118. Figlio, K., ‘The Metaphor of Organization: An Historiographical Perspective on the BioMedical Sciences of the Early Nineteenth Century’, History of Science, 14 (1976), pp. 17–53. Fletcher, K., ‘Sir William Henry Flower (1831–1899)’, ODNB. Flower, W. H., ‘Richard Owen (1804–1892)’, DNB (1894). Forbes, E. S., A History of British Starfishes, and other Animals of the Class Echinodermata (London: J. Van Voorst, 1841). —, ‘On the Morphology of the Reproductive System of Sertularian Zoophytes, and its Analogy with that of Flowering Plants’, British Association for the Advancement of Science (1845), pp. 68–9. —, A Monograph of the British Naked-Eyed Medusae (London: Ray Society, 1848). Forgan, S., ‘The Architecture of Display: Museums, Universities and Objects in Nineteenth Century Britain’, History of Science, 32 (1994), pp. 139–62. Freeman, R. B., Notes on Robert E. Grant, MD (London: Department of Zoology and Comparative Anatomy, University College London, 1964). French, R. D., Antivivisection and Medical Science in Victorian Society (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1975). Garnett, R., ‘Charles David Badham (1806–1857)’, DNB (1885). Goodrum, M., ‘The British Sea-Side Studies, 1820–1860: Marine Invertebrates, the Practice of Natural History, and the Depiction of Life in the Sea’ (unpublished PhD thesis, Indiana University, 1997). Goodsir, J., and H. Goodsir, Anatomical and Pathological Observations (Edinburgh: Myles MacPhail, 1845). Goodsir, J., H. Lonsdale and W. Turner, The Anatomical Memoirs of John Goodsir, 2 vols (Edinburgh: A. and C. Black, 1868). Gordon-Taylor, G., and E. W. Walls, Sir Charles Bell, His Life and Times (Edinburgh: E. & S. Livingstone, 1958). Gosse, P. H., The Aquarium: An Unveiling of the Wonders of the Deep Sea (London: J. Van Voorst, 1854). Gould, S. J., Ontogeny and Phylogeny (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1977). Grainger, R. D., Elements of General Anatomy (London: S. Highley, 1829). —, Observations on the Structure and Functions of the Spinal Cord (London: S. Highley, 1837). —, ‘Illustrations of the Medical Uses of Comparative Anatomy’, Lancet, 1 (1842–3), p. 93.

214

Styles of Reasoning in the British Life Sciences

Grant, R. E., An Essay on the Study of the Animal Kingdom: Being an Introductory Lecture Delivered in the University of London, on the 23rd of October, 1828, 2nd edn (London: John Taylor, 1829). —, ‘Baron Cuvier’, The Foreign Review and Continental Miscellany, 5 (1830), pp. 342–80. —, ‘Address on the Study of Medicine’, Lancet, 1 (1833), pp. 41–50. —, ‘Lectures on Comparative Anatomy and Animal Physiology’, Lancet, 1 (1833), pp. 89– 100, 121–8, 153–9, 193–200, 225–36, 265–79, 345–53, 393–402, 425–33, 473–81, 505–14, 537–46, 569–77, 617–25, 649–57, 659–707, 729–38, 761–71, 809–16, 841– 8, 873–83, 905–11, 953–62; 2 (1834), pp. 1-10, 65–73, 98–106, 129–39, 177–86, 209–16, 257–65, 289–96, 337–45, 369–76, 401–10, 433–40, 482–7, 513–20, 545– 54, 578–86, 609–16, 641–8, 673–81, 705–13, 737–45, 785–94, 817–24, 865–74, 913–20, 945–1036. —, ‘Animal Kingdom’, in Todd, vol. 1, pp. 107–18. —, ‘Reply to Mr. Newport’s Insinuations Respecting the Writings of Dr. Marshall Hall and Dr. Grant’, Lancet, 1 (1837–8), pp. 746–8. —, ‘Further Observations on Dr. Hall’s Statement Regarding the Motor Nerves of Articulata’, Lancet, 1 (1837–8), pp. 897–900. —, ‘Dr. Roget’s Bridgewater Treatise’, Lancet, 1 (1846), pp. 445–6. Green, J. H., The Dissector’s Manual (London: E. Cox, 1820). —’, Introductory Hunterian Lecture on the Comparative Anatomy of the Birds, 27 March 1827’, in R. Owen, The Hunterian Lectures in Comparative Anatomy, May and June 1837, ed. P. R. Sloan (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1992), pp. 303–21. Griffin, W., ‘Physiological Problem’, London Medical Gazette, 24 (1839), pp. 74–81, 108–14, 188–96. Grosholz, E., Cartesian Method and the Problem of Reduction (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991). Gruber, J. W., ‘Sir Richard Owen (1804–1892)’, ODNB. Gruber, J. W., and J. C. Thackray, Richard Owen Commemoration: Three Studies (London: Natural History Museum Publications, 1992). Gunther, A. E., The Founders of Science at the British Museum 1753–1900 (Suffolk: Halesworth Press, 1981). Hacking, I., ‘Making up People’, in M. Biagioli (ed.), The Science Studies Reader (New York: Routledge, 1999), pp. 161–71. —, Historical Ontology (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002). Haeckel, E., Generelle Morphologie Der Organismen, 2 vols (Berlin: Reimer, 1866). Halévy, E., The Growth of Philosophic Radicalism trans. M. Morris (London: Faber & Gwyer, 1928). Hall, C., Memoirs of Marshall Hall (London: R. Bentley, 1861). Hall, M., ‘A Brief Account of a Particular Function of the Nervous System’, Proceedings of the Committee of Science and Correspondence of the Zoological Society of London, 2 (1832), pp. 190–2.

Works Cited

215

—, On the Reflex Function of the Medulla Oblongata and Medulla Spinalis (London: Joseph Mallett, 1833). —, ‘Dr. Marshall Hall on the Nervous System’, London Medical Gazette, 17 (1836), pp. 632– 41. —, ‘Lectures on the Theory and Practice of Medicine’, Lancet, 1 (1837), pp. 649–57. —, ‘On the Function of the Medulla Oblongata and Medulla Spinalis, and on the ExcitoMotory System of Nerves’, Abstracts of the Papers Printed in the Philosophical Transactions (1837), pp. 463–4. —, ‘On the Reflex Function of the Medulla Oblongata and Spinalis, or the Principle of Tone in the Muscular System’, Abstracts of the Papers Printed in the Philosophical Transactions (1837), p. 210. —, A Letter Addressed to the Earl of Rosse, President-Elect of the Royal Society, 2nd edn (London: n.p., 1848). Harwood, J., Styles of Scientific Thought: The German Genetics Community, 1900–1933 (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1993). Hassall, A. H., ‘Observations on Two of Professor Edward Forbes’s “Retrospective Comments”’, Annals and Magazine of Natural History, 12 (1843), pp. 117–20. Heppell, D., ‘John Goodsir’, in C. C. Gillispie (ed.), Dictionary of Scientific Biography (New York: Scribner’s, 1972). Hervey, N., ‘Richard Dugard Grainger (1801–1865)’, ODNB. Hibberd, S., The Book of the Aquarium and Water Cabinet; or, Practical Instructions on the Formation, Stocking, and Management, in all Seasons, of Collections of Fresh Water and Marine Life (London: Groombridge, 1856). Hilton, B., ‘Politics of Anatomy and an Anatomy of Politics, c. 1825–50’, in S. Collini, R. Whatmore and B. Young (eds), History, Religion, and Culture: British Intellectual History 1750–1950 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), pp. 179–97. Hinton, J., ‘What Are the Nerves?’ Cornhill Magazine, 5 (1862), pp. 153–66. Hodge, M. J. S., ‘Darwin as a Lifelong Generation Theorist’, in D. Kohn (ed.), The Darwinian Heritage (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985), pp. 207–43. —, ‘The History of the Earth, Life, and Man: Whewell and Palaetiological Science’, in M. Fisch and S. Schaffer (eds), William Whewell: A Composite Portrait (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), pp. 255–88. Holland, H., Chapters on Mental Physiology (London: Longman, Brown, Green and Longmans, 1852). Holland, J., ‘William Sharp Macleay (1792–1865)’, in B. Lightman (ed.), Dictionary of Nineteenth-Century British Scientists (Bristol: Thoemmes, 2004). Holton, G. J., Thematic Origins of Scientific Thought, 2nd edn (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988). Hopkin, S. P., and H. J. Read, The Biology of Millipedes (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992). Hudson, G., ‘Charles David Badham (1805–1857)’, ODNB. Hunter, J., Observations on Certain Parts of the Animal Oeconomy (London: n.p., 1786).

216

Styles of Reasoning in the British Life Sciences

—, Essays and Observations on Natural History, Anatomy, Physiology, Psychology, and Geology, ed. R. Owen, 2 vols (London: J. Van Voorst, 1861). Huxley, T. H., ‘On the Anatomy and the Affinities of the Family of the Medusae’, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, 139 (1849), pp. 413–34. —, ‘Observations upon the Anatomy and Physiology of Salpa and Pyrosoma’, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, 141 (1851), pp. 567–93. —, ‘Report upon the Researches of Prof. Müller into the Anatomy and Development of the Echinoderms’, Annals and Magazine of Natural History, 2nd series 8 (1851), pp. 1–19. —, ‘The Cell-Theory’, British and Foreign Medico-Chirurgical Review (American edn), 12 (1853), pp. 285–314. —, ‘On the Common Plan of Animal Forms’, Proceedings of the Royal Institution, 1 (1854), pp. 281–3. —, ‘Lecture 2 on General Natural History’, Medical Times & Gazette, n.s. 33:868 (1856), pp. 481–4. —, ‘Lecture 3 on General Natural History’, Medical Times & Gazette, n.s. 33:869 (1856), pp. 507–11. —, ‘On the Phenomena of Gemmation’, Proceedings of the Royal Institution, 2 (1858), pp. 534–8. —, The Oceanic Hydrozoa: A Description of the Calycophoridae and Physophoridae Observed During the Voyage of HMS ‘Rattlesnake’, in the Years 1846–1850 (London: Ray Society, 1859). —, ‘On the Brain of Ateles Paniscus’, Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London (1861), pp. 247–60. —, ‘The Connection of the Biological Sciences with Medicine’, Science, 2:63 (1881), pp. 426–9. [Huxley, T. H.], ‘Contemporary Literature: Science [1854]’, Westminster Review, 61 (1854), pp. 254–70. —, Review of The Vestiges of Creation’, British and Foreign Medico-Chirurgical Review, 13 (1854), pp. 332–43. —, ‘Contemporary Literature: Science [1855a]’, Westminster Review, 63 (1855), pp. 239– 53. —, ‘Contemporary Literature: Science [1855b]’, Westminster Review, 64 (1855), pp. 240– 63. —, ‘Contemporary Literature: Science [1856]’, Westminster Review, 65 (1856), pp. 254–71. —, ‘Owen and Rymer Jones on Comparative Anatomy’, British and Foreign Medico-Chirurgical Review, 18 (1856), pp. 1–21. —, ‘Contemporary Literature: Science [1857]’, Westminster Review, 67 (1857), pp. 270–88. Huxley, T. H., M. Foster and E. R. Lankester, The Scientific Memoirs of Thomas Henry Huxley, 4 vols (London: Macmillan, 1898). Huxley, T. H., L. Huxley and J. Strachey, Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley, 2 vols (London: Macmillan, 1900).

Works Cited

217

Iliffe, R., ‘“Rational Artistry”, Review of Styles of Scientific Thinking in the European Tradition by Alistair Crombie’, History of Science, 36 (1998), pp. 329–57. Jacobs, S., ‘Bentham, Science and the Construction of Jurisprudence’, History of European Ideas, 12 (1990), pp. 583–94. Jacyna, L. S., ‘Somatic Theories of Mind and the Interests of Medicine in Britain, 1850–1879’, Medical History, 26 (1982), pp. 233–58. —, ‘Images of John Hunter in the 19th Century’, History of Science, 21 (1983), pp. 85–108. —, ‘Immanence or Transcendence: Theories of Life and Organization in Britain, 1790–1835’, Isis, 74 (1983), pp. 311–29. —, ‘John Goodsir and the Making of Cellular Reality’, Journal of the History of Biology, 16 (1983), pp. 75–99. —, ‘Principles of General Physiology: The Comparative Dimension to British Neuroscience in the 1830s and 1840s’, Studies in History of Biology, 7 (1984), pp. 47–92. —, ‘The Romantic Programme and the Reception of Cell Theory in Britain’, Journal of the History of Biology, 17 (1984), pp. 13–48. —, ‘John Abernethy (1764–1831)’, ODNB. —, ‘Sir Charles Bell (1774–1842)’, ODNB. —, ‘Samuel Solly (1805–1871)’, ODNB. James, F. E., ‘The Life and Work of Thomas Laycock 1812–1876’ (unpublished PhD thesis, University of London, 1996). Jardine, N., The Scenes of Inquiry: On the Reality of Questions in the Sciences, 2nd edn (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2000). Jensen, J. V., Thomas Henry Huxley: Communicating for Science (Cranbury, NJ: Associated University Presses, 1991). Johnston, G., A History of the British Zoophytes (Edinburgh: W. H. Lizars, 1838). Jones, T. R., ‘Gasteropoda’, in Todd, vol. 2, pp. 377–403. —, A General Outline of the Animal Kingdom, and Manual of Comparative Anatomy (London: J. Van Voorst, 1841). —, The Natural History of Animals, Being the Substance of Three Courses of Lectures Delivered before the Royal Institution of Great Britain, 2 vols (London: J. Van Voorst, 1845–52). Kohler, R. E., Lords of the Fly: Drosophila Genetics and the Experimental Life (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1994). Kölliker, A., Manual of Human Histology trans. G. Busk and T. H. Huxley, 2 vols (London: Sydenham Society, 1853). Kuhn, T. S., The Essential Tension: Selected Studies in Scientific Tradition and Change (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1977). Lankester, E. R., ‘On Some New British Polynoïna’, Transactions of the Linnean Society of London, 25 (1867), pp. 373–88. Larsen, A., ‘Equipment for the Field’, in N. Jardine, J. A. Secord and E. C. Spary (eds), The Cultures of Natural History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 358–77.

218

Styles of Reasoning in the British Life Sciences

Latour, B., and S. Woolgar, Laboratory Life: The Social Construction of Scientific Facts (Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, 1979). Lawrence, C., ‘The Nervous System and Society in the Scottish Enlightenment’, in B. Barnes and S. Shapin (eds), Natural Order: Historical Studies of Scientific Culture (London: Sage, 1979), pp. 19–40. Lawrence, W., An Introduction to Comparative Anatomy and Physiology; Being the Two Introductory Lectures Delivered at the Royal College of Surgeons, on the 21st and 25th of March, 1816 (London: J. Callow, 1816). —, Lectures on Physiology, Zoology, and the Natural History of Man (London: J. Callow, 1819). Laycock, T., ‘Analytical Essay on Irregular and Aggravated Forms of Hysteria’, Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal, 52 (1839), pp. 43–86. —, Mind and Brain (1860; New York: Arno Press, 1976). Leigh, S., Leigh’s New Picture of London (London: Samuel Leigh, 1827). Lewes, G. H., ‘New Sea-Side Studies’, Blackwood’s Magazine, 82 (1857), pp. 222–40. —, ‘Necessity of a Reform in Nerve-Physiology’, British Association for the Advancement of Science (1859), pp. 166–7. —, The Physiology of Common Life (Edinburgh: W. Blackwood, 1859). —, Sea-Side Studies at Ilfracombe, Tenby, the Scilly Isles, and Jersey, 2nd edn (Edinburgh: W. Blackwood and Sons, 1860). —, ‘Studies in Animal Life’, Cornhill Magazine, 1 (1860), pp. 61–74, 682–90. Leys, R., From Sympathy to Reflex: Marshall Hall and his Opponents (New York: Garland, 1990). Lightman, B., ‘Fighting Even with Death: Balfour, Scientific Naturalism and Thomas Henry Huxley’s Final Battle’, in A. Barr (ed.), Thomas Henry Huxley’s Place in Science and Letters: Centenary Essays (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1997), pp. 323–50. Limoges, C., ‘Milne-Edwards, Darwin, Durkheim and the Division of Labour: A Case Study in Reciprocal Conceptual Exchanges between the Social and the Natural Sciences’, in I. B. Cohen (ed.), Natural Sciences and the Social Sciences (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic, 1994), pp. 317–43. Lindley, J., On the Principal Questions at Present Debated in the Philosophy of Botany (London: Richard Taylor, 1833). Lloyd, W. A., A List, with Descriptions, Illustrations, and Prices, of Whatever Relates to Aquaria (London: Hayman Brothers, 1858). Lubbock, J., ‘An Account of the Two Methods of Reproduction in Daphnia’, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, 147 (1857), pp. 79–100. —, ‘On the Ova and Pseudova of Insects’, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, 149 (1859), pp. 341–69. Lyle, H. W., King’s and Some King’s Men (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1935). Lyon, S. L., Thomas Henry Huxley: The Evolution of a Scientist (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1999). Mabberley, D. J., ‘Arthur Henfrey (bap. 1820, d. 1859)’, ODNB.

Works Cited

219

Macaulay, T. B., ‘Mill on Government (Edinburgh Review, March 1829)’, in T. B. Macaulay, Critical, Historical and Miscellaneous Essays (New York: Sheldon and Company, 1861), pp. 5–51. McLean, D., London as it is To-Day: Where to Go, and What to See during the Great Exhibition (London: H. G. Clarke & Co, 1851). McOuat, G., ‘The Logical Systematist: George Bentham and his Outline of a New System of Logic’, Archives of Natural History, 30 (2003), pp. 203–23. Manuel, D. E., ‘Marshall Hall (1790–1857): Vivisection and the Development of Experimental Physiology’, in N. A. Rupke (ed.), Vivisection in Historical Perspective (London: Croom Helm, 1987), pp. 78–104. —, Marshall Hall (1790–1857): Science and Medicine in Early Victorian Society (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1996). [Marcet, J.], Conversations on Political Economy, 5th edn (London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green, 1824). Mason, M., The Making of Victorian Sexuality (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995). Mayo, C. H., ‘Herbert Mayo (1796–1852)’, DNB (1894). Mayo, H., Outlines of Human Physiology, 3rd edn (London: Burgess and Hill, 1833). —, The Nervous System and Its Functions (London: John W. Parker, 1842). Mazumdar, P. M. H., ‘Anatomical Physiology and the Reform of Medical Education, London 1825–1835’, Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 57 (1983), pp. 230–46. Meckel, J. F., Manual of General, Descriptive, and Pathological Anatomy, trans. A. J. L. Jourdan, 3 vols (Philadelphia, PA: Carey and Lea, 1832). Mendelsohn, J. A., ‘Lives of the Cell’, Journal of the History of Biology, 36 (2003), pp. 1–37. Merz, J. T., A History of European Thought in the Nineteenth Century, 4 vols (1904–12; New York: Dover Reprints, 1965). Mill, J., ‘Government’ [1820], in J. Mill, Political Writings, ed. T. Ball (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), pp. 1–42. —, Elements of Political Economy, 3rd edn (London: Baldwin, Cradock, and Joy, 1826). —, Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind (London: Baldwin and Cradock, 1829). Mill, J. S., ‘Civilization’ [1836], in J. S. Mill, Essays on Politics and Culture, ed. G. Himmelfarb (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1962), pp. 45–76. —, ‘Bentham’ [1838], in J. S. Mill, Essays on Politics and Culture, ed. G. Himmelfarb (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1962), pp. 77–120. —, Mill on Bentham and Coleridge (1838, 1840), ed. F. R. Leavis, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980). Milne Edwards, H., ‘Organisation’, in Dictionnaire classique d’histoire naturelle (Paris: Rey et Gravier, 1827), pp. 332–44. —, Élémens de Zoologie (Paris: Crochar, 1834). —, ‘Annelida’, in Todd, vol. 1, pp. 164–73. —, ‘Crustacea’, in Todd, vol. 1, pp. 750–87. Mivart, S. G. J., On the Genesis of Species (London: Macmillan, 1871).

220

Styles of Reasoning in the British Life Sciences

Moore, N., ‘Charles Bell (1774–1842)’, DNB (1885). Müller, J., Elements of Physiology trans. W. Baly, 2 vols (London: Taylor and Walton, 1838– 43). Murphy, G. M., ‘Sidney Smith (1805–1881)’, ODNB. Newport, G., ‘On the Nervous System of the Sphinx ligustri and on the Changes which it Undergoes during a part of the Metamorphoses of the Insect’, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, 122 (1832), pp. 383–98. —, ‘On the Nervous System of the Sphinx ligustri (Part 2) during the Latter Stages of its Pupa and its Imago State’, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, 124 (1834), pp. 389–423. —, ‘Mr. Newport’s Second Reply to Professor Grant’, Lancet, 2 (1837–8), pp. 118–20. —, ‘On the Anatomy of Certain Structures in Myriapoda and Arachnida which have been thought to have Belonged to the Nervous System’, London Medical Gazette, 21 (1837– 8), pp. 970–3. —, ‘Insecta’, in Todd, vol. 2, pp. 853–994. —, ‘On the Organs of Reproduction, and the Development of the Myriapoda’, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, 131 (1841), pp. 99–130. —, ‘On the Structure, Relations, and Development of the Nervous and Circulatory Systems, and on the Existence of a Complete Circulation of the Blood in Vessels, in Myriapoda and Macrourous Arachnida’, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, 133 (1843), pp. 243–302. —, An Address Delivered at the Anniversary Meeting of the Entomological Society of London 22 Jan 1844 (London: Richard and John E. Taylor, 1844). —, An Address Delivered at the Adjourned Anniversary Meeting of the Entomological Society of London on the 10th of February, 1845 (London: Richard and John E. Taylor, 1845). —, ‘Monograph of the Class Myriapoda, Order Chilopoda’, Transactions of the Linnean Society of London, 19 (1845), pp. 265–302, 349–440. —, ‘Note on the Generation of Aphides’, Transactions of the Linnean Society of London, 20 (1851), pp. 281–3. O’Hara, R. J., ‘Mapping the Space of Time: Temporal Representation in the Historical Sciences’, in M. T. Ghiselin and G. Pinna (eds), New Perspectives on the History of Life: Essays on Systematic Biology as Historical Narrative (San Francisco, CA: Memoirs of the California Academy of Sciences, 1996), pp. 7–17. Oreskes, N., The Rejection of Continental Drift: Theory and Method in American Earth Science (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999). Ospovat, D., ‘The Influence of Karl Ernst Von Baer’s Embryology, 1828–1859: A Reappraisal in Light of Richard Owen’s and William B. Carpenter’s “Palaeontological Application of Von Baer’s Law”’, Journal of the History of Biology, 9 (1976), pp. 1–28. Ottley, D., ‘Life of John Hunter’, in J. F. Palmer (ed.), The Works of John Hunter, FRS, 4 vols (London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, Green, and Longman, 1835–7), vol. 1, pp. 1–198.

Works Cited

221

Outram, D., ‘New Spaces in Natural History’, in N. Jardine, J. A. Secord and E. C. Spary (eds), Cultures of Natural History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 249–65. Owen, R., ‘Articulata’, in Todd, vol. 1, pp. 244–6. —, ‘Cephalopoda’, in Todd, vol. 1, pp. 517–61. —, The Hunterian Lectures in Comparative Anatomy, May and June 1837, ed. P. R. Sloan (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1992). —, ‘Preface’, in J. F. Palmer (ed.), The Works of John Hunter, FRS with Notes (London: Longman Rees, 1837), pp. i–xl. —, ‘Entozoa’, in Todd, vol. 2, pp. 111–43. —, ‘Lectures on the Anatomy and Physiology of the Nervous System’, Medical Times, 7 (1842), pp. 101–3. —, Lectures on the Comparative Anatomy and Physiology of the Invertebrate Animals (London: Longman Brown, 1843). —, ‘On the Structure and Homology of the Cephalic Tentacles in the Pearly Nautilus’, Annals and Magazine of Natural History, 12 (1843), pp. 305–11. —, On the Archetype and Homologies of the Vertebrate Skeleton (London: J. Van Voorst, 1848). —, On Parthenogenesis, or, the Successive Production of Procreating Individuals from a Single Ovum: a Discourse Introductory to the Hunterian Lectures on Generation and Development (London: J. Van Voorst, 1849). —, On the Nature of Limbs (London: J. Van Voorst, 1849). —, ‘Professor Owen on Metamorphosis and Metagenesis’, Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal, 50 (1851), pp. 269–78. —, Lectures on the Comparative Anatomy and Physiology of the Invertebrate Animals, 2nd edn (London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1855). —, ‘On the Characters, Principles of Division, and Primary Groups of the Class Mammalia’, Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London (1858), pp. 1–37. —, ‘Presidential Address’, British Association for the Advancement of Science (1859), pp. xlix– cx. —, ‘Observations on Palaeontology’, in John Hunter, Essays and Observations on Natural History, Anatomy, Physiology, Psychology, and Geology, ed. R. Owen, 2 vols (London: J. Van Voorst, 1861), vol. 1, pp. 281–340. Owen, R. S., The Life of Richard Owen, 2 vols (London: J. Murray, 1894). Panchen, A. L., ‘Richard Owen and the Concept of Homology’, in B. K. Hall (ed.), Homology: The Hierarchical Basis of Comparative Biology (Toronto: Academic Press, 1994), pp. 21–62. Payne, J. F., ‘John Abernethy (1764–1831)’, DNB (1885). Perkin, H. J., The Rise of Professional Society: England since 1880 (London: Routledge, 1990). Perrier, E., Les colonies animales et la formation des organismes (Paris: Masson, 1881).

222

Styles of Reasoning in the British Life Sciences

Perru, O., ‘Zoonites et unité organique: les origines d’une lecture spécifique du vivant chez Alfred Moquin-Tandon (1804–1863) et Antoine Dugès (1797–1838)’, History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences, 22 (2000), pp. 249–72. Pickstone, J. V., ‘Museological Science: The Place of the Analytical/Comparative in Nineteenth-Century Science, Technology and Medicine’, History of Science, 32 (1994), pp. 111–38. —, Ways of Knowing: A New History of Science, Technology and Medicine (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2001). Power, D. A., and M. Bevan, ‘Jones Quain (1796–1865)’, ODNB. Quain, J., The Elements of Anatomy, 3rd edn (London: John Taylor, 1834). Rehbock, P. F., The Philosophical Naturalists: Themes in Early Nineteenth-Century British Biology (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1983). Reid, J., ‘Observations on the Development of the Medusae’, Annals and Magazine of Natural History, 2nd series, 1 (1848), pp. 25–35. Rice, G., ‘The Bell-Magendie-Walker Controversy’, Medical History, 31 (1987), pp. 190–200. Richards, E., ‘The German Romantic Concept of Embryonic Repetition and its Role in Evolutionary Theory in England up to 1859’ (unpublished PhD thesis, University of New South Wales, 1977). —, ‘A Question of Property Rights: Richard Owen’s Evolutionism Reassessed’, British Journal for the History of Science, 20 (1987), pp. 129–71. —, ‘A Political Anatomy of Monsters, Hopeful and Otherwise: Teratogeny, Transcendentalism, and Evolutionary Theorizing’, Isis, 85 (1994), pp. 377–411. Richards, R. J., The Meaning of Evolution: The Morphological Construction and Ideological Reconstruction of Darwin’s Theory (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1992). Richmond, M. L., ‘T. H. Huxley’s Criticism of German Cell Theory: An Epigenetic and Physiological Interpretation of Cell Structure’, Journal of the History of Biology, 33 (2000), pp. 247–89. Roget, P. M., Animal and Vegetable Physiology Considered with Reference to Natural Theology, Bridgewater Treatise 5, 2 vols (London: W. Pickering, 1834). —, ‘Dr. Roget’s Rejoinder to Dr. Grant’, Lancet, 1 (1846), pp. 482–3. Rosner, L., ‘John Barclay (1758–1826)’, ODNB. Rudwick, M. J. S., The Great Devonian Controversy: The Shaping of Scientific Knowledge among Gentlemanly Specialists (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1985). —, Bursting the Limits of Time: The Reconstruction of History in the Age of Revolution (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2005). Rupke, N. A., Richard Owen: Victorian Naturalist (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1994). Russell, E. S., Form and Function: A Contribution to the History of Animal Morphology (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1982). Ryan, M., ‘The Non-Duality of the Brain’, Lancet, 1 (1844), p. 154. Schank, J. C., and W. C. Wimsatt, ‘Generative Entrenchment and Evolution’, PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association, 2 (1986), pp. 33–60.

Works Cited

223

Schwartz, J. S., ‘Thomas Rymer Jones (1810–1880)’, ODNB. Secord, J. A., Victorian Sensation: The Extraordinary Publication, Reception, and Secret Authorship of Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2000). Serres, E. R. A., ‘Explication du système nerveux des animaux invertébrés’, Annales des Sciences Naturelles, 3 (1824), pp. 377–80. —, Anatomie comparée du cerveau, dans les quatre classes des animaux vertébrés, 2 vols (Paris: Gabon, 1824–6). —, ‘On the Laws of the Development of Organs (Part 4)’, Medical Times, 7 (1842), pp. 115– 16. Shapin, S., ‘Phrenological Knowledge and the Social Structure of Early 19th-Century Edinburgh’, Annals of Science, 32 (1975), pp. 219–43. —, ‘Homo Phrenologicus: Anthropological Perspectives on an Historical Problem’, in B. Barnes and S. Shapin (eds), Natural Order: Historical Studies of Scientific Culture (London: Sage, 1979), pp. 41–71. Sheppard, J., ‘The Duality of the Mind’, Lancet, 1 (1844), pp. 305–6. Simon, J., ‘Analysis and the Hierarchy of Nature in Eighteenth-Century Chemistry’, British Journal for the History of Science, 35 (2002), pp. 1–16. Sloan, P. R., ‘Darwin’s Invertebrate Program, 1826–1836: Preconditions for Transformism’, in D. Kohn (ed.), The Darwinian Heritage (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985), pp. 71–120. —, ‘Darwin, Vital Matter, and the Transformism of Species’, Journal of the History of Biology, 19 (1986), pp. 369–445. —, ‘On the Edge of Evolution: Introductory Essay’, in R. Owen, The Hunterian Lectures in Comparative Anatomy, May and June 1837, ed. P. R. Sloan (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1992), pp. 1–72. —, ‘William Clift (1775–1849)’, ODNB. Smith, R., ‘The Background of Physiological Psychology in Natural Philosophy’, History of Science, 11 (1973), pp. 75–123. —, ‘William Benjamin Carpenter (1813–1885)’, ODNB. Smith, S., The Principles of Phrenology (Edinburgh: William Tait, 1838). Smith, T.S., ‘Nervous System (Part 1)’, Westminster Review, 9 (1828), pp. 172–98. —, ‘Nervous System (Part 2)’, Westminster Review, 9 (1828), pp. 451–80. —, ‘Phenomena of the Human Mind’, Westminster Review, 13 (1830), pp. 265–92. Solly, S., The Human Brain, its Configuration, Structure, Development, and Physiology (London: Longman Rees, 1836). Spary, E. C., Utopia’s Garden: French Natural History from Old Regime to Revolution (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2000). Spencer, H., Social Statics: Or, the Conditions Essential to Human Happiness Specified and the First of Them Developed (London: J. Chapman, 1851). —, ‘A Theory of Population, Deduced from the General Law of Animal Fertility’, Westminster Review, 57 (1852), pp. 468–501.

224

Styles of Reasoning in the British Life Sciences

—, The Principles of Biology, 2 vols (London: Williams and Norgate, 1867). Spurzheim, J. G., Essays on Phrenology (Philadelphia, PA: H. C. Carey and I. Lea, 1822). —, Outlines of Phrenology, 3rd edn (Boston, MA: Marsh Capen & Lyon, 1834). Steenstrup, J. J., On the Alternation of Generations, or, the Propagation and Development of Animals through Alternate Generations, trans. G. Busk (London: Ray Society, 1845). Stewart, L., ‘Modern Medicine Influenced by Morbid Anatomy’, London Medical Gazette, 6 (1830), pp. 8–16. Stott, R., ‘Through a Glass Darkly: Aquarium Colonies and Nineteenth-Century Narratives of Marine Monstrosity’, Gothic Studies, 2 (2001), pp. 305–27. Strauss, D. F., The Life of Jesus Critically Examined, 4th edn, trans. G. Eliot (1846), ed. P. C. Hodgson (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1972). Strick, J. E., Sparks of Life: Darwinism and the Victorian Debates over Spontaneous Generation (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000). Sykes, A. H., ‘William Sharpey (1802–1880)’, ODNB. Thomas, W., The Philosophic Radicals: Nine Studies in Theory and Practice 1817–1841 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979). Thomson, A., ‘Generation’, in Todd, vol. 2, pp. 424–80. —, ‘Ovum’, in Todd, vol. 4, 43 (1852), pp. 1–32; 44 (1854), pp. 33–80; 48 (1856), pp. 81– 142. Tiedemann, F., The Anatomy of the Foetal Brain, with a Comparative Exposition of its Structure in Animals, trans. L. Jourdan Antoine-Jacques and W. Bennett (Edinburgh: John Carfrae, 1826). Todd, R. B., ‘Physiology of the Nervous System’, in Todd, vol. 3, pp. 720g–723g. —, The Physiological Anatomy and Physiology of Man, 2 vols (London: Parker, 1859). Topham, J. R., ‘Scientific Publishing and the Reading of Science in Nineteenth-Century Britain: A Historiographical Survey and Guide to Sources’, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 31 (2000), pp. 559–612. Tufte, E. R., Envisioning Information (Cheshire, CN: Graphics Press, 1990). —, Visual Explanations: Images and Quantities, Evidence and Narrative (Cheshire, CN: Graphics Press, 1997). Tulk, A., and A. Henfrey, Anatomical Manipulation; or, the Methods of Pursuing Practical Investigations in Comparative Anatomy and Physiology (London: J. Van Voorst, 1844). van Wyhe, J., ‘The Authority of Human Nature: The Schädellehre of Franz Joseph Gall’, British Journal for the History of Science, 35 (2002), pp. 17–42. —, ‘James George Davey’, in B. Lightman (ed.), Dictionary of Nineteenth-Century British Scientists (Thoemmes: Bristol, 2004). —, Phrenology and the Origins of Victorian Scientific Naturalism (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004). —, ‘History of Phrenology on the Web’, http://pages.britishlibrary.net/phrenology/ (accessed 1 November 2006). von Baer, K. E., Entwickelungsgeschichte der Thiere (Königsberg: Börntrager, 1828).

Works Cited

225

—, ‘Fragments relating to Philosophical Zoology’, in A. Henfrey and T. H. Huxley (eds), Scientific Memoirs, Selected from the Transactions of Foreign Academies of Science and from Foreign Journals (London: Taylor and Francis, 1853), pp. 176–238. von Siebold, C. T. E., Anatomy of the Invertebrata trans. W. I. Burnett (London: Trùbner and Co, 1854). —, On True Parthenogenesis in Moths and Bees, trans. W. S. Dallas (London: J. Van Voorst, 1857). Wallace, A. R., ‘Wallace on the Origin of Insects’, Nature, 5 (1872), pp. 350–1. Warwick, A., Masters of Theory: Cambridge and the Rise of Mathematical Physics (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2003). Watson, H., ‘What Is the Use of the Double Brain?’, Phrenological Journal, 9 (1834–6), pp. 608–11. Webb, R. K., ‘(Thomas) Southwood Smith (1788–1861)’, ODNB. Weldon, W. F. R., ‘Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–1895)’, DNB (1901). Whewell, W., History of the Inductive Sciences: From the Earliest to the Present Times (London: J. W. Parker, 1837). —, The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences: Founded upon their History, 2nd edn (1847; New York: Johnson Reprints, 1967). —, History of the Inductive Sciences, 3rd edn, 3 vols (1857; London: Cass, 1967). White, P., Thomas Huxley: Making the ‘Man of Science’ (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003). Wigan, A. L., ‘The Duality of the Mind, Proved by the Structure, Function, and Diseases of the Brain’, Lancet, 1 (1844), pp. 39–41. —, ‘Dr. Wigan on Duality of the Mind’, Lancet, 1 (1844), p. 451. —, A New View of Insanity: The Duality of the Mind Proved by the Structure, Functions, and Diseases of the Brain (1844; Malibu, CA: Simon, 1985). Wilson, G., and A. Geikie, Memoir of Edward Forbes, FRS (London: Macmillan and Co., 1861). Winsor, M. P., Starfish, Jellyfish, and the Order of Life: Issues in Nineteenth-Century Science (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1976). Winter, A., Mesmerized: Powers of Mind in Victorian Britain (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1998). Woodward, B. B., and Y. Foote, ‘George Busk (1807–1886)’, ODNB. Yanni, C., Nature’s Museums: Victorian Science and the Architecture of Display (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999). Young, R. M., Mind, Brain, and Adaptation in the Nineteenth Century: Cerebral Localization and Its Biological Context from Gall to Ferrier (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990).

INDEX

Abernethy, John, 33, 35, 37 acephalous infant, 46–7 agency and determinism see intercontingency Aldersgate School of Medicine, 21 Allarton, George, 153 Allman, George, 13, 41, 93, 134, 141, 142, 165 ‘alternation of generations’, 93, 107, 118–19, 120, 135, 138 analysis:synthesis, 3, 18, 23, 25–6 analysis as dissection and synthesis as development, 66, 68 as a clarifying and rationalizing tool for reformers, 22–3, 26, 59 definition of, 14, 15 emergence in France, 14–16 Newtonianism and analysis:synthesis, 15, 25 populism of, 15, 29 relationships turned into properties, 7, 25–6, 62 Anderson, John, 76, 77, 80 annelids, 56, 155 earthworms, 51, 52, 56, 57, 72, 91–2 Nais, 91, 92, 128 Nereis, 91, 92, 96, 136, 137 aquaria (vivaria), 4, 123–5, 126, 128, 129, 143 Aristotle, 38, 47, 93–4 asexual reproduction see regeneration and reproduction, blurred distinction between Badham, Charles David, 6, 51–2, 58, 125 Baly, William, 20, 40 Barclay, John, 33, 35, 176n64

Barry, Martin, 6, 8, 111, 113–15, 118, 139, 140, 194n24 Beale, Lionel Smith, 141 Bell, Charles, 40, 44, 46, 51, 57, 58, 61, 76, 84 Bell, Thomas, 132 Bell-Magendie law, 44 Bennett, James R., 21 Bentham, Jeremy, 10, 14, 25, 59, 174n38, 174n43 as Newton of morality, 25 using analysis:synthesis to clarify, 22–4, 26, 29, 174n31 Bernard, Claude, 55 Bichat, Xavier, 16, 43, 61 biological individuality, 9, 46, 48, 51–2, 145, 146, 155 spatial definition, 96, 119, 120, 121, 128 temporal definition, 119, 120–1, 133–4, 165–6 Blackwall, John, 97 body part independence, 17–19, 43, 49, 50–1 see also vivisection Bonnet, Charles, 51, 57, 91, 92, 145, 148 British Association for the Advancement of Science, 45, 97, 138, 147, 153, 156, 164 British Museum, 36, 37, 39, 40, 41, 108 Buckland, William, 40 buds see reproductive germs Busk, George, 132, 141, 150, 197n6 Carpenter, William Benjamin, 6, 8, 57, 89, 91, 102, 144, 155, 165–6, 188n53, 194n24 biological individuality redefined, 119, 120–1

– 227 –

228

Styles of Reasoning in the British Life Sciences

desire for originality, 116, 140 and Grant, 20, 50, 76 and Huxley, 133, 139–40, 141, 142 and London University, 150, 195n38 Nereis, 96 and Newport, 81, 84 and Owen, 41, 50, 106, 116, 119, 120, 139–40, 194n22 on recapitulation, 46, 50, 76, 81, 83 on reflex arcs, neurophysiology and individuality, 49–50, 52, 59, 62–3, 156–7, 184n85 salps, 92, 149 sexual reproduction’s distinctiveness, 118– 20 starfish, 77, 78 switch to palaetiology, 13, 116, 118–19, 165, 194n26 use of palaetiology, 9, 118, 123, 199n37 Carus, Carl Gustav, 69–70, 78, 81, 85 Carus, Julius Victor, 106, 107 cell theory, 27, 101, 199n46 cells see under elements centipedes see under myriapods centrifugal development, 3, 109, 115, 117, 140–1 resembling a tree, 113–14, 117, 118 see also epigenesis; von Baer, Karl Ernst centripetal development, 3, 5, 8, 9, 65, 67–70, 135, 152, 162 see also epigenesis; metamorphosis; recapitulation; Serres, Etienne cephalization see under recapitulation Charleton, Walter, 55 Clark, William, 31–2, 41, 45, 154 classification by nervous structure, 17, 18– 19, 67–8, 72–3, 74, 142, 162, 163–4, 172nn16–17 Clift, Caroline, 34, 40 Clift, William, 33–4, 35, 37–8, 40 Clift, William Home, 35, 176n73 collective action see under problematics of analysis:synthesis Combe, George, 59, 61 compound individuality see under problematics of analysis:synthesis consentaneity, 5, 10 Conybeare, Daniel, 100

crustaceans, 72 crayfish, 71 Daphnia, 143–4, 148 lobsters, 72, 124, 186n21 crystals, 68, 98 Cuvier, Georges, 16–18, 31, 35, 56, 70, 115, 131 classification by nervous structure, 17, 74 and the Muséum, 30–1 Dallas, William Sweetland, 146 Dalyell, John, 91, 92, 97, 107, 123, 125, 195n43 Daphnia see under crustaceans Darwin, Charles Robert, 1, 92, 100, 107, 110, 123, 132, 134, 139, 163–4 compound individuality, 58, 96 and Newport, 53, 181n45 switching styles, 13, 165 Darwin, Erasmus, 95, 96, 190n26 Davey, James, 61 de Candolle, Alphonse, 95 de Condillac, Étienne Bonnot, 15–16, 24, 29 development see centrifugal development; centripetal development Dugès, Antoine, 92 Durkheim, Emile, 63, 184n89 echinoderms, 72 starfish, 45, 50, 71, 72, 74, 76–8, 79, 87, 92, 124, 187n36 education, 8, 19–21, 149–50, 156, 159, 186n26 examinations, 20, 73–4, 76, 150 student textbooks, 41, 45, 61, 68, 74, 76, 78, 80–1, 102, 142, 150, 156, 158 elements, 3, 10, 161, 176n64 as cells, 27, 101 delegation of properties to, 25–6, 62 as economic units, 24 as ganglia, 18–19, 43–4 as individual vertebral body segments, 100–1 as letters or sounds, 127 as pain and pleasure, 26 as phrenological mental faculties, 59 as reflex arcs, 44, 47, 79 as sensations, 24 as voters, 26–7

Index

229

Eliot, George (Mary Ann Evans), 151, 154, Grant, Robert Edmond, 6, 7, 10, 31, 70, 193n7 177n91 Elliotson, John, 49, 60–1 and Darwin, 123 embryology, embryo development see cenenvy of French researchers and institutrifugal development; centripetal tions, 30–1, 32, 36, 38 development; epigenesis fears of plagiarism, 188n54 entozoa, 72, 148 and Hall, 13, 84 tapeworms, 71, 89–90, 100, 147 Huxley’s low opinion of, 132 epigenesis, contrast of centripetal and cenimitated Cuvier’s classification by nervtrifugal, 65, 67, 69, 109 ous structure, 18–19, 65, 74, 172n17, ethnology, 118 186n23 evidence, static or developing, 3–4, 121, and Newport, 52, 76, 81, 84, 186n21 122–3, 127, 136, 138 and Owen, 33, 35, 40 see also museums; reproductive germs; and his pupils, 20, 41, 50, 79, 84 aquaria teaching style, 71–4, 75–6 evidentiary relevance, 2, 3–4, 6, 79, 109, 120, view of embryo’s development as syn121, 122, 130, 133, 134, 135, 138, 142, thetic, 71–4, 78 145, 146, 147, 148, 200n50 Great Exhibition of 1851, 108, 123 Green, John Henry, 34, 55, 69 Faraday, Michael, 49, 134–5 Farre, Arthur, 41, 122 Flourens, Pierre, 57, 59, 183n73 Flower, William Henry, 164, 203n2 Forbes, Edward, 93, 104 and Carpenter, 121, 194n26, 195n38 and Huxley, 13, 132, 134, 139 and museums, 31, 122, 125 and Owen, 107–8, 141 starfish, 87 on ‘vegetable characteristics’ and compoundness, 97, 98, 103 Fownes, George, 127

Hall, Marshall, 13, 47–8, 49, 50, 55, 58, 61, 84, 173n28, 179n17, 180nn20–1, 183n68 see also reflex arc; Sydenham College Harvey, William, 69, 102, 122 Henfrey, Arthur, 132, 141, 197n3 Henslow, John Stevens, 95 Herold, J. Moritz David, 71, 81, 84 hierarchy, internal, 46–7, 48, 49, 51–2, 61–3, 157–8, 161–2, 179n19 historical legitimation, 37–40, 146–7, 148, 163–4 historiography, 6–7 Gall, Franz-Josef, 16, 18, 59, 61 contextualism and history of science, 3, ganglia, 34, 43–4, 51, 156 165, 166 definition of, 17 diagrams, 11–13, 171n1 see also elements interest-based explanations and changes generation, definitions of, 103 in styles of reasoning, 128, 130, Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, Etienne, 16, 19, 31, 138–9, 198n32 35, 85, 131 professionalization as exclusion, 152, Goethe, Johann Wolfgang, 93, 132, 152 202n83 Goodsir, Harry, 97, 104, 191n30 see also intercontingency; possibilities, Goodsir, John, 27, 32, 41, 104, 115, 132 restriction of Gosse, Philip Henry, 124, 125 Grainger, Richard Dugard, 13, 18, 49, 50, 61, Holland, Henry, 60 Home, Everard, 38 173n28, 180n26 homology see Owen, Richard neuroanatomy, 78–9 see also Theatre of Anatomy, Grainger’s Hooker, Joseph Dalton, 146, 150

230

Styles of Reasoning in the British Life Sciences

Hunter, John, 33, 35, 37–8, 39, 40, 55, 69, 71, 95, 102, 103, 146, 148, 177n3 see also historical legitimation Hunterian Museum, 9, 35, 85, 108, 164, 177n88 origins of, 33–4 renovation of, 36, 38–9 Huxley, Henrietta, 138, 141 Huxley, Thomas Henry, 3, 6, 158, 198n33 biological individuality redefined, 8, 121, 133–6, 138, 155, 165–6 career ambitions frustrated, 128, 138–9, 141, 152 and Carpenter, 133, 139–40, 141 control of education, 8–9, 150, 156 drive to exclude ‘outsiders’, 9, 131, 150–4, 202n86 and Forbes, 13, 132, 134, 139, 141 on invisible ‘metaphysical’ entities, 146 and Owen, 8, 41, 116, 128, 130, 131–2, 133, 136, 138, 139, 142, 145–6, 163–4, 198n24, 199n47, 199n49, 200n50, 203n2 on parthenogenesis/metagenesis, 93, 128, 130, 131, 134, 135, 136, 138, 145–6, 149, 201n70 and reproductive masses, 143–5, 148 training in and use of palaetiology, 9, 125, 127, 133, 138, 147, 196n58 see also education; professionalization of biology; terminology, invention and reception of new Hydra see under zoophytes

Kölliker, Albert, 132, 197n4 Lankester, Edwin Ray, 150 Lawrence, William, 21, 31, 38, 39, 44, 92 Lavoisier, Antoine Laurent, 15, 33 Laycock, Thomas, 20, 79, 87 levels of organization, 58, 108, 164, 184n84 Lewes, George Henry, 164, 179n17 and Owen, 152, 155, 156 and parthenogenesis/metagenesis, 102, 107 and populist life science, 9, 131–2, 151–2, 154–9 Lindley, John, 95, 106, 119 Linnean Society of London, 91, 189n7 Lloyd, William Alford, 124–5 London University, 13, 20, 70, 76, 133, 144, 150, 195n38 Lubbock, John, 125, 142–5, 148, 181n45

Macleay, William Sharp, 106, 131, 132, 197n1 Magendie, François, 43, 57 Mantell, Gideon, 40 Mayo, Herbert, 40, 45–6, 48, 50, 58, 60, 74, 76, 166 Meckel, Johann Friedrich the Younger, 66, 70–1, 79, 84, 85 ‘Meckel-Serres Law’, 70 mentality, histories of see style of reasoning, definition of metamorphosis, 71, 76, 80, 88 see also centripetal development; insects; recapitulation Middlesex Hospital, 44, 45, 50 insects, 3, 17, 65 Mill, James, 24, 27, 29, 56, 174n43 aphids, 91, 94, 101, 102, 103, 128, 133, Mill, John Stuart, 23, 29, 57 145, 155 millipedes see under myriapods Sphinx ligustri (privet hawk-moth), 80–4 Milne Edwards, Henri, 35, 51, 55–8, 84, 92, intercontingency, 165–7 93, 106, 182n60, 183n64 see also possibilities, restriction of see also physiological division of labour interlocking belief systems, 1, 85, 109, 110– Mivart, St George, 164 11, 115–16, 161–3 monsters see teratology Jardin des Plantes see Muséum d’Histoire Müller, Johannes, 28, 41, 60, 84, 86, 92, 97, 101–2, 105, 106, 134 Naturelle Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle, 29–30, 40 King’s College London, 31, 45, 76, 141 and British visitors, 13, 18, 31, 35, 35–6, Kingsley, Charles, 154 131

Index museums, 4, 9, 32, 36–7, 70, 122, 175nn53–4, 175n56 see also Hunterian Museum; Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle myriapods, 62, 187n46 centipedes, 45, 50, 60, 62, 71 Iulus terrestris (millipedes), 52–5, 80

231 his pupils, 41, 164 reliance on static evidence, 122, 148 social ascent, 40–1, 108 spermatic force, 8, 101–2, 103, 105 teleological adaptive force, 28, 81, 97–9 terminological change from ‘parthenogenesis’ to ‘metagenesis’, 107 use of embryology, 115–6, 147–8, 201n67 use of recapitulation, 66, 69, 74, 79, 81 vegetative repetition, 8, 81, 97–8, 100, 101

naturphilosophie, 78, 93 Newport, George, 6–7, 104, 132, 147, 180n20, 181n45, 188n53 on centripetal development, 65–6 cephalization of Sphinx ligustri (privet palaetiological reinterpretation of exemplar hawk-moth), 76, 80–4 organisms, 2, 120 and Grant, 20, 21, 76, 81, 84, 188n52 aphids, 133, 145 regeneration and reproduction, blurred salps, 135–6 distinction between, 91, 97 sertularian zoophytes, 133–4 vivisections of Iulus terrestris/Tachypodoi- palaetiological reinterpretation of words, 2 ulus niger (millipede), 52–5 ‘affinity’, 127 newts, 47–8, 50, 124, 157 ‘analysis’, 112, 113 ‘elements’, 127 Oken, Lorenz, 93 ‘generation’, 118–19, 136 Ottley, Drewry, 39 ‘individual’, 120–1 ova, ovum see reproductive germs ‘phytoid’, 133 Owen, Richard, 2, 6, 13, 47, 50, 57, 85, 91, 92, 93, 95, 104, 125, 132, 141, 142, 166–7, palaetiology, 3, 8, 9, 109, 113 Whewell’s definition of, 110–11, 193n1 177nn91–2, 188n52, 189n4 see also von Baer, Karl Ernst archetype, 100–1, 103, 191n37 parallelism see under recapitulation and Carpenter, 41, 50, 116, 119–20, 140 parthenogenesis see under Owen, Richard cataloguing at Hunterian, 34, 35, 38, Peel, Robert, 40, 108 39–40 philology, comparative, 8, 110, 118, 127 Cuvier and Geoffroy, 35 linguistic development as tree-like, 118 domestication of analysis:synthesis, 11, phrenology, 9, 13, 16, 49, 59, 61, 79, 173n28, 37–40 180n26, 183n74 early years, 32–5 physiological division of labour, 55–8, 161 Hunterian Museum renovations, 36, 38–9 see also Milne Edwards, Henri and Huxley, 116, 131, 139, 145, 146, 149, plagiarism, 49, 76, 81, 84, 188n52, 188n54 199n47, 199n49 imitated Cuvier’s classification by nervous polygastric infusoria, 73, 154, 186n23 polyp:plant resemblance, 71, 91, 92–3, 95–7, structure, 18, 39–40, 65, 74, 163–4, 103–4, 121, 148, 165 203nn1–2 criticism of resemblance, 118–20, 136, and Lewes, 152, 155, 156 138 and Newport, 81, 147, 188nn52–3 ‘vegetative’ power of reproduction, 92, 93, nucleated yolk-cells (‘primitive’ cells), 97, 116 101–2, 104, 107, 143–4, 145, 147 see also Owen, Richard parthenogenesis and metagenesis, 5, 9, 10, populist life science, 150–1, 154–5, 156–7, 88, 101–7, 146–8, 149, 156, 192n64, 158–9 201n70

232

Styles of Reasoning in the British Life Sciences

possibilities, restriction of, 132, 149, 164, 165–6 presuppositions see evidentiary relevance Prichard, James Cowles, 110, 118 problematics of analysis:synthesis, 5, 113, 164 collective action, 5, 43, 51–2, 59, 61–3, 157 compound individuality, 5, 8, 18, 45–6, 74, 86, 89, 93, 96, 128, 149, 155, 156 spontaneous order, 5, 27–9, 60, 98–9, 157–8 problematics of palaetiology, 113, 164 professionalization of biology, 10, 131–2, 139, 150, 158–9 see also Huxley, Thomas Henry

Reid, John, 107, 123 reproductive germs, 94, 95–7, 98 Carpenter emphasizes ovum, 119–20 histologically indistinguishable from one another, 4, 121, 134, 143, 144, 145, 147, 148 Lubbock’s work on, 142–5 palaetiologists’ emphasis on sexual fertilization, 121, 134, 143, 145, 148 Roget, Peter Mark, 20, 48, 57, 80, 84, 89, 92, 95, 174n33, 183n64, 188n54 Royal College of Surgeons, 9, 33, 36, 45, 69, 108 Royal Society of London, 48, 84, 118, 194n24 Rymer Jones, Thomas, 80–1, 91, 92, 125 classification by nervous structure, 19, Quain, Jones, 21, 68 142 Huxley on, 132, 135 radicalism, political and philosophic, and ties and Owen, 41, 106 with philosophic anatomy, 9, 10, 22–5, use of cephalization, 74 27–8, 60 not always materialist, 22, 173n28, St Bartholomew’s Hospital, 33, 40, 41 183n68 salps see under tunicates uses of analysis:synthesis, 25–7 scale of being, 17, 50, 68 Réaumur, Réne Antoine, 91 Schleiden, Matthias, 27, 127, 142 recapitulation, 5, 99 scientific inferiority animal internal organ equivalences, relative to France, 30–1, 32, 36, 38–9 46–7, 162 relative to Germany, 115, 127, 132, 138, cephalization, 66, 72–4, 78, 80, 162–3 141 distinction between two kinds of paralsea anemones (actinia), 92, 123, 155, lelism, 66–7, 71–4 195n43 fusion of developing parts (‘Williston’s sea squirts see under tunicates Law’ or ‘anchylosis’), 9, 66–7, 69, Sedgwick, Adam, 40, 99 79, 80 self-authentication, self-vindication see interreverse recapitulation, 47, 48 locking belief systems reflex arc, 9, 52, 62, 156, 157, 183n68 sensorium commune, 43, 47, 79, 156 independence from volition, 48, 49, 79, downgrading its importance, 18, 44–5, 179n17 58–9, 62 as neurophysiological element, 47 serial homology, 10, 88, 98, 100–1, 161, 164 regeneration and reproduction, blurred dissee also Owen, Richard tinction between, 92, 97, 98, 148, 155, Serres, Etienne, 66–7, 68, 69, 79, 85, 115 192n48 sex, sexual reproduction see regeneration distinction between ‘gemmiparous’ and and reproduction, blurred distinction ‘oviparious’ reproduction, 119–20 between reproduction and regeneration likened to Smith, Sidney, 60, 61–2 nutrition, 102, 104 Smith, Thomas Southwood, 20, 24–5, 49, see also polyp:plant resemblance 67–8, 76

Index societies, claimed resemblance of bodies to, 10, 27, 43, 51–2, 58–9, 60, 62–3, 98–9, 157 the bodily oeconomy, 55–8 Solly, Samuel, 13, 19, 20, 40, 76, 79, 80 Spallanzani, Lazzaro, 91 Spencer, Herbert, 57, 58, 63, 105, 164, 203n4 spermatorrhoea, 105 spontaneous order see under problematics of analysis:synthesis starfish see under echinoderms Steenstrup, Johan Japetus, 93, 103, 107, 118, 119, 134, 135, 142, 190n16 Stewart, Leonard, 27–8 Stuchbury, Samuel, 35 style of reasoning, definition of, 1–2, 3, 169nn1–2 see also analysis:synthesis; palaetiology Swainson, William, 32 Swan, Joseph, 84 Sydenham College, 32

233

Tugwell, George, 155 tunicates, 72, 95 salps, 91, 92–3, 95, 135–6, 137, 147, 149 sea squirts, 56, 86, 93, 95, 116, 124, 150, 151, 194n22 University College London, University of London see London University University of Edinburgh, 13, 19, 31, 32, 33, 40, 44, 47, 50, 141, 158

vegetative repetition see under Owen, Richard vivaria see aquaria vivisection, 5, 17–18, 44, 47, 50–1, 154, 157, 161 of millipedes, 52–5 von Baer, Karl Ernst, 189n4 development as sequence of divergences, 112–13 embryological principles, 3, 8, 111–12, 115, 152, 193n10 tapeworms see under entozoa mocked classification by nervous structeleological adaptive force see under Owen, ture, 111 Richard ‘upstream’ changes the most important, teratology, 5, 65, 85–6, 162 113 terminology, invention and reception of new, see also centrifugal development 8, 149, 156–9 von Chamisso, Adelbert, 93 ‘ascidarium’, 150 von Haller, Albrecht, 69 ‘ascidiozooids’, 150 von Siebold, Karl Theodor Ernst, 142, 145, ‘endoplast’, 149 146, 200n62 Lyencephala, Lissencephala, Gryencephala, Archencephala, 163–4 Ward, Nathaniel, 123–4 ‘metagenesis’, 107 Watson, Hewett Cottrell, 61 ‘parthenogenesis’, 102 Weismann, August, 149 ‘periplast’, 149 Westwood, John Obidiah, 41 ‘polypite’, 149 Wharton Jones, Thomas, 13, 134 ‘pseudova’, 145, 149, 155 Whewell, William, 3, 8, 40, 99, 109, 110 ‘zoöid’, 133, 134, 144, 146, 149, 165 Whig history see historical legitimation testimonials, 13, 33, 41, 116, 131, 133, 141, Wigan, Arthur Ladbroke, 60–1 188n53, 195n38 zoöid see under terminology, invention and Theatre of Anatomy, Bell’s, 44, 45, 178n3 reception of new Theatre of Anatomy, Grainger’s, 25, 32, 44, 49, Zoological Society of London, 31, 36–7, 125, 178n3 196n52 Thomson, Allen, 89, 92, 95, 101, 107, 121, zoophytes, 71, 86, 95, 121, 122, 123, 173n20 134, 198n17 Hydra polyp, 6, 56, 91, 92, 94–5, 103, Tiedemann, Friedrich, 69, 76, 79, 81, 111 119, 120, 124, 128, 135, 192n56 Todd, Robert Bentley, 40, 46–7, 61, 63 sertularian polyp, 86, 95, 97, 120, 133 Trembley, Abraham, 57, 91, 122