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Herschel and Whewell's Version of NewtonianismAuthor(s): David B. WilsonSource: Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 35, No. 1 (Jan. - Mar., 1974), pp. 79-97Published by: University of Pennsylvania PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2708744 .

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HERSCHEL AND WHEWELL'S VERSION OF NEWTONIANISM

BY DAVID B. WILSON*

I. John Herschel and William Whewell were two of the most important early Victorian commentators on science, and for more than fifty years their lives were closely linked, personally, professionally, and in- tellectually. Their friendship began when they were young members of adjacent Cambridge colleges. In 1815, for example, they met with a few others for Sunday "philosophical breakfasts."' Later, when Herschel had left Cambridge, they embarked on a long correspondence now preserved at the Royal Society of London and the Wren Library of Trinity College, Cambridge.2 When Herschel wrote his Preliminary Dis- course in 1830, Whewell reviewed it,3 and in 1837 Whewell dedicated his History of the Inductive Sciences to Herschel.4 Four years later, Herschel reviewed both Whewell's History and his Philosophy of the In-

*At various stages, the research for this paper has been assisted by a National Science Foundation Summer Fellowship, a NATO Postdoctoral Fellowship, and the University of Oklahoma Faculty Research Fund.

'I. Todhunter, William Whewell, D.D., Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, 2 vols.

(London, 1876), I, 5-6; hereafter Todhunter. For biographical information on Herschel; cf. Agnes M. Clerke, "Herschel, Sir John Frederick William (1792-1871)," Dictionary of National Biography; T. Romney Robinson [Obituary of Herschel], Proceedings of the

Royal Society of London, 20 (1872), xvii-xxiii; and Agnes M. Clerke, The Herschels and Modern Astronomy (London, 1895). For biographical information on Whewell, cf. Leslie

Stephen, "Whewell, William (1794-1866)," Dictionary of National Biography; Mrs. Stair Douglas, The Life and Selections from the Correspondence of William Whewell, D.D., Late Master of Trinity College Cambridge (London, 1881); R. Robson and Walter F. Cannon, "William Whewell, F.R.S. (1794-1866)," Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London, 19(1964), 168-91; and Todhunter.

2The correspondence began with a letter from Herschel to Whewell dated 4 Feb. 1817. In 1826 Whewell tried to get Herschel back to Cambridge on a permanent basis by at-

tempting to persuade him to apply for the Lucasian professorship which was soon to be vacated. (Whewell to Herschel, 13 Oct. 1826, in Todhunter, II, 73-74.) Herschel refused, in part because he wanted to remain an amateur in science. (Herschel to Whewell, 17 Oct. 1826, in Whewell papers.) I am indebted to the master and fellows of Trinity College for

permission to quote from the Whewell papers and to the president and fellows of the Royal Society for permission to examine Whewell's letters in the Herschel papers. Most of Whe- well's letters to Herschel are reproduced in Todhunter, and I have cited the published source.

3[William Whewell], "A Preliminary Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy," Quarterly Review, 45 (1831), 374-407; hereafter Whewell, "Herschel Review." J. F. W. Herschel, A Preliminary Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy (London, 1831); hereafter Herschel, Preliminary Discourse.

4Whewell, History of the Inductive Sciences, from the Earliest to the Present Time, 3 vols. (London, 1837), I, v-vi; hereafter Whewell, History.

79



80 DAVID B. WILSON

ductive Sciences.5 Their continual intercourse as friends and scholars lasted until 1866, when Herschel wrote Whewell's obituary.6 In-

tellectually, they were in most respects just as near to one another as they were in other aspects of their lives.

However, scholarly research has emphasized their intellectual differences. Representative is Ducasse's observation that "Herschel-unlike his contemporary Whewell whose Novum organon renovatum represents the influence of Kant in this field-clearly belongs in the line of British empiricists. . . ." Hence, without denying the differences between Herschel and Whewell, this study underscores neglected similarities in their thought. It might be said that their common position drew its matter from Newtonian mechanics and astronomy, its form from the legacy of Newton's natural theology and rules of reasoning.

II. This section is an attempt to define the areas of disagreement and agreement between Herschel and Whewell in regard to philosophy, mechanics, and astronomy. Newton's three laws of motion were the most prestigious scientific statements available to Herschel and Whewell. Their philosophical divergence was sharply visible in their differing evaluations of the laws. Nevertheless, they agreed that the laws were just as certainly true as mathematical propositions and that their range of ap- plicability, though immense, was circumscribed in definite ways. Also, they were in accord concerning the status of Newton's theory of universal

gravitation. According to Whewell, knowledge involves several "fundamental

ideas" which are necessarily true. In a passage of great importance for understanding Whewell, he wrote Herschel:

my argument is all in a single sentence. You must adopt such a view of the nature of scientific truth as makes universal and necessary propositions possible; for it appears that there are such, not only in arithmetic and geometry, but in mechanics, physics and other things. I know no solution of this difficulty except by assuming a priori grounds ...8

5John Herschel, "Whewell on the Inductive Sciences," in Herschel, Essays from the

Edinburgh and Quarterly Reviews, with Addresses and other Pieces (London, 1857), 142-256; hereafter Herschel, "Whewell Review." It first appeared in the Quarterly Review, 68 (1841), 177-238. William Whewell, The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, Founded upon Their History, 2 vols. (London, 1840); hereafter Whewell, Philosophy.

6Herschel, "The Reverend William Whewell, D.D.," Proceedings of the Royal Society, 16 (1868), li-lxi.

7Curt J. Ducasse, "John F. W. Herschel's Methods of Experimental Inquiry," in Ralph M. Blake, Curt J. Ducasse, and Edward H. Madden, Theories of Scientific Method. The Renaissance through the Nineteenth Century (Seattle, 1960), 180; hereafter Ducasse, "Herschel's Methods." William Whewell, Novum Organon Renovatum, 3rd ed. (London, 1858). This was part of the third edition of Whewell's Philosophy.

8Whewell to Herschel, 22 April 1841 in Todhunter, II, 298. For discussions of Whewell's

philosophy of science, see, for example, Curt J. Ducasse, "William Whewell's Philosophy of Scientific Discovery," in Ralph M. Blake, Curt J. Ducasse, and Edward H. Madden, op.



HERSCHEL AND WHEWELL ON NEWTON 81

Though the truth of Whewell's fundamental ideas was independent of experience, their initial recognition required experience. As various ideas were put forth to explain natural phenomena, he argued, the validity of some became so overwhelming that their negation was quite incon- ceivable.9 These were the fundamental ideas. One such idea adopted long ago was the idea of a medium which was central to optics, acoustics, and the study of heat. Any theory in these areas would have to involve the idea of a medium between the observer and the source of light, sound, or heat. The uncertain question was what kind of medium.10 A second, more recent example was the idea of polarity, applicable in electricity, magnetism, galvanism, chemistry, and optics.11 Other fundamental ideas included space and time in mathematics, substance in chemistry, and life in biology.12

Mechanics carried special importance for Whewell's philosophy, both because the laws of motion were the first physical propositions that he correlated with a fundamental idea and because they remained the most convincing component of his system.13 The laws of motion were necessary consequences of the fundamental idea of cause. "The relation of cause and effect," Whewell explained, "is a relation or condition under which events are apprehended, which relation is not given by observation, but supplied by the mind itself."14 An axiom entailed by the idea of cause is: "Nothing can take place without a Cause."15 This axiom furnishes the a priori character of the first law. "Thus, though the discovery of the First Law of Motion was made, historically speaking, by means of experiment, we have now attained a point of view in which we see that it might have been certainly known to be true independently of experience."16 Since the second and third laws follow similarly from two other axioms, "the whole science of Mechanics, including its most complex and remote results, exists as a body of solid and universal truths."17

In reviewing Whewell's works, Herschel referred to two "almost dia- metrically opposite views of the philosophy of knowledge"-Whewell's,

cit., 183-217; Robert E. Butts, "Necessary Truth in Whewell's Theory of Science," American Philosophical Quarterly, 2 (1965), 161-81; hereafter Butts, "Whewell's Theory of Science"; A. W. Heathcote, "William Whewell's Philosophy of Science," British Journal

for the Philosophy of Science, 4 (1953), 302-14; and John Herivel, "Introduction," in William Whewell, The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences Founded upon Their History, a facsimile of the second edition, London, 1847 (New York and London, 1966), ix-xxxviii.

9According to Whewell, "the selection of the Idea depends mainly upon inventive

sagacity: which operates by suggesting and trying various hypotheses." (Philosophy, I,

xliii.) Science progresses through "the gradual development by which [Fundamental Ideas] have arrived at their due purity and clearness." (Philosophy, I, 76.)

'?Whewell, Philosophy, I, 266-330. "Ibid., I, 331-60. '2Ibid., I, 79-156, 338- 96; II, 30-38.

'3Whewell, "On the Nature of the Truth of the Laws of Motion," Trans. Cambridge Philos. Society, 5 (1834), 149-72.

'4Whewell, Philosophy, I, 169. '5Ibid., I, 170. '6Ibid., I, 213. '7Ibid., I, 185.



82 DAVID B. WILSON

which assumed "the presence of innate conceptions," and his own, "which refers all our knowledge to experience."' For Herschel, the mind works with information provided by both external and internal experience, internal experience including "the impressions [the mind] receives from its own acts, states, and faculties" and "those which it receives directly (and antecedently to all other experience), from its connexion with the body."'9 Induction is the process by which minds "construct general propositions themselves from the contemplation of particulars, and attribute to them a universality which experience alone is incapable of warranting. "20

Therefore, the laws of motion are based on experience. The tremen- dous confidence placed in them results simply from the huge quantities of experience confirming them. For example, whereas Whewell presents one proposition in statics as a necessary axiom derived from Newton's necessary third law, Herschel declares that the "origin of our certainty of the axiom" results from "simple experience. It is merely a scientific transformation and more refined mode of stating a coarse and obvious result of universal experience .. ."21

However, it is essential to recognize that despite their differences concerning the laws of motion, Whewell and Herschel agreed that the laws were just as certainly true as mathematical propositions. This is absolutely clear in Whewell's case, because both the laws of motion and mathematical propositions depended upon fundamental ideas and, therefore, were necessarily true. It is almost as clear in Herschel's case. Especially in response to Whewell's philosophy, he frequently and ex- plicitly declared his conviction that mathematical statements were derived from experience. They could be derived quickly from internal experience and were continually confirmed by external experience.22 Just as he had in mechanics, Herschel appealed to a life-time of experience as the source of the great faith placed in mathematical statements. Rejecting Whewell's Kantian apriorism he stated:

it is so impossible for us to divest ourselves, either as respects number, or any of those primary relations, as space, time, &c., of the bias given to all our notions by the unbroken influence of an experience which commenced with our birth and perhaps even before it, that we may well be excused if we more than hesitate in our assent to a doctrine, which requires us so entirely to unmould and unbuild the

s1Herschel, "Whewell Review," 150-51. For discussions of Herschel's philosophy, see Ducasse, "Herschel's Methods," 153-82 and Michael Partridge, "Introduction," in John Frederick William Herschel, A Preliminary Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy, a facsimile of the 1830 edition (New York and London, 1966).

"9Herschel, "Whewell Review," 194. 20Ibid., 172; author's emphasis. 2'Ibid., 219; author's emphasis. 22Herschel, Preliminary Discourse, sect. 86. Because of the numerous editions of this

work, I shall cite section, rather than page numbers.




whole structure of our mental habits and acquirements, as does that of the non- suggestion of ideas of this class, and the non-establishment of their axioms by experience.. . 23

Indeed, mathematics and the laws of motion seemed to exist side-by-side in Herschel's mind as more-or-less equally well-established inductive truths. Thus, he could write of dynamics: it is one [science] in which the highest certainty is attainable, a certainty no way inferior to mathematical demonstration. As its axioms are few, simple, and in the highest degree distinct and definite, so they have at the same time an immediate relation to geometrical quantity, space, time, and direction, and thus accom- modate themselves with remarkable facility to geometrical reasoning. Ac- cordingly, their consequences may be pursued, by arguments purely mathematical, to any extent, insomuch that the limit of our knowledge of dynamics is determined only by that of pure mathematics, which is the case in no other branch of physical science.24

Each, then, granted Newton's laws of motion the highest epistemological status that his philosophy would allow.

Also, of course, both regarded the domain of mechanics as enormously comprehensive. The laws of motion were directly involved throughout nature wherever there was motion or tendency to motion. As Herschel said, "By far the most general phenomenon with which we are acquainted, and that which occurs most constantly, in every enquiry into which we enter, is motion, and its communication. Dynamics, then, or the science of force and motion, is thus placed at the head of all the sciences."25

At the same time, however, they were in close accord that the range of mechanics was far from unbounded. It was limited not only because some known causes were non-mechanical, but also because known mechanical causes were themselves the product of "ulterior" causes. Whewell wrote that "behind proximate causes, there are ulterior causes, perhaps a suc- cession of such. Gravity is the cause of the motions of the planets; but what is the cause of gravity?"26 He regarded chemical affinity as a non-

23Herschel, "Whewell Review," 205-06. 24Herschel, Preliminary Discourse, sect. 87. It should not be imagined that Herschel's

system involved a dichotomy between mathematical and physical statements on the basis of their origin in internal or external experience. In fact, in addition to all mathematical con- cepts, some physical ones were also derivable from internal experience. "Were there no such thing as motion, had we been from infancy shut up in a dark dungeon, and every limb en- crusted with plaster, this internal consciousness would give us a complete idea of force ...." (Preliminary Discourse, sect. 77.)

25Ibid., sect. 87. "[Mechanical] force," Whewell wrote, "in its most general sense, is the cause of motion, or of tendency to motion." (Philosophy, I, 159.) For Whewell and Herschel, there were many kinds of causes, mechanical and non-mechanical. Mechanical causes were calledforces, and their product was motion.

26Whewell, Philosophy, II, 580.



84 DAVID B. WILSON

mechanical cause responsible for some mechanical forces as well as chemical activity. He thought that chemical affinity underlay the mechanical forces operative in electricity, magnetism, and galvanism, and, therefore, he named these three sciences the "mechanico-chemical" sciences.27 Activity of living beings was another area inexplicable only with mechanics, or, for that matter, with chemical causes.28 For Whewell, then, in addition to mechanical forces, nature contained (1) known, non- mechanical causes (like chemical affinity) which, in some instances, were ulterior to mechanical forces, and (2) untold numbers of completely unknown ulterior causes, which underlay known causes (both mechanical and non-mechanical) and which undoubtedly existed in many layers, each layer further removed from our inspection than the one before.

We make discovery after discovery in the various regions of science; each, it may be, satisfactory, and in itself complete, but none final. Something always remains undone. The last question answered, the answer suggests still another question. The strain of music from the lyre of Science flows on, rich and sweet, full and har- monious, but never reaches a close: no cadence is heard with which the intellectual ear can feel satisfied.29

Herschel, in complete approval of Whewell's general thesis, wrote:

in the explanation of innumerable phenomena, it is impossible to limit our views to such effort [i.e., mechanical force] even as an ultimate physical cause. We have to ascend a step higher, and to assign-or if not to assign, to seek-if not to seek, at least to recognize as admissible, an ulterior cause (as something distinct from a motive or a reason) for the exertion or development of [mechanical] force itself under the circumstances ...30

Not surprisingly, Newtonian astronomy received considerable praise from Herschel and Whewell. The well-known achievements of eighteenth- century astronomers demonstrated that Newton's theory of universal gravitation had successfully identified the mechanical cause operating in all astronomical motions. Typically, Herschel referred to astronomy as the "most perfect of sciences"31 and to the law of gravity as "the most universal truth at which human reason has yet arrived."32 Whewell concluded that "astronomy ... is not only the queen of the sciences, but, in a stricter sense of the term, the only perfect science;-the only branch of human knowledge in which particulars are completely subjugated to generals, effects to causes. .. ."33

27Ibid., I, 331-60; also ibid., I, xxxiv-xxxv, 263-65; II, 263-64, 580-82. 28Ibid., II, 3-30, esp. 29-30; also ibid., II, 581-82. 29Ibid., II, 580-81. 30Herschel, "Whewell Review," 181. Herschel meant that, no matter how fundamental

or ultimate a mechanical force might seem to be, he was convinced that it is ultimate only in a relative sense and that lying behind it is a series of ulterior causes. (Preliminary Discourse, sects. 76-80.)

3'Herschel, Preliminary Discourse, sect. 67. 32Ibid., sect. 116. 33Whewell [Address to the British Association], Report of the British Association for

the Advancement of Science (1833), xiii.




However, in spite of such unrestrained praise for astronomy, Herschel and Whewell's statements about mechanics show that they made a fundamental distinction between mechanics and astronomy, with mechanics possessing the more privileged status. If astronomy is the queen of the sciences, then mechanics is the god and the queen rules by divine right. Astronomy deals merely with one set of mechanical phenomena in a largely mechanical world. In Whewell's words, "Physical Astronomy employs the Sciences of Statics and Dynamics, and thus rests on their foundations."34 The distinction, in Whewell's case, is evident also in his refusal to grant the law of gravity the same epistemological status as the laws of motion. Gravity was the preeminent example of a "true cause," but it is not necessarily true.35

Consequently, except for their dispute over the epistemological level obtainable by mathematical and physical propositions, Herschel's and Whewell's views are practically interchangeable. Moreover, their high regard for Newtonian mechanics and astronomy appears in their other Newtonian convictions.

III. Newton's first rule of reasoning states that "we are to admit no more causes of natural things than such as are both true and sufficient to explain their appearances."36 In significant measure, Herschel's and Whewell's writings constituted a continuation of Newton's call for true causes. The scientist's goal was to achieve an accurate portrayal of the unobservable things and events which produced observed phenomena.

Herschel, to be sure, thought that hypotheses not containing true causes could play a genuine part in scientific progress. We may hesitate to regard even some well-supported hypotheses as "demonstrated truths," he argued, but we ought at least "to receive them as temporary substitutes for such truths, until the latter shall become known."37 In- deed, "hypotheses have often an eminent use: and a facility in framing them, if attended with an equal facility in laying them aside when they have served their turn, is one of the most valuable qualities a philosopher

can possess."38 can possess. ... 34Whewell, Philosophy, II, 270. 35As Whewell wrote, "The law of gravitation, though its universality may be deemed

probable, does not apparently involve the same necessity as the fundamental laws of motion." (Philosophy, II, 451; ibid., I, 246-53.) Whewell's distinction between these two kinds of truth vitiates Laudan's recent criticism of him: "William Whewell on the Consi- lience of Inductions," Monist, 55 (1971), 368-91. Contrary to Laudan's interpretation, Whewell did not claim that scientific truths based on experience (i.e., those not derivable from fundamental ideas) could be necessarily true. They could attain an extraordinarily high probability (hence, his glowing tributes to them) but not necessity. The next section of the present paper is a discussion of true causes.

36Sir Isaac Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy and His System of the World, translated into English by Andrew Motte in 1729, the translations revised and supplied with an historical and explanatory appendix by Florian Cajori (Berkeley, 1947), 398; hereafter Principia.

37Herschel, Preliminary Discourse, sect. 220. 38Ibid., sect. 216. He wrote to Whewell: "I remember it was a saying often in my



86 DAVID B. WILSON

However, Herschel's acknowledgment of the value of temporary hypotheses should not obscure his attitude toward causes to which "Newton has applied the term verae causae; that is, causes recognized as having a real existence in nature, and not being mere hypotheses or figments of the mind."39 Even while allowing great flexibility in the formation of theories, Herschel thought one should always endeavor to utilize true causes-"those real causes which experience has shown to exist, and to be efficacious in producing similar phenomena."40 Even while extolling the natural philosopher's ability to frame and discard temporary hypotheses, Herschel pointed out that, by itself,

this is taking a very limited view of the value and importance of hypotheses: it may happen (and it has happened in the case of the undulatory doctrine of light) that such a weight of analogy and probability may become accumulated on the side of an hypothesis, that we are compelled to admit one of two things; either that it is an actual statement of what really passes in nature, or that the reality, whatever it be, must run so close a parallel with it, as to admit of some mode of expression common to both, at least in so far as the phenomena actually known are concerned.41

In fact, according to Herschel, the "immediate object" of the natural philosopher is

the analysis of phenomena, and the knowledge of the hidden processes of nature in their production, so far as they can be traced by us. An important part of this knowledge consists in a discovery of the actual structure or mechanism of the universe and its parts, through which, and by which, those processes are executed; and of the agents which are concerned in their performance.42

Whewell, also, was quite clear regarding the valid role of temporary hypotheses in science. After all, his "Epochs" in the history of science (periods associated with figures like Galileo and Newton) were preceded by and led up to by what he called "Preludial guesses which touch the true theory, but which remain for a time imperfect, undeveloped, unconfirmed... "43 In his Philosophy, he emphasized "that hypotheses may often be of service to science, when they involve a certain portion of incompleteness, and even of error."44

Likewise, Whewell was quite clear regarding true causes. To dispel the notion that his philosophy precluded knowledge of the existence of an external world, he wrote in a public letter to Herschel that "the external world is real if anything be real: the bodies which exist in space are things,

Father's mouth 'Hypotheses fingo' in reference to Newton's 'Hypotheses non fingo' ...." (Herschel to Whewell, 20 Aug. 1837, in Whewell papers.)

39Herschel, Preliminary Discourse, sect. 138. 40Ibid., sect. 141; also Herschel, "Whewell Review," 245. 41Herschel, Preliminary Discourse, sect. 208. 42Ibid., sect. 202. 43Whewell, History, II, 461. 44Whewell, Philosophy, II, 225.




if things are anywhere to be found. That bodies do exist in space, and that that is the reason why we apprehend them as existing in space, I readily grant."45 More precisely to the point was his discussion of Newton's first rule in which he concluded that with a "consilience of inductions" (an ac- cumulation of proof for a theory from different kinds of phenomena) "the theoretical cause takes its place among the realities of the world, and becomes a true cause. "46

Given the state of science as Whewell and Herschel saw it in the 1830's, they perhaps could scarcely do other than champion true causes. Not only had a century and a half of extraordinarily diverse evidence accumulated behind gravity, but perhaps even more dramatically, much the same process had just occurred in optics in less than three decades. Ac- cordingly, Whewell drew explicit parallels between "the two great sciences, Physical Astronomy and Physical Optics," declaring that "Young and Fresnel combined, make up the Newton of optical science."47 Showing the same admiration for astronomy and optics, Herschel seconded Whewell's concept of consilience of inductions by ex- claiming:

in the infinitely varied phenomena of physical astronomy, when all are discussed and all explained, we hear from all quarters the consentaneous echoes of but one word, GRAVITATION. And so in optics, each of its endless classes of complex and splendid phenomena being interpreted by its own conception; when these conceptions are assembled and compared, they all turn out to be translations into their peculiar language of the single phrase TRANSVERSE UNDULATION.48

Newton's dictum concerning true causes had been borne out in convincing ways. Whewell had written Herschel respecting necessary propositions that "it appears that there are such." So also, in the case of true causes, I think that for Herschel and Whewell it simply appeared that "there were such." Overwhelmingly impressive accomplishments in astronomy and optics had made the theme of true causes (with respect to both their actual existence in the external world and the possibility of accurate knowledge of them) a brute fact of scientific life-a fact which any satisfactory system or philosophy of science would have to recognize.

Moreover, Herschel and Whewell discussed true causes in an atmosphere in which the old Newtonian-Cartesian conflict was still a sensitive issue. They were Newtonians actively combatting Cartesianism. Thus, we see them praising Newton's personality as well as his science

45Whewell to Herschel, 11 April 1844, in Whewell, The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, Founded upon Their History, 2 vols. (London, 18472), II, 675. Whewell wrote these remarks in 1841 after reading Herschel's review of his History and Philosophy, printed them privately in 1844, and included them in the second edition of his Philosophy.

46Whewell, Philosophy, II, 447, 1st ed. (not 2nd ed. of n.45). 47Whewell, History, II, 461-62. 48Herschel, "Whewell Review," 247-48.



88 DAVID B. WILSON

and treating Descartes in a manner that, for the historian, is, to say the least, instructive.

With obvious satisfaction, Whewell wrote that "those who love to think that great talents are naturally associated with virtue, have always dwelt with pleasure upon the views given of Newton by his contem- poraries; for they have uniformly represented him as candid and humble, mild and good."49 Herschel, disagreeing with any who suggested Newton was "deficient in the loftier and more powerful elements of moral, as dis- tinguished from intellectual character," upheld Whewell's conclusion that Newton possessed "the strongest character, as well as the highest endow- ments, which belong to man."50

In sharp contrast were Whewell's abrasive rebukes of Descartes. While admitting Descartes' genius in mathematics and calling him "the founder of the modern mechanical philosophy,"51 Whewell viciously condemned Descartes' specific theories, his style of theorizing, and his personal character. For example, in a time when others were trying to develop a proper mechanical account of planetary motion, "it certainly shows both great conceit and great shallowness, that [Descartes] should have put forward with much pomp this crude invention [i.e., the theory of vortices] of the ante-mechanical period...."52 Furthermore, Descartes remodelled his system from a vacuum to a plenum just to suit the intellectual fashion at Paris and tried to explain away the earth's motion merely to avoid trouble with the Pope.53 "Indeed, in the whole of his philosophy, he appears to deserve the character of being both rash and cowardly... .54 Most of his "physical speculations" were "hasty and gratuitous."55 In fact, Whewell thought that Newton's "horror of the term hypothesis"-a horror resulting in his too-extreme statement "hypotheses non fingo"-"probably arose from his acquaintance with the rash and illicit assumptions of Descartes."5 Finally, to Descartes' apologists such as Leibniz, who claimed "that the Cartesian philosophy was the antechamber of [Newtonian] Truth," Whewell countered that "it appeared rather as if these suitors had mistaken the door; for those who first came into the presence of Truth herself, were those who never entered this imagined antechamber. .. ."57

Herschel's handling of Descartes was nearly as revealing as Whe- well's. In his Preliminary Discourse, he disclosed his judgment of Descartes by not even mentioning him. The Preliminary Discourse may not have been a history of science, but it had its historical sections-sections in which the likes of Gilbert, Galileo, Bacon, Boyle, and Hooke oc-

49Whewell, History, II, 186-87. 50Herschel, "Whewell Review," 163-64; Whewell, History, II, 185-86. 51Whewell, History, II, 135, 390. 52Ibid., II, 132. 53Ibid., II, 136. 54Ibid., II, 137. 55Ibid., II, 390. 56Whewell, Philosophy, II, 437-38. 57Whewell, History, II, 139.




cupied prominent places. For Herschel, Bacon and Galileo ushered in genuine natural philosophy.58 Before Bacon's Novum Organum, "natural philosophy in any legitimate and extensive sense of the word, could hardly be said to exist,"59 and it was Galileo who finally refuted Aristotle's "dogmas respecting motion, by direct appeal to the evidence of sense, and by experiments of the most convincing kind."60 Hence, because Herschel saw seventeenth-century natural philosophy as the creation of empirically minded men like Bacon and Galileo, the omission of Descartes with his hastily conceived, gratuitous theories must have seemed no omission at all. Indeed, although not mentioned in Herschel's review of Whewell's works either, Descartes lurked only lightly veiled behind Herschel's statement:

Hypotheses must of all things be framed-not loose and incapable of being exactly tested by following them into consequences, like those which Newton proscribed in his celebrated "hypotheses non fingo,"-but such as can be so tested by reference to number, time, quantity, &c.; such as refer rather to modes of action of known causes than to the assumption of unknown, or (if that be necessary) which point out an intelligible and traceable line of connexion between the cause assumed and the results observed.61

There were other opponents in addition to Descartes. Herschel was pleased that Whewell had dealt out justice to certain of "the ravings of Hegel and Schelling ... thereby separating himself in the most decided manner from that exaggerated a priori school of metaphysical speculation which finds in 'the Absolute,' or in the proposition 'A = A,' the totality of all existence and all knowledge discovered or dis- coverable."62 Secondly, there was the Comtean position. Although Comte, unlike Descartes, did stress the importance of experience, he restricted the scientist's domain to the laws of phenomena, eliminating their causes. For Whewell, this position was "a curious example of that barren caution which hopes for truth without daring to venture upon the quest of it,"63 and for Herschel it was "that dry and unsatisfactory

58One of Herschel's chapter titles, for example, was "Of the State of Physical Science in General, Previous to the Age of Galileo and Bacon." (Preliminary Discourse, Pt. II, Ch. III.)

59Ibid., sect. 97. 60Ibid., sect. 104. 61Herschel, "Whewell Review," 244-45. Herschel's and Whewell's writings on the

seventeenth century present the historian of science with all sorts of temptations to make factual or methodological criticisms. However, I wish to note only that their writings were those of participants in the Cartesian-Newtonian debate.

62Herschel, "Whewell Review," 230; Whewell, Philosophy, I, 356-59. 63Whewell, Philosophy, II, 268-69. Whewell's dislike of Comte never waned. In an

article appearing in the year he died, Whewell wrote: "with regard to M. Auguste Comte and his Philosophie Positive, I have many years ago expressed my opinion. I then spoke of him as a person whose want of knowledge and of temperate thought caused his opinions on the philosophy and history of science to be of no value. I have seen no reason to change this

opinion.. ." ("Comte and Positivism," Macmillan's Magazine, 13 [1866], 353.)



90 DAVID B. WILSON

philosophy which declares laws, not causes, to be the legitimate objects of human research."64

Hence, Herschel and Whewell forged their attitude toward true causes, to some extent, in the heat of controversy. Descartes and Hegel sought truth in such irresponsible manners that it was to be expected that their results would be as empty as they were. Comte did seek truth through careful appeal to experience, but truth at an absurdly shallow level. The tone of Herschel's and Whewell's language indicates that the heat of controversy was intense-intense enough greatly to sharpen their sensitivity to the proper role of true causes.65

IV. According to Newton's third rule of reasoning,

The qualities of bodies, which admit neither intensification nor remission of degrees, and which are found to belong to all bodies within the reach of our experiments, are to be esteemed the universal qualities of all bodies whatsoever.66

An affirmation of the fundamental similarities of the macroscopic and microscopic realms, this rule allowed the conclusion that "the least particles of all bodies [are] all extended, and hard and impenetrable, and movable, and endowed with their proper inertia." Moreover, "we must, in consequence of this rule, universally allow that all bodies whatsoever are endowed with a principle of mutual gravitation."67 It was a rule to which Herschel and Whewell took considerable exception, but part of which remained an integral element of their thought.

Whewell regarded the rule as "a mere rule of prudence."68 In the first place, he disagreed that the admitted universality of such "primary" properties as extension, movability, and solidity were determined simply by experience. Rather, their universality depended on fundamental ideas. "The perception of solidity, like the perception of extension, implies an act of the mind, as well as an impression of the senses: as the perception of extension implies the idea of space, so the perception of solidity implies the idea of action and reaction."69 Secondly, any attempt to use the third rule to establish gravity as a universal quality of matter was unwar- ranted. Whereas we simply cannot conceive bodies minus extension and solidity, "we find no difficulty in conceiving two bodies which do not at- tract each other."70 The third rule was merely one of "prudence,"

64Herschel, "Whewell Review," 246. 65My interpretation of Whewell in this section disagrees with Butts' conclusion that

Whewell abandoned the search for true causes in favor of discussing "the adequacy of expla- nations, or the success of theories." Robert E. Butts, "Whewell on Newton's Rules of Phi- losophizing," in Robert E. Butts and John W. Davis, eds., The Methodological Heritage of Newton (Oxford, 1970), 139-40. Whewell's discussion of the success of theories was not an abandonment of true causes; rather, it was an attempt to set criteria for determining when a true cause had been identified. With a "consilience of inductions," "the theoretical cause takes its place among the realities of the world .. ."

66Principia, 398. 67Ibid., 399. 68Whewell, Philosophy, I, 250. 69Ibid., I, 182. 70Ibid., I, 249.




therefore, because it was irrelevant to the establishment of the universality of extension and solidity, and because it could not establish the universality of gravity.71 The rule could not establish necessary truths, but still it was a prudent rule because it was, of course, wise to assume provisionally that causes like gravity operate in yet unexplored areas.

Herschel's criticism of Newton's third rule was perhaps more severe than Whewell's. Whereas Whewell at least had agreed that primary qualities belonged to both realms, Herschel did not.

All sensible qualities of material objects, not excepting even their extension and figure, are manifestations, by multitude, of powers, arrangements, mechanisms, and movements, in particles individually imperceptible. We have not the shadow of a proof that the particles of bodies are extended. The contrary seems to us all but demonstrable.....72

However, after stripping away so much of the content of the third rule, Whewell and Herschel retained an important kernel of the world view embodied in it. The microscopic and macroscopic realms were alike in that they were both mechanical. Accordingly, Whewell was careful to state, for example, that the concept of transverse undulations in the ether did not violate mechanical principles73 and, in fact, declared that an axiom belonging to the idea of a medium was "that a medium, in con- veying secondary qualities, operates by means of its primary qualities, the bulk, figure, motion, and other mechanical properties of its parts."74 According to Herschel, the laws of motion "include every question that can arise respecting the motions and rest of the smallest particles of matter, as well as of the largest masses."75 This mechanical similarity sanc- tioned macroscopic analogies as tools for exploring the microscopic world.

One of the most obvious of these analogies was the one between sound and light-between highly similar situations existing in macroscopic air and microscopic ether. Whewell noted that "not only sound, but light, and probably heat" were transmitted by some sort of "pulses" or "undulations,"76 while Herschel stated that "an analogy subsisting between sound and light has been gradually traced into a closeness of agreement, which can hardly have any reasonable doubt of their ultimate coincidence in one common phenomenon, the vibratory motion of an elastic medium."77

7Ibid. 72Herschel, "Whewell Review," 227-28. 73Whewell, Philosophy, I, 303-04. 74Ibid., I, 300; author's emphasis. 75Herschel, Preliminary Discourse, sect. 236. He wrote of the electric fluid, for example,

that "its inertia compared with its elastic force must be conceived excessively small, so that it is to be regarded as a fluid in the highest degree active, obeying every impulse, internal and external, with the greatest promptitude .. ." (Ibid., sect. 369.)

76Whewell, History, II, 312. 77Herschel, Preliminary Discourse, sect. 85.



92 DAVID B. WILSON

Whewell and Herschel also spoke of a quite different kind of analogy-one in which, unlike in the case of sound and light, no struc- tural likeness was implied. Herschel, much of whose research lay in areas conducive to the use of analogies, bore witness to "the great importance of possessing a stock of analogous instances or phenomena which class themselves with that under consideration, the explanation of one among which may naturally be expected to lead to that of all the rest."78 His own stock of analogies included a collection of thin, elastic, hollow, ellipsoidal shells, which represented double refractive media, and trick tuning forks, which represented absorptive, optical media.

The ellipsoidal shells appeared in his famous 1827 article on "Light" for the Encyclopaedia Metropolitana. The major axes of the shells were all parallel to one another. Therefore, any one shell would touch surrounding shells in six places-at both ends of its major axis and at both ends of two minor axes, which would be perpendicular not only to the major axis but to each other as well.

Consequently, any motion communicated to a molecule [i.e., to one of the shells] of such a mass could only be propagated by vibrations performed in planes parallel and perpendicular to the major axis. Hence, if a [transverse] vibratory motion in any plane be propagated into such an assemblage of particles from without, it would immediately, on its reaching it, be resolved into two, in the planes above named; and these, by reason of the different elasticities, will be propagated with different velocities.79

Of course, mutually perpendicular transverse vibrations with different velocities is exactly what one finds in double refraction.

The tuning forks appeared in a not-so-famous paper of 1833. The problem was to imagine how a medium could either absorb or transmit one specific color and treat in opposite manner the colors on both sides of it in the spectrum. David Brewster, arch-opponent of the undulatory theory, threw down the gauntlet: "Among the various phenomena of sound no such analogous fact exists, and so we can scarcely conceive an elastic medium so singularly constituted to exhibit such extraordinary effects...."80 Herschel picked up the gauntlet with his tuning forks. He described two forks-one with a paper disk attached with sealing wax to the inner surface of each of its prongs, the other with a disk on one prong and an amount of wax on the other prong equal to the combined weight of the disk and wax on the first prong. The forks' performances contrasted sharply. While the one-disked fork sounded its note "clear and loud," the two-disked fork emitted only a "dull and stifled" note. With

78Ibid., sect. 142. 79John Herschel, "Light," in Encyclopaedia Metropolitana, Edward Smedley, et al.,

eds., 20 vols. (London, 1845), IV, 537-38; hereafter Herschel, "Light." 80David Brewster, "Observations of the Absorption of Specific Rays, in reference to the

Undulatory Theory of Light," Philosophical Magazine, series 3, 2 (1833), 362-63.




selective absorption in mind, Herschel noted that "here then we have a case in which a vibrating system in full activity is rendered, by a pecu- liarity of structure, incapable of sending forth its undulations with effect into the surrounding medium; while the very same mass of matter, vibrating with the same intensity, but more favourably disposed as to the arrangement of its parts, labours under no such disability."81 Moreover, if one arranged in a series several one-disked tuning forks tuned to the same note and if a whole scale of notes were produced at one end of the series, only the selected note would be propagated to the other end. "We have here a fact analogous to the appearance of a bright line in the spectrum situated between dark spaces...."82

Precisely what did these analogies accomplish for Herschel? There was certainly no pictorial correspondence between ellipsoidal shells or tuning forks and the inner structure of optical media. "The reader must not suppose that this collection of ellipsoidal shells is intended for an account of the real mechanism of crystallized bodies."83 The analogies helped confirm the undulatory theory, not by imitating microscopic structures, but by demonstrating that the presumed microscopic processes (selective absorption of waves and the resolution of a transverse wave into two mutually perpendicular waves) were mechanically possible. Mechanical processes were governed by mechanical principles, and quite different structures, governed by the same principles, could perform identical processes. Moreover, the mechanical sameness of the macroscopic and microscopic realms meant that a process illustrated at the macroscopic level conveyed the knowledge that the process could be performed by microscopic structures, even though we might lack any conception of their appearance. The principle exemplified by the tuning forks, and by many other acoustical systems, for that matter, was that of "forced vibrations."

In all such systems the whole will be maintained in forced vibration so long as the exciting cause continues in action, but the several constituents, regarded separately, will assume, under that influence, widely different amplitudes of os- cillation, those assuming the greatest whose pitch taken singly is nearest to coincidence with that of the existing vibrations.84

Thus, the analogies demonstrated that in the wave-theory view of selective absorption there was nothing "repugnant ... to sound dynamical principles"85 and that the wave-theory interpretation of double refraction "is not absurd, or contradictory to sound mechanical principles."86

81John Herschel, "On the absorption of Light by Coloured Media, viewed in connexion with the Undulatory Theory," Philosophical Magazine, series 3, 3 (1833), 407; hereafter Herschel, "Absorption."

821bid., 409-10. 83Herschel, "Light," 538. 84Herschel, "Absorption," 410. 851bid., 402. 86Herschel, "Light," 538.



94 DAVID B. WILSON

Finally, it must be recognized that Herschel's analogies, involving remnants of Newton's third rule, in no way replaced the first-rule search for true causes. On the contrary, analogies were valuable when true causes were manifestly beyond reach. In the cases of absorption and double refraction, for example, it would be for future experimentation and theorizing to form accurate portrayals of the actual causes of the phenomena. Herschel's analogies would illustrate the mechanical principles controlling the actual causes, and, indeed, in their confirmatory role, they would indicate the possibility of success for such a search. Ac- cordingly, in neither case did Herschel restrict himself to his analogies. While admitting ignorance of the actual microscopic situation, in both cases he discussed possible ether-matter configurations.87 They were configurations which, he thought, agreed with the appropriate mechanical principles and which, as his remarks on true causes indicated, he viewed as hopefully suggestive of the looked-for actual causes.

Whewell, in supporting Herschel's specific attempts to bring absorption within the fold of the wave theory, also endorsed Herschel's general view of the role of analogies in explaining nature.

When the laws of the absorption here spoken of are known, the undulatory theorist will have before him the task of pointing out what is the constitution of transparent media. The object of the present remarks is to show that the existence of a constitution which shall embrace the facts as far as we know them, is not at all at variance with the undulatory theory.88

V. In Newtonian manner, theological considerations permeated the writings of Whewell and Herschel. Whewell, in addition to his Bridgewater Treatise on natural theology,89 discussed "Of the Con- ception of a First Cause" and "Of the Supreme Cause" in his Philosophy,90 and collected portions of his Philosophy, History, and Bridgewater Treatise into a separate work entitled Indications of a Creator.91 Herschel interspersed similar considerations throughout the three introductory chapters of his Preliminary Discourse. Whewell concluded his review of Herschel's Preliminary Discourse on a natural theological note,92 and Herschel placed similar remarks near the begin- ning of his review of Whewell's works.93 Revelation may have been the origin and foundation of man's knowledge of God, but the study of nature provided enormous reinforcement. In a passage applauded by Whewell, Herschel declared that, far from leading men "to scoff at

87Ibid., 501; Herschel, "Absorption," 410. 88Whewell, "Suggestions respecting Sir John Herschel's Remarks on the Theory of the

Absorption of Light by Coloured Media," Report of the British Association for the Ad- vancement of Science (1834), 552.

89Whewell, Astronomy. 90Whewell, Philosophy, II, 77-94, 581-86. 9'Whewell, Indications of the Creator (London, 1845). 92Whewell, "Herschel Review," 407. 93Herschel, "Whewell Review," 152-53.




revealed religion," the study of nature "places the existence and principal attributes of a Deity on such grounds as to render doubt absurd and atheism ridiculous."94 Natural theology was natural philosophy operating in its highest reaches.

One of God's attributes unveiled by an examination of nature was his "mode ... of operation in the material world."95 As Whewell phrased it, "events are brought about, not by insulated interpositions of divine power exerted in each particular case, but by the establishment of general laws."96 Moreover, "a law supposes an agent, and a power; for it is the mode according to which the agent proceeds, the order according to which the power acts."97 Agent and power being references to the Divine, the consequence of Whewell's concept of a law was that God's "universal presence is the necessary condition of any course of events, his universal agency the only origin of any efficient force."98 To demonstrate the support commanded by this view, Whewell cited Herschel's Preliminary Dis- course. "The Divine Author of the universe," according to Herschel, did not establish "particular laws, enumerating all individual contingencies"; rather, by creating "his materials"

endued with certain fixed qualities and powers, he has impressed them in their origin with the spirit, not the letter, of his law, and made all their subsequent com- binations and relations inevitable consequences of this first impression, by which, however, we would no way be understood to deny the constant exercise of his direct power in maintaining the system of nature. .. .99

But discovering God's attributes was only part of the story. The link between the study of nature and the study of God was like mutual in- ductance. One could study the creation to learn about the Creator, but, in turn, one's concept of the Creator was directly relevant to one's basic view of the creation. Specifically, Herschel and Whewell's confidence in Newton's rules was bound up with their concept of God.

We see this in Whewell's proof that "the Creator and Preserver of the world is also the Governor and Judge of Men."100 Speech, one of man's most useful faculties, would be impossible without air. The atmosphere and "the curious and complex machinery of the tongue, the glottis, the larynx" were designed for each other. In fact, because of the interplay

94Herschel, Preliminary Discourse, sect. 5; Whewell, "Herschel Review," 406-07. 95Whewell, Astronomy, 358. 96Ibid., 356. 97Ibid., 361. The very same statement is in Paley's Natural Theology. William Paley,

Natural Theology: Or, Evidences of the Existence and A ttributes of The Deity, Collected from the Appearances of Nature (London, 18036), 7. As Cannon writes, "the God of Whe- well's Astronomy was the God of Paley's Natural Theology...." Walter Cannon, "The Problem of Miracles in the 1830's," Victorian Studies, 4 (1960-61), 15.

s9Whewell, Astronomy, 362. 99Ibid., 358, 365; Herschel, Preliminary Discourse, sect. 27. 00?Whewell, Astronomy, 254.



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between reasoning and speech, we know that "the creator of the atmosphere and of the material universe is the creator of the human mind, and the author of those wonderful powers of thinking, judging, inferring, discovering, by which we are able to reason concerning the world in which we are placed. .. ."101 The same was true for light and the eye, "two sets of contrivances, which so remarkably fit into each other."102 Further- more, the sense of beauty and the love of art, depending as they do on the eye, "were bestowed on man to further the best interests of his being."103 And, if the Creator of the world was responsible for these high human qualities, we must "ascribe also to Him the higher directive attributes of our nature, the conscious and the religious feeling, the reference of our ac- tions to the rule of duty and to the will of God."104 Hence, the same Being was responsible for both nature and man (including his most noble characteristics)-that is, Whewell had proved his point that God was both Creator of the World and Judge of Men. In doing so, Whewell disclosed his conception of man and nature thoroughly intertwined, perfectly designed for each other by God. In Whewell's world, thoughts quite naturally "fitted into" things producing both necessary truths and knowledge of true causes.105

Herschel, in his review of Whewell's works, invoked the same sort of close harmony between man's knowledge and God's creation. He thought that certain "primordial analogies" established by God proyided something of a common denominator between his and Whewell's philosophies. Among all the phenomena-both internal and external-presented to us, many were similar to one another. Some of the similarities, Herschel argued, were so impressive that our minds grasped them as fundamental truths permeating the universe. Causation, for example, "when once suggested (as we conceive it to be) by such [internal] experience, as a kind of mental sensation, ... is seized and dwelt on with a force and tenacity which strongly indicates its real importance to our knowledge and well- being."106 This "primordial analogy," according to Herschel, "is seized and made the basis of a universal theory with an invariable verification by experience." In general,

among the infinite analogies which may exist among natural things, it may very well be admitted that those only are designed, in the original constitution of our minds, to strike us with permanent force, to embody around them the greatest

OlIbid., 257-58. 102Ibid., 258. 1031bid., 259. 104Ibid., 263. 105In 1825 Whewell wrote: "And here therefore the conclusion forces itself upon us that

these general laws must have prevailed in the mind of an intellectual being by whom the material world is governed. .... They are the characters which he has stamped upon his production and which we are enabled to read. With us, as was said before, they are the knowledge of the language in which the book of nature is written. And this language is the expression of his thoughts. And we can read it so far as our minds are of the same nature with his." (Whe- well's diary, R.18.913, in Whewell papers.)

106Herschel, "Whewell Review," 208-09.




masses of thought and interest, to become elaborated into general propositions, and finally to work their way to universal reception, and attain to all the recog- nizable characters of truth, which are really dependent on the intimate nature of things as that nature is known to their Creator, and which have relation to their essential qualities and conditions as impressed on them by Him.107

Although for Herschel it was the case that the "power bestowed on the mind" enabled it to grasp these experiential "primordial analogies," the analogies were so striking that it was perhaps understandable that Whe- well might mistakenly speak of the mind's "endowment with a direct recognition of fundamental ideas and relations not derived from experience... ."108 In any case, according to Herschel, both views maintained that

the mind of man is represented as in harmony with universal nature; that we are consequently capable of attaining to real knowledge; and that the design and in- telligence which we trace throughout creation is no visionary conception, but a truth as certain as the existence of that creation itself.109

I do not mean to argue for the epistemological priority of either Whe- well and Herschel's belief in God or their support of Newton's rules. Both were present and they buttressed one another. Genuine knowledge of nature permitted fundamental assertions regarding nature's Creator; accurate knowledge of God allowed basic conclusions concerning His creation. Therefore, Herschel and Whewell were supremely confident that man and nature-both creations of God-were so harmoniously locked into each other that the impossibility of man's real knowledge of nature was unthinkable.

VII. Herschel and Whewell were convinced that man could and should uncover true causes. When man probes the unobservable with macroscopic analogies, he probes and finds out about real things. With continued experimentation and ingenious reasoning, man can accurately describe the hidden realm. His knowledge might be incomplete insofar as it leaves multitudes of "ulterior causes" untouched, but it is genuine. Moreover, there were good reasons for Herschel and Whewell's convictions: (1) the unequivocal triumphs of astronomy, mechanics, and optics provided powerful precedents; (2) Newton's third rule contained reliable strategies for leaping from the macroscopic to the microscopic; and (3) the security of religious certitude lent by natural theology supplied a firm foundation for the whole endeavor. Together, Herschel and Whewell de- lineated a well-defined version of Newtonianism.

Cambridge University. 107Ibid., 152. 108Ibid., 152. l09Ibid., 152-53.



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