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(Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science 150) I. Bernard Cohen (Auth.), I. Bernard Cohen (Eds.)-The Natural Sciences and the Social Sciences_ Some Critical and Historical Perspectives-Springer Net
(Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science 150) I. Bernard Cohen (Auth.), I. Bernard Cohen (Eds.)-The Natural Sciences and the Social Sciences_ Some Critical and Historical Perspectives-Springer Net
Editor
VOLUME 150
THE NATURAL
SCIENCES
AND THE
SOCIAL SCIENCES
Some Critical and Historical Perspectives
Edited by
I. BERNARD COHEN
Victor S. Thomas Professor Emeritus of the History of Science,
Harvard University, U.S.A.
The Natural sCIences and the socIal sCIences so~e critical and
historIcal perspectIves! edited by I. Bernard Cohen.
p. cm. -- (Boston studIes In the philoSOphy of science: v.
150)
Inc ludes Index.
ISBN 978-90-481-4258-3 ISBN 978-94-017-3391-5 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-94-017-3391-5
1. SClence--Phi losophy--HiStOry. 2. SocIal sciences--Phi losophy-
-HIstory. I. Cohen. I. Bernard. II. Series.
CI74.8.N38 1993
001--dc20 93-3226
ISBN 978-90-481-4258-3
PREFACE Xl
PART I: INTRODUCTION
PART V: CONCLUSION
I. B. Cohen (ed.), The Natural Sciences and the Social Sciences, vii-x.
1994 Kluwer Academic Publishers.
viii FOREWORD
factory to all. But more often, pair or even team collaboration will be
necessary to get it right.
My impression is that such collaboration will be easier at the present
for the historians of the natural sciences, who have a solid tradition of
archival and collaborative research. There is very little of such a tradi-
tion and such performance among the social scientists.lO The tradition
will have to be built up and legitimated, the performance will have to
be demonstrated, before the social scientists can claim a place of equality
with the historians of the natural sciences. To see what their future should
be like, social scientists should pay as much attention to this volume
as natural scientists.
Some efforts toward that legitimation of a proper history of the social
sciences have recently occurred. The American Sociological Association,
for example, has appointed an Archives Project Committee, of which I
am the Chair. 11 Our initial purpose is to draw up a guide to all the archival
materials for sociology and sociologists that are now scattered all over
North America. (P.A. Sorokin's papers, despite his long tenure at Harvard,
for example, are not at Harvard, but at Calgary.) If the history of
sociology is to be good history it will have to be based on such archival
materials, as well, of course, as on oral histories.
I have been waiting for a long time for a volume like this one. I
hope others will welcome it as much I do.
NOTES
1 From the Closed World to the Infinite Universe (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University
Press, 1957).
2 Boris Hessen: "The Social and Economic Roots of Newton's 'Principia,'" in Science
at the Cross Roads (London: Kniga, 1931).
3 J.D. Bernal: The Social Function of Science (New York: Macmillan, 1939).
4 Lancelot Hogben: Science for the Citizen (London: G. Allen & Unwin, 1938).
5 Bruges: OSIRIS, IV, Part 2, 1938. For a recent collection of critiques and apprecia-
tions of this book, see 1. Bernard Cohen, ed., Puritanism and the Rise of Modern Science:
The Merton Thesis (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1990).
6 Glencoe, Ill.: The Free Press, 1952. For an extension of this work, see B. Barber: Social
Studies of Science (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Books, 1990).
7 Reported in May Sarton: I Knew A Phoenix: Sketches for an Autobiography (New York:
W.W. Norton, 1969), p. 69.
8 For a powerful argument for the partial independence of the ideas and concepts of
x FOREWORD
science against some recent interesting relativist arguments for the determination of
these ideas by social and cultural "interests," never too well defined, see Stephen Cole:
Making Science: Between Nature and Society (Cambridge: Harvard University Press,
1992).
9 For a generalized statement of this theoretical assumption and of a provisional model
for the societal social system, see Bernard Barber: Constructing The Social System (New
Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Books, 1993).
10 For two recent exception, see Charles Carnic (ed.): Talcott Parsons: The Early Essays
(Combridge: Harvard University Press, 1992); and Bruce C. Wearne: The Theory and
Scholarship o/Talcott Parsons to 1951. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989).
Older exceptions can be found in the continuing work of George W. Stocking on the history
of anthropology.
11 Attention should be called to a growing body of important studies by historians, social
scientists, and historians of science that deal with various aspects of the history of the
social sciences and the interactions of the social sciences and the natural sciences. Many
of these works are mentioned in the Preface to this volume and in the references in the
individual chapters.
PREFACE
I. B. Cohen (ed.), The Natural Sciences and the Social Sciences, xi-xxiv.
1994 Kluwer Academic Publishers.
xii PREFACE
the sciences have influenced one another. It was but a short step to extend
this enquiry into the parallel phenomenon of the interaction of the natural
sciences with the social sciences. When I first undertook this investi-
gation, I naively believed that the vast and steadily accumulating literature
of books, monographs, and journal articles on historical aspects of the
social sciences would provide a useful and readily available, if not fully
digested, body of reliable secondary source material to serve my purpose.
The very existence of two multi-volume encyclopedias of the social
sciences, replete with biographies and bibliographies and historical
expositions of main themes, seemed a guarantee that - except in rare
cases - I should not have to do all the spade-work research in primary
sources that is almost always required in my own field of history of
science. After all, I reasoned, the social sciences represent a proud ancient
profession with a direct lineage that could be traced to Plato and Aristotle.
Surely social scientists would have been concerned with the interac-
tions of their disciplines with the natural sciences during the centuries
since the Science Revolution!?
I was aware, furthermore, that some social sciences (notably psy-
chology, political science, economics, and sociology) regularly included
courses in the history of their respective disciplines in their programs and
that others (notably political science, sociology, economics, and history)
made creative use of texts of past great masters in their teaching and
research. So it seemed to me that my study of the interactions of the
natural and the social sciences could take advantage of the fact that the
social sciences are unlike the natural sciences in the way that they make
use of their history as part of professional training and that they draw
upon the writings of the past as part of the useful literature of their
subjects. Even economists, the most like physicists of the social
scientists, are usually familiar with such fine points of their history as
the difference between the systems of Adam Smith and Ricardo, the
distinction between the ideas of Jevons and Walras, or the relation of
Menger and the Austrian school to Marshall. Few physicists would have
an equally sound and extensive knowledge of the work of their nine-
teenth- and early twentiety-century predecessors.
Another factor that led me to suppose that my task would be easier
than in fact it turned out to be was the constant litany in the different
social sciences - primarily economics and sociology - of their status
as true sciences. I quite naturally fell into the error of believing that,
in their studies of the past, social scientists would have particularly
PREFACE xv
the disputes of his own age - an aspect of his presentation for which
he has been roundly criticized.
The situation is somewhat the same for another example (also dis-
cussed in Chapter 4), James Harrington's politico-social thought,
expressed in his Oceana and other writings. Harrington's ideas assumed
significant proportions in the eighteenth century, influencing many of the
American Founding Fathers and becoming embodied in the American
Constitution. Although Harrington expressly founded or justified his
system on the basis of the new Harveyan physiology, there is no mention
of Harvey or his science in the Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences;
in the International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, Harvey's
influence is mentioned in passing, but not in a way that would give the
reader any sense of the possible extent of Harvey's actual influence on
Harrington.
An equally striking example of the neglect of the study of the inter-
actions between the natural sciences or mathematics and the social
sciences is provided by an early essay of Leibniz (also discussed in
Chapter 4). Although Leibniz devoted this essay to a mathematical
demonstration of a method of selecting a king for Poland, this does not
appear to have merited any notice whatever in standard presentations
of the history of political thought. This essay is not even mentioned in
a recent volume devoted to Leibniz's political writings.
Even when the scientific component of social thought is introduced,
the significance may be lost because of a lack of understanding of the
science of the past. An example (discussed in Chapter 1) involves
Berkeley's conception of a social analogue of the Newtonian gravitational
cosmology. Berkeley's presentation shows that he understood perfectly
the principles of Newtonian celestial dynamics, explaining planetary
orbital motion as a combination of a continual central accelerating force
and an undiminished initial component of linear inertial motion along
a tangent. In the presentation of Berkeley's Newtonian sociology, in
Sorokin's textbook survey, Berkeley's correct physics is reduced to the
incorrect form of a "balance" between centripetal and centrifugal forces,
a standard elementary textbook error that has long plagued the teaching
of physics. Berkeley's sound Newtonian physics is reduced to utter
nonsense by the additional statement by Sorokin that stability occurs
when the alleged centrifugal force is less than the centripetal force.
Berkeley certainly would have known, as Sorokin evidently did not,
that in such a hypothesized example the unbalanced centripetal force
PREFACE xix
would not produce stability but rather instability, with a resulting inward
motion toward the sun or other center of force. A somewhat similar
example (analyzed in Chapter 1) is Henry Carey's model of a social
analogue of Newton's gravitational physics, mentioned or discussed in
almost every historical work on social theories that I have encountered.
In not one have I found a recognition that Newton's law of universal
gravity, the basis of Carey's social science, is stated incorrectly by Carey,
not once but several times.
A considerable literature exists on the organismic sociologists of the
late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a company that includes
Otto Bluntschli, Paul von Lilienfeld, Albert Schiiffle, Herbert Spencer,
Lester Ward, Corrado Gini, Walter Bradford Cannon, A. Lawrence Lowell
(president of Harvard), and Theodore Roosevelt (President of the United
States). With the exception of Spencer, all of these figures are discussed
in historical surveys or works on sociological theory without any refer-
ence to their use of the leading biological and medical theories of their
times. This absence is all the more remarkable to the degree that some
of these organismic sociologists (notably Lilienfeld, Schiiffle, and
Cannon) included extensive bio-medical tutorials in their sociological
presentations. Thus (as shown in Chapter 1), however extravagant the
ideas of these organismic sociologists may seem to us today, our judgment
should take account of the relation of their sociological ideas to the
main currents of contemporaneous biological and medical thought.
One aspect of the interactions between the natural and the social
sciences that is all but wholly absent from the literature of both the history
of the social science and the history of the natural sciences is the possible
influence of the social sciences on the rise of the biological and physical
sciences. Accordingly, there is a special value to the three chapters
comprising Part IV of the present book. I have mentioned that Darwin
is known to have been influenced by Malthus's ideas concerning
population growth while formulating his concept of natural selection.
S. S. Schweber (in Chapter 9) has summarized his findings on the sources
of Darwin's ideas, notably the influence of the current ideas of agronomy
on Darwin's thinking. Camille Limoges (in Chapter 10) has traced the
history and use of another idea which Darwin obtained from the social
sciences and which became of particular importance in the nineteenth
century in the context of the cell theory. The division of labor gained
prominence through the writings of Adam Smith, although the idea had
been put forth earlier by such writers as William Petty and Benjamin
xx PREFACE
NOTES
I In this Preface, as in the volume presented here, reference is made to social science
and social scientist (or social sciences and social scientists) in early periods before such
terms were in current usage. On this topic see the Note on Social Science & Natural
Science, following this Preface, where reasons are given for using the terms natural science
and natural scientist.
xxiv PREFACE
2 The studies by Porter and Wise deal primarily with the interactions of physics (and
mathematics) with economics in the nineteenth century; Porter has also been exploring
some of the aspects of numeracy and quantification in social science at large. Richards
has been analyzing certain aspects of nineteenth-century social theory, primarily in America
and Britain, in its general intellectual-cultural and social background, tracing its roots
in the contemporaneous sciences. Judith Schlanger has examined the role of metaphor
in organismic theories at large. Stocking has been reorganizing the history of anthropology,
showing - inter alia - its contacts with the other social sciences and with certain main
aspects of the natural sciences.
3 Many of their works are cited in various parts of Chapter 1.
4 These works are referred to in nn. 28, 3D, 36, ch. 1 infra.
S I do not take account here of the growing literature on the history of anthropology
and psychology, since the case histories in the present volume do not come from either
of these fields. In this regard, however, it should be noted that anthropology has had a
long tradition of writing its history and that psychology has long been known for having
produced a large body of distinguished historical writing, for which see the Journal of
the History of the Behavioral Sciences.
Furthermore, since the case histories from political science are drawn only from the
seventeenth century, I take no account here of the vast body of writings on almost all
phases of the history of this subject. For similar reasons, I have not discussed the liter-
ature concerning history and science.
6 See Ch.l, 6 infra.
7 Although there are few general works on the interactions of the natural and the social
sciences, there are many important monographs or articles on particular aspects of this
general topic. Many of these are cited in footnotes throughout this volume. Some examples,
to which particular attention may be called, are Paul Lazarsfeld: "Notes on the History
of Quantification in Sociology," Isis, 1961, 52: 277-333; Bernard Lecuyer & Anthony
R. Oberschall: "The Early History of Social Research," International Encyclopedia of
the Social Sciences, vol. 15 (1968), pp. 36-53; A.R. Oberschall (ed.): The Establishment
of Empirical Sociology (New York: Harper and Row, 1972); and the brief but incisive
presentation by Theodore Porter: "Natural Science and Social Theory," pp. 1024-1043
of R.C. Olby, G.N. Cantor, J.R.R. Christie, & MJ.S. Hodge (eds.): Companion to the
History of Modern Science (LondonlNew York: Routledge, 1990).
Special note should be taken of the important study by M. Norton Wise (with the
collaboration of Crosbie Smith) on "Political Economy and Natural Philosophy in
Nineteenth Century Britain," four parts, History of Science, 1989-1990, vols. 27, 28.
A NOTE ON "SOCIAL SCIENCE" AND ON
"NATURAL SCIENCE"
Throughout certain parts of this book, the terms "natural science" and
"social science" (or "natural sciences" and "social sciences") are used
to designate, respectively, the physical and biological (and earth) sciences
plus mathematics and the subjects known today as social or behavioral
sciences.' Roughly speaking, these divisions correspond to the German
"Naturwissenschaften" and "Sozialwissenschaften,,2 and are in current
use in the Anglo-American world. The use of these two terms - natural
sciences and social sciences - when dealing with any chronological
period before the mid-nineteenth century is somewhat anachronistic to
the degree that it imposes on earlier thought the rigid categories and
values of a later time. Today the phrase "science of society" would
suggest a subject much like physics or biology but in the eighteenth
century and well into the nineteenth the implication would have been
only a system of organized knowledge. When Thomas B. Macauley wrote
that "Politics is an experimental sciences," he meant no more than that
this subject was a system of organized knowledge that was based on
experience, the same sense in which these words "experimental" and
"science" had been used by Hume and Burke (see Chapter 1, 1.1).
Such examples alert us to the dangers of using such terms as "science"
or "experimental" anachronously.
In many places in this volume (the Preface, Chapters 1 and 4, Chapter
12) the physical and biological sciences are referred to as "natural
sciences," a term that may embrace mathematics. In an earlier presen-
tation of my researches into the interactions of the natural sciences and
the social sciences - at a meeting convened by Karl Deutsch and John
Platt at the Wissenschaftszentrum in Berlin in 1982 - I introduced the
dichotomy of "mathematics and the natural and exact sciences" and the
"social sciences," but for convenience of discourse I abbreviated
"mathematics and the natural and exact sciences" into the simpler
expression "sciences.,,3 In the first comment on my paper, Alex Inkeles
criticized this usage. I had "obviously," he said, implied a difference in
values assigned to the two fields of creative endeavor, one being
"science" - "natural" and "exact" - the other "social." The justice of
xxv
I. B. Cohen (ed.), The Natural Sciences and the Social Sciences, xxv-xxxvi.
1994 Kluwer Academic Publishers.
xxvi SOCIAL SCIENCE AND NATURAL SCIENCE
his criticism has led me to use the term "natural science" (and its plural
"natural sciences") in order to avoid any pejorative implications, even
though there may be some possible ambiguity because "natural science"
may wrongly suggest "natural history" or the life sciences. I have long
believed, however, that if one were seeking an antonym for "natural"
science, it would not be "social" science but rather "unnatural" science;
which, in tum, suggests that the proper anytonym for "social" science
would be "anti-social" science.
The designation "social science" arose and became current in the
late eighteenth century. The introduction of "social science" has two
somewhat distinct aspects. First of all there is the actual occurrence of
the term; second, the emergence of a concept in which knowledge of
society is perceived to be a "science" in the sense of the physical and
biological sciences. A good part of this book is devoted to an exploration
of the ways in which what we would call the social sciences made use
of the established natural sciences, beginning with the age of the
Scientific Revolution (see Chapter 4). Many examples show the
different ways in which a variety of thinkers, under whatever name or
rubric they classified their activity, conceived their own subject in relation
to the natural sciences and mathematics of their day. Therefore, for
expository purposes I may have somewhat anachronously used the term
"social sciences" (and also "moral sciences") for their thoughts and
writings on such topics as political theory or statecraft, organization of
the state or of society, natural law, international law, economics, and
kindred subjects.
I do not know who first used the terms "social science" and "science
of society." In a letter to John Jebb, written from London on 10 September
1785, the American statesman John Adams (later to become the second
president of the United States) wrote of "the social science." A year
before, in a letter to A.M. Cerisier, he applauded the way in which
French savants (Cerisier among them) had "turned to the subject of
government"; he voiced his judgment that "the science of society is much
behind other arts and sciences, trades and manufactures." Even earlier,
in June of 1782, Adams had declared that "politics are the divine
science.,,4
I do not believe that Adams invented these expressions. In those
days, however, as has been mentioned, the term "science" did not have
the identical meaning which it was to acquire later in the nineteenth
century. The nearest equivalent of what we would consider to be a
SOCIAL SCIENCE AND NATURAL SCIENCE xxvii
younger than Comte) held pronouncedly that the time was ripe for marking off from
other studies - both scientific and philosophical - a general social science, and for this
he himself proposed a particular designation. In 1836 Mill defined the scope and character
of this department of studies, using as titular synonyms, these, among others phrases -
Social Philosophy, Social Science, Natural History of Society, Speculative Politics, and
Social Economy. This essay of Mill (,On the Definition and Method of Political Economy')
appeared six years before the completion of the 'Positive Philosophy.' Lacking the large
historical interests of Comte, Mill necessarily conceived of Social Science in a consid-
erably different way from Comte. But after the appearance of the 'Positive Philosophy,'
Mill was very considerably modified in his views of Social Science. 12
* * *
The use of the term "social science," as opposed to "social sciences,"
reflects the historical climate of the late eighteenth century and of much
of the nineteenth. The emerging subdisciplines which we know as
economics or sociology or political science (as opposed to political theory
or political history) could then be still considered as part of a general
"social science."
In America in the nineteenth century, belief in such a general subject
- coupled with the goal of improving society - found expression in a
strong Social Science movement which had as its stated aim "to create
a special and unified science of human society and human welfare."17
This Social Science movement has been described as "a non-political
attempt to produce a social theory and a methodology which could be
used as an intellectual instrument for the betterment of the lot of
mankind."18 Eventually (in 1865) there was formed the American
Association for the Promotion of Social Science, on the model of the
British Social Science Association and obviously patterning its name
on the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In the
1880s specialized sub-disciplines broke away from the parent organi-
zation with the formation of the American Historical Society and the
American Economic Association, followed by a separate organization
of the political scientists. In 1909 the rise of the separate disciplines
brought the general association for Social Science to an end. 19
Another attempt in America to have a single "umbrella" organiza-
tion for all the social sciences produced the Social Sciences Research
Council. The SSRC differed from the older Social Science Association
in that it did not set forth an ideal of a unified and general social science,
xxx SOCIAL SCIENCE AND NATURAL SCIENCE
NOTES
a similarity in its final root to such sciences as biology, geology, physiology, miner-
alogy, and so on.
14 Fernand Keller & Jean Batany (eds.): Encyclopedie du bon franfais dans l'usage
contemporain, vol. 3 (Paris: Editions de Trtvise, 1972), p. 2344.
IS The complex history of the use of "Geisteswissenschaften" is discussed below in
the second part of the present Note.
16 See further L.H. Adolph Geck: "Uber das Eindringen des Wortes 'sozial' in die
Deutsche Sprache," Sozial Welt, 1962, 12: 305-339.
17 L.L. Bernard & Jessie Bernard: Origins of American Sociology: the Social Science
Movement in the United States (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1943), p. 3.
18 Ibid., p. 4.
19 Ibid., ch. 8.
20 Ibid., p. 546.
21 Ibid., p. 658.
22 George Homans: The Nature of Social Science (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World,
1967), p. 3.
23 Bernard Berelson, "Behavioral Sciences," International Encyclopedia of the Social
Sciences, vol. 2 (1968), pp. 41-42. See, further, Herbert J. Spiro: "Critique of
Behavioralism in Political Science," pp. 314-327 of Klaus von Peyme: Theory and Politics,
Theorie und Politik, Festschrift zum 70. Geburtstag fUr Carl Joachim Friedrich (The
Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1971).
24 The Behavioral and Social Sciences: Outlook and Needs (Washington; National
Academy of Sciences, 1969), a report of the Behavioral and Social Sciences Committee
(operating under the joint auspices of the National Academy of Sciences and the Social
Science Research Council), pp. xi, 19.
25 Knowledge into Action: Improving the Nations's Use of the Social Sciences
(Washington: National Science Foundation, 1969), a report of the Special Commission
on the Social Sciences of the National Science Board, p. 7.
26 See Erich Rothaker: Einleitung in die Geisteswissenschaften (Tiibingen: Verlag won
J.C.B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck], 1920; reprinted with detailed foreword (1930); E. Rothaker:
Logik und Systematik der Geisteswissenschaften (MunichlBerlin: Druck und Verlag von
R. Oldenbourg, 1926 - Handbuch der Philiosophie, ed. Alfred Baeumler and Manfred
Schroter, numbers 6 and 7, collected in part 2, 1927; reprint, Bonn: H. Bouvier & Co.
Verlag, 1947), esp. pp. 4-16.
Also Albrecht Timm: Einflihrung in die Wissenschaftsgeschichte (Munich: Wilhelm
Fink Verlag, 1973), esp. pp. 37-48 and 137-140; Beat Sitter: Die Geisteswissenschaften
und ihre Bedeutung flir unsere ZUkunft ([n.p.]: Schweizerische Volksbank, 1977), esp.
pp. 13-17; Wolfgang Laskowski (ed.): Geisteswissenschaft und Naturwissenschaft: Ihre
Bedeutung flir den Menschen von Heute (Berlin: Verlag Walter de Gruyter & Co., 1970);
Wolfram Kromer & Osmund Menghin (eds.): Die Geisteswissenschaften stellen sich vor
(lnnsbruck: Kommissionsverlag der Osterreichischen Kommissionsbuchhandlung, 1983
- Veroffentlichungen der Universitat Innsbruck, 137); Hans-Henrick Krummacher (ed.):
Geisteswissenschaften - wozu?: Beispiele ihrer Gegenstiinde uud ihrer Fragen (Stuttgart:
Franz Steiner Verlag, 1988); Erich Rothacker: Einleitung in die Geisteswissenschaften
(Tiibingen: Verlag von J.C.B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck], 1920; reprint, with detailed foreword,
1930); E. Rothaker: Logik und Systematik der Geisteswissenschaften (Munich/Berlin:
SOCIAL SCIENCE AND NATURAL SCIENCE xxxv
Druck uud Verlag won R. Oldenbourg, 1926 - Handbuch der Philosoph ie, ed. Alfred
Baeumler & Manfred Schrmer, nos. 6-7, 1927; reprint, Bonn: H. Bouvier & Co. Verlag,
1947), esp. pp. 4-16. See also L.H. Adolph Geck: "Ober das Eindringen des Wortes
'sozial' in die Deutsche Sprache," Soziale Welt, 1962, 12: 305-339.
27 For a more recent historical study, including the usage of Geisteswissenschaften
prior to the translation of Mill, see Alwin Diemer: "Die Differenzierung der Wissenschaften
in die Natur- und die Geisteswissenschaften und die Begriindung der Geisteswissenschaften
als Wissenschaft," pp. 174-223 (esp. pp. 181-193) of A. Diemer (ed.): Beitrtige zur
Entwicklung der Wissenschaftstheorie im 19. Jahrhundert (Meisenheim am Glan:
Verlag Anton Hain, 1968 - Studien zur Wissenschaftstheorie, vol. 1); A. Diemer:
"Geisteswissenschaften," pp. 211-215 of Joachim Ritter (ed.): Historisches Worterbuch
der Philiosophie, vol. 3 (Basel/Stuttgart: Schwabe & Co. Verlag, 1974).
On Dilthey, see H.P. Richman: Wilhelm Dilthey: Pioneer of the Human Studies
(Berkeley/Los Angeles/London: University of California Press, 1979), esp. pp. 58-73; and
H.P. Rickman: Dilthey Today: A Critical Appraisal of the Contemporary Relevance of
his Work (New YorklWestport [Conn.]lLondon: Greenwood Press, 1988 - Contributions
in Philosophy, no 35.), esp. pp. 79-82. In the latter (p. 80), Rickman errs in saying that
Dilthey "introduced the term Geisteswissenschaften as a translation of 1.S. Mill's 'moral
sciences"'; as I have mentioned, 1. Schiel did this in 1849 in his German version of
Mill's System of Logic.
See also Wilhelm Dilthey: Einleitung in die Geisteswissenschaften, vol. 1 (Leipzig:
Verlag von Dunker & Humblot, 1883), esp. pp. 5-7: this work is reprinted in Dilthey's
Gesammelte Schriften, vol. 1 (Leipzig/Berlin: Verlag von B.G. Teubner, 1922; reprint,
Stuttgart: B.G. Teubner Verlagsgesellschaft; Gattingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1959,
1962), see esp. pp. 4-6; there are a number of translations including Louis Sauzin
(trans.): Introduction ii I' etude des sciences humaines (Paris: Presses Universitaires de
France, 1942), esp. pp. 13-15; Ramon J. Betanzos (trans.): Introduction to the Human
Sciences (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1988), esp. pp. 77-79, also pp. 31-33;
Michael Neville (trans.): Introduction to the Human Sciences, ed. Rudolf A. Makkreel
& Frithjof Rodi (Princeton: Princeton Unviersity Press, 1989 - Selected Works, vol. 1),
esp. pp. 56-58. See also Rothaker: Logik und Systematik (n. 26 supra), p. 6.
28 John Stuart Mill: Die inductive Logik, trans. 1. Schiel (Braunschweig: Verlag von
Friedrich Vieweg & Sohn, 1849). This volume is quite rare; I have not been able to consult
it directly. A second edition bears an enlarged title, 1.S. Mill: System der deductiven
und inductiven Logik, 2 vols. (Braunschweig: Druck und Verlag von Friedrich Vieweg
und Sohn, 1862-1863); see esp. vol. 2, pp. 433, 437-438.
29 10hn Stuart Mill: System der deductiven und inductiven Logik, trans. Theodor Gomperz,
vol. 3 (Leipzig: Fues's Verlag [R. Reisland], 1873 - Gesammelte Werke, vol. 4), esp.
pp. 229, 233-234.
30 A. Diemer: "Die Differenzierung," (n. 27 supra), pp. 183-187, and "Geisteswissen-
schaften," p. 211.
31 Hermann von Helrnholz: "Ober das Verhiiltnis der Naturwissenschaften zur Gesamtheit
der Wissenschaften," Philosophische Vortrilge uud Aufstitze, ed. Herbert Harz & Siegfried
Wollgast (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1971), pp. 79-108; Hermann von Helmholz: Das
Denken in der Naturwissenschaft (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1968),
pp. 1-29; trans. Russell Kahl & H.W. Eve, "The Relation of the Natural Sciences to
xxxvi SOCIAL SCIENCE AND NATURAL SCIENCE
Science in General," Selected Writings of Hermann von Helmholz, ed. Russell Kahl
(Middletown [Conn.]: Wesleyan University Press, 1971), pp. 122-143. On this topic,
see David E. Leary: "Telling Likely Stories: The Rhetoric of the New Psychology,
1880-1920," Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 1987, 23: 315-331.
32 H.A. Hodges: The Philosophy of Wilhelm Dilthey (London: Routledge & Kegan
Paul, 1952; reprint, Westport [Conn.]: Greenwood Press, 1974), esp. pp. xxi-xxiii; Michael
Errnarth: Wilhelm Dilthey: The Critique of Historical Reason (Chicago/London: The
University of Chicago Press, 1978), esp. pp. 94-108, 359-360; H.P. Rickman: Dilthey
Today (n. 27 supra), esp. pp. 79-82; Erich Rothacker (n. 26 supra), esp. pp. 253-277.
33 Cf. Rudolf A. Makkreel: Dilthey: Philosopher of the Human Studies (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1975), esp. pp. 35-44; H.P. Rickman: Wilhelm Dilthey: Pioneer
(n. 27 supra), esp. pp. 58-73; and the works cited in nn. 2 and 7 supra.
I. BERNARD COHEN
1.1. INTRODUCTION
Ever since the time of Aristotle, the natural sciences and medicine have
furnished analogies for studies of governments, classifications of con-
stitutions, and analyses of society. * One of the fruits of the Scientific
Revolution was the vision of a social science - a science of govern-
ment, of individual behavior, and of society - that would take its place
among the triumphant sciences, producing its own Newtons and Harveys.
The goal was not only to achieve a science with the same foundations
of certain knowledge as physics and biology; there was thought to be a
commonality of method that would advance the social sciences in the
way that had worked so well in the physical and biological sciences. Any
such social science, it was assumed, would be based on experiments
and critical observations, would become quantitative, and would
eventually take the highest form known to the sciences - expression in
a sequence of mathematical equations.
By the end of the eighteenth century, it was obvious that no social
science had been created as the equal of Newton's physics, Harvey's
physiology, or even the new experimental science of electricity pioneered
by Benjamin Franklin. On several occasions, Franklin expressed his
awareness of this difference between the social sciences (or "moral"
sciences) and the recognized physical and biological sciences. In a letter
of 1780 to his friend and scientific colleague Joseph Priestley, he took
note of the "rapid Progress true Science now makes" and wished that
"moral Science were in as fair a way of Improvement." The century's
end brought renewed hope for social or moral sciences that would become
equal partners with the sciences of nature. A symbol of this dream may
be seen in the establishment of the National Institute in France after
the Revolution had dissolved the old Royal Academy of Sciences. The
new Institute had several "classes," one of which was equivalent in its
membership to the old scientific academy, but another was the new
"class" of "moral and political sciences" ("classe des sciences morales
et politiques"), as a kind of equal partner. Benjamin Franklin had been
I. B. Cohen (ed.), The Natural Sciences and the Social Sciences, 1-99.
1994 Kluwer Academic Publishers.
2 I. BERNARD COHEN
The present exploration into the impact of the natural sciences on the
social sciences leads to several different lines of thought. We shall see
that in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the physical and
ANALYSIS OF INTERACTIONS 3
for example, did not draw on physics and mathematics. Alfred Marshall,
one of the "greats" in this area, preferred a biological to a mathematico-
physical model, even though as an undergraduate at Cambridge he had
studied mathematics and physics. An important group - including
William Stanley Jevons, Leon Walras, Vilfredo Pareto, and Irving Fisher,
all of whom claimed that their subject was equivalent to physics -
varied greatly in their knowledge of any higher mathematics and the
mathematical physics of rational mechanics and energy. Jevons and
Walras had, at best, a rudimentary acquaintance with mathematics. Pareto,
however, was trained as an engineer and thus, unlike Jevons and Walras,
was at home with mathematics and knew some physics. Fisher, who
obtained his Ph.D. at Yale, was a student of J. Willard Gibbs and also
was qualified as a mathematician. Whereas Pareto and Fisher actually
used mathematics in developing their ideas, Walras and Jevons did not,
introducing mathematics more as an instrument of legitimation than as
a tool of discovery. But the real founder in the application of higher
mathematics (i.e., the calculus) to economics was Antoine-Augustin
Cournot, l who lived somewhat earlier in the nineteenth century and
who certainly could not be faulted for his mathematical expertise. We
shall have occasion to observe that mathematicians - Henri Poincare,
Henri Laurent, Vito Volterra - criticized the mathematical constructions
of the marginalists, challenging the claims that their economics displayed
the mathematical integrity of physics.
It is a curious paradox that although the organismic sociologists cannot
be censured for their science, their writings seen ridiculous to us today.
The marginalist economists are currently under fire for - among other
things - not having fully understood the science which they were
emulating, yet their ideas are still part of the foundation of today's
subject. Furthermore, the kind of physics with which these economists
are associated is now outmoded and has been replaced by concepts
from relativity and quantum mechanics - subjects that seem not to have
permeated deeply (if at all) into today's mainstream economics. Curiously
enough, the biological science of the nineteenth century has weathered
the years somewhat better than the physics, requiring revisions and expan-
sions but not the same degree of radical restructuring, while the sociology
built on the biology has not done as well as the economics which was
(in part, at least) linked with the physics. Apparently, the correctness
of the emulated science is not intrinsically connected with the perma-
nent value of the resultant social science.
ANALYSIS OF INTERACTIONS 5
The study of the interrelation between the natural and the social sciences
is beset with fundamental difficulties, beginning with the meaning of
the two terms: "natural sciences" and "social sciences." Conventionally,
the natural sciences comprise the physical and biological sciences, the
earth sciences, meteorology, and sometimes mathematics. When I refer
without qualification to the natural sciences, I shall be including all
of these, from biology and geology to chemistry and physics and
mathematics.
The social sciences are generally understood to include anthropology,
archeology, economics, history, political science, psychology, and
sociology.2 There is traditionally a third group, the "humanities,"
ANALYSIS OF INTERACTIONS 7
into economics, Paul Samuelson has observed that his critics supposed
that he was attempting "to inflate the scientific validity of economics,"
even "perhaps to snow the hoi polloi of economists who naturally can't
judge the intricacies of physics." Not so! "Actually," he goes on, "such
mathematical excursions, if anything, put a tax on a reputation rather than
enhancing it.,,35 He had to overcome the impression of being a brash
young man and of flouting the agreed-upon rhetoric, metaphors, and
standards of technical discourse of his profession.
In addition to the determinant components which we have been con-
sidering, the impact of natural sciences on social sciences involves
various qualifying factors. These include the degree to which the state
of the chosen part of social science permits the desired input from the
natural sciences, the degree to which the developments in the natural
sciences are susceptible of such application, and the justness of the fit.
With regard to whether the chosen part of social science permits the
desired input from the natural sciences, an example is once again
provided by political arithmetic. Laudable as was the aim of Graunt
and Petty to reduce questions of polity to mathematical considerations,
the numerical demographic data were not adequate for the purpose and
hence did not permit the desired application. By contrast the subject of
economics in the mid-nineteenth century proved to be well adapted to
the application of mathematical techniques, as may be seen in the
successful construction of mathematically based theories by such econ-
omists as Edgeworth, Jevons, and Walras.
Whether or not the chosen part of social science is suitable for the
application of a particular input often involves the state of develop-
ment reached by a subject at a given time. One reason why Quetelet
had greater success in creating a statistically based social science than
Petty or the eighteenth-century political arithmeticians was that in the
nineteenth century the actual raw materials of social science - the
demographic, census, and social data - were more abundant and reliable
than in the eighteenth. 36 Of course, there was the additional factor of
the creation of modern statistical methods - in part by social scientist
themselves - during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.
Both of these causes for Quetelet's success and Petty's failure are part
of the conditioning factor which consists in the state of development
of the social science involved.
A second qualifying factor is of the opposite sort from the first one:
it is the degree to which the natural sciences have developed to a state
ANALYSIS OF INTERACTIONS 15
that will permit the desired application. The example of political arith-
metic exhibits this factor because neither arithmetic nor elementary
algebra is sufficient for the analysis of demographic or social data. There
was need for a new mathematics, the mathematics of probability, that
could be applied to statistical data. The nineteenth-century social
scientists who sought to create a numerically based science of society
did not wait for a suitable model of applied statistics to emerge from
the physical or biological sciences. Rather, since Quetelet and others
recognized that the mathematical techniques of statistics had developed
sufficiently to permit a wide range of applications, they moved ahead
on their own to create a statistically based social science. The high
level of statistical social science which they produced then served as a
model for emulation in the exact sciences - in the physics of Maxwell
and of Boltzmann.
These two qualifying factors partake of opposite facets of the justness
of the fit. Of major significance here is the degree of exactness of analogy
between some part of social science and some primary concepts from the
natural sciences, a topic further explored in the following sections. Or
it may be that the structure of some part of the social sciences (for
example, economics) may have such a strong formal resemblance to some
aspect of the natural sciences (say rational mechanics) that similar equa-
tions, laws, and principles may apply to both. This is a familiar situation
within the natural sciences; for example, the equations for an alter-
nating current proved to be formally identical to those for an oscillating
pendulum. The late nineteenth century witnessed such a fit between a
generalized concept of evolution, developed in the context of biolog-
ical science, and the study of societies or cultures. Many instances of
both close and poor fit prove to have two very different aspects, which
may be termed analogy and homology.
1833 about waves or undulations as "a property of sound which has its
analogy also in light.,,3?
This particular sense of analogy is of special significance in writings
on natural history: for example, to express a similarity in function
between organs which may seem somewhat different in different species.
An example is the wing of a bird as compared with the wing of a bat.
Wings of each type enable their possessors to fly, and hence they are
analogues; that is, they perform similar functions in both animals, even
though a bird's wing is covered with feathers while a bat's wing is a
stretched skin membrane.
In the language of the life sciences, the term "homology" has a specific
meaning which is quite distinct from that of analogy: to denote similarity
in form as distinguished from similarity in function. 38 The distinction
becomes apparent once attention is focussed on structure (anatomical
construction) rather than function (use in an action).39 An anatomical
comparison of bone-structure shows that the wings of the bat resemble
the wings of birds, the forelegs of quadrupeds, and the arms of humans.
Hence, the wing of a bird and of a bat, the foreleg of a quadruped, and
the arm of a human (and also the pectoral fin of a fish and the flipper
of a seal) are homologues. It should be noted that in evolutionary
biological science,40 "homologous" has a strict signification: a corre-
spondence in the type of structure of parts or organs of different
organisms resulting from their descent from some common remote
ancestor. 41
In what follows I shall consider the terms analogy and homology as
denoting respectively, at their most precise, similarity in function and
similarity in form. But the differences between these two kinds of
resemblance may result, as will be shown, in a related and sometimes
more obvious difference between analogy as suggesting only a general
similarity and homology as representing a quite specific one. These
distinctions will help to indicate the ways in which the social sciences
have used the natural sciences and equally the ways in which the natural
sciences have used the social sciences. The same features may be seen
in the ways in which the different natural sciences have made use of
one another. 42
Several examples of laws formulated for the social sciences illus-
trate the distinction between analogues and homologues. A number of
social laws in the domains of human behavior, sociology, and economics
were proposed as either analogues or homologues of the Newtonian
ANALYSIS OF INTERACTIONS 17
likewise, are for him, "the volume and density of society"; their increase
produces the "intensification which constitutes civilization," or, as he
expresses the same idea in a note, "growth in social mass and density"
is "the fact which determines the progress of the division of labor and
civilization." Durkheim proudly called the sociological law which he had
discovered the "law of gravitation in the social world.,,61 And one of
his formulations of this law certainly is an echo of Newton: "The division
of labor varies in direct ratio with the volume and density of societies,
and, if it progresses in a continuous manner in the course of social devel-
opment, it is because societies become regularly denser and generally
more voluminous.,,62
Durkheim's law states that "all condensation of the social mass,
especially if it is accompanied by an increase in population, necessarily
determines advances in the division of labor.,,63 That is, in his terms,
any increase in social volume or density must result in a heightened
competition among similar occupational groups, which will produce a
greater division of labor or occupational specialization. 64 Durkheim did
not offer evidence of detailed numerical data to support his Newtonian
law, nor did he ground it in principles of physics. Rather, he justified
the law primarily by means of a biological analogy, a law of Darwin's.65
Durkheim's "law of gravitation in the social world" partially resem-
bles Newton's law, since it invokes concepts similar to Newtonian mass,
volume, and density. Nevertheless, Durkheim's law does not deal in a
Newtonian manner with the interaction of two groups or societies, or with
the factor of the distance between the elements of such a pair. He was
presumably implying no more than an analogy between the fundamental
character of his social law of gravitation and Newton's physical law.
He asserted the importance of his discovery of "the principal cause of
the progress of the division of labor" by declaring that it has revealed
"the essential factor of what is called civilization.,,66
The examples of Durkheim and Fourier, like those of Hume and
Berkeley, exhibit a significant feature of the distinction between analogy
and homology. Analogies may be useful or useless, appropriate or
inappropriate, and moderate or extravagant, and they can be evaluated
for their relevance. Homologies, by contrast, are subject to evaluations
in terms of correctness rather than relevance, since they imply an identity
of form or structure. Carey and Walras proposed laws that were meant
to be Newtonian, but that - by objective standards - did not match the
original. They were also so specific that they entailed homologies which
22 I. BERNARD COHEN
can be judged whether they were closely matched. Berkeley and Hume
were content with rather general analogies and therefore cannot be faulted
on grounds applicable to Carey and Walras. And it is the same for Fourier
and Durkheim.
Although errors in homology do not occur in Fourier's and Durkheim's
sociologies, mismatched homology characterizes another current of
nineteenth-century social thought and its twentieth-century overtones, the
attempts to produce organismic theories of society. Examples may be
found in the writings of such diverse authors as Thomas Carlyle, Johann
Caspar Bluntschli, Paul von Lilienfeld, Albert E. Schaffle, Rene Worms,
A. Lawrence Lowell, Theodore Roosevelt, Herbert Spencer, and Walter
B. Cannon. 67
Mismatched homology appears as a prominent feature in Thomas
Carlyle's analysis of the problem of society in Sartor Resartus (1833-
1834). An example is provided by his discussion of the social analogy
of the skin:
For if Government is, so to speak, the outward SKIN of the Body Politic, holding the
whole together and protecting it; and all your Craft-Guilds, and Associations for Industry,
of hand or of head, are the Fleshly Clothes, the muscular and osseous Tissues (lying under
such SKIN), whereby Society stands and works; - then is Religion the inmost Pericardial
and Nervous Tissue, which ministers Life and warm Circulation to the whole. Without
which Perocardial Tissue and the Bones and Muscles (ofIndustry) were inert, or animated
only by a Galvanic vitality; the SKIN would become a shrivelled pelt, or fast-rotting
raw-hide; and Society itself a dead carcass, - deserving to be buried. 68
concluded that they both must have all the primary human attributes,
including sexual characteristics, the state representing "the male, the
church the female element." This attribution of sex led him to a theory
of history, based on social-sexual development, in which the historical
"evolution" of society and the state followed the pattern of "evolution"
of single individuals. Tracing the sexual history of church and state
from childhood (the ancient Asiatic empires) through adolescence (the
Jews of Biblical times) to early maturity (classical Greece), he found that
in Greece 74 "the ecclesiastical organization" matured earlier "than the
political institution," just as "the girl ripens earlier than the boy." So
extreme is Bluntschli's mismatched homology that a reader may find it
difficult to imagine that he was developing a social parallel when he went
on: "The sexual organs of the girl are sooner developed than those of
the boy. The youthful breasts begin to swell; and the unfolding virgin
turns into a beauty. Beauty was the soul of the cult of the Hellenes .
. . ."75 Bluntschli's attitude towards the sexes led him to assert that the
papal desire to subordinate the state to the church is as "unnatural"
as "the subordination of a husband to his wife in a household." He
envisaged a time, not far off, when the "male state will reach full
selfhood," when the "two great powers of humanity, state and church,
will appreciate and love each other, and the august marriage of the two
will take place.,,76
A similar extravagance occurs in the organismic conception of society
proposed by the Russian sociologist, Paul von Lilienfeld, in the com-
parison which he made between the intellectual and moral state of a
hysterical woman and a condition of society.77 As the physiological
foundation of this likeness, he used in particular the findings reported
by Dr. Edmond Dupouy (ca. 1845-1920), author of numerous works
on medicine, psychology, and medical history. Quoting Dr. Dupouy,
Lilienfeld described the condition of women suffering from hysteria. 78
They are, he noted, "mobile in their sentiments," and "they pass very
easily from tears to laughter, from excessive joy to sadness, from
passionate tenderness to haughty rage, from chastity to wanton purposes
and lewd ideas." Additionally such women "love publicity, and to get
themselves talked about they employ every means: denunciation,
simulation of infirmities or sicknesses, and the revolver." They find joy
in pretending to be "victims of anything; they say they have been
violated." In order to "achieve their goals they deceive everyone:
husband, family, confessor, examining magistrate, and their doctor.'079
24 I. BERNARD COHEN
Cannon now omitted canals and boats (although he kept the rivers) and
added "all the factors, human and mechanical, which produce and
distribute goods in the vast and ramifying circulatory system which serves
for economic exchange." In less florid prose than before, he said: "Into
this moving stream, products of farms and factories, of mines and forests,
are placed at their sources, for carriage to other localities." His own
display of substantive analogies or mismatched homologies was as unfor-
tunate as it had been in the earlier presentation. As the lawyers say,
Res ipsa loquitur.
In considering these examples of mismatched homology, our evalu-
ations may be sharpened by attention to the reasons why they seem
outre to a critical reader. Why do we smile and assume a condescending
air when we read the writings of organicist sociologists like Bluntschli,
Lilienfeld, and Spencer, but not when we encounter physical models such
as Jevons's lever or Walras's economic machine, both of which will be
discussed below, or the numerous attempts to find in the realms of
social sciences an analogue of the Newtonian universe? The reason is not
simply that one set is biologically based while the other set comes
from physics. Henry Carey's attempt to produce a sociology based on
electricity, a later rival to his astro-sociology, may provoke our smiles
and giggles just as easily as the systems of the organicists. 94
I believe that our pejorative evaluation of certain social comparisons
is based at least partly on the fact that the biological equivalent is usually
a real object, an actual living being, endowed with all the forces of life
and subject to all of life's problems, such as disease, aging, anxieties.
By contrast, the parallels from physics are not concrete but abstract
and theoretical. Jevons's lever is actually a mathematical lever and thus
does not have such material properties as color, hardness, weight,
or physical dimensions other than length. Correlations based on a
gravitational universe make use of abstract concepts, just as Newton
did in Book One of the Principia. 95 That is, in Book One there are no
real planets with material sizes, shapes, and similar properties but only
mass points whose properties are position in a mathematical space, mass,
and the power to give rise to, and to be acted on by, a gravitating force.
Thus, unlike the earthy biological sources of comparison, those from
physics tend to be abstrace 6 and may even serve primarily as sources
of equations. 97
Where Bluntschli, Lilienfeld, and Spencer argue that society is itself
an organism or is very much like an organism, the "mechanical econo-
28 I. BERNARD COHEN
1.5. METAPHOR
metaphor in relation to the interactions between the natural and the social
sciences, it is sometimes useful to make a distinction among four levels
of discourse involving comparison. One extreme level is metaphor, the
other is identity, with analogy and homology as intermediary. These
four levels of discourse may be easily illustrated by reference to biology
and physics as utilized in the social sciences.
First, identity. "What is a society?" asked Herbert Spencer; his reply
was, "An organism.,,101 Two others of the "identity" persuasion were Otto
Bluntschli, who, as we have seen, endowed society and its institutions
with sex, and Paul von Lilienfeld, who, as we shall see, declared
explicitly - for example, in the title of one of his major works - that
he considered society to be a "real" organism. Also to be placed in this
category are Albert Schaffle, despite some qualifications which he made
in theory, and Rene Worms, at least in his earlier phase. Those whose
belief was at the other extreme merely wrote figuratively of society as
generally like an organism or as like an organism in some specific
respects; they adopted an organismic metaphor. Their number includes
Emile Durkheim, Walter B. Cannon, and Rene Worms in his later works.
The level of metaphor has been a consistent feature of the concept of
the body politic, which has successively illustrated the changes in
physiology and medicine, being Galenic until the seventeenth century,
then Harveyan, and so on. 102
Traditionally, a metaphor is a literary figure of speech, aesthetic or
rhetorical. For Aristotle, a metaphor gives something a name that properly
belongs to something else.103 Because metaphor and analogy both invoke
features of similarity as well as contrast, it is easy to understand why a
clear distinction is not always made between them. Historically, these
two were closely linked; Aristotle held that an analogy is only a special
case of metaphor. I04 Furthermore, even a specificity akin to that of
homology may be regarded as metaphor if the usage is primarily literary
- that is, aesthetic or rhetorical - rather than being chiefly an aspect of
logical argument.
Metaphor has long been used as a rhetorical device to enhance oral
and written communication so as to increase the effectiveness of the
message delivered, but during the Scientific Revolution of the seven-
teenth century rhetoric fell into disfavor. The advocates and practitioners
of the "new philosophy" held that science should be presented in
unadorned descriptive terms of experiment and observation, followed
by strict inductions or deductions, in which each step was to be plain and
30 I. BERNARD COHEN
under the same principles as the Newtonian system of the world. III
Additionally, there were attempts, such as those we have seen made by
Carey and Walras, to produce Newtonian homologues, laws in the social
realm having the form of Newton's law of universal gravity; by contrast,
Hume, Fourier, and Durkheim held only that they had produced a law
which would have a function in a science of society that was an analogue
of the function of the law of gravity in the Newtonian system. Others,
however, merely believed that, on the level of metaphor, sociology or
economics should be a "science" that, in some unspecified manner, would
organize the subject in the way that Newton's Principia had done for
the physical sciences. This was, apparently, the intent of Hamilton's
cri de coeur of 1866:
Although far more advanced, relatively, in particular ideas than sidereal philosophy before
the time of Newton, it [social philosophy] scarcely less needs the PRINCIPIA MATHE-
MA TICA PHILOSOPHIAE SOCIALIS, or rather the PRINCIPIA PRIMA.ll2
old subject, just as, according to Engels, Marx had done in creating
"scientific" economics.
Metaphors imply many aspects of the ways of doing science, the
factors that must be considered whenever the historical or analytical focus
is broad enough to encompass the total social and intellectual matrix
in which science - whether natural or social - is done. Such consider-
ations belong to the general historical interpretation of the sciences known
commonly today as "external.,,120 It has been argued that a primary reason
why the "energy metaphor" was adopted by the neoclassical economists
was not that it provided an accurate equivalent but that it invoked the
values associated with the system of physics. 121 We are thus reminded
that the choice of a particular metaphor to describe the interactions of
the natural and the social sciences may suggest systems of values that
are just as important as, or that may even be more important than, the
compatibility of the concepts, principles, and quantitative elements.
Freud was hesitant about presenting in full one of his radical and
difficult concepts, introduced only as a "suspicion" in 1890 in his
Interpretation of Dreams. This was the idea that human beings have
two different memory systems, one of which, as he wrote in 1924,
"receives perceptions but retains no permanent trace of them," while
the other preserves "permanent traces of the excitations" in "'mnenomic
systems' lying behind the perceptual system.,,123 By 1924 he had dis-
covered a mechanical device called the "Mystic Writing-Pad" (an older
version of what in the United States is still called a magic slate) which
seemed to simulate some main features of his concept. Emboldened by
this encounter, Freud described his ideas about human memory in full,
suggesting that the writing pad could be considered an analogue of his
"hypothetical structure of our perceptual apparatus."l24
Analogies were of significant importance in Freud's thinking and
exposition. The "standard" edition of his collected works, in fact, contains
a separate index for analogies. Best known of Freud's analogues are those
which he drew from literature, notably Greek tragedy, in formulating and
describing (and even naming) concepts. Freud was aware that in his
cultural and anthropological studies - e.g., Totem and Taboo and Moses
and Monotheism - "we are only dealing with analogies," and he fully
recognized how dangerous it is, "not only with men but also with
concepts, to tear them from the sphere in which they have originated
and been evolved." It has been observed that by invoking an analogy
Freud "likened religion to a collective obsessional neurosis, or allowed
that Hamlet suffered unduly from an Oedipus complex."l25
The explicit use of analogies was introduced into science during the
formative years of the Scientific Revolution. In an extensive study of this
subject, Brian Vickers has found that in the late Renaissance and early
seventeenth century, the attitude toward analogies constituted a major
issue on which the new science diverged from an occult tradition. 126
The new science, according to Vickers, stressed a "distinction between
words and things and between literal and metaphorical language." In
the occult tradition, however, words were "treated as if they are
equivalent to things and can be substituted for them." As a result,
analogies were not, as they were "in the scientific tradition, explana-
tory devices subordinate to argument and proof, or heuristic tools to make
models that can be tested, corrected, and abandoned if necessary"; they
were, instead, "modes of conceiving relationships in the universe that
reify, rigidify, and ultimately come to dominate thought." I would modify
ANALYSIS OF INTERACTIONS 37
this conclusion only to the degree of adding that for scientists analogy
also served as an instrument of discovery.
One of the early scientists to make extensive use of analogies was
Johannes Kepler, who wrote, in his epoch-making work on optics, "I
especially love analogies, my most faithful master. ,,127 In the same work,
Kepler indicated how analogy is used in the process of discovery:
"Analogy has shown, and Geometry confirms." He employed analogy
especially in his Astronomia Nova in 1609, where he set forth his first
two laws of planetary motion. Reasoning, as he said, "by analogy,"
Kepler made use of the properties of such "intangibles" as light and
magnetic force in order to develop the idea of a solar (or "solipetal")
force acting on the planets. He was clear about the distinction between
analogy and identity, even stating, with respect to his postulated mag-
netism of planets: "Every planetary body must be regarded as being
magnetic, or quasi-magnetic; in fact, I suggest a similarity and not an
identity.,,128
Newton also reasoned in terms of analogy and even formalized the
use of analogies in natural science in his Principia, in the second of what
he called the "Regulae Philosophandi" or "Rules of Natural Philosophy."
The "causes to be assigned to natural effects of the same kind should"
he wrote, "be so far as possible, the same." The examples he gave were
"respiration in man and beast," "the falling of stones in Europe
and America," "the light of a kitchen fire and of the sun," and the
"reflection of light on our earth and in the planets.,,129
A comparable way in which analogies serve science is in exhibiting
the validity of a conclusion that seems untestable. In discussing the
stability of the solar system in his Systeme du monde, Laplace had to
argue that certain observed variations are not secular but periodic; they
seem to be secular only because they have a period extending over
millions of years. Laplace showed that the system of Jupiter's
satellites in a dynamical analogue of the solar system, the satellites
displaying in their motions the same perturbations as the planets. Since
the satellites exhibit all the phases of their mutual gravitational pertur-
bations within a few centuries, the periodic nature of the oscillations
can be verified, thus making it likely by analogy that the similar
variations in the planetary motions are also periodic. 130
Both Charles Darwin and his contemporary James Clerk Maxwell
made frequent use of analogies. Darwin's basic concept of a "struggle
for existence" was presented in the Origin of Species (1859) on the
38 I. BERNARD COHEN
while the cell theory, together with related aspects of the life sciences,
gave new form as well as content to theories of social morphology and
behavior.
These two subject-areas illustrate very different aspects of the ways
in which social sciences draw on the natural sciences. Rational mechanics
with energy physics provided a rich source of conceptual homologues
for a rising marginalist (or neoclassical) economics, together with
analytical tools such as Lagrangian virtual displacements and Hamiltonian
functions, even analogous equations and principles of minimization and
maximization. While producing a social science with an external
appearance of physics, some of the founders of neoclassical economics
wholeheartedly adopted the metaphor of mathematical physics, clearly
hoping to give the social science of economics a legitimation (espe-
cially in the opinion of natural scientists) and some measure of the
value-system of "hard" science. \35 Economists of this school have
continued to draw on the body of physics well established by the
end of the nineteenth century. Apparently, they have felt little need to
encompass within their theoretical structures any later developments such
as quantum theory or relativity. An outsider cannot help but be
astonished that economics has been affected so little by the later dramatic
revolutions in the very subjects - rational mechanics and energy physics
- which have provided some of its principal metaphors. For example,
there seems to be no current significant economic ripple from the
twentieth-century conclusions that the conservation of energy can no
longer be considered an independently true principle and that energy itself
can no longer be regarded as subject to continuous variation but acts
in quantized steps. Perhaps this paradox is to be explained by the
judgment of Philip Mirowski and other critics of neoclassical economics
that the energy metaphor was only imperfectly understood by the
founders, who apparently were not aware that their adopted energy model
was flawed because they did not take account of the conservation
law.
Ernest Nagel has divided analogies into two classes: "formal" and
"substantive." A "substantive" analogy is one in which a theory or a
system is patterned on the model of another system which contains known
laws. 136 Examples are the kinetic theory of gases (patterned on the known
laws of the interaction of elastic spheres such as billiard balls), electron
theory (in which the analogy is with macroscopic electrostatically charged
bodies), and atomic structure (the model is the solar system). The other
40 I. BERNARD COHEN
in general character from those which are really treated in many branches
of physical science.,,141 The example he chose to develop was the use
of the principle of virtual velocities (or virtual displacements) applied
to the lever, where there is a homology of equations, that is, the
equations for the case of the lever "have exactly the forms of the
equations [in economics]." He even introduced a diagram in order to "put
this analogy of the theories of exchange and of the lever in the clearest
possible light.,,142 This same kind of analogy of theories was invoked
by Leon Walras in an article on analogy, "Economique et mecanique,"
published in 1909. Here Walras argued that identical differential
equations appear in his analysis of economics and in two examples
from mathematical physics: the eqUilibrium of a lever and the motion
of planets according to gravitational celestial mechanics. 143 Claude
Menard has described Walras's text on "Economics and Mechanics" as
a term-by-term comparison of the proportion between rarete (scarcity,
i.e., marginal utility) and value - which is the basis of the theorem of
maximum satisfaction - with the equation of maximal energy from
rational mechanics. In addition, Menard indicates that Walras' law,
defining the properties of general equilibrium in relation to the marketing
of goods, services, and money, relies on the example of uniformly
accelerated motion from celestial mechanics and invokes equations
containing mass and acceleration. 144
Vilfredo Pareto was writing as an economist when he invoked a similar
"formal" homology in the example of "the equations which determine
[economic] equilibrium." On seeing these equations, he wrote, a writer
trained in mathematical physics (as he was) would observe, "These
equations do not seem new to me; I know them well, they are old friends.
They are the equations of rational mechanics." Because the equations are
the same, he concluded, "pure economics is a sort of mechanics or akin
to mechanics.,,145
Pareto envisioned a double role for mathematics in economics and
more generally in social science. Mathematics, he believed, provides a
means of analogically transferring the basic equations of physics to
economics. Mathematics also serves as a primary tool for dealing with
such problems as the "mutual dependence of social phenomena" in
conditions of eqUilibrium; here mathematical analysis enables us to make
precise "how the variations of anyone of these [conditions] influence the
others," an assignment in which "we really need to have all the condi-
tions of the equilibrium." In the "existing state of our knowledge," he
42 I. BERNARD COHEN
Given a certain number of material bodies, Given a society, the relationships created
the relationships of equilibrium and amongst human beings by the production
movement between them are studied, any and exchange of wealth are studied, any
other properties being excluded from other properties being excluded from
consideration. This gives us a study termed consideration. This gives us a study termed
mechanics. political economy.
This science of mechanics is divisible into This science of political economy is
two others: divisible into two others:
1. The study of material points and 1. The study of homo economicus, of
inextensible connections leads to the man considered solely in the context of
formulation of a pure science - rational economic forces, leads to the formulation
pure mechanics, which makes an abstract of pure political economy, which makes
study of the equilibrium of forces and an abstract study of the manifestations of
motion. ophelimity.
Its easiest part is the science of eqUilibrium. The only part we are beginning to under-
D' Alembert's principle enables dynamics stand clearly is that dealing with
to be reduced to a problem of statics. equilibrium. A principle similar to
D' Alembert's is applicable to economic
systems; but the state of our knowledge
on this subject is still very imperfect.
Nevertheless, the theory of economic crises
provides an example of the study of
economic dynamics.
2. Pure mechanics is followed by 2. Pure political economy is followed
applied mechanics which approaches a by applied political economy which is not
little more closely to reality in its consid- concerned exclusively with homo econom-
eration of elastic bodies, extensible icus, but also considers other human states
connections, friction, etc. which approach closer to real man.
Real bodies have properties other than Men have further characteristics which are
mechanical. Physics studies the properties the object of study for special sciences,
of light, electricity and heat. Chemistry such as the sciences of law, religion, ethics,
studies other properties. Thermodynamics, intellectual development, esthetics, social
thermochemistry and the like sciences are organisation, and so on. Some of these
concerned specifically with certain cate- sciences are in an appreciably advanced
gories of properties. These sciences all state; others are extremely backward.
constitute the physico-chemical sciences. Taken together they constitute the social
sciences.
ANALYSIS OF INTERACTIONS 45
TABLE I. (Continued)
Real bodies with only pure mechanical Real men governed only by motives of pure
properties do not exist. economics do not exist.
Exactly the same error is committed either Exactly the same error is committed either
by supposing that in concrete phenomena by supposing that in concrete phenomena
there exist solely mechanical forces there exist solely economic motives
(excluding, for example, chemical forces), (excluding, for example, moral forces), or
or by imagining, on the other hand, that a by imagining, on the other hand, that a
concrete phenomenon can be immune from concrete phenomenon can be immune from
the laws of pure mechanics. the laws of pure political economy.
The difference between practice and theory arises precisely from the fact that
practice has to take account of a mass of details which theory does not deal with.
The relative importance of primary and secondary phenomena will differ according
to whether the viewpoint is that of science or of a practical operation. From time
to time, attempts are made to synthesise all the phenomena. For example, it is
held that all phenomena can be ascribed to:
The attraction of atoms. The attempt has Utility, of which ophelimity is only a type.
been made to reduce to unity all physical The attempt has been made to find the
and chemical forces. explanation of all phenomena in evolution.
anything: they simply serve to elucidate certain concepts which must then
be submitted to the criterion of experience.,,154
The extreme of this proposed homology between economics and
rational mechanics is found in Irving Fisher's Mathematical Investiga-
tions into the Theory of Value and Prices (1926). It should be noted
that Fisher was rather well trained in mathematics and physics (as Jevons
and Walras were not), having been one of the small group of students
who worked for their Ph.D. under J. Willard Gibbs. In the style of Pareto,
with whom he was in correspondence, Fisher (see Table II) also drew
up a table of homologies from physical mechanics and economics. His
compilation, however, goes beyond Pareto's to the extent of including
not only paired concepts (such as particle and individual; space and
commodity; energy and utility) but also the property of being scalar
or vector, and his list was extended to include even general
principles.
Philip Mirowski found, however, that despite Fisher's parade of
dynamical analogies and homologies, he apparently took "most of his
analogies . . . from hydrostatics rather than from fields of force."
Mirowski notes, in this regard, that in an unpublished essay on "My
Economic Endeavors" Fisher boasted of having pioneered in "hydrostatic
and other mechanical analogies." Mirowski has presented a critique of
Fisher's table, beginning with the "incorrect" identification "of a particle
with an individual." Like other "neoclassical economists," Fisher
- according to Mirowski's thesis - made a serious blunder in not
appreciating the principle of conservation of energy, which would imply
for an economic system "that the sum of total expenditure and the sum
of total utility in a closed trading system must be equal to a constant."
Mirowski argues that Fisher's general failure to carry the physical analogy
to its logical conclusion - that is, to take cognizance of the conserva-
tion law - was a logical fault that came from an incomplete understanding
of the physics metaphor of energy and field that lies at the very
foundation of neoclassical economics. 155 It must be admitted, however,
that all economists do not accept this radical critique. 156
One of the difficulties in using analogies, whether in the natural
sciences or in the social sciences, is that there may be more than one
analogy for the same problem. The problem of multiple analogies, along
with the concomitant need for a decision concerning which one to choose,
has long plagued the social sciences. It arose in a dramatic fashion in
1898 in Alfred Marshall's discussion of "Mechanical and Biological
ANALYSIS OF INTERACTIONS 47
TABLE II. Fisher's Analogies
Mechanics Economics
a particle an individual
space commodity
force marginal utility or dis utility
work disutility
energy utility
work or energy = force x space utility = marginal utility x commodity
force is a vector marginal utility is a vector
forces are added by vector addition marginal utilities are added by vector
addition
work and energy are scalars disutility and utility are scalars
The total energy may be defined as the The total utility enjoyed by the individual
integral with respect to impelling is the like integral with respect to
forces. marginal utilities.
Equilibrium will be where net energy Equilibrium will be where gain (utility
(energy minus work) is maximum; or minus disutility) is maximum; or
equilibrium will be where impelling equilibrium will be where marginal
and resisting forces along each axis utility and marginal dis utility along
will be equal. each axis will be equal.
If total energy is subtracted from total If total utility is subtracted from total
work instead of vice versa the differ- dis utility instead of vice versa the
ence is "potential" and is a minimum. difference may be called "loss" and is
minimum.
Believing that all plants and animals are aggregates of cells as the
fundamental life-units, Virchow concluded that all structural and
functional properties of organisms are determined by relations among
individual cells. 179 In referring to the cells as providing the "living
organism" with a "multiplicity of vital foci," Virchow explained that
every organism
is a free state of individuals with equal rights though not with equal endowments, which
keeps together because the individuals are dependent upon one another and because
there are certain centers of organization with whose integrity the single parts cannot receive
their necessary supply of healthful nourishing material. 180
As Owsei Temkin has indicated, "the metaphor of the cell state for
Virchow was not a mere manner of speech, but an integral part of his
biological theory.,,181 Here we note a striking example of the use of social
concepts in the thought of a biologist.
Virchow provided a direct model for such social scientists as Lilienfeld
and Schaffle. Of particular importance in this respect is Paul von
Lilienfeld's182 Social Pathology (1896), which must be read in the light
of his five-volume opus, Thoughts on the Social Science of the Future
(1873-1881). In the earlier work, at the beginning of the first volume,
Human Society as a Real Organism, Lilienfeld issued his challenge:
Human society is, like natural organisms, a real being, is nothing more than a continu-
ation of nature, is only a higher expression of the same forces that underlie all natural
phenomena: This is the assignment, this is the thesis, which the author has set himself
to accomplish and to prove. 183
The condition sine qua non by which sociology may be raised to the rank of a positive
science and by which the inductive method may be applied to it is ... the conception
of human society in its character as a real living organism, composed of cells as are the
individual organisms of nature. l84
was that only "ignorance" has caused sociologists to seek their origins
in Montesquieu and Comte, whereas they should have recognized that
"sociological knowledge is formed in practices like those of the
doctors.,,216 This organicist theme of an analogy between sociology and
medicine is a feature of older, historically oriented textbooks such as
An Introduction to the Study of Sociology by Small and Vincent,217 and
the theme appears explicitly in more recent times, as Bryan Turner found
out, in Louis Wirth's notion (in 1931) of "clinical sociology" and
"sociological clinics.,,218 In 1935 L. J. Henderson put forth the case that
sociologists should adopt the analogy of clinical medicine (and even
its techniques) and anticipated Foucault in conceiving (in 1936) "the
practice of medicine as applied sociology.,,219
In the use of the natural sciences for the advancement of the social
sciences, it may happen that the science being applied is simply wrong.
A conspicuous example is provided by the American sociologist Carey,
who sought to build a science of society on physical principles cen-
tering on Newtonian celestial mechanics. I have mentioned Carey's ideas
earlier as an example of mismatched homology, in reference to the
concept of mass and the form of his law. Carey also made a grave error
in stating the law of universal gravity, wrongly believing that the force
between two gravitating masses is inversely proportional to the distance
between them rather than inversely proportional to the square of the
distance between them.223 Although this error is obvious to anyone who
is even slightly familiar with elementary physics, it has not been noted
by Carey's critics. 224 Of course, an argument can be made that Carey's
system would not have been any better if he had used the correct
Newtonian law. Since he did not develop his subject mathematically,
his ignorance of the exact form of the law of gravity may be irrele-
vant. But such a conclusion condemns Carey's sociology for falsely
claiming to be based on Newtonian principles. I strongly doubt whether
any sociologist - or other social scientist - would advocate that his or
her subject be founded on blatantly erroneous science.
In the application of the natural sciences to the social sciences, errors
such as Carey's are not so common as misinterpretations and imperfect
replications. An example of a misinterpretation appears in Montesquieu's
celebrated Spirit of the Laws (1748). In discussing the "principle of
monarchy", Montesquieu wrote, "It is with this kind of government as
with the system of the universe." That is, "there is a power that constantly
repels all bodies from the center, and a power of gravitation that attracts
them to it."225 This notion of a "power of gravitation" that "attracts"
all bodies to a center is, of course, Newtonian. But Newton's explana-
tion of the "system of the universe" expressly denied any balance of
centripetal and centrifugal forces. Montesquieu had only an imperfect
understanding of the Newtonian concept of universal gravitation. In
the example under consideration, he shows his essential belief in the
older framework of Cartesian physics and balanced forces, into which
he tried to introduce a quasi-Newtonian concept that does not fit.
There is abundant evidence that Montesquieu remained a Cartesian
62 I. BERNARD COHEN
and never fully grasped the principles of the new Newtonian natural
philosophy.226
An instructive example of a different sort, at first glance seeming to
imply an imperfect replication rather than a misunderstanding, occurs
in Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations (1776), in the discussion of his
celebrated concept of "natural price." Smith wrote that the "natural
price" is "the central price, to which the prices of all commodities are
continually gravitating.,,221 The use of the words "all" and "continually
gravitating" invoke Newtonian science and may even suggest that this
passage is an instance of Smith's alleged Newtonianism in economics.
Unlike Montesquieu, Smith had some understanding of Newtonian
scientific principles and, in his essay on the history of astronomy,228 wrote
in glowing terms about Newton's scientific achievements.
Smith's use of gravitation in relation to the natural price differs in
one important feature from Newtonian or physical gravitation. A basic
axiom of Newton's physics is his third law of motion, that action and
reaction are always equal. A consequence of this law is that "all" bodies
are not only "gravitating" toward some central body, but are also mutually
"gravitating" toward one another. The central body, accordingly, must
be "gravitating" toward all other bodies in the system. As a result, for
Smith's economics to be a complete and accurate replication of Newton's
physical theory of gravity, all prices would have to "gravitate" toward
one another and the "natural price" would analogically have to "gravi-
tate" to the "prices of all commodities."
Accordingly, we may all the more admire Smith for having only
partially replicated the Newtonian physical concept, for having adapted
or transformed the Newtonian physical concept in a way that was of
use in economics. Only a brash display of historical Whiggism would
fault Smith on the grounds of imperfect replication. The fact is that he
was creating a concept for the science of economics and not working
on a problem in celestial physics, not pursuing research in the applied
physics of gravitation.
Smith's use of a gravitating economic force may serve as a reminder
that economics is not an exact clone of physics and that the concepts used
in economics need not be exact homologues of those originating in
physics. This principle has been stated in a most incisive manner by
Claude Menard, who makes the important point that the successful use
of analogies is "not simply a transparent transposition of concepts
and methods," that the creative use of analogies always "highlights a
ANALYSIS OF INTERACTIONS 63
economists "copied their models mostly term for term and symbol for
symbol" from physics. For example, in a review of More Heat than Light
in the Journal of Economic Literature,233 Hal R. Varian disputes
Mirowski's "claim that neoclassical economics is 'incoherent' because
of the misappropriation of the energy concept." He also rejects
Mirowski's parallel claim "that conservation of energy is an inherent
aspect of the physical concept of energy, and that this sort of conser-
vation principle is not valid for utility," so that "utility is not an
intellectually coherent concept." Varian's conclusion is that Mirowski has
only shown "that utility is not energy.,,234
Such questions of distortion or transformation in the transfer of
concepts, laws, principles, and theories are different, however, from
simple errors of fact. Carey's social law is not the result of a distortion
or a creative, non-orthodox interpretation of Newtonian science. Carey
simply made an error in physics; he just did not know the correct
gravitational law. Similarly, Montesquieu did not distort Newtonian
physics, nor did he omit a significant feature (as was the case for Smith
and the mutuality of gravitation or of Walras and conservation); rather
he misunderstood or did not know the Newtonian explanation of curved
orbital motion. I have mentioned that Carey's sociology would not be
in any way different if he had known and used the correct Newtonian
law. Similarly, Montesquieu's social and political ideas would not be
significantly altered by the substitution of a correct for an incorrect
Newtonian explanation; it probably would not make much difference
to his system or to the thrust of his argument if the Newtonian
references were completely eliminated.
There are, however, many examples of fruitful advances in social
thought resulting from transfers in which the original concept or
principle may not be fully understood. An example is found in the
intertwined history of biological and social thought relating to the
principle of division of labor, analyzed by Camille Limoges (in Chapter
9 below). Indeed, it is generally known among social scientists that
misinterpretations often lead to very fruitful results, even when the source
is another social science. A celebrated example from political science
is the doctrine of the separation of powers, a central feature of the form
of government adopted in the Constitution of the United States. One
direct source for this principle, as A. Lawrence Lowell has documented,
is a misreading of the ideas of Montesquieu. 235
66 I. BERNARD COHEN
All analogies are not equally useful. The extreme case occurs when an
analogy is so inappropriate as to have no utility for social science. This
is not a matter of personal judgment, but a fact of history. Two analo-
gies that have frequently been used in considering the state or society
have proved to be inappropriate. One is taken from the biological or
life sciences, the other from the physical sciences. One is part of the
organismic analogy of the state as the body politic; the other is the
Newtonian analogy of the state or society as a physical system. We
have seen how in our own century Walter Cannon conceived that his own
researches might give the organismic analogy new life. But Cannon
did not provide any significant new insights into the theory of society.
Nor have any successors to my knowledge made use of his general
analogy in a fruitful way. The only possible conclusion is that, in the
form presented, the analogy has proved to be inappropriate for the
development of sociological knowledge or understanding. If an analogy
does not provide a gauge of the validity of a social theory or system
or concept or does not introduce some new insight into the social science,
then the analogy, being of no use to the social science, must be deemed
inappropriate. 236
The notion that gravitational cosmology or the Newtonian system of
the world could provide an analogy for society or for the ordering of
the state goes back to the days of Newton himself. One of his disciplines,
Jean-Theophile Desaguliers, author of a standard Newtonian textbook,
embodied his hopes in a poem,237 The Newtonian System of the World,
the Best Model of Government. No political theorist, no practical
politician or political leader, and no natural or social scientist ever made
use of this curious presentation. Here then is an example of a useless
analogy.
There is another early example of useless or inappropriate analogy
that is similarly associated with Newton. It is an attempt by a contem-
porary of Newton's, the Scots mathematician John Craig, to replicate
Newtonian science in human affairs. Craig's Theologiae Christianae
Principia Mathematica (1699) is a direct emulation of Newton's
Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica. 238 Craig's aim was to
devise a Newtonian law in a social context in the realm of reliability
of testimony. The subject he explored was the degree of credence that
may be assigned to the testimony of successive witnesses, a topic of major
ANALYSIS OF INTERACTIONS 67
with analogies in general but rather with what she saw as a deleterious
effect of using "sweeping analogies" in economics: their tendency to
frame "the problems they are designed to illuminate" in so special a
way that "significant matters are inadvertently obscured." Concentrating
on "theories of the firm," she considered three biological analogies used
by economists: the life cycle, natural selection (or viability), and home-
ostasis.
In the course of her critique, Penrose makes an important distinc-
tion between two uses of analogies in economics, a distinction which
is similar to the typology which I have been presenting in this chapter.
One use is to advance our understanding by referring a not fully under-
stood economic phenomenon to an analogous one in some other science
which is presumably better understood. The other, which she calls a
"purely metaphorical analogy," uses such resemblances "to add a
picturesque note to an otherwise dull analysis" and to help the reader
in following a difficult argument or in dealing with a strange concept
or principle. 249
Penrose acknowledges that Alchian's argument is not a crude
evolutionism, characterized by value judgments such as beset the social
Darwinism of the nineteenth century, but is rather "very modern in its
emphasis on uncertainty and statistical probabilities." Among the
conclusions on which she focuses her criticism are that "successful
innovations - regarded by analogy as 'mutations' - are transmitted by
imitation to other firms" and that the "economic counterparts of genetic
heredity, mutations, and natural selection are imitation, innovation, and
positive profits." She sums up the alleged superiority of the evolu-
tionary analogy "in the claim that it is valid even if men do not know
what they are doing." That is, "no matter what men's motives are, the
outcome is determined not by the individual participants, but by an
environment beyond their control." Thus "natural selection is substi-
tuted for purposive profit-maximizing behavior just as in biology natural
selection replaced the concept of special creation of species.,,250
Penrose makes an excellent case that on every level of homology
(although she does not use this term) there is an incompatibility between
biology and economics. For example, she shows that humans differ
from other animals in their ability to alter the environment and to become,
to some degree, independent of it. Furthermore, she detects a serious error
in treating "innovations" as homologues (she writes of "analogues") of
"biological mutations," since the latter involve an alteration of the
ANALYSIS OF INTERACTIONS 71
1.11. CONCLUSION
Although the actual purpose of the survey was never made explicit, it
is obvious in retrospect that one of the questions for which the Congress
wanted a documented answer was the relative success of students in
integrated and segregated schools. It was plain from the outset that
whatever the findings of the survey would be, the whole subject was
so controversial that the report would have to be based on the most
objective kinds of data possible. Not only did the nature of the inquiry
ANALYSIS OF INTERACTIONS 73
demand that the data be quantitative, but there was the obvious require-
ment that the collection of data be as free of prejudice as possible and
that the statistical analyses be free of any fault in technique. In short,
the standards to be adopted were much the same as those that would
be used in an investigation in physics or any other of the "exact" sciences.
Of course there were aspects of this study that distinguished it from
investigations in the physical sciences. For example, the data collected
and used for the Coleman Report were much like census data and
therefore less certain than numbers in physics.2S7 Again, the choice of
factors that were enumerated was not quite so value-free as might have
been the case for physics. 258 Furthermore, the Coleman Report had to
convince Congress and its constituents of the validity of one of the
principal "pathbreaking" findings, that an analysis of "the relation of
variation in school facilities to variation in levels of academic achieve-
ment" showed that there was "so little relation" that, to all intents and
purposes, there was none. 259 The implication was that an increase in
financial support of and by itself would not necessarily produce better
secondary education. This finding constituted a "powerful critique" of
one of the most "unquestioned basic assumptions" or "socially received
beliefs" of American education. In support of such consequences, the
results of the investigation had to be stated unambiguously in the
numerical language of quantitative science.
Ever since the Scientific Revolution, a high value has been set on
giving social science the solid foundation of the natural sciences. This
goal has traditionally had two very different aspects. One, the subject
of this chapter, has been of a limited kind: to make use of the concepts,
principles, methods, and techniques of some one of the physical or
biological sciences. The other has been greater than merely constructing
social theories by introducing analogues or homologues of a particular
natural science at a particular time. Adopting the metaphor of the natural
sciences traditionally has meant taking on certain features of what was
known as the scientific method - supposedly characterized by healthy
skepticism, reliance on experiment and critical observation, avoidance of
pure speCUlation, and in particular a specific ladder of steps that would
lead (usually by induction) from "facts" to "theory," to a knowledge of
the eternal "truths" of nature. This second goal, which might from one
point of view seem a more obviously useful aim, has actually become
increasingly problematic. Twentieth-century philosophers and historians
of science, aided by scientists themselves, have dispelled any belief in
74 I. BERNARD COHEN
Harvard University
NOTES
* All of the examples introduced in this introductory section are discussed in full, with
bibliographic documentation, in the succeeding sections.
1 On Cournot's important contributions to mathematical economics, see Claude Menard:
Laformation d'une rationalite economique: A.A. Cournot (Paris: Flammarion, 1978); also
Joseph Schumpeter: History of Economic Analysis (New York: Oxford University Press,
1954).
2 See Note on Natural Science & Social Science on pp. xxv-xxxvi.
3 On the history of the concept of behavioral sciences, see Bernard Berelson on
"Behavioral Sciences" in International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, ed. David
L. Sills, vol. 2 (New York: The Macmillan Company & The Free Press, 1968), pp.
41-45; also Herbert J. Spiro: "Critique of Behavioralism in Political Science," pp. 314-327
of Klaus von Beyme (ed.): Theory and Politics, Theorie und PoUtik, Festschrift zum 70.
Geburtstag fiir Carl Joachim Friedrich (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1971).
4 An admirable discussion of the differences in these three usages is given in John
Theodore Merz: A History of European Thought in the Nineteenth Century
(Edinburgh/London: W. Blackwood and Sons, 1903-1914; reprint, New York: Dover
Publications, 1965; reprint, Gloucester: Peter Smith, 1976), vol. 1, chs. 1, 2, 3.
5 See Marie Boas Hall: All Scientists Now: the Royal Society in the Nineteenth Century
(Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press, 1984); also Dorothy Stimpson:
Scientists and Amateurs: A History of the Royal Society (New York: Henry Schuman,
1948). The Royal Society, however, originally had a large proportion of non-scientists
as Fellows, including poets (e.g., John Dryden), doctors, and peers of the realm. After
the reorganization of 1847 the non-scientific categories of membership were eliminated,
although exceptions are still made (e.g. Prince Philip and the financier-philanthropist Isaac
Wolfson).
6 See n. 21 infra; also Chapter 12 infra.
7 See Roger Hahn: The Anatomy of a Scientific Institution: The Paris Academy of Sciences
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971).
8 At first there were four classes: "Physica" (including chemistry, medicine, and other
natural sciences), "Mathematica" (including astronomy and mechanics), German philos-
ophy, and literature (especially oriental literature). Later these classes were regrouped into
76 I. BERNARD COHEN
two major divisions: the natural sciences and mathematics in one and "philosophical
and historical" domains in the other. See Erik Amburger (ed.): Die Mitglieder der
Deutschen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, 1700-1950 (Berlin: Akadernie-Verlag,
1960); Kurt-Reinhard Biermann & Gerhard Dunken (eds.): Deutsche Akademie der
Wissenschaften zu Berlin: Biographischer Index der Mitglieder (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag,
1960). On the history and vicissitudes of the German Academy, see Werner Hartkopf &
Gerhard Dunken: Von der Brandenburgischen Sozietiit der Wissenschaften zur Deutschen
Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1967); the standard
history is Adolph Harnack: Geschichte der Koniglich Preussischen Akademie der
Wissenschaften zu Berlin, 3 vols. (Berlin: Reichsdruckerei, 1990).
9 See note 2 supra.
10 See Samuel Johnson: A Dictionary of the English Language, 2 vols. (London: printed
by W. Strahan for J. and P. Knapton, T. and T. Longman, C. Hitch and L. Hawes, A.
Millar and R. and J. Dodsley, 1755; photo-reprint, New York: Arno Press, 1979).
11 The Works of Lard Macaulay, ed. Lady Trevelyan, vol. 5 (London: Longmans, Green,
and Co., 1871), p. 677. In 1829 Macaulay wrote (ibid, p. 270) that the "noble Science
of Politics" was "of all sciences ... the most important to the welfare of the nations,"
the science which "most tends to expand and invigorate the mind." Additionally, he
declared, the "Science of Politics" is notable among "all sciences" because it "draws
nutriment and ornament from every part of philosophy and literature, and dispenses in
return nutriment and ornament to all." See also Stefan Collini, Donald Winch, & John
Burrow: That Noble Science of Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983),
passim, but esp. pp. 102-103, 120. The negative version of Macaulay's statement occurs
in the oft-quoted remark made by Bismarck in the Prussian Chamber on 18 December
1863, "Die Politik ist keine exakte Wissenschaft," that is, "Politics is not an exact science."
Early in the eighteenth century, in Gulliver's Travels (1726), Jonathan Swift regretted
that the ignorant Brobdignagians had not as yet "reduced Politicks into a Science."
12 "A Letter to a Noble Lord," in Edmund Burke: The Works (London: John C. Nimmo,
1887; reprint, HildesheimlNew York: Georg Olms Verlag, 1975), vol. 5, p. 215; David
Hume: A Treatise of Human Nature, ed. L.A. Selby-Bigge (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1896
and reprints), pp. ix and xix-xx. In An Inquiry Concerning the Human Understanding,
ed. L.A. Selby-Bigge (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1894), pp. 83-84, Hume wrote of
historical "records" as "so many collections of experiments, by which the politician or
moral philosopher fixes the principles of his science, in the same manner as the physi-
cian or natural philosopher becomes acquainted with the nature of plants, minerals, and
other external objects, by the experiments which he forms concerning them."
On Hume and a science of politics, the studies of Duncan Forbes are of primary
importance, notably his introduction to the reprint of Hume's History of Great Britain
(Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1970); "Sceptical Whiggism, Commerce and Liberty," pp.
179-201 of A.S. Skinner & T. Wilson (eds.): Essays on Adam Smith (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1976); "Hume's Science of Politics," pp. 39-50 of G.P. Morice (ed.):
David Hume, Bicentenary Papers (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1977). See also
James E. Force & Richard H. Popkin: Essays on the Context, Nature, and Influence of
Isaac Newton's Theology (DordrechtJBostonILondon: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1990),
ch. 10, "Hume's Interest in Newton and Science" (by J.E. Force).
13 John Harris, Lexicon Technicum (London: printed for Dan. Brown, Tim. Goodwin,
ANAL YSIS OF INTERACTIONS 77
John Walthoe, ... , Benj. Tooke, Dan. Midwinter, Tho. Leigh, and Francis Coggan,
1704; reprint, New YorkILondon: Johnson Reprint Corporation, 1966 - The Sources of
Science, no. 28) defines "Science" as "Knowledge founded upon, or acquir'd by clear,
certain and self-evident Principles." Harris says that "Natural Philosophy" is "the same
with what is usually call'd Physicks, viz. That Science which contemplates the powers
of Nature, the properties of Natural Bodies, and their mutual action one upon another."
14 James S. Coleman: Foundations of Social Theory (Cambridge: The Belknap Press
of Harvard University Press, 1990), p. xv. On this general topic, see Robert K. Merton:
Social Theory and Social Structure (Enlarged edition, New York: The Free Press, 1968),
ch. 1, "On the History and Systematics of Sociological Theory."
IS Robert K. Merton: "The Mosaic of the Behavioral Sciences," pp. 247-272 of Bernard
Berelson (ed.): The Behavioral Sciences Today (New YorkILondon: Basic Books, 1963),
esp. p. 256.
16 A. Hunter Dupree: Science in the Federal Government: A History of Policies and
Activities (Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1957; revised reprint,
Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986).
17 Reported in Henry W. Riecken: "The National Science Foundation and the Social
Sciences," Social Science Research Council Items, Sept. 1983,37('213): 39-42, esp. p. 40a.
18 For example, the association of "sociology" with "socialism" is discussed in Albion
W. Small & George E. Vincent: An Introduction to the Study of Society (New
York/Cincinnati/Chicago: American Book Company, 1894), pp. 40-41, where it is stated
that "Systematic Socialism has both directly and indirectly promoted the development
of Sociology."
19 Riecken (n. 17 supra), p. 40b.
20 See Chapter 12 infra.
21 The Ninth Annual Report of the National Science Foundation announced that "during
the fiscal year 1959 [in December 1958), the Foundation established an Office of Social
Sciences to support research and related activities in the social science disciplines." The
Eleventh Annual Report announced that "The Office of Social Sciences was reconsti-
tuted as the Division of Social Sciences during fiscal year 1961 [the year ending on 30
June 1961)." The new Division replaced "the previous Social Science Research Program"
and was said to represent "a further step in the development of Foundation activities in
the area." The social sciences did not maintain this independent importance, however,
and there is still some debate on how best to fit the social sciences into the structure of
the National Science Foundation.
A note in Science (16 Aug. 1991,253: 727) on "a proposal to give the social sciences
more clout within the agency" summarized the findings of a draft report by a "task force
composed of 20 outside social and behavioral scientists and biologists" who recommended
the removal of the social and behavioral sciences from their position as part of the
Directorate for Biological, Behavioral and Social Sciences. Although most "social
scientists" were in favor of this proposal, which would "give them an advocate at the
highest level of the agency and win them more funding and respect," some social scien-
tists - it was noted - "don't want to leave the fold." On 23 Oct. 1991, The Chronicle of
Higher Education (pp. A-23, A-25) reported that the reorganization had occurred, including
the establishment of a new Directorate for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences.
NSF Director Walter E. Massey expressed high hopes that the creation of a "separate
78 I. BERNARD COHEN
new office" would "lead to an increase in funds for those sciences." Although many "social
scientists said the change would lead to more recognition and higher budgets," support
for the change "was not unanimous" (according to the Chronicle's report) even among
the social scientists concerned.
22 The work of scientists and social scientists mentioned briefly in various sections of
this chapter is discussed at greater length and with bibliographical documentation in
subsequent chapters or in other sections of this chapter.
23 Wilhelm Ostwald: Energetische Grundlagen der Kulturwissenschaften (Leipzig:
Verlag von Dr. Werner Kilinkhardt, 1909). On Ostwald's "Kulturwissenschaften" see
Philip Mirowski: More Heat than Light: Economics as Social Physics, Physics as Nature's
Economics (Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989), pp. 454-57,
132-133, 268.
There were many scientists and social scientists who saw in the new "energetics" a
basis for a reconstitution of economics, sociology, history, and so on. A notable example
was Henry Adams, who attempted to use J. Willard Gibbs's memoir on the "Equilibrium
of Heterogeneous Substances" as the basis of a study on "The Rule of Phase Applied to
History." This essay is reprinted along with Adam's "A Letter to American Teachers of
History" in Brooks Adams (ed.): The Degradation of the Democratic Dogma (New York:
The Macmillan Company, 1920).
24 See Chapter 2 infra.
2S See John Brewer: The Sinews of Power: War, Money and the English State, 1688-1783
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1988), ch. 8, "The Politics of Information, Public
Knowledge and Private Interest"; Keith Thomas: "Numeracy in Early Modern England,"
Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 1987, 37: 103-132.
26 See Chapter 4, 3, infra.
27 See Jacques Roger: Buffon (Paris: Fayard, 1989), pp. 234, 296.
28 Stephen M. Stigler: The History of Statistics: The Measurement of Uncertainty before
1900 (Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1986), ch. 3, "Inverse
Probability." See further, Helen M. Walker: Studies in the History of Statistical Method
(Baltimore: The Williams & Wilkins Company, 1929; reprint, New York: Arno Press,
1975), pp. 31-38; Hyman Alterman: Counting People: The Census in History (New
York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1969).
29 Keith M. Baker: Condorcet, from Natural Philosophy to Social Mathematics (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1975), ch. 4.
30 See Chapter 3 infra. In addition to Stigler's History of Statistics (n. 28 supra), ch.
5, see Theodore M. Porter: The Rise of Statistical Thinking, 1820-1900 (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1986), esp. pp. 2, 4; Ian Hacking: The Taming of Chance
(Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990), chs. 13, 14, 19,21; Frank
H. Hankins: Adolphe Quetelet as Statistician (New York: Columbia University Press, 1908
- Studies in History, Economics and Public Law; reprint, New York: AMS Press, 1968).
31 Baker (n. 29 supra), p. 202.
32 Mirowski (n. 23 supra), ch. 5. Mirowski's thesis has not produced universal
acceptance by economists. Not only is it considered extreme, but it is faulted because it
does not apply to all founders of neoclassical economics, for example, Karl Menger,
and even L60n Walras (see n. 33 infra and 1.5 infra).
33 See further, 1.6 infra. Walras, we shall have occasion to note, argued for the
ANALYSIS OF INTERACTIONS 79
similarity of economics and rational mechanics but (see n. 143 infra) did so only after
he had produced his system of economics. That is, he did not create his economics by
attempting to imitate rational mechanics.
34 See 1.5 infra.
3S William Breit & Roger W. Spencer (eds.): Lives of the Laureates: Seven Nobel
Economists (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1986), p. 74. This topic is developed further in
1.6 infra.
36 In addition to the works cited in nn. 28, 30 supra, see Gerd Gigerenzer, Zeno Swijtink,
Theodore Porter, Lorraine Daston, John Beatty, and Lorenz Kriiger: The Empire of Chance:
How Probability Changed Sciences and Everyday Life (Cambridge/New York: Cambridge
University Press, 1989); William Coleman: Death is a Social Disease: Public Health
and Political Economy in Early Industrial France (Madison: University of Wisconsin
Press, 1982).
37 David Brewster: Letters on Natural Magic (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1843),
p. 181. In The Glaciers of the Alps (Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1861), p. 285, John Tyndall
wrote that "the analogy between a river and glacier moving through a sinuous valley is
therefore complete."
38 Richard Owen defined these two terms as follows: analogue - "A part or organ in
one animal which has the same function as another part or organ in a different animal";
homologue - "The same organ in different animals under every variety of form and
function." Richard Owen: On the Archetypes and Homologies of the Vertebrate Skeleton
(London: Richard & John E. Taylor, 1848), p. 7. Despite Owen's phrasing here, the
terms "similarity of form" or "sameness of structure" may be used to represent the kind
of likeness exemplified by "the same organ." See further n. 40 infra; also Mayr (n. 40
infra), p. 464.
39 In Darwinian evolution, analogy is the result of parallel adaptation, the way in
which different organisms in separate but parallel evolutionary stages have developed,
independently of one another, different ways of "adapting themselves to the same external
circumstances" or needs. An example is given by an organ of vision, in which a lens
concentrates light on special sensitive tissue. Konrad Lorenz has noted that this
"invention" had been made independently by animals of four different phyla, in two of
which (the vertebrates and the cephalopods) this kind of "eye" has "evolved into the
true, image-projecting camera through which we ourselves are able to see the world."
See Konrad Z. Lorenz: "Analogy as a Source of Knowledge," Science, 1974, 185: 229-
234.
40 See Ernst Mayr: The Growth of Biological Thought: Diversity, Evolution, and
Inheritance (Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1982), p. 45,
where it is noted that the "term 'homologous' existed already prior to 1859, but it acquired
its currently accepted meaning only when Darwin established the theory of common
descent. Under this theory the biologically most meaningful definition of 'homologous'
is: 'A feature in two or more taxa is homologous when it is derived from the same (or
a corresponding) feature of their common ancestor. '"
41 "Homology" appears with special meanings in several sciences. In addition to the
general evolutionary or biological sense, there is the chemical usage (referring to a
family of organic compounds in which each member is distinguished from the next in
the sequence by some constant factor, notably, a CH 2 group), the mathematical usage (a
80 I. BERNARD COHEN
topological classification), and a special usage in genetics (to indicate the same linear
sequence of genes in two or more chromosomes).
42 It should be noted that the terms "analogue" and "homologue" are not being used
in the present context in the strict sense of evolutionary biology, since in the analysis
of the interactions of the social and the natural sciences there is no consideration of
"common descent." Furthermore, because "analogy" is often used to designate various
types of correspondence, it is sometimes necessary, especially in quoting or paraphrasing
the work of others, to employ this term to indicate likeness in more general senses than
those specified above.
43 Henry C. Carey: Principles of Social Science (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co.,
1858), vol. 1, pp. 42-43.
44 Carey's exact words are: "Gravitation is here, as everywhere else in the material world,
in the direct ratio of the mass, and in the inverse one of the distance." In vol. 3, ch. 55,
p. 644, Carey recapitulates his physics and social science. He begins by stating "simple
laws which govern matter in all its forms, and which are common to physical and social
science." The first of these reads: "All particles of matter gravitate towards each other
- the attraction being in the direct ratio of the mass, and the inverse one of the distance."
Incidentally, it may be observed that Carey has also misunderstood the Newtonian
explanation of orbital or curved motion, under the actions of a centripetal force, such as
a planet moving under the action of the sun's gravity plus its own component of inertia.
Carey says: "All matter is subjected to the action of the centripetal and the centrifugal
forces - the one tending to the production of local centres of action, the other to the
destruction of such centres, and the production of a great central mass, obedient to but
a single law." We may take note that Carey also introduced ratios other than direct and
inverse proportion. Thus, in vol. 1, p. 389, he wrote: ''The motion of society, and the power
of man, tend to increase in a geometrical ratio ...."
45 Although "fallacy" is often used in a narrow technical sense to denote a flaw (or
type of flaw) that "vitiates a syllogism," a primary meaning in every dictionary I have
consulted (OED, OED-suppl., OED - 2nd ed.; Concise Oxford Dictionary - 6th ed.;
Webster's New International - 2d & 3d eds.) is a misleading argument, or a delusion or
error, or some unsoundness or delusiveness or disappointing character of an argument
or belief. The American Heritage Dictionary gives as the first meaning: "An idea or opinion
founded on mistaken logic or perception; a false notion"; other meanings include "the
quality of being deceptive" and "incorrectness of reasoning or belief." The only example
given is a "romantic fallacy, that Shakespeare was superhuman." This example displays
features in common with two frequently encountered uses of "fallacy" today: John Ruskin's
notion of the "pathetic fallacy" (in which inanimate objects are supposed to have human
emotions) and W.K. Wimsatt and Monroe Beardsley's "intentional fallacy" (overstressing
the author's intentions in assessing a literary work). These usages are somewhat similar
to Alfred North Whitehead's ''fallacy of misplaced concreteness" as presented in Science
and the Modem World (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1931), ch. 4, pp. 82,
85.
46 Newton's concept of mass has two separate aspects: one (inertial mass in post-Einstein
terminology) is a measure of body's resistance to being accelerated or being made to
undergo a change in "state," while the other (gravitational mass) is a measure of a body's
response to a given gravitational field (i.e., the weight). For details see my The Newtonian
ANALYSIS OF INTERACTIONS 81
"their respective orbits round the sun." He concluded that if this linear component of
motion should cease, "the general law of gravitation that is now thwarted would show
itself by drawing them all into one mass" (George Berkeley: ''The Bond of Society," Works,
ed. A.A. Luce and T.E. Jessop, vol, 7 [London/Edinburgh: Thomas Nelson and Sons,
1955], pp. 226-227).
53 Ibid., pp. 225-228; cf. George Berkeley: "Moral Attraction," Works, ed. Alexander
Campbell Fraser, vol. 4 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1901), pp. 186-190.
54 For additional materials concerning Berkeley's Newtonian sociology, see my "Newton
and the Social Sciences, with special reference to Economics: The Case of the Missing
Paradigm," to appear in Philip Mirowski (ed.): Markets Read in Tooth and Claw
(CambridgelNew York: Cambridge University Press, 1993 [in press]) - Proceedings of
a Symposium at Notre Dame on "Natural Images in Economics," October 1991.
55 The eminent sociologist Pitirim A. Sorokin translated Berkeley's correct Newtonian
physics into a hodgepodge of incorrect pre-Newtonian explanations. Sorokin not only
would have Berkeley make use of the misleading notion of a balance of centrifugal and
centripetal forces, but continued his travesty by saying that Berkeley concluded that
"Society is stable when the centripetal forces are greater than the centrifugal." This is
plainly nonsense even in pre-Newtonian physics; if the centripetal forces should be greater
than the centrifugal forces, then obviously there would be no stability but an instability,
a lack of balance or equilibrium, and a resultant motion inward, as Berkeley clearly
stated would be the case under such circumstances. See Pitirim A. Sorokin: Contemporary
Sociological Theories (New YorkILondon: Harper & Brothers, 1928), p. 11.
56 See the writings of Duncan Forbes and of James E. Force (n. 12 supra).
57 David Hume: A Treatise of Human Nature (n. 12 supra), pp. 12-13.
58 If, as Hume believed, human behavior and social action are regulated by social laws,
there is implied the possibility of a social science, one in which - as Hume wrote -
"consequences almost as general and certain may sometimes be deduced ... as any
which the mathematical sciences afford us." Seeking to establish a kind of psychology
of individual action, Hume seems to have envisioned the construction of a new
theoretical science that would ultimately find expression in practice. On the certainty of
social laws compared to mathematics, see David Hume: "That Politics may be Reduced
to a Science," Essays: Moral, Political, and Literary, ed. T.H. Green & T.H. Grose
(London: Longman, Green and Co., 1882; reprint, Aalen [Germany]: Scientia Verlag,
1964), vol. 1, p. 99.
59 Cf. Design for Utopia: Selected Writings of Charles Fourier, intro. Charles Gide,
new foreword by Frank E. Manuel, trans. Julia Franklin (New York: Shocken Books, 1971
[orig. Selections from the Works of Fourier (London: Swan Sonnenschein & Co., 1901]),
esp. p. 18; The Utopian Vision of Charles Fourier: Selected Texts on Work, Love, and
Passionate Attraction, trans., ed., intro. Jonathan Beecher and Richard Bienvenu (Boston:
Beacon Press, 1971), esp. pp. I, 8, 10, 81, 84; Harmonian Man: Selected Writings of
Charles Fourier, ed. Mark Poster, trans. Susan Hanson (Garden City: Doubleday &
Company - Anchor Books, 1971). On Fourier, see Nicholas Y. Riasanovsky: The
Teachings of Charles Fourier (Berkeley/Los Angeles: University of California Press,
1969) and Frank E. Manuel: The Prophets of Paris (Cambridge: Harvard University Press,
1962).
60 It is a fact of record that groups of idealists actually founded Fourierist utopian colonies
ANALYSIS OF INTERACTIONS 83
along the bizarre lines he suggested and that Fourierism became a considerable political
force in several countries.
61 Emile Durkheim: The Division of Labor in Society, trans. George Simpson (New York:
The Free Press, 1933; reprint 1964), p. 339. Cf. Durkheim, De la division du travail social:
etude sur l'organisation des societis superieures (Paris: F~lix Alcan, Editeur, 1893), p.
378; Durkheim, De la division du travail social, 5th ed. (Paris: Librairie F~lix Alcan,
1926), p. 330. The first and fifth editions are identical at this point.
62 Ibid., trans., p. 262. In the Principia Newton defines a measure of matter which he
calls "quantity of matter" (used as a synonym for "body" or "mass") and which he says
is proportional to the volume (or "bulk") and density. Durkheim seems to use both volume
and mass in the sense of volume; cf., e.g., trans., pp. 262, 266, 268, 339.
63 Ibid., trans., p. 268. Furthermore (p. 270), the "division of labor is ... a result of
the struggle for existence, but it is a mellowed denouement. Thanks to it, opponents are
not obliged to fight to a finish, but can exist one beside the other. Also, in proportion
to its development, it furnishes the means of maintenance and survival to a greater
number of individuals who, in more homogeneous societies, would be condemned to
extinction."
64 Ibid., trans., pp. 256-282.
65 Ibid., trans., p. 266. The example was taken, with a direct citation, from Darwin's
Origin of Species. Darwin, according to Durkheim, found that "in a small area, opened
to immigration, and where, consequently, the conflict of individuals must be acute, there
is always to be seen a very great diversity in the species inhabiting it. He found turf
three feet by four which had been exposed for long years to the same conditions of life
nourishing twenty species of plants belonging to eighteen genera and eight classes. This
clearly proves how differentiated they are." This was offered in proof of Darwin's
observations "that the struggle between two organisms is as active as they are
analogous." Since they have "the same needs" and pursue "the same objects," they are
rivals. Eventually, as their numbers increase, the resources available no longer suffice
for all, and a struggle for survival ensues. But, "if the co-existing individuals are of
different species or varieties," they "do not feed in the same manner, and do not lead
the same kind of life," and so they "do not disturb each other." What is perhaps most
remarkable about Durkheim's argument based on Darwin is the fact that he referred to
Darwin at all. It must be kept in mind that at this time, and for many decades
afterwards, Darwinian evolution based on natural selection was not regarded with favor
by the French scientific establishment.
66 Durkheim (n. 61 supra, trans.),p. 336; cf. p. 339.
67 On the uses of organic analogies, see further l. 7 infra. For Theodore Roosevelt,
see his Biological Analogies in History (New York: Oxford University Press; London:
Henry Frowde, 1910); also Works, vol. 12 (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1926),
pp. 25-60. A. Lawrence Lowell's organismic views of society may be found in numerous
works, notably "An Example from the Evidence of History," pp. 119-132 of Factors
Determining Human Behavior (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1937).
68 Thomas Carlyle: Sartor Resartus, introd. H. D. Traill, The Works of Thomas Carlyle,
30 vols. (London: Chapman and Hall, 1896-1899; reprint, New York: AMS Press, 1969),
vol. 1, p. 172. See Frederick W. Roe: The Social Philosophy of Carlyle and Ruskin
(New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1921); also David George Hale: The Body Politic:
84 I. BERNARD COHEN
AngeleslLondon: University of California Press, 1981), ch. 4, "Biology and Social Theory
in the Nineteenth Century: Auguste Comte and Herbert Spencer"; for a rebuttal, see
Ernst Mayr: Toward a New Philosophy of Biology: Observations of An Evolutionist
(CambridgelLondon: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1988), essay 15,
"The Death of Darwin?".
82 Peel (n. 81 supra), p. 178.
83 Ibid.; see Herbert Spencer: Essays: Scientific, Political, and Speculative, vol. 1 (New
York: D. Appleton & Co., 1883), "The Social Organism," pp. 287-289.
84 See Peel (n. 81 supra), ch. 7 "The Organic Analogy," with comparative examples
of Spencer's use of analogies from physics. For the context of Spencer's analogies, see
Richards (n. 81 supra).
8S Spencer (n. 83 supra), pp. 277-279, 283-286.
86 Herbert Spencer: Essays Scientific, Political, and Speculative, vol. 3 (New York: D.
Appleton & Co., 1896), "Specialized Administration," pp. 427-428.
87 Rem~ Worms: Organisme et societe (Paris: V. Giard & W. Bri~re, 1896), p. 73.
88 Walter Cannon: "Relations of Biological and Social Homeostasis," pp. 305-324 in
his The Wisdom of the Body (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1932; revised in
1939).
89 Ibid., pp. 309-310. The significance of the cell theory as a source of analogues for
social theory is discussed in 1.8 infra.
90 Ibid., pp. 312, 314.
91 See Merton (n. 14 supra), ch. 3, pp. lOin, 102-103.
92 Walter Cannon: "The Body Physiologic and the Body Politic," Presidential Address
to the American Association for the Advancement of Science, in Science, 1941, 93:
1-10.
93 Ibid.
94 Henry C. Carey: The Unity of Law (Philadelphia: Henry Carey Baird, 1872), pp.
116-127; for a derisive critique see Stark (n. 74 supra), pp. 156-160.
9S See the discussion of the Newtonian style at the end of 1.5 infra and in my article
on "Newton & the Social Sciences," cited in n. 54 supra.
96 In fact, there are systems of social thought based on models from physics that seem
just as ridiculous as those based on biological models, such as Carey's extravagant elec-
trical analogy (n. 94 supra). Another type of extreme model is set forth in Bradford
Peck: The World a Department Store: A Story of Life Under a Cooperative System
(Lewiston [Me.]: B. Peck, cI900).
97 See the valuable discussion of these topics in Claude Menard: "La machine et Ie coeur:
essai sur les analogies dans Ie raisonnement economique," in Analogie et Connaissance,
vol. 2: De la poesie a la science (Paris: Maloine editeur, 1981 - Seminaires
Interdisciplinaires du Coll~ge de France), pp. 137-165; also trans. Pamela Cook & Philip
Mirowski as "The Machine and the Heart: An Essay on Analogies in Economic
Reasoning," Social Concept, December 1988, 5 (no. I): 81-95. Especially since the
translation omits the mathematical appendix and the discussion, it is well to consult the
original.
98 Stark (n. 74 supra), pp. 73-74.
99 In this connection we may recall once more Whitehead's presentation of the "fallacy
of misplaced concreteness"; cf. n. 45 supra.
86 I. BERNARD COHEN
100 Works on metaphor include Max Black: Models and Metaphors: Studies in Language
and Philosophy (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1962); Arjo Klamer (ed.): Conversations
with Economists (Totowa, [N.J.]: Rowman & Lilienfe1d, 1983); Donald N. McCloskey:
If You 're So Smart: The Narrative of Economic Expertise (ChicagolLondon: The University
of Chicago Press, 1990); and Andrew Ortony: Metaphor and Thought (Cambridge/
LondonlNew York: Cambridge University Press, 1979). For a brief but incisive history
of the uses of metaphor from antiquity to the present, see Mark Johnson (ed.):
Philosophical Perspectives on Metaphor (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press,
1981), introd.
This topic also appears in discussions of economics, notably in Mirowski (n. 23 supra).
101 Herbert Spencer: The Principles of Sociology, 3rd ed. (New York: D. Appleton and
Company, 1897), vol. 1, part 2, 1, "What is a Society?", 2, "A Society is an Organism."
102 See Schlanger (n. 160 infra).
103 Poetics, 1457b, 1459a, 148a.
104 That is, Aristotle held that analogy was a special kind of metaphor that involves a
four-term ratio. Let the ratio be
evening: day:: old age: life
or
evening is to day as old age is to life
from which we obtain
old age is the evening of life.
Here we have a metaphor in which something (evening) is attributed to something (life)
to which it does not belong. The same would be true for
evening is the old age of day.
Jevons (n. 138 infra), p. 627, gives a similar example, based on a prime minister of a
state and a captain of a ship, obtaining the relation that a prime minister is captain of
the state.
105 There are a number of works dealing with rhetoric, especially in relation to the science
of the seventeenth century, among them David Johnston: The Rhetoric of Leviathan:
Thomas Hobbes and the Politics of Cultural Transformation (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1986); Alan G. Gross: The Rhetoric of Science (Cambridge/London:
Harvard University Press, 1990); Peter Dear (ed.): The Literary Structure of Scientific
Argument (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1991); Steven Shapin & Simon
Schaffer: Leviathan and the Air-Pump: Hobbes, Boyle, and the Experimental Life
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985); Marcello Pera: Scienza e retorica
(RomelBari: Laterza, 1991); and M. Pera & William R. Shea (eds.): Persuading Science:
The Art of Scientific Rhetoric (Canton, [Mass.]: Science History Publications, USA, 1991).
106 James I: "Speech of 1603," in Charles H. McIlwain (ed.): The Political Works of
James I (Cambridge: Harvard University Press; London: Humphrey Milford, Oxford
University Press, 1918), p. 272; see Hale (n. 68 supra), p. 111.
107 On the history of the concept of the body politic, see Hale (n. 68 supra).
lOS Ibid.
ANALYSIS OF INTERACTIONS 87
109 For James's statement concerning the spleen, see "Speech in Star Chamber, 1616,"
Political Works, p. 343; Hale (n. 68 supra), p. 111, n. 19. See on this subject Marc
Bloch: The Royal Touch; Sacred Monarchy and Scrofula in England and France, trans.
J. E. Anderson (London: Routledge & K. Paul, 1973).
110 Cf. 1.5 supra and 1.7 and 1.8 infra.
111 See the example of Desaguliers in 10 infra. On this subject see Otto Mayr: Authority,
Liberty, & Automatic Machinery in Early Modern Europe (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins
University Press, 1986); John Herman Randall, Jr.: The Making of the Modern Mind: A
Survey of the Intellectual Background of the Present Age (Boston: Houghton Mifflin,
1968), ch. 13.
112 Quoted from Robert S. Hamilton's Present Status of the Philosophy of Society (1866)
in L. L. Bernard & Jessie Bernard: Origins of American Sociology: The Social Science
Movement in the United States (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1943), p.
711; see p. 265 for a similar quotation concerning "the true PRINCIPIA MATHEMATICA
PHILOSOPHIAE SOCIALIS." Hamilton (ibid., p. 258) believed in two sociological
principles, one an analogue of the Copernican system, the other an analogue of Newton's
law of universal gravity; he did not, however, fully understand Newtonian science and
wrote of "centripetal" and centrifugal" forces as balanced "action" and "reaction." It is
observed by the Bernards that in this respect Hamilton's law resembles the law of Carey
and the law of "cosmic" attraction of Arthur Brisbane. Although Hamilton expressed
admiration for Newton, and even held that he himself had propounded Copernican and
Newtonian principles of sociology, he also believed that social science might become more
nearly an analogue of geology than of sciences such as astronomy, physics, and
chemistry. In this regard his opinion was similar to that of RJ. Wright (Bernard & Bernard,
p. 306), who held that social science "ought to be compared not with ... Chemistry, or
Astronomy, or even Moral Philosophy, or Political Economy; but rather with ... Geology
or Metaphysics."
113 The Newtonian style is discussed at length in my Newtonian Revolution (n. 46
supra) and in my article cited in n. 114 infra.
114 For a more complete discussion of Malthus's Newtonianism, see my article in
Mirowski (n. 54 supra). See, also, Anthony Flew: Thinking about Social Thinking: the
Philosophy of the Social Sciences (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1985), ch. 4, 1.
115 Thomas Robert Malthus: An Essay on the Principle of Population as it Affects the
Future Improvement of Society (London: printed for J. Johnson, 1798). This work,
published anonymously and often known as the "first essay," is readily available in two
reprints, one of which, edited by Antony Flew (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1970),
contains also Malthus's A Summary View of the Principle of Population (London: John
Murray, 1830), which was originally published with the author's name on the title-page.
The other, without notes, but with a foreword by Kenneth E. Boulding, is entitled
Population: the First Essay (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1959). The
text of the second edition (1803) was so completely revised and expanded that it is
generally considered "almost a new book," sometimes referred to as the "second essay."
The text of this version (reprinted from the seventh edition, 1872, but without the
appendices) is available as An Essay on the Principle of Population, intro. T.H.
Hollingsworth (London: J. M. Dent & Sons, 1914 - Everyman's Library). On Malthus,
see Thomas Robert Malthus: An Essay on the Principle of Population - Text, Sources
88 I. BERNARD COHEN
and Background, Criticism, ed. Philip Appleman (New York/London: W. W. Norton &
Company, 1976 - Norton Critical Editions in the History of Ideas).
116 See Flew (n. 114 supra).
117 W. Stanley Jevons: The Theory of Political Economy, 2nd ed. (London: Macmillan
and Co., 1879), preface; see this preface in later editions, e.g. (New York: Augustus M.
Kelley, 1965 - reprint of the fifth edition, 1911), pp. xi-xiv. Jevons was defending himself
against the specific charge that in his book "the equations in question continually involve
infinitesimal quantities, and yet they are not treated as differential equations usually are,
that is integrated" (p. 102). On Jevons's economics, see Margaret Schabas: A World
Ruled by Number: William Stanley Jevons and the Rise of Mathematical Economics
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990).
118 Mary P. Mack: Jeremy Bentham: An Odyssey of Ideas, 1748-1792 (London:
Heinemann, 1962), p. 264.
119 This episode and its significance are discussed in I.B. Cohen: Revolution in Science
(Cambridge, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1985), suppl. 14.1.
120 See Shapin & Schaffer (n. 105 supra).
121 See Mirowski (n. 23 supra); Klamer (n. 100 supra); McCloskey (n. 100 supra).
122 Mack (n. 118 supra), pp. 275-281.
123 Explained in Sigmund Freud: "A Note upon the 'Mystic Writing Pad,''' The Standard
Edition of the Complete Psychological Works, vol. 19 (London: The Hogarth Press, 1961),
p. 228. Two decades after The Interpretation of Dreams, in Beyond the Pleasure Principle
(1920), Freud understood more clearly (as he phrased it in 1924) that "the inexplicable
phenomenon of consciousness arises in the perceptual system instead of permanent traces"
(ibid). See also ed. cit., vol. 5, p. 540, and vol. 18, p. 25; in the latter Freud noted further
that this distinction had already been made by Breuer.
124 Ibid. This pad consisted of a resin or plastic plate, covered with two sheets, one of
tissue paper and the other of celluloid, on which one could write with a pointed stylus.
Lifting the sheets erased the message, but Freud discovered that the erased message
could actually be read in the pad's "memory." This mechanical analogue served two
functions often found in the use of analogues: (1) to make his earlier hypothetical
conjecture seem reasonable enough for him to set forth his ideas in full, and (2) to make
his difficult concept of the structure of memory understandable and thus acceptable, to
the psychoanalytic community.
125 Freud: "Civilization and Its Discontents," Standard Edition (n. 123 supra), vol. 21,
p. 144. See Donald M. Kaplan: "The Psychoanalysis of Art: Some Ends, Some Means,"
Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 1988, 36: 259-302, esp. 259-
260.
126 Brian Vickers: "Analogy versus Identity: The Rejection of Occult Symbolism,
1580-1680," pp. 95-163 of Brian Vickers (ed.): Occult and Scientific Mentalities in the
Renaissance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984).
127 Translated by Vickers from Kepler's Ad Vitellionem Paralipomena (Gesammelte
Werke, vol. 1), p. 90.
128 Letter to Michael Maestlin, 5 March 1605, quoted in Alexandre Koyre: The
Astronomical Revolution: Copernicus - Kepler - Borelli, trans. R. E. W. Maddison (Paris:
Hermann; Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1973), p. 252 (from Kepler's Gesammelte
Werke, vol. 15, pp. 171-172).
ANALYSIS OF INTERACTIONS 89
129 These "Rules" appeared in all three editions as part of the introduction of Book Three,
"On the System of the World," but they were called "Rules" only in the second (1713)
and third (1726) editions.
130 Laplace's System of the World, vol. 2, p. 316, as in Jevons (n. 138 infra), p. 638.
131 Charles Darwin: The Origin of Species (London: John Murray, 1859; reprint,
Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1964), ch. 3, p. 63. This is a case of analogy
rather than of generalization because it extends a property observed in one group of entities
(humans) to other groups of different entities (plants and animals), whereas a general-
ization extends a property of some members of a given class to other (or, even, to all)
members of that class, as in the generalization that all men are mortal.
Darwin drew on the argument from analogy in other parts of the Origin. The concept
of natural selection was introduced in analogy with man's process of "artificial" selec-
tion in breeding pigeons, horses, dogs, and various ornamental and useful plants. A classic
use of analogy, as opposed to generalization, occurs in the final chapter of the Origin,
in Darwin's presentation of the theory of "common descent." He first concluded that all
animals had "descended from at most only four or five progenitors, and plants from an
equal or lesser number." This led him to remark, "Analogy would lead me one step further,
namely, to the belief that all animals and plants have descended from one prototype."
He was aware, as he wrote, that "analogy may be a deceitful guide." Yet he found the
evidence for common descent to be very persuasive, noting that "all living things have
much in common, in their chemical composition, their germinal vesicles, their cellular
structure, and their laws of growth and reproduction." This evidence justified his
inference "from analogy that probably all the organic beings that have ever lived on
this earth have descended from one primordial form, into which life was first breathed."
132 See Nagel (n. 136 infra), pp. 107-110.
133 James Clerk Maxwell: "On Faraday's Lines of Force", in W. D. Niven (ed.): The
Scientific Papers of James Clerk Maxwell (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1890;
reprint, New York: Dover Publications, 1965), vol. 1, p. 156.
134 This was the occasion for Maxwell to make what may be considered the classic
statement about the use of what he called "physical analogies" in science. According to
Maxwell, "physical analogies" provide a means "to obtain physical ideas without adopting
a physical theory." Ernest Nagel (n. 136 infra, p. 109) has explained that Maxwell meant
that he could obtain physical ideas without invoking a "theory formulated in terms of some
particular model of physical processes." In other words, by "physical analogies" he implied
no more than "that partial similarity between the laws of one science and those of another
which makes each of them illustrate the other."
m On this point, see especially articles and books by Mirowski.
136 Ernest Nagel: The Structure of Science: Problems in the Logic of Scientific
Explanation (New York/Burlingame: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1961), pp. 107-117.
137 See Maxwell (n. 133 supra). See also J. Robert Oppenheimer, "Analogy in Science,"
The American Psychologist 1956, 11: 127-135, an address to psychologists in which
the physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer stated boldly and unequivocally that "analogy is
indeed an indispensable and inevitable tool for scientific progress" (p. 129). He at once
narrowed the sense of his assertion, trying to make clear what he meant. "I do not mean
metaphor," he added, "I do not mean allegory; I do not even mean similarity." Rather,
he intended "a special kind of similarity which is the similarity of structure, the simi-
90 I. BERNARD COHEN
larity of form, a similarity of constellation between two sets of structures, two sets of
particulars, that are manifestly very different but have structural parallels."
138 W. Stanley Jevons: The Principles of Science: A Treatise on Logic and Scientific
Method (2nd and final edition, reprint, New York: Dover Publications, 1958), p. 631.
139 Ibid.
140 Ibid., p. 632.
141 Jevons (1965; n. 117 supra), p. 102. It was even suggested by Jevons (n. 138 supra,
p. 633), on the authority of Lacroix, that "the discovery of the Differential Calculus was
mainly due to geometrical analogy, because mathematicians, in attempting to treat alge-
braically the tangent of a curve, were obliged to entertain the notion of infinitely small
quantities." See Schabas (n. 117 supra), pp. 84-88, "Mechanical Analogies."
142 Jevons (1965; n. 117 supra), p. 105.
143 Leon Walras: "Economique et m~canique", Bulletin de Societe Vaudoise des Sciences
Naturelles, 1909, 45: 313-325; Mirowski & Cook (n. 48 supra), pp. 189-224.
Francis Ysidro Edgeworth proposed the same kind of analogy between his "mathe-
matical psychics" (as he called his brand of economics) and mathematical physics,
declaring that "every psychical phenomenon is the concomitant, and in some sense the
other side of a physical phenomenon." He had no doubt that "'M6canique Sociale' may
one day take her place along with 'M~canique C6leste,' throned each upon the double-
sided height of one maximum principle, the supreme pinnacle of moral as of physical
science." See F. Y. Edgeworth's Mathematical Psychics: An Essay on the Application
of Mathematics to the Moral Sciences (London: C. Kegan & Co., 1881), esp. pp. 9, 12.
144 See Claude M~nard (n. 97 supra).
145 Vilfredo Pareto: "On the Economic Phenomenon: A Reply to Benedetto Croce,"
translated from Italian by F. Priuli in Alan Peacock, Ralph Turvey, & Elizabeth Henderson
(eds.): International Economic Papers, vol. 3 (London: Macmillan and Company, 1953),
p. 185. For a discussion of Pareto's point of view see Mirowski (n. 23 supra), pp. 221-222;
also Bruna Ingrao: "Physics and Pareto's Economics," to be published in Mirowski (n.
54 supra).
146 Vilfredo Pareto: Sociological Writings, ed. S. E. Finer, trans. Derick Mirfin (Oxford:
Basil Blackwell, 1966), pp. 103-105, selected from Pareto's Cours d'economic poli-
tique (Lausanne, 1898), vol. 2, 580, 588-590.
147 Ibid. See also Bruna Ingrao: "L'analogia meccanica nel pensiero di Pareto," in G.
Busino (ed.), Pareto oggi (Bologna: II Mulino, 1991); and her chapter cited in n. 145
supra.
148 J.E. Cairnes: The Character and Logical Method of Political Economy (New York:
Harper & Bros., 1875) p. 69. See Mirowski (n. 23 supra), p. 198.
149 Leonard Huxley (ed.): Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley, vol. 1 (London:
Macmillan, 1900), p. 218.
ISO See Mirowski (n. 23 supra), pp. 218-219, 287; William Stanley Jevons: The Principles
of Economics (London: Macmillan and Co., 1905), p. 50; Jevons: The Theory of Political
Economy (1965; n. 117 supra), pp. 61-69; Jevons: The Principles of Science (n. 138 supra),
pp. 325-328; Jevons: Papers and Correspondence of William Stanley Jevons, vol. 7,
ed. R.D. Collison Black (London: Macmillan, in association with the Royal Economic
Society, 1981), p. 80.
151 L~on Walras: Elements of Pure Economics, trans. William Jaff~ (Homewood [Ill.):
ANALYSIS OF INTERACTIONS 91
Richard D. Irwin; London: George Allen & Unwin; reprint, Philadelphia: Orion Editions,
1984), Preface to the fourth edition, pp. 47-48; also p. 71.
152 M~nard (n. 97 supra).
153 Albert Jolink: "'Procrustean Beds and All That': The Irrelevance of Walras for a
Mirowski-Thesis," to appear in 1993 in a special issue of History of Political Economy,
edited by Neil de Marchi, containing papers presented at a symposium (held at Duke
University in April 1991) on Mirowski's More Heat than Light.
154 Pareto (n. 146 supra), Sociological Writings, p. 104; Cours, vol. 2, 592; see the
article by Bruna Ingrao, cited in n. 145 supra.
155 Mirowski (n. 23 supra), pp. 222-231. Extracts from this manuscript, preserved in
the Sterling Library, Yale University, are quoted by Mirowski (pp. 228-229,409 n. 5).
156 See, e.g., Hal Varian's review of Mirowski's More Heat than Light in the Journal
of Economic Literature, 1991, 29: 595-596.
157 This was part of an article on "Distribution and Exchange" in the Economic Journal
for March 1898 and reprinted in A. C. Pigou (ed.): Memorials of Alfred Marshall (London:
Macmillan and Co., 1925), pp. 312-318.
158 Marshall was repeating here the sentiments he had expressed in his inaugural lecture
as professor of economics at Cambridge University, printed in Pigou (n. 157 supra; see
1.8 infra).
159 I have chosen these three organismic sociologists - one Russian, one Austrian, and
one French - because their writings exemplify the main issues in the interactions of the
natural and the social sciences. There are many others whose writings show the same
features, notably the Germany biologist Oscar Hertwig and the Italian sociologist Corrado
GinL
160 On organismic sociology see F. W. Coker: "Organismic Theories of the State:
Nineteenth Century Interpretations of the State as Organism or as Person," Studies in
History, Economics and Public Law (New York: Columbia University, 1910), vol. 38,
no. 2, whole number 101; Ludovic Gumplowicz: Geschichte der Staatstheorien (Innsbruck:
Universitlits-Verlag Wagner, 1926); Sorokin (n. 55 supra), ch. 4, "Biological Interpretation
of Social Phenomena"; Werner Stark (n. 74 supra), part 1, "Society as an Organism";
Judith Schlanger: Les metaphores de l'organisme (Paris: Librairie Philosophique J. Vrin,
1971).
Some further major secondary sources on the subject of organismic sociology are:
Arnold Ith: Die menschliche Gesellschaft als sozialer Organismus: Die Grundlinien der
Gesellschaftslehre Albert Schiiffles (Zurich/Leipzig: Verlag von Speidel & Wurzel, 1927);
Niklas Luhmann: Die Wirtschaft der Gesellschaft (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1988); N.
Luhmann: Die Wissenschaft der Gesellschaft (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1990); D. C. Phillips:
"Organicism in the Late 19th and Early 20th Centuries," Journal of the History of Ideas,
1970, 31: 413-432; E. Scheerer: "Organismus," pp. 1330-1358 of J. Ritter (ed.):
Historisches Worterbuch der Philosophie (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Verlagsgesell-
schaft, 1971).
Still valuable as sources of information are certain older works, notably Ezra Thayer
Towne: Die Auffassung der Gesellschaft als Organismus, ihre Entwicklung und ihre
Modifikationen (Halle: Hofbuchdruckerei von C. A. Kammerer & Co., 1903); Erich
Kaufmann: Uber den Begriff des Organismus in der Staatslehre des 19. Jahrhunderts
(Heidelberg: C. Winter, 1908).
92 I. BERNARD COHEN
None of these works, however, pays any attention to the specific relation of these
nineteenth-century organismic social scientists to the currents of discovery in the life
sciences in their own time.
161 Alfred Marshall: The Present Position of Economics: An Inaugural Lecture Given
in the Senate State House at Cambridge, 24 February, 1885 (London: Macmillan and
Co., 1885), pp. 12-14; this lecture is reprinted in Pigou (n. 157 supra), pp. 152-174.
162 As most people are aware (because of the interest which Sigmund Freud and Josef
Breuer had in this subject), hysteria was a major focus of psychiatric attention in the
nineteenth century. An example of hysteria has been introduced in IA.
163 As explained in the Preface to this volume, there is no attempt to discuss all aspects
of biological science that have interacted with the natural sciences. I have not dealt with
the subject of Darwinian evolution because this interaction is far too complex to be con-
sidered in a summary fashion and because it is already the subject of a vast literature
that is a continuing part of the current Darwin "industry." Some major aspects of this
subject, with special reference to America, are developed in an important way in Robert
Richards's Darwin and the Emergence of Evolutionary Theories of Mind and Behavior
(n. 81 supra), a work that can be especially commended for its methodological approach.
Among recent contributions to this general area are Carl N. Degler: In Search of Human
Nature: The Decline and Revival of Darwinism in American Social Thought (New
York/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), and Dorothy Ross: The Origins of American
Social Thought (Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991). Also worthy
of mention is Cynthia Eagle Russett: Darwin in America: The Intellectual Response,
1865-1912 (San Francisco: W. H. Freeman, 1976).
164 Auguste Comte: The Foundations of Sociology, ed. Kenneth Thompson (New York:
John Wiley & Sons, 1975), p. 142. The text is taken from the English translation of Auguste
Comte's System of Positive Polity, 4 vols (London: Longmans Green, 1877), translated
by a group of scholars from Systeme de politique positive (Paris, 1848-1854), vol. 2,
pp. 367-382.
Comte believed that Broussais's principle of continuity was especially important in
considering the "opposite" mental states of "reason and madness." If the mind surrendered
itself to the sense impressions of the external world "with no due effort of the mind within,"
the result would be "pure idiocy." Madness, in all its intermediate degrees results from
the relative failure of the "apparatus of meditation" to "correct the suggestions made by
the apparatus of observation." This phenomenon could, he asserted, be studied better in
Cervantes's Don Quixote "than in any treatise of biology." It could also be traced to
"the great principle of Broussais" and could then be "applied to society" as Comte had
"now done for the first time." See Comte's Cours de philosophie positive (Paris,
1830-1842), quoted in Gertrud Lenzer (ed.): Auguste Comte and Positivism: The Essential
Writings (New YorklEvanston/San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1975), p. 191, taken from
The Positive Philosophy of Auguste Comte, trans. [and condensed by] Harriet Martineau
(London: Longmans, Green, 1853), book 5, ch. 6.
165 In Lenzer (n. 164 supra), p. 191.
166 See Edmund Beecher Wilson: The Cell in Development and Heredity (New York:
The Macmillan Company, 1896; reprint of 3rd ed., New York: The Macmillan Company,
1934), esp. pp. 1-2. Although preliminary steps can be traced to earlier scientists, it
was not until the 1840s - largely as a result of the work of J.M. Schleiden and espe-
ANALYSIS OF INTERACTIONS 93
cially Theodor Schwann - that biologists generally began to give cell theory full serious
consideration.
167 In nineteenth-century thought the principle of division of labor was usually credited
to Adam Smith, who displayed it in a dramatic fashion in the opening pages of The Wealth
of Nations, even though there were other contenders for the invention, including both
Benjamin Franklin and Sir William Petty.
168 This difference is discussed by all organicist sociologists, e.g., Spencer, Lilienfeld,
Schaffle.
169 Ren~ Worms called attention to two limitations of this analogy which had been
stressed by Herbert Spencer. The first is that, although each individual in the social
organism has consciousness, in the animal organism only the organism as a whole, and
not the individual cell, has this property. The second: in the social organism the purpose
of society, or the organism as a whole is to sustain the lives of the individuals, whereas
in the animal or plant the lives of the individual cells serve to support the life of the
organism as a whole. Despite these dissimilarities, the cell theory seemed to provide
nature's own model on the microscopic scale for the study of human societies, much as
the social behavior of ants has done in our own days.
170 As in societies, the development of the embryo produces special cells and groups
of cells with forms and structures suited to their function. This concept of "division of
labor," as we have seen (n. 61 supra), originated in social science, then was transferred
to the life science and finally migrated back to the social sciences. This transfer is the
subject of chapter 10 infra.
171 On von Baer see the article by Jane Oppenheimer in the Dictionary of Scientific
Biography, vol. 1 (New York: Charles Scribner's Son, 1970), pp. 385-389.
172 See Steven J. Gould: Ontogeny and Phylogeny (Cambridge: The Belknap Press of
Harvard University Press, 1977).
173 In this section I have not dealt particularly with Herbert Spencer, although he is
perhaps the most important of all the organicist social scientists. One reason is that,
unlike many other organic sociologists, he did not concentrate attention on bio-medical
discoveries relating to the cell theory, although he did make use of cell biology in his
writings on sociology. Some of Spencer's uses of biological science in relation to
sociology are discussed in 1.4 supra and 1.8 infra. On Spencer's use of analogies, see
ch. 8 infra. On the subject of Spencer and sociology, see Richards (n. 81 supra). Cf.
also n. 208 infra.
174 Herbert Spencer: First Principles (London: Williams and Norgate, 1862), 119.
Spencer evidently learned this law from William Carpenter; see Richards (n. 81 supra),
p. 269. Richards observes that Carpenter thought that von Baer's law (that "a heteroge-
neous structure arises out of one more homogeneous") had great generality. Carpenter
wrote that "if we watch the progress of evolution [i.e., embryonic developmentl, we
may trace a correspondence between that of the germ in its advance towards maturity,
and that exhibited by the permanent condition of the races occupying different parts of
the ascending scale of creation."
175 Herbert Spencer, "Reasons for Dissenting from the Philosophy of M. Comte," Essays:
Scientific, Political, and SpeCUlative, vol. 2 (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1896),
pp. 118-144.
176 Ibid., pp. 137-138. It should be noted also that cellular embryology reinforced another
94 I. BERNARD COHEN
the Harvard University Library contain book plates indicating that they were "bought with
the income from the bequest of James Walker ... former president of Harvard College;
'preference being given to works in the intellectual and moral sciences.' ")
183 Trans. from Gedanken, vol. I, p. v.
184 Trans. from Pathologie, p. xxii.
185 Ibid.
186 Ibid., p. 8.
187 Ibid., pp. 8-11. Lilienfeld was noted in his own time for his discussion of social
diseases that were analogues of diseases of the nervous system, particularly psycholog-
ical disorders. We have seen ( 1.4 supra) an example of his suggestion of a parallel
between medical and social disorders in the social analogue of the intellectual and moral
state of women suffering from hysteria.
188 Ibid., pp. 20-21.
189 Ibid., p. 21.
190 Ibid., p. 24.
191 Ibid., pp. 46-47.
192 Ibid., p. 307.
193 Bau und Leben des socialen Korpers: EncyclopiJdischer EntwurJ einer realen
Anatomie, Physiologie und Psychologie der mensch lichen GeseUschaft mit besonderer
Riicksicht aUf die Volkswirthschaft als socialen Stoffwechsel, 4 vols. (Tiibingen: H.
Laupp'sche Buchhandlung, 1875-1878).
Albert Eberhard Friedrich Schiiffle (1831-1903), a German sociologist and econo-
mist, was a professor at the University of Tiibingen, later moving to the University of
Vienna. He was, for a while, a member of the Austrian cabinet. He edited a journal entitled
Zeitschift flir die Gesamte Staatswissenschaft. He envisioned a "rational social state," a
kind of utopian blend of capitalism and socialism. He was known in his own times
primarily for his exposition of organismic social theory, especially his use of specific
biological analogies. See the article on him by Fritz Karl Mann in Encyclopaedia of the
Social Sciences, ed. Edwin R.A. Seligman (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1934),
vol. 13, pp. 562-563. There is no biography of Schiiffle in the more recent International
Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. See Arnold Ith (n. 160 supra) and Stark (n. 74 supra),
pp.62-72.
194 Schiiffle (n. 193 supra) vol. I, p. 286; see Stark (n. 74 supra), p. 63. The extracts
from Schiiffle are quoted from Stark's translation.
195 Schiiffle, vol. I, p. 286; Stark, pp. 63-64.
196 Preface to Lilienfeld's La pathologie sociale (n. 182 supra), p. vii; cf. Stark, p. 63.
197 Schiiffle, vol. I, p. 286; Stark, p. 64.
198 Schiiffle, vol. I, p. 33; Stark, p. 66.
199 Schiiffle, vol. I, p. 57; Stark, p. 67.
200 Schiiffle, vol. I, p. 324; Stark, p. 67.
201 Schiiffle, vol. I, p. 335; Stark, p. 67.
202 Schiiffle, vol. I, pp. 327, 329; Stark, p. 68.
203 Schiiffle, vol. I, p. 94; Stark, p. 68.
204 Rene Worms (1869-1926), a French sociologist, was educated at the Ecole Normale
Superieure. In 1893 he founded both the Paris-based Institut International de Sociologie
and the Revue lnternationale de Sociologie. He also founded and edited a series of fifty
96 I. BERNARD COHEN
books on sociological subjects by authors from many countries. He was known in his
lifetime particularly for his views concerning the interrelations among "the three
disciplines of psychology, social psychology, and sociology." See the biography and critical
analysis by Terry N. Clark in International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, ed. David
L. Sills, vol. 16, pp. 579-581 (New York: The Macmillan Company & The Free Press,
1968).
An account of the life and career of Rene Worms may be found in an article by V.D.
Sewny in the Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences, vol. 15 (New York: The Macmillan
Company, 1934), pp. 498-499. See also Stark (n. 74 supra).
205 Worms (n. 87 supra), p. 43.
206 Rene Worms: Philosophie des sciences sociales (Paris: V. Giard & E. Bri~re, 1903),
vol. 1, p. 53.
207 Ibid., chs. 2, 3.
208 See, especially, Derek Freeman, "The Evolutionary Theories of Charles Darwin
and Herbert Spencer," Current Anthropology, 1974,15: 211-237. Cf. also n. 173 supra.
209 Nature, 1982,296: 686-687.
210 l.W. Burrow: Evolution and Society: A Study in Victorian Social Theory (Cambridge:
The University Of Cambridge Press, 1970), p. 182.
211 Peel (n. 81 supra), p., 174, including a quotation from Spencer's Social Statics.
212 The organic metaphors predominate in many essays (notably "The Social Organism"
[1860]) and in his books, especially Social Statics (1850), The Study of Sociology (1873),
and The Principles of Sociology (1876). See Peel (n. 81 supra), ch. 7, esp. p. 174.
213 Quoted in Peel (n. 81 supra), p. 179.
214 Ibid., p. 178.
215 I have not felt the need to make a parade here of the mismatched homologies that
appear in the writings of Lilienfeld, Schaff1e, Worms, and Spencer (see 1.4 supra),
because my aim has been to examine the historical use of analogies rather than merely
to call attention to their extravances (as has been done in 1.4 supra).
216 Michel Foucault: Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings,
1972-1977, ed. Colin Gordon (Brighton: Harvester Press, 1980), p. 151.
217 See Small and Vincent (n. 18 supra).
218 Bryan S. Turner: The Body and Society: Explorations in Social Theory (Oxford: Basil
Blackwell, 1984), pp. 49-50; Louis Wirth: "Clinical Sociology," American Journal of
Sociology, 1931, 37: 49-66.
219 L.1. Henderson: "Physician and Patient as a Social System," New England Journal
of Medicine, 1935, 51: 819-823; "The Practice of Medicine as Applied Sociology,"
Transactions of the Association of American Physicians, 1936, 51: 8-15. These and
other papers of Henderson on similar subjects have been edited with an important
introductory statement by Bernard Barber: L.J. Henderson on the Social System: Selected
Writings (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970).
See, on this subject, Talcott Parsons: The Social System (Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press, 1951)
and "The Sick Role and the Role of the Physician Reconsidered," Milbank Memorial Fund
Quarterly, 1975, 53: 257-278.
220 Marie-lean-Antoine-Nicolas Caritat, Marquis de Concorcet: Esquisse d'un tableau
historique des progres de l'esprit humain (Paris: Agasse, 1795); also Baker (n. 29 supra),
pp. 348-349, 368-369.
ANALYSIS OF INTERACTIONS 97
221 In later editions Malthus, attempting to lessen the gloomy prospect he had set forth,
introduced the power of "moral restraint" as a factor in population control. See n. 115
supra.
222 David Hume: "Of the Populousness of Ancient Nations," vol. 1 of his Essays,
Moral, Political, and Literary (Edinburgh: R. Fleming and A. Alison for A. Kincaid, 1742),
p. 376. See Catherine Gallagher: "The Body versus the Social Body," pp. 83-106 of
Catherine Gallagher & Thomas Laqueur (eds.): The Making of the Modern Body: Sexuality
and Society in the Nineteenth Century (BerkeleylLos Angeles: University of California
Press, 1987).
223 Carey (n. 43 supra); see 1.4 supra.
224 See Sorokin (n. 55 supra) and Stark (n. 74 supra).
225 The Spirit of the Laws, trans. Thomas Nugent (revised ed., London: George Bell
and Sons, 1878; reprint, New York: Hafner Press, 1949), bk. 3, 7, "The Principle of
Monarchy."
226 On this score see Henry Guerlac: "Three Eighteenth-Century Social Philosophers:
Scientific Influences on their Thought," Daedalus, 1958, 87: 6-24; reprinted in Henry
Guerlac: Essays and Papers in the History of Modern Science (Baltimore: The Johns
Hopkins University Press, 1977), pp. 451-464.
227 Adam Smith: An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1976 - The Glasgow Edition of the Works and Correspondence
of Adam Smith, II), bk. 1, ch. 7, p. 15 (15). The "Cannan edition" - Adam Smith: An
Inquiry into the Causes of the Wealth of Nations, ed. Edwin Cannan (London: Methuen
& Co., 1904; reprint, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1976; reprint New
York: Modem Library, 1985) - is easier to read and has the advantage of useful postils.
A postil (1976 ed., p. 65; 1985 ed., p. 59) repeats the message: "Natural price is the central
price to which actual prices gravitate."
228 Adam Smith: Essays on Philosophical Subjects, ed. W.P.D. Wightman & J.C. Bryce
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980 - The Glasgow Edition of the Works and
Correspondence of Adam Smith), vol. 3, pp. 33-105, "The History of Astronomy."
229 M~nard (n. 97 supra; 1988).
230 For details see my Introduction to Newton's 'Principia'" (Cambridge: Harvard
University Press; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971), ch. 2, l. Newton
referred to the inertial property of bodies as both a "vis inertiae" or "force of inertia"
and "inertia." For him this was an "internal" rather than an "external" force and so could
not - of and by itself - alter a body's state of rest or of motion.
231 On Darwin and Lyell see Mayr (n. 40 supra); the details of Darwin's transforma-
tion are discussed, along with other examples, in my Newtonian Revolution: With
Illustrations of the Transformation of Scientific Ideas (New York/Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1980). This topic is explored also in my forthcoming Scientific Ideas
(New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1994).
232 Mirowski (n. 23 supra, pp. 241-254) has documented the way in which Joseph
Bertrand and Hermann Laurent faulted Walras for his mathematical physics, as Laurent
and Vito Volterra later faulted Pareto.
233 Journal of Economic Literature, 1991, 29: 595-596.
234 But even a severe critic like Hal R. Varian does admit that Mirowski's "thorough
search of the writings of Walras, Jevons, Fisher, Pareto, and other neoclassicals ... has
98 I. BERNARD COHEN
established, to almost anyone's satisfaction that they recognized that 'utility' had some
features in common with the then-current notions of 'energy'."
235 A. Lawrence Lowell: "An Example from the Evidence of History," in Harvard
Tercentenary Conference of Arts and Sciences (1936): Factors Determining Human
Behavior (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1937), pp. 119-132.
236 Of course, one reason why an analogy may be inappropriate is that it is based on
mismatched homology. Another reason might be that the analogy did not advance the
subject to the same degree as a rival one.
237 Henry Guerlac once described it as one of the worst in the English language. Jean
T. Desaguliers: The Newtonian System of the World, the Best Model of Government
(Westminster: A. Campbell, 1728).
238 John Craig: Theologiae Christianae Principia Mathematica (London: impensis
Tomothei Child, 1699). A translation of some major extracts by Anne Whitman is
published (without the translator's name) as "Craig's Rules of Historical Evidence,"
History and Theory: Studies in the Philosophy of History, Beiheft 4 (The Hague: Mouton,
1964). Craig once suggested to Newton a minor modification of the Principia; see I. B.
Cohen: "Isaac Newton, the Calculus of Variations, and the Design of Ships," pp. 169-187
of Robert S. Cohen, J.J. Stachel, & M.M. Wartofsky (eds.): For Dirk Struik: Scientific,
Historical, and Political Essays in Honor of Dirk J. Struik (DordrechtIBoston: D. Reidel
Publishing Company, 1974 - Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol. 15).
239 For two centuries and more, Craig's book and its Newton-like laws have usually been
presented as an example of the kind of aberration to which Newtonian science may lead.
His whole book can, in fact, be considered an extended example of inappropriate analogy.
Yet a recent study by Stephen Stigler ("John Craig and the Probability of History: From
the Death of Christ to the Birth of Laplace," Journal of the American Statistical
Association, 1986, 81: 879-887) has shown that Craig made a serious contribution to
applied probability, "that his formula for the probability of testimony was tantamount to
a logistic model for the posterior odds."
240 I have not attempted to rewrite the history of this subject, displayed in many mono-
graphs, beginning with Richard Hofstadter: Social Darwinism in American Thought
(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1944; rev. ed., Boston: Beacon Press,
1955). Some more recent works are Degler (n. 163 supra) and Robert C. Bannister:
Social Darwinism: Science and Myth in Anglo-American Social Thought (Philadelphia:
Temple University Press, 1979); Howard L. Kaye: The Social Meaning of Modern Biology:
From Social Darwinism to Social Biology (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984);
Peter J. Bower: The Eclipse of Darwinism: Anti-Darwinian Evolution Theories in the
Decades around 1900 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983).
241 Michael Ruse: "Social Darwinism: Two Roots," Albion, 1980, 12: 23-36.
242 Spencer: "The Study of Sociology," No. XVI, "Conclusion," Contemporary Review,
1873, 22: 663-677, esp. p. 676.
243 Stephen Jay Gould: "Shoemaker and Morning Star: A Visit to the Great Reminder
reveals some Painful Truths carved in Stone," Natural History, December 1990, pp. 14-20,
esp. p. 20.
244 Gould's analogy rests on an imperfect homology. Lamarckian evolution in biology
implies not only that each individual may modify his or her inheritance but that such
modifications are transmitted to one's offspring. Consider a catastrophe in which all
ANALYSIS OF INTERACTIONS 99
material culture and all humans over the age of three would be destroyed. In a Lamarckian
social world homologous with a Lamarckian biological world, the surviving individuals
would have inherited the technological knowledge and skills acquired by centuries of
evolutionary development. In the world of nature and of man, however, this would not
be the case, as Gould is aware.
245 Additionally Gould alleges that the Lamarckian mode "of cultural transmission" is
responsible for "all the ills of our current environment crisis" as well as "the joys of
our confidently growing children."
246 This example was brought to my attention by Neil Niman at a symposium on Natural
Images in Economics. He, however, treats this episode in a wholly different way from
mine. See his paper in Mirowski (n. 54 supra).
247 Armen A. Alchian: "Uncertainty, Evolution and Economic Theory," Journal of
Political Economy, 1950, 57: 211-221.
248 Edith Tilton Penrose: "Biological Analogies in the Theory of the Firm," The American
Economic Review, 1952,42: 804-819, esp. p. 805.
249 Ibid., p. 807.
250 Ibid., p. 812.
251 Armen A. Alchian: "Biological Analogies in the Firm: Comment," The American
Economic Review, 1953,43: 600-603.
252 Edith T. Penrose: "Rejoinder," ibid., pp. 603-609. Penrose quotes from AIchian's
original article to the effect that the "suggested approach embodies the principles of
biological evolution and natural selection."
253 William F. Ogburn: Social Change with Respect to Culture and Original Nature,
2d ed. (New York: Viking Press, 1950), Supplement.
254 M~nard (n. 97 supra; 1988), p. 91.
255 Equality of Educational Opportunity, 2 vols. (Washington, D.C.: Office of Education
- U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare - U.S. Government Printing Office,
1966).
256 Quoted in Frederick Mosteller & Daniel P. Moynihan (eds.): On Equality of
Educational Opportunities: Papers Deriving from the Harvard University Faculty Seminar
on the Coleman Report (New York: Random House, 1972), pp. 4-5.
257 See the editors' discussion of crude and refined statistics (ibid., pp. 12-14) and
also ch. 11 by Christopher S. Jencks on "The Quality of the Data Collected by The Equality
of Educational Opportunity Survey." The second volume of the Coleman Report consisted
of 548 pages of tables of means, standard deviations, and correlation coefficients, as a
complement to the 373 pages of the first volume.
258 In Mosteller & Moynihan (n. 256 supra), p. 33, there is a critique of the statistics
and their interpretation. Chapter Four, by James S. Coleman, is on "The Evaluation of
Equality of Educational Opportunity."
259 Mosteller & Moynihan (n. 256 supra), p. 32.
IAN HACKING
Usually when collective tendencies or passions are spoken of, we tend to regard these
expressions as mere metaphors and manners of speech with no real signification but a
sort of average among a certain number of individual states. They are not considered as
things, forces sui generis which dominate the consciousness of single individuals. None
the less this is their nature, as is brilliantly shown by the statistics of suicide. 1
101
1. B. Cohen (ed.), The Natural Sciences and the Social Sciences, 101-133.
1994 Kluwer Academic Publishers.
102 IAN HACKING
O. SUMMARY
(d) After a few years these annual data (and their successors on a national
scale) suggested that there were strong regularities about nearly all forms
of deviance. These were (it was urged) most beautifully exemplified
by "laws" of suicide in terms of statistical facts about distributions by
age, time of year, region, method, sex. There arose the notion that there
are statistical laws of human and social nature. Hitherto only birth and
death had been deemed lawlike.
(e) The fetishism for counting deviants was associated with the French
problem of the nineteenth century, the supposedly declining birth rate,
attributed to moral degeneracy. Durkheim's first essay on suicide merely
continued this old tradition. It asserted a correlation between fecundity
and suicide: the lower the first, the higher the second. 3
(f) The data were fixed upon by two classes of writers. The least likely
to be noticed, but perhaps the most important, was the class of physi-
cians engaged in the new enterprise of public hygiene and legal medicine.
It was not foreordained that suicide would be a matter for physicians.
That was an artifact of the medical imperialism of the early nineteenth
century. It is one by-product of the creation of madness as a medical
subdiscipline.
(g) The other class of writers was that of the number-fetishists,
motivated by both philanthropy and positivism. Although conceptually
less important than the doctors, these deviant-counters were in practice
essential, for in tandem with the statistical bureaucracies that they
fostered, the increasing volume of data about deviance convinced French
minds of the existence of endless laws of human, i.e., French degeneracy.
These laws were regarded as holding of a necessity akin to that
experienced in celestial mechanics.
(h) But physicians were essential because it was part of their discourse
that all disease must be fitted into a structure of causes - predisposing,
occasional, and so forth. This matters, because there was a problem: how
could there be such a thing as a statistical law? To notice the regulari-
ties is one thing, but why see them as law?
(i) The solution was provided by an unusual blend of the two most
ancient sciences, astronomy and medicine. Astronomy provided the
Gaussian law of error, significantly renamed the normal law shortly
before Durkheim wrote. The Gaussian law was the mathematical limit
of a binomial distribution. In error theory, it was understood as the
consequence of a very large number of little, stochastically indepen-
dent, causes. That made sense for observational error. It made no sense
COUNTING SUICIDES 105
Or so Durkheim said. 4 More exactly we should say that the chief con-
tributions to nineteenth-century statistical sociology were made in French.
There is an irony here, for there is another and quite different sense in
which the origins of sociology are French. Auguste Comte made up the
very word "sociology". He did so because his own preferred nomen-
clature, "social physics" or even "social mechanics", was lifted by the
great propagandist of statistics, Adolphe Quetelet. Comte was miffed,
because he thought that probability and statistics had only incidental
connections with the study of society. Hence he coined the term,
sociology. Comte, in many ways a born loser, lost again. Sociology
became, in France, statistical, a fact commemorated by our recollec-
tions of Durkheim.5
In the French context we should also emphasize that being numer-
ical does not imply being statistical. In few places except a table of
logarithms are more numerals to be found per printed characters, than
in the work of Frederic Le Play on the household budgets of the European
worker. 6 Le Play was as antagonistic to statistics as the better known
Comte and Claude Bernard. He thought we should never average, but
find the very type of the Sheffield cutler or the nomad of the Steppes,
and faithfully record just how much the family spent each year on candles
or cabbages, on sacks or shoes. Preference for statistical law does not cut
across the conventional political divisions. Both Durkheim and Le Play
thought that the world was getting worse, and longed for the good old
days.
2. SUICIDE IS FRENCH
suicide statistics. The only competitors in the home stretch, after 1870,
are Italian.
Throughout the present essay, the relevant contrast class is German.
As a simple test of what I have just said, we may go to two comple-
mentary bibliographies of suicide, both prepared by German authorities.
One is a superb example of the bureaucratic efficiency that character-
ized the Prussian statistical office. It is some eighty pages long, published
in 1871.7 It is discreetly signed "Dr. C. H.," whose opening sentence
asserts that nowhere in the kingdom has there ever before been published
a systematic survey of the statistical facts of suicide. (There is a footnote
recording that this is strictly false. Newly acquired Schleswig-Holstein
has been doing that for some time, under Danish provenance.) C. H.
begins with a forty-page history of comparative suicide statistics, noting
what has been done elsewhere. The superbly informative footnotes direct
one to much previous writing. There are two classes, one, official
statistics of various nations and provinces, and the other, made up of
speculation about and discussion of the statistics. By my count 87 percent
of the items in the latter class are written in French. There is no sign
that Dr. C. H., who prepared his work during the Franco-Prussian war,
was a Francophile. He was a cautious professional, doing his best by
his trade.
My second bibliography was published in 1927 by Hans Rost. 8 His
main literary productions from 1905 were about catholics and protestants
in Germany, but he was also influenced by Durkheim, publishing a
"Suicide as a statistical phenomenon" in 1905. Whereas I have no reason
to suppose that any other of my authors on suicide were particularly
morbid, we note that Rost begins his 3771 items of bibliography with
his personal book plate, "ex libris" a death's head. The book ends with
a similar bookplate of Max von Boehn. There are ample illustrations
throughout the book of people doing themselves in. Mass suicides,
harikari, Dante and Vergil looking at the suicides; they are all there in
charming monochrome. I confess to having quite liked "The Death of
Cleopatra by Guido Canlassi Cagnacci", a rather fleshy picture of
undressed Cleo surrounded by many more breasts, with an asp eating
her arm. Then I saw the source, a book referred to as Jena, Diederichs:
Das weibliche SchOnheitsideal in der Malerei. Most readers would prefer
to spend the night with Count Dracula rather than Dr. Rost, but he is a
superb witness to call. If we consider his items from my period,
1815-1888, they tell a tale. I have been subjective in eliminating items
108 IAN HACKING
Why were the French so concerned when they were far from the
most suicidal people of Europe? From let us say 1815 there was a curious
preoccupation with the statistics of moral deviance: crime against persons,
crime against property, conviction rates, recidivism, divorce, lunacy,
vagrancy, prostitution, suicide. These were all connected with an idea
of moral degeneracy.12 They were constantly before the national mind.
This obsession had two elements. One was the fear that a great crime
wave was going on: you could not go out in the streets without getting
mugged. Every prosperous home subscribed to weekly police gazettes,
which in tum prompted the bureaucracies, especially the Justice Ministry,
to produce more data. 13
A closely connected French concern was a declining birth rate. The
British and the Germans were exporting great waves of settlers to the
New Worlds, and yet their home populations still increased. France sent
almost no emigrants, yet its population was thought to be declining.
This was a result of "moral degeneracy", which became the focus of a
century of discussion.
Durkheim was eminently part of this web of interconnecting ideas
or prejudices. Thus the very passage that I quote at the head of this
paper contains a footnote, and refers to a long footnote on the
preceding page, which discusses crime rates and marriage rates: "In truth,
here as in the case of suicide, statistical figures express not the mean
intensity of individual dispositions but that of the collective impulse
... " Then, in the next footnote, attached to the point at which Durkheim
has said that suicide statistics show there are social forces that dominate
individual consciousness, we read, "[h]owever, such statistics are not
the only ones to do so. All the facts of moral statistics imply this
conclusion, as the preceding note suggests."
If there were data about so many deviancies, why then did Durkheim
choose suicide for his monumental study? We need not postulate some
dark and autodestructive part of Durkheim's soul, although doubtless,
like so many of us, he had one of those. The choice of suicide is, I
think, overdetermined. First, there is the outright statement of his first
suicide paper of 1888. Suicide is in some straightforward sense the
contrary of procreation. The national problem was low population,
said to be caused by degeneracy. What better measure of this kind of
degeneracy than suicide?
Second, as I shall show in the next section, the suicide rate was the
first deviancy rate to be used in comparisons of "the quality of life".
110 IAN HACKING
Other comparisons were made in due course, crime being the most
notable. Indeed in the work of Guerry to be described below, crime and
suicide were two parallel obsessions in national comparison. Yet Guerry,
as we shall see, spent his own life collecting suicide data. For crime
he went to the Justice Ministry.
Third, one would not use crime as a measure of the quality of social
life in the nation as a whole, because crime was the province of the
criminal classes and les miserables. Suicide runs across all social classes
and so is a measure of the national condition. Fourth, other vices were
measured for sure: prostitution for example. 14 But no one with a sense
of history would connect concourse with prostitutes and anomie! Madness
and various kinds of mental alienation will not do, for they may have
a purely organic origin. Finally, there is the obvious, naive, uninter-
esting (and probably false) intuition that as suicide is an individual
decision to leave humanity, it is a measure of the number who felt
"pushed over the edge:' by their alienation from society. In short, suicide
and Durkheim were made for each other.
3. ESQUIROL V. BURROWS
Within the standard Western mores we think that a high relative suicide
rate is a sign of something bad about a culture or group. It is charac-
teristic of most sloppy thinking about suicide - I here refer not to
Durkheim but to our common attitudes - that a moment's reflection would
convince us that the suicide rate is at best an indicator of something-
or-other. It is common "knowledge" that Sweden is the most suicidal part
of Western Europe. It is a fact that Eire is the least suicidal. Whatever
the charm of Dublin and Cork, many of us might as well jump to the
conclusion that a low suicide rate is what's bad.
We find it "natural" to compare suicide rates of different groups. My
story of French suicide statistics begins with just such a comparison.
Folklore of the eighteenth century had it that the English were the
maddest and the most suicidal people in Europe. 15 Madness was "the
English malady" and suicide was melancolia anglica. So much was
readily understood in terms of the gloomy English climate and the
predilection of the English for science.
In 1815 this was put in question. Dr. George Burrows had been reading
the London Bills of Mortality, and the reports of Parisian mortality in
the 1813 Journal de Medecine. He had his own journal, The London
COUNTING SUICIDES 111
was established right at the beginning, and fed the French suicide
obsession throughout the century.
Esquirol's essay was not primarily an assault on Burrows, although
Burrows did loom surprisingly large. The essay was chiefly a play for
power. Who owns suicide? The moralist, the confessor, the lawyer? No:
henceforth the suicide shall be the property of the medical man. Esquirol,
in his official position as physician at an asylum, might have been
expected to care for the bodies of the deranged. A generation earlier
that had been the role of his predecessors. But at the time of Pinel there
had been a remarkable takeover. The mad were to be treated by doctors.
No longer were they to be put away and restrained. The transition was
not peculiar to France. Burrows addressed his 1820 Inquiry into Certain
Errors relative to Insanity and their consequences, physical, moral and
civil to John, Lord Eldon, General Guardian of Lunatics. The title of
Guardian is not symbolic but descriptive of the world of the asylums
before 1800 or so. The Crown provided a Guardian for Lunatics, who
were put away. With the invention of what we would now call psychi-
atric treatment, that power was wrested from the Guardian, and became
the property of the physician. Suicide was only incidental to that
mutation, but the connection with madness and medicine matters to us
here. Esquirol was able to claim control over suicide on the ground that
all suicides were insane, hence medical property. "I believe that I have
demonstrated," wrote Esquirol, "that a man does not attempt to end his
days except in delirium, and that suicides are mad."
As we shall see in section 6 below, this was a much debated topic
for the entire period 1820-1848. Some polemics were mild: at least the
noble suicide, typified by Cato of Utica, was not insane. Some of the
arguments were, by our standards, bizarre. It is to be remembered
that around 1800 medicine had changed from a doctrine that disease is
imbalance in the whole person, to the idea that every disease has its
own peculiar organ. There followed a pair of syllogisms. Suicide is
madness. Madness is a disease. Therefore every suicide is diseased.
But each disease has its own organic seat, its organ that causes the
disease. Therefore there must be an organ associated with suicide. Even
in 1840 the question of organs was being seriously posed:
What organ? [creates suicidal tendencies] The organ that presides over the intellectual and
affective faculties .... It is necessary to locate the predisposition [to suicide] or organic
modification. It exists in those individuals who, without plausible motives, for a slight
COUNTING SUICIDES 113
or imaginary cause, experience a disgust with life and an irresistible propensity towards
suicide.20
himself outdid a phalanx of constables and clerks. "He obtained from the
police archives 85,364 individual records of suicides committed between
1836 and 1860 ... ,,23 In yet another concern, he categorized 21,322
people accused of murder and then analyzed them into 4478 groups of
individual motives, from which there emerged 97 classes of principal
motives. An eloge relates that the numerals in this analysis written
down one after the other would stretch 1160 meters. Guerry was a
fetishist of counting; his biographer becomes a meta-fetishist. Guerry
is a personal testament to the avalanche of printed numbers that occurs
1815-1848.
Guerry's work turned, after 1832, to comparative statistics of crime
and of suicide. His comparison, in the tradition of Burrows and Esquirol,
was between England and France. He was much praised, although seldom
emulated, in England. Thus his materials had a special display at the 21 st
meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in
1851 (that, it will be recalled, was the year of the Great Exhibition). When
his last book was published in 1864, it was given much praise at the
Statistical Society in London.24 This work was shown at the B.A.A.S.,
in 1865, with none other than William Farr giving a laudatory speech.
Nor was it only the statisticians who were moved to admire. It is reported
(by Diard, n. 23) that Countess Flavigny, author of L'Enfance chreti-
enne and other improving works, "never opened this work without a
feeling of respect." (Me too.) Guerry stated the point of his master-
piece thus:
What is the use of moral analysis? It is, above all, as in the physical sciences, to show
the connections between phenomena, to give knowledge of intellectual realities consid-
ered in themselves outside of any idea of practical application. In the full rigorous use
of the terms, science consists of knowledge, and not in deciding what to do.
This is positive science, distinguishing fact and value. "In stating rig-
orously the numerical facts bearing on society, moral analysis forms
the experimental basis of the philosophy of legislation."
What are the intellectual realities considered in themselves? They
are the regularities that leap to the eye from the systematic collection
of numbers of deviancy. Suicide and crime are offered as the most
favorable examples of such regularities. Guerry saw this right from the
beginning, when he could rely on only four years of records.
During these four years, the proportional number of suicides committed in each region
COUNTING SUICIDES 117
did not vary by more than 3% about the mean. In the central region of Paris and the
Seine it did not vary by more than 1%.
More fascinating than the absolute suicide rate are the regularities among
cross-classifications. It is here that we find the origins of the idea of
correlation and regression, neither of which would have been think-
able, in our ways, without that avalanche of data upon which Guerry
was to rely, and to which he was to contribute.
The systematic ratio between male and female suicides, the regular-
ities by seasons, the comparisons by region: all, supposedly, are stable.
The seasons are instructive. Before there were any numbers, there was
a faith in suicide being melancolia anglica. One explanation was that
gloom means doom: the worse the weather, the more frequent the
suicides. But when statistics became available, such notions were doubly
refuted. The English (whatever their past and unsubstantiated proclivi-
ties) were the least suicidal people of prosperous parts of Europe.
Moreover it turned out that midwinter was the least likely time for
suicide. There appeared to be an almost sinusoidal curve of suicide that
peaked in July and was at a minimum in January. This was rather constant
throughout the temperate zones of Europe.
Regularities in methods of suicide were even more striking. Burrows
had correctly noted that Parisians preferred drowning; then (for a time)
firearms were preferred, followed by carbon monoxide poisoning. This
last became more popular as more and more of the tenements began to
use charcoal braziers indoors. The English, on the other hand, shot and
hung themselves.
Guerry's regularities were no mere curiosities. As soon as his book
had appeared in 1834 the future diplomat Henry Bulwer published two
volumes of observations that gained quick success. He firmly urged
that every race has its own character - a familiar theme, but in the new
era of counting and of measurement, he could defend this on the basis
of numbers. There are statistical differences between the races. "I am
led to these reflections by a new statistical work by M. Guerry, a work
remarkable on many accounts ... 25 He thought that Guerry's tables on
the regularities of crime and suicide could "afford sufficient matter for
the most important work on history and legislation that has yet appeared."
I suppose that Henry Buckle's 1857 work on the history of civilization
in England seems to fulfill the prophecy: it, at any rate, is completely
motivated by the belief in underlying statistical regularity.26 Bulwer
118 IAN HACKING
Some fifteen years later, in 1848, Dr. E. Lisle won a Prix Mont yon for
his book On Suicide. 27 He stated what had become a commonplace:
"All the facts contained in this first part of my book tend to demon-
strate this remarkable proposition, already announced by a certain number
of writers, that moral facts obey, in their repetition, laws as positive as
those that rule the physical world." This talk of positive laws was
embedded in the philosophy of the time:
It is no longer permissible in our days to seek the truth in pure theory, in vain abstrac-
tions or gratuitous hypothesis. The rigorous observation of facts has become quite rightly,
the starting point and the foundation of our knowledge. From this enlightened positivism
is born the application of statistics to medicine and to the study of moral and political
questions.
There is double irony here. First, notice how the word "positivism" of
the anti-statistical Comte has been snatched away and made part of the
statisticians' ideology. Second, for all this talk of facts and patient
pre-theoretical observation, the regularities so admired by a Guerry, a
Bulwer or a Lisle do not exist.
I have said nothing of the regularity salesman who is best known
nowadays, the great publicist of statistics (but also Astronomer-Royal
in Brussels), Adolphe Quetelet. His remarks, to the effect that the
statistics of crime prove that there is a constant national budget of the
scaffold, are often quoted. There are several reasons for passing over
his work here. First, suicide was not a prime concern of his. Second,
his contributions to statistics and sociology have been meticulously
described long ago by Joseph Lottin (n. 6) and are discussed from an
up-to-date perspective by Porter (n. 26). Quetelet was an immensely
important public figure, founder of journals, societies and the interna-
tional statistical congresses. I do not mean to diminish him. I have wished
only to emphasize that he was not alone, but was surrounded by people
who did the detailed work that he communicated, and who breathed,
and talked, in the network of attitudes that he helped popularize.
COUNTING SUICIDES 119
6. MEDICAL CAUSES
Few lists will strike the modern eye as more curious than the following
one:
- Heredity
- Temperament
- Age
- Sex
- Education
- Reading novels
- Music
- Theatrical performances
- Climate
- Seasons
- Masturbation
- Idleness
That is a list of predisposing causes of suicide, to be found in the 1822
book mentioned earlier (n. 18), written by Esquirol's student Falret.
Medicine had long inherited a division into four kinds of causation of
disease or of death: predisposing causes, direct occasioning causes,
indirect causes, and general causes. In the case of suicide, occasioning
causes were more numerous than the above predisposing ones. They
included passion, love, remorse, domestic problems, dreams of fortune
that have been frustrated, pride and humiliation, obsession with gambling
dishonor, outrage at lost virtue, waves of passion, jealousy and conjugal
tenderness. Indirect causes included alcohol, syphyllis (and mercury,
its treatment), opium, physical pain, scurvy and pellagra. General causes
were general indeed: governments, civilization, religious belief, sects and
public morals.
Recall Esquirol's doctrine that suicide is a kind of insanity, coupled
with the pathologist's view that all disease, including madness, has an
organic ground. Esquirol dominated the Salpetriere, but had less influ-
ence at the male asylum of Paris, Bicetre. There F. Leuret pioneered
the notion that lunatics can be much helped by moral suasion. 28 The couch
looms on the horizon! In his book we are told that "Suicide is not
always an instance of madness." It is difficult for us now to recall how
live an issue this was, and that Leuret was making a strong statement.
He published in 1848. In 1845 C.-E. Bourdin had opened his tract with
the words, "Suicide is a monomania.,,29 When one attends to the "real
120 IAN HACKING
Let it be that there are great regularities in moral statistics, that is, the
statistics of deviancy. Let it appear that this stability is almost as great
as is found in the planetary motions. How is that possible? The crude
answer was that it is a consequence of "the law of large numbers." I shall
not trace this notion, and its misunderstandings, here. Suffice to say
that Bernoulli's result, published in 1713, was well known. If there is
a chance event E with probability p on an individual trial on a chance
set-up, then, if many stochastically independent trials are made, the
average number of trials with outcome E will be about p. This theorem
may be taken to explain, or at least clarify conceptually, a certain kind
of statistical stability.
S.-D. Poisson was much taken by the apparent stability in convic-
tion rates in French courts, which became available after 1826. But this
stability could not be understood in terms of Bernoulli's result, for the
chance of conviction must vary from trial to trial, depending upon the
quality of the evidence. In 1835 Poisson introduced the expression "law
of large numbers.,,3! It came to be used in two senses. First, it seemed
to denote an empirical fact about long trials, e.g., conviction rates are
constant. Secondly, it was used by a few who understood the matter to
denote a new result proven by Poisson. If the probability of E from
trial to trial varies, but is governed by some overall probability law,
and if the average probability of E is p*, then in many trials the
proportion of E will be about p*. Poisson took this to explain, or at
least to help us understand, the kind of stability found in French jury
trials.
Very few people in France understood this result. I.J. Bienayme was
among the best placed to do so. He waited until his mentor was dead,
and then announced that there simply was no new theorem. Poisson
had just made a mistake in thinking he had proved something different
from the old result of Bernoulli, or so Bienayme said. 32 Nevertheless
the expression "law of large numbers" became standard among French
statisticians, medical writers, and philosophers. It is useful to see how
it was understood. In brief, stability was thought somehow to result
from the interaction of a large number of minute independent causes,
122 IAN HACKING
which collectively would yield the regularity promised by the law of large
numbers.
At this point astronomy entered. The theory of errors was by no means
the work of one man, but among its founders c.P. Gauss is paramount.
Early in the eighteenth century it was known that a binomial distribu-
tion (the distribution of k successes in n trials) becomes in the limit
our familiar bell-shaped curve. This fact became of major importance
when Gauss used it to model errors of astronomical observation. The
idea was that each observation was caused by the true position of the
object seen, but was affected by a large number of small errors
attributable to the instruments, the observers, and the like. It was thought
that these errors did not themselves interact causally and so could be
modeled by stochastic independence. Gauss brilliantly applied his
analysis to observation data, and used it to derive most probable orbits.
Gauss's result could be understood in terms of a large number of
independent causes, collectively conspiring in a mathematically neces-
sary way to produce the Gaussian law of error. There is a detailed history
of the working out of the mathematics, even though much of it, after
Gauss, had more handwaving than proof. That does not concern us here.
We turn to another piece of handwaving.
Quetelet's great contribution to the conceptual development of
statistics lay in his remarkable assertion that the vast majority of social
and biological phenomena are distributed in the same way as the Gaussian
curve. His doctrine became fixed in English when Karl Pearson (in 1893)
chose to call the Gaussian curve the Normal law (with the implication
that other distributions may be pathological). Quetelet's rhetoric began
with the casual observation of summaries of chest diameters of Scottish
soldiers, which from time to time had been published in the Edinburgh
medical journal. Highland chests are distributed just like the Gaussian
curve of errors. It is just as if one soldier of average girth had his chest
measured by an incompetent tailor 7000 times. In the present century our
first sceptical reaction to Quetelet would be to apply some test of
goodness of fit, to discover whether in fact the published data did
reasonably fit a Normal distribution. In Quetelet's time there were no
such standard tests. That was just as well, for only by a very great stretch
of the imagination can the data from Edinburgh be said to follow the
Gaussian curve of error.
No matter: here is the beginning of an understanding of the stability
of moral statistics. But where are the little independent causes that are
COUNTING SUICIDES 123
8. STATISTICAL DETERMINISM
gists a couple of generations earlier. They had asserted that every human
propensity is located in an organ in the brain, the propensity being the
larger (in the simplistic version) according to the corresponding bump on
the skull. Since many of the propensities thus charted were virtues and
vices, moralists protested. If I have the bump of avarice or lust, then I
am not free to be ungrudging or chaste. The phrenologists replied that
a tendency or propensity inclined (as Leibniz might have put it) without
necessitating. 33
I must not be taken to be introducing an irrelevant matter here. As
is well known to historians of medicine, the phrenologists played an
important role in the switch from total-body medicine to the pathologists'
organ-directed disease. More specifically, perhaps the first book stating
the Esquirol doctrine of madness and suicide was that of EJ. Georget,
a dissertation of 3 February 1820, published later in the year. 34 That
was the year before Esquirol's articles. Georget was widely regarded
as Dr. Gall's most brilliant student - it was a tragedy for the develop-
ment of phrenology that he died so young (or so it is said in works of
the Esquirol school). When the statisticians were confronted by the free
will problem in the 1850s, their response was the same as the phrenol-
ogists, although they preferred the word "tendency" to "propensity."
At most we can say that there is a greater tendency to suicide in the
8th arrondisement as opposed to the 14th, or in France as opposed to
England and Wales. No one is compelled to suicide.
Many elements in the debate are well reported in Porter's chapter
"Statistical Law and Human Freedom" (n. 26, 151-192). In the case of
suicide it was not irrelevant to the suicide-as-monomania debate. Thus
Bourdin (n. 29), noting that "the question of suicide brings in the question
of freedom," goes on to say that there is no conflict between statistical
determinism for suicide, and the religious doctrines of liberty and respon-
sibility: for the suicide is mad and so not responsible. He distinguishes
two kinds of fatalism. One is a contrary of freedom. The other is bad
luck, the misfortune of "the blind, the idiot" - and the suicide. A man
is no more responsible for his suicide than the sightless are responsible
for their blindness.
There was more of a problem for those who held that suicide is not
a disease or a kind of madness. However, as Porter recounts, the stir about
freedom and statistical determinism had died down in France by the
late 1860s. The issue was effectively dead when Durkheim wrote. But
he was too steeped in the suicide literature to let it go. It is in just this
COUNTING SUICIDES 125
10. EMERGENTISM
The next stage was to treat seriously the idea of inherent tendencies
in groups. The myth said: all the tendencies are explicable in terms of
underlying causes. But because it was only myth, no one investigated the
question. One took for granted that there could be group tendencies. That
is, one could talk legitimately, and without hesitation, of the group,
without any reduction to atomistic behavior. Positivists of probability
became de facto holists while remaining de jure atomists. Nothing more
than a little philosophy was needed to push them to the final,
Durkheimian, step.
I do not wish to imply the absurd proposition that nineteenth-century
French intellectual life was predominantly "positivist". At most that could
be said for the long tradition of medical numerologists and the like. In
philosophy we need only think of the long domination of the school of
Victor Cousin, or of Charles Renouvier. Renouvier is called a French
neo-Kantian, a near solecism. Cousin is, I think, not integral to our
account, but Renouvier is. He wrote amply on what he called the law
of large numbers, and on statistical determinism. 40 He did much to
create the possibility of a rebirth of emergentism in France. Also, we may
add, in America, for it was Renouvier who was first publishing William
James. But if we are to single out a single text to set the stage for
Durkheim, it is that of Emile Boutroux. 41
Boutroux submitted the book for his doctoral thesis at the Sorbonne
in 1874 and it was published next year. Many years later, for an American
edition, he wrote that "The idea I set forth at that time seemed paradoxical
and very unlikely to be taken into consideration." He was in the right
place at the right time. He taught the old doctrine that there is a hier-
archy of kinds of being, each with its own laws that emerge from but
are not derived from beings of lower levels of organization. This is
familiar, and it had the benefit of being published in an era when Darwin
and Spencer were household names. Boutroux did not go beyond
psychology to sociology. He resented the way in which blind habit
becomes encrusted in human psychology, so that "Statistics makes a
legitimate invasion of the ground left abandoned by free will, and its
conclusions are perceptibly confirmed by facts when it operates over wide
areas .... " He preached the importance of the rare hero who could
break the bonds of habit and statistical regularity. Boutroux, in his
dissertation, was no advocate of sociological laws standing above
individuals, and confirmed by statistics. But his book, soon to be a
catechism of emergentism, left an open space for just that conception
COUNTING SUICIDES 129
11. ERROR
that other contributors to this and other volumes will illustrate other facts
of related stories.
I do think that Durkheim may appear a much more inevitable figure
in the light of my report. Other writers have drawn attention to the fact
that many of Durkheim's ideas are foreshadowed in Brierre de Boismont's
1856 book on suicide. 43 I have not mentioned that work at all, for on
reading it I found that virtually all its ideas had already been set in
place. I have attempted to show the very early origin of the connection
of pathology and suicide. I have traced it through the medical litera-
ture, and shown how the seemingly arcane and irrelevant classification
of causes of suicide interacts with explanations of the law of large
numbers. I have shown how such events made intelligible the idea of
statistical laws in the moral sphere. I have shown how the debate about
statistical determinism drove people to speak of tendencies that were
not located in individuals. These are the eddies and backwaters of
thought. It is they that made Durkheim possible. That is not a remark
about the man, Durkheim, but about that form of thought for which his
name is a label.
The story is instructive in another way. It has been tempting, for
admirers of Durkheim, to see him as part of a progress. His predeces-
sors were wrong about many things, but we can imagine a somewhat
systematic correction of mistakes. Such is our optimistic picture of the
growth of knowledge. I do not obtain such a picture from the events
that I have related. I have been writing about error compounded upon
error. I hesitate to say that virtually all the beliefs I have reported were
false, for most of them do not seem worthy of being counted as true-
or-false. There are indeed a few facts. The English have long been less
given to suicide than the Franco-Germans. In the temperate zones of
Europe (and America) suicide is roughly correlated with hours of
daylight, so that there are more suicides in summer than winter. There
are regional preferences in method of suicide. All the rest is the
mythology of power, information and control. It was that mythology
that brought numerical sociology into being, and it has been in the service
of that mythology ever since.
University of Toronto
COUNTING SUICIDES 131
NOTES
* The present paper is an extended version of my "Suicide au XIXe siecle", pp. 168-186
of Anne Fagot (ed.) Medecine et probabilite (Paris: Institut de recherche universitaire
d'histoire de la connaissance des id6es et des mentalit6s, 1982), and was written in 1986.
A number of themes are developed differently in my The Taming of Chance (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1990), which includes a long chapter on Durkheim, and
also a study of the idea of normalcy along lines first proposed by Canguilhem, n. 2
infra.
1 Emile Durkheim, Le Suicide: etude de sociologie (Paris: F. Alcan, 1897). J.A. Spaulding
and G. Simpson (trans.) Suicide: A Study in Sociology (Glencoe, Ill.: The Free Press, 1951),
p.306.
2 Georges Canguilhem, Le Normale et la pathologique (Paris: Presses Universitaires
de France, 1965). C.R. Fawcett (trans.), The Normal and the Pathological (Dordrecht
and Boston: D. Reidel, 1978).
3 Emile Durkheim, "Suicide et natalit6: 6tude de statistique morale", Revue philosophique
de la France et de l'etranger, 1888, 13: 446-463.
4 Emile Durkheim, "La Sociologie en France au XIXe siecle", a lecture of 1900; see
During the Enlightenment the idea progressively came to the fore that
the nature of our understanding of the natural world as well as the
structure of the social and political order (and of our knowledge of it)
were not constituted and given once and for all. Metaphysical discus-
sions of leading philosophers like Descartes, Leibniz, Spinoza on the
fundamental nature of knowledge, or reflections on the essence of
the social bond like those of Hobbes, Locke, Montesquieu, and other
political philosophers, progressively gave way to the idea that the types
of knowledge and of social arrangements are in a certain way tempo-
rary forms. A further step was taken when it appeared that these forms
can be ordered along a succession of stages constituting a progress.
Obviously, progress can only be measured against some yardstick
defining what constitutes the "natural" order, whether in the natural or
in the social world, and therefore in the "social" as well as in the "natural"
sciences. Thus thinkers like Hume and Rousseau continued to explore
the fundamental features of our knowledge of the world and of the
social order. The "relativization" and "historicization" of the world-
view of the Enlighment should not therefore be over-emphasized. For
example, when Rousseau defines society as an artificial condition leading
man to decay and corruption, he is both historical and relativist, and at
the same time a-historical and striving for an essential condition of
humanity. Still what came as a deadly blow to his contemporary once
fellow-philosophes devoted to the spreading and progress of civiliza-
tion and knowledge was Rousseau's contention that such a progres~
represents in fact a regression.
In his recent work Revolution in Science,l I. Bernard Cohen has amply
documented the fortunes of the world Revolution from the scientific to
the social and back to the scientific spheres. Prominent in the political
sphere during the Commonwealth, which was a violent upheaval (a sense
quite opposed to the original scientific one), it came to be identified
135
I. B. Cohen (ed.), The Natural Sciences and the Social Sciences, 135-152.
1994 Kluwer Academic Publishers.
136 BERNARD-PIERRE LECUYER
moral sciences (this was the wording current at the time for our social
sciences). Secondly, he thinks it possible to build a mathematical model
on which he can establish a decision-making procedure which could be
at the same time democratic, efficient, and able to reach true decisions.
Hence, the particular blend of scientism, elitism and liberalism well
analyzed by Baker. 6 Drawing mainly for the decision-making process
on the Essai sur les applications de l'analyse,1 and, for the comparison
between the moral and the physical sciences on the Tableau general de
la sciences as well as on the Discours de reception a l'Academie
Franraise9 and the Vie de Turgot,1O Baker shows convincingly the
importance of the role devoted by Condorcet to probabilities in building
a new social order at once rational, democratic and tolerable.
Laplace, unlike Condorcet, survived the revolutionary troubles and
was thus able to convey, although in his own personal way, the
convictions which he shared with his older colleague. He seems to have
made a decisive impression upon Condorcet's thinking by his very early
publication on probabilities. ll The differences between the two scientists,
apart from obvious differences in their career (the one brutally inter-
rupted, the other not only extended over time but also raised to the
level of the highest scientific and political positions), reside both in
their scope of interest and style of thought. Perhaps even more than as
a mathematician and a philosopher of probabilities, Laplace gained
his worldwide fame as a physical astronomer. Near 1773 he became
convinced that the theory of probabilities, as a new branch of analysis
could go beyond classical geometry and lead us to a more exact knowl-
edge of the laws of nature. In this sense, his interest in probabilities
may be said to derive from his "determinism" (although the word
was not in use in French during his lifetime). Ultimately, what seems
important to him is not to know whether the laws of nature are
necessary or contingent, deterministic or not, but to calculate their effects
with the highest possible precision. 12
Laplace's style of thinking is also strikingly different from that of
Condorcet according to many historians and mathematicians. Condorcet
tries to take into account in his equations all the variables and possi-
bilities involved in the problem which he attacks. This tendency results
in a convoluted style and an often unorthodox way of exposition, notation
and solution of the problems. Quite to the contrary, Laplace has a unique
gift to find almost immediately the correct formulation and notation;
he also simplifies enough the questions raised to reach an elegant and
138 BERNARD-PIERRE LECUYER
to human affairs: the latter are too complex to be amenable to the simple
hypotheses compatible with a mathematical analysis. 23
The reaction against Poisson's book may be considered as a turning
point: it is evidence of a growing lack of interest among "natural",
"social" scientists and administrators toward the use of probabilities.
On the opposite, statistics proper, based on large time series and, explic-
itly or implicitly, on the law of large numbers, met with increasing
favor. In particular, criminal statistics collected in France after 1827
inspired not only Poisson, but also Quetelet, Guerry and many others.
The idea that society was endangered by undisciplined elements, possibly
whole classes of the population, often dramatized by publicists, found
a striking confirmation in the revelation of the sheer number of crimes
and in their perceived evolution, even on ridiculously short periods of
time. Even Tocqueville commented in a dramatic tone on an increase over
two years. 24
Finally, the creation of the Statistique Generale de la France upon
Thiers' initiative in 1833 was a consecration for the collection, analysis
and publication of descriptive statistical data.25 By then, however, Baron
Fourier was dead and no one in the statistical administration could deploy
a similar competence in probabilities. The times were decidedly
favourable to statistics and adverse to probabilities.
and played throughout the period a key political role which may be
seen as counterbalancing that of Laplace. 40 At any rate Maistre's
and Bonald's influence over Comte was great and exerted itself in a
direction adverse to probabilistic thinking.
Another configuration linking the social sciences with the life sciences
in a deterministic and anti-probabilistic direction is represented by Saint-
Simon. This is all the more remarkable since in his early writings he
had referred to Newton's gravitation law as an all-encompassing and
general organizing scheme for the unification of science. In his next
publication he approvingly cites Condorcet, whose work represents to
him at that period the most advanced stage of our knowledge so far,
but invites writers to go beyond him.
The shift in the direction of the life sciences substituted for the law
of Newton as the source of the basic principle for unifying the science
of man occurs in 1813. In this work Saint-Simon, through the state-
ments expressed by his character Dr. Burdin, tries to specify the famous
"unity of the knowledge of the human being" postulated in his first
publication. It is there (1813) that he launches the expression of "social
physiology" or physiology as a "positive science" which is still to be
realized despite the (still fragmentary) contributions of Vicq d' Azyr,
Cabanis, Bichat and Condorcet. Incidentally Isambert takes argument
of the continued reference to Condorcet to contradict Gouhier's
assertions that after 1813 Saint-Simon conceives his "science of man"
"according to Cabanis".41
On page 31 of the Memoire is expressed the famous address to the
mathematical scientists which reads as follows:
Brutalists (brutiers), infinitesimalists, algebraists and arithmeticians, what right do you
have to be posted at the scientific vanguard? The human species is engaged in one of
the most severe crises it has endured since its origins: what effort are you doing to
terminate this crisis? What means do you have to reestablish order in human society?
The knowledge of man is the only one that can lead to discover the means to conciliate
the interests of the peoples, and you do not study this science . . . Quit the direction of
the scientific workshop; leave it to us to warm its heart frozen under your presidency,
and call back all its attention to works which can restore the general peace by reorganizing
society (My translation).
associated with Saint-Simon for almost ten years was naturally aware
of these developments to which he himself contributed largely in his own
capacity. Thus a special relationship was established between physiology
and sociology at its beginnings, involving a negative overtone towards
probabilistic thinking, much against the hopes expressed by Condorcet.
We have explored Quetelet's central although frequently inconsis-
tent position. It is quite unclear whether his approach to statistical
regularities is inherently probabilistic or deeply deterministic, although
he constantly refers with praise and reverence to celestial mechanics. This
reverence itself is ambiguous, since celestial mechanics implies at least
the use of probabilistic techniques, which Quetelet himself never utilized.
On the other hand, he infused these techniques with his own social
conceptions, thus paving the way for further developments in mathe-
matical statistics and statistical physics, whereas his conceptions of social
physics met almost immediately, mostly in Germany47 but also in France
and Great-Britain48 with virulent criticism from vital and social statisti-
cians.
Comte stands to an almost symmetrical opposition to Quetelet. His
positions - which were deeply influential in the social but also in the
life sciences - established a distance, even a barrier between these
sciences and probabilistic thinking. Within the social sciences themselves,
sociology (Comte's own child) was established as both a domain and a
style of thought opposed not only to probabilistic thinking proper, but
also ignorant of statistical regularities and thus cut apart from psychology
(Durkheim tended to perpetuate this scission) and demography. I shall
examine in turn 1) the contrast between Comte and Quetelet; 2) the
source of their divergence: Comte's opposition to probabilistic reasoning;
3) the biological bases of Comte's antiprobabilistic philosophy.
A parallel is often drawn between Quetelet and Comte. This all too
often perfunctory exercise has been thoroughly renewed by an essay from
professor Julien Freund 49 who seems decisive in several respects. Freund
notices at the outset that mutual appraisal and appreciation could have
been expected from writers belonging to the same generation (Quetelet
was born in 1796, Comte in 1798) having in addition a similarly strong
background in the natural sciences (mathematics and astronomy) and a
grossly similar ambition: the application of the methods current in the
natural sciences to the study of social problems. Their careers, however,
were in complete opposition, Quetelet accumulating scientific successes,
honors and gaining wide scientific recognition whereas Comte constantly
PROBABILISTIC THINKING 147
met with the hostility of the scientific establishment. More precisely, their
paths crossed each other in 1838, when Comte expressed in the 46th
Lesson of the Cours de philosophie positive his fundamental divergence
with Quetelet over the expression "physique sociale". This was used
by Quetelet as we have seen in 1835: it appears in the title of his book
published this year, apparently with great success - Comte had largely
preceded Quetelet in this respect, since he had used "physique sociale".
as early as 1822 as a substitution to Saint-Simon favored expression
"physiologie sociale". Comte considered in the Plan des travaux
scientifiques necessaires pour reorganiser La societe that his "physique
socia Ie" was called to absorb the "physiologie socia Ie" as defined by
his old master; several of his writings of 1826 and 1828 develop this idea.
What he does in 1838 is to recall in a contemptuous way his priority
over Quetelet in putting forward the ideas and expression "physique
sociale" and to distinguish very carefully between his own acceptance
of the terms and that of Quetelet which he disdainfully characterizes
as an "abuse committed by a Belgian scholar who adopted it, these last
years, as the title of a work dealing at best with statistics". Then in the
next Leron he proposes as a more convenient substitute to "physique
sociale" his later triumphant neologism "sociologie" with excuses for
introducing a neologism although he had opposed in principle such a
practice.
In this part of his development Freund seems to have made his point
that the legend of the origins of the word "sociologie" is not entirely
accurate. Comte did not coin it because "physique sociale" was
pre-empted by Quetelet. He was the inventor of "physique sociale" as
well. What he did was to recall his priority, and then to offer what seemed
to him a more convenient substitute.
The divergence between Comte and Quetelet over the meaning to
be attached to "physique sociale" is only the most salient consequence
of a wider and obvious opposition as to the place of probabilities in
scientific knowledge and in the theory of causality, itself covering a more
profound opposition in their philosophy of knowledge, whether of nature
or of society.
Early in his writings Comte departed significantly from Saint-Simon's
thought. Not only did he substitute social physics to social physiology
as one of the six fundamental sciences, but he suppressed any refer-
ence to Condorcet and sharply opposed the use of probabilities in either
the biological and medical or the political and social sciences. As early
148 BERNARD-PIERRE LECUYER
He then directs his attacks not against Quetelet, but against Condorcet
whom Saint-Simon had hailed as a precursor, and stigmatizes any
application of mathematics, and mostly of statistics, to the social sciences
as an "aberration" since "signs are habitually (mistaken for) ideas, after
the usual character of purely metaphysical speculations".
The fundamental reason why Comte was hostile to probabilities is
to be sought in the biological bases of his philosophy of knowledge.
Comte itself was so conscious of the fact that he explicitly attributed
the numerous setbacks of his scientific career to his desertion of the
then reigning mathematical school. Although professionally trained a
mathematician, he ranked himself alongside with the biological school,
fighting, as he writes, to maintain:
against the irrational ascendance of the mathematical school, the independence and the
dignity of the organic studies (my translation).5o
PROBABILISTIC THINKING 149
NOTES
and Social Problems of the Sciences in the Early Nineteenth Century (DordrechtiBoston
London: Reidel, 1981).
23 Ibid.
24 Alexis de Tocqueville: Note sur Ie systeme penitentiaire et sur la mission confiee
par M. Ie Ministre de l'lnterieur ii MM. Gustave de Beaumont et Alexis de Tocqueville
(Paris: H. Fournier, 1831).
25 Rene Le Mee: Statistique de la France. La Statistique Generale de la France de
1833 ii 1870 (Paris: Service International de Microfilm, 1975). Herve Le Bras: "La
statistique generale de la France" in Pierre Nora: Les Lieux de Memoire. T. II La nation
(Paris, Gallimard, 1986: 317-355).
26 Theodore Porter: "The Mathematics of Society: Variation and Error in Quetelet's
Statistics", British Journal for the History of Science, 18, 1985: 51-69.
27 Ibid.
28 Maurice Halbwachs: La theorie de l'homme moyen. Essai sur Quetelet et la statis-
tique morale (Paris: Alcan, 1912).
29 Bernard Bru: "Postface", in Laplace, Essai philosophique sur les probabilites (Paris:
Bourgois, 1986).
30 Susan Faye Cannon: "Humboldtian Science", Science in Culture: The Early Victorian
Period (New York: 1978).
31 Bernard-Pierre Lecuyer: "Quetelet, Adolphe 1796-1874", Encyclopedia Universalis,
Supplement (1984: 553-555).
32 Stephen M. Stigler: The History of Statistics: The Measurement of Uncertainty before
1900 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, 1986).
33 Lambert Adolphe Jacques Quetelet: "Memoire sur les lois des naissances et de la mor-
talite II Bruxelles", op. cit.
34 Lambert Adolphe Jacques Quetelet: Instructions populaires sur Ie calcul des proba-
bilites (Bruxelles: Tarbier, 1828). Published in English, translation by Weale with appended
notes by Richard Beanish as Popular Instructions on the Calculus of Probabilities (London:
1849).
35 Bernard-Pierre Lecuyer: "Quetelet, Adolphe 1796-1874", op. cit.
36 Theodore M. Porter: "The Mathematics of Society ... ", op. cit.
37 Auguste Comte: "Considerations sur Ie pouvoir spirituel" (1826), Reprint. in Ecrits
de jeunesse (ParislLa Haye: Mouton, 1970).
38 Alexandre Koyre: Etudes d'histoire de la pensee philosophique (Paris: 1946), (Paris:
Gallimard, 1971, see "Condorcet", 103-127 and "Louis de Bonald", 127-147).
39 Alexandre Koyre, Ibid. Paul Benichou: Le temps des prophetes, doctrines de ['age
romantique (Paris: Gallimard, 1977).
40 Alexandre Koyre, Etudes d'histoire ... , op. cit.
41 Fran~ois-Andre Isambert: De la charbonnerie au Saint-Simonisme, etude sur la
jeunesse de Buchez (Paris, Editions de Minuit, 1966).
42 On Vicq d' Azyr and his influence, see the seminal articles by Jean Meyer: "L'enquete
de la Societe Royale de medecine sur les epidemies, 1774-1794", in Medecine, climat
et epidemie ii la fin du XVllle siecle (ParislLa Haye: Mouton, 1972: 9-20); Jean-Pierre
Peter: "Malades et maladies II la fin du XVIIIe siecle" (ibid): Jean-Pierre Goubert:
"Malades et medecine en Bretagne", 1770-1790 (Paris, Klincksieck, 1974).
152 BERNARD-PIERRE LECUYER
43 Pierre Jean Georges Cabanis: "Coup d'oeil sur les r6volutions et sur la r6forme de
la m&lecine" (1795-1804), Claude Lehec et Jean Cazeneuve (eds), Oeuvres Philosophiques
de Cabanis (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1967, 2 vols).
44 Xavier Bichat: Recherches physiologiques sur la vie et la mort . .. (Paris: Brosson,
Gabon et Cie, an VIII, 1800).
45 Paul-Joseph Barthez: Nouveaux elements de la science de l'homme ... (Montpellier:
J. Martel afn6, 1778 - 2nd edition 1906).
46 Th60phile de Bordeu: Recherches anatomiques sur la position des glandes et sur
leur action (Paris: G.F. Quillian pere, 1751). Th60phile de Bordeu: Recherches sur
quelques points d' histoire de la medecine ... (Licge/Paris: 1764).
47 Theodore M. Porter: "Lawless Society: Social Science and the Reinterpretation of
Statistics in Germany, 1850-1880", in Lorraine Daston, Michaiil Heidelberger & Lorenz
Kruger (eds): The Probabilistic Revolution. Volume I: Ideas in History (Cambridge,
MAILondon: the MIT Press, Bradford Books, 1987: 351-377.
48 Bernard-Pierre L6cuyer: "Probability in Vital and Social Statistics: Quetelet, Farr
and the Bertillons", Lorraine J. Daston, Michaiil Heidelberger & Lorenz Kiiger (eds):
The Probabilistic Revolution, Vol. I: Ideas in History (Cambridge, MAlLondon: The
MIT Press, Bradford books, 1987, 317-337).
49 Julien Freund: "Quetelet et Auguste Comte", op. cit.
50 Auguste Comte: Cours de philosophie positive, (Paris: Bachelier, 1830-1842, 6
vols).
51 Auguste Comte: "Plan des travaux scientifiques n6cessaires pour rwrganiser la soci6t6"
in Systeme de politique positive: ou Traite de sociologie instituant la religion de l'humanire
(Paris: Mathias, 1851-1854, 4 vols, vol. IV: 47-136).
I. BERNARD COHEN
Ever since the great revolution which produced modem science there has
been a hope that a science of society would be created on a par with
the sciences of nature. Two early heroes of the Scientific Revolution,
Galileo and Harvey, created radical transformations of science -
respectively, a physics of motion and a physiology based on the
circulation of the blood - which became paradigms for a new social
science. 1 Scientific precepts of Bacon and of Descartes were available
as guides in this new venture. A primary challenge was to accommo-
date a new social science to mathematics: either to use classical
mathematics for a non-traditional purpose or to introduce a kind of
mathematics other than geometry on the Greek pattern. Would-be social
scientists could thus find novel ways of dealing with their subject that
would transfer to their endeavors the authority of mathematics and the
new natural sciences.
In the pre-Newtonian part of the "century of genius" - in the decades
that encompass the careers of Galileo, Kepler, Harvey, Bacon, and
Descartes - there were a number of earnests of the desired new science
of society. Later on in the seventeenth century and during the suc-
ceeding century of the "Enlightenment," Newton's spectacular
achievement in the Principia aroused hopes for a similar science2 of
man and of society, a "human science" of individual behavior and a
"social science" of the behavior of large groups. From that day onward,
social scientists have been waiting patiently (and sometimes even
impatiently) for their "Newton.,,3 The history of the social sciences
plainly shows that neither the rational mechanics of Newton's Principia
nor the Newtonian system of the world has ever served successfully as
a direct model for engendering a similarly constructed social science. 4
And so, in considering the impact of the natural sciences on the social
sciences in the seventeenth century, we shall focus our attention
exclusively on the pre-Newtonian decades, taking note of attempts to
develop a "science" of government or of the state. We shall examine
153
I. B. Cohen (ed.), The Natural Sciences and the Social Sciences, 153-203.
1994 Kluwer Academic Publishers.
154 I. BERNARD COHEN
Early in his career Descartes had a dream which revealed to him the
"foundations of the Admirable Science," the way in which he could
use the infallible method of mathematics to solve problems of science
and philosophy. He envisaged a "universal mathematical science" and
even hoped to produce a geometric ethics, a project that he believed might
be simpler than constructing a mathematical medicine or physiology.'2
Descartes's human science also drew on his personal experience in
making and observing dissections of animals. Furthermore, he devoted
a considerable portion of part five of his Discourse on Method to a
presentation of Harvey's discovery of the circulation of the blood and
praised Harvey for his use of observation and experiment.
Harvey's discovery of the circulation of the blood was in keeping with
the mathematical spirit of the age, at least to the degree that his great
discovery was based on mathematics as well as on a broad range
of empirical investigations. Mathematics in the form of quantitative
reasoning gave Harvey an early insight into the need for a new physi-
ology and provided a powerful argument for his ideas about the
circulation. Harvey's path to discovery, like his presentation in the De
Motu Cordis of 1628, was solidly based on anatomical investigations
(including a great variety of direct observation and experiment), notably
in uncovering the function of the valves in the veins and the structure
and action of the heart. But readers of De Motu Cordis could not help
but be impressed by his calculations, which proved that Galen's physi-
ology is inadequate. Harvey found that "the juice of the food that had
been eaten" simply would not suffice for the liver to supply "the
abundance of the blood that was passed through" the heart. And so,
Harvey wrote, "I began to bethink myself" whether the blood "might
not have a kind of movement, as it were in a circle." And this, he
declared, "I afterwards found to be true."13
Harvey's conception of the circulation of the blood was a tremen-
dous advance in human science. He showed that the heart with its valves
acts in the manner of a water pump, forcing the blood to flow in a
SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION 157
continuous circuit through the animal or human body. This was a direct
affront to the prevailing doctrine of Galen, which had dominated medical
and biological thought ever since it had been propounded fifteen
centuries earlier. Galen had given prominence to the liver as the organ
which continually manufactures blood to be sent out through the body
and used up as the different parts perform their life functions. But Harvey
shifted the physiological primacy of organs from the liver to the heart,
whose function, he said, was to a large degree mechanical, forcing
blood out through the arteries and drawing blood in from the veins.
Harvey differed from Descartes and Galileo in conceiving that his
important scientific discovery could have a direct paradigmatic value
in the domain of social affairs. In introducing his great work De Motu
Cordis, Harvey used his new science of the body to transform the old
notion of the body politic. This dramatic example of the use of the new
science in a socio-political context occurs at the very beginning of the
book, in the long and flowery dedication to the reigning king, Charles
I. The following passage expresses Harvey's view unambiguously:
The heart of creatures is the foundation of life, the prince of all, the sun of their
microcosm, on which all vitality depends, from whence all vigor and strength arises.
Likewise the King, foundation of his kingdoms and sun of his microcosm, is the heart
of the commonwealth, from whence all power arises, all mercy proceeds.
Harvey had no question but that "almost all things human are according
to the pattern of man" and "most things in a King are according to that
of the heart." Hence "knowledge of his own heart" must be profitable
"to a King, as being a divine exemplar of his functions," in accordance
with the customary comparison of "great things with small." Since
Charles was "placed at the pinnacle of human things" he would be able
to "contemplate at one and the same time" both the "principle of man's
body" and "the image" of his own "kingly power.,,14
When Harvey wrote of the king's acquisition of knowledge of the heart
and its functions, he must have had in mind that Charles had indeed
become aware, through Harvey, of this aspect of physiology. Harvey
knew Charles personally as a royal physician, and it was through
Charles's direct intervention that deer from the royal herd were made
available to him for his studies of animal generation. Harvey not only
personally instructed the king about the heart and the circulation, as
well as about his discoveries in embryology, but he recorded in his De
Generatione Animalium how he had shown Charles a "punctum saliens"
158 I. BERNARD COHEN
position in that it does not appear as the first discernible part in the
development of the embryo, but in De Motu Cordis the heart acquires
a primacy because of its fundamental role in pumping the blood through
the animal body. In Exercitationes Anatomicae de Generatione Animalium
(1651) Harvey made the distinction clear:
And so being made more sure by those things which I have observed in the egg and in
the dissection of living animals, I maintain, contrary to Aristotle, that the blood is the
first genital particle, and that the heart is its instrument designed for its circulation. For
the function of the heart is the driving on of the blood. . .. 20
Even when Harvey compared the role of the monarchy to the function
of the heart he was not interpreting the heart's primacy in the
traditional Aristotelian sense.
Lest it be thought that Harvey introduced the body politic only in
the dedication of De Motu Cordis and not in the context of his
scientific presentation, let me hasten to add that this theme appears
again in the text itself, in the concluding chapter seventeen, in which
Harvey proves "the hypothesis of the movement and circulation of the
blood" by reference to the observable phenomena of the heart and the
evidence of "anatomical dissection." The heart is the first organ of the
body to appear in a complete form in the developing embryo, Harvey
wrote, and it "contains within itself blood, life, sensation and motion
before either the brain or the liver was made" or "could perform any
function"; to this degree the heart is "like some internal animal." The
heart, furthermore, Harvey then declared, is "like the Prince in the
Commonwealth in whose person lies the first and supreme power." The
heart "governs all things everywhere, and from it as from its origin and
foundation in the living creature all power derives and on it does
depend.',zJ
Harvey's transformation of the traditional organismic analogy of the
state (the "body politic") in the context of his own discoveries sanctioned
further explorations of political systems based on the new human
physiology. Thus the inaugurator of modern physiology introduced his
founding treatise with a bold declaration that true science is related to
the functioning of the state. I know of no similar statement by any other
founder of the new science. Such a sentiment would perhaps come more
naturally to Harvey than to a Galileo or a Kepler because the fabric of
the human body shows the same kind of complex organization and varied
interaction of parts that is found in organized humanity.
160 I. BERNARD COHEN
made his main point in a poetic vein: "I will be happy if in any way I
can serve as midwife to your offspring as they come forth into the light
of immortality.,,23
Grotius's admiration for a Galilean mathematical physics may be
detected in his treatise of 1625, De Jure Belli ac Pacis, or Law of War
and Peace, the work on which his fame was built. In the Prolegomena
he declared that in writing his treatise he had not considered "any
controversies of our own times, either those that have arisen or those
which can be foreseen as likely to arise," and he insisted that in this
regard he had followed the procedure of mathematicians ("mathematici").
"Just as mathematicians treat their figures as abstracted from bodies,"
he wrote, "so in treating law I have withdrawn my mind from every
particular fact." Grotius evidently believed that his science of interna-
tionallaw was as sound and secure as any system of mathematics because
he had adopted the same high level of abstraction and accordingly had
divorced himself from actual events. He held that his "proofs of things
touching the law of nature" were based on "certain fundamental
conceptions which are beyond question, "so that no one can deny them
without doing violence to himself.,,24
Already in De Jure Praedae Commentarius, composed in 1604-1606
although not published in full until 1868, there occurs a statement about
"mathematicians" which, despite a slight difference in signification and
application, is nevertheless very close to the statement made about "math-
ematicians" in the famous work published in 1625. In the first chapter
of the earlier text, begun when Grotius was only about twenty-one years
of age and formulated as a legal brief addressing a particular contem-
poraneous crisis, the youthful but learned jurist explained his method:
Just as the mathematicians customarily prefix to any concrete demonstration a preliminary
statement of certain broad axioms [communes quasdam . .. notiones) on which all persons
are easily agreed, in order that there may be some fixed point from which to trace the
proof of what follows, so shall we point out certain rules [regulas) and laws [leges) of
the most general nature, presenting them as preliminary assumptions which need to be
recalled rather than learned for the first time, with the purpose of laying a foundation upon
which our other conclusions may safely rest.
Subsequently, various propositions (conclusiones and corolla ria) are derived from the
definitions and precepts (chapters III-X). In chapter XI there follows an historical account
of the case, which is judged in the light of the conclusiones and corolla ria (chapters
XII and XIII ... ).
Thus Grotius is to a certain extent using a method which may be char-
acterized as mathematical or geometrical even if it cannot be regarded
as physico-mathematical or arithmetical or quantitative. 25
Similarly, when Grotius wrote in De Jure Belli ac Pacis that he
conceived the science of the law of nations in a mathematical mode,
he did not intend that law should be given a quantitative base. Rather
he meant, as he said, that he would follow a rational procedure: "In
my work as a whole I have, above all else, aimed at three things: to make
the reasons for my conclusions as evident as possible; to set forth in a
definite order the matters which needed to be treated; and to distin-
guish clearly between things which seemed to be the same and were not."
In addition, the Polish scholar Waldemar Voise has pointed out that in
analyzing the concept of justice Grotius adduced "geometrical and
arithmetic proportion" and held that for mathematicians "comparative
or geometrical" justice "has the name of proportion.,,26 Furthermore, con-
ceiving of nature as unalterable, Grotius assumed that neither man nor
God could interfere with the necessity of nature's laws. Drawing an
example from mathematics, he declared that God himself could not make
two times two be anything but four and that God could not alter what
had to be in the domain of natural right and natural law. This is
akin to a conclusion which Grotius himself recognized as verging on
blasphemy, that natural right could exist even if there were no Supreme
Being. 27 Grotius thus "freed the concept of natural law from its
heteronymous, divine origin" and reduced it to "an element of human
nature that can be known by the exercise of reason, in a manner like
that which characterizes the rules of mathematics.,,28 It may be at least
partly because Grotius conceived his system in a mathematical mode and
therefore referred to abstractions rather than to real contemporaneous
or historical events that he has been criticized as unrealistic by those who
have not appreciated the reason for this framework. 29
The mathematical context of Grotius's work on international law
does not receive much attention from today's authorities. Mathematics
is not even mentioned in the article on Grotius in the current International
Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences (1968) or its predecessor, the
Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences 1935). In at least one English
SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION 163
the other feelings that agitate the mind, not as vices of human nature, but as properties
which belong to it in the same way as heat, cold, storm, thunder and the like belong to
the nature of the atmosphere. 35
By the time the Specimen was published the choice had already been
made, and the throne was not given to the candidate for whom Leibniz
had argued. Thus the Specimen is of interest primarily as a pioneering
document in the mathematization of political science.
SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION 165
The Method I take to do this, is not yet very usual; for instead of using only compara-
tive and superlative Words, and intellectual Arguments, I have taken the course (as a
Specimen of the Political Arithmetick I have long aimed at) to express my self in Terms
of Number, Weight, or Measure; to use only Arguments of Sense, and to consider only
such Causes, as have visible Foundations in Nature; leaving those that depend upon the
mutable Minds, Opinions, Appetites, and Passions of particular Men, to the Consideration
of others. . . .48
Like Graunt before him, Petty insists on the primacy of numbers and
hence arithmetic and its generalization into algebra. 49 This is the new
mathematics, not the traditional geometry of academics which goes
back to ancient Greece. Further, the topics with which he is concerned
(wealth and trade, shipping, taxes, and the cost of maintaining an army)
are dealt with in terms of numerical data. In earlier essays in political
arithmetic he studied specific questions of housing, hospitals, and
populations. For example, finding that the population of London doubles
every forty years and the population of "all England" every 360 years,
he concluded that the "Growth of London must stop of its self, before
the Year 1800" and that "The World will be fully Peopled within the next
Two Thousand Years.,,50
Much as we may admire Petty's boldness in setting forth a program
for a polity based on social and economic statistics, we must admit that
his effort ended in failure. Among the reasons for his lack of success,
the primary one was the insufficiency of accurate numerical data. He was,
as he admitted, forced to guess the area of a city. He used the reported
number of houses and of burials to estimate the population of London,
mUltiplying the number of burials by thirty and the number of houses
by six or sometimes by eight, fully aware that in the absence of a proper
census he could produce only approximations. Whenever possible he tried
to check his estimates by comparisons with other sources - for instance,
asserting that his population estimates "do pretty well agree" with such
independent data as the poll-tax returns and the bishops' count of
communicants51 - but he usually did not give the actual numbers and
in at least one case, as his modern editor observes, "the agreement
between Petty's estimate and the bishops' survey is not strikingly close.,,52
That he himself was aware of the deficiencies of his numerical results
may be seen in a letter to John Aubrey. "I hope," he wrote, "that no
man takes what I say about the living and dyeing of men for a
mathematical demonstration. ,,53
It must also be noted that Petty often used "rash calculations" and
SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION 169
even gave "widely varying estimates for the same things." He was also
"frequently inaccurate in his use of authorities" and "careless in his
calculations"; on "at least one occasion he is open to suspicion of
sophisticating his figures.,,54 Petty was severely handicapped by not
having the technique of graphs and diagrams for the representation of
data. The mathematics he would have needed, probability theory, was
just then coming into being. Furthermore, he did not really make any
fundamental use of algebraic techniques despite his statements to that
effect. While, therefore, we may justly laud Petty's vision and the ideal
he set forth, we must also admit that the works he produced did not attain
the high standard he proclaimed.
An appreciation of Petty's concern for numbers and mathematics must
take account of the fact that he was living in an age when the expanding
economy of England and the problems of military statecraft were bringing
numerical considerations to the fore. As a result of the research of John
Brewer and Keith Thomas, we now have a better understanding of the
pressure for numerical information by different departments of state in
England in Petty's day. These "constituencies" were, as Brewer has
shown, "ministers of the crown," who needed information on "all of
the various resources of the different departments in order to exercise
firm control over government policy"; the Parliament, "both as a policy-
maker and as the body dedicated to securing a responsible executive,"
which needed government statistics; various "occupational groups and
special interests directly affected by state policies," which were "eager
to learn the grounds on which such decisions were made"; and even
the general public, which had developed "a substantial appetite for the
sorts of information that only the very considerable resources of the state
could provide.,,55
Petty was trained as a physician and recognized the singular impor-
tance of anatomy for medicine. He firmly believed that grounding the
new science of polity or statecraft on the mathematical analysis of
numerical data was an analogue of basing the study of anatomy on
dissection, a practise he had learned while a medical student. His most
explicit statement of his politico-anatomical method occurs in a post-
humously published work on The Political Anatomy of Ireland (London,
1691). In the "Author's Preface," Petty asserts that since anatomy is
the only sure foundation for knowledge of the "body natural," it follows
that an analogous procedure should be used for the "body politick." To
"practice" on the body politic without "knowing the Symmetry, Fabrick,
170 I. BERNARD COHEN
Hobbes firmly believed that if "the moral philosophers had ... discharged
their duty" as "happily" as "the geometricians have very admirable
performed their part," then "I know not what could have been added
by human industry to the completion of that happiness, which is
consistent with human life.'077 For,
were the nature of human actions as distinctly known, as the nature of quantity in geo-
metrical fIgures, the strength of avarice and ambition, which is sustained by the erroneous
opinions of the VUlgar, as touching the nature of right and wrong, would presently faint
and languish; and mankind should enjoy such an immortal peace, that . . . there would
hardly be left any pretence for war. 78
Such was the utopian goal of a social or moral science built by the
methods of geometry and natural science.
Hobbes's intellectual debt to Galileo and Harvey, and to Descartes,
174 1. BERNARD COHEN
is apparent in his writings and has been the subject of many commen-
tators. 79 His stress on motion and its laws shows that the philosophy of
motion espoused by Galileo and by Descartes had made a deep impres-
sion on his thought, even to the belief that "the principles of the politics
consist in knowledge of the motions of the mind."so
Hobbes later on drew up a comparison of the certainty of geometry
and of physics and of "civil philosophy." "Geometry," he wrote, "is
demonstrable for the lines and figures from which we reason are drawn
and described by ourselves," whereas "Civil philosophy is demonstrable
because we make the commonwealth ourselves." But, he argued, "because
of natural bodies we know not the construction, but seek it from effects,
there lies no demonstration of what the causes be we seek for, but only
of what they may be."sl The science of politics, in short, was less certain
than geometry but more certain than physics or natural philosophy.
In the opening sentences of Leviathan, Hobbes explained that the state
is "an Artificiall Animal," and like "all Automata" it has "an artificiall
life." Thus it is "by Art" that there "is created that great LEVIATHAN
called a COMMON-WEALTH, or STATE (in Latine CIVITAS) which
is but an Artificiall Man." Then he presents the structure of the state
in terms of analogy with the body; for example, corporations are the
muscles, public ministers are the organs or nerves, and the problems of
the state are the diseases. These analogies were worked up in some detail.
One disease "resembleth the Pleurisie" and yet another "infirmity" is
much like that caused by "the little Wormes, which Physicisans call
Ascarides." Another comparison of the irregularities "of a Common-
wealth" and the disease "in the Natural Body of man" focusses on a
"Distemper" very much like an "Ague," in which "the fleshy parts being
congealed, or by venomous matter obstructed; the Veins which by their
naturall course empty themselves into the Heart, are not (as they ought
to be) supplyed from the Arteries."s2 This is but one of a number of
analogies drawn by Hobbes from the Harveyan circulation of the blood
and the functioning of the commonwealth. In another, Hobbes said that
money is the blood of the commonwealth, observing that the circula-
tion of money is similar to the circulation of "natural Bloud" which
"by circulating, nourisheth by the way, every Member of the Body of
Man." There are two movements of money, Hobbes observed, one
that conveys it "to the Publique Coffers," the other "that Issueth the
same out again for publique payments." In this feature "the Artificall
Man maintains his resemblance with the Naturall; whose Veins receiving
SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION 175
the Bloud from the several Parts of the Body, carry it to the Heart";
there the blood is "made Vitali" and "the Heart by the Arteries sends it
out again, to enliven, and enable for motion all the Members of the
same.,,83
It must be kept in mind that in Hobbes's presentation, Leviathan or
the commonwealth is not supposed to be an animate natural being, but
rather "an Artificiall Man" created by the human mind and endowed
by the human artificer with functions analogous to those of a natural
person. But even though the commonwealth as "Body Politi que" is
nothing more than a "fictitious" or "artificall" body, its faculties and
properties are known through the study of natural physiology (e.g., the
work of Harvey) and its actions are known through the study of natural
motions (e.g., the work of Galileo and Descartes plus Hobbes's own
innovations). The physiology of Harvey had shown that the heart acts
in a manner like that of a mechanical pump, thereby providing Hobbes
with evidence that the processes of life might be explained mechanically,
just as had been taught by Descartes and other advocates of the "mechan-
ical philosophy." Harvey's work thus gave partial sanction to the likening
of the functions of animate beings and machines, even though he had
never intended that his research world give sanction to the thesis that
all bodily functions of animals and human beings were so mechanical
that they could be performed by well designed automata. 84
Hobbes's achievement was to some degree that he used the new
discoveries in physiology to transform the organismic concept of the body
politic by giving it a mechanical basis in conformity with Descartes's
reductionist philosophy. The political and social world of Hobbes is a
hybrid kind of organic structure operating mechanically and conceived
under the sign of Galileo, Descartes, and Harvey. His system of society
was a collection of human beings acting as "mechanical systems of matter
in motion" and, like Grotius before him, he broke away "from the
traditional reliance on a supposed will or purpose infusing the universe."
Tom Sorell suggests that we misinterpret Hobbes if we assume he was
"trying to make the scientific status of physics rub off on his civil
philosophy," since Hobbes himself suggested that "he regarded civil
philosophy as more of a science than physics."s5
176 1. BERNARD COHEN
counterpart, must base his subject on the principles of nature and not
merely on one or two examples. William Harvey, he wrote, did not
found his discovery of the circulation of the blood on "the anatomy of
this or that body" but rather on "the principles of nature."96
Harrington's appreciation of the Harveyan physiology was not limited
to generalities, but invoked detailed features of the new biological
science. He proposed specific anatomical homologies as well as general
analogies. In discussing the two chambers of his proposed legislature,
Harrington drew directly on Harvey's De Motu Cordis, arguing that
"the parliament is the heart," which acts like a suction pump, first sucking
in and then pumping out "the life blood of Oceana by a perpetual
circulation." In this passage we see Harrington's appreciation of Harvey's
radical central idea that the heart is a pump. He even followed Harvey
in using the mechanistic language of pump technology, and his concept
of a continual process of blood circulation is clearly Harveyan. The mere
notion of blood flowing in and out does not require more than a super-
ficial acquaintance with the general aspects of the Harveyan circulation.
We have seen that Hobbes used such an analogy with respect to money
flowing in and out of the national treasury. But Harrington went much
deeper into the physiology of the heart and blood. His statement in full
is that "the parliament is the heart which, consisting of two ventricles,
the one greater and replenished with a grosser store, the other less and
full of a purer, sucketh in and gusheth forth the life blood of Oceana
by a perpetual circulation.,,97 On close analysis, Harrington's analogy has
two aspects that draw the attention of the critical reader. The first is
the apparent exclusive concentration on the ventricles, to the exclusion
of the auricles; the second is the recognition that there is a physically
observable difference between the blood ejected from the left and from
the right ventricle, as well as that the ventricles are of unequal size.
The critical reader of this paragraph will note that although Harrington
fully appreciated that the ventricles suck in and pump (or gush) out blood,
he does not mention that the blood which they expel is sucked in from
their respective auricles and not directly from the veins. In this context
we should note that Harvey explained the circulation as consisting of two
partial cycles. In one, the left ventricle pumps blood out of the heart to
pass through the aorta into the main system of arteries, returning to the
heart through the venous system, and there entering the right auricle;
in the other, sometimes known as the "lesser circulation" (or pulmonary
circulation or pulmonary transit), the right ventricle pumps out blood
SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION 179
through the pulmonary artery and on into the lungs, to return through
the pulmonary vein to the left auricle. Thus the heart produces the
circulation by means of two auricles and two ventricles, not by two
ventricles alone. Hence the historian must raise the question of whether,
when Harrington wrote about a two-chambered rather than a four-
chambered heart, he was inadvertently showing that his understanding
or knowledge of the Harveyan circulation was imperfect or even
superficial. This is not an issue of mere pedantry since it has been alleged
that he did not really have a deep understanding of science, even of
Harvey's work.98
In evaluating Harrington's presentation we must keep in mind that
in Harvey's day the auricles were usually considered by physiologists
and anatomists to be extensions of the veins leading into the heart, con-
tinuations of the inferior and superior vena cava. Thus when Harrington
concentrated exclusively on the ventricles, the two chambers that expel
or pump out blood from the heart, as the principal chambers of the
heart, he simply was not concerned with the auricles, the two chambers
by which the blood enters the heart after circulating through the arteries
and veins. A similar concentration on two chambers of the heart occurs
in Descartes's Discourse on Method (1637), one of the early works to
recognize the validity of Harvey's discovery. Descartes, who had a sound
knowledge of the anatomical structure of the heart, recommended that
his readers prepare themselves for reading his discussion by witnessing
the dissection of "the heart of some large animal" and by having shown
to them "the two chambers [chambres] or ventricles [concavitez] which
are there.,,99 Harrington was writing in the style of his time when he
ignored the auricles and concentrated on the ventricles.
Harrington's invention of the analogy between the heart and the two
chambers of a legislature shows both his knowledge of Harveyan science
and his originality. Unlike Hobbes, he took cognizance of Harvey's
detailed discussion of the physical difference between the blood pumped
out by the left ventricle and that pumped out by the right ventricle.
Thus his analogy proposes that the two divisions of the legislature have
different functions, just as the blood from the two ventricles has different
qualities - "the one greater and replenished with a grosser store; the other
less and full of a purer."
Harrington's use of De Motu Cordis leaves no doubt concerning his
conviction that Harvey's discoveries and method had significant impli-
cations for the social scientist. I have found, however, that Harrington's
180 I. BERNARD COHEN
Aristotle, and later embryologists, believed that the heart was the first
organ to be formed in the development of the chick embryo and that
the blood was formed later, after the appearance of the liver. It was a
feature of the reigning Galenic physiology in Harvey's day that the blood
is manufactured by the liver and so could not exist antecedent to the liver.
But Harvey demonstrated by careful experiment that in the chick's egg
the blood begins its existence before any organ such as the heart or
liver takes form. Harvey's studies showed that in the early stages of
development of the hen's egg there appears a little reddish purple point
"which is yet so exceedingly small that in its diastole it flashes like
the smallest spark of fire, and immediately upon its systole it quite
escapes the eye and disappears." This red palpitating (or salient) point,
the "punctum saliens," was seen to divide into two parts, pulsating in
a reciprocating rhythm, so "that while one is contracted, the other appears
shining and swollen with blood" and then, when this one "is shortly
after contracted, it straightway discharges the blood that was in it" and
so on in a continual reciprocating motion. 106 It has been mentioned earlier
that Harvey proudly showed the punctum saliens to Charles I. Harvey's
conclusions have been summed up as follows. The "blood exists before
the pulse" and is "the first part of the embryo which may be said to live";
from the blood "the body of the embryo is made," that is, from it "are
formed the blood vessels and the heart, and in due time the liver and
the brain."lo7 Harrington's paragraph number one summarizes Harvey's
embryological findings concerning the "punctum saliens" and the way
in which the organs develop from it.
Next Harrington introduces a political analogy. His paragraph number
two discusses a "nation without government" or one "fallen into priva-
tion of form." It is "like an egg unhatched," Harrington wrote, "and
the punctum saliens, or first mover from the corruption of the former
to the generation of the succeeding form, is either a sole legislator or a
council."I08 In paragraph number four, Harrington considers the case of
"the punctum saliens, or first mover in generation of the form" being
"a sole legislator," whose procedure - will be "Not only according to
nature, but according to art also," beginning "with the delineation of
distinct orders of members." This "delineation of distinct organs or
members (as to the form of government)," Harrington continues in
paragraph number five, is "a division of the territory into fit precincts
once stated for all, and a formation of them to their proper offices and
functions, according to the nature or truth of the form to be introduced."I09
182 I. BERNARD COHEN
A thinker like Harrington could well have imagined that Harvey was
speaking directly to him.
SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION 183
political anatomist might hope for similar results of significance from the
application of a similar method.
In a reply to Matthew Wren, Harrington reminded his critic that
"anatomy is an art; but he that demonstrates by this art demonstrates
by nature.,,1l8 So is it "in the politics," he wrote, "which are not to be
erected upon fancy, but upon the known course of nature," just as
anatomy "is not to be contradicted by fancy but by demonstration out
of nature." It is "no otherwise in the politics," he concluded, than in
anatomy.1l9 In short, the study of politics and the study of anatomy were
alike because they both sought principles of nature by reason and
experience. But Harrington would have agreed with Harvey that one
should not be subservient to "the authority of the Ancients." For Harvey
the rule was that "the deeds of nature . . . care not for any opinion or
any antiquity," that "there is nothing more antient then nature, or of
greater authority." Harrington agreed. In the "Epistle Dedicatory," of
De Motu Cordis, Harvey explained that he did not "profess either to learn
or to teach anatomy from books or from the maxims of philosophers"
(i.e., from the "works" and "opinions of authors and anatomical writers"),
but rather "from dissections and from the fabric of Nature herself.,,120
In his second reply to his critics, as represented by Jean Riolan, he
referred to confirmation of his ideas by "experiments, observations, and
ocular testimony." Harrington, in effect, translated these precepts from
human to political anatomy.
Harrington made a deliberate choice in adopting for political science
the method of the anatomist, with reliance on direct observation and
"experience." That is, he consciously rejected the path of the physical
sciences and mathematics. He pilloried Hobbes's use of mathematics
in a political context because he particularly abhorred deductive systems
that emulated geometry, of which he found a primary example in
Hobbes's "ratiocination." Again and again he openly expressed his scorn
for what he sometimes called "geometry," sometimes "mathematics," and
sometimes "natural philosophy.,,121 He made fun of Hobbes for supposing
that one could establish a monarchy "by geometry.,,122
Harrington also disdained the physical sciences as a source of models
or analogies for politics. He believed that physical science tends to
produce abstractions rather than actualities. On this point his views
were in harmony with Harvey's. "The knowledge we have of the heavenly
bodies," Harvey wrote in the second letter to Jean Riolan, is "uncer-
tain and conjectural." No doubt he had in mind the impossibility of
186 I. BERNARD COHEN
4.6. CONCLUSION
task. Thus, the influence of the works would have been limited. Newton
faced a similar situation when he wrote his Principia. If he had recast
every argument and proof in terms of the algorithm of the calculus
which he had invented, the only readers would be those few who had
both mastered the new mathematics and were able and willing to adopt
a new rational mechanics. On the other hand, if he proceeded in a
more geometric and somewhat traditional manner, introducing algebraic
formulations of the calculus here and there, he would not frighten
away potential readers by facing them with unnecessary chevaux de
frise.
The conclusion to which we are led is that the absolute quantity or
degree of ubiquity of mathematics or of natural science in the early
treatises on the social sciences can not be taken as an index of the
degree to which the authors conceived a deep inner dependence on
mathematics or on the natural sciences. From today's retrospection what
is most significant, therefore, is not the number and extent of the dis-
cussions directly involving the natural sciences in the works on political
or social science of the seventeenth century, but rather the fact that
there are such passages at all. It must have required courage and
foresight to attempt to enlarge the domain of the natural sciences by
applying the methods of those disciplines to the complex problems of
society and of human institutions.
Harvard University
NOTES
1 Throughout this chapter, I use the term "social science" anachronistically to desig-
nate a science of any organized aspect of society. This rubric therefore includes thoughts
about society in terms of organization or improvement, intemationallaw, statecraft and
civil polity, theories of government or the state, and so on. The term "social science"
did not come into being until late in the eighteenth century and, as is well known,
"sociology" was invented by Comte in the early nineteenth century. See, further, Appendix
on Social Science at the end of this volume.
2 In using the word "science" in the discourse of the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries, we must remember that this term did not exclusively designate the area of the
natural sciences or mathematics but could be used for any organized branch of knowledge.
See 1.1 supra.
3 Some of the scientists who hoped for a second "Newton" were such diverse special-
ists as the anatomist and paleontologist Baron Georges Cuvier and the physical chemists
Otto Heinrich Warburg, Jacobus Henricus van't Hoff, and Friedrich Wilhelm Ostwald; see
190 I. BERNARD COHEN
ways to preserve life," he had "found another, much easier and surer way, which is not
to fear death." Quoted from Descartes's Philosophical Letters, trans. Anthony Kenny
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970; Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1981), p.
196. On Descartes's physiology, see his Treatise of Man, trans. Thomas Steele Hall,
with introduction and commentary (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1972).
13 William Harvey: An Anatomical Disputation concerning the Movement of the Heart
and Blood in Living Creatures, trans. Gweneth Whitteridge (OxfordiLondon: Blackwell
Scientific Publications, 1976), p. 75; see also The Anatomical Exercises of Dr. William
Harvey: De Motu Cordis, 1628; De Circulatione Sanguinis, 1649: the First English Text
of 1653, ed. Geoffrey Keynes (London: The Nonesuch Press, 1928), reprinted (without
"The Circulation of the Blood") in William Harvey: Exercitatio Anatomica de Motu Cordis
et Sanguinis in Animalibus: Being a Facsimile of the 1628 Francofurti Edition, Together
with the Keynes English Translation of 1928 (Birmingham: The Classics of Medicine
Library, 1978), p. 58; also "An Anatomical Disquisition on the Motion of the Heart and
Blood in Animals," trans. Robert Willis (n. 105 infra), p. 46; also Movement of the
Heart and Blood in Animals: An Anatomical Essay by William Harvey, trans. Kenneth
J. Franklin (Oxford: Blackwell Scientific Publications, 1957), p. 58. These are cited as
Whitteridge trans., Willis trans., and Keynes.
On the role of quantitative considerations in the genesis of Harvey's discovery of
the circulation, see 2 of the introduction to the Whitteridge translation; also Gweneth
Whitteridge: William Harvey and the Circulation of the Blood (London: Macdonald;
New York: American Elsevier, 1971 - cited as Whitteridge). Also Frederick G. Kilgour:
"William Harvey's Use of the Quantitative Method," Yale Journal of Biology and
Medicine, 1954, 26: 410-421.
14 Cf. Keynes 1928 (n. 13 supra), pp. vii-viii; Keynes 1978 (n. 13 supra), pp. v-vi;
see also Whitteridge trans. (n. 13 supra), p. 3; Willis trans. (n. 13 supra), pp. 3-4; Franklin
trans. (n. 13 supra), p. 3. The Latin text of 1628 is reprinted in facsimile as the first
half of Keynes 1978, pp. 3-4. In quoting this passage I use a combined version including
some corrections introduced from the original Latin and inclining towards the English
translation of 1653, the text which, together with the Latin, would have been available
to readers, such as James Harrington, in the seventeenth century.
15 Whitteridge trans. (n. 105 infra), p. 359; also Willis trans. (n. 105 infra), p. 485. On
the significance of the "punctum saliens" in a political context, see 4.5 infra.
16 Whitteridge (n. 13 supra), pp. 214, 235. Harvey's own description of this episode is
given in his De Generatione Animalium, Whitteridge trans. (n. 105 infra), pp. 249-251;
also Willis trans. (n. 105 infra), pp. 382-384.
17 On the body politic, see David George Hale: The Body Politic: A Political Metaphor
in Renaissance Literature (The Hague/Paris: Mouton, 1971), a valuable study even though
Hale never considers the relation of the socio-political concept of the body politic to
the reigning physiological theories of the body's functioning.
18 From "The Prologue to the Reader," in John Halle (compiler): A Very Frutefull and
Necessary Briefe Worke of Anatomie, or Dissection of the Body of Man . .. , with a
commodious order of notes, leading the chirurgien's hande from all offence and error
... compiled in three treatises (London: Thomas Marshe, 1565), published as part of A
Most Excellent and Learned Worke of Chirurgerie, called Chirurgia parva Lanfranchi
... (London: Thomas Marshe, 1565).
192 I. BERNARD COHEN
19 On Harvey's attitude towards the liver, see Whitteridge (n. 13 supra), esp. p. 142.
On the difference between the status assigned to the heart and to the blood by Harvey
in De Generatione and in De Motu Cordis, see n. 21 infra.
20 Whitteridge trans. (n. 105 infra), p. 242; see also Willis trans. (n. 105 infra) pp.
374-375.
21 Whitteridge trans. (n. 13 supra), pp. 120, 129-30. In De Motu Cordis, Harvey was
almost exclusively concerned with the function of the heart as the primary agent producing
the circulation and not with the question of whether the heart comes into being in the
embryo before the blood. In various other works, and notably in the De Generatione
Animalium, Harvey made it plain that the blood appears in the development of the
embryo before the heart or the liver or any other organ. On Harvey's views concerning
the status of the heart and of the blood, especially the difference between De Generatione
and De Motu Cordis and between Harvey's and Aristotle's positions on this topic, see
Whitteridge (n. 13 supra), pp. 215-235, and 4.5 infra.
This issue is debated in a set of three articles in Past and Present: an original pre-
sentation of "William Harvey and the Idea of Monarchy" by Christopher Hill (no. 27,
April 1964), a rebuttal by Gweneth Whitteridge (no. 30, April 1965: "William Harvey:
A Royalist and No Parliamentarian"), and a reply by Hill (no. 31, July 1965: "William
Harvey (No Parliamentarian, No Heretic) and the Idea of Monarchy." These articles
are reprinted in Charles Webster: The Intellectual Revolution of the Seventeenth
Century (London/Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1974), pp. 160-181, 182-188,
189-196.
Hill's final disclaimer undermines his statement (p. 112) that Harvey's later views have
implications which "can only be described as republican - or at best they suggest a
monarchy based on popular consent." There is no evidence that Harvey changed his
political position from staunch Royalist to supporter of the Commonwealth.
22 Jacob ter Meulen and P.J.J. Diermanse: Bibliographie des ecrits imprimis de Hugo
Grotius (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1950), no. 407; Christian Gellinek: Hugo Grotius
(Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1983), pp. 40, 128 n.78; Hamilton Vreeland: Hugo Grotius:
The Father of the Modem Science of International Law (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1917; reprint, Littleton, Colorado: Fred B. Rothman & Co., 1986), p. 29; M.G.J.
Minnaert: "Stevin, Simon," Dictionary of Scientific Biography, vol. 13 (New York: Charles
Scribner's Sons, 1976), p. 49; Ben Vermeulen: "Simon Stevin and the Geometrical Method
in De Jure Praedae," Grotiana, 1983, 4: 63-66. Dirk J. Struik: The Land of Stevin and
Huygens: A Sketch of Science and Technology in the Dutch Republic during the Golden
Century (DordrechtIBostonlLondon: D. Reidel Publishing Company, 1981), pp. 47, 53,
56.
On Grotius's life and career, see William S.M. Knight: The Life and Works of Hugo
Grotius (Reading: The Eastern Press, 1925). See also E.H. Kossmann: "Grotius, Hugo,"
International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, vol. 6 (New York: The Macmillan
Company & The Free Press, 1968); The World of Hugo Grotius (1583-1645): Proceedings
of the International Colloquium Organized by the Grotius Committee of the Royal
Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, Rotterdam, 6-9 April 1983 (Amsterdam &
Maarsen: APA-Holland University Press, 1984); Stephen Buckle: Natural Law and the
Theory of Property: Grotius to Hume (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991); Hedley Bull,
Benedict Kingsbury, and Adam Roberts (eds.): Hugo Grotius and International Relations
SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION 193
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990); Edward Dumbauld: The Life and Legal Writings of Hugo
Grotius (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1969); Charles S. Edwards: Hugo
Grotius: The Miracle of Holland: A Study in Political and Legal Thought (Chicago:
Nelson-Hall, 1981).
The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace has published a good translation
by Francis W. Kelsey of De Jure Belli ac Pacis Libri Tres (Oxford: Clarendon Press;
London: Humphrey Milford, 1925 - The Classics of International Law, no. 3, vol. 2);
in the same series (no. 3, vol. 1) is a facsimile reproduction of the Latin edition of 1646
(Washington: Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1913). See also Hugo Grotius: De
Jure Belli ac Pacis Libri Tres, ed. and trans. William Whewell, 3 vols. (Cambridge:
John W. Parker, London, 1853). In this edition, the English translation (an abridged
version) appears at the bottom of the page underneath the Latin text.
23 Galileo Galilei: Le Opere, vol. 16 (Florence: Tipografia Barbera, 1905 and later
reprints), pp. 488-489, a letter from Hugo Grotius in Paris to Galileo, written in September
1636; also in Hugo Grotius: Briejwisseling, vol. 7, ed. B.L. Meulenbroek (The Hague:
Martinus Nijhoff, 1969 - Rijks Geschiedkundige Publicatien, Grote Series, 130), pp.
398-399.
Grotius wanted to find an asylum for Galileo when the latter had been condemned
by the Inquisition. See Hugo Grotius: Briejwisseling, vol. 5, ed. B.L. Meulenbroek, (The
Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1966 - Rijks Geschiedkundige Publicatien Grote Serie 119), pp.
489-490. See also Giorgio de Santillana: The Crime of Galileo (Chicago/London: The
University of Chicago Press, 1955; Midway reprint, 1976), p. 214 n. 17.
24 Kelsey trans. (n. 22 supra), pp. 23, 29-30; also Whewell trans. (n. 22 supra), vol. I,
pp. lxv, lxxvii.
25 Hugo Grotius: De Jure Praedae Commentarius: Commentary on the Law of Prize
and Booty, vol. 1: A Translation of the Original Manuscript of 1604 by Gladys L. Williams
with the collaboration of Walter H. Zeydel (Oxford: at the Clarendon Press; London:
Geoffrey Cumberlege, 1950 - Publications of the Carnegie Endowment for International
Peace, Washington; The Classics of International Law, no. 2, vol. 1; also reprinted, New
York: Oceana Publications; London: Wiley & Sons, 1964), p. 7; Hugo Grotius: De Jure
Praedae Commentarius, vol. 2: The Collotype Reproduction of the Original Manuscript
of 1604 in the Handwriting of Grotius (Oxford: at the Clarendon Press; London: Geoffrey
Cumberlege, 1950 - Publications of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace,
Washington; The Classics of International Law, no. 2, vol. 2), f. 5r ; Ben Vermeulen (n.
22 supra), p. 63 (with specific mention of his not discussing "the non-juridical chapters
XIV and XV); cf. also Alfred Dufour: "L'influence de la m~thodologie des sciences
physiques et math~matiques sur les fondateurs de I'Ecole du Droit naturel moderne
(Grotius, Hobbes, Pufendorf)," Grotiana, 1980, 1: 33-52, esp. 40-44; Alfred Dufour:
"Grotius e Ie droit naturel du dix-septi~me si~cle," in The World of Hugo Grotius (n.
22 supra), pp. 15-41, esp. 22-23; Peter Haggenmocher: "Grotius and Gentili: A
Reassessment of Thomas E. Holland's Inaugural Lecture," in Bull (n. 22 supra), pp.
142-144, 162; C.G. Roelofsen, "Grotius and the International Politics of the Seventeenth
Century," in Bull, pp. 99,103-111. It must also be said that the mathematical aspect should
not be overemphasized; Knight (n. 22 supra), for example, thinks of the procedure in
De Jure Praede as scholastic (p. 84). The revised twelfth chapter of De Jure Praedae
was published in 1609 as Mare Liberum. The manuscript of De Jure Praedae was dis-
194 I. BERNARD COHEN
covered in 1864 and finally published in full as De Jure Praedae Commentarius, ed.
H.G. Hamaker (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1868). See Meulen and Diermause (n. 22
supra), nos. 541, 684. It should be noted that the geometrical form of De Jure Praedae
is much less striking than that of Leibniz in his Specimen (n. 36 infra). The two docu-
ments are comparable, however, because of their invocation and use of
mathematical method, their addressing of a specific contemporary crisis, and the youth
of their authors.
26 Kelsey trans. (n. 22 supra), p. 29; also Whewell trans. (n. 22 supra), vol. 1, p. Ixxvii.
Voise (n. 30 infra), p. 86.
27 Kelsey trans. (n. 22 supra), pp. 40, 13; Whewell trans. (n. 22 supra), vol. 1, pp. 12,
xliv-xlvi. See also Ernst Cassirer: The Myth of the State (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1946), p. 172; reprint (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Company [Doubleday
Anchor Books], 1955), p. 216; also, e.g., Hendrik van Eikema Hommes: "Grotius on
Natural and International Law," Netherlands International Law Review, 1983,30: 61-71,
esp.67.
28 Voise (n. 30 infra), p. 86. Cf. Jerzy Lande, Studia z filozofii prawa, ed. Kazimierz
Opalek & Jerzy Wr6blewski (Warsaw: Panstwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1959), pp.
537-543.
29 Johan Huizinga: Men and Ideas: History, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, trans.
James S. Holmes and Hans van Marie (New York: Meridian Books, 1959), pp. 332-333,
337-338; and Voise (n. 30 infra), p. 85.
30 Hugo Grotius: The Rights of War and Peace, trans. A.C. Campbell (Washing-
tonlLondon: M. Walter Dunne, 1901; reprint, Westport, Conn.: Hyperion Press, 1979).
Cassirer (n. 27 supra, p. 165), of course, was aware of Grotius's admiration for
Galileo and Grotius's reliance on the method of mathematics, but even he did not deal
in full with these topics. The only work which I have encountered which seriously
addresses this aspect of Grotius's career is Waldemar Voise: La rI!flexion presociologique
d'Erasme a Montesquieu (Wroclaw: Zaklad Narodowy Imienia Ossolinskich,
Wydawnictwo Polskiej Akademii Nauk, 1977), esp. pp. 84-87. But even Voise does
not explore fully the consequences of Grotius's choice of a mathematical model.
31 Voise (n. 30 supra), p. 88.
32 Ibid., pp. 88-89.
33 Spinoza's Ethics, published posthumously, is available in a number of different English
editions. A good, recent reference work on Spinoza's Ethics is Jonathan Bennett: A
Study of Spinoza's Ethics (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 1984). Spinoza's work on
Descartes's Principles of Philosophy was translated by Halbert Hains Britan (Chicago:
The Open Court, 1905).
34 Benedict Spinoza: The Political Works, ed. and trans. A.G. Wernham (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1958), p. 263. This volume contains a very valuable historical and critical
study plus the complete text of the Tractatus Politicus and a translation of the major
portions of the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus.
3S Idem.
36 See John Maynard Keynes: A Treatise on Probability (London: Macmillan and Co.,
1921; reprint, New York: AMS Press, 1979), p.v.; also reprinted as vol. 8 of The Collected
Writings of John Maynard Keynes (London: Macmillan for the Royal Economic Society,
1973), p. xxv. Leibniz's Specimen Demonstrationum Politicarum pro Eligendo Rege
SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION 195
John Brewer: The Sinews of Power: War, Money and the English State, 1688-1783
(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1989; paperback reprint, Cambridge: Harvard University
Press, 1990), ch. 8, ''The Politics of Information: Public Knowledge and Private Interest."
The Knopf edition is used here; there are also two British editions: London: Century
Hutchinson, 1988; LondonIBoston: Unwin Hyman, 1989. See, further, Keith Thomas:
"Numeracy in Early Modern England," Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 1987,
37: 103-132.
42 A thorough account of the Bills of Mortality may be found in Charles Henry Hull
(ed.): The Economic Writings of Sir William Petty, together with Observations upon the
Bills of Mortality more probably by Captain John Graunt, 2 vols. continuously
paginated (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1899; reprint, Fairfield [N.J.]:
Augustus M. Kelley, 1986), pp. lxxx-xci.
43 The fifth edition (London, 1676) of Graunt's Observations is reprinted in Hull's edition
of Petty, pp. 314-435. The first edition (London, 1662) has been reprinted in facsimile
(New York: Arno Press, 1975). Hull (pp. xxxiv-xxxviii) has assembled all the informa-
tion about Graunt's life and on the authorship of the Observations upon the Bills of
Mortality. Hull concludes that Graunt was "in every proper sense the author of the
Observations," but he assembles evidence that Petty had an important role in the actual
composition of the book, in addition to providing Graunt with medical and other
information.
A later analysis of this question by Major Greenwood: Medical Statistics from Graunt
to Farr (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1948; reprint, New York: Arno Press,
1977), contains (pp. 36-39) an updated discussion of whether Graunt wrote "the book
published over his name." Greenwood reviews the history of the question and lists in
chronological order some studies relating to this controversy from 1925 to 1937. He
concludes that Graunt was indeed the author but that a life-table in Graunt's Observations
may have originated with Petty, the argument being that it is "far too conjectural to
have been the work of so cautious a reasoner as Graunt."
44 The importance of climate and air for health was a major feature of medical thought
from the time of Hippocrates, whose treatise on "Airs, Waters, Places" continued to
exert a significant influence up to the end of the eighteenth century.
45 Hull (n. 42 supra) discusses "Graunt and the Science of Statistics" on pp. Ixxxv-Ixxix.
Stigler (n. 41 supra), p. 4, remarks that Graunt's Observations "contained many wise
inferences based on his data, but its primary contemporary influence was more in its
demonstration of the value of data gathering than on the development of modes of
analysis."
46 Petty's Political Arithmetick is reprinted in volume one of Hull's edition (n. 42 supra).
An important recent study of Petty is Peter H. Buck: "People Who Counted: Political
Arithmetic in the Eighteenth Century," Isis, 1982, 73: 28-45. Petty's work is also
discussed in histories of probability and statistics, e.g., Walker (n. 41 supra).
Petty is esteemed today for his writings on economics as much as for his work on
demography and political arithmetic. In economics, Petty is noted for an early state-
ment of the doctrine of "division of labor." See William Letwin: The Origins of Scientific
Economics: English Economic Thought, 1660-1776 (London: Methuen & Co., 1963;
reprint, Westport: Greenwood Press, 1963), ch. 6.
An extremely valuable resource for Petty studies, containing a wealth of information
SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION 197
drawn from otherwise unused manuscript sources, is Lindsay Gerard Sharp: Sir William
Petty and Some Aspects of Seventeenth Century Natural Philosophy (Unpublished D. Phil.
Thesis, Faculty of History, Oxford University, deposited in the Bodleian Library 2.2.77).
Scholars in many fields will regret that this important study was never published.
A useful reference source is Sir Geoffrey Keynes: A Bibliography of Sir William Petty.
F.R.S. and of Observations on the Bills of Mortality by John Graunt. F.R.S. (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1971).
47 Quoted from Lord Edmund Fitzmaurice: Life of Sir William Petty. chiefly from Private
Documents hitherto unpublished (London: John Murray, 1895), p. 158. Petty used the term
"political arithmetick" even earlier, in print, in his Discourse of Duplicate Proportion
(London, 1674), and, at an earlier date, in a letter to Lord Anglesey, 17 December 1672.
See Hull (n. 42 supra), p. 240n.
48 Political Arithmetick, preface, in Hull (n. 42 supra), p. 244.
49 In a letter to Edward Southwell, 3 November 1687, Petty described at length what
algebra is. After giving an explanation of the principles and a number of examples, he
concluded with a brief history, tracing the origins to Archimedes and Diophantus but noting
that "Vieta, DesCartes, Roberval, Harriot, Pell, Outread, van Schoten and Dr. Wallis
have done much in this last age." He then noted that algebra "came out of Arabia by
the Moores into Spaine and from thence hither, and W[illiam] pretty] hath applyed it to
other then purely mathematicall matters, viz: to policy by the name of Politicall Arithmitick,
by reducing many termes of matter to termes of number, weight, and measure, in order
to be handled Mathematically." These two remarks of Petty are excerpted from the
Petty-Southwell Correspondence in The Petty Papers: Some Unpublished Writings
of Sir William Petty, ed. by Marquis of Lansdowne, 2 vols. (London: Constable &
Company; BostonlNew York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1927), vol. 2, pp. 10-15; cf.
pp.3-4.
50 Hull (n. 42 supra), p. 460.
51 Ibid.
52 Ibid., p. lxvii, n. 6.
53 Ibid., p. lxviii.
54 Ibid.
55 Brewer (n. 41 supra), p. 223.
56 Hull (n. 42 supra), pp. 451-478, esp. p. 473.
57 Ibid., p. 501.
58 Ibid., pp. 521-544.
59 Of all the thinkers presented in this chapter, Hobbes is the one most familiar to students
of social or political thought. Furthermore, it is generally known that Hobbes based his
system on the new physics of motion, but less attention has been paid to his use of
Harveyan physiology. Hence my presentation of Hobbes's use of the natural sciences
stresses the biomedical basis of his political thought rather than his use of mathematics
and the physical sciences.
There are many good presentations of the thought of Hobbes, among them Leo Strauss:
The Political Philosophy of Hobbes: Its Birth and Its Genesis, trans. from the German
manuscript by Elsa M. Sinclair (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1936; Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 1966); Arnold A. Rogow: Thomas Hobbes: A Radical in the Service
of Reaction (LondonlNew York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1986). There is much to be
198 I. BERNARD COHEN
learned from two volumes by C.B. Macpherson: The Political Theory of Possessive
Individualism, Hobbes to Locke (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1962), and Democratic Theory:
Essays in Retrieval (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973).
Especially important in the present context is an essay by J.W.N. Watkins: "Philosophy
and Politics in Hobbes," Philosophical Quarterly, 1955, 5: 125-146; expanded into the
book Hobbes's System of Ideas: A Study in the Political Significance of Philosophical
Theories (London: Hutchinson & Co., 1965; 2d ed., 1973). Also Thomas A. Spragens:
The Politics of Motion: The World of Thomas Hobbes (London: Croon Helm, 1973);
and M.M. Goldsmith: Hobbes's Science of Politics (London/New York: Columbia
University Press, 1966).
Also David Johnston: The Rhetoric of Leviathan: Thomas Hobbes and the Politics
of Cultural Transformations (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986); Tom Sorell:
Hobbes (London/New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1986 - The Arguments of the
Philosophers); Richard Tuck: Hobbes (OxfordlNew York: Oxford University Press, 1989
- Past Masters); and Frithiof Brandt: Thomas Hobbes' Mechanical Conception of Nature
(Copenhagen: Levin & Munksgaard, 1928).
60 Hobbes's Leviathan, his major work, is available in many editions and reprints, among
them the Pelican Classics edition, ed. C.B. Macpherson (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books,
1968). The most recent edition, ed. Richard Tuck (Cambridge/New York: Cambridge
University Press, 1991) has indexes of subjects and of names and places and a concor-
dance with earlier editions.
The writings of Hobbes have been collected in two sets - Sir William Molesworth
(ed.): The English Works of Thomas Hobbes, 11 vols. (London: John Bohn, 1839-1845;
reprint, Aalen [Germany]: Scientia, 1962); Sir William Molesworth (ed.): Thomae Hobbes
Malmesburiensis Opera Philosophica Quae Latine Scrips it Omnia, 5 vols. (London:
John Bohn, 1839-1845; reprint, Aalen [Germany]: Scientia, 1961). There are also articles
on Hobbes in the Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences, vol. 4 (New York: The Macmillan
Company, 1937), and the International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, vol. 6 (U.S.A.:
The Macmillan Company & The Free Press, 1968).
61 English Works (n. 60 supra), vol. 7, pp. 470-471.
62 On Hobbes's optics, se Alan E. Shapiro: "Kinematic Optics: A Study of Wave
Theory of Light in the Seventeenth Century," Archive for History of Exact Sciences, 1973,
11: 134-266.
63 "Epistle Dedicatory," De Corpore, in English Works (n. 60 supra), vol. 1, p. viii.
64 Ibid. It should be noted that in these two referrences to his own place in history, Hobbes
refers specifically to his De Cive, not to Leviathan.
65 On the Cartesian notion of inertia, see A. Koyre: Galilean Studies (n. 5 supra), part
3, "Descartes and the Law of Inertia." See also the works by R. Dugas and W. Shea
cited in n. 11 supra.
66 English Works (n. 60 supra), vol. 6, p. 3.
67 Leviathan; ch. 4, Tuck ed. (n. 60 supra), p. 28. Hobbes learned geometry only late
in life and was never a real master of the subject.
68 On the style of the writers on mechanics of the late Middle Ages, see Marshall Clagett:
The Science of Mechanics in the Middle Ages (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press,
1959); also John E. Murdoch and Edith D. Sylla: "The Science of Motion," pp. 206-264
of David C. Lindberg (ed.): Science in the Middle Ages (ChicagolLondon: University of
Chicago Press, 1978).
SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION 199
89 Charles Francis Adams (ed.): The Works of John Adams, Second President of the
United States: With a Life of the Author, vol. 4 (Boston: Charles C. Little and James Brown,
1851 - reprint, New York: AMS Press, 1971), p. 428.
90 James Harrington: Works: The Oceana and Other Works, ed. John Toland, with an
appendix containing more of Harrington's political writings first added by Thomas Birch
in the London edition of 1737 (London: printed for T. Becket, T. Cadell, and T. Evans,
1771; reprint, Aalen [Germany]: Scientia Verlag, 1980); cited here as Toland. For a
brief listing of printings and editions of Toland's collection, see Blitzer (n. 93 infra),
pp. 338-339, and for a fuller account see J.G.A. Pocock (ed.): The Political Works of
James Harrington (Cambridge/London/New York: Cambridge University Press, 1977),
pp. xi-xiv; this edition by Pocock is cited here as Pocock and is used for quotations
from Harrington's text. Examples of the kinds of changes which Toland made in
Harrington's text are given in n. 97 infra. Of the Toland editions, I have consulted, in
addition to the reprint listed above, the original collection by John Toland: The Oceana
of lames Harrington and His Other Works (London: Printed [by J. Darby], and are to
be sold by the Booksellers of London and Westminster, 1700); The Oceana and Other
Works of lames Harrington, 3rd ed., with Thomas Birch's appendix of political tracts
by Harrington (London: Printed for A. Millar, 1747); The Oceana and Other Works of
James Harrington (the London edition of 1771 as noted above); and The Oceana of James
Harrington, Esq., and His Other Works, with the addition of Plato Redivivus (Dublin:
Printed by R. Reilly for J. Smith and W. Bruce, 1737). Adams's library contained two
printings of Toland's Harrington: The London edition (3rd ed.) of 1747 and the London
edition of 1771; see Catalogue of the John Adams Library in the Public Library of the
City of Boston, ed. Lindsay Swift (Boston: published by the Trustees, 1917).
91 Works (see n. 90 supra), p. xv.
92 Pocock (n. 90 supra), p. 164; also Toland (n. 90 supra), p. 37; also James Harrington:
Oceana, ed. S.B. Liljegren (Heidelberg: Carl Winters Universitlitsbuchhandlung, 1924
- Skrifter utgivna av Vetenskaps-societeten i Lund, no. 4; reprint, Westport, Conn.:
Hyperion Press, 1979), p. 15; also Works (n. 90 supra), p. 37. This last edition is cited
as Liljegren. I have also consulted James Harrington: The Common-Wealth of Oceana
(London: printed by J. Streater for Livewell Chapman, 1656); on this and the other "first
edition," see Pocock (n. 90 supra), pp. 6-14. The text of Oceana and A System of Politics
from Pocock's edition of all of Harrington's political works (1977; n. 90 supra), have been
reprinted, with a new introduction, as James Harrington: The Commonwealth of Oceana
and A System of Politics, ed. J.G.A. Pocock (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1992). There is also a useful edition by Charles Blitzer of The Political Writings of
James Harrington: Representative Selections (New York: The Liberal Arts Press,
1955).
93 Judith N. Shklar: "Harrington, James," International Encyclopedia of the Social
Sciences, vol. 6 (New York: The Macmillan Company & The Free Press, 1968), p. 323;
Russell Smith (n. 88 supra). Charles Blitzer's An Immortal Commonwealth: The Political
Thought of James Harrington (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1960) is the best
informed and most authoritative work on Harrington and is cited as Blitzer; a conve-
nient list of Harrington's publications is given on pp. 337-339. Also worth consulting
is Charles Blitzer's doctoral thesis: "The Political Thought of James Harrington
(1611-1677)" (Harvard University, 1952). A useful briefer presentation is given in Michael
SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION 201
Downs: James Harrington (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1977). An important critical survey
of interpretations of Harrington is given in J.G.A. Pocock: Politics, Language, and Time:
Essays on Political Thought and History (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1989),
ch. 4, "Machiavelli, Harrington, and English Political Ideologies in the Eighteenth
Century."
Harrington opposed the idea that the state should be modelled on a machine or
constructed on mathematical principles. His attack was obviously directed at Hobbes, who
appears in Oceana as an almost omnipresent target under the name "Leviathan." It has
recently been argued, however, that Harrington was, to a considerable degree, a follower
of the Helmontian philosophy, that he "appears Helmontian in his scorn for the use of
mathematics in the 'new mechanical philosophy.'" Thus when Wren attacked Harrington
for having assumed a perpetual mechanics, Harrington replied that "in the politics there
is nothing mechanic or like it" and that to suppose so "is but an idiotism of some
mathematician." See Wm. Craig Diamond: "Natural Philosophy in Harrington's Political
Thought," Journal of the History of Philosophy, 1978, 16: 387-398 esp. pp. 390, 395.
Diamond argues further (e.g., p. 397) that not only was the concept of a Helmontian spiritus
important in Harrington's philosophy of nature; "Harrington incorporated a number of
related conceptions of spiritus within his political philosophy." Exploring Harrington's
philosophy of nature from a new scholarly perspective, the author of this original and
important analysis does not mention Harrington's concept of political anatomy nor does
he explore Harrington's use of the science of William Harvey.
94 Pocock (n. 90 supra), p. 656; also James Harrington: The Art of Law-Giving: In III
Books; The Third Book: Containing a Model of Popular Government (London: Printed
by J. C. for Henry Fletcher, 1659), p. 4; also Toland (n. 90 supra), p. 403.
95 Pocock (n. 90 supra), p. 656; also The Art of Law-Giving (n. 94 supra), p. 4; also
Toland (n. 90 supra), pp. 402-403.
96 Pocock (n. 90 supra), p. 162; also Liljegren (n. 92 supra), p. 13; also Toland (n.
90 supra), p. 36. Cf. Harrington's Politicaster, in Pocock, p. 723 (and see also
Toland, p. 560), where Harrington insists that "in the politics," as in anatomy, what
counts is "demonstration out of nature"; politics must follow "the known course of
nature."
97 Pocock (n. 90 supra), p. 287; also Liljegren (n. 92 supra), p. 149; also Toland (n.
90 supra), p. 149. In his edition Toland has changed "store" to "matter," "gusheth" to
"spouts," and "life blood" to "vital blood." That Toland and not a later editor is the
author of these changes is indicated by their appearing in his edition of 1700 (n. 90 supra),
p. 161. Earlier in Oceana, Harrington compares the Council of Trade to the Vena Porta
(Pocock, p. 251; also Liljegren, p. 110; also Toland, p. 118).
98 Judith N. Shklar: "Ideology Hunting: The Case of James Harrington," The American
Political Science Review, 1959, 53: 689-691.
99 Ren~ Descartes, Discours de la methode, ed. Charles Adam and Paul Taunery, vol.
6 (Paris: Uopold Cerf, Imprimeur-Editeur, 1902; reprint, Paris: Librairie Philosophique
J. Vrin, 1965), p. 47. Descartes's discussion of Harvey appears in part 5 of the Discours
de la methode. See Ren~ Descartes: Treatise of Man, French text with trans. and comm.
by Thomas Steele Hall (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1972).
100 Walter Pagel: William Harvey's Biological Ideas: Selected Aspects and Historical
Background (Basel/New York: S. Karger, 1967), p. 233.
202 I. BERNARD COHEN
101 See LB. Cohen: "A Note on Harvey's 'Egg' as Pandora's 'Box,'" pp. 233-249 of
Mikuhis Teich & Robert Young (eds.): Changing Perspectives in the History of Science:
Essays in Honour of Joseph Needham (London: Heinemann, 1973).
102 See FJ. Cole: Early Theories of Sexual Generation (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1930).
103 Pocock (n. 90 supra), p. 839; also Toland (n. 90 supra), p. 470.
104 Ibid.
lOS William Harvey: Disputations touching the Generation of Animals, trans. Gweneth
Whitteridge (Oxford/London: Blackwell Scientific Publications, 1981), pp. 96, 99; see also
William Harvey: "Anatomical Exercises in the Generation of Animals," in The Works
of William Harvey, trans. Robert Willis (London: printed for the Sydenham Society, 1847;
reprint, New York/London: Johnson Reprint Corporation, 1965 - The Sources of Science,
no. 13; reprint, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1989 - Classics in Medicine
and Biology Series), pp. 235, 238; also William Harvey: Anatomical Exercitations
concerning the Generation of Living Creatures, trans. (London: Printed by James Young
for Octavian Pulleyn, 1653), pp. 90, 94.
106 Whitteridge trans. (n. 105 supra), pp. 96, 101; also Willis trans. (n. 105 supra), pp.
235, 241; also 1653 trans. (n. 105 supra), pp. 89, 97.
101 Whitteridge (n. 13 supra), p. 218.
108 Pocock (n. 90 supra), p. 839; also Toland (n. 90 supra), p. 470.
109 Pocock (n. 90 supra), p. 840; also Toland (n. 90 supra), p. 470.
110 The Prerogative of Popular Government: A Politicall Discourse in Two Books
(London: Printed for Tho. Brewster, 1658 [1657]), p. 20; also Works (n. 90 supra), p.
232.
111 Pocock (n. 90 supra), p. 412; also Prerogative (n. 110 supra), p. 21; also Toland
(n. 90 supra), p. 232.
112 Whitteridge trans. (n. 105 supra), pp. 8-10; also Willis trans. (n. 105 supra), pp.
152-153.
113 Whitteridge trans. (n. 105 supra), pp. 12-13; also WIllis trans. (n. 105 supra), pp.
157-158.
114 Quoted in Kenneth D. Keele: William Harvey: The Man, the Physician, and the
Scientist (LondonlEdinburgh: Nelson, 1965), p. 107.
lIS On Harvey's method see especially Walter Pagel (n. 100 supra).
116 Pagel (see n. 100 supra), pp. 24, 331 (with qualifications, e.g., on pp. 24-25,
330-331). See also Charles Singer: The Evolution of Anatomy (New York: Alfred A.
Knopf, 1925), pp. 174-175; Keele (n. 114 supra), p. 190.
m Pocock (n. 90 supra), p. 310; also Toland (n. 90 supra), p. 170.
118 Blitzer (n. 93 supra), p. 99; Pocock (n. 90 supra), p. 723; also Toland (n. 90 supra),
p.560.
119 Ibid.
120 Keynes 1928 (n. 13 supra), pp. 165-166, 145; also "A Second Disquisition to John
Riolan, Jun., in Which Many Objections to the Circulation of the Blood Are Refuted,"
trans. Robert Willis (n. 105 supra), pp. 123, 109. Whitteridge trans. (n. 13 supra), p. 7;
also Willis trans. (n. 13 supra), p. 7; also Keynes 1928, p. xiii; also Keynes 1978 (n. 13
supra), p. xi.
121 Harrington was dismayed by the fact that certain "natural philosophers" (Bishop
Wilkins, for example, in his Mathematical Magick) wrote of machines or devices that
SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION 203
could either not be constructed or that could never in practice work exactly as proposed
in theory; see the excellent presentation in Blitzer (n. 93 supra), pp. 90-95.
122 Pocock (n. 90 supra), pp. 198-199; also Liljegren (n. 92 supra), p. 50; also Toland
(n. 90 supra), p. 65. Cf. Politicaster in Pocock, p. 716; also Toland, p. 553.
123 Keynes 1928 (n. 13 supra), p. 179; also Willis trans. (n. 120 supra), p. 132. (In De
Motu Cordis Harvey did call "the heart of creatures" the "prince of all, the sun of their
microcosm" (see n. 14 supra), but that does not mean that he favored the heliocentric
system of Copernicus; cf. Whitteridge trans. (n. 13 supra), p. 76; Keynes (n. 13 supra),
p. 47; Franklin trans. (n. 13 supra), p. 59. In De Generatione Animalium, Harvey did
not compare the heart to a central sun. Rather, adopting a geocentric position (which could
be Ptolemaic or Tychonic, etc.), he called the blood "the sun of the microcosm" and
compared it further to "the superior luminaries, the sun and the moon," which "give life
to this inferior world by their continuous circular motions." See Whitteridge
translation (n. 105 supra), pp. 381-382; also Willis trans. (n. 105 supra), pp. 458-459.
124 Keynes 1928 (n. 13 supra), p. 168; also Willis trans. (n. 120 supra), p. 124.
125 A wholly new interpretation of Harrington's disdain for physics (mechanics) and
mathematics has been suggested by Williamm Craig Diamond: "Natural Philosophy in
Harrington's Political Thought," Journal of the History of Philosophy, 1978,16: 387-398.
Diamond provides convincing evidence that in this regard Harrington was, to a con-
siderable degree, a follower of the Helmontian philosophy. That is (pp. 390, 395),
Harrington may have been "Helmontian in his scorn for the use of mathematics in the
'new mechanical philosophy.'" Diamond argues further (e.g., p. 397) that not only was
the concept of a Helmontian spiritus important in Harrington's philosophy of nature;
"Harrington incorporated a number of related conceptions of spiritus within his political
philosophy." Exploring Harrington's philosophy of nature from a new scholarly per-
spective, the author of this original and important analysis does not, however, mention
Harrington's concept of political anatomy, nor does he explore Harrington's use of the
science of William Harvey in either forming a philosophy of nature or a system of
political thought.
126 Whitteridge trans. (n. 13 supra), p. 7; also Willis trans. (n. 13 supra), p. 7; Franklin
trans. (n. 13 supra), p. 7; Keynes 1928 (n. 13 supra), p. xiiil; Keynes 1978 (n. 13 supra),
p. xi. Harrington made other references to Harvey, even - as Robert Frank noted - using
"the discovery of the circulation to argue society's need for an innovator, in this case a
single legislator to lay down a plan of government"; see Robert G. Frank, Jr.: "The
Image of Harvey in Commonwealth and Restoration England," pp. 103-143 of Jerome
I. Bylebyl (ed.): William Harvey and His Age: The Professional and Social Context of
the Discovery of the Circulation (Baltimore/London: The Johns Hopkins University Press,
1979), esp. p. 120. In this context Frank quotes from Harrington's The Prerogative of
Popular Government: "Invention is a solitary thing. All the Physicians in the world put
together invented not the circulation of the bloud, nor can invent any such thing, though
in their own Art; yet this was invented by One alone, and being invented is unanimously
voted and embraced by the generality of Physicians." This treatise by Harrington is
included in Pocock (n. 90 supra).
127 Petty and Graunt are exceptions in that almost all of their writings are devoted to
topics in science or mathematics in relation to general polity.
NOEL M. SWERDLOW
I. B. Cohen (ed.), The Natural Sciences and the Social Sciences, 205-234.
1994 Kluwer Academic Publishers.
206 NOEL M. SWERDLOW
law, meaning here the common law, properly belongs in the univer-
sities. 1
The advantages that might result to the science of law itself, when a little more attended
to in these seats of knowledge, perhaps would be very considerable. The leisure and
abilities of the learned in these retirements might either suggest expedients, or execute
those dictated by wiser heads, for improving it's method, retrenching it's superfluities,
and reconciling the little contrarieties, which the practice of many centuries will
necessarily create in any human system: a task, which those, who are deeply employed
in business and the more active scenes of the profession, can hardly condescend to
engage in .... For the sciences are of a sociable disposition, and flourish best in the
neighbourhood of each other: nor is there any branch of learning, but may be helped
and improved by assistances drawn from other arts.
has ever since produced both discussion and, not without reason, dis-
satisfaction.
The facts of the case, according to the declaration of the plaintiff, are
as follows: 5
A week before Guy Fawkes Day, in the evening of 28 October 1770,
the day of the fair at Milbourne Port in Somerset, one Shepherd, an infant
(i.e. under twenty-one years of age), threw from the street into the
crowded market-house, a covered building open at the sides, a lighted
serpent, being a large squib or firecracker filled with gunpowder and other
combustible materials. This act, as Justice Nares later remarked, "was
of a mischievous nature, and bespeaks a bad intention." The squib fell
upon the standing of one William Yates, who sold gingerbread, cakes,
pies, and other pastries. Instantly it was picked up by one James Willis
who, to prevent injury to himself and Yates's wares, threw the squib
across the market-house, whence it fell upon the standing of one James
Ryall, who sold the same sort of wares. Ryall likewise, to save himself
and his goods from injury, took up the squib and threw it to another
part of the market-house, whence it struck the face of one Scott, also
an infant, and then bursting, burned him severely and put out one of
his eyes.
So Scott, by his next friend, brought an action of trespass and assault
against Shepherd, by his guardian, asking 500 damages, which action,
in a little under two years, was tried before Justice Nares at the Summer
Assizes of 1772 at Bridgewater. The defendant pleaded the general issue,
not guilty - which means that he denied the entire declaration, that he
did no act that gave injury to the plaintiff 6 - and upon the evidence
the jury found a verdict for the plaintiff with 100 damages, subject to
the opinion of the court whether these facts could maintain an action
of trespass. The question was argued before the Court of Common Pleas
in Hilary Term of 1773, Serjeant John Glynn for the plaintiff and Serjeant
John Burland for the defendant, and the issue to be decided, whether
the proper action was one of trespass vi et armis or trespass on the
case, is set forth clearly enough in the summary of the arguments of
counsel reported by Wilson. It was objected at trial that trespass vi et
armis was the wrong action since the injury received by the plaintiff
was not the immediate act of Shepherd, but was consequential, and
208 NOEL M. SWERDLOW
probably would not have happened had the squib not been thrown by
Willis and then by Ryall, for which the proper remedy was by an action
on the case. Could the injury be considered the immediate act of the
defendant or, if not, could he nevertheless be held responsible in an action
of trespass? Otherwise the plaintiff's suit would fail for want of the proper
action.
The action of trespass (transgressio, step beyond) developed in the
thirteenth century as the remedy for injuries to persons or property
accompanied, if only in theory, by force or violence. 7 Trespass fell into
broad categories set out in the writ: for entry to land trespass quare
clausum fregit, for taking or detaining personal property trespass de bonis
asportatis, for personal injury or detention trespass vi et armis. Because
the acts were considered violent and unlawful per se, the writs usually
contained the words contra pacem, indicating that they were also offenses
against the King's peace for which a fine, even if nominal, was levied.
The defense to these actions was for the defendant to deny that he had
done the act at all, or to claim some right to do the act, as title to the
land or property or striking the plaintiff in self defense. But what if the
act resulting in the injury fits none of the preceding categories, is not
unlawful in itself and not accompanied by force, even in theory, and
cannot be called contra pacem? For example, a farrier in shoeing a
horse makes it lame, or refuses to return a horse put in his keeping, or
a horse stumbles over logs laid in the road and its rider injured, or an
innkeeper sells bad provisions and a customer falls ill, or a patient is
harmed by the mala praxis of a physician, surgeon or apothecary. For
these injuries there developed a very general action called trespass on the
case (transgressio super casum) in which the cause of complaint is
specifically set out in the original writ and the words contra pacem are
not used. Although other actions were available, case became a common
remedy for injuries resulting from omission, failure in an undertaking,
and negligence. The general distinction of trespass and case seems to
have been twofold: trespass lay for forceful, and therefore unlawful,
acts causing immediate injury; case for acts or omissions in themselves
lawful, because not forceful, that were injurious by some consequence
of the act or failure to act. There are two difficult, or interesting, cases:
1. If a lawful act is immediately injurious, in other words, an accident,
is it a trespass? This goes to the question of the standard of liability,
and earlier decisions generally upheld strict liability, every man acts at
his own peril.8 2. If an unlawful act, an act of the nature of trespass,
BLACKSTONE'S DISSENT 209
was put out mediately or immediately thereby, the defendant who first
threw the squib is answerable in this action." He enlarges upon this
point by an extension of Serjeant Glynn's example of an enraged beast.
I answer that the defendant was the fIrst actor, and the cause of the cause of the putting
out the eye of the plaintiff, the act was not complete until the explosion; if a man turns
out a mad bull, ox or any other wild or mischievous beast towards A who turns
the brute towards B who turns it again towards C whom it hurts, he who was the fIrst
actor and turned out the beast is answerable in .trespass vi et armis for the injury done
to C.
plaintiff by force from the defendant? Or whether the injury was received from, or resulting
from a new force of another?
Note that De Grey has modified Nares's analogy of the deflected wild
beast into a sort of physical or mechanical analogy in which the squib
bounces from place to place until it hits the plaintiff. But the analogy
is strained when applied to mediating persons, and whatever sort of
physics the Chief Justice has in mind can hardly be called strict.
Not so Justice Blackstone in his dissent. 21 He takes the distinction
between trespass and case to be between immediate and consequential
214 NOEL M. SWERDLOW
injury, and he really means it; but rather than saying that the two
intervening parties make the injury consequential and leaving it at that,
he sets out what he appears to consider a rigorous physical argument.
He allows that Willis and Ryall had a right to protect themselves by
removing the squib "in such a manner as not to endamage others."
But Shepherd, I think, is not answerable in an action of trespass and assault for mischief
done by the squib in the new motion impressed upon it, and the new direction given it,
by either Willis or Ryal; who were both free agents, and acted upon their own judgment.
This differs it from the cases put of turning loose a wild beast or a madman. They are
only instruments in the hand of the first agent. Nor is it like diverting the course of an
enraged ox, or of a stone thrown, or an arrow glancing against a tree; because there the
original motion, the vis impressa, is continUed, though diverted. Here the instrument of
mischief was at rest, till a new impetus and a new direction are given it, not once only,
but by two successive rational agents. 22
Blackstone seems to have this in mind when he says that "the instru-
ment of mischief was at rest, till a new impetus (which he appears to
use synonymously with vis impressa), and a new direction are given
it." Further, the specification of a "new direction" as well as the earlier
reference to "the new motion impressed upon it, and the new direction
given it" are applications of the Second Law of Motion: 25
The change of motion is proportional to the motive force impressed (vi motrici impressae),
and takes place in the direction of the straight line in which the force is impressed.
but these analogies are strictly in keeping with and illustrate his physical
principles. 26
But it is said that the act is not complete, nor the squib at rest, till after it is spent or
exploded. It certainly has a power of doing fresh mischief, and so has a stone that has
been thrown against my windows, and now lies still. Yet if any person gives that stone
a new motion, and does farther mischief with it, trespass will not lie for that against the
original thrower. No doubt but Yates may maintain trespass against Shepherd. And,
according to the doctrine contended for, so may Ryal and Scott. Three actions for one
single act! nay, it may be extended in infinitum. If a man tosses a football into the street,
and, after being kicked about by one hundred people, it at last breaks a tradesman's
window, shall he have trespass against the man who first produced it? Surely only
against the man who gave it that mischievous direction.
The point is well taken. If Willis and Ryall were continuing the "sport"
rather than acting by "inevitable necessity", then either could have
brushed the squib to the ground or thrown it into the street, and the
liability does lie with Ryall, who threw it "to another part of the said
market-house" where it hit Scott in the face. By this analysis, Shepherd,
for all his mischievous intention, is the more remote and Ryall the imme-
diate trespasser. My guess is that the other justices were equally aware
of this conclusion, but did not wish to "look with eagle eyes to see
whether the evidence applies exactly or not to the case, when we can
see the plaintiff has obtained a verdict for such damages as he deserves."
Another practical consideration, beginning with the original trial, may
BLACKSTONE'S DISSENT 217
have been that the infant Shepherd was a deeper pocket than Ryall the
pastry vendor, who had probably not seen 100 in his life.
Note that Blackstone is not saying that the word "law" is used in a variety
of senses for a variety of things, but that wherever the word is applied
its meaning is exactly the same. Thus the laws of motion are laws and
the laws of nations are laws, and while it is obvious that in each case
the legislator is of a very different station, the laws are "rules of action"
commanded by some superior for the compulsory obedience of some
inferior.
218 NOEL M. SWERDLOW
without which it would cease to be. When he put that matter into motion, he established
certain laws of motion, to which all moveable bodies must conform.
Lest there be any doubt that this is meant literally, that the supreme being
may make any laws he wishes and that these must be obeyed, there is
a very familiar analogy.
And, to descend from the greatest operations to the smallest, when a workman forms a
clock, or other piece of mechanism, he establishes at his own pleasure certain arbitrary
laws for it's direction; as that the hand shall describe a given space in a given time; to
which law as long as the work conforms, so long it continues in perfection, and answers
the end of it's formation.
And the same applies to the origin of the laws that govern living crea-
tures.
If we farther advance, from mere inactive matter to vegetable and animal life, we shall
find them still governed by laws; more numerous indeed, but equally fixed and invari-
able. The whole progress of plants, from the seed to the root, and from thence to the
seed again; - the method of animal nutrition, digestion, secretion, and all other branches
of vital economy; - are not left to chance, or the will of the creature itself, but are
performed in a wondrous involuntary manner, and guided by unerring rules laid down
by the great creator.
One may well ask what this means. Newton's principal point is that
220 NOEL M. SWERDLOW
God is not the soul of the world, that is, he is not a part of it, but is
the Lord (Dominus) who through his own counsel (cons ilium) and
dominion (dominium) exercises ruling power (dominatio) over all things
as over servants (servos). The terms are at once Biblical and legal, from
Roman civil law. Consilium, counsel, is advice, in civil law legal advice,
and more particularly to a ruler; since God is omniscient, his advice to
himself is unerring. Dominium, dominion, in civil law is ownership in
the most complete sense with full legal power; it carries with it the
absolute right of governing or sovereign authority; God's omnipotence
extends his dominium to all things. Dominium is an essential attribute
of God. A being however perfect, Newton later says, without dominium
is not Dominus Deus, the Lord God. Dominatio, exercise of ruling power,
is the exercise of dominium or sovereign authority. Dominus, Lord, in
civil law is one who possesses dominium; he is the owner of a thing,
the master of a slave (servus); God is, as it were, the owner and master
of all things. Finally, servus, servant or slave; all things are, as it were,
the servants or slaves of God by virtue of his dominium. We can see
that the most important attribute is dominium, for it is God's dominium
that gives him sovereign authority over the universe.
Blackstone need hardly have consulted the General Scholium to find
God depicted as the sovereign ruler of the universe, for the theme was
common enough, particularly in sermons purporting to demonstrate the
Truth of Christian Revelation from the Divine Legislation of the Laws
of Nature, in refutation of deists who denied the former and of atheists
who denied both. A well-known example is Richard Bentley's Boyle
Lectures, The Folly and Unreasonableness of Atheism . .. (1692-93),
especially Sermons vi-viii, A Confutation of Atheismfrom the Origin and
Frame of the World, that draw upon the recently revealed Newtonian
philosophy.32 Closer to home for a barrister is a collection of sermons,
"vindicating Religion from the insults of Libertines, and the indiscretions
of Enthusiasts", preached before the Honourable Society of Lincoln's Inn
by William Warburton in 1746 and published in 1752 under the title
The Principles of Natural and Revealed Religion, the very language of
which has much in common with Blackstone's exposition of the Divine
Legislation. 33
Thus, Blackstone, with Newton, Bentley, Warburton, and surely many
others besides, takes God in His essential nature to be a Lord, a Ruler,
a Lawgiver who by His own will has established the laws that direct
inanimate matter, animate creatures, among them man, and, as we shall
BLACKSTONE'S DISSENT 221
see, man's moral and spiritual conduct. However, while such natural
theology may provide respectable evidence for the more sublime truths
of revealed religion, and may also provide a reasonable explanation for
the uniformities of nature in all its manifold complexity, it is more
doubtful as a foundation for moral or positive law. The reason, as men-
tioned before, is that "law" in a "law of nature" is a metaphor only, for
the laws of motion and optics, the laws of lineal and collateral consan-
guinity, and the laws of contingent remainders and executory devises
are not at all the same thing. Thus, when Blackstone enumerated "the
laws of motion, of gravitation, of optics, or mechanics, as well as the
laws of nature and of nations" as "that rule of action, which is pre-
scribed by some superior, and which the inferior is bound to obey," he
provided Jeremy Bentham with just what he required to reduce the whole
notion of a Divine Lawgiver to absurdity in a draft for his Comment
on the Commentaries.
A pleasant way enough of going to work is that the Author [Blackstone] has found out
for the 'supreme being': whom unless it had been to shew his piety he might have been
better employed than to trouble. Among others of this being's making are Laws of
Optics. Among others that are given for Laws of Optics this is one: that the Angle of
reflection is, say other men; (shall be must out Author say to make it serve him for an
example) equal to the angle of incidence. We now understand how this matter was brought
about. 'Hark ye', (said the Author of nature once upon a time) 'hark ye, you rays. There
are some surfaces that you will meet with in your travels that when you strike upon
them, will send you packing: now when in such case, this is what I would have you do:
keep the same slope always in going that your did in coming. Mind and do what I say:
if you don't, as sure as you are rays it will be the worse for you.' Upon this the rays
(finding they should get into bad bread else) made their bows, shrugged up their
shoulders, and went and did SO.34
with both reason and free will, is commanded to make use of those
faculties in the general regulation of his behaviour." Man, Blackstone
holds, is entirely a dependent being necessarily subject to the laws of
his creator; as an inferior, he must take the will of his superior for his
rule of conduct.
This will of his maker is called the law of nature. For as God, when he created matter,
and endued it with a principle of mobility, established certain rules for the perpetual
direction of that motion; so when he created man, and endued him with free will to conduct
himself in all parts of life, he laid down certain immutable laws of human nature, whereby
that free will is in some degree regulated and restrained, and gave him also the faculty
of reason to discover the purport of those laws. 35
living oracles, who must decide all cases of doubt according to the law
of the land. Their judgments and all proceedings previous thereto are
carefully registered and preserved, and frequent recourse is had to them
when any critical question arises, in the determination of which former
precedents can give light or assistance. For it is an established rule to
abide by former precedents, where the same points come again into
litigation. So far so good. But what happens when something goes wrong,
meaning, not that the law is wrong, but that it has been incorrectly
determined?
Yet this rule admits to one exception, where the former determination is most evidently
contrary to reason; much more if it be contrary to the divine law. But even in such cases
the subsequent judges do not pretend to make a new law, but to vindicate the old one
from misrepresentation. For if it be found that the former decision is manifestly absurd
or unjust, it is declared, not that such a sentence was bad law, but that it was not law;
that is, that it is not the established custom of the realm, as has been erroneously deter-
mined. And hence it is that our lawyers are with justice so copious in their encomiums
on the reason of the common law; that they tell us, that the law is the perfection of
reason, that it always intends to conform thereto, and that what is not reason is not
law.42
to Scott by Shepherd when the lighted squib, after coming to rest, was
twice picked up and thrown again, is a contradiction of Newton's first
two laws of motion "to which all moveable bodies must conform," and
therefore contrary to reason. It is not law. (And it might not be altogether
frivolous to add that since the laws of motion were impressed upon matter
by the Creator, such a determination would also be contrary to His law.)
EPILOGUE
Blackstone's opinion was not that of the court, by three justices to one,
and we presume that poor Scott received his 100. But was the case law?
It was certainly cited in the following years, and while in no way rejected,
neither was it altogether approved. Curiously, it was cited, not for the
distinction of unlawful-lawful between trespass and case, upon which the
judgment really rested, but of immediate-consequential, which only
Blackstone followed strictly. The subsequent cases, however, were of a
kind that was becoming increasingly frequent, collision and running down
by vehicles. One may imagine that the young Shepherds were growing
up into flash Regency bucks racing about London in their carriages on
their way to the fancy in pursuit of the most popular science of the
day. And understandably the issue was changing from immediate or
consequential injury to willful or negligent misconduct, leading respec-
tively to trespass and case. The court could be slow to grasp this. In
Day v. Edwards (1794)43 Mr. Edwards "so furiously, negligently, and
improperly drove his cart and horse" that he struck with great force
and violence upon the carriage called a landaulet of Mr. Day, which
was overturned and damaged. Taking negligence as the ground and the
injury as consequential, the plaintiff brought an action on the case, but
upon a special demurrer to the declaration, the court, citing Reynolds
v. Clarke, ruled that the injury was immediate and the action should have
been trespass. Mr. Day's action failed.
Mr. Roome, in a coach with two horses, was being driven about by
his servant, who "wilfully" drove upon and against the chaise of Mr.
Savignac, which was pulled, forced, and dragged by Mr. Roome's coach
and another coach so that it was crushed and broken. Savignac v. Roome
(1794)44 was an action on the case, and at trial the verdict was for the
plaintiff. But Mr. Roome found a very canny barrister, a Mr. Espinasse,4~
who moved at the beginning of the term in arrest of judgment that no
action could be maintained against the defendant for a "wilful" act of
226 NOEL M. SWERDLOW
his servant, accompanied with force, unless done at his command; and
if any action could be supported, because of the force it should have been
trespass, not case. This was a stroke of genius. Mr. Savignac's attorney,
Mr. Bayley, claimed that "wilfully" does not mean that the servant was
not acting at the direction of his master, only that the act was not an
accident, and he cited cases to the effect that the master is liable for
the torts of his servant in any event, and further "because he is guilty
of negligence in employing such a servant." To defend the action on
the case, he cited Blackstone's dissent in Scott that an action of trespass
could not be maintained if the injury was not the immediate trespass
of the defendant himself, so that for an injury arising from the act of a
servant, case is the proper action. In reply Mr. Espinasse turned the screw
tighter. Citing Lord Holt and 1 Comm. 429, he argued that the master
is not responsible for the forceful act of a servant for which trespass vi
et armis lies. And if the action could be supported against the master,
it must be trespass, "for in trespass all are principals." Mr. Savignac
was boxed in, and Mr. Espinasse proceeded to deliver the final blow.
"Either therefore the act complained of in the present case was or was
not done by the servant by the defendant's direction: if not, no action can
be maintained against the master; if it were, the plaintiff should have
brought trespass." Mr. Bayley, his predicament now hopeless, asked leave
to amend the declaration to trespass. This the court refused, ruled absolute
for arresting the judgment, and Mr. Espinasse doubtless received a
handsome honorarium from his client (and perhaps the justices did
too).
Not only carriages could collide. In Ogle v. Barnes (1799),46 a ship
called the "Acteon" was so incautiously, carelessly, negligently, and
inexpertly steered that it sailed against a ship called the "Anne," with
great damage for which an action on the case was brought. Plaintiff
obtained the verdict, and defendant, unfortunately with Mr. Bayley as
one of his attorneys, moved in arrest of judgment that the action should
have been trespass since the injury was immediate, citing Scott for an
immediate injury with intervening parties, which has no pertinence to the
present case. The court also cited Scott for the immediate-consequen-
tial distinction, and upheld the verdict on the grounds that the injury
was a consequence of negligence.
In Leame v. Bray (1803),47 an action of trespass, the plaintiff was being
driven by his servant in his curricle drawn by two horses when the
defendant drove his single-horse chaise with such force and violence
BLACKSTONE'S DISSENT 227
against the curricle that the servant was thrown out upon the ground,
and the horses ran away with the curricle so that the plaintiff, for the
preservation of his life, jumped out and fractured his collar bone, etc.
Evidence at trial showed that the accident happened on a dark night owing
to the defendant's driving on the wrong side of the road, although he
was in no other way culpable. And it was therefore objected for the
defendant that the injury was due to negligence, for which the proper
action was case, and the plaintiff was nonsuited. In this leading case
the arguments of counsel, with remarks from the bench, are reported at
length. The plaintiff's action of trespass was upheld on the grounds
that, although the accident was due to the negligence of the defendant,
nevertheless it was an immediate injury caused by the force of his chaise,
and Scott was repeatedly cited for this rule. If the defendant had simply
left his chaise in the road and the plaintiff ran into it, it would have
been case, just like the log. In the course of the argument of counsel,
the following colloquy took place in which Blackstone may be said to
have been vindicated. 48
Justice Lawrence: In Ogle v. Barnes it did not appear that the force which occasioned
the injury was the act of the defendant. But it might have happened from the force of
the wind or tide operating at the time directly against the force used by the defendant.
Counsel: Here the continuing motion of the [plaintiffs] carriage was not the immediate
act of the defendant.
Lord Ellenborough: If I put in motion a dangerous thing, as if I let loose a dangerous
animal, and leave to hazard what may happen, and mischief ensue to any person, I am
answerable in trespass.
Counsel: The case of throwing the squib was put upon that ground, but that has never been
approved since.
Lord Ellenborough: That case to be sure goes to the limit of the law.
The full text of Blackstone's opinion, which is well worth reading and
contains the slender thread from which hangs this paper, is given here
from his own report, 2 Blackstone Rep. 894-96 (96 English Reports, Full
Reprint Series 526-28). I have divided the report into paragraphs,
expanded the names of reporters, and completed some citations.
Blackstone, J., was of the opinion, that an action of trespass did not
lie for Scott against Shepherd upon this case. He took the settled
distinction to be, that where the injury is immediate, an action of trespass
228 NOEL M. SWERDLOW
in the hand of the first agent. Nor is it like diverting the course of an
enraged ox, or of a stone thrown, or an arrow glancing against a tree;
because there the original motion, the vis impressa, is continued, though
diverted. Here the instrument of mischief was at rest, till a new impetus
and a new direction are given it, not once only, but by two successive
rational agents. But it is said that the act is not complete, nor the squib
at rest, till after it is spent or exploded. It certainly has a power of
doing fresh mischief, and so has a stone that has been thrown against
my windows, and now lies still. Yet if any person gives that stone a
new motion, and does farther mischief with it, trespass will not lie for
that against the original thrower. No doubt but Yates may maintain
trespass against Shepherd. And, according to the doctrine contended
for, so may Ryal and Scott. Three actions for one single act! nay, it
may be extended in infinitum. If a man tosses a football into the street,
and, after being kicked about by one hundred people, it at last breaks a
tradesman's window, shall he have trespass against the man who first
produced it? Surely only against the man who gave it that mischievous
direction.
But it is said, if Scott has no action against Shepherd, against whom
must he seek his remedy? I give no opinion whether case would lie
against Shepherd for the consequential damage; though, as at present
advised, I think, upon the circumstances, it would. But I think, in strict-
ness of law, trespass would lie against Ryal, the immediate actor in this
unhappy business. Both he and Willis have exceeded the bounds of
self-defence, and not used sufficient circumspection in removing the
danger from themselves. The throwing it across the market-house, instead
of brushing it down, or throwing [it] out of the open sides into the
street, (if it was not meant to continue the sport, as it is called), was at
least an unnecessary and incautious act. Not even menaces from others
are sufficient to justify a trespass against a third person; much less a
fear of danger to either his goods or his person - nothing but inevitable
necessity; Weaver and Ward, Hobart 134; Dickenson and Watson, T. Jones
205; Gilbert and Stone Aleyn 35, Style 72. So in the case put by Brian
J., and assented to by Littleton and Cheke, C. J. [Y.B. 6 Edward 4, 7],
and relied on in [Bessey v. Olliott & Lambert] T. Raymond 467, - "If
a man assaults me, so that I cannot avoid him, and I lift up my staff to
defend myself, and, in lifting it up, undesignedly hit another who is
behind me, an action lies by that person against me; and yet I did a lawful
act in endeavouring to defend myself." But none of these great lawyers
230 NOEL M. SWERDLOW
ever thought that trespass would lie, by the person struck, against him
who first assaulted the striker.
The cases cited from the Register and Hardres are all of immediate
acts, or the direct and inevitable effects of the defendants' immediate
acts. And I admit that the defendant is answerable in trespass for all
the direct and inevitable effects caused by his own immediate act. -
But what is his own immediate act? The throwing of the squib to Yates's
stall. Had Yates's goods been burnt, or his person injured, Shepherd must
have been responsible in trespass. But he is not responsible for the acts
of other men. The subsequent throwing across the market-house by Willis,
is neither the act of Shepherd, nor the inevitable effect of it; much less
the subsequent throwing by Ryal.
Slater and Baker [1 Wilson 362] was first a motion for a new trial
after verdict. In our case the verdict is suspended till the determination
of the Court. And though after verdict the Court will not look with eagle's
eyes to spy out a variance, yet, when the question is put by the jury
upon such a variance, and is made the very point of the cause, the Court
will not wink against the light, and say that evidence, which at most is
only applicable to an action on the case, will maintain an action of
trespass. 2. It was an action on the case that was brought, and the Court
held the special case laid to be fully proved. So that the present question
could not arise upon that action. 3. The same evidence that will maintain
trespass, may also frequently maintain case, but not e converso. Every
action of trespass with a 'per quod' includes an action on the case. I
may bring trespass for the immediate injury, and subjoin a 'per quod'
for the consequential damages; - or may bring case for the consequen-
tial damages, and pass over the immediate injury, as in the case [Bourden
v. Alloway] from 11 Modern 180, before cited. But if I bring trespass
for an immediate injury, and prove at most only a consequential damage,
judgment must be for the defendant; Gates and Bailey, Trinity 6 George
3, 2 Wilson 313. It is said by Lord Raymond, and very justly, in Reynolds
and Clarke, "We must keep up the boundaries of actions, otherwise
we shall introduce the utmost confusion." As I therefore think no
immediate injury passed from the defendant to the plaintiff, (and without
such immediate injury no action of trespass can be maintained), I am
of opinion, that in this action judgment ought to be for the defendant.
NOTES
1 William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Law of England, fifth edition, Oxford, 1773,
vol. I, pp. 30, 33 (henceforth cited as e.g. 1 Comm. 30). The first edition was published
1765-69. D.J. Boorstein, The Mysterious Science of the Law, Cambridge, Mass. 1941,
considers the relation of Blackstone's fundamentally conservative "Science of Law" to the
new rational philosophies, including natural philosophy, of the eighteenth century, and
much else besides. "A thoughtful conservative like Blackstone could not fail to use what
he considered to be the best scientific method, and yet he was obliged to apply it in
such a way as to prevent its use against accepted beliefs and existing institutions" (p.
11).
2 1 Comm. 33. It is interesting to note that more than a century and a half earlier,
Edward Coke wrote: "Now what arts and sciences are necessary for the knowledge and
understanding of these laws [of England); I say, that seeing these laws do limit, bound
and determine of all other human laws, arts, and sciences: I cannot exclude the knowl-
edge of any of them from the professor of these laws, the knowledge of any of them is
necessary and profitable. But forasmuch as if a man should spend his whole life in the
study of these laws, yet he might still add somewhat to his understanding of them: there-
fore the Judges of the law in matters of difficulty do use to confer with the learned in
that art or science, whose resolution is requisite to the true deciding of the case in question"
(3 Rep. pref., ed. G. Wilson, Dublin 1792, p. xix).
3 3 Comm. 321.
4 Scott an Infant by his Next Friend, versus Shepherd an Infant by his Guardian (1773).
3 Wilson 403. 2 Blackstone Rep. 892. Wilson's report is more complete, including the
arguments of counsel, and appears superior in reporting the opinions of at least two of
the three other justices, and I have for the most part, although not exclusively, followed
it for all but Blackstone's own opinion, which he gives at far greater length in his own
report, I presume verbatim from his original written version. Blackstone's opinion is given
complete from his own report in the appendix to his paper.
s 3 Wilson 404.
6 3 Comm. 305.
7 In this very brief summary of the actions of trespass and case, on which the
literature is extensive, I am following various parts of Blackstone, Comm., O.W. Holmes,
The Common Law, Boston 1881, and T.F.T. Plucknett, A Concise History of the Common
Law, 5th ed., Boston 1956. It should be noted that Holmes writes, not so much an
historical analysis, as an argument against strict liability, which seems understandable
in 1881.
8 The leading case is Y.B. 6 Edward IV, Michs. no. 18, f. 7 (1466). The defendant cut
thorns from a hedge that fell inadvertently on the property of a neighbor, and entered to
retrieve them. While no judgment appears in the report, the discussion of many examples
of inadvertent injuries was held to establish strict liability in any trespass to persons or
property save in the event of inevitability, e.g. if a storm blows down my tree on to
your land. See Holmes 85ff., Plucknett 466. Other cases cited frequently to the same effect
are Weaver v. Ward (1616), Hobart 134, and Dickenson v. Watson (1682), T. Jones 205,
both injuries from the accidental discharge of guns. The cases are reviewed and the
principle approved in Bessey v. Lambert & OUiot (1682), T. Raymond 421, 467.
9 3 Wilson 405.
232 NOEL M. SWERDLOW
10 3 Wilson 406.
IJ Hobart 134.
12 2 Ld. Raymond 1399. 8 Modern 272. 1 Strange 634.
13 1 Strange 635, with which 8 Modern 275 agrees, while in Lord Raymond's own report,
2 Ld. Raymond 1402, the distinction is purely between immediate or consequential injury,
not upon whether the initial act was lawful or unlawful. In Scott v. Shepherd (2 Blackstone
Rep. 894) Blackstone says, "The lawfulness or unlawfulness of the original act is not
the criterion; though something of that sort is put into Lord Raymond's mouth in Stra.
635." Rather, it appears that Lord Raymond, having later changed his mind about the
grounds of the decision, revised his own report in accordance with the opinions of the
other justices. Hence the report represents his later thoughts rather than his opinion on
the bench, which seems not altogether correct.
14 1 Strange 636. The log in the highway, a very common example of consequential
injury, is from Fowler v. Sanders (1617), Croke Jac. 446.
15 3 Wilson 407-409.
16 1 Wilson 362, a particularly gruesome case of medical malpractice.
17 3 Wilson 411.
18 Since judgment had been suspended before the final verdict, the plaintiff could still
accept a nonsuit and recommence under the proper action, but this would be very incon-
venient. 3 Comm. 377.
19 3 Wilson 411-13.
20 Sir Michael Foster, A Report of Some Proceedings on the Commission of Oyer and
Terminer and Gaol Delivery for the Trial of the Rebels in the Year 1746 in the County
of Surrey, and Other Crown Cases, to which are Added Discourses upon a Few Branches
of the Crown Law, Dublin 1763, p. 261. In the next sentence Foster says that if the act
be done heedlessly and incautiously but without mischievous intention, it will be
manslaughter, not accidental death, because the act was still unlawful.
21 2 Blackstone Rep. 894-896.
22 2 Blackstone Rep. 895.
23 Newton, Philosophiae naturalis principia mathmatica, 3rd ed., ed. by A. Koyre and
l.B. Cohen, Cambridge, Mass. 1972, original p. 3 (henceforth cited as Newton).
24 Newton, p. 13.
25 Newton, p. 13.
26 2 Blackstone Rep. 895.
27 2 Blackstone Rep. 895.
28 1 Comm. 38.
29 Montesquieu, De ['esprit des lois (1748), I, 1.
30 I Comm. 38.
31 Newton, pp. 527-528. To write anything on the General Scholium is surely to bring
owls to Athens, and I would never do so were it not pertinent here to consider its use
of legal terms.
32 The Works of Richard Bentley, D.D., ed. A. Dyce, vol. 3, London 1838. Sermons
vi-viii (pp. 51ff.) are dated Oct. to Dec. 1692, just before Newton's four famous letters
to Bentley (pp. 203jf.) of Dec. 1692 to Feb. 1693, many years before the General Scholium
of the second edition of the Principia (1713). J.E. McGuire, "Newton on Place, Time
and God: An Unpublished Source", British Journal for the History of Science 11 (1978),
pp. 114ff., transcribes and translates a curious fragment by Newton, apparently from about
BLACKSTONE'S DISSENT 233
1693, on place, time, infinity, eternity, and the nature of God, that may be related to a
projected new edition of the Principia. In fact it reads much like a sermon, but its
purpose is obscure (as is its meaning).
33 The Works o/the Right Reverend William Warburton D.D. Lord Bishop o/Gloucester,
vol. 9, London 1811, particularly Sermon II, God's Moral Government, pp. 33ff.
Blackstone's own religious opinions, at least in relation to the law, can be found in 4
Comm. 41ff., 0/ Offences against God and Religion, and they are quite interesting
especially with regard to nonconformists and papists (50ff., best read in the first edition
before he moderated his language due to several protests). 4 Comm. 365ff., O/the Benefit
0/ Clergy is also highly recommended.
34 J. Bentham, A Comment on the Commentaries and A Fragment on Government, ed.
J.H. Bums and H.L.A. Hart, London 1977, p. 275. Bentham's remarks here are an
expansion of a draft by John Lind, ibid., p. 352. The unfinished Comment, written in
1774-75, was (mercifully) unpublished until 1928. Typical of its author, it is verbose, ran-
corous, amusing in a rude way, not altogether fair, but pretty much on target. While at
Oxford, Bentham was among the thirty to fifty students attending Blackstone's last
course of lectures (ibid., p. xx). The Fragment, published in 1776, is a criticism of the
general consideration of "municipal law" in 1 Comm. 47-53. Asked if he would reply
to it, Blackstone said, "No, not even if it had been better written" (DNB 2, p. 599).
35 1 Comm. 39-40.
36 1 Comm. 41.
37 1 Comm. 42.
38 1 Comm. 44.
39 1 Comm. 63ff.
40 1 Comm. 86. This means that there is nothing really new in statute law, merely the
recital and occasional clarification of old custom, a point that Coke makes over and
over again. Common lawyers frequently spoke disparagingly of statute law, and it was
a rule that statutes in derogation of the common law be strictly construed, at times a salutary
principle providing some control over the absolute legislative power of Parliament.
41 1 Comm. 68ff. What follows is a close paraphrase.
42 1 Comm. 69-70. The reference, I believe is to Coke, 1 Inst. 56b, "for nothing that
is contrary to reason, is consonant to law," and 62a, on customs in diverse manors,
"only this incident inseparable every custome must have, viz. that it be consonant to reason;
for how long soever it hath continued, if it be against reason it is of no force in law."
The words "against reason" are glossed: "This is not to be understood of every unlearned
man's reason, but of artificial and legal reason warranted by authority of law: Lex est
summa ratio (Law is the highest reason)." Blackstone makes much the same point (1
Comm. 71) about custom and "artificial reason ... not quite obvious to every body." Coke
could be extravagant in his praise. He called Littleton's Tenures "the most perfect and
absolute work that ever was written in any human science" by which he means "a work
of as absolute perfection in its kind, and as free from error, as any book I have known
to be written of any human learning" (I Inst. pref., ed. F. Hargrave, p. xxxvi). The Inns
of Court and Chancery he calls "the most famous university for profession of law only,
or of anyone human science that is in the world, and advanceth itself among all others,
quantum inter viburna cupressus (as much as the cypress among trees)" (3 Rep. pref.,
ed. G. Wilson, Dublin 1792, p. xix).
43 5 Term Rep. 648.
234 NOEL M. SWERDLOW
I. B. Cohen (ed.), The Natural Sciences and the Social Sciences, 235-255.
1994 Kluwer Academic Publishers.
236 MARGARET SCHABAS
his theory, but proceeds to test the truth of the theory by new deductions and new trials.
(Jevons, Principles, p. 509).
II
sound to us, it must be remembered that Jevons was one of the first to
ascribe logical foundations to mathematics, and to attempt to arrive at
criteria that nonetheless distinguished the one branch of knowledge
from the other.
Contrary to what one might suppose, Jevons believed that the degree
of certainty of a given theory would never be increased through the
application of mathematics. Although mathematics might clarify or add
rigor to rudimentary scientific ideas, it could never add to the initial truth
of the theoretical claims. Indeed, for Jevons, mathematics itself, as it
strayed further from strictly logical considerations, became increasingly
more dubious. If there was any certainty to be found in mathematics, it
was derived from its roots in logic: "The mathematician is only strong
and true as long as he is logical, and if number rules the world, it is
logic which rules number" (Jevons, Principles, p. 154). Thus, primarily
as a result of his investigations into the logic of Boole and of Mill, Jevons
did not adopt a commonly revered attribute of mathematics.
Jevons's views on the epistemological standing of mathematics were
further colored by his acquaintance with non-Euclidean geometry. Jevons
was the first person in England to respond to Hermann von Helmholtz's
celebrated paper on the subject, and to recognize the element of
convention that lay within our choice of a geometry for the physical
world. With much perspicacity, he noted that "if, in the course of time,
the curvature of our space should be detected, it will not falsify our
geometry, but merely necessitate the extension of our books upon the
subject.,,25 Certainty in geometry was not an empirical question, as Mill
had once argued, but rather a function of the internal consistency of
the propositions. 26
Jevons also drew a careful distinction between an exact and a math-
ematical science. He was aware that as the physical sciences had
increased their mathematical profile, they had also tended to become more
exact. But this was a historical contingency rather than a necessary
connection. In other words, a mathematical science need not have a
corresponding degree of empirical precision. The history of science amply
suggested that "physicists are, of all men, most bold in developing their
mathematical theories in advance of their data." In fact, "had physi-
cists waited until their data were perfectly precise before they brought
in the aid of mathematics we would have still been in the age of science
which terminated at the time of Galileo" (Jevons, Theory, p. 6).
Jevons attempted, consequently, to undermine the belief that mathe-
244 MARGARET SCHABAS
III
Jevons has hereby discerned that the same set of inferential justifica-
tions are present in the explanation of the motion of physical bodies as
in the motion of prices.
In Jevons's depiction of exchange, two persons barter their respec-
tive goods in continuous increments until they reach the point where they
are indifferent to obtaining an additional infinitesimal amount of the
commodity at the rate of exchange just reached. In this approach, the
very act of exchange alters the price continuously. To simplify the
analysis, since a complete account would have to explain how a single
observed and stable price could emerge from numerous pairs of ongoing
exchanges, Jevons proposed that the market be analyzed in a state of
static equilibrium, in effect, at the point at which all exchange had just
ceased: "The real condition of industry is one of perpetual motion and
change. Commodities are being continually manufactured and exchanged
and consumed. If we wished to have a complete solution of the problem
in all its natural complexity, we should have to treat it as a problem of
motion - a problem of dynamics. But it would surely be absurd to attempt
the more difficult question when the more easy one is yet so imper-
fectly within our power. It is only as a purely statical problem that I
248 MARGARET SCHABAS
IV
NOTES
2 William Stanley Jevons, The Theory of Political Economy, 1st ed. (London: Macmillan
and Co., 1871). All quotations are drawn from the posthumous 5th ed. (London: Macmillan
and Co., 1957; rpt. ed., New York: Augustus M. Kelly, 1965). Jevons, Theory, p. 3.
3 On Whewell's work, see Pietro Corsi, "The Heritage of Dugald Stewart: Oxford
Philosophy and the Method of Political Economy," Nuncius, 1987,2: 89-144. The most
important mathematical economist before Jevons was A.A. Coumot.
4 William Stanley Jevons, The Principles of Science, 1st ed. (London: Macmillan and
Co., 1874). All quotations are drawn from the second edition of 1877. During the 1860s
Jevons also published several works on logic which were incorporated into the Principles.
For a list of these, see Harriet A. Jevons, ed., Letters and Journal of W. Stanley Jevons
(London: Macmillan and Co., 1889).
S T.W. Hutchison, On Revolutions and Progress in Economic Knowledge (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1978), pp. 86-87. Hutchison also attempts to undermine
the significance of the mathematics in Jevons's work: "But the development of mathe-
matical formulations could be held to have been secondary rather than primary in 1871.
It was not so much a question for Jevons ... of championing mathematical formulation
a priori . ... Rather the central significance of the marginal concept and the maximizing
individual was arrived at first, by Jevons at any rate, and mathematical formulation and
the calculus were championed secondarily, ... as tools for developing and deploying these
concepts."
6 See Marian Bowley, "The Predecessors of Jevons - The Revolution that Wasn't",
Manchester School, March 1972,40: 9-29; and R.D.C. Black, "Jevons, Marginalism
and Manchester", Manchester School, March 1972,40: 5. Jevons recognized, as early
as 1860, that his "law of utility has in fact always been assumed by Pol. Econ. under
the more complex form and name of the Law of Supply & Demand." R.D.C. Black,
gen. ed., Papers and Correspondence of William Stanley Jevons, 7 vols. (London:
Macmillan Press, 1972-1981), II, 410. Hereafter cited in the text as Jevons, Papers.
Jevons's developed analysis of exchange demonstrated not only "the final equivalence
of labour and utility," but also "the well-known law, ... that value is proportional to
the cost of production." Jevons, Theory, pp. 177, 186.
7 For representative statements of the intemalist position, see Hutchison, On Revolutions,
chaps. 3-4; and Maurice Dobb, Theories of the Value and Distribution Since Adam
Smith (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973), chap. 7.
8 In order to carry out such innovations, one would have had to have studied some
mathematics first. Jevons, however, was by no means the first British economist to have
acquired these skills. Thomas Malthus, Henry Fawcett, and Jacob Waley, all professors
of political economy, held degrees in mathematics. Even Mill had studied some calculus
at the university level. A knowledge of mathematics, while a necessary condition for
the transformation under consideration here, was clearly not, at least in nineteenth-century
Britain, a sufficient one.
9 See, for example, Philip Henry Wicksteed, The Common Sense of Political Economy,
Lionel Robbins, ed. (London: George Routledge & Sons, 1935), II, 809; and R.D.C. Black,
"Intoduction," W.S. Jevons, Theory of Political Economy, (Harmondsworth: Penguin,
1970), pp. 13-14.
10 According to one study, "the most striking instance of the impact of Jevons's results
in scientific method on his economics is to be found in the introduction to his paper on
MATHEMATICS AND ECONOMICS 253
'The Solar Period and the Price of Corn'''. Barbara MacLennan, "Jevons's Philosophy
of Science", Manchester School, March 1972,40: 62-63. The other paper, while acknowl-
edging that Jevons's system of logic must have played a part in his theory of economics,
emphasizes the role of statistics and experimentation in Jevons's work on monetary eco-
nomics and social reform. Wolfe Mays, "Jevons's Conception of Scientific Method",
Manchester School, September 1962, 30: 233-249.
11 Jevons actually started at the Junior School of University College before spending two
years at the College proper, where he had the good fortune to study with one of the leading
mathematicians of the time, Augustus De Morgan. Although Jevons tended to deprecate
his own abilities in the subject, he succeeded in placing fourth on the lower senior-class
examination in mathematics in 1853. See R.D.C. Black, "Jevons, Bentham, and De
Morgan", Economica, May 1972, 39: 119-134.
12 Harriet A. Jevons, Letters and Journal, pp. 118-119. Another letter from Roscoe urged
Jevons to continue his work in the physical sciences "in spite of ... taking to the
Mathematics of Society", Jevons, Papers, II, 355.
13 Jevons, Papers, I, 188. The paper was subsequently published in the Journal of the
Statistical Society of London, 1866, 29. One of the first to correspond with Jevons on
the piece, in 1868, was Fleeming Jenkin. See Jevons, Papers, III, 166-178.
14 To his sister, Jevons wrote in 1866, "excuse my being a little two full of myself at
present. It is hard even for me to feel the full meaning of such sudden and complete success.
If I had worked ten or twenty years longer, I might have been glad to have got the result
I already have got", Jevons, Papers, III, 97.
IS Jevons was appointed primarily for his work in statistics and the natural sciences. John
Maynard Keynes, in his Essays in Biography (London: Rupert Hart-Davis, 1951), made
much of the fact that Jevons was the first economist to be elected to the Royal Society
since Sir William Petty (p. 258). In fact, Thomas Robert Malthus was also a fellow.
16 Brief notices were printed in the Anthenaeum, the British Quarterly Review, the
Westminister Review, and the Manchester and London newspapers. Full reviews appeared
in the Saturday Review (anonymous), the Academy (Alfred Marshall), and the Fortnightly
Review (J.E. Cairnes). These have been reprinted in Jevons, Papers, VII, 141-152. Apart
from the popular magazines, only the Contemporary Review and Quarterly Review over-
looked the Theory.
17 George Darwin, "The Theory of Exchange Value," Fortnightly Review, February 1875,
23: 244-253. Jevons received some letters, including one from Alfred Marshall, which
endorsed Darwin's rebuttal of Cairnes (Jevons, Papers, IV, 100).
18 William Ashley, "A Survey of the Past History and Present Position of Political
Economy," in R.L. Smyth, ed., Essays in Economic Method (London: Gerald Duckworth,
1962), p. 232. Schumpeter has noted that the majority of major economists in the period
1870-1914 were acquainted with or actually practiced applied mathematics. See Joseph
A. Schumpeter, A History of Economic Analysis (New York: Oxford University Press,
1954), p. 956. I have reinforced the accuracy of Jevons's observations in "Alfred Marshall,
W. Stanley Jevons, and the Mathematization of Economics", Isis, March 1989, 80:
60-73.
19 John Maynard Keynes, A Treatise on Probability (London: Macmillan, 1921), p.
273. A contemporary critic made a similar judgment: "[A]s a methodologist he [Jevons]
has fairly outstripped predecessors as great as Herschel, Whewell, and Mill .... [But]
254 MARGARET SCHABAS
Jevons does not equal either Whewell or Mill in philosophical grasp .... He appears
least at ease when he touches upon questions properly philosophical." See George Croom
Robertson, "Mr. Jevons's Formal Logic", Mind, 1876, 1: 207.
20 See Wolfe Mays and D.P. Henry, "Jevons and Logic", Mind, October 1953, 62:
484-505; and William Kneale and Martha Kneale, The Development of Logic (London:
Oxford University Press, 1962), pp. 420-422.
21 For his explanation of this distinction, see Jevons, Principles, p. 26. C.l. Lewis
maintains that subsequent work has rendered the distinction superfluous; Jevons's system
of logic would not be altered were extension to be incorporated. See C.l. Lewis. A
Survey of Symbolic Logic (1960; abridged ed., New York: Dover, 1960), p. 73.
22 Frege found Jevons's work meritorious. See Gottlob Frege, The Foundations of
Arithmetic: A Logico-Mathematical Enquiry into the Concept of Number, L.J. Austin, trans.
(Evanston, III.: Northwestern University Press, 1980), pp. 46-58.
23 Jevons, Principles, p. 458. Jevons identified several of the questionable or non-
testable assumptions in Newtonian physics. Even time, he noted, is measured purely
according to convention: "[Ilnasmuch as the measure of motion involves time, and the
measure of time involves motion, there must be ultimately an assumption" (Jevons,
Principles, p. 309).
24 Jevons, Principles, p. 228. According to one scholar, "the account of scientific method
which became recognized as the official alternative and rival to Mill's was not Whewell's
but Stanley Jevons." See Peter B. Medawar, The Art of the Soluble (London: Methuen,
1967), p. 149. For more detailed studies of Jevons's contributions to the
philosophy of science, see John V. Strong, "The Infinite Ballot Box of Nature: De Morgan,
Boole, and Jevons on Probability and the Logic of Induction", in Proceedings of the
Philosophy of Science Association, 1976, 1: 197-211; Larry Laudan, "A Note on Induction
and Probability in the Nineteenth Century", in Science and Hypothesis (Dordrecht: Reidel,
1981); and Edward H. Madden, "W.S. Jevons on Induction and Probability", in Theories
of Scientific Mehtod (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1966), pp. 233-247.
25 See W.S. Jevons, "Helmholtz on the Axioms of Geometry", Nature, April-October
1871, 4: 481-482. Also see Joan L. Richards, Mathematical Visions: The Pursuit of
Geometry in Victorian England, (San Diego: Academic Press, 1988).
26 Jevons demolishes Mill's views on the empirical foundations of geometry in his "John
Stuart Mill's Philosophy Tested", reprinted in William Stanley Jevons, Pure Logic and
Other Minor Works, Robert Adamson and Harriet A. Jevons, eds. (London: Macmillan
and Co., 1890).
27 Mill also believed that the use of algebra in economics would suggest that precise
and universal laws had thereby been achieved. See Neil B. de Marchi, "Mill and Cairnes
and the Emergence of Marginalism in England", History of Political Economy, Fall
1972, 4: 344-363; and Margaret Schabas, "Some Reactions to Jevons's Program for
Mathematical Economics: The Case of Cairnes and Mill", History of Political Economy,
Fall 1985, 17: 337-353.
28 Jevons, Theory, p. 53, Jevons set out in algebraic form that both u and du/dx are
functions of the commodity x, where u stands for utility. But he chose to represent the
more fundamental relationship of the eventual decrease of the degree of utility geomet-
rically rather than with the simple inequality: d2 u/dx2 ~ O.
29 Again, he drew a specific analogy to mechanics: "It is much more easy to deter-
MATHEMATICS AND ECONOMICS 255
mine the point at which a pendulum will come to rest than to calculate the velocity at
which it will move when displaced from that point of rest. Just so, it is a far more easy
task to lay down the conditions under which trade is completed and interchange ceases,
than to attempt to ascertain at what rate trade will go on when equilibrium is not attained"
(Jevons, Theory, p. 94).
30 Joseph-Louis Lagrange, in his Mkhanique Analytique (1788), paid tribute to this prin-
ciple, now known as the principle of virtual work: :Emjvjdvj = o. See Jevons, Theory,
pp. 102-106 for its application to economics.
31 Jevons, Theory, p. xiii. Jevons excused his limited facility with mathematics with
the remark that he was writing, not for mathematicians, "but as an economist wishing
to convince other economists that their science can only be satisfactorily treated on an
explicitly mathematical basis" (Jevons, Theory, pp. xiii-xiv).
32 Allyn A. Young, "Jevons's Theory of Political Economy", in Economic Problems New
and Old (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1927), p. 230.
33 William Stanley Jevons, "The Future of Political Economy", in The Principles of
Economics and Other Papers, Henry Higgs, ed., (London: Macmillan and Co., 1905;
rpt. ed., New York: Augustus M. Kelly, 1965), p. 197. We know from a letter to his
wife that Jevons partly intended the claim about animals as a joke. See Jevons, Papers,
IV, 182.
34 See John Creedy, Edgeworth and the Development of Neoclassical Economics (Oxford:
Basil Blackwell Ltd., 1986), pp. 34-37.
35 In the second edition of the Theory, Jevons consistently replaced every occurrence
of "political economy" with "economics", with the sole exception of the title itself. See
Theory, pp. xiv-xv. Alfred Marshall's Principles of Economics (1890) established the
modem appellation.
36 See Lionel Robbins, "The Place of Jevons in the History of Economic Thought",
Manchester School 1936, 7: 6-7.
37 See Joel Franklin, "Mathematical Methods in Economics", American Mathematical
Monthly, April 1983, 90: 229-244. Of the twelve prizes given in the years 1969-1981,
seven were for work which Franklin deems primarily mathematical. Two more recent
awards, to George Stigler and Gerard Debreu, fall under the same category.
GIULIANO PANCALDI
1. INTRODUCTION
There is impressive, prima facie evidence supporting the view that Karl
Marx's relationship to Charles Darwin should be regarded as a strong
case in the history of the interaction between the natural sciences
and the social sciences. Consider for example Marx's straightforward
declaration according to which Darwin's work contained "a scientific
basis for the historic class struggle".! Or take Friedrich Engels' emphatic
statement at Marx's graveside: "Just as Darwin discovered the law of
development of organic nature, so Marx discovered the law of
development of human history".2 Yet, there is also impressive evidence
showing that Marx was unwilling to base his social views direct on
biology, and that he thoroughly rejected attempts aimed at explaining
social traits away with the natural conditions supporting individuals
and societies. Besides, Marx liked to stress discontinuity rather than
continuity between the animal world and human societies. So, he pointed
out that population dynamics followed different laws among animals and
in human societies, and he contrasted animals' instinctive behavior with
man's goal-directed work. It seems thus fair to say that Marx's
relationship to Darwin is a strong case, above all, in that it shows how
entangled the interaction between the natural sciences and the social
sciences can be.
In the present paper I shall suggest that Marx's attitude towards Darwin
should be viewed as the result of two different though connected
circumstances. The first was Marx's and Engels' interest in presenting
Marx's own social and economic theory as a scientific theory, compa-
rable to evolution theories in biology and thus sharing their scientific
status. This circumstance had to do with ideology as well as with the
interaction between the life and the social sciences. The second
circumstance was that, whatever the motives - ideological or philo-
sophical - bringing Marx towards Darwin, Marx also developed a
penetrating interpretation of Darwin's theory. Marx's interpretation, still
valuable and seldom considered by historians of science, viewed Darwin's
257
I. B. Cohen (ed.), The Natural Sciences and the Social Sciences, 257-274.
1994 Kluwer Academic Publishers.
258 GIULIANO PANCALDI
Marx read or at least went through the Origin twice in the first three years
after its publication. He made a detailed analysis of the relations between
Darwin and Malthus, and discussed the comparative merits of Darwin's
theory and other theories being contributed to the field of evolutionary
natural history during the 1860s. In 1867 he discussed with Engels which
affinities between the Origin and Capital seemed appropriate to point out
to potential readers of his work. He consulted Darwin's book again while
drafting some notes for the second German edition of Capita1. 9 Finally,
he watched the diffusion of Darwinism in German and Britain during
the 1870s, condemning the way Darwin's theory was being appro-
priated by the social sciences. Marx's interest in Darwin was thus far
from episodic.
Of the well-known pair of revolutionary activists it was Engels who
read the Origin first, in December 1859, a few days after it came out;
it was probably also Engels who urged Marx to read it. Writing about
it to Marx on December 11 or 12, 1859, Engels expressed his admira-
tion for Darwin's work and called attention to two points. The first was
the defeat of the teleological view of nature that, in Engels' opinion,
the Origin had achieved. The second was what Engels described as the
"grandiose" attempt carried out by Darwin to "demonstrate a historical
development of nature". 10 Engels thus appears to have been struck by two
different aspects of Darwin's work. His remark on teleology seems to
concern the particular explanation suggested by Darwin for evolutionary
processes, an explanation which a considerable number of his contem-
poraries thought would put an end to the traditional view of design in
260 GIULIANO PANCALDI
That Marx had some recurrent idea of linking his view to prevailing
biological theories emerges in detail from his correspondence with
Engels, where the two discussed a work published in 1865 by a little-
known French author, Pierre Tremaux. The lengthy title of Tremaux's
book began with the words Origine et transformation de l'homme et
des autres etres, and ended with the author's declared intention to deal
with such issues as la base des sciences naturelles, historiques, politiques,
etc. 18
Marx initially found Tremaux's work "of great importance," and
constituting a "very remarkable advance on Darwin,,19 in ways which
included its "historical and political applications." Marx expressed his
high regard for Tremaux to both Engels and Ludwig Kugelmann, in terms
that leave no doubts as to his deep committment. Just what, then, were
the sources of Tremaux's appeal for Marx?
To a lay reader like Marx, Tremaux's book may well have appeared
easier and more straightforward than Darwin's Origin in its support of
a general evolutionary view of nature and society. Tremaux offered a
sweeping overview of the principal theories of species under debate in
the early 1860s. A traveller with little or no training in any of the special
branches of natural history, except perhaps geography, Tremaux's
declared objective was to suggest an easy solution to the "mystery of
mysteries" that had troubled naturalists from Lamarck to Darwin: the
problem of species. His proposal was a rather simplistic re-statement
of the old speculations concerning the direct action of physical
environment on living beings. Tremaux claimed that geography and
geology revealed a substantial correspondence between the physical
features of the soil and the organisms living on it. He admitted that the
idea was as old as Herodotus, and so common as to be shared by any
gardener. Tremaux actually had no new evidence at all concerning the
262 GIULIANO PANCALDI
purpose alone. In the same way that a knife which has to cut all sorts of things may be
of almost any shape; whilst a tool for some particular object had better be of some
particular shape. 37
It is not surprising, given the context, that Darwin's name was being
evoked here with reference to the most general issues of transforma-
tion and progress, rather than to those more specific and subtle aspects
of his theory which Marx elsewhere showed he was able to appreciate.
The episode seems to confirm that Marx's interest in Darwin oscil-
lated between two poles. On the one hand, there was a perceptive grasp
of some of Darwin's original concepts concerning "the technology of
nature," as Marx put it. On the other, there was the temptation, rather
common among nineteenth-century social theorists, to legitimize the
social with recourse to the natural sciences. No doubt, this second side
of the Darwin-Marx relations came first in the battle of ideas being waged
in the second half of the nineteenth century among the many European
intellectuals and politicians aware of the appeal of evolutionism and/or
socialism. 54
7. CONCLUSIONS
boundaries between the natural and the social sciences could be bridged
quite easily and effectively in the generation of new ideas. The well-
known cases of Darwin, Alfred Russel Wallace,ss and Henry Milne-
Edwardss6 indicate that, in the first half of the century, conceptual
borrowings often wentfrom the social to the natural science. In the 1860s
and 1870s, however, as a consequence of the extraordinary prestige
acquired by the natural sciences, and by Darwin in particular, borrow-
ings more often went in the opposite direction. Under such circumstances
it might be tempting - though clearly unwarranted - to represent an
interesting though limited case of interaction between the natural and
the social sciences as a comprehensive parallelism between two theories
from the two distinct fields. This is precisely what Engels did at Marx's
graveside, carrying out a scheme Marx himself had suggested some
fifteen years before under the pressure of Darwin's enormous prestige.
In view of the astonishing variety of misrepresentations and misappro-
priations of Darwin's ideas current up to the turn of the century and
beyond, however, the historian of Darwinism should refrain from con-
demning Marx and Engels too severely under this charge. Unless, of
course, the historian himself is tempted to yield to the pressure of his
own times.
University of Bologna
NOTES
1 Karl Marx and F. Engels: Werke [MEW] 39 vols. (Berlin: Dietz, 1957-68),30: p.
578.
2 MEW, 19: pp. 333, 335.
3 The best reconstruction of the story, and an accurate record of the role played by
different historians in sorting out the myth, has been offered by Ralph Colp Jr. (Ralph
Colp Jr.: "The myth of the Darwin-Marx letter", History of Political Economy, 1982,
14: 461-482); see also Gerhard H. von Muller: "Darwin, Marx, Aveling - Briefe und
Spekulationen. Eine bibliographische Betrachtung", Dialektik, 1983, 6: 149-159.
4 See Howard E. Gruber; "Darwin and Das Kapital", Isis, 1961,52: 582-583; Julian
Huxley, & H.B.D. Kettlewell: Charles Darwin and His World (London: Thames and
Hudson, 1974), p. 80.
S Colp Jr.: (n. 3 supra), p. 463.
6 Alfred Kelly's work on Germany is a notable exception: Alfred Kelly: The Descent
of Darwin. The Popularization of Darwinism in Germany, 1860-1914 (Chapel Hill: The
University of North Carolina Press, 1981), Chap. 7; see also Linda L. Clark: Social
Darwinism in France (Alabama: The University of Alabama Press, 1984), Chap. 5.
7 Shlomo Avineri: "From hoax to dogma: a footnote on Marx and Darwin", Encounter,
272 GIULIANO PANCALDI
1967,28: 30-32; Maurice Mandelbaum: History, Man, and Reason. A Study of Nineteenth-
Century Thought (Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1971);
Maurice Mandelbaum: Philosophy, History, and the Sciences (Baltimore and London: The
Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984); G.A. Cohen: Karl Marx's Theory of History. A
Defence (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978); Diane B. Paul: "Marxism, Darwinism, and
the Theory of two sciences", Marxist Perspective, 2: 116-143; Yves Christen: Le grand
affrontement. Marx et Darwin (Paris: Albin Michel, 1981); Dominique Lecourt: "Marx
au crible de Darwin", pp. 227-249 of Yvette Conry, (ed.): De Darwin au Darwinisme:
science et ideologie (Paris: J. Vrin, 1983); Raison presente, monographic issue: "Darwin
Marx", n. 66, 1983; Arthur L. Caplan & Bruce Jennings (eds.): Darwin, Marx, and
Freud. Their Influence on Moral Theory (New York and London: Plenum Press, 1984).
8 Maurice Mandelbaum: History, Man, and Reason (n. 7 supra); Giuliano Pancaldi:
Charles Darwin: "storia" ed "economia" della natura (Firenze: La Nuova Italia, 1977),
Part II, Chapt. 1; 1. Bernard Cohen: Revolution in science (Cambridge Mass. and London:
The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1985), Chapt. 23.
9 (Hamburg: Meissner, 1872).
10 MEW, 29: p. 524.
11 On Darwin and teleology see Dov Ospovat: The Development of Darwin's Theory
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), passim, and Ernst Mayr: "The concept
of finality in Darwin and after Darwin", Scientia, 1983,77: 97-117.
12 See for example Mario A. Di Gregorio: T.H. Huxley's Place in Natural Science
(New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1984).
13 MEW, 30: p. 131.
14 MEW, 30: p. 578.
15 See Robert M. Young: Darwin's Metaphor. Nature's place in Victorian Culture
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985); David Kohn: "Theories to work by:
rejected theories, reproduction, and Darwin's path to natural selection", Studies in History
of Biology, 1980, 4: 67-170; Silvan S. Schweber: "Darwin and the political economists:
divergence of character", Journal of the History of Biology, 1980, 13: 195-289; Silvan
S. Schweber: "The wider British context in Darwin's theorizing," pp. 35-69 of David
Kohn (ed.): The Darwinian Heritage (Princeton: Princeton Unviersity).
16 NEW, 30: p. 249.
17 See Camille Limoges: La selection naturelle (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France,
1970); and Giuliano Pancaldi (n. 8 supra).
18 Pierre Tr6maux: Origine et transformation de l'homme et des autres etres. Premiere
partie indiquant la transformation des etres organises, la formation des especes, les
conditions qui produisent les types, l'instinct et les facultes intellectuelles, la base des
sciences naturelles, historiques, politiques, etc. (Paris: Hachette, 1865).
19 NEW, 31: p. 248.
20 On the reception of Darwinism in France see Yvette Conry, L'introduction du
darwinisme en France au XIXe siecle (Paris: Vrin, 1974).
21 Tr6maux was not a member. In 1864, however, he submitted to the Acad6mie a number
of memoirs on his travels to Africa and on transforrnism, which received mixed reviews.
See Comptes rendus de l'Academie des sciences, 1864, 58: 352-3, 526-528, 610-612,
692, 752-755, 1097-8, and 59: 33, 204, 1197.
22 Tr6maux, (n. 18 supra), p. 227 ff., esp. p. 232.
MARX ON DARWIN 273
23 Ibid., p. 435.
24 Marx read Tr6maux in summer 1866 (MEW, 31: pp. 247-9). However, there is no
mention of Tr6maux's book in Marx's published works, and apparently they did not
exchange letters. Marx's interest in Darwin, on the other hand, is documented again in
1867 and in 1872-3 (see below).
2S Henry Thomas Buckle: History of civilization in England. 2 vols. (London: Parker and
Son, 1857-61); John Stuart Mill: A System of Logic. Vol. VIII of J.S. Mill: Collected
Works, ed. J.M. Robson (Toronto and London: University of Toronto Press: 1961-1974)
p. 931; see Ludmilla J. Jordanova: "Earth science and environmental medicine: the syn-
thesis of the late Enlightenment" pp. 119-146 of L.J. Jordanova and Roy S. Porter, eds.:
Images of the Earth. Essays in the History of the Environmental Sciences (Chalfont St
Giles: The British Society for the History of Science, 1979).
26 MEW, 31: pp. 259-60.
27 MEW, 31: p. 530.
28 See n. 4, supra.
29 Karl Marx: Capital. A Critique of Political Economy, vol. I, trans!. Ben Fowkes, intro.
by Ernest Mandel (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1976), p. 650.
30 Ibid., p. 651.
31 Ibid., p. 784.
32 MEW, 30: p. 249.
33 Marx, (n. 29 supra), p. 380.
34 MEW, 30: p. 249.
3S Marx, (n. 29 supra), p. 493 n.
36 Ibid., p. 286.
37 Charles Darwin: On the Origin of Species. Facsimile reprint, 1964, intro. by Ernst
Mayr (Cambridge Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1859), p. 149; cfr. Marx, (n. 29 supra),
p. 461 n.
38 See however, on Darwin and breeding as a form of technology, John F. Cornell:
"Analogy and technology in Darwin's vision of nature", Journal of the History of Biology,
1984, 17: 303-344.
39 Charles Darwin: Charles Darwin's Natural Selection. Being the Second Part of His
Big Species Book written from 1856 to 1858. Ed. R.C. Stauffer (London and New York:
Cambridge University Press, 1975), p. 208.
40 See Schweber: "The wider British context in Darwin's theorizing" (n. 15 supra),
esp. p. 45 f.; on the wedge metaphor and species competition see M.J.S. Hodge and
David Kohn: "The immediate origins of natural selection" pp. 185-206 of Kohn (n. 15
supra), p. 194; for a psychoanalytic interpretation of the same metaphor: Ralph Jr. Colp:
"Charles Darwin's vision of organic nature", New York State Journal of Medicine,
September 1979: 1622-1629.
41 Samuel Butler: The Note-Books of Samuel Butler. Ed. Henry Festing Jones (London:
A.C. Fifield, 1913), p. 42-7.
42 Samuel Butler: Erewhon (London: A.C. Fifield, 1911).
43 Butler (n. 41 supra), p. 43.
44 Marx (n. 29 supra), p. 284.
4S Ibid., p. 286.
46 Ibid., p. 133.
274 GIULIANO PANCALDI
47 Ibid., p. 92.
48 MEW, 29: p. 524.
49 Enrique M. Urena: "Marx and Darwin", History of Political Economy, 1977, 9:
548-559. esp. p. 557ft
so MEW, 31: pp. 403-5.
'1 MEW, 16: pp. 226-228.
'2 MEW, 31: p. 404.
'3 MEW, 31: p. 404.
'4 See James Allen Rogers: Russia: Social Sciences, pp. 256-268 of Thomas F. Glick
(ed.), The Comparative Reception of Darwinism (Austin and London: University of
Texas Press, 1974); Kelly (n. 6 supra), Chapt. 7; Clark (n. 6 supra), Chapt. 5; Giuliano
Pancaldi, Darwin in Italy. Science across Cultural Frontiers (Bloomington: Indiana
University Press, 1991), Chapt. 6.
" H.L. McKinney: Wallace and Natural Selection (New Haven and London: Yale
University Press, 1972), John Landgon Brooks: Just before the Origin: Alfred Russel
Wallace's theory of evolution (New York: Columbia University Press, 1984).
56 Schweber: "Darwin and the political economists: divergence of character" (n. IS,
supra), p. 250 ff.
VICTOR L. HILTS
I. B. Cohen (ed.), The Natural Sciences and the Social Sciences, 275-303.
1994 Kluwer Academic Publishers.
276 VICTOR L. HILTS
to admit that the two areas of science differed in one crucial respect:
the opportunity for experiment. The test case for much early nineteenth-
century discussion about the methodological foundations of social science
was political economy. But could political economy be made experi-
mental? The noted political economist John Ramsay McCulloch
proclaimed in his article on political economy for the Encyclopaedia
Britannica that "political economy is not a science of speculations, but
of fact and experiment."!O Few political scientists, however, were so
certain that the experimental method could be applied to economic
phenomena. The necessity of erecting foundations for a social science
based upon induction that could not rely upon experiment was a problem
that came to the fore in Mill's System of Logic, published in 1843.
Inductivist though he was, John Stuart Mill admitted that the opportunity
for experiment in social and moral science was much less than in the
physical sciences. ll Mill observed, for example, that one could not
discover the effect of free trade upon national prosperity by experiment
since no two countries were identical in all respects except tariff policy.!2
In the end Mill's System of Logic yielded not a defense of existing
social and moral sciences but rather a prescription for new sciences of
man. Mill suggested that the moral and social sciences of the future would
in some cases resemble a hybrid science like astronomy, where the
opportunity for experiment was also limited.
The question that Mill addressed - how a moral science could be
scientific if it was not experimental was determined for many thinkers
by their faith in the unity of nature and the universality of natural law.
Even where experiments could not be made, natural laws, they believed,
still existed. This point of view was advanced by both the French founder
of positivism and prophet of sociology, Auguste Comte, and by John
Stuart Mill himself. Auguste Comte wrote in his Cours de philosophie
positive that ''The first characteristic of the Positive Philosophy is that
it regards all phenomena as subjected to invariable natural LawS.,,!3 In
the preface to his System of Logic, John Stuart Mill stated that he hoped
solve the question, "Whether moral and social phenomena are really
exceptions to the general certainty and uniformity of the course of nature;
and how far the methods, by which so many of the laws of the physical
world have been numbered among the truths irrevocably acquired and
universally assented to, can be instrumental to the formation of a similar
body of received doctrine in moral and political science.,,!4
At one level the phrase "laws of nature" suggested the achievements
SPENCER AND CARPENTER 279
generalizations, and that the time had come to extend these generaliza-
tions to man and society. The biological generalizations that Spencer
had in mind did not, of course, include Charles Darwin's theory of natural
selection, which was published only after Herbert Spencer's own evo-
lutionary ideas had been formulated. Much of Spencer's early biological
knowledge was derived from his reading of William B. Carpenter's
Principles of General and Comparative Physiology, the first edition of
which had been published approximately a decade before Spencer began
to think about biological topics. In this work, Carpenter encountered both
a discussion of Karl Ernst von Baer's embryological laws and a strong
defense of the analogical method. Carpenter's own views regarding
analogy, however, must be placed within two settings: the one method-
ological and the other biological.
WILLIAM B. CARPENTER
selves clothed in but few properties; and as, therefore, few analogies between one object
and another occur to them, they almost invariably overrate the degree of importance of
those few; while one whose fancy takes a wider range perceives and remembers so many
analogies tending to conflicting conclusions, that he is much less likely to lay undue stress
upon any of them. We always find that those are the greatest slaves to metaphorical
language who have but one set of metaphors. 26
its time. Carpenter argued that establishing laws of great generality was
the ultimate goal of science. Repeating Cuvier's rhetorical "Why should
not Natural History some day have its Newton?", he replied: "Although
the labours of the Natural and Comparative Anatomist have not yet
established laws of the highest degree of generality - the discovery of
which may perhaps be reserved for another Newton - many subordi-
nate laws have been based on a solid foundation and many more, which
were at first doubtful, are daily receiving fresh confirmation.,,39 Carpenter
did more than simply state his expectations; he also described what he
believed was involved in the process of scientific generalization. "In com-
paring phenomena of any kind for the purpose of arriving at a law
common to them all," he wrote, "it is necessary to feel certain that they
are of a similar character.,,4o Creation of scientific laws, in other words,
depended upon the recognition of analogies. "The brilliancy of Newton's
genius," Carpenter opined, "was shown in the perception that the fall
of a stone to the earth, and the motion of the moon around it, were
analogous phenomena, subject to the same law; not in the mere deduc-
tion of a numerical law from the ratios supplied by those facts.,,41
Carpenter dedicated his General and Comparative Physiology to John
Herschel, "as a tribute due alike to his high scientific attainments, and
moral worth, and as an expression of gratitude for the benefit derived
from his 'Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy' by the author.,,42
In his text Carpenter noted Herschel's belief in the uniformity of nature
and the presence of underlying common causes. Citing Herschel's
Preliminary Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy, Carpenter
wrote:
Our belief in the uniformity of Nature, which leads us to seek for a common cause when
a number of similar phenomena are presented to our observation, is based, not only
upon experience, but upon the conviction which every believer in the existence of the
Deity feels of his immutability. If' it were otherwise, we should be led by analogy only
to infer the existence of law and order when none is evident. 43
Carpenter was not himself Scottish, but he took his medical degree
from Edinburgh, where he undoubtedly came into contact with the
Scottish discussions of inductive scientific methodology. As suggested
by the above passage, however, another factor also entered into
Carpenter's views regarding the nature of science. An active unitarian,
William B. Carpenter was greatly interested in the bearings of science
upon religion; indeed, many of his views regarding scientific method-
SPENCER AND CARPENTER 287
proportion to the justness of this assumption, and the correctness of our judgement in
tracing and adopting it, will the induction be successful. The analogies to be pursued
must be those suggested from already-ascertained laws and relations. 47
Comparative Physiology "did more than any other work to make von
Baer's ideas known to the English-speaking world."sO Familiarity with
von Baer's work led Carpenter to see the unity of nature in developmental
terms, and thus to depart from the more static viewpoint of pure
comparative anatomy. Although indicating his support for Oken's attempt
to establish analogies in his 1837 paper on the unity of function in
organized beings, for example, Carpenter noted in that paper that the
test of analogy could no longer be limited simply to "similarity in
function and external form." "The time has long gone by," he wrote,
"when similarity in function and external form were considered sufficient
for recognition of analogies between organs; anatomists are now aware
of necessity of resting their comparison upon the elementary structure
of their organs, their connections with each other, and the changes that
they undergo during the process of their development."sl
Illustrating William B. Carpenter's developmental approach to the
study of biological analogies was an article that Carpenter and the
American scientist James D. Dana published jointly in 1851. Its title was,
"On the Analogy between the mode of Reproduction in Plants and the
'Alternation of Generations' observed in some Radiata". The article
was inspired by observations that a polyp and a Medusa could be
different generations of the same species; the eggs of the Medusa
becoming polyps; and the polyps producing a bud that yielded a Medusa.
Carpenter and Dana argued that the alternation was not unusual, and
that it was in fact analogous to what occurred in plants where, they
claimed, a "seed produces leaf individuals; and these produce seeds;
precisely, as the egg produces polyps, and the polyps bulbs, that develop
into Medusae, and the Medusae eggs." For Carpenter and Dana, the
analogy was a real one that indicated the existence of a general law of
growth and development. "We find the analogy completely sustained even
in minor points of structure and growth," they wrote, adding that "the
only point in which the analogy seems to fail, is that the Medusa bud
falls off before its full development, while this is not so with the plants."
The concluding paragraph was: "The law of alternating generations is
therefore no limited principle, strange and anomalous, applying only to
a few Radiata. It embraces under its scope, the vegetable kingdom, and
it is but another instance of identity in the laws of growth in the two
departments of life."s2
Herbert Spencer read William B. Carpenter's General and
Comparative Physiology, and he almost certainly also read some of
290 VICTOR L. HILTS
HERBERT SPENCER
Elliot, and George Henry Lewes. Friendship between Lewes and Spencer
was conducive to the scientific interests of both men, and it was at the
prodding of Mary Ann Evans that Spencer finally read some of Comte
in the original. Spencer wrote in his Autobiography that he met Lewes
for the first time in the spring of 1850 and that this meeting was respon-
sible for introducing Lewes, then known only for his literary work, into
the field of biology. 53 Somewhat later, Lewes reciprocated by introducing
Spencer to the biological ideas of Henri Milne-Edwards, an acquaintance
ultimately to prove significant for Spencer's concept of the social
organism. Both Herbert Spencer and George Henry Lewes had been
interested in phrenology, which claimed to make the science of the
mind scientific, and during the 1850s both men became involved in the
evolutionary controversies that followed the anonymous publication of
Robert Chambers's Vestiges of Creation.
During this crucial decade Spencer not only became interested in
biology but he also developed a strong belief in the unity of the sciences.
At first this belief may have been largely philosophical, but it was soon
supported by Spencer's scientific reading. George Henry Lewes probably
told Spencer of his interest in German philosophy and Natiirphilosophie.
However, Spencer's belief in unity was not due only to Natiirphilosophie,
which, in fact, Spencer on occasion severely criticized. 54 At mid century,
some observers hoped for a unification of the sciences based upon the
doctrine of the conservation of energy; others anticipated the same thing
as the eventual outcome of a rejection of special vital forces and powers
in biology. Herbert Spencer alluded in his Autobiography to the influ-
ence of these various unifying impulses upon his own thinking in the
1850s by writing that "the time was one at which certain all-embracing
scientific truths of a simple order were being revealed.,,55 In the same
passage he mentioned, in particular, the importance of William Groves's
The Correlation of Physical Forces, a book that in 1846 sought to estab-
lish the unity of the fundamental "forces" of nature, among which Grove
included heat, light, and electricity. These unifying tendencies within
science seemed to Spencer entirely consistent with the great general-
izations that he believed were being discovered by biologists. They
were also consistent with Spencer's belief in the explanatory power of
analogies.
It is possible to trace in some detail Spencer's growing faith during
the 1850s in the analogical method, which went hand-in-hand with
Spencer's emerging conviction of an analogy between society and the
292 VICTOR L. HILTS
concerning all things that undergo development? Is not science growth; and must
not science, too, have its embryology? And must not the neglect of its embryology lead
to a misunderstanding of the principles of its evolution and of its existing organiza-
tion'?!
Spencer argued in his paper on the genesis of science that the inter-
actions between the sciences were at the level of analogy:
Not only do sciences affect one another [directly], but they also affect each other
indirectly. Where there is no dependence, there is yet analogy - equality of relations;
and the discovery of relations subsisting amongst one set of phenomena constantly suggests
a search for the same relations amongst another set. 62
Spencer's definition of analogy as an "equality of relations" was derived
from contemporary usage. In his System of Logic, John Stuart Mill
noted that Analogy "sometimes stands for arguments which may be
examples of the most rigorous Induction. Archbishop [Richard] Whately,
for instance, following [James] Ferguson and other writers, defines
Analogy conformably to its primitive acceptation, that which was given
to it by mathematicians, Resemblance of Relations."63 Mill also wrote
that it was usual "to extend the name of analogical evidence to arguments
from any sort of resemblance provided they do not amount to a complete
induction: without peculiarly distinguishing resemblance of relations.,,64
The year after the publication of his article on the genesis of science,
Spencer also defined analogy as an equality of relations in his Principles
of Psychology.
At the same time that Herbert Spencer was writing about analogy as
the "equality of relations", he was also becoming increasingly familiar
with biology. Richard Owen certainly contributed to Herbert Spencer's
awareness of the comparative anatomists' use of the term "analogy"
(as well as to some other topics) but Spencer was more profoundly
indebted to the biological views of William B. Carpenter than to those
of Owen. Indeed, considering the degree to which Carpenter's own stature
was growing during the 1850s, Spencer could hardly have escaped his
influence. There was more significance to Spencer's indebtedness to
Carpenter, however, than is revealed simply by noting Carpenter's
growing prominence; in using Carpenter rather than Owen as his primary
biological authority, Spencer repudiated a static biological science whose
roots lay in comparative anatomy, and he embraced instead a develop-
mental biological science whose roots lay in physiology. Spencer
acknowledged his indebtedness to Carpenter's influence on several
occasions. Most notably, Spencer wrote in his Autobiography that in
294 VICTOR L. HILTS
Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations; namely,
the "division of labor". Using the phrase, "division du travail physi-
ologique," the French zoologist Henri Milne-Edwards applied the idea
of the division of labor to explain the difference between simple and
complex animals. According to Milne-Edwards, the organs of simple
animals "may be compared to a workshop, where the workmen are
employed in the execution of similar labors, and where consequently then
their number would influence the quantity, but not the nature of the
products.'>71 The organization of higher animals, however, revealed what
Milne Edwards thought was akin to the division of labor in society:
individual organs differing to an increasing extent in both structure and
function. In his Elemens de Zoologie Milne-Edwards wrote that "the prin-
ciple which seems to have guided nature in the perfection of beings is,
as we see, precisely the one which has had the greatest influence upon
the progress of human industry: the division of labor."n English writers,
including both Herbert Spencer and Charles Darwin, usually referred
to Milne-Edwards's idea as the "physiological division of labor.,,73
Robert J. Richards has noted that Spencer appears to have first used
Milne-Edwards' concept of the social division of labor in his 1852 article
for the Westminster Review entitled "A Theory of Population, Deduced
from the General Law of Animal Fertility".74 In this article, Spencer
also reviewed William B. Carpenter's Principles of Physiology, General
and Comparative; indeed, well over half of Spencer's footnotes to this
article were to either the third or the fourth edition of Carpenter's book.
It is thus clear that Spencer began thinking about both Carpenter's
physiological ideas and Henri Milne-Edwards concept of the physio-
logical division of labor at very nearly the exact same time. Spencer again
cited the implications of Milne-Edwards's "physiological division of
labor" in 1854 in his paper on the "Genesis of Science". "The fact is,"
Spencer wrote in that article, "that the division of labour in science,
like the division of labour in society, and like the 'physiological division
of labour' in individual organisms, has been not only a specialization
of functions, but a continuous helping of each division by all the others,
and of all by each.,,75 In his 1860 article on the "Social Organism"
Spencer wrote that the "analogy between the economical division of
labour and the 'physiological division of labour' is so striking, as long
since to have drawn the attention of scientific naturalists.,,76
In his article on the social organism, Herbert Spencer articulated
three "parallelisms" that, he maintained, demonstrated the analogy
SPENCER AND CARPENTER 297
University of Wisconsin
SPENCER AND CARPENTER 299
NOTES
I [Herbert Spencer]: "The Social Organism", Westminster Review, 1860, 73: 51-68.
2 Ibid., p. 56.
3 Ibid., p. 53.
4 See especially J.D.Y. Peel: Herbert Spencer: The Evolution of a Sociologist (New York:
Basic Books, 1971), pp. 166-191.
5 J.D.Y. Peel, "Herbert Spencer" in: Dictionary of Scientific Biography (New York:
Charles Scribner's Sons, 1975); vol. 12, p. 570.
6 Herbert Spencer: An Autobiography, (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1904),
vol. 1, pp. 402-403.
7 Robert J. Richards: Darwin and the Emergence of Evolutionary Theories of Mind
and Behavior (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1987 - Science and its
Conceptual Foundations, David L. Hull, editor), esp. pp. 295-330. Richards also notes
(p. 557) that other factors involved in Spencer's development were "Carpenter's physi-
ology, Lamarck's theory via Lyell, Hamilton's neo-Kantianism, and Darwin's theory of
community selection."
8 [Herbert Spencer]: "The Social Organism", p. 54.
9 Peel (n. 5 supra) notes that Spencer's way "had been cleared by Spencer's reading of
K.E. von Baer's work on embryology and H. Milne-Edwards' theme of 'the physiolog-
ical division of labor'." Also see Robert J. Richards (n. 7 supra), esp. pp. 267-274.
10 John R. McCulloch: "Political Economy", The Encyclopaedia Britannica or Dictionary
of Arts, Sciences, and General Literature, seventh edition, (Edinburgh: Adam and Charles
Black, 1842), vol. 18, p. 260. Most of this article was the same as McCulloch's Britannica
article of 1824. Evidently, McCulloch realized that this claim for political economy was
too strong, because it was omitted in J.R. McCulloch: The Principles of Political Economy;
with some inquiries respecting their application, and a sketch of the rise and progress
of the science, a work based on McCulloch's Britannica article that was printed separately
in 1825. The debate over the relative role of induction and deduction in political economy
needs further study, especially with reference to the broader context of English discus-
sions of scientific methodology in the early nineteenth century.
11 John Stuart Mill: A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive. Being a Connected
View of the Principles of the Evidence and the Methods of Scientific Investigation [1843],
(New York: Harper and Brothers, 1848), Book VI, Chap. VII, pp. 550-555.
12 Ibid., Book VI, Chap. VII, p. 552.
13 Auguste Comte: The Positive Philosophy of Auguste Comte, freely translated and con-
densed by Harriet Martineau (New York: D. Appleton and Co.; London: J. Chapman,
1853), p. 5.
14 John Stuart Mill: A System of Logic, p. v.
15 Francis Wayland: The Elements of Moral Science, 8th ed. (Boston: Gould, Kendall,
and Lincoln, 1839), p. 23-25.
16 James Bonar: Philosophy and Political Economy in Some of Their Historical Relations,
3rd ed. (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1922), p. 140.
17 George Combe: The Constitution of Man Considered in Relation to External Objects
[1828], facsimile reproduction, intr. Eric T. Carlson (Delmar [New York]: Scholars'
Facsimiles & Reprints, 1974), "Preface", p. vii-viii.
18 For phrenology see Roger Cooter: The Cultural Meaning of Popular Science:
300 VICTOR L. HILTS
3S William Whewell: History of the Inductive Sciences, third ed. [1857] (reprint London:
Cass & Co., 1967), vol. 3, Book XVI, chap. 6, p. 295.
36 Phillip F. Reback: The Philosophical Naturalists: Themes in Early Nineteenth-century
British Biology (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1983).
37 William B. Carpenter: "On Unity of Function in Organized Beings", The New
Edinburgh Philosophical Journal, 1837, 23: 92-114. Considering his contemporary
reputation, William B. Carpenter has not received the systematic attention that he deserves.
Standard biographical accounts are G[eorge] T[homas] B[ettany], "William Carpenter",
Dictionary of National Biography, vol. 3, pp. 1075-1076; K. Bryn Thomas, "William
Carpenter", Dictionary of Scientific Biography, vol. 3, pp. 87-89. Three recent articles
by L.S. Jacyna provide additional information on Carpenter and his milieu - L.S. Jacyna:
"The Physiology of Mind, the Unity of Nature, and the Moral Order in Victorian Thought",
British Journal for the History of Science, 1981, 14: 109-132; L.S. Jacyna: "The Romantic
Programme and the Reception of Cell Theory in Britain", Journal of the History of Biology,
1984, 17: 13-48; L.S. Jacyna: "Principles of General Physiology: The Comparative
Dimension to British Neuroscience in the 1830s and 1840s", Studies in the History of
Biology, 1984, 7: 47-92.
38 William B. Carpenter: "On the Unity of Function in Organized Beings", p. 94.
39 William B. Carpenter: Principles of General and Comparative Physiology, Intended
as an Introduction to the Study of Human Physiology and as a Guide to the Philosophical
Pursuit of Natural History (London: John Churchill, 1839), p. 163. Carpenter took the
quotation from George Cuvier: Discours sur les revolutions de la surface du globe (Paris,
1825).
40 W.B. Carpenter: Principles of General and Comparative Physiology, 1839, p. 163.
41 Ibid.
42 Ibid., dedication page.
43 Quoted in William B. Carpenter: Principles of General and Comparative Physiology,
p. 134. The quotation was from John Herschel: Preliminary Discourse on the Study of
Natural Philosophy (London: 1830), p. 37.
44 At least Powell's claims for the importance of analogy in induction became widely
known during the late 1830s and 1840s. For Powell see Robert Fox: "Baden Powell",
Dictionary of Scientific Biography, vol. 11, pp. 115-116.
4S Baden Powell: On the Nature and Evidence of the Primary Laws of Motion (Oxford:
The Ashmolean Society, 1837).
46 Ibid., pp. 55-56.
47 Quoted in William B. Carpenter: Principles of General and Comparative Physiology,
1839, p. 163. The quotation was from Baden Powell: The Connexion of Natural and Divine
Truth; or, The Study of the Inductive Philosophy Considered as Subservient to Theology
(London: John W. Parker, 1838), p. 33.
48 Baden Powell: Connexion of Natural and Divine Truth, p. 26.
49 William B. Carpenter: Principles of General and Comparative Physiology, 1839, p.
11.
so Dov Ospovat, "The Influence of Karl Ernst von Baer's Embryology, 1829-1859: A
Reappraisal in Light of Richard Owen's and William B. Carpenter's Paleontological
Application of 'von Baer's Law"', Journal of the History of Biology, 1976, 9: 10.
SI William B. Carpenter: "On Unity of Function of Organized Beings", pp. 92-93.
302 VICTOR L. HILTS
52 William B. Carpenter and James D. Dana, "On the Analogy between the mode of
Reproduction in Plants and the 'Alternation of Generations' observed in some Radiata",
Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal, 1851, 50: 266-268.
53 Herbert Spencer Autobiography (New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1904), vol. I, p.
435-439.
54 See, for example, Spencer's criticisms of Natiirphilosophie in [Herbert Spencer]: "The
Genesis of Science", British Quarterly Review, 1854,20: 108-162. In discussing Oken's
cosmological ideas, Spencer wrote (p. 116) that "to comment on them would be nearly
as absurd as are the propositions themselves."
55 Herbert Spencer: Autobiography, vol. 2, p. 15.
56 Herbert Spencer: Social Statics: or, The Conditions Essential to Human Happiness
Specified and The First of Them Developed [1851] (reprint, New York: Augustus M.
Kelley, 1969), p. 448.
57 Ibid., p. 451.
58 Richard Owen: Lectures on Comparative Anatomy and Physiology, 1843, p. 364.
59 [Herbert Spencer]: "The Genesis of Science", British Quarterly Review, 1854,20:
108-162.
60 Sidney Eisen: "Herbert Spencer and the Spectre of Comte", The Journal of British
Studies, 1967,7: 48-67.
61 [Herbert Spencer]: "The Genesis of Science", p. 114.
62 Ibid., p. 153.
63 John Stuart Mill: System of Logic, Book III, Chap. XX, p. 332.
64 Ibid.
65 Herbert Spencer: Autobiography, vol. 1, p. 445.
66 William B. Carpenter: Principles of Human Physiology (Philadelphia: Blanchard
and Lea, 1853), p. 986.
67 [Herbert Spencer]: "Progress: Its Law and Cause", Westminster and Foreign Quarterly
Review, 1857,67: 445-485.
68 Carpenter's interest in the inheritance of acquired characteristics proved to be long-
standing. See William B. Carpenter: "On the Hereditary transmission of Acquired Psychical
Habits", Contemporary Review, 1873, 21: 294-314, 778-795, 867-885. Another point
of contact between Carpenter and Spencer lay in Carpenter's interest in the law of con-
servation of energy as a unifying principle in nature. See Vance Hall: "The Contribution
of the Physiologist William B. Carpenter (1813-1885) to the Development of the Principles
of the Correlation of Forces and the Conservation of Energy", Medical History, 1979,
23: 129-155.
69 Herbert Spencer noted this irony himself. In 1873, Spencer described what he called
the "reciprocal relationship between the sciences of biology and sociology. Referring
particularly to the concept of the division of labor, Spencer wrote, "We have but to
glance back at its progress, to see that Biology owes the cardinal idea on which we have
been dwelling, to Sociology; and that having derived from Sociology this explanation
of development, it gives it back to Sociology greatly increased in definiteness, enriched
by multitudiness illustrations, and fit for extension in new directions." See Herbert Spencer:
"The Study of Sociology", The Contemporary Review, 1873, 22: 331.
70 Justus Liebig: Familiar Letters on Chemistry [London, 1851, p. 466], abbreviated quo-
tation in [Herbert Spencer]: "Social Organism," p. 63.
SPENCER AND CARPENTER 303
71 Henri Milne Edwards: Outlines of Anatomy and Physiology, trans. J.F.W. Lane
(Boston: Charles C. Little, 1851), p. 11.
72 Ibid., p. 12.
73 For a discussion of the influence of Milne-Edwards upon Charles Darwin see Camille
Limoges: "Darwin, Milne-Edwards et Ie principe de divergence", Actes Xlle Congo Int.
Hist. Science, 1968, 8: 111-113.
74 Richards, (n. 7 supra), p. 271. See [Herbert Spencer]: "A Theory of Population,
deduced from the General Law of Animal Fertility", Westminster Review, 1852, 57:
259-260.
75 [Herbert Spencer]: "Genesis of Science", p. 126.
76 [Herbert Spencer]: "The Social Organism", Westminster Review, 1860, 73: 59.
77 William B. Carpenter: Principles of Human Physiology, with their chief applica-
tions to psychology, pathology, therapeutics, hygiene, and forensic medicine (Philadelphia:
Blanchard and Lea, 1853), pp. 547-48.
78 [Herbert Spencer]: "Social Organism", p. 54.
79 Ibid., p. 53.
80 Ibid., p. 52.
81 An early enumeration of organismic analogies in social thought is provided in Lester
Ward: "Contemporary Sociology", The American Journal of Sociology, 1902, 7: 480.
S. S. SCHWEBER
305
I. B. Cohen (ed.), The Natural Sciences and the Social Sciences, 305-316.
1994 Kluwer Academic Publishers.
306 S. S. SCHWEBER
When coupled with these, E 95-97 contains many of the insights which
will later go into the principle of divergence, although in 1838-1839,
when these entries were written, there were indeed many "preexisting"
constraints: conservation of species, conservation of land masses, and
adaptation to stations regarded as geographical localities. But the notion
that diversification could increase the "quantum of life" became from
that time on one of Darwin's theoretical assumptions. For example, it
is given as an explanation for the paucity of species and the diversity
of genera in Coral Islets in the spring of 1844:
Explanations of fewness of species and diversity of genera, I think must be partly accounted
for the plants groups could subsist in greater numbers, and interfere less with each other.
This must be explanation of Arctic Regions - How are alpine plants. Several Genera?JO
308 S. S. SCHWEBER
The note is very explicit: In any locality the largest amount of plant
life will be supported if there is diversity, for then "the plants groups
[will] interfere less with each other."
There were several sources for Darwin's characterization of the
equilibrium as one which maximizes the amount of life per unit area.
One of the most important was the literature on scientific agriculture,
including the related writings on political economy.ll Agriculture was
a central concern in all discussions of political economy, starting with
Quesnay and the physiocrats and with Adam Smith. A good example
is the influential series of lectures on Political Economy that Dugald
Stewart delivered in the first decade of the nineteenth century.12 In these
lectures he gave a critical overview of political economy at the turn of
the century.13 As befitted his Scottish training and outlook, Stewart's
presentation was sensitive to the sociological aspects of the subject matter
and offered illuminating comparisons with French and Continental
practices. He began by indicating the role and interrelation of agricul-
ture 14 and manufactures in the economy of a nation. A disciple of Adam
Smith, he stressed the self-regulating character of the free market:
In the midst of this conflict of contending interests and prejudices, it is the business of
the Political Economist to watch over the concerns of all, and point out to the Legislator
the danger of listening exclusively to claims founded in local or in partial advantages,
to remind him that the pressure of a temporary scarcity brings along with it in time its
own remedy, while an undue depression of prices may sacrifice to a passing abundance
years offuture prosperity; - above all, to recommend to him such apolicy, as by securing
in ordinary years a regular surplus, may restrain the fluctuation of prices within as
narrow limits as possible .... 15
It must surely be evident to every one, that there is a great advantage to the English farmer,
from corn and cattle being in equal demand, since he is thereby enabled to apply all his
lands to those productions only to which they are best adapted; while, at the same time,
the one is constantly the means of increasing the produce of the other. IS
Another entry in the M notebook, for the end of September or the begin-
ning of October 1838, similarly refers to Stewart's biographical memoirs,
310 S. S. SCHWEBER
grown on the pasture, the animals that can be raised on these plants,
and the nutritive and regenerative value (in terms of mineral and organic
matter) of the manure excreted by these animals onto these same fields
and plants. The intent was to discover which animals to raise and which
grasses to grow in order to maximize the value of the outpUt. 33 Davy
conceived of his approach as a scientific procedure to achieve the
steady state, that is, equilibrium, which maximized output in a manner
consistent with nature's constraints. 34 Darwin followed the growing
literature on this ecological approach to land management and animal
husbandry after he moved to Down, and this scientific approach to
agriculture probably assumed an even greater importance after Darwin
purchased a farm in Lincolnshire in 1845 as an investment.
Agricultural chemistry as a scientific discipline was given a great
stimulus by Justus Leibig's Organic Chemistry in its Applications to
Agriculture and Physiologl 5 (1840). Leibig had initially prepared this
treatise as a report to the BAAS meeting of 1841. In the preface,
addressed "To the British Association for the Advancement of Science",
he explained:
I have endeavoured to develop, in a manner correspondent to the present state of science,
the fundamental principles of chemistry in general, and the laws of organic chemistry
in particular, in their applications to agriculture and physiology ....
cultivation of our crops has ultimately no other object than the production of a maximum
of those substances which are adapted for assimilation and respiration, in the smallest
possible space. . . .
Cultivation is the economy of force [energy]. Science teaches us the simplest means
of obtaining the greatest effect wth the smallest expenditure of power, and with given
means to produce a maximum of force [energy].40
Brandeis University
DARWIN AND AGRONOMISTS 313
NOTES
1 Silvan S. Schweber, "The Origin of the Origin Revisited", Journal of the History of
Biology, 1977, 10: 229-316; "The Genesis of Natural Selection - 1838: Some Further
Insights", BioScience, 1978,28: 321-326; "The Young Darwin", Journal of the History
of Biology, 1979, 12: 175-192; "Early Victorian Science: Science in Culture", Journal
of the History of Biology, 1980, 13: 121-140; "Darwin and the Political Economists:
Divergence of Character", Journal of the History of Biology, 1980, 13: 195-289; "Demons,
Angels, and Probability: Some Aspects of British Science in the Nineteenth Century",
pp. 319-363 of Abner Shimony & Laszlo Tisza (eds.); Physics as Natural Philosophy:
Essays in Honor of Laszlo Tisza on His Seventy-Fifth Birthday (Cambridge/London:
The MIT Press, 1982); "Facteurs ideologiques et intellectuels dans la genese de la tMorie
de la selection naturelle", pp. 123-142 of Yvette Conry (ed.): De Darwin au Darwinisme:
science et ideologie [Congres International pour Ie Centenaire de la Mort de Darwin, Paris-
Chantilly, 13-16 septembre 1982] (Paris: Librairie Philosophique J. Vrin, 1983); "The
Wider British Context in Darwin's Theorizing", pp. 35-69 of David Kohn (ed.): The
Darwinian Heritage. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985).
2 A cause is a "vera causa" if it can be shown (I) to be real, that is, to exist in phenomena
other than the one under consideration, (2) to be competent to effect the consequences
attributed to it, and (3) to be responsible for these effects.
3 Incidentally, Darwin's comments in the transmutation notebooks indicate that he already
appreciated the social components in the characterization of an explanation as a scien-
tific one: What constitutes an acceptable theory is determined by a scientific community,
whose religious and political beliefs are reflected in the criteria. From Herschel, as
quoted in Babbage's (1938) "Ninth Bridgewater Treatise," Darwin had concluded that a
scientific community whose religious outlook was theistic could accept a putative
dynamical theory to account for the origin of species in which the Deity is conceived
of as operating through secondary laws. The model of astronomy was the constant referent.
4 E 95-97; Sir Gavin de Beer (ed.): "Darwin's Notebooks on Transmutation of Species,
Part IV: Fourth Notebook (October 1838-10 July 1839", Bulletin of the British Museum
(Natural History), Historical Series, 1960, 2: 169-170.
5 I have interpreted "beings" as individuals. It is also possible in the context of the
entry to understand by "beings" not "individuals" but "kinds", a reading which follows
from the remark "(all fishes to the state of the Ammocoetus ... ).' Darwin in a famous
section of the notebook - "Organized beings represent tree, irregularly branched" - had
proposed the splitting of species into branches as a phenomenological fact. B21-23; Sir
Gavin de Beer, (ed.), "Darwin's Notebooks on Transmutation of Species, Part I: First
Notebook (July 1837-February 1838)". Bulletin of the British Museum (Natural History),
Historical Series, 1960, 2: . The reading of "beings" as "kinds" here would suggest
that Darwin is postulating a Malthusian multiplication mechanism for species and would
constitute an interesting illustration of Darwin's use of analogies in his theoretical models.
See in this connection Howard E. Gruber, Darwin on Man: A Psychological Study of
Scientific Creativity, together with Darwin's Early and Unpublished Notebooks, transcr.
and annotated by Paul H. Barrett (New York: E.P. Dutton, 1974, 129-149, and Gruber
(1978).
6 Robert C. Stauffer (ed.): Charles Darwin's Natural Selection; being the second part
314 S. S. SCHWEBER
of his big species book written from 1856 to 1858 (Cambridge/London: Cambridge
University Press 1975), p. 234.
7 Charles Lyell, Principles of Geology (London: John Murray, 1830-1833), vol. 2,
p. 134. In Natural Selection (see n. 6 above), during his discussion of the struggle of
existence, Darwin refers to Sir C. Lyell's "equilibrium in the number of species" with
the caveat that "it expresses far too much quiescence" (p. 187).
8 C146; Sir Gavin de Beer (ed.): "Darwin's Notebooks on Transmutation of Species, Part
II: Second Notebook (February to July 1838)", Bulletin of the British Museum (Natural
History Historical Series), 1960,2: 98.
9 C147e; Sir Gavin de Beer, M.J. Rowlands, & B.M. Skramovsky (eds.): "Darwin's
Notebooks on Transmutation of Species, Part VI: Pages Excised by Darwin", Bulletin
of the British Museum (Natural History), Historical Series, 1967, 3: 149.
\0 The Charles Darwin Archives in Cambridge University Library, Cambridge, England.
11 I have elsewhere ("The Origin of the Origin Revisited"; see n. 1 supra) referred to
other possible sources for such an approach. namely, the philosophical writings of Hume,
Smith, and Bentham: that is, the philosophical tradition which based ethics on a pleasure-
pain calculus. For this approach in the Scottish circles see Adam Smith; Essays on
Philosophical Subjects, (ed.) W.P.D. Wightman & J.C. Bryce [with Dugald Stewart:
Account of Adam Smith, ed. I.S. Ross] (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980 - The Glasgow
Edition of the Works and Correspondence of Adam Smith, vol. 3), and the essays intro-
ducing the texts.
12 Dugald Stewart, Lectures on Political Economy, ed. Sir William Hamilton The
Collected Works of Dugald Stewart, vols. 8 and 9 (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1877).
13 Incidentally, Stewart's Lectures on Political Economy are a rich source for a histor-
ical overview of demography, agricultural practices, and agricultural economics during
the eighteenth century. See also C.A. Browne's A Source Book of Agricultural Chemistry
(1944). [full biographical reference needed]
14 "To begin, then, with that science, which in the judgment of the most enlightened
politicians, is the most essential of all to human happiness, - I mean the Science of
Agriculture; ow various and important are the subjects which belong exclusively to its
province! The general principles of vegetation; the chemical analysis of soils; the theory
of manures; the principles which regulate the rotation of crops, and which modify the
rotation, according to the diversities of soil and climate; the implements of agriculture,
both mechanical and animal; - and a thousand other topics of a similar description"
(Stewart, n. 12 supra), vol. 8, p. 11.
15 Ibid., p. 12.
16 Ibid., p. 103 ff.
17 Ibid., p. 107.
18 Ibid., p. 108.
19 Ibid.
20 Ibid., p. 127.
21 Ibid., p. 128. It is interesting to note that Stewart then suggested that "In general, it
should seem, that in proportion as Agriculture advances, the size of farms should be
reduced; or rather, that farms should divide themselves in proportion as the task of
superintendence became more difficult." The mechanization of farms had not yet begun
in 1800!
DARWIN AND AGRONOMISTS 315
1840 and 1846; see Peter J. Vorzimrner (ed.): "The Darwin Reading Notebooks
(1838-1860)", Journal of the History of Biology, 1977, 10: 107-153.
36 J. Liebig: Organic Chemistry in its Applications to Agriculture and Physiology
(London: Taylor and Walton, 1840), pp. vi-vii.
37 J. Liebig: Animal Chemistry or organic chemistry in its application to physiology
and pathology, ed. W. Gregory (London: Taylor and Walton, 1842) pp. l29-130.
38 Vorzimrner (n. 35 supra), p. 128.
39 Vorzimrner "The Darwin Reading Notebooks"; see entry for Nov. 20 1844 and that
for 14 Oct. 1851.
40 Justus Liebig: Familiar Letters on Chemistry, and its Relation to Commerce,
Physiology, and Agriculture, ed. John Gardner (New York: D. Appleton; Philadelphia:
George S. Appleton, 1843), pp. 107-108.
41 S.S. Schweber, "Darwin and the Political Economists" and "Facteurs id~ologiques
et inteUectuels" (n. I supra). [reference to C. Limoges?]
42 Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, ed.
Edwin Cannan (New York: Modem Library 1937), p. 423.
CAMILLE LIMOGES
Much attention has already been paid to the important historical role
played in the constitution of scientific discourses by the transference
of concepts from one area of knowledge to another. The enquiries gen-
erally focus on the analogical or metaphorical nature of these conceptual
transfers. Some investigations suggest that these transfers consistently
aim not so much at monistic or reductionist explanations as at pro-
viding heuristic scaffolding or firmer scientific basis and authority for
fledgling domains of knowledge. This is why one should generally expect
a typical declivity in the process, the more exact and established sciences
providing conceptual frameworks for the less firmly grounded ones.
Thence the frequent borrowings of the biological sciences from the
physical sciences, and of the social to the biological and the physical
sciences.!
It is not the contention of this article that such a view is basically
wrong. But it intends to exhibit, through the analysis of a sequence of
transfers of the concept of "division of labour", that conceptual exchanges
between the natural and the social sciences also occured both ways,
and that there might be cases where the pay-off seems greater for the
natural than for the social sciences.
The concept of division of labour has a long and convoluted history
which we cannot even summarize here;2 it will be enough for our purpose
to concentrate the attention on some aspects of three episodes only, those
involving the relationships between Henri Milne-Edwards', Charles
Darwin's and Emile Durkheim's theorizings.
It has not escaped our attention that the process that we will analyze
might seem to form a continuous and neat historical loop: taking root
in the tradition of the political economy of Adam Smith, Milne-Edwards'
central ideas nourished the thinking of Darwin which in turn provided
a crucial building block for Durkheim's sociological theory, a theory
which claimed to account for some of the basic assumptions made by
Smith. However to posit such a loop would be mistaken.
317
T. B. Cohen (ed.), The Natural Sciences and the Social Sciences, 317-343.
1994 Kluwer Academic Publishers.
318 CAMILLE LIMOGES
guiding nature is "precisely one of those which have been the most
influential on the progresses of human industry".11
But it is in pursuing his series of studies on Crustaceans (started
with Victor Audouin in 1826), in which he investigated by dissection and
experimentation the diverse anatomical arrangements by which the
physiological fonctions are performed, that he gave his new theory its
full extension and showed how it provided a basis for a new approach
to the practice of natural classification. It is beyond the scope of this
article to examine Milne-Edwards' work as a zoologist and taxonomist,
but it is important to emphasize that division of labour was not just a
superficial metaphor, not only a fashionable catch phrase to attract
attention or some useless abstract superstructure, but functioned as a
central concept for his practice as a scientist. As he himself stated in
his first major work, the Histoire naturelle des Crustaces,I2 the prin-
ciple of the progressive division of physiological labour provided the
rationale for substituting a new method to the Cuvieran approach to
taxonomy. The use of the Cuvierian principle of subordination of
characters led to group together only those organisms which showed
similar internal anatomical structure, whereas adopting the new view one
would not be side-tracked by differences in structures and would "include
in the Crustaceans all the animals whose general organisation, even when
less complex, is bounded with the organisation of the types of the class,
and whose conformation recalls the transitory states through which went
the most perfect beings of the series during their embryonic life". By
so doing one could, under the conditions stated above, bring in the
same class animals with gills and others which have no special organs
for respiration and where this function is performed through the skin,
animals which have a heart and a complex vesicular system and others
which have no distinct vessels, animals with highly specialized organs
with others which show for the same function only rudimentary appa-
ratuses. This is why some degenerated [degrades] animals put with
zoophytes by Cuvier, were classified by Milne-Edwards as Crustaceans. 13
Despite his avowed non-evolutionary standpoint, the outlook of his
taxonomy, emphasizing the ''tendency to the perfecting of the organism
by the division of physiological labour", 14 in many regards is congruent
with what one would expect from an evolutionary classification, and it
is no surprise that Darwin, as we will see, made thorough analysis of
many of Milne-Edwards' contributions.
Milne-Edwards gave his most elaborate statement on the nature and
DIVISION OF LABOUR 321
of the whole requires more and more of a strict coordination and the
subordination of each of the physiological agents of the association. 22
This is not achieved either through the influence that the parts would
mutually exercise upon one another, or through the influence of a
"dominating" character or part, as Cuvier believed. It must rather result
from the action of a preexisting force, plan or power, the nature of
which could be elucidated only through the investigation of the origin
of the living beings, of heredity and of the permanence or variability
of species. 23
But this is the concluding statement of the book and Milne-Edwards
personal views on the origin of species at this stage remain unknown;24
as we mentioned earlier, the second part of the Introduction a la zoologie
generale was never published and there does not seem to be any evidence
that he ever started writing it.
he could only rely upon analogy and quasi-aesthetic criteria. Given his
basic assumptions, there was no way out and the theory was to keep
that form in his later works. 47
If the use and efficiency of the division of physiological labour were
difficult to assess objectively, the very cause driving the process, as we
mentioned earlier, "the power which acts in a different way upon each
species,,48 remained mysterious. Milne-Edwards had to be content with
refering to the two regulating principles of nature: "the need for variety"
and "the tendency to economy".49
In summary, as Milne-Edwards made clear from the start, 50 it is a
new theory that he intended to develop, and division of labour was the
key concept of his theoretical construction. He applied the notion to a
new object, the physiological functions, but without its conceptual
context, prices, the market and the circulation of goods. The transfer
permitted him to assume by analogy effects in the organism similar to
those in the economy, as far as production only was concerned. Because
the theoretical relationships in which was embedded the Smithian concept
of division of labour were not reconsidered and reworked in the field
of application of the transfer, the theory of the division of physiolog-
ical labour, despite its empirical fruitfulness in classificatory practices,
ultimately proved to be of dubious theoretical consistency. The contrast
with Darwin is enlightening.
for classification - gives examples in Custacea Isopod (see his Treatise on Crust 1st
vol. for excellent remarks) the specific characters are not assumed till after the generic
& these after those of the family [ ... 1 p. 72 compares metamorphosis of embryo in
the animal kingdom to bundle, which individuals at different heights. p. 76 compares
the classification as deduce from embryo to a tree - remark the animals ought to arrange
in space and not in a plane surface p. 76 the character of superiority in any series is
'l'empreinte plus profonde du cachet propre a cette meme s6rie, et I'adaptation plus
compl~te du plan organique ainsi constitut6 a 1a division du travail physiologique' says
that the most radiate animal with the greatest number of distinct organs is higher than
the binary form [ . . . 1 p. 80 Remarks that in two serial groups that the resemblance is
greatest between the lower forms [ . . . 1 p. 89 Fish & Batracians, continue for long to
walk in the same embryonic road whereas Mammals, Birds, Reptiles, at an earlier date
begin to diverge 54 or: 'Ia marche g6n6sique parall~le (in these) est de moins longue dur6e' .55
This is evidence not only that Darwin highly esteemed and carefully
read Milne-Edwards, but, above all, that from the mid-1840's on, he
found in the latter's writings inspiration in his meditations on the pro-
gressive branching of taxa. On these readings, it could not - and did
not - escape his attention that "divergence" (a word Milne-Edwards
also often used) was related to the increasing division of physiological
labour from the lower to the higher animals. However, as we have seen,
Milne-Edwards himself was at a loss to explain by what causal agent
divergence through division of physiological labour might have actually
occured. Though he did make Darwin accustomed to associate the two
concepts, he did not provide a solution that could simply be borrowed
to causally explain divergence in evolutionary terms.
Divergence was no minor issue for Darwin. Indeed, he came to see
it as a "keystone" of his theory,56 as the regulating principle of the natural
selection of variations,57 and Ernst Mayr has noted that he always referred
to it "with great excitement".58 In a nutshell, Darwin's solution was that
the more diversified the organisms become through variations, the easiest
it will be for them to occupy specialized niches in the economy of nature,
and to escape elimination through competition, to survive and to
reproduce. 59
In Natural Selection, the unfinished longer version of what was to
become his major work, Darwin stated concerning the "principle of
divergence": "This doctrine is in fact that of 'the division of labour',
so admirably propounded by Milne Edwards ... ";60 and in the Origin
of Species, he again, in his presentation of the "principle", referred to
Milne-Edwards and the division of physiological labour. 61 This is why,
in 1968, I pointed out that divergence could be called Darwin's
328 CAMILLE LIMOGES
lished in 1893. It was his first major work and became a classic of Hie
sociological literature.
Durkheim's basic problem was to solve the apparent antinomy between
the increasing autonomy of the individual in history and its increasing
dependence upon society. The solution, he found in the transformation
of social solidarity depending upon the progressive development of the
division of labour.74
According to Durkheim, the division of labour is not an institution
generated mainly by man's intelligence and wil1. 75 Biologists have shown
that it is a much more general reality than the economists have believed
and that its law applies as well to organisms as to societies.76 The division
of social labour is a particular form of this general biological process and
the societies in conforming to this law "seem to yield to a current born
long before them, which carries in the same direction the entire living
world".77
As we have shown, Milne-Edwards distinguished between two types
of organic complexity: the one obtained through repetition of similar
parts in segmented animals and the other generated through division of
physiological labour. In a similar manner Durkheim also distinguished
two types of societies: the segmental societies and those characterized
by division of social labour.
The segmental societies are those "formed through repetition of
aggregates similar one to the other, [such as clans], analogous to the
segments [anneaux] of the annelid".78 Originally, these societies must
have derived from a sort of "social protoplasm",79 from undifferenti-
ated, homogeneous social masses, which one has to postulate, though
no society has actually been described which would exactly correspond
to that state. In segmental societies, constituted by concatenation of
undifferentiated groups, the individuals are no more than "social mole-
cules",80 characterized by "mechanical solidarity", a sort of mental,
religious and material communism and conformism where individuals
are socially interchangeable, a collective consciousness where individ-
uality cannot emerge in its singularity.8l
In contrast, the societies where the division of labour predominates
are characterized by an "organic solidarity" based upon an increasing
mutual dependance of the individuals. As these individuals specialize
more and more in the performance of diverse social functions, they also
become more and more strongly characterized by individual differences.
In these societies, only traces of mechanical solidarity or collective
332 CAMILLE LIMOGES
Men submit to the same law. [ ... 1 it is easy to understand that any condensation
of the social mass, specially if it goes with an increase in population, necessarily deter-
mine the progresses of the division of labour.85 [ ... 1The division of labour is a result
of the struggle for life: but with a softer outcome. 86
It is this progressive disjunction which Darwin has called the law of the divergence
of characters. 87
principle of divergence which accounts for the incipient and all further
stages of the social division of labour. As we have made clear earlier,
it is the biological concept of a division of ecological labour which is
here squarely applied to the social process; it is not metaphorized in
any way but, on the contrary, is borrowed and used for its explanatory
power because of what is taken as its facticity.92
It has often been noted in the sociological literature that in none of
Durkheim's later works, or those of his school, is the emphasis on the
distinction between mechanical and organic solidarities made any use of.
So that, what was in 1893 the crucial query of social morphology, and
its biological solution, lost all relevance. This may be because Durkheim
came to see the attributes of mechanical solidarity, of collective con-
sciousness as the "eternal characteristics of social facts in general", as
Robert Nisbet has suggested;93 it may also be that he became dissatis-
fied with a theoretical construction bearing too heavily on biology while
he stressed more and more the autonomy of sociology as a discipline.
Indeed, as quotations we have given earlier show beyond doubt, at
the time he was writing the Division, Durkheim still believed that some
social processes, like the division of labour, conform to deeper processes,
to a "current born long before [societies] which carries in the same
direction the whole living world".94 This should be taken as a state-
ment of fact and not as an analogy. At the time, Durkheim was still
very much of a Comtean positivist, and it made sense for his intellec-
tual project to found sociology on the basis of biology, as was required
in the positivist classification of the sciences.
It remains, as Lukes has also emphasized, that Durkheim's "central,
morphological explanation of structural differentiation is incomplete
and largely speculative, saying very little about exactly how competi-
tion is resolved and virtually ignoring (unlike Spencer's theory [or
Darwin's for that matter]) the vital permissive influence of features of
the physical environment.,,95 Durkheim's attempt at superimposing
a conceptual framework, that of divergence, upon an order of reality
different from the one it was constructed for, proved to be a failure, or
at best an "extraordinary fable".96
4. CONCLUDING REMARKS
NOTES
* The research for this article has been made possible by a grant from the Social Science
and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Current research is funded by the "Actions
structurantes" programme of the Minist~re de l'Enseignement sup~rieur et de la Science,
Qu~bec.
1 See for instance: Owsei Temkin: "Metaphors of Human Biology", pp. 169-194 of
Robert C. Stauffer (ed.): Science and Civilization (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press,
1949); Georges Canguilhem: "Le probl~me des r~gulations dans l'organisme et dans la
soci~t~", Cahiers de l'Alliance Israelite universelle (Paris), 1955 nO 92: 64-81; Georges
Canguilhem: "Mod~les et analogies dans la d~couverte en biologie" in Etudes d'histoire
et de philosophie des sciences (Paris: Librairie philosophique J. Vrin, 1968), pp. 305-318;
Judith E. Schlanger: Les metaphores de l'organisme (Paris: Librairie philosophique J. Vrin,
1971); Michael Ruse: "The Value of Analogical Models in Science", Dialogue, 1973,
12: 246-253. Also, the remarkable analysis of Claude Blanckaert: "Variations sur Ie
darwinisme, epist~mologie et transfert lexical", pp. 9-47 of Martine Groult, Pierre Louis
& Jacques Roger: Transfert de vocabulaire dans les sciences (Paris: Editions du Centre
National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1988).
2 The critical history of the concepts and theories of division of labor is the subject of
a forthcoming book.
DIVISION OF LABOUR 337
classification et les moeurs des animaux (Paris: Crochard, 1834), p. 8. This is the course
he taught at the Ecole in 1832-1833 (see p. vii), in which it seems appeared for the
first time the complete phrase "division du travail physiologique". The course of
1831-1832 had been published by lithographic process from the notes taken by some
of his students: Ecole centrale des Arts et Manufactures, Cours d' anatomie, de physiologie
et de zoologie, par M. Henri Milne Edwards, r~dig~ par M.M. Camille Laurens, Mamet,
L' Amulonniere et Auffroy [Milne-Edwards is given there the title of ''professeur d'histoire
naturelle industrielle"J. The Elements were much influential, being used as a textbook
in the lycees at least for half a century (see 12th edition, 1877; it may not have been
the last edition).
12 4 vols. (Paris: Roret, 1834-1840).
13 Ibid., vol. 1, pp. 226-229.
14 " . . . cette tendance au perfectionnement de I' organisme par la division du travail
physiologique sur laquelle j' ai appel~ I' attention": "Recherches zoologiques faites pendant
un voyage sur les cotes de la Sicile. III. Observations sur la circulation", Annales des
Sciences naturelles, 1845, 3rd, ser., 3: 257-307; p. 287.
IS a
H. Milne-Edwards: Introduction la zoologie generale ou Considerations sur les
tendances de la Nature dans la constitution du regne animal (Premiere partie) (Paris:
Masson, 1851). No Second part was ever published.
16 "Autant la nature est prodigue de la vari~t~ dans ses cr~ations, autant elle parait
~conome dans les moyens qu'elle emploie pour diversifier ses oeuvres"; ibid., p. 9.
17 Ibid., p. 21.
18 "L'influence du volume d'un organe ou instrument physiologique sur la quantit~
des produits qu'il peut fournir, ou pour employer ici Ie langage de la technologie,
l'influence de la masse des matieres sur Ie rendement de la machine que ces matieres
constituent, est facile ~ constater" (ibid., p. 23. The underlining is mine). At the time
Milne-Edwards was writing, "technology" did not denote a piece of machinery or a
technical process, but the project of a new science for the rational use of technical appa-
ratusses and processes to achieve the best possible economic return. See Jacques Guillerme
& Jan Sebestik: "Les commencements de la technologie", Thales, 1966, 12, pp. 1-110.
19 Milne-Edwards (n. 15 supra), p. 26.
20 Ibid., p. 29.
21 Ibid., pp. 35-36.
22 Ibid., pp. 157-158.
23 Ibid., p. 158.
24 Though we know that he rejected Darwin's explanation of evolution through natural
selection. See H. Milne-Edwards: Rapports sur les progres des sciences zoologiques (Paris:
Imprimerie imp~riale, 1867), p. 428, n. 1. However, he was among the supporters for
Darwin's election to the Acad~mie des sciences.
25 The family came from Jamaica, established itself in England and later at Bruges, in
Belgium where Henri-Milne Edwards was born in 1800, and moved to Paris after the
invasion of 1814.
26 Adam Smith (R.H. Campbell, A. Skinner & W.B. Todd (eds.): An Inquiry into the
Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, 2 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976)
vol. I, pp. 4-8. Adam Smith was also aware of other, detrimental, consequences of division
of labour; however it is beyond our object to discuss this here.
DIVISION OF LABOUR 339
44 Ibid., p. 23.
4' Ibid., p. 36.
46 Ibid., p. 38.
47 See his Le,ons sur la physiologie et l'anatomie comparee des hommes et des animaux,
14 vols. (Paris: Masson, 1857-1881): "On voit alors la division du travail s'introduire
de plus en plus completement dans l'organisme: chaque acte vital tend 1\ s'effectuer au
moyen d'un instrument particulier, et c'est par Ie concours d'agents dissemblables que
Ie r~sultat g~n~ral s'obtient. Or les facult~s de l'animal deviennent d'autant plus exquises
que cette division du travail est port~e plus loin; quand un meme organe exerce 1\ la
fois plusieurs fonctions, les effets produits sont tous impar/aits, et tout instrument
physiologique remplit d'autant mieux son rOle que ce r6le est plus sp~cial" (vol. I, p.
19). " ... plus cette division est po~ loin, plus les produits ont de valeur, plus la machine
vivante est par/aite" (vol. 14, pp. 279-280; the underlinings are mine.)
48 Milne-Edwards (n. 15 supra), p. 177.
49 Ibid., p. 118: "Mais 1\ c6t~ de la concession ainsi faite de besoin de variite qui
semble exercer une influence si puissante sur la cr~ation toute entiere, nous voyons encore
a
les effets de cette tendance l'economie dont l'~tude du perfectionnement physiologique
nous avait d~jl\ fourni tant de preuves." It is no surprise that Darwin marked the passage
in his copy and wrote in both margins: "poor!".
~ Ibid., Pr~face, p. ii.
51 Notebook E: 100. The paper was Milne-Edwards: "M~moire sur la distribution
g~ographique des Crustac~s," published in 1838 in L'lnstitut, where Darwin read it
(pp. 290 sq.), and in the Annales des Sciences naturelles, 1838, 11: 129-174. Notebook
E, p. 25 refers to another article by Milne-Edwards published in the same journal in
1838; Notebook B, p. 112, in 1837, Darwin refers to Milne-Edwards: "Sur l'organisa-
tion de la bouche chez les Crustac~s suceurs", Annales des Sciences naturelles, 1833,
28: 78-86. Notebook D, p. 52, (1838) quotes William Sharp MacLeay referring to Milne-
Edwards's Histoire naturelle des Crustaces.
52 In Annales des Sciences naturelles, 1844, 3rd ser. Zoologie, 1: 65-99. The date of
reading is taken from Darwin's notebook on the books he read, Cambridge University
Library, DAR 119, fol. 17.
53 Reading completed through volume 3 on the 30th of January 1847 (volume IV includes
plates only). Darwin's copy, kept in the Darwin Collection at the Cambridge University
Library bears his marks, particularly on pp. 226-227 in volume I, from which we have
quoted above, where Milne-Edwards makes explicit his views, distinct from those of
Cuvier, on the natural grouping of organisms. Darwin manifested his agreement on a
penciled paper note pinned in that volume: "226-8 on 2 methods of classification: that
of Cuvier impracticable (very good sentence)." Darwin had also had taken note of these
views when he read and annotated the detailed summary given by George Johnston:
"Miscellanea Zoologica", Magazine of Zoology and Botany, 1837, 1: 368-382. See the
copy kept in the Darwin Collection, Cambridge University Library; esp. pp. 374-375. The
reading of the Magazine is mentioned by Darwin in Notebook C, p. 275.
54 Underlining here is mine.
55 Cambridge University Library, DAR 72, fol. 117-121.
56 C. Darwin: Letter to J.D. Hooker, June 8, 1858, in Francis Darwin & A.C. Seward
(eds.): More Letters of Charles Darwin: A Record of His Work in a Series of Hitherto
DIVISION OF LABOUR 341
Unpublished Letters, 2 vols. (London: John Murray, 1903), vol. 1, p. 109. See C. Limoges:
"Darwinisme et adaptation", Revue des questions scientifiques, 1970, 140: 353-374; p.
353.
57 " our principle of Divergence, which regulates the Natural Selection of variation
... " in R.C. Stauffer (ed.): Charles Darwin's Natural Selection, being the Second Part
of His Big Species Book Written from 1856 to 1858 (London/New York: Cambridge
University Press, 1975), p. 249.
58 Ernst Mayr: "Darwin's Five Theories of Evolution", pp. 755-772 of David Kohn (ed.):
The Darwin Heritage (Princeton N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1985), pp. 759-760.
59 C. Limoges: La selection naturelle. Etude sur la premiere constitution d'un concept
(1838-1859) (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1970), p. 131 sq. Darwin's complete
argument is best summarized by David Kohn: "1. First there is an economical premise.
A locality can support more life if occupied by diverse forms partitioning resources.
This is the ecological division of labor. Thus specialization is an adaptive advantage to
an organism. Hence natural selection, which explains the origin of all adaptation, favors
the evolution of new specialized varieties. 2. The making of a new variety occurs sym-
patrically, that is, with parental and offspring forms inhabiting the same locale. Thus
the making of varieties, which Darwin saw as incipient species, occurs by vigorous
selection for specialization overcoming the swamping effects of crossing. 3. From the first
fork of the branching phylogeny it is a matter or reiteration to generate all of classifica-
tion. Simply put, niche within niche engenders group within group." D. Kohn: "Darwin's
Principle of Divergence as Internal Dialogue," pp. 245-257 of D. Kohn (n. 58 supra),
esp. p. 245.
60 Darwin (n. 57 supra), p. 233.
61 C. Darwin: On the Origin of Species. A Facsimile of the First Edition, Intr. Ernst Mayr
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1964), pp. 115-116.
62 C. Limoges: "Darwin, Milne-Edwards et Ie principe de divergence", Actes du Xlle
Congres International d'Histoire des Sciences, Paris, 1968 (Paris: Librairie scientifique
et technique Albert Blanchard, 1971), 8: 111-115; p. 114. Also: Limoges (n. 59 supra),
pp. 134-136. Since my first article on Darwin's principle of divergence, there has been
a substantial literature devoted to the analysis of the genesis of this concept. See for
instance: F.J. SUlloway: "Geographic Isolation in Darwin's Thinking: The Vicissitudes
of a Crucial Idea", Studies in History of Biology, 1979,3: 23-65; EJ. Browne: "Darwin's
Botanical Arithmetic and the "Principle of Divergence, 1854-1858", Journal of the History
of Biology, 1980, 13: 53-89; S.S. Schweber: "Darwin and the Political Economists:
Divergence of Characters", ibid., 1980, 13: 195-289; D. Ospovat: The Development of
Darwin's Theory Natural History, Natural Theology and Natural Selection, 1838-1859
(Cambridge/London/New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981), esp. pp. 146-209;
D. Kohn: "On the Origin of the Principle of Divergence", Science, 1981,213: 1105-1108;
J. Browne: The Secular Ark: Studies in the History of Biogeography (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1983), esp. pp. 206-218; S.S. Schweber: "Facteurs ideologiques et intel-
lectuels dans la genese de la theorie de la selection naturelle", pp. 123-142 of Y. Conry
(ed.): De Darwin au Darwinisme, Science et ideologie (Paris: Librairie philosophique J.
Vrin, 1983); S.S. Schweber: "The Wider British Context in Darwin's Theorizing", pp.
35-69 of D. Kohn (in 58 supra); D. Kohn: "Darwin's Principle of Divergence as Internal
Dialogue", ibid., pp. 245-257.
342 CAMILLE LIMOGES
This is not the place to review this literature. It should however be emphasized that
though some of these scholars have adopted different viewpoints on the precise timing
and nature of the input provided by Darwin's readings of Milne-Edwards, the connec-
tion itself as we will see, remains unquestionable.
63 " at the time [the writing of the 1844 Essay] I overlooked one problem of great
importance; and it is astonishing to me, except on the principle of Columbus and his
egg, how I could have overlooked it and its solution. The problem is the tendency of
organic beings descended from the same stock to diverge in character as they become
modified. That they have diverged greatly is obvious from the manner in which species
of all kinds can be classed under genera, genera under families, families under subor-
ders, and so forth; and I can remember the very spot in the road, whilst in my carriage,
when to my joy the solution occured to me; and this was long after I came to Down."
N. Barlow (ed.): The Autobiography of Charles Darwin 1809-1882 (London: Collins,
1958), pp. 120-121.
64 "It is to me really laughable when I think of the years which elapsed before I saw
what I believe to be the explanation of some parts of the case; I believe it was fifteen years
after I began before I saw the meaning and cause of the divergence of the descendants
of anyone pair." Letter to George Bentham, 19 June 1863, in Francis Darwin (ed.): The
Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, 2 vols. (New York: Appleton, 1899), vol. 2, p. 211.
6' See Cambridge University Library, DAR 128: in this notebook on the books he read,
the last entry for 1852 is: "M. Edwards. Introduction Zoolog. generale 1851."
66 D. Ospovat: (n. 62 supra).
67 David Kohn: ibid., p. 250.
68 Cambridge University Library, DAR 205.9: 50; quoted in Ospovat (n. 62 supra), p.
267, n. 49.
69 Darwin (n. 61 supra), pp. 115-116.
70 Darwin's manuscript comment in the margin of p. 126 of his copy of the Introduction
a la zoologie generale.
71 Limoges (n. 62 supra), p. 114; and (n. 59 supra), p. 136.
72 The best and most complete study on Durkheim is Steven Lukes: Emile Durkheim.
His Life and Work: A Historical and Critical Study (London: Penguin Books, 1975).
73 E. Durkheirn: De la Division du Travail Social (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France,
1960), p. 1: "Sans doute, d~s I' Antiquite, plusieurs penseurs en aper~urent I'importance;
mais Adam Smith est Ie premier qui ait essayc d'en faire la theorie. C'est d'ailleurs lui
qui crca ce mot, que la science sociale preta plus tard ~ la biologie." Moreover, he knew
of course of the views of Comte, Spencer, Espinas and T<lnnies and discussed them.
74 Ibid., preface to the first edition, pp. xliii-xliv.
75 Ibid., pp. 3, 260.
76 Ibid., p. 3. Durkheim mentions here the works of Wolff, von Baer and Milne-Edwards.
77 Ibid., p. 4.
78 Ibid., p. 150.
79 Ibid., p. 149.
80 Ibid., p. 100.
81 Ibid., p. 154.
82 Ibid., p. 157.
83 Ibid., p. 212.
DIVISION OF LABOUR 343
I. B. Cohen (ed.), The Natural Sciences and the Social Sciences, 345-362.
1994 Kluwer Academic Publishers.
346 THEODORE M. PORTER
direction, and now the laws of the meddling state seemed at last to be
falling before the natural laws of economy and society.
Some sense of social determinism was almost presupposed by that
distinctively nineteenth-century idea of "social science". Even Quetelet
had denied that government could alter the general path of the social
body, though it could correct deviations. Social theorists as different as
Karl Marx and Herbert Spencer expected as the outcome of history the
withering away of the state. But this could happen in a variety of ways,
and British liberal theorists felt almost no need for public or collective
action to advance this process. Accordingly, they enlisted statistics in
the campaign to demonstrate that society was self-regulating, and that
history was moving ineluctably towards the increase of private freedom.
The economist William Newmarch, for example, maintained that the role
of government was becoming increasingly circumscribed, and that official
support for statistics had arisen from a perceived need to understand
"the composition of the social forces which, so far, Governments have
been assumed to control but which now, most men agree, really control
Governments." State power over social forces, he wrote, is pure illusion,
much like the control magicians had previously claimed over the weather.
In reality, he proclaimed, "all attempts at making or administering laws
which do not rest upon an accurate view of the social circumstances of
the case, are neither more nor less than imposture in one of its most
gigantic and perilous forms." Crime, education, taxes, wages - indeed,
"every topic from the greatest to the least" - can no longer be dealt
with according to legislative caprice, for all "have been found to have
laws of their own, complete and irrefragable.,,16
The best known proponent in Great Britain of Quetelet's ideas was
Henry Thomas Buckle, the first volume of whose History of Civilization
in England was the hit of the 1857 literary season. The book went through
scores of printings and abridgements in the major European languages,
and was greeted often with a level of acclaim that modern readers find
difficult to understand. Charles Darwin, for example, called Buckle the
best writer in the English language, and his book the most important
of the century. James Clerk Maxwell read the book within a few months
of its publication and was sufficiently impressed to comment on it in
a letter to his friend and subsequent biographer Lewis Campbell: "a
bumptious book, strong positivism, emancipation from exploded notions,
and that style of thing, but a great deal of actually original matter, the
true result of fertile study and not mere brainspinning.,,17
QUETELET TO MAXWELL 353
great reform which has been effected has consisted not in doing some-
thing new, but in undoing something 0Id.,,19 Buckle held that society
was inherently progressive, but that public institutions such as state and
church tended always to perpetuate outdated customs and relationships,
and hence to obstruct its natural improvement. After centuries of struggle,
society was at last emerging victorious in the most advanced country
in the world, England, and throwing off the constraints of these con-
servative powers. Unshackled from these old institutions, the possibilities
for progress were limitless.
Buckle justified his enterprise by citing examples of statistical regu-
larity. The uniformity in annual returns of crime, suicide, and dead letters,
he argued, proved that the course of social development was determined
by general causes, and that all attempts to obstruct their operation were
doomed to failure. Individuals, then, could achieve little, and the record
of the deeds of kings and bishops was of only minor interest. The
regularity of statistics indicated also the primacy of society over state.
"From the circumstance that the discrepancies [from absolute uniformity]
are so trifling," he wrote, "we may form some idea of the prodigious
energy of those vast social laws which, though constantly interrupted,
seem to triumph over every obstacle, and which, when examined by
the aid of large numbers, scarcely undergo any sensible perturbation.,,20
The particular instances of regularity presented by Buckle had long
been familiar to statistical initiates, since he lifted them directly from
Quetelet. Buckle, however, stated this familiar doctrine with such aplomb
and in so uncompromising a spirit that it became the subject of vigorous
and wide-ranging public debate in Germany, Russia, the United States,
and, especially, in Britain. Moreover, Buckle was not the only famous
author to find inspiration in statistical returns. In 1850, Charles Dickens'
Household Words discussed the statistical reports of the Registrar General
in these terms: "Not content with making lightning run messages, chem-
istry polish boots, and steam deliver parcels and passengers, the savants
are superseding the astrologers of old days, and the gipsies and wise
women of modem ones, by finding out and revealing the hidden laws
which rule that charming mystery of mysteries - that lode store of
young maidens and gay bachelors - matrimony." Four years later, the
more critical author of Hard Times had Tom Gradgrind disclaim respon-
sibility for his theft on the ground that, as his father had always told
him, such activities were the necessary consequences of unvarying
statistical laws. By 1876, the same idea had been reduced to a tired cliche
QUETELET TO MAXWELL 355
about progress and the regularity of statistics which George Eliot put
in the mouth of a character in Daniel Deronda. 21
Despite the widespread diffusion and frequent acceptance of this
central doctrine of Quetelet's social physics, statistical law, its fruitful-
ness as a strategy for social science proved to be modest. Certainly,
nobody - Quetelet included - had any idea how to calculate trajecto-
ries for the movement of the average man through the moral, physical
and intellectual space defined by currently available statistics. Although
the recognition of statistical regularities served prominent sociologists
such as Durkheim as confirmation of the possibility of a science of the
social, the proclamation of statistical laws led nowhere.
The fate of social physics was to become not the definitive science
of society, but a model for certain aspects of natural science, among them
a branch of the intended parent discipline, physics. The arguments of
Buckle and Quetelet inspired a widespread willingness to assume the
possibility, or even the necessity, of a statistical treatment of things.
This assumption, in its most general form, holds that no matter how
chaotic the behavior of individuals, statistical regularities can be expected
to emerge in the mass. Science does not presuppose knowledge of every
particular element, from which conclusions about more complex events
are then deduced. It is possible to begin with the uniformities that
characterize the mass, and from them to formulate general principles
or to inquire about the particular events of which the large-scale regu-
larities are composed.
This was the strategy adopted for the kinetic gas theory by James Clerk
Maxwell. As he pointed out, there was no hope of deriving the macro-
scopic laws of gases by following the motions and collisions of millions
of independent particles, for information about individual molecules
was not available and the calculations would, in any event, be impos-
sible. As an alternative, Maxwell proposed a different kind of social
physics. In retrospect, at least, he often made this connection himself,
as in his famous 1873 lecture to the British Association, where he argued
that gas physicists had now adopted the methods of the social statisti-
cians. Their problems were largely the same. The physicist cannot get
at individual molecules, nor can he solve the formidably complex
dynamical problem presented even by hundreds, much less by millions,
of molecules. So also in social science: "The number of individuals is
far too great to allow of their tracing the history of each separately, so
that, in order to reduce their labour within human limits, they concen-
356 THEODORE M. PORTER
This expression, which had become familiar because of its use for the
reduction of observations in astronomy, geodesy, and related fields, was
central to all statistical mathematics up to the time of Karl Pearson. In
astronomy it had become known as the "error law", because astronomers
understood it as regulating the errors made by careful observers. Its
bell shape reflected the fact that small errors are common while large
ones are comparatively rare, though even very large errors occur occa-
sionally. Quetelet, ever eager to establish analogies between social
physics and astronomy, had applied the error function to such objects
as the distribution of chest sizes among Scottish soldiers. Although he
imposed also the customary interpretation of this variation as error -
suggesting that real, physical soldiers are flawed replicates of the average
man - others were reluctant to join his dismissal of individuality as a
product of imperfection. Instead, Quetelet's work led to a broader
conception of the error law, which permitted its application even to
genuine diversity in nature.
The incorporation of the error curve into the kinetic gas theory by
Maxwell constituted just such an application, and we find that Quetelet's
social physics was indeed the sourCe for this neW departure in physics.
Maxwell evidently learned of Quetelet's use of the error distribution from
a long review essay of one of his books by John Herschel, first pub-
lished in 1850. Herschel fully accepted Quetelet's mathematical formula
for the measureS of Scottish soldiers, and with it, Quetelet's view that
virtually all mass phenomena in nature or society could be expected to
display the same distribuion. He proposed, following Quetelet, that the
358 THEODORE M. PORTER
The solution to this equation is the error curve, the principal term of
the Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution in one dimension,
2/ 2
f(x) = Ce-x a,
derivation to be very general, for he, like Quetelet, believed that the
error law was to be found throughout nature and society. Maxwell's
replication of Herschel's mathematics would seem to have confirmed
these expectations, and may be interpreted as an implicit declaration
that the error law governs molecular velocities in a gas just as it governs
an enormous range of other phenomena. The use of the error law had
been intended by Quetelet to demonstrate that not only averages, but also
deviations from the mean of human form and behavior, were subject to
laws no less exact than those of celestial mechanics. Maxwell's use of
Herschel's derivation, and hence of Quetelet's ideas, constitutes a
revealing link between his work and the world view of the social
statistical movement.
Although Maxwell began his work with an analogy, he was not limited
to it, and in many respects his version of social physics was far more
successful than Quetelet's. Using the error-curve velocity distribution,
which was evidently his first result in the kinetic theory, Maxwell carried
out a series of elegant combinatorial operations to reach a new formula
for the mean free path of a gas molecule. The same formalism underlay
most of Boltzmann's work, including his demonstration that the second
law of thermodynamics was equivalent to the tendency of a system of
molecules to move towards the most probable distribution of veloci-
ties.
There is yet more irony to the legacy of social physics than has
appeared thus far. Quetelet's aim was to import the rigor of mechanics
into the social sphere, and thereby to extend the domain of scientific
certainty. Such, initially, was the consequence of his influence on gas
physics, for it yielded a remarkable law for the distribution of veloci-
ties among gas molecules at a time when the truth of the kinetic theory,
and indeed the very existence of molecules were still in doubt. A few
years later, Maxwell became convinced that the applicability of statis-
tical mathematics to this branch of mechanics had implications of a
very different sort from anything anticipated by Quetelet or Buckle.
Although Buckle's critics had already questioned his statistical deter-
minism, physics provided a better context for working out this line of
thought. However astonishing the regularities of statistics seemed to
social theorists, the novelty of this approach for physics was not in its
reliance on mathematics per se but in the special kind of mathematics
it used. While there was no empirical reason to think the phenomena
of heat less perfectly lawlike than those of mechanics or electricity or
360 THEODORE M. PORTER
NOTES
Daniel Deronda (1876; New York: Penguin Books, 1967), pp. 582-3. lowe the first
and third of these references to I.B. Cohen and Lorraine Daston, respectively.
22 James Clerk Maxwell: "Molecules", Papers (n. 2 supra), vol. 2, pp. 373-274.
23 See Porter: Statistical Thinking (n. 4 supra), chapters 5, 8-9.
24 Ludwig Boltzmann: "Uber die mechanische Bedeutung des zweiten Hauptsatzes der
Wiirmetheorie" (1866) Wissenschaftliche Abhandlungen (3 vols., Leipzig: J.A. Barth,
1909), vol. I, pp. 4-30; idem.: "Weitere Studien tiber das Wlirmegleichgewicht unter
Gasmolekiilen" (1872), ibid., pp. 316-317; idem.: "Der zweite Hauptsatz der mechanis-
chen Wiirmetheorie" (1886), Populiire Schriften (Leipzig: J.A. Barth, 1905), p. 34.
25 Maxwell: "Illustrations of the Dynamical Theory of Gases", Papers (n. 2 supra),
vol. I, pp. 380 ff.
26 John Herschel: "Quetelet on Probabilities", Edinburgh Review, 1850, 93: I-57, p.
23. Charles Gillispie first proposed that Herschel's essay exemplified an understanding
of science conducive to the emergence of statistical theories like Maxwell's in his
"Intellectual Factors in the Background of Analysis by Probabilities", pp. 431-453 of A.C.
Crombie (ed.): Scientific Change (New York: Basic Books, 1963). The identity of these
derivations was later pointed out by Stephen Brush; see his The Kind of Motion We Call
Heat, 2 vols. (Amsterdam: North Holland Publishing Co., 1977).
27 On these matters see my "A Statistical Survey of Gases: Maxwell's Social Physics",
Historical Studies in the Physical Sciences, 1981, 12: 77-116. This essay originated as
a public lecture given at the University of Bielefeld, West Germany, while I was a research
fellow at the Zentrum fUr interdiszipliniire Forschung (ZiF) there.
12. A CONVERSATION WITH HARVEY BROOKS*
ON THE SOCIAL SCIENCES, THE NATURAL
SCIENCES, AND PUBLIC POLICY -
CONDUCTED BY I. BERNARD COHEN
IBC: Let me ask you, to begin with, when in your career as a scien-
tist you remember becoming aware of problems involving the
social sciences.
HB: I became aware of problems in science policy that involved what
I would call social issues and social values very early in my career.
But I did not think of them at that time as involving the social
sciences directly. I really didn't become very conscious of this
aspect ofthe question until perhaps the '60s, especially after 1965,
when I became chairman of COSPUP, the Committee on Science
and Public Policy of the National Academy of Sciences. This
was also a period when we had considerable interaction with
Fred Harris, who at that time was a Senator from Oklahoma and
who had given prominence to such problems by proposing a
National Social Science foundation. I became especially conscious
of the social sciences, when I testified before the Harris
subcommittee concerning that proposal. I recognized that the
social sciences had something to offer in the policy process which
had been neglected. I would say, therefore, that it was during
the early to mid '60s that I first became explicitly conscious of
the social sciences as such in their relevance to science policy.
IBC: That is more or less what I expected. It seems to be generally
true for most natural scientists that relations with the social
sciences didn't matter very much until the '60s. Probably the only
place where this direct impingement did occur before the 1960s
was in the National Science Foundation, which was giving
research money to certain selected social sciences. And that is
363
I. B. Cohen (ed.), The Natural Sciences and the Social Sciences, 363-398.
1994 Kluwer Academic Publishers.
364 CURRENT POLICY QUESTIONS
!BC: Let us explore this a moment. My studies show that most people
from the natural sciences think primarily of sociology as ...
HB: As a social science.
!BC: ... as the social science. The discussions about the scientific
character of the social sciences do not usually have much to do
with history, political theory, archaeology, social anthropology
or social psychology. I have always found it interesting that my
acquaintances who are most skeptical about the alleged scien-
tific character of the social sciences come from the physical
sciences or mathematics. Would the same be true for those in
the earth science? Or in the biological sciences? When you have
discussions on these topics in the various organizations to which
you belong, do people from different areas have different attitudes
about the social sciences? For example, some natural scientists
complain that in the social sciences prediction rates are not very
high.
HB: Yes, that's true.
!BC: But earth scientists have great difficulty making predictions
and yet are not rejected on this account. Earth scientists would
not give success in prediction the importance which physicists
would.
HB: That is very true. In fact, I have made that point explicitly in an
article I wrote for Minerva in 1972 as a commentary on Alvin
Weinberg's introduction of the concept of trans-science.
IBe: I remember that. Wasn't he Director of the Oak Ridge National
Laboratory and a member of PSAC, the President's Science
Advisory Committee?
HB: Yes. I objected somewhat to AI's use of the word "trans-science"
because he seemed to categorize the social sciences as all in the
field of trans-science. One of the problems I raised was that the
social sciences had been taking Newtonian mechanics as their
model, whereas meteorology was a much better model. I pointed
to the work of Lorenz at MIT. He had done some fundamental
work on the predictability of the weather, in which he showed
rigorously from the equations of motion of the atmosphere that
it is impossible in principle to predict the weather more than about
fifteen days ahead, no matter how perfect the information on initial
boundary conditions. This situation is connected with boundary
layer phenomena because it is necessary to specify the boundary
368 CURRENT POLICY QUESTIONS
IBC: I take it you were the chief instigator of the famous report on
the outlook and needs of the behavioral and social sciences?
HB: Herbert Simon and I were the chief instigators. Now Herb Simon
was elected to the Academy before there was a class of the social
sciences in the Academy, and he was elected as a psychologist
because psychology did have legitimacy among the natural
sciences. Consequently, Herb Simon stands out as a social
scientist elected to the Academy.
IBC: Right. In 1967, when Herbert Simon was elected, there was no
class or section with the designation of social science. There was
a class called Biological and Behavioral Sciences which, as we
have mentioned earlier, had been established in 1965, but the only
sections in that class that were properly behavioral sciences were
anthropology and psychology. It was not until 1971 that the class
called Behavioral and Social Sciences was formally inaugurated
and not until the following year that the section designated as
Social, Economic, and Political Sciences was introduced. In the
next year, 1972, Herbert Simon left the section of psychology
for the new section, and in 1975, when this section was itself
divided into two, he joined the section on social and political
sciences.
HB: These details illustrate the same developments which we have seen
in the cases of Robert Merton and Kenneth Arrow. But the reason
why I bring up Herbert Simon's affiliation is that the Committee
on Science and Public Policy, or COSPUP, was originally estab-
lished with one representative from each of the sections of the
Academy; at the time there were only fourteen sections, whereas
now there are twenty-five. Every member of COSPUP had to be
a member of a section of the Academy, so Herb Simon's election
to the Academy made it possible for him to serve on COSPUP
when I was chairman.
Actually, the origin of the social science report was a con-
spiracy between me and Herb Simon that began even before he
became a member of COSPUP. Since he was chairman of the
board of directors of the Social Science Research Council in
1965 and COS PUP had been doing studies of sciences such as
physics and chemistry, we thought it would be a wonderful idea
for the SSRC and COS PUP to cooperate in doing a study of the
social sciences. Ernest R. Hilgard was asked to chair this study,
382 CURRENT POLICY QUESTIONS
and he and Herb and I and others obtained funds from the National
Institutes of Health, the National Institute of Mental Health, the
National Science Foundation, and the Russell Sage Foundation
to do the Behavioral and Social Sciences report. We defined the
subject very broadly including, for example, booklets on history
and geography as well as on the more conventional social sciences.
That was really the origin of the so-called BASS report, which
had the official title of The Behavioral and Social Sciences:
Outlook and Needs. It was presented as a report by the Behavioral
and Social Sciences Survey Committee under the auspices of the
Committee on Science and Public Policy of the National Academy
of Sciences and the Committee on Problems and Policy of the
Social Science Research Council. This report was published in
1969.
IBC: Do you have any feeling about what the general attitude of the
Academy members was or what any particular attitudes were
towards this study?
HB: COSPUP was very supportive of the idea of having a report on
the behavioral and social sciences. I don't remember any skepti-
cism at all. Although the report was produced before the Academy
was reorganized to include the class of behavioral and social
sciences, I have no recollection of any opposition. Rather, as I
have said, everybody was very supportive of the idea of having
that kind of joint study.
IBC: Did you ever receive detailed information about the effect or
influence of the report?
HB: It is rather hard to quantify that. In fact, the same problem has
always applied to all the COSPUP studies, and I was asked that
kind of question many times when I was chairman. The recom-
mendations of priorities, when they occurred, had almost no effect.
But they did establish the agenda. Thus, all the debates that
occurred were about the categories that were developed in the
COS PUP reports, including those on the social sciences. In other
words, what the COS PUP reports did was to develop a rather care-
fully selected menu of opportunities by setting forth what the
content of the various subfields was and what their implications
might be for practical societal problems. And that very much set
the terms of debate in the political sphere about priorities in
science across the board, no more and no less in the social sciences
CURRENT POLICY QUESTIONS 383
HB: This time the NSF publication contained one volume of syn-
thesis and generalization prepared by the NSF on the basis of
the source materials published in the two "source volumes." I have
these volumes right here. The second of these source volumes had
three sections, of which the first was a report from the American
Association for the Advancement of Science called Policy
Outlook: Science, Technology, and the Issues of the Eighties.
This was also separately published in 1982 by the Westview Press
with the elements of the titled reversed to read Science,
Technology, and the Issues of the Eighties: Policy Outlook and
credited to Albert H. Teich and Ray Thornton as editors for the
American Association for the Advancement of Science.
IBC: Wasn't there also a contribution from the Social Science Research
Council?
HB: Yes, the second section of the second volume of source mate-
rials was a report from the SSRC entitled The Five- Year Outlook
for Science and Technology: Social and Behavioral Sciences. I
don't know whether this was published separately by the Social
Science Research Council.
IBC: Brief descriptions of the essays did appear in the Social Science
Research Council's Items and an announcement of the NSF
publication also appeared in Items.
HB: The third section of the second NSF source volume contained
"perspectives" presented by federal agencies. But what is of
special interest to us now is this first volume, which consisted
of the report submitted by the National Academy of Sciences. This
was entitled Outlook for Science and Technology: The Next Five
Years and was issued as A Report from the National Research
Council. This was also published separately in 1982 by W.H.
Freeman in collaboration with the National Academy of Sciences.
IBC: What about later outlooks?
HB: The third and fourth were prepared by the Committee on Science,
Engineering, and Public Policy and were published in 1983 and
in 1985 or 1986. These were very slim volumes.
IBC: Let's tum next to the National Board and the National Science
Foundation. I believe that in many ways this may prove to be a
most interesting topic because there has been a rise and fall of
the social sciences, so to speak.
Let's go back to when President Truman signed legislation
388 CURRENT POLICY QUESTIONS
HB: That seems right. The important thing is that social sciences had
always been to some degree supported by the NSF.
IBC: Yes, but on a very limited scale.
HB: During the Great Society period, however, there was a tremen-
dous increase in the support of the social sciences, about four fold
within a few years.
IBC: That's right. Now my notes show that in 1967, the Democratic
Senator from Oklahoma, Fred Harris, proposed the creation of a
national social science foundation modeled on the National
Science Foundation. Not only was there little support in Congress
for a separate social science foundation, but social scientists
themselves testified at Congressional hearings, expressing serious
misgivings. Therefore, instead of authorizing a separate social
science foundation, there was the 1968 Daddario-Kennedy
Amendment, which modified the original National Science
Foundation charter. The new legislation permitted the Foundation
to sponsor applied research and designated the social sciences
as a field eligible for support. How were these developments
viewed by the National Science Board?
HB: I don't remember very much debate in the National Science Board
about the desirability of encouraging and using the social sciences.
But I do recall very well the effect of the proposal of Senator Fred
Harris. You're right about the social scientists; most of them
were opposed to the Harris plan. Pendleton Herring, President
of the Social Science Research Council, and many others did
not want to have a second foundation. They preferred to increase
the status of the social sciences in the NSF and in other branches
of government. I don't remember any opposition, any real resis-
tance on the Board to the social sciences, although there was some
fear that they could become overly politicized. This was always
a concern on the part of the Board and of the Director of NSF,
a sense that the social sciences always run the risk of producing
a political sensation. Thus the Board and the NSF always tried
to avoid subjects and projects that had a very strong political
flavor. Even in the area of political science, there was an incli-
nation towards opinion polling and survey research, work that was
empirical and quantitative, but did not support any particular polit-
ical viewpoint.
IBC: You are quite right. There was a history of support for the social
390 CURRENT POLICY QUESTIONS
feature has grown up, side by side, with the advancing knowl-
edge of social phenomenon. There is an ambivalence of aims here
which may be similar to the situation which obtains, to some
degree, in medicine.
HB: That is right.
mc: You once told me that you believe that probably the most
important of the social science reports that have affected American
public policy was the Gunnar Myrdal report on The American
Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy.
HB: Right.
mc: Could you explain? I agree with you, but I find on reexamina-
tion of this report that it was not issued as a scientific study. There
are no claims that it presents the latest findings of science. It
became - to a large degree - a statement of Myrdal's personal
convictions, even though he drew extensively on the research done
over many years by a committee of research social scientists.
The case was amply documented, to be sure, but it reads somewhat
as an extended moral tract, as an indictment of what society had
done to one particular class and its members. The Coleman Report,
on the other hand, was based on a scientific investigation and
issued as a scientific report. The conclusions were statistical rather
than moral. The volume has the appearance of an engineering
study and is not at all like a moral tract. Have you any feelings
about the relative impact of the two reports? In the end, in terms
of net effect on public policy, was there much difference? In other
words, what is the effect of the "science" content of social science
on questions of policy?
HB: That is a very difficult but important question. The Coleman
Report certainly had a great impact at the time, although in
retrospect some people feel that some aspects of that impact were
perhaps not legitimate. Was it not the Coleman Report which
indicated that there had been very little benefit from Head Start,
for example? But the general tone of the Coleman Report, or the
general conclusion which most people drew from the Coleman
Report was that the evidence for the effectiveness of interven-
tion in the educational systems was not very persuasive. For
example, one of the things that Coleman found was that there
was virtually no correlation between per-pupil expenditures in
schools and academic performance.
CURRENT POLICY QUESTIONS 395
is used only when the person who is determining the policy finds
that the results of the research can support an already adopted
position. There is thus a continuing uneasiness on the part of social
scientists because they find that policy goals are not determined
by their research. Would you like to say something about this?
HB: My comment on that must revert to the analogy about the rela-
tions between science and engineering. The fact is that science
does not determine the design of artifacts. When a man is sent
to the moon, that is not a scientific project, but it cannot be done
without the ability to predict how the various artifacts that are
built are going to perform. And if the artifacts are very large
and complicated, it may not be possible simply to build and test
them, but it will be necessary to infer their performance from
analysis and from testing the components and so on. A model
of this kind is given by the 1975 Rasmussen Report, published
by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission under the title, Reactor
Safety Study: An Assessment of Accident Risks in U.S. Commercial
Nuclear Power Plants. In this report the system of probabilistic
risk analysis is used. If the risks in a very complex system are
examined, the failure rates of various components can be
empirically tested, but it may not be possible to test the whole
system. That can be done only by analysis, which always involved
some assumptions which cannot be fully tested empirically about
the statistical independence of a sequence of events. Probabilistic
risk assessment always involves some incompletely testable
assumptions regarding the statistical independence of individual
events in a sequence leading to catastrophe. If they are truly
independent, then the probabilities simply compound by multi-
plication and are usually very small because several events in
sequence are involved in an accident with consequence. You can
estimate with considerable confidence the probabilities of
individual events from field experience with the failure of
components (including the effects of human error), but the
possibility of coincidental failures that are causally related can
only be estimated through the exercise of imagination and perhaps
some partial experimental testing. But you have to imagine the
possible event first before you can test it, and that is why PRA
can never be completely "scientific."
The expectation that policy analysis will influence policy is a
CURRENT POLICY QUESTIONS 397
HB: Well, perestroika would never have resulted from social science
analysis. Although analysis may help to decide whether a policy
design - after somebody has thought it up - will achieve the goals
it aims at, there is a synthetic and imaginative quality to policy
that is simply unrelated to analysis. The design of a policy is
the result of an imaginative product, more like a work of art or
the product of a craftsman, even though there is a component of
analysis. There is a very high element of craft in policy design,
no matter what field of policy one is discussing. And much of
the debate is about how to relate the craft to the analysis. Surely
analysis ought to be able to help evaluate the policies that are
crafted, but there is always the role of imagination in policy design
which simply does not necessarily follow directly out of the
analysis. I am afraid that I have not given you a very good answer
to your question.
IBC: There is no easy answer. That itself is a very interesting conclu-
sion.