Darwin and Henslow: The Growth of an Idea. Letters 1831-1860 by Nora BarlowReview by: Bert James LoewenbergIsis, Vol. 60, No. 3 (Autumn, 1969), pp. 413-414Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of The History of Science SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/229513 .

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BOOK REVIEWS -ISIS, 60 3 * 203 (1969) 413

not to touch questions of prime concern to the student of scientific ideas.

There are at least two important areas, hitherto largely neglected, in which the ex- pert on instruments could assist-or lead- the intellectual historian. The first relates to the expense of doing science. What capital was required at any given time to set up shop as a practicing physicist, amateur or professional? In 1600, for example, one needed only a piece of amber and the loan of a few precious stones to become an elec- trician; in 1700 one required an air pump as well; in 1750, an electrostatic generating machine and expensive accessories; and in 1800, a Voltaic pile, the earlier electrostatic paraphernalia, and, perhaps, a torsion balance. "Nous sommes dans un siecle," wrote Voltaire, "ou on ne peut etre savant sans argent." How did the increasing cost affect the recruitment of electricians, their professionalization, the timing of discoveries, the growth of theory?

The second area concerns the performance of laboratory equipment. How good were the instruments of a given era? For instance how did the vacuum produced by early air pumps differ from that of the "Torricelli space" atop the mercury in a standard early barometer? How did the range of pheno- mena procurable with a given type of appara- tus change with time? Did instruments which were considered good perform signi- ficantly better than similar ones rated lower? How have the qualities of instruments affect- ed controversies over scientific ideas ?

Questions of the first kind can be answered by comparing institutional records, like those Cohen and Wheatland report from Harvard; annotated auction catalogues, like the one Gerard L'E. Turner has recently published in Annals of Science; and extant correspon- dence, like Voltaire's, who in 1738 bought from the Abbe Nollet scientific instruments worth over three times as much as the first full Harvard apparatus (1727). To answer questions of the second kind will require not only the ratings infrequently supplied by in- ventors and users of instruments, but also ex- perimentation with such surviving equipment as is robust enough to sustain it. Hopefully an indication of comparative prices and some performance specifications will become stan- dard fare in future catalogues of scientific instruments. JOHN L. HEiLBRON University of California, Berkeley

ININETEENTH & TWENTIETH CENTURIES

Nora Barlow (Editor). Darwin and Henslow: The Growth of an Idea. Letters 1831-1860. xii+251 pp., plts., apps., index. Berkeley: Univ. California Press; London:John Mur- ray, 1967. $6.50.

"Evolution implies a real persistence of the past in the present, a duration which is, as it were, a hyphen, a connecting link." Henri Bergson, not Charles Darwin, wrote these lines, although it was Darwin who first gave theoretical substance and depth of meaning to them. While the range of Darwin's innova- tive achievements continues to compel ad- miration, none is more compelling than the cluster of concepts implicit in Bergson's words.

Darwin fused the history of mankind by fusing the history of life. He was among the first to perceive, as his research efforts dis- close, that zoology was in fact natural his- tory. If the nineteenth century was a great age of science, it was likewise a great age of history. Darwin played a dominant role in the development of both. Science exerted a profound influence upon history; history also exerted a profound influence upon science. Darwinism, as Ernst Cassirer lumin- ously explains, changed the framework of analysis for history as well as biology. If evolutionary forms were rooted in the his- tory of genetics; genetic changes were rooted in the history of life.

Nora Barlow, Darwin's granddaughter, has enriched our knowledge. The letters of Darwin and John Stevens Henslow, one hundred and twenty-one of them, provide us with additional material for understanding the issues of Darwin's import, creativity, and meaning. Some have previously been pub- lished, some only in part and some now appear for the first time. The bulk of the correspondence is from the collections in the Cambridge University Library and the library at Kew Gardens.

Darwin leaps from his words in familiar form: eager, probing, and diffident. Henslow emerges as kindly, wise, and affectionate. Henslow has earned his own place in history as a masterful teacher of botany at Cam- bridge, as a socially minded minister, and as an unrelenting fighter for decency. He helped to mold Darwin's vibrant mind, and

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414 BOOK REVIEWS -ISIS, 60 3 203 (1969)

he was instrumental in procuring the Beagle appointment. Without the first the ripening of Darwin's genius might have been delayed. Without the second Darwin's career might not have pursued its special course.

There are but nine letters in which Henslow speaks with his own voice, but he takes on the stature of a full personality in the lan- guage of his most celebrated student already etched in previously published correspon- dence. Lady Barlow modestly refers to some of Henslow's notes as "trivia" since they are brief and deal with matters less weighty than collecting, observing, and species. But "trivia" like "influence" is a word condition- ed by space, time, and substance. Other men and other women before and after Henslow aided in forging Darwin's mind and shaping his personality. And in the search for the hidden springs of discovery virtually nothing is trivial. There is a road to the Origin as to Xanadu. Darwin and Henslow will help in the building of it.

BERT JAMES LOEWENBERG

Sarah Lawrence College

James R. Blackwood. The House on College Avenue: The Comptons at Wooster, 1891- 1913. xxv + 265 pp., index. Cambridge, Mass.: M.I.T. Press, 1968, $10.00.

Few, if any, families have left their im- print on the American intellectual scene more indelibly than the sons and daughter of Elias and Otelia Compton: Karl Taylor (1887-1954), physicist; Mary Elesa (1889- 1961), educational missionary; Wilson Mar- tindale (1890-1967), economist; and Arthur Holly (1892-1962), physicist and Nobel laureate. In the only instance of its kind, all three sons obtained undergraduate degrees from the then University of Wooster and Ph.D. degrees from Princeton University, and each became the president or chief administrative officer of a university. More- over, at a critical juncture, C. Herbert Rice, the husband of Mary, became president of the largest university in the world, the Uni- versity of the Punjab. Six college and uni- versity buildings bear the Compton name, and the family accumulated, all told, over seventy earned and honorary degrees. The Compton family was indeed "America's First Family of Learning."

What were the personal and educational

factors that produced these remarkable achievements ? That this question could serve as the theme for a book forced itself on Arthur Compton in later life. As he wrote Howard Lowry, president of the College of Wooster: "I don't need to tell you that there is material here for fruitful study in sociology, religion, science and education" (p. viii). The task of drawing this material together eventu- ally fell on James R. Blackwood, college pastor at Wooster, who modestly describes the result as "neither an analytical nor a critical biography, nor is it supposed to be the last word about anything" (p. x). Black- wood's "sole aim" was to "write a book no one else could possibly write, now that so many who walk its pages are gone" (p. x). His desire was to provide a basis for a future definitive study by some other scholar.

Thus Blackwood is concerned primarily with origins, with an attempt to "dig at the roots." "Later accomplishments will con- cern us only as they throw light on the ger- minal years in Wooster, when the four Comp- tons were young and only beginning to find their way" (p. xii). Blackwood's major con- cern determined the sources he drew on: correspondence and personal interviews (mostly carried out between 1958 and 1962) with family and friends; autobiographical statements; newspaper, journal, and other biographical accounts; and manuscripts, diaries, correspondence, and public addresses of the parents, Elias and Otelia.

From these sources Blackwood culled a number of details that illuminate some of the events surrounding the awakening of scienti- fic interest in the Comptons. For example, Blackwood describes how Karl came to realize that in contrast to the world of geo- graphy, the world of the atom was largely unexplored; how he was "claimed for physics" (p. 145) when Professor Bacon offered him the job of laboratory assistant at Wooster; how he became the center of atten- tion when his Master's thesis on "A Study of the Wehnelt Electrolytic Interrupter" was published in The Physical Review; and how he resolved to obtain his Ph.D. degree at Princeton University under 0. W. Richard- son. Some of Blackwood's observations are insightful, as for example his remarks that "More than the others, Arthur liked to think with his hands" (p. 127); that neither "Karl nor Mary nor Wilson, nor anyone else, had anything like Arthur's patience for keeping

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