words Scientist’s birthright How a new name embodied ideals of connection and inclusiveness. (in The Quarterly Review, 1834) on Mary Dennis Danielson Fairfax Somerville’s book On the Connexion lthough histories of science routinely of the Physical Sciences. This context is highly mention the birth of our word ‘scien- germane to the meaning of the new word, as Atist’ from the pen of William Whewell signalled by Somerville’s title with its stress a mere 167 years ago, revisiting the social and on “connexion” — a motif which Whewell literary moment of that birth offers a fresh eagerly marshals against the forces of disinte- glimpse of the word’s worthy parentage and gration. This danger he renders in meta- generous potential. phors of bodily, territorial and imperial frag- The social events most directly related to mentation, lamenting “the tendency of sci- Whewell’s invention of ‘scientist’ were the first ence ... to separation and dis- meetings of the British Association for the memberment”; its “disintegra- Advancement of Science (BAAS), in York tion ... like that of a great empire (1831), Oxford (1832) and Cambridge (1833). falling to pieces”; the “division The earliest of the BAAS proceedings reveal the of the soil of science into infi- strikingly inclusivist aims of the new associa- nitely small allotments”. He tion. In contrast with the conspicuously exclu- acknowledges the contribution sive, London-based Royal Society, the BAAS of the BAAS in “bringing (in the welcoming words of W. V. Harcourt) together the cultivators of dif- gathered “many distinguished members of ferent departments”, and he learned and scientific bodies” from around the warmly praises Somerville for United Kingdom “in consequence of a general attempting in her own work to Connected: inspired by Mary invitation to the friends of science”. achieve the same end. Somerville, William Whewell It was, significantly, from a provincial It is in the midst of this dis- coined the word ‘scientist’. SPL/CORBIS body (the Yorkshire Philosophical Society) cussion of the need to connect that the invitation issued. And against the the sciences that Whewell refers recognition that “in our insular and insulated to those first meetings of the BAAS, which, he decades following 1834 — for example, those country, we have few opportunities of com- says, “felt very oppressively the want of any of another admirer of Somerville’s: Alexan- municating with the cultivators of science in name by which we can designate the students der von Humboldt, author of Kosmos and other parts of the world”, the purpose of the of the knowledge of the natural world collec- founder of what came to be called ecology, a BAAS was to open “new channels of commu- tively”. He recounts how terms from other science whose very foundation is the inter- nication” both internally and internationally, languages were rejected: “Savans was rather connectedness of disciplines and of living as well as to “promote science in every part of assuming, besides being French instead of things and their environment. the empire.” Moreover, it was decided that, at English” and the German Natur-forscher However, it is worth noticing that the meetings themselves, the “least abstract” “might suggest such undignified compounds Somerville’s quickening presence at that vital of the scientific papers should be presented in as nature-poker, or nature-peeper”! But sand- moment marks two other crucial dimensions evening sessions, to which would be admitted wiched between these foreign nonstarters is of inclusiveness that the name ‘scientist’ has “a more popular audience”. Whewell’s suggestion — made by a person he not always consistently embodied. First, as All this emphasis on widening connec- identifies merely as “some ingenious gentle- Whewell implies, Somerville modelled with tions needed to be matched by a breaching of man” — “that, by analogy with artist, they great lustre what we now, still rather nervous- disciplinary boundaries. Warning that spe- might form scientist”. However, he adds (a lit- ly, call popular science: “How valuable a boon cialization can lead to “insulation”, Harcourt tle prematurely, as things turned out), “this it is to the mass of readers, when persons of declared: “The chief Interpreters of nature was not generally palatable”. real science, like Mrs Somerville, condescend have always been those who grasped the Clearly, the literary and social moment in to write for the wider public.” widest field of inquiry, who have listened with which ‘scientist’ sprang forth was pregnant The other boundary to be breached — the most universal curiosity to all informa- with a longing for greater “connexion” across which Somerville eminently did breach — is tion, and felt an interest in every question various boundaries, including those of terri- that of exclusion by gender. As Whewell says, which the one great system of nature presents. tory and discipline. It was a motive that con- with fitting satiric tone, “there are few indi- Nothing ... could be a more disastrous event tinued to shape many scientific efforts in the viduals of that gender which plumes itself for the sciences, than that one of them should upon the exclusive possession of exact sci- be in any manner dissociated from another.” ence, who may not learn much” from this And yet, of course, nowhere does there he chief book by a woman. appear a single name for the citizens of the Such, at least in promise, was the inclusive expanding commonwealth of science that Tinterpreters of birthright of ‘scientist’. Long — and increas- Harcourt envisages. There are “friends of sci- nature are those who ingly — may that birthright be exercised. ■ ence”, “cultivators of science”, and “inter- Dennis Danielson is editor of The Book of the preters of nature” — but still no scientists. have grasped the Cosmos (Perseus Publishing, 2000) and professor of The literary context in which that word English at the University of British Columbia, first appears is Whewell’s anonymous essay widest field of inquiry. Vancouver, British Columbia V6T 1Z1, Canada.

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